The Picture of Glory and Pain

A seemingly careless flick of a wrist; a quick, all-noticing glance; a concentrated twitch of lips... France knows what he is doing. With a light hand he outlines a figure of a person, adds a few details here and there to remember them in case his model moves too soon, and accentuates the draft with light shadowing. He works quickly, checking the time from the screen on which Hungary's Power Point presentation is projected. After three minutes, he puts down his pencil and, satisfied, observes the outcome.

France got into croquis drawing four or so months earlier, finding it an excellent pastime during dull World Meetings. To complete a portrait in three or five minutes is gratifying, and it has helped France to develop his eye for details, as well as his ability to put those details on paper. It has taught him to focus on the essential, most defining features of his models, features that show the person's character, the uniqueness of their looks instead of just generic faces, all in vague lines yet so very revealing – like Hungary's dimples or the wrinkles Spain has got around his eyes from laughing.

But there is also another reason why France likes croquis: its secrecy. It's one thing to draw a purposefully posing model, but it's sometimes fun to catch a person on paper without them knowing of it, when they are unaware of being watched and let traces of their true self show on their faces and in their posture, without them even realising it. Drawing croquis allows France to draw people as they are, at their most beautiful.

It's also the only way for France to draw England. England, who would make an astonishing portrait, painted in watercolours perhaps, or drawn with charcoal, a portrait of England in fragile morning light, gazing at the slowly brightening sky, leaning his chin into his palm, fingers idly curling around the handle of his teacup, eyes thoughtful, distant...

But England would never model for France, would never allow him to transfer his delicate beauty on paper, that France knows for a fact, reads it from the scorn in England's eyes whenever he finds him drawing. So France focuses on croquis, on quick lines on paper, because committing those lines to his memory is the only way for him to hold England close.

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