notes: nyotalia versions of Poland, Lithuania and Russia. non-nyo Prussia, Austria, England, France.
The heart-as-metaphor is also a muscle. It can strengthen or atrophy according to use.
Poland drifts through the kitchen door at a little past nine. Lithuania is sitting at the table where she'd been last night, now scrolling the news on her phone with one hand and in the other holding a coffee mug in a death-grip.
"Hey, morning!" Poland says, going for bright and managing to sound obnoxious even to her own ears. "Um… did you actually sleep?"
Lithuania nods. "Yes, I have moved. I just." She motions with the mug. "Do you ever get it when you have a stress dream and you wake up thinking bits of it must be true? Or something you dream sets you off all wrong and you can't shake it?"
"Oh," says Poland. "That. Yeah."
Lithuania dreams of the night she and Poland were separated.
It's a memory as well as a dream: the part where Russia hauls her to her feet by her broken arm (a small gesture in earnest of many cruelties to come) and the agony and nausea rolls red across her whole field of vision and her own sob is drowned out by the roaring in her ears—that part is always rendered very true to life indeed.
Only this time, instead of whatever feeble act of bravado she'd actually attempted, Poland sits up, nonchalantly brushing the bloodstains off her coat along with the snow, and smiles.
"God, Liet, crying? You're more pathetic than I thought. So, Russia… have fun I guess? Or whatever. I should warn you, she's not much good for anything."
Poland has a parallel dream. A similarly insidious patchwork of memories, truth and lies. And you wake up thinking it must be true—
"Poland, Poland, help—" Lithuania calls, struggling weakly.
"I don't think Poland's going to be helping, do you?" Russia says, at her most insufferable.
"…No…"
And now the nightmare. That was only prelude. A subtle, devastating change in posture, and Russia and Lithuania are no longer captor and prisoner but arm-in-arm like old friends. Poland's reality folds.
"…No," Lithuania repeats, in what must be her real voice. "She won't be doing much of anything. Well, that was surprisingly easy. Thank you."
"We couldn't have done it without you."
Both women laugh as they turn their backs and walk away.
"Aren't you going to shoot her?" Lithuania asks.
"Why bother?" Russia replies. "Winter will take care of her."
"…appropriate—the frigid bitch."
Lies! It's lies! It's all lies, of course it is, it is only a dream… But analyse it and that line is a particularly egregious interpolation from a later source—
Which it to say, someone did say it.
Anyway, Poland is hurt beyond help now, and can't move.
So in her dream, she sits on a hillock a short distance away, seething at Lithuania's treachery, helpless but to watch. She watches disdainfully as her own huddled, twitching body finally stills. Watches as the General comes for her, and breathes frost flowers over her blue-grey cheeks, and seals her eyelids with cold kisses. As he tenderly lifts her and lays her out on the ice.
One thing was true: Russia really had left her to freeze that day. Austria and Prussia were furious. Careless. After all their hard work, they needed to be certain—no more half measures with Poland. (Over the next few decades, she gave them cause to test other, surer, methods, and nothing worked; really the only result was to give focus to Lithuania's nightmares.) But it meant she woke up that first time with Prussia gloating over her and prodding at her frostbit body.
Frigid bitch, he'd called her afterwards, many times, because he thought it was clever.
A conversation with England, who doesn't quite get it and is getting himself into social/semantic difficulties:
"But you and Lithuania were just friends, you were never…"
"What?" says Poland, blunt because this is getting silly, "like, love, marriage, sex, that stuff?"
England scoffs. "I think all three is a bit much to hope for!" What an idea. "But you two weren't romantically involved, so it wasn't that kind of separation."
And this is a glare. "No, we weren't. And it totally was."
"…Sorry," England says. "Sorry, that was insensitive. I shouldn't expect to understand—I don't exactly have many friends."
You have to laugh at the forlorn droop of his eyebrows. "Pfffft, fishing much, Mr. I'm-too-good-for-the-EU?"
They are friends. It's not the same, but then of course it isn't.
