"Latvian soldiers retained their Latvian uniforms, but the red star replaced the Latvian sun emblem on caps."
—Valdis O. Lumans, Latvia in World War II
The Red Army's yellow doesn't look good on his brother, makes his skin look sallow and washed-out, casts the purple under his eyes into sharp relief. (He looks exhausted. They are all exhausted—war, thinks Latvia, is exhausting.) Lithuania's posture is stiff and hunched as it always is, now, but he musters a brief smile when Latvia makes his way over to him.
It's just starting to get dark now, the shadows of the trees stretching across the ground in thick black bars, and the sun is swollen and cold. Red, like everything in this damn country. He shivers and looks over at where the cage of shadows cuts across his companion's thin form. The long, gaping wounds that mar his skin will heal, one day, when the pain has dulled in his people's memories, but for now most of the left side of Lithuania's face is a network of jagged scars. Latvia feels his own arms twinge and burn and involuntarily he rakes his nails under his sleeve, feeling the scabs peel away beneath his fingers.
"Don't do that," says his brother absently. Latvia jerks his hand away.
"We're splitting in the morning," he says petulantly. "Why can't you come with me? I don't like fighting by myself."
He's expecting some sort of encouragement, or a 'they need me somewhere else', but instead Lithuania frowns.
"Ru—Mr Russia says he doesn't want me doing anything 'stupid'."
"Oh. Like challenging Prussia to single combat?" Latvia asks innocently. Lithuania's frown deepens.
"I'm not suicidal."
"Maybe not," Latvia reminds him, "but you do get pretty reckless when you're angry." It's been a long time since he's been the cause of Lithuania's white-hot fury, he remembers, and even longer since he's been the object of it. Neither is a pleasant experience.
"Anyway, I only did that—alright, so it was a couple of times. A few times. It was always—oh, never mind." Lithuania fishes in his pocket and shoves a cigarette savagely into his mouth.
You're slipping, thinks Latvia, watching his brother flick his lighter out and take a long drag that fails to make his tense shoulders relax. He remembers a Lithuania who would never have admitted being wrong in front of someone else, especially a younger sibling—the Lithuania who seemed to glow with a pride that's faded now into nothing but obstinacy—but then, Latvia supposes he's not the only one who's been slowly changing over the last century or two, who's been forced to learn how not to show any sort of brilliance that might outshine the Nations that rule him.
It's just a lot more obvious, now, in the chill twilight with bitter words hanging in the air around them.
As if to echo his thoughts, Lithuania leans forward and taps the crimson star messily embroidered on Latvia's hat.
"Your sun looked better on you," he murmurs. He smells like tobacco and sweat. Latvia jerks away.
"Well, I can't have it now," he snaps. (Russia hit him across the face when he balked at taking his emblem off—hard enough to bruise, hard enough to make him sniffle while he tore into the patch's seams.)
Another drag, as Lithuania thinks of what to say. His voice is even quieter this time.
"You'll have it again. When all of this is over."
Latvia snorts. "Because Russia will let us go so easily."
"He did before."
"And that lasted how long, Litva?"
Lithuania's eyes glitter in the half-light. "Long enough for us to remember what independence is like. Long enough for our people to get a taste of freedom."
Latvia's fists clench. "It's different for you," he bites. Hot, angry tears are starting in the corners of his eyes, because it's not fair, Lithuania who used to be so large and proud who used to be no better than Russia at letting go, he has no right to be talking of independence like this.
It feels like something is fraying inside him. There's an ugliness gnawing at his belly like the nausea born of hunger, reaching into the box in his head where he's shoved everything he's ever wanted to be proud of and unraveling it piece by piece.
"They love you, you know."
Latvia freezes.
"You think your children are fighting for Russia? They're fighting for you. And they'll do it again. And then—" With smoke-stained fingers he brushes the cap again. "A sun, and three stars, for you. The Cross of Vytis, for me. I think that's something worth waiting for, don't you?"
Latvia studies his boots. They are scuffed and the soles are cracking, the laces coming apart. He had them custom-made, a decade ago, cut to fit his small feet with wide toes and narrow heels.
"There's a bookstore in Liepāja," he says. "They sell hot chocolate laced with mint and vodka and if you're careful you can sit inside and drink it while you read."
"And the wind blows," says Lithuania. He sees Latvia glance up and smiles a little. "I've been to Liepāja. Can you see the sea, from that store?"
"No. But you can smell it."
"Is that worth waiting for?"
"I want to go back," Latvia whispers. Lithuania spreads his hands.
