I do not own Hetalia

The sky hung heavy with grey clouds and a frozen rattling wind swept across the fields and rattled the empty trees. Snow was thrown up before the harsh breeze, the tiny village stood out mournfully from the natural landscape. People hurried between house to house with heads ducked and wrapped in furs. Wisps of smoke curled lazily toward the sky, thier fires doing almost nothing to keep the household occupents warm. It was, mused Berwald, the perfect place to raid. Crouching underneath a massive tree on the nearest hilltop he gazed down at the unnaturally large village. It was sandwitched between two big hills with no easy way in. It was probably why all other raids had ended in the vikings death.

Berwald watched one tiny figure in particular. A tall teenaged girl with big, soft blue eyes and an imposing stature was tending to herd of very cold sheep. She was ignoring the cold, insteading focusing on helping one of the baby sheep keep wam by wrapping it in her own coat. Her crook snagged a sheep the tried to stray to far. Those sheep would definetly help the vikings with the winter, but the girl protecting them seemed to know what she was doing.

Berwald stood and disappeared into the woods, heading back to his own crew. They stood next to the boat, fingering thier seperate weapons and smirking.

"Gr'b th' sh'p n'd 'ny loot ye' c'n fi'n. "He ordered, his accent heavy. his men nodded and he pointed to the newbies, "guard th' sh'p." They frowned but nodded and the rest of the vikings began moving into pro ordained positions. As the sun began it's slow decent into the horizen Berwald stood and gave a animalesque roar, the roar shattered the early evening peace. Reverberating through every hollow tree and against every rock it folded, stretched and doubled, it was overwhelming and impossible to ignore. It was the kind of roar that made ones hair stand on end, the attack had started.

Kaija, the young shepardess was in the act of pushing the sheep gently into the enclosment when a vicious roar caught her off guard. Glacing up she saw an imposibly tall man. Even from this distance she saw the glint of a pair of things the village leaeders had called glasses. More people took up his roar, whirling around she saw more raiders standing at the lip of the rather small valley. The shout brought out them men of the village, yanking up pants and brandishing weapons. But the man in glasses got her attention. As his bellow died off he began bounding the the hill. Longs legs jumping over fallen logs and clearing snow drifts, all around the hills more vikings began sprinting down the hill.

Kaija shoved the last few sheep into the pen and readied her staff. If this was going to be a battle she was going to go down fighting. As them men folk finally began to come out the raiders hit.

The tallest of them hit the tiny crowd of villagers like a stong wind a pile of leaves. They scattered. A bleating of scared sheep caught her attention and swinging her staff popped the raider on the head. He dropped the sheep and slid to the ground, groaning. Astrid go up close and personal with the next attempted raider, kicking him in the vital regions before kicking his head. The next to raiders were easily dealt with, Kaija just beat them with her staff, trying to protect her flock. MAny people were caving under the sheer power of the vikings while only the top warriors continuing to fighht.

Berwald dispatched his apponent and cast his eyes about. Everywhere his men were succeding except with th tall shepard girl. She had already downed four of his men. Slashing though another half-baked attempt to kill him he strod over to her, swinging his broadsword. As she knocked out another one of his raiders he grabbed her staff and jerked it to a halt. The girl whirled around, eyes widening in shock. As she met his eyes she scowled and then yanked her staff out of his hands.

The circled each other and the other fights seemd to still.

Bewald swung his blade and she sidestepped and rapped his knee. His knee buckled and he fell to one side. The other end of her staff blurred toward his head. Collapsing in the snow completlyhe rolled to the sideand jumped up again. His own staff in hand. He held it defensivley and they traded blows. Testing each others strength. To Berwalds surprise she was extremely stong.

The girl hook the crook around his ankle and pulled. Berwald had his feet yanked uout from underneath him and he crashed to the ground. His breath wooshing out of him. As the staff came down on his head he reached out and grabbed it again. With a vicious tug he pulled it out of her grasp. She lurched forward, trying to regain her grip.