In other dreams, Poland and Lithuania are killing each other. Or, trying to.
Despite being forced to hear all the medical specifics of the repeated attempts to abolish Poland once for all, Lithuania generally dreams something more domestic. Lithuania dreams she is cleaning the house and putting out poison for the rats, and there comes Poland's corpse staggering out of every cupboard, discoloured fingernails and hair like straw, and it hangs on round her neck, whining, "Liet, I'm hungry, I'm hungry."
Poland's dream quickly loses any pretence at plot and she's simply stabbing with a knife, conscious of nothing but panic and the resistance of bone. Simply stabbing her over and over but Liet won't quit, she just keeps following her, bleeding and crying and accusing Poland of cheating even though she won fair and square—
A monster or horror with her face conflated.
It's only a dream.
It puts you in a bad mood for the rest of the day, at least.
"Uh. Well, in some ways I haven't, I still haven't had the best chance to try stuff like that. Like, a lot of my interactions with people have been a bit… Pressure-y. Uneven."
(Things like what Prussia said had affected her, that was the truth, and for far too long. But it's clear and so obvious now—you'd just conquered me, and I didn't want to have sex with you? YOU KNOW WHAT, THE PROBLEM HERE WAS NOT WITH ME! Had nothing to do with me being a frigid bitch.)
Just words. Words and dreams and memories alone shouldn't be this powerful.
"Anyway, it's possible that something in there got bent out of shape, I guess. Or, not. Mostly I'm kinda… not bothered? Or it's just possible I really haven't met the right person, or been with them in the right sort of moment. Though really. If it's not Liet. I can't imagine anyone I could be more attached to."
"Huh," says England. "Well—alright then: how would you feel if she got together with someone else?"
Poland thinks about it. She's thought about it before. "Okay with it, I think. I think. I mean as long as—I could still see her a lot, and," sudden lump in her throat, "she was still my friend."
England nods. "I'm still not sure I entirely get it, but as long as you're happy. Really not sure how we got onto this—you should be talking to Italy, he's the people person."
"Or France?" Poland suggests, because she knows it'll wind him up.
"Do not talk to France."
The implication of which is unfair. In fact, France was a perfect gentleman that night she cried in her sleep and he comforted her.
It's the only time she can remember something like this happening to her, and she can't remember having done the comforting for anyone else in precisely that way.
Not good with these expected social interactions/niceties is the point. She isn't. Poland. France is great. Which is not the point.
She'd been dreaming about Lithuania, and in her dream they were together again, and happy.
This sort of dream persisted terribly into the twentieth century for both of them, popping up at the most inopportune moments.
Dream a simple dream, like you're on a journey or in a legend and she's there by your side, sweet and kind, as if—
Well. As if.
The delusion that hurt most of all. Wake up from these dreams and it's hard to dismiss them, or anyway the mood of them, and you go about the whole day pining, like you're not at war, like she wasn't the bitch who—(like you weren't either)—
All told, it was a lot for their relationship to recover from.
The heart-as-metaphor is also a muscle.
It sounds like the most anodyne of maxims. Sounds like writing lines. Say it 100 times each morning:It is important to try. It is possible to cultivate habits of kindness and understanding as well as social ease. It is important that I love you, in whatever way I do, to the best of my ability.
It will do for a start.
"Oh. That," says Poland. "Yeah. Those dreams suck."
Last night, was I tearing the heart out of your chest? Were you abandoning me to torment and death? The specifics don't matter anymore.
She stands uncertain with one hand still on the door-frame. What can I try that might help?
"Hey, let's go out for breakfast. Do you want to? You're on holiday while you're here right, so let's be totally extravagant."
Lithuania puts her phone down and runs her fingers through her hair. "I don't know. I've already had—"
"—coffee. I'm talking breakfast. Or brunch. Or skip straight to lunch. Whatever. My treat, and stuff."
Lithuania allows herself to be persuaded. "That sounds really nice, actually. What brought this on?"
"Oh." Poland shrugs her shoulders. "Nothing new. Just you."