I'm sorry about Hospital Flowers, the last part will be up soon but school is stressful and free time is mostly sleep. Enjoy this unusually long piece of Norway centered fanfiction while you wait.
Explanations:
Österland - Old name for southern Finland, fell out of fashion right around when this fic takes place.
Vasa - Gustav Vasa, the noble who led the Swedish War of Liberation and later became king of Sweden.
Bergen - A city in western Norway which for some time functioned as one of the Kalmar Unions's capitals along with Oslo.
The flames lick the sides of the ring, coating them with a layer of black. Lucas watches it in silence with his hand still a bit too close to the flames, not that they could harm him all that much. Beyond the crackling of the flames he can hear Mathias and his men discuss something in hushed voices, like they're afraid they will be overheard even here in the heart of Denmark. It's been like that for a while, Lucas can not recall how long but it hasn't been longer than a few year.
He walks over to the robust wooden desk in the corner of his bedroom and rummages through the papers on top of it, throwing them to the floor until he finds the one he's looking for. The text is hastily written and slightly smeared as if the author didn't let the ink dry before he folded it.
"We've taken back Stockholm, Vasa is our king now." That's all it says, followed by a short wish for good health and an ornate signature. Lucas doesn't mind it, it's not the first time any of them have done this; It's not the first time they've fought among themselves in their thousand year long companionship.
But somewhere inside him something keeps rearing it ugly head, reminding him that suddenly "us" doesn't include Mathias or him. No, it's Berwald and Österland. Because suddenly the little personification Berwald found on the other side of the lake is important enough to bring with him everywhere, to tell everything he can't tell even Lucas.
He used to see them walk around the castle in Copenhagen, hand in hand while they not so much spoke as shared an uneasy kind of silence. Lucas was never uneasy around the Swede and he silently cursed Österland every time he gave Berwald that scared look of his. But he bit his tongue, safe in the knowledge that Berwald would soon get over the glory of having a new bit of land and come back to him.
Those thoughts weren't crushed the day he discovered Berwald's chambers to be empty, not even as he watched Mathias scream and damn the other nation's apparent betrayal. Because nations change, they have to do their duty but they're still people to some degree and that means Berwald would come back for him. So Lucas continued to care for his and Mathias countries while their king tried to reclaim what had been lost. He watched as time turned and how the war escalated, how Sweden slowly arose from the ashes.
Messengers came to the castle constantly carrying information for the rightful king of the Kalmar Union so Lucas didn't think much of the young man who appeared at their doorstep in late June 1523, he just told the youngster to enter and where to find the king. It was when he turned to leave the messenger managed to get through to him.
"I apologise sir, I am to deliver a message to sir Lucas. Do you know where I could find him?" Normal social rules were forgotten as Lucas ripped the letter out of the messenger's hand, sneering that indeed he was sir Lucas when he tried to protest. It wasn't a fancy letter but it bore a to Lucas far too familiar seal which he had anticipated for months, even if he would deny it.
Lucas threw the letter down to the floor with the others and watched with a frown as it slowly fluttered to the ground. He should have thrown it into the damn fire with the ring, so sweetly adorned with three crowns and hundreds of lies, but he can't make himself do that. Instead he quietly but briskly walks down the hallway, passing by the room where Mathias and his visitors seem to have gotten both louder and angrier, and down a staircase that lets him exit into the garden.
The cold autumn air passes right through his night shirt, cooling down the nearly burnt skin at the tips of his fingers and rendering the rest of his body simply cold.
Lucas ends up on a bench not far from the door with his sight set on the clear night sky. If he sits like that he can imagine Bergen, the coastal city is a dull ache in his chest and the sky is far to familiar to the one he would view as he sat on the rocky beach by the city. To his dismay he can't severe the ties to that either, his former capital has his heart in a tight grip. He can't feel that for Copenhagen, because it's Denmark and it can't be anything else.
The realisation hits him then and there and the only thing that stops him from laughing out loud is his own hand over his mouth. Of course Bergen tugs at his heartstrings like his brethren can't, because Bergen is him, it's his people and his creators like neither Berwald nor Mathias can be. Without Bergen, without his country he's nothing and if he's nothing he can't keep what human part he has grown in his long life. His hand falls and the sound that escapes his lips is not a laugh but a soft sigh, resounding in the cool garden as he sits still and takes in the sky above. After a while, when the stone bench and the air proves to be too cold even for him, he ventures indoors again and sits down at his desk with a single piece of paper in front of him.
"Berwald,
My compliments to you. I suspect we will meet soon again, as equals or not. In the meantime, take care of yourself.
Lucas"
He leaves the letter to dry, reminding himself to call for a messenger in the morning and when Mathias complains to remind him that Lucas is his own person and that's it's his business who he sends letters to.
Singing floats over from Mathias room which makes Lucas groan and hope it hasn't woken either of the young nations in their care up, if that's the case he swears Mathias will have to make them go back to bed. Luckily he find both Faeroes and Iceland sound asleep in the room next to his and he can return to his own to collapse on top of his bed. In the morning he will have to clean the fireplace and throw out what pieces of that wretched ring remain but for the moment he can bask in the light of nationhood and longing for the great lands of the north. The great lands of his very own part of the north.