Kaija felt herself falling and tried to backpeddle but a firm tug on the crook sealed her fate. Kaija collapsed on top of the tall viking. She blinked into his blue eyes for a moment before trying to shove herself off. Before she could he flipped them over, changing the positions.

Berwald flipped them over before she could escape. Sitting on her legs he forced her arms above her head. The girl scowled, her blue eyes turning hard as ice, matching his own steely look. Her defeat seemd to be the sign for the men to surrender. All the women and children were herded into a group while the men were seperated. Berwald glanced down at his furiosu captive and barked an order to his men, "G't th' r'pe 'nd s'me c'rds." His second in command tossed him some rawhide cord with a length of rope. Eyes glinting dangerously as the girl he non-verbally dared her to resist as he deftly bound her wrists. He ignored the very, very, very, very, very, very rude words spewing from her mouth in favor of yanking her to her feet and quickly tying her up, her arms stuck at her sides. Berwald pushed her over again and knotted her ankles together, not daring to take a chance. With the last bit of cord he firmly gagged her, cutting off the flow of swear words and very rude implications.

Thrownig her face first into the snow he placed a heavy booted fooot on her back. "T'ke th' s'lv'r 'nd ge' th' sh'p." Some of the women started and he watched them carefully, searching for a sign of the shepard girls family. But no one even spared a glance toward the girl and except the village elder who looked upon her bound form in the snow with sorrow in his eyes

Several of his men were trying to heard the frightened sheep but were failing miserably. The sheep were fidgeting every which way and refused to be herded. The girl wriggled under his heavy boot and there came a clear tinkling sound. At the sound of the bell the sheep moved as one toward the shepard girl. Soon Berwald was surrounded by a large group of sheep. His men smirked and a few began laughing, with his foot he turned the girl back over. Kneeling down he pulled out a knife and slashed through the string tying a medium sized bell to her wrist. Grabbing her staff where he had dropped it he retied to bell to the staff and handed it off to another raider. As the sheep followed the tinkling of the bell Berwald turned his attention bck to the bound and gagged teenager.

The villagers watched the frightenly tall raider examain the still shepardess, Kaija. His eyes held no malice but his 6'3 height combined with his stern expression and impressive array of weaponry was terrifying. Glacning around he seemed to see nothing of significange and without even a grunt hoisted the teenager up and tossed her over his shoulder like a rag doll. Kaija practically screamed in frustration as he carried her out of the village but there was still she could do, bound and gagged so tightly. The raider ignored her and strode out of the village. Hsi raiders leaving a trail of destruction. They watched in horror as the some of the houses began to go up in flames. The old village leader caught sight of the girls stricken face as the sight of the fires.

Berwald ignored the increasingly desperate wiggling, for that's all she could actually do at this point, in favor of questioning his own actions. Why in Odin's name had he brought the girl with him, maybe it was because he could sense that there was something odd about her? As he thought a small plan formed in the back of his head.

As his men made camp Berward tossed the girl next to the fire and began attending to the other things. An hour later she was surrounded by druken raiders, all cracking bad jokes and offering her beer. Satisfied she wasn't headed anywhere he pulled out his own sleeping gear and laid down for sleep.

As the raiders began to doze off Kaija inched closer to one of the more druken ones. This one had a dagger on his belt, he didn't even stir as she pulled it gingerly out of its sheath. He was entirley to drunk. With the dagger in hand Kaija began the slow and painful process of slicing though her bonds. It took a good hour to finally get through, considering she could only grip the dagger in between her thumb and forefinger. Yanking off her gag she bounded gingerly to her feet and inched her way out of the camp. At the edge of the camp she accidently snapped and tiny twig but she ignored it, it was to small of a noise to awaken anyone. What she didn't see as she ran into the forest was the Chief's ice blue eyes snap open.

