Got this little idea while writing my short story for the prompt: recess. :3 I got sidetracked and started writing Berwald's back story before he came to America to become a Kindergarten teacher. So... Here is the first part~ I hope you like it!
Disclaimer: I only own the knowledge that I will never own Hetalia.
Notes at the bottom~
R-and-R~


The Prologue

"Mamma, are you awake?" A tiny boy shook his mother from her spot on the couch. She had fine red lines scattered across her arms and a few peeking from under her short dress on her legs. "Mamma?"

The boy kept shaking his mother for a minute more, but she didn't wake. Swallowing thickly, the boy stood up and walked over the cans of Swedish beer into the kitchen where his father was sleeping at the dining table.

"Pappa?" The boy shook the man this time. His head was resting in his hand until it slipped out and his head hit the table with a thud that seemed louder than it actually was in the quiet home. "P-Pappa?"

The boy gave up trying to wake up his parents and went to find a snack on his own. It was Thursday night - morning if you preferred - and he had woken up after a particular dream about a deviled egg with razor teeth. The dream had scared him, thus the boy trying to wake his parents for comfort and a mid-night snack.

The boy's name was Berwald. Berwald Oxenstierna from Stockholm, Sweden was born to a very much in love couple who had ended up dealing the wrong cards. Berwald's mother began using drugs that his father brought home and the two began using more frequently, subsequently forgetting about their only son.

Berwald became more self-sufficient for the young age of ten and he reverted more into himself, becoming quiet and not speaking often. When he did speak, though, it was often in short sentences or mumbled.


Tino Väinämöinen was a pierrot - working in an unofficial branch of the old famous French Commedia dell'arte in Finland. He was nine, and had been working with the small traveling circus group for as long as he could remember. The other circus members acted as his family, having taken him in when Irina - the "ring-leader" - had found him as a baby in a ditch near their tents. Fortunately, his mother had been holding onto him even after her death. Irina had taken the sleeping child and left the dead woman.

Tino was beautiful. His petite figure was what the female performers worked to own for themselves and gushed over when they found it harder to get and keep. "You're so tiny Tino," they would gush, pinching his cheeks.

His duties as a pierrot were simple. Since he was so young, he was usually only used as a background character to cheer up the audience after a sad scene or to help transition between them. He would dance around in his billowy white dress-like shirt, his face painted a brilliant white with a black triangle over his right eye and a tear drop under the left.

The audiences loved Tino. He was seen as the cute child who danced in a magical way – sometimes balancing on a ball that resembled a globe – across the stage and entertained the masses. Even though his parts were small, he was one of the most loved.

Irina, his adoptive mother, watched over him every performance. Her hawk eyes caught every little twitch in the audience. Nothing was going to harm her child. Biological or not, he was still precious to her and she would not stand for anything to happen to him. She usually sat behind the curtains or in the stands themselves to watch her baby. Even with those preying eyes, her smile was ever present, eyes shining with pride.


Notes: deviled egg/razor teeth - remember Bloody Hanatamago? Hana = flower and tamago = egg so.. I just skipped out on the flower and made a very, very vague reference to Hanatamago! :3
Mamma and Pappa = Swedish spelling of mommy and daddy.. from what I got from Google Translate at least.
When I was writing about Sweden's parents, a bad storm kicked up. XD What symbolism!
I know absolutely nothing about pierrots so if anyone would like to give any information, I'll just be using what I can scrounge off of Wikipedia and other sources.
I took the name Irina after looking up a list of famous Finnish actors/resses. (Irina Björklund)