"You will. After all of this is over. You'll walk among your people, and they will be yours and they will know you."
"I wish," says Latvia, ugliness twisting and unknotting in his head, "I wish I could believe that."
Lithuania bows his head.
"You should go to bed," he says, the hard weariness settling back over his features. "You have a long way to go tomorrow."
"You do, too," Latvia replies, a little sullenly. He's not a baby.
"Fair enough. I probably won't talk to you again, before we head out." Latvia is perfectly fine with that. "So good luck. Be safe. And…" Lithuania points wryly to his ruined face. "You see that albino bastard, you give him this from me."
"I was gonna go for his arms first," Latvia tosses back. Lithuania laughs, a short, sharp burst, and reaches forward to carefully roll his brother's sleeve back. His hand is cool on the throbbing, inflamed flesh, where the marks of German hospitality are forming a web of scars.
"All of this will pass. Don't lose yourself, Lati."
"I don't know what you mean," Latvia lies. Lithuania sighs and pulls his own cap low on his brow, so that his cropped hair curls against his cheekbones.
"Have some faith in your people," he says. "They have faith in you."
Latvia has learned through century upon century to dim his own light, and as his brother walks away with his posture stiff and hunched and his leg dragging ever so slightly he thinks that his people are stupid, no matter how much he loves them, to think they can see that light when he isn't even sure if it exists anymore.
There's something inside Latvia that he can feel fraying, from the stress and the hunger and Russia always looming over his shoulder; he thinks it might be his sanity but he can't tell. Has nothing to compare to. Not after this long.
He thinks whatever it is might be what makes him timid, maybe what made him throw up so much in the last war, the Great War, when there was blood all over his face and hands and he couldn't get away from the smell, it reeked even over his own vomit, and he had felt so ashamed, among Nations who were as young as him but knew how to turn off normal—
(and then he thinks, what is normal? what is "normality"? and he can't remember—)
"Are you ready to leave, Latviya?"
He twitches and almost drops his rifle.
"Y-y-yes sir," he gasps. Russia smiles serenely and gives him an absent pat on the head.
"You ought to talk to your men. Remind them of what their purpose is here."
"To be cannon fodder?"
Shit.
Russia's eyes narrow.
"I—I didn't mean…" Latvia whimpers.
"They and you are here to fight for the freedom of our Union," Russia says slowly, as if explaining something to a child, or a simpleton. "You should also mention, perhaps, that desertion is unseemly, but of course they are all our loyal comrades and so would never think of such a thing."
"Of—of c-course," stutters Latvia. "I—um, I'll just g-go tell them that…"
Russia smiles again, as if nothing had happened. He pats Latvia's head again and wanders off.
Across the field, a regiment of Lithuanian soldiers are crowded around their Nation.
Latvia studies his boots.
The laces are unraveling and that could be dangerous in the field, he thinks, so he slips a knife out of his pocket and grabs a handful of the weakened cords and slices the ends away. Then he breathes, cool air hitching in his lungs. The severed laces fall softly to the ground and lie like the corpses of snakes.
He goes to where his men are lined up neatly and nervously, and sees that someone has set out a crate for him to stand on, and he isn't sure whether to be grateful or infuriated.
The sun is dull and sickly yellow in a cloudless sky, and dark tendrils of shadow dapple, frigid, across his body.
He steps up on the crate and for a moment sees himself as the soldiers must see him, a fifteen-year-old child in an overlarge uniform with shaking hands and scuffed boots and he cannot afford timidity—
One of them meets his eyes. Searching for some sort of brilliance, perhaps; looking for the glow of pride and surely, surely, he can't find it or why is he still looking? And the anger surges up inside him, and a bitter satisfaction, and for just a moment, he tries to force his walls down.
A flicker, that's all it needs to enrapture these boys. They are blinded and they cannot look away.
Latvia is seven centuries old and these men are his.
"Remember who the enemy is," he says simply, and then, because he is weak, and angry from it, and the shadows on his face are so, so cold: "Padariet mani lepnu."
(And his own language on his lips feels perfect but it's wrong; it's been thirty years of looking over his shoulder not daring to believe his own audacity he's not supposed to not supposed to he never questioned it because it was normal and normal what is normal what is normality have some faith in your people)
There's something inside him that is already fraying, from the stress and the hunger and Russia always looming over his shoulder, and he cannot afford timidity.
He grabs a mental handful of the weakened threads and feels them come apart.
Then he breathes, the cool air hitching in his lungs.
"FALL OUT!" he shouts, and the Russian words ricochet against the dark tree trunks.
Padariet mani lepnu: "Make me proud."