The raider knew what was wrong the second his eyes snapped open, the remains of the cords that had held her were piled up next to the fire and his second in commands prized dagger was gone. Nimbly he leapt to his feet and grabbed his sword, his eyes followed the trail of footsteps and with a single bound he leapt over the fire and sprinted into the woods. Grabbing some spare rope as he went. As he followed the tracks he could hear her sprinting a good ways ahead of him. She was almost as quiet as he was but not quiet enough.

As they ran into the night time forest both kept up a steady pace, Berwald wasn't sure if she knew he was following her but eventually she would stop and he would find out. She didn't head back to the village but instead ran north, pas the village. Possibly on her way to another one for aid?

The shepard girl eventually stopped in a clearing, after scouting the edges she crawled under a rather large bush and snuggling in her furs she fell asleep, hidden from the world. Berwald silently scaled into on the the massive trees and wedging his large body into a branch off he fell into a light doze.

Kaija slept for a long time, secure with the knowledge no one would be able to find her. She had run toward the nothern border of her country, in a few days she would reach the boder between kingdoms and restart her life, again. As she crawled out from under her bush she stretched in the early morning sunlight. Her stomach growled and she patted it. "It's alright, I'll get some food soon enough." Yawning she knelt in the snow and rubbed some of it onto her face, the freezing cold waking her up. Rubbing her face dry Astrid stood up again and turned around.

Just as Kaija was crawling out of her bush Berwalf woke up. He watched her talk and then rub snow into her face. As she turned around he put on his fiercest scowl and dropped out of the tree, right in front of her.

All the blood drained from her face and her mouth popped open in a soundless scream as the absolutly terrifying raider dropped out of the sky in front of her. It didn't matter if she was almost as tall as he was, this guy was terrifying! Kaija screamed, she screamed a bloodcurdling scream of absolute terror. She backpedaled and fell back onto her rear, scrambling backward she frantically looked around for a weapon, finding nothing she stopped moving and stared up at him, quivering in fear. The raider growled low in his throat, as animalesque as his roar. He reached down for her and Kaija squeezed her eyes shut, fearing a slap. It never came, instead he grabbed her by her shirt front and slammed her bodily into the tree behind her. She opened her eyes and stared into his fearfully, tensing for a beating she was sure was coming. The viking did nothing but scowl into her eyes and slowly lowered her to the snow. With a firm grip on her upper arm he began following the tracks they had made yesterday. Kaija whimpered slightly and tugged away from him. A fierce glare was enough to convince her otherwise.

As he dragged the rather unwiling teen behind him Berwald felt only a little guilty at scaring her so much. He knew it would take a long time for him to reach the boat but he wasn't concerned. In that time the girl would learn to not mess with him. As they walked he felt it nessessary to talk.

"Wh't 's ye' n'm?" He asked, deep voice rumbling. The girl looked up at him, surprised, after a moment she answered.

"Kaija." she said, her voice soft.

" 'r ye' 'n 'rphan?"

"Yes, how did you know?"

" No f'ther has h's daugth'r t'nd'ng sh'p 't n'ght."

"Oh."

They walked in silence for several hours, both feeling uncomfortably hungry. Astrid was walking alongside him, no longer striving to escape.

When they finally made it back to the boat his men bounded up to them.

"What happened?"

"Did she give you much trouble?"

"Can we leave now?"

"G't r'dy t' sa'l," he ordered and he dragged her bodily onto the boat. Taking a pair of shakles from the bottom of the boat he shackled her to the boat.

After several hours of freezing cold sailing Kaija was shivering at the bottom of the boat, several gallons of water had leaked into the boat. She shivered and hugged herself, trying to get warm. There was a shout and Kaija cranned her neck to see the thin dark line of land. Silently she cheered in her head, pleased thather awful journey was coming to an end. Berwald stood at the bow of the boat, staring into the distance, Kaija couldn't help but notice the many smirks the men were giving him. Soon she would make landfall and Kaija couldn't wait to get her feet on solid ground.

