I posted this on the Hetalia LJ first before I decided to also submit it to my account as well. Ever since I got into Hetalia and read a few stories with people creating their own nation-tans for countries not mentioned in hetalia I wanted to write an Iran story. I just felt there was too much good stuff about that amazing ancient country not to be told. And with the recent events happening there that attracted a lot of attention from the rest of the world the timing seemed just right. I gathered my courage and historical knowledge and began writing. I'm not sure how many chapters this will be or how long, I just keep writing and see where it goes.

Please note: Iran is an OC (surprise, surprise, she doesn't have a hetalia character.) I chose her to be a girl for two reasons: 1) Iran is a girl's name in Farsi (Persian) 2) I followed the trend set by Afghanis-tan that portrayed all Middle Eastern countries as females.

There will be a cast of some of the original hetalia characters in the later chapters primarily Arthur, Ivan and Alfred. Arthur in particular will play an important role in the story and his relationship with Iran will influence a lot of the events that make up the nation's recent history. Also Iran for now has no human name. Not specifically because Iran is a Persian name but due to a reasons you will eventually come up in the story.

Hope you enjoy, and give me delicious feedback. Here it is, the story of my homeland Iran told in Hetalia verse.

...

The Girl Between the Two Seas

Part 1: The Great Persian Empire

The streets were burning. There was teargas and gunshots and garbage cans set on fire by people who wanted to dispel the harmful fumes hurting their eyes and throats. She was hiding behind one of those large, upturned containers, looking at all the rocks strewn across the street. She wasn't alone; four others, faces hidden behind masks and scarves, were crouching next to her. Children of the new revolution. Her eyes locked on the green wristband of the girl sitting next to her.

There was a parked car a few feet away. A teenage boy had taken refuge behind it and was observing the revolutionary guards' movement in the side mirror while giving them a minute by minute report.

"They're coming closer."

"They're getting ready to fire more teargas."

"They shot live ammo into the crowd."

"Someone collapsed."

It was a nightmare, watching her youngest children die and be injured at the hands of a menace she had created over 30 years ago. There wasn't a day in those three decades that she didn't regret the decisions she'd made in the past. How naïve she had been, how misguided. And every time, her people paid for her mistakes, like they were doing now. Generation after generation. Smart beautiful people, suffering because of her lack of judgment and her silly idealism that was a leftover from the days she was still with Persia.

Why would they still risk their lives for her?

"Coast is clear guys. Let's go and show those bastards what exactly we think of them."

The boy behind the car had joined their small group and he and his friends were passing around rocks they had collected off the street, getting ready to attack the men with guns one more time.

"No." She put her hand on the girl's wrist, over the green armband. "Don't go. It's dangerous out there. You will be shot."

The boy, no older than 18, smiled behind the green scarf tied over his mouth and said, "Don't worry, we'll be fine. It's no fun if we don't return fire. They might think we are scared."

"Aren't you?" she asked.

He stood up. So did the rest. His eyes trained on the smoke filled street in front of him, he said, "Not anymore. We lived all our lives being scared of these guys. This is the end, this time they can do their worst. We won't budge. We are the children of Persia. We are doing this for you Iran, so you could hold your head high again. Like the old times."

They dashed out onto the street. She didn't look where they went or what happened to them. As she hunched behind the smoldering container and listened to the sound of gunshots, her thought took her back to those old times, when Persia was still around and surely would have been proud of having such children in his land.

---

The land was ancient but she was young, with the appearance of a girl of barely 18. She lived between the two seas, the Caspian and the Persian Gulf, even though the kingdom was massive and reached the borders of India in the east and Europe and Africa in the west. That was Grandpa Persia's territory, the kingdom he constantly worked on expanding. For her what mattered was the heart of the land, the fields and deserts, mountains and forests that spread between the two shores on the north and south. She would take off her slippers and dip her toes into the water of the large sleeping lake or the angry frothing gulf, relishing in her freedom and independence.

Grandpa Persia was always away on wars. He wrestled with all the neighboring nations, brought most of them down and made them a part of the Great Persian Empire. The Lydian and Hittites fell easily, the Babylonians were much harder and doing that he also liberated the Jews, one of his proud achievements. Then there was 'that woman,' as he liked to call her: Greece. She didn't fall and didn't give up, always knew how to make grandpa sweat. He would come home cursing heaven and earth and everything in between before he'd go back and fight her some more. Grandpa Persia always looked so angry when he wrestled with her, but deep down his granddaughter knew he enjoyed those brawls. He was the strongest nation in the region and had conquered everything in sight. It would have been boring for him if Greece didn't put up a fight and traded punches with him. The girl suspected that they both felt that way and loved a strong rival with whom they could constantly wrestle and eat dirt when they got tired of winning.

Still all the wars were fought far far away, at the borders where she rarely went to. She liked her place near the sea, where she sat down and put flowers in her hair, made herself pretty for the coming of the spring. Grandpa Persia came back to their house around Nowrooz, the New Year, and he brought beautiful gifts from far away lands. She enjoyed all the activities they partook during the first 13 days of spring as they welcomed the new year, the arranging of the Haft-Seen spread, the baking of pastries and bread, growing wheat sprouts that they later threw away in the fields once the 13th day of the year arrived.

She sat in her grandfather's lap and watched the birds fly over the trees and listened to her grandfather's words spoken into her ear. "I am building the greatest empire in the world just for you. I am Persia, the conqueror and the mighty. I am there to expand and to defeat, to let the others hear about us, and see our wisdom, our courage, and our vast knowledge of many things.

You, my child, are Iran. You are the pure and untouched soul inside me who would one day inherit all of it. You will stay when I'm gone. Because I know, as any wise man does, that glorious days won't last forever. Empires rise and fall, warriors get pulled down to their knees, the world keeps changing like the tides of the Persian Gulf. But you, my dear, shall never die. You are the heart of our people, the spirit of this nation. When I am slain, remember this one thing, pull through and survive at all cost, and carry on the legacy of our ancient civilization and the pride and glory of the lion and the sun."

She remembered those words and repeated them every night as she went to sleep. "I am Iran. I am immortal. The tides will come and go and the world will change but I will remain the same, standing here between the two shores of Caspian and the Persian Gulf with the wind playing over the flowers in my hair."

---
Some links:

h t t p : // en . wikipedia . org / wiki / Persian_Empire

Maps of the Persian Empire: h t t p : // karenswhimsy . com / map-of-persia . shtm