Genderbent!Netherlands
Tenth of July.
World meeting in Berlin, Germany.
8.14 am.
"Okay dudes! So here's the deal! We can totally destroy the economical crisis if you just out all your money in the hero! That is me! Haha!" America laughed triumphantly as most of the nations facepalmed. England sighed.
"There are not many of the triple A- countries left, so I think it would be best if these countries... Wait a second... We miss a country." Germany went wild. "Vho vould do someting like skipping a meetzing durin zhese critical times?" "Netherlands". France said in an unusual low voice, facing away from the crowd. All the younger nations turned to eachother as the European nations went silent. "I think it's only right for her to skip zis meeting." France coughed and swallowed hard.
Meanwhile in the New Church in Delft.
The church wasn't usually closed. It was just this day. The day no one was allowed in because she needed it to herself.
Netherlands sat in front on the big marbel floor, on the memorial piece of her 'father.' Prince William of Orange Nassau. She hummed her anthem as she looked dreamily at the details on the memorial. "... Geëerd.." she sang softly as she stood up from her crossed-legged sitting on the floor in a pair of dark blue skinny jeans. She pulled at her white tank top as she took of her short, black leather jacket. She walked to the handle in the floor.
Flashback to the 16th century.
Netherlands loved poetry. Words from the heart. The scent of parchment hang around in the poor lightened room as the quill ever so slightly and gracefully touched the paper while the flame of the candle danced on the long blond hair and dark blue eyes of the young nation.
"Netherlands!" She did not even look up. The Dutch Republic was in her own world at these times. Riddles, paintings, drawings, poems, music, the nation was always in a temporary world of her own. The voice got closer and grew impatient. "Netherlands!" Netherlands finally looked up, shocked, when the door opened to reveal a man's face of confusion. "Oh my dear, sweet Netherlands. Are you writing, still?" Netherlands smiled and stood up. "What can you expect from one born from the sea? Would thy care for me, for anything less than my?" William of Orange Nassau smiled at the clever remark his country made so poetic. "I would love thy, even if thou acts like a Spaniard." He proclaimed, his pose being one of an overreacting nun who witnessed blasphemy.
Netherlands smiled and hugged her father figure. His voice went back to his normal, fatherly voice. "Would you please get dressed? A young woman shouldn't wear a leather pants and dress shirt." Netherlands huffed. "No, for us women need to stuff ourselfs in a corset, hoping the men will pick out the one with the prettiest fake hourglassfigure. William smiled. "There are only a few men coming, celebrating our latest victory. And you, my dear, have been spending too much time with the Beggars*. "You can't deny that they are the best mentors in life, Bestevaêr thought me so much about the world!" The middle aged man rolled his eyes and pushed a beautiful champagne colored dress in her hands. "Michiel will be here tonight as well, child. Why did you think I have so many waiters tonight?" He laughed his last words as he walked out of the door. Netherlands quickly changed.
- There will come a time that each individual person is tested. The question is not if, but how. Many people will say God decided it. Which God is to this day unknown...-
"... Crappy... Gown... Corset... CHOKING! ... nevermind..." She walked/struggled away from her clothing screen and in front of the mirror. Okay. Not bad. The brown/champagnish dress went like a true lady would wear a gown. Netherlands frowned. "I can't breath due the corset, wich makes me look like a straw, the gown gets bigger when lower so at the back my ass will look as big as two cannonballs, the gown itches like mad because it's handmade and expensive and my boobs would pop out if I jump. I'd say this is a perfect dress for a pirate." She muttered as she put the orange tulip in her braided hair. A perfect long Dutch braid wich ended just blow her chest. She looked at her desk. Then at the door. She could write some more. She quickly sat down in the dress, the lower part ending halfway in the room. She thought for a second. One day William will be gone. He would die as an old man and she would be left alone in a world too cruel to comprehend. Netherlands wasn't truly a sucker for poems about happy feelings, as she felt her hand write down, quite sloppy letters.
Zo puur als je bent, As puur as you are,
Zo mooi zal je gaan. That's how pretty you'll go.
Totdat je laatste adem, Until your final breath,
Je ogen doet beslaan. Will cloud your own gaze.
Een lied voor je ziel, A song for your soul,
Maar ooit valt het stil. But when Death silences it all.
Netherlands couldn't write one more word and quickly stood up. She quickly put her mind at ease. 'Don't pull yourself in agony. It's a party!' Her mind reassured her. She couldn't shake the feeling something was off, though. The back of her mind felt somewhat.. Suspicious.
- People fear what they can't touch, see, or feel with their own senses. On contrairy to belief, humans do have instincts. They do, however, refuse to listen.-
"Netherlands!" William stood up from the table, when Netherlands just realised, she was standing in the dinner room. She quickly sat down next to her boss and next to 'grandpa' as well. "Hallo Bestevaêr!" Netherlