Story Title:Es Apmaldijos
Date Posted: 3.14.14
Date Edited: 3.28.14 (Removed the censors)
Word Count: 2,371
Disclaimer: If it was mine, do you really think I'd be posting on FanFictiondotnet? (Okay… I admit it. If I was an author, I'd totally post fanfiction for my own story.)
Warning: Filthy language. Rude OC. Failed magic.
Pre-Chapter Summary: N/A
[…]
Viens: Iebraukšana
One: Entry
"…Hetalia?" I raised my head from my desk as my best friend's words finally registered. "What's that?"
She looked miffed. "Haven't you listened to a word I said in the last ten minutes?!"
"No," I replied honestly. "You know I'm not into anemone and mango like you are."
"Anime and manga," she corrected. "Not anemone and mango. They're Japanese comics."
I tuned her out as she started another of her lectures on the awesomeness of anime and why I should watch it with her. She could go on for hours, eventually turning to her current favorites, like Axis Powers Hetalia, as the spines of the stack of books in front of me read. The topmost one showed the drawing of an excited looking boy in a blue military uniform with a long curl sticking out of his hair. I turned to look at my friend, or more specifically, the clip-on curl sticking haphazardly out of her bangs.
Obsession, thy name is Hetalia.
"…oh, and call me Italy-chan now," she finished, snapping me out of my daze.
I frowned. "I already call you Carrie-chan. I'm not calling you Italy-chan."
Carrie scowled. "Come on! And I'll call you Roma-chan!"
"Why on earth would I want to be called Roma-chan?" I snorted.
"'Cuz! He's awesome!"
"I don't even know who he is."
"He's South Italy! Romano acts really rude, but he's actually really sweet!"
"Carrie-chan, I love you, you're my best friend, but if you call me Roma-chan, I will punch your lights out."
"That's the Roma-chan I know!" she laughed as I swung a fist at her, jumping out of the way of the slow punch.
"I just finished watching FullPetal Narcissist—"
"FullMetal Alchemist!"
"—FullMental Masochist, and now you want me to watch something else? Are you mad?"
"The episodes are only five minutes long!" she informed me cheerfully.
I rolled my eyes. "I'm going to go pick up my computer from the tech squad," I said, referring to the laptop that had crashed when Carrie had tried to watch FullNettle Pharmacist or whatever it was called on my laptop.
She brightened. "Can I come with you?"
"You have a makeup test with Mrs. Jashin because you were watching FullKettle Catalyst instead of studying, remember?"
Carrie pouted. "Sometimes I think you do that on purpose."
"Nah, FullDevil Botanist is just too hard to remember."
"There! You did it again!" We shared a laugh before going our separate ways, she to our algebra teacher and I to the tech lab.
The tech lab was situated in a newer part of the school, crammed between the gym and the office. It was rather bare, with a line of computers along the wall and a table covered in broken laptops in the center of the room. Generally, you could find a teacher or two in there to help you out, but it was empty today. I shrugged and made a beeline for the shelf of recently repaired computers, skimming my fingers along the nametags to look for mine.
"Ow!" one of them shocked me, causing me to yank back my arm and suck on the offending finger. The tag that had zapped me flipped, dancing on its cord as if caught in a bubbly breeze. As it turned, I caught a glimpse of a circle drawn on the back – a circle that appeared to be glowing. Neon highlighter? It didn't look like that, but whatever. It was freaky.
"Oh, shit!" A masculine voice yelped, and I turned to face a boy whose expression mirrored what he had just said. His green eyes were wide with fear under caterpillar-like eyebrows. "That-that-that shouldn't have worked!"
I frowned blearily at him, wondering why he was starting to look blurry. "Who are… what?"
"That shouldn't have worked! I designed it to be a dud!"
I scowled at the boy. "What the Hell are you talking about?"
"Do you feel dizzy? Blurry or dark vision, nausea, confusion, unexplained emotions, sleepiness…" he rushed forward, grabbing my shoulders and squinting into my eyes.
I pushed him away. "Who the fuck are you?!"
"Arthur Kirkland, tenth grade! Now, er, counter-curse, er, nolite maledictionem, finem cantus, animi dolor, nihil! Not working… er… odoo kharaal duusgakh,termina acest blestem acum, stavi kraJ na ovaa prokletstvo sega, diwedd felltith hwn yn awr, télos se af̱tí̱n ti̱n katára tó̱ra!"
My vision blackened as he continued to chant nonsense at me, getting progressively more hysterical as I began to sway.
"…hætta, 停止, להפסיק, ਨੂੰ ਰੋਕ, توقف…"
I dropped to my knees, the boy dropping with me as he began to trace frantic patterns on my hand.
"…रोक, aturar, nres, kwụsị, thamba, lõpetama…"
My vision darkened to nothing, but I could still hear him chant.
"…stoppa, megáll, បញ្ឈប់, остановить, sustabdyti, apstaties…" My hearing faded, and the last thing I felt was the panicky movement of fingers over the palm of my hand.
(maiņa)
"…uuuuggghhh… dammit." I opened my eyes, expecting to see the nurse's ceiling, or perhaps the worried green eyes of Arthur Kinkyland or Quirkland or whatever his name was. Instead, I was met with empty blackness.
"S-sveika?" A shaking voice inquired, and I turned my head to look at a small boy sitting about two meters away in the blackness.
"What? Where am I?" I pushed myself up, kneeling in what Carrie called seiza position for a moment before crossing my legs.
"I-I don't kn-know…" he muttered, in English this time, and I noticed that he was shaking like a leaf. Was he cold? I realized he was still speaking. "I-I went t-to sleep, and th-then I woke up h-here… s-so, a dream?"
"Not unless you entered my dream, too."
"I-It's not that uncommon f-for nations t-to enter the dr-dreams of their citizens… b-but you have an A-American accent. And y-you're speaking English."
"Wait, what's this about nations? And I'm Canadian, thank you very much." I was proud of my nationality – half French Canadian, a quarter European French, and a quarter English, born and raised in London, Ontario, and currently living in Toronto. I spoke Quebecois French and English fluently. Those who dared to call me American would feel the burn.
"S-sorry! But you sound American," he blurted.
"CANADIAN. GET IT RIGHT."
"Y-yes! I'm s-sorry, I-I didn't m-mean it!" His stutter intensified. "Wh-what's your n-name?"
I glowered at him slightly, but the poor boy looked so frightened that I dropped it. "Natalie."
If possible, he looked even more terrified. I growled, "Is something wrong with my name?"
"N-no! I j-just known someone w-with a similar n-name…" apparently, the mere thought of this person terrified him, because he whimpered and said "C-can I c-call you something else?"
"You can call me Caron," I said grudgingly. "It's my last name."
He looked relieved. "I c-can do that."
"And?"
"A-and?!"
"Your name."
"O-oh! Raivis G-Galante!"
"Raivis…?" I repeated. "What a weird name."
"I-it's Latvian…"
"Latin?"
"N-no, L-Latvian…"
"What the Hell is a Latvian?"
"L-Latvia is a c-country," he muttered unhappily.
"Oh. Never heard of it." I think I might have been offending him, but his timid expression covered up any annoyance.
"M-most people ha-haven't…"
"Meh. Whatever," I said, cutting him off. My mother would have scolded me for being rude and insensitive, but I honestly didn't give a shit. Besides, his stutter was bothering me. Couldn't the kid learn to talk properly?
As we had been talking, the world around us faded to gray, then a warm reddish-orange. At the same time, Raivis and I had been vanishing. Since we both had determined that this was a dream and the other was a figment of our imagination, we paid it no mind.
(pamosties)
My eyes snapped open, and I was met with a blank, white ceiling. I frowned. The school ceilings were all gray (except for the gym, but this was far too low, and besides, why would I be in the gym?) and my bedroom had a sloped, wooden ceiling since I had the attic. Where was I?
'Wah! I can't move!' A voice cried, and I shot up and spun to see who had shouted. I ended up falling on my butt, since my center of balance had apparently shifted in my sleep and was now a lot lower than I was used too. 'How come you're still here?!'
I blinked. Still here…? I looked down at my hands. They were tiny, pale and delicate, with small scars and calluses where I knew I had none. Not my hands. "I- what?"
'That's me! My hands! Why are you here?!'
"How should I know?!" I stumbled up, catching the edge of a dark brown dresser that was very much not mine, staring straight into a silvery mirror.
I didn't see my face.
It was the face of a stranger. The face that looked back at me was too small, too round. The hair was too blond and wavy and the eyes were too violet, the skin was too pale and the nose was too small. The ears were clean and not pierced, missing little diamond studs. The eyebrows curved up, as did the nose. The mouth was little and the lips too thin. It was the face of a stranger.
It was a dream. It had to be. I had had realistic dreams before. This was no different. And the voice shouting in the back of my mind was also a figment of my imagination. None of this was real.
It couldn't be.
(saprašana)
It could be.
Three hours later found me pacing back and forth in the same room, still blankly taking in the bland décor and stolidly ignoring the voice inside of my head. If I wasn't dreaming, I definitely wasn't going to acknowledge what was most likely a hallucination. I'd pinched myself, bit my finger, and tried falling back asleep, talked to myself until my throat was as dry as sandpaper, tripped thrice, and spent an undetermined amount of time glaring into the mirror.
The voice in my head had deteriorated into a stuttering, pleading mess that sporadically went silent. I had by now placed it as Raivis, the boy from my dream, and decided he was a hallucination. He looked kind of like the son of my next-door-neighbor. Kind of.
I swung open the door, tired of pacing. The hallway I stepped into was just as plain as the room behind me, with the exception of a pretty painting. I jerkily moved down the stairs at the end of the hall, trying not trip. The front door wasn't hard to find; it was in the same room as the stairs. I twisted it open and stepped onto a bustling city sidewalk.
I relaxed, just slightly. Raivis had quieted in my head, but I could feel him, watching, hovering at that calm edge that came after hysterical. The movement of the city was familiar to me, much like the streets of Toronto.
Then I saw a street sign.
ATVERTS.
A moment later, the translation came to me. OPEN.
I only spoke English and Canadian French.
I looked around. Every sign was in a language I didn't recognize. Except I did.
"For sale!" On a brick apartment building across the street.
"Sorry, we're closed." On a small pawn shop.
"Sandman's Bakery." Beneath it, the words "since 1999".
"Best wine in Latvia" On an advertisement plastered to the side of a white truck.
Best wine in Latvia. Latvia. No. Nonono. Dreaming, I was dreaming, I was dreaming.
I slammed the door, turning and falling back against it, sliding down until I was sitting with my head between my knees and my hands clutching my hair. Raivis, who had been silent since I opened the door, murmured quietly in my mind.
'Y-you aren't dr-dreaming. N-no dream is l-like th-this.'
I took a deep breath. "Then what is this? Magic? Schizophrenia?"
'I d-don't know. M-maybe b-both.'
"Why me?! Why you?! Why stick a Canadian girl into the body of a Latvian ten year old?!"
'F-fifteen, actually.'
"What?"
'Um, not t-ten. I-I'm f-fifteen."
"Well, that's better, I suppose," I said sarcastically. "I'm stuck in the body of a fifteen year old Latvian boy! Because that's so much better than being stuck in the body of a ten year old Latvian boy!"
I felt Raivis' mind flinch back from my words. 'Sorry…' He sounded scared, and sad. I heaved a sigh and brought my head up to lean it back against the door.
"Yeah."
(izskaidrot)
Sometime around eight PM.
Raivis had told me that he was actually the physical representation of Latvia. I wasn't sure if I believed him. I didn't disbelieve him outright, but…
I think I might have been in shock. My mind was overloaded. I still, in some part of my mind, thought this was a dream. That I would wake up in the morning, in my comfortable bed, to get ready for school, where I would chat with Carrie-chan and watch FullMetal Alchemist with her during study hall.
Raivis – Latvia – eventually fell silent. I think he could tell I wasn't listening anymore. I had closed my eyes, trying to understand what was happening. "Raivis?"
'Y-yeah?'
"Where is Latvia?"
"I-It's in Northern Europe, n-next to R-Russia, and b-below the N-Nordics…'
"So, a shitload of kilometers away from Canada?"
'I g-guess you could p-put it like that…'
"Goddammit! What kind of fucking god decided it was a good fucking idea to fucking mess with my fucking life and turn it into a fucking pile of shit?! Dammit!" I let loose a slew of choice vocabulary. My hands clenched and unclenched as I jerked to my feet. I stomped my feet uselessly as my voice rose. I brought up one of the tiny fists, slamming it into the wall three times before I felt the knuckle split.
'Please stop it! Th-that hurts!' Raivis cried in my mind, but I wasn't listening to me. I was frozen, staring at the back of my hand as the bloody scrape stopped bleeding and closed. Moments later, the pain stopped. All that was left was a few drops of scarlet.
The whole process took less than a minute.
"No. No," I whispered. "This isn't happening. I'm dreaming, please, I'm dreaming…"
"I'm dreaming…"
A/N –
Linebreak1- change
Linebreak2- wake up
Linebreak3- explain
A/N- Hallo! Do any of my readers know Latvian? I'm using Google Translate and a not-very-comprehensive phrasebook, which isn't very good, but if any of you can help me with translating it, that'd be Prussia-worthy awesome!
Chat Section- On the subject of names…
According to behindthenamedotcom, Kiku is a female name meaning "Chrysanthemum". Seeing as the author is Japanese, I think I'll trust him. It was still a funny surprise.
Lovino is a form of the female name Lovina, which comes from the name Lavinia.
Alfred comes from an old English name meaning "elf counsel"
Feliciano comes from Felix, meaning lucky or successful. So does Feliks. (There is no X in the Polish alphabet)
Feliciano – pronounced fe-lee-CHYAH-no(Italian), fe-lee-THYAH-no(Spanish), fe-lee-SYAH-no(Latin American Spanish)
Anonymous Review Section: Nothing yet!
Reviewers: New story, so no reviews!
Next Chapter Preview-
'Th-that's Estonia…' Latvia murmured in my head. 'He's like my br-brother, but not r-really.'
...
"…Won't talk to me. He…hiding…looks like he's been crying…bathroom. I don't see...or any alcohol. Can…come over? I…listen to me." He hung up and sat on the edge of the bed.
...
"Au clair de la lune, mon ami Pierrot,"
# of chapters until A/N cleanup: 5