Perhaps it was just nostalgia that made him avoid Venice.
He was in charge of the military. The Germans needed their greatest general to lead them, and in the face of war, his secret was stripped away in favor of the use of the largest knowledge of historical strategy. This war was on a different stage entirely, but just as cultural history repeated itself, tactics could be adapted over and over. So Germany led them.
The first German objective was France. When Paris fell, however, another target was chosen: Rome. The easiest way to get there would have been marching straight down the Apennine Peninsula, taking it north to south, but that strategy was not chosen. No, Germany had ordered for strikes on the southern part of the country from sea, air, and space, but they were no to go past Rome.
"And Venice will be last," he ordered his confused generals. "After Berne."
"But sir, we cannot attack Switzerland," one of the younger ones protested. "It may be the only neutral country left, but it is still neutral."
"Exactly. We will take Venice only after we take Berne."
"So… we are breaking the laws of war and taking Switzerland? Sir, we have the manpower, but our relationship with Japan is tenuous enough as it is. They will turn on us if we are so dishonorable. We cannot afford to attack Switzerland right now."
"We will not be attacking Switzerland."
"But you just said-"
"That we will take Venice only after Berne. Yes. I'm glad you understand. Good day, gentlemen." He stalked out the door of the conference room.
He knew his move may cost Germany their war. But Ludwig – Ludwig will win his.
~/(-|-)\~
They sit in their tent, sharing the last glass of mead.
They were supposed to be leading. The Scandinavian Republic was lucky in the regard that it had three personifications, each taking turns leading the country. That's what the people were told. Really, though, the leaders had run away from Oslo long ago. How could they sit behind desks when their people were risking their lives for them?
The bell sounds – a deep clanging, it seemed to belong at a funeral; but of course, with so little time between attacks, it was the only funeral some warriors had. It sounds for the next battle, and the three run out of the tent, the shortest still carrying the glass of mead, keeping it steady as he draws his sword. It isn't as if they don't have guns, but guns are useless against these… things. He wishes, not for the first time, that Finland was with them instead of designing weaponry for another side with such a burning passion.
Norway catches up to the other two, and as they see the enemy closing in, he lifts the glass in front of them. He says one word: "Valhalla."
"Valhalla," Denmark and Sweden echo, taking the offered sips of the last of the mead.
The word ripples through the soldiers as they begin to take hits. Valhalla, a mark of a religion long gone. Valhalla, the resting place of Viking warriors. It is a prayer and a promise; a request in the final breaths.
Denmark and Norway return from the battlefield together, Sweden having perished at the hands of the one he once loved. The one he loved until the end. The one he took with him to Valhalla. There is no more mead, so Denmark opens a bottle of beer for each of them, and they drink to friendship and Valhalla and the two going there.
Maybe Iceland will meet them at the gates.
~/(-|-)\~
Two shots.
That's all it took for Canada to kill his brother.
One shot.
That's all it took for Canada to kill himself.
~/(-|-)\~
Latvia shuts the door for what will be the last time in I don't know how long it'll be until it's safe a while and heads down into the main part of the bunker, where Estonia and Lithuania are already waiting. They both look extremely relieved to find me in better shape than Poland see him. Silently, they begin setting the table in the kitchen of the huge bunker for themselves, though the table has space for seven no one's really hungry. After a small, simple dinner, they part to go to their rooms.
Latvia sits up for a long time, reading, because I just want to escape this hell he can't fall asleep. Soon, though, his story comes to a halt as he hears screaming. Grabbing his rifle and running out into the hallway, he doesn't see any attackers – in fact, he sees no one. But the scream came from somewhere else. Shocked at his own boldness, Latvia opens the door to Estonia's room.
Estonia is lying on his bed, choking and coughing and screaming because just crying isn't enough. Latvia dodges the knife Estonia throws at him out of reflex and runs to his friend who, if anything, is already as broken as he can be breaking down even more. "H-hey… Eduard…" Latvia says cautiously, not daring to touch him. "It's-it'll be okay. We're safe…"
"And Finland's dead and Poland's dead and Iceland's dead and Russia's dead and America's dead and Ukraine's dead and Belarus and Sweden and Romano and France and Canada and Prussia and Lithuania and-"
"Li-Toris is still alive. In the other room. And-and we don't have any proof Russia and Ukraine and Belarus are dead…" Latvia shudders. For once, he's comforting Estonia even though that'snot right; he should be the strong one what usually happens.
Lithuania enters the room and he took his time getting here sits on the bed and gently pets Estonia, almost as he used to pet Latvia when the latter had had night terrors in the Soviet era. Eventually the shaking and crying subsides into rough breathing, and Lithuania takes Estonia's glasses off of him and exits the room, probably going to clean the blood grime off. By the time he gets back, Estonia is asleep.
Pulling the knife out of the wall and setting it carefully on the table, Latvia heads back to bed, in the process going down the hall past Ukraine's blue room Estonia painted and Belarus's purple room I painted and Poland's pink room Lithuania painted and Russia's white room no one dared touch several doors to rooms they wouldn't be using. All he dares to hope prays is that the war will be over soon and he'll be able to get away from this bunker, back to his home.
He knows imagines he'll have to wait an eternity a very long time.
~/(-|-)\~
Taiwan escaped China's house in favor of Japan's when the war started. Japan could offer her little protection against the attacks on her land, and it would have been dangerous for him to try – China was his enemy, after all – but that time she was a refugee instead of a nation, stripped back to just her own humanity, so he let her in.
The attacks on Japan were few and far between compared to those in the rest of the world, so the two managed to fall into a pattern: Japan played the role of the diplomat, trying to support his own allies and force his enemies to come to a truce as peacefully as possible; Taiwan played the role of the general, organizing drones to defend from Chinese invasion from the relative safety of the house. She worked online – online, she could pretend to be Japan. To the rest of the world, after all, Taiwan was a burnt-out crater that had once been an island, nothing left of its people but bones and ashes.
After Japan came home each night, Taiwan cooked dinner and then they both would go to bed in the same room because the guest room had been turned into an office. Japan had been forced to get over his social anxiety long before, but Taiwan used a sleeping bag on the floor nearly every night anyway.
There were other nights, though, when they needed to be closer. Nothing would be said, but he would find her waiting for him in the bed that he came to far too late, and they would take the time to remind each other what they were.
People.
People who knew more than war.
People who needed more, just like every other person on the planet, though some of those other people weren't so lucky. They didn't all get the chance to spend the short, hot nights of summer and the long, cold nights of winter with someone who needed them, needed to touch them and feel them and get closer than anyone else to them and just be and not think, not remember reality could touch them.
Just people trying to hold on to their humanity, even if the innocence slipped away in the process.
Just people trying to escape.
~/(-|-)\~
Switzerland knows he'll never get used to the empty house again. His sister changed it, made it a place he could finally call home. Of course, the last Switzerland heard of Liechtenstein was that she was running off to Italy. The southern part. That was, of course, before the southern part was annihilated by the Germans. Liechtenstein had fallen into anarchy before also being swiftly taken over by Germany. Lili herself dropped off the grid.
Sighing, Switzerland pulls a container out of the refrigerator and heats its contents in the microwave. He has twenty minutes before another meeting. Being the only remaining neutral country, he's the only one left to mediate the peace talks. Today's peace talks are between Austria and England. Switzerland knows it probably won't go anywhere, and if it does, it will go in England's favor. Austria's in too bad of shape. He should, by all logic, be dead right now.
There is a traffic jam, so Switzerland is late for the conference. He opens the door to find Austria and England screaming at each other but, remarkably, not getting violent. Their aides and agents stand in uncomfortable groups nearby. There are so many, Switzerland can't even see them all.
The warring nations hush as Switzerland enters, Austria smiling perhaps a little too much more than his situation ought to have allowed him to. "Welcome," that nation says. "Sit. We have much to talk about."
"Is everyone here unarmed?" Switzerland asks warily, definitely not sitting. He looks pointedly at the masses of agents clustered behind their nations.
"My men can be trusted to have followed all regulations. They are gentleman, as am I," says England.
Austria adjusts his coat. "Why would my men be armed? These are peace talks. And I imagine we are all gentlemen here."
Switzerland places his briefcase on the table, pushing away the chair where he would normally sit. He has to remain in charge. "Why would your men be armed? Because this is war. No one is safe." He's pretty sure he hears a whimper from someone in Austria's entourage, but everyone's lost someone, so it's not that alarming. He probably just brought back some bad memories.
Austria's smile grows wider, and Switzerland can't help but think that the war must have destabilized him. No one should be able to smile right now. No one. And his smile looks familiar, but Switzerland can't place it.