As the boat crunched up the shore Berwald shivered in excitment, of course his stern expression never wavered, no need to make his men creeped out. There was a buzz of excitment on the entire boat, he could even see the shine of excitment in his young captives eyes, he could only hope his wife wouldn't mind what he had done. Stalking to the back of his boat he unshackled Kaija and pulled her to the edge of the boat. Scooping her up into his arms he vaulted off the boat, Kaija cringed and curled up a little, pressing into his chest. Berwald rumbled with pleasure, so she didnt' hate him. He stalked though the village, ignoring the crude words of him men but instead carried Kaija to the largest house in the village. His house.

Kaija glanced around, the village seemed to be full of life, people running everywhere and they stopped when Berwald and his men entered. Women cheered and sprinted toward lovers or husband or brothers but Berwald just walked past it all. No one seemed find this odd but she saw the biggest house in the village looming in front of her. Berwald put her down and still holding onto her forearm knocked on the door. The door burst open, reaveling a small woman with blond hair and big violet eyes.

"Berwald, oh Berwald," the tiny woman tackled the massive raider and he let go of her arms in favor for wrapping it around her waist. Berwald and the tiny woman promptly started kissing and Kaija stumbled to one side, squishing the urge to giggle. The massive viking brought to heel by a tiny woman!

When they finally stopped to breath the small woman slid down his chest and landed on the ground with a graceful jump.

"Berwald, who is this?" just as Kauja said, "Who is this?"

Berwald normally stoic face turned a light pink and the lady laughed lightly, "come in dear, come in." She latched onto Berwalds arm and pulled him into the house. Kaija followed behind, finding the entire situation hilarious.

Once Kaija entered the woman stopped her saying, "Oh no, why are you so wet, you'll catch your death. Lets get you some dry things." She pulled her into the house and ordered her to remove her shirt,

"come my dear boy, get that shirt off and I'll give you a new one." Kaija flushed as the woman turned toward her and peeled off her many layers, Berwald had the mind to turn his head. As the lady pulled off her shirt she stopped when she saw the bandages around her chest. no nessessarily to keep her breats down tight but to stop them from jiggling. The woman flushed bright red, "your a girl." just as Kaija finally caught on, "Your a man?'

There was a beat of awkard silence until both of them started laughing, "I can't believe your a girl, you look far to manly," laughed the rediculously effeminent man.

"You're to girly to be a man," giggled Kaija as she changed her clothes, now behind a cutain hanging in the corner.

When they were finally sitting around the table Berwald spoke. "Th's 's m' w'fe, T'no, T'no, th's 's Kaija. Sh's 'n orph'n 'n h'mle's."

Kaija scowled at him, "You're the reason I'm homless Mr. Berwald, you burnt down my house."

"Y'r 'n orph'n."

"I could have had a father that you killed." Kaija said pointedly.

"Kaija," gasped Tino, agast, "don't talk like that, be polite."

Kaija shot him an ugly look, feelings of dislike for the raider returning.

"'Y d'dn't."

"How do you know that," snapped Kaija.

"Y' w'r prot'ct'n th' sh'p 'nd 'ye t'ld me." Kaija opened her mouth to argue but thier conversation in the forect replayed in her head. Closing it she sat back in the seat and scowled heavily.

"Kaija, be polite,' said Tino sharply and he glanced between the two scowling people. Both were really intimidatinng and he didn't know what had happend today and yesterday but it must have created hard feelings.

"Berwald, I think you should check out how the spoils are being split," he said hurridely and Berwald nodded then stood. Tino hurried out after him and just as the door was shut hissed, "why did you bring her back?"

" ye s'd ye' want'd a f'mly," Berwald said, hanging his head a bit, 'sh' h'd n'ne s' I th'ght." He trailed off and Tino giggled. Oh his lovely husband was indeed a big sweetheart but he needed to help to solve the hard feelings before a fight broke out. Once Berwald was off to the boat Tino went back inside and found Kaija sitting near the fire, staring intently into the flames.

