"Seriously you guys this isn't funny anymore. It's so mean and cruel and stupid." Finland whined causing my face to go into one of annoyance.

France sighed "Tell us what happened to you Finland." After years of what one could call friendship, although it has been more complicated then that, I knew that he was trying to keep his face from falling into a look of pity so as to not upset Finland.

"Did you get your head stuck in the butter churn again?" Really I couldn't care less but it might add some pleasure to my day. So far this land had been nothing but trouble between the natives, the other countries and the disease that seemed to travel like a wildfire throughout the land.

"Its not that! Sweden and I built a villa here in America but then the Netherlands beat us up and took it away!"

I couldn't help but feel some pity for the country, he had brought it on himself but still rough break. "Wow that is really embarrassing."

Finland spoke up a few moments later, "There's something else that's bugging me. A mysterious little boy has been showing up from time to time. Nobody knows him from the villages and the neighboring towns are at least a day's walk away. I'm afraid the Netherlands will find the boy and do something terrible to him. He's a scary dude." He shivered thinking back to past events.

That peaked my curiosity. "A little boy? Why would he be by himself all the way out here in the wilderness?"

"That's exactly my point. That's why we thought the whole thing was weird."

France suddenly jumped a bit dropping his fish that quickly swam for safety. "HOLD ON! crap my fish." He turned to Finland. "You say he came by you and Sweden right?"

Finland nodded his head "yeah that's right. He was a cute kid."

France turned to me, "do you think it could be possible he could be related to one of us?"

My eyes widened a little, I hadn't thought of that. Of course he must be, none of the other countries had found the personification of America yet. Of course who ever did would have to greater chance of owning him and I wanted to so badly. The greed inside my heart grew to extreme amounts and dark thoughts began to form. America would be my colony!

Finland's voice broke those thoughts however. "I never considered that possibility."

"A kid like that all alone in the new world, he might even be..."

"MY LITTLE BABY BROTHER!" we all said at once. This of course started a fight between France and my self who had been competitors since William of Normandy invaded my country and took over. "There is no way he is your baby brother!" I yelled at France as I grasped his neck in order to strangle him.

"Your brother would have killed himself by now." He yelled back mimicking my movements. It was a few minutes before we realized that Finland was no where to be seen.

"You damned frog now he's going to find the boy before us and America will be his colony."

"Really, Angleterre, do you believe that Finland of all people would be able to make America his colony over one of us." He started walking in the direction Finland had been sitting and walked over the hill. In anger I followed him and caught up with him quickly. Luckily for us it had not been long since Finland had disappeared thus we found him easily and followed him till we came upon a small boy playing in a bush. This to me was a strange thing for a boy to be doing but I supposed as he didn't seem to have any trees nearby he was learning survival skills as best as he could with what he had handy. "This child will be intelligent and a good colony," I thought.

The child slowly turned around and his happy face turned scared in a second. In that second something happened that had never happened in all my years of existence. I felt the walls come down around my heart and I knew then that I no longer wanted the boy just for his land but different reason... whatever those reasons were.

France's voice made me turn to him and stop my thoughts. "Hey, Finland could that be the boy?"

"Yeah thats him I'm sure of it?"

I began to look the boy over and realized he looked slightly like myself. "Hey" I said excitedly, "He looks like me; I told you he was family, France check it out his hair looks exactly like mine does, there's no way that's not my brother."

Of course being who France was he couldn't let me have this. "In your dreams, fancy face, he has the obvious brow of a French royal, if that is all the proof I get to claim him."

Later of course I would come to realize that America look almost nothing like myself but instead had the vivacity of Finland and the charisma of Spain and France, but his manners would for a long time, even many decades after the revolutionary war, resemble my own. But until that day it never stopped making him my brother.

We watched Finland walk over to the boy and looking at him. He nodded at him which the boy returned, still shaking as though walking through Ivan's icy tundra.

"Hey, so which part of that kid looks like me?"

"Why are you suddenly so hung up on appearances, our looks don't define us."

"That's right, other than focused on outward appearances you should be *something* the depths of this young boys heart."

Finland stared at us dumbfounded unable to comprehend the sudden camaraderie and agreement that was just shown. "ummm" was all he was able to manage before he turned and walked off to find Sweden and the other Nordics. The boy... I mean America; I guess I should start calling him by his proper name now that as he was my little brother. Also it did not feel appropriate calling him "the boy. I followed France back to the road and flagged down a cart that would take us back to the shipyard. Per usual we fought the entire way, mostly about America and who his older brother was.