"That's true," he answers. "No one is safe. Why, just yesterday, Elizabeta's body was found next to Gilbert's in some abandoned building. I can't imagine what they were doing there. And they were killed with knives – not bullets, not robots, not grenades. Knives. It was suicide, in my opinion." Austria's tone is even. He keeps smiling as he stirs a lump of sugar into his coffee and takes a sip. "No one is safe, even the innocent. No one is safe, even from themselves." He snaps his fingers, and his agents file out the door, leaving one person behind, the worst person to leave behind. It's at that moment when Switzerland places Austria's smile.
Russia wore that smile once, when he did his worst to his own people. Germany wore that smile once, deluded and drunk on the thrill of battle as he moved into Belgium. France wore that smile once, as head after head, person after person fell to the guillotine.
It chills Switzerland to the bone.
And Liechtenstein – Liechtenstein looks unwell. She's gagged and blindfolded and her hands and ankles are bound and her ears are plugged. She probably doesn't even know he's there. "Lili…" he chokes. She just stands there, shivering and oblivious.
"Goodbye now, Switzerland," Austria says, and his voice and smile falter. He pulls a gun from his coat. "No one is safe, and I'm done taking it. I'm already dead… as she should be too. What is it with us Germanics? We don't die when we should." He pauses. "Why would I be armed? So I could do this." The gun is cocked; Liechtenstein's blindfold, removed. She gasps when she sees Switzerland, but can't move.
For a second, the mania leaves Austria's eyes. "I'm sorry… this war, no one should be alive." Switzerland can't move. He looks at Liechtenstein – Lili – whose eyes hold only resignation. She smiles as well as she can through the gag.
BANG.
An instant passes before she falls to the ground, dead. England's agents, who had been staring, race out of the room as Austria raises the gun again, to his own head. He shoots.
Switzerland feels himself getting dizzy. The last thing he hears before he blacks out is England muttering absently, half in shock, that maybe now Switzerland would join the war.
Maybe he would.
~/(-|-)\~
Belgium giggled as she lay on her uncomfortable prison cot. World War Seven, already. World War One hadn't really been a "World" War, but she'd been taken over by the Germans anyway. World War Two, she was taken over by the Germans. World War Three, she'd taken everyone else over – well, everyone else but Germany. World War Four saw Germany return the map to how it had been before the Belgian Conquest. World War Five, she was taken over by the Germans. World War Six, she did manage to barely stand her ground, but Germany had her brothers; Germany had everyone else. World War Seven, and she was the first to fall, and to France, of all people. Then he was taken over by the Germans, so she was, too.
Again.
Always with the Germans.
Usually, Belgium mused, this is where Spain would break in and say that this is World War Eight. He calls that snowball fight we had at that conference a couple Decembers ago in Helsinki World War Seven. She giggled again at the thought. Last she'd heard, Spain had been holding his own. He'd finally gotten a working alliance with Portugal – that hadn't happened since before World War Three, and that particular one didn't last long – and between the Spaniards, Portuguese, and what little was left of the war-torn French, the Iberian Peninsula was defended.
Of course, that news had come a long time ago. Germany treated her well, for the most part, but this was his torture: keeping her in the dark about the rest of the world. She could only feel her own land and people, under great stress but rarely attacked. She knew there were many other nations who were less fortunate – nations killed – she felt the nations die. There were only two things she'd really heard, though, through whispered conversation between guards, since being put in the prison: first, that someone had dropped a nuke among the constant rain of bombs in Poland, and second, that Venice was the only Italian city still left standing. Belgium outright laughed, remembering that. Perhaps it was just nostalgia that made Germany avoid Venice. She was sure he could take over that city in a minute if he wanted to.
But in the end, nothing was sure in war. How many had died, she wasn't sure. How many more would die, she wasn't sure. She would never, could never be sure.
They'd been through it six times before, give or take a snowball fight, give or take countless hours of failed diplomacy, give or take a revolution or a territorial dispute or thousands of years of unending war.
War.
Belgium rolled onto her side in an attempt to make the prison cot more comfortable and giggled again, because if she didn't laugh, she would have cried.
This started out as angst practice and went... even angstier than I'd expected.
As it is/was angst practice, a note: the sections are not in chronological order. They alternate between past and present tense. If you want to read it in chronological order, read the past-tense ones in the order they appear, then read the present-tense ones in the order they appear. It goes Germany, Canada, Taiwan and Japan, Belgium, Nordics, Baltics, Switzerland. Of course, reading in chronological order will ruin the effect.
And as it is/was angst practice, feedback of any kind is very much appreciated. Arigatou!
Oh, hey, people reading Hetalia: Expecto Patronum (or who just like my work) - I'm on Tumblr as as-if-unreal if you'd like to follow.
-Luna