"Hello Kaija," he said gently and the girls head snapped up he met her big blue eyes. The girl was awkwardly tall, much bigger than most boys her age. It was obvious she hadn't exactly grown comfortable with her body yet. Her blond hair was chopped short like someone had hacked at it with a knife. Her hands were rather large and with lots of scars criss crossing over her fingers and palms, a scar under her right eyebrow made it white and her face was a pleasnt oval shape. Kaija's shoulders were rounder and broader than most boys and she had a stockier build than most women. Too big to be a woman to small to be a man. She was all hard lines and planes but here eyes were a soft, gentle blue color, probably the only soft thing in her entire makeup, but they were filled with tears.

"Oh dear, why are you crying?" He asked softly and her bottom lip trembled. She looked away from him and he saw a tear slid down her cheek. Tino reached to to touch her shoulder but she slapped his hand away. She hunched up and continued to shake with silent sobs. Hesitating he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and this time she didn't shake him off. With his sprare arms he pulled a chair up next to her, he sat down and snaked his arm around her shoulder and gave her a comforting squeeze. Kaija continued to cry for another moment but she latched onto Tino's neck and cried into the smaller persons neck. Tino rubbed her back, not sure what to do, he had no idea about this girl but it must be important to get such a stoic child crying.

"What's wrong?" She didn't answer but sobbed harder, completly soaking his shirt. When she finally begn to calm down she rubbed her eyes and blew her nose, she looked at Tino fearfully through leaky eyes.

"Do you want to know why Berwald brought you here," he asked and she shook her head, still trying to stem her tears.

"I mentioned a year ago that I wanted a family and when he found you were an orphan he thought could use a family, us. I know he looks scary but in reality he's a gentle giant, I hope he didn't do much tho make you hate him." Kaija shook her head and Tino did a mentle fist pump. " I know it'll be weird to have two men as parents but would you please give a us a chance? Please?" Kaija seemed to think this over and nodded, she gave him a watery smile and hugged him, snuggling her head in his chest. Tino chuckled and stroked her hair, he stopped when he heard the tell-tale rumble of a hungry stomach. He met Kaija's eyes and she blushed a bright red color and they both began to laugh.

"I'll make stew," he said, "sit down and tell me about yourself." Kaija watched him move about the house and talked. Tino 'hmmed' and 'uhhhed' in the right places and occasionaly asked questions, gasping in the right places and making threats about people in her past.

"And that's how I ended up here," 'she said just as Tino was spooning the thick stew into bowls.

"I can't belive he tied you up and scared you like that, I'll have a talk with him, don't you worry," huffed Tino, fowning slightly.

"So how did you end up here," asked Kaija, gazing hungrily at the bowl. She stopped and looked at him curiously when he began to giggle.

"Actually not much different than you but with a slight twist."

"Oh go on and tell me," Kaija said, once again eyeing the food.

Tino set it in front of her and she made a hasty grab for it. "Good heavans, you are a lady, no some animal. Eat like this." Kaija growled in frustration as he demontrated the proper way to eat, Kaija simply ignored everything he taught her in favor for scarfing down the delicious soup as fast as she could.

"Oh well, we'll get there eventually," he said and sat down opposite her.

"So tell me how you got brought here." Insisted Kaija but Tino just shook his head.

The door opened and Berwald entered, Kaija froze a little but Tino shood up and kissed him, there's food, I need to go get some things from the doctor." He left and Berwald and Kaija examained eachother curiously, no one said anything as Berwald spooned up his own bowl and took the seat that Tino had just vacated.

"So Tino told me the reason you brought me here," she began slowly, stirring her third bowl of soup, "If you had told me that at the beginning then I wouldn't have made that much of a fuss."

"M'ma." He said, beginning to eat.

"Excuse me?"

"T'no 's m'ma, c'll h'm tha', I'm Papa." Kaija blinked once, twice and then began eating her soup, head spinning. This man was scary but his 'wife' was a sweet thing, Kaija watched as Tino came back into the room and her new 'Mama' and 'Papa' talk. This could take some getting use to.

Some questions-

1 Did you like to story?

2 do you think I should make this longer? because I totally could, should i add more chapers?

3 which was your favorite scene?

4 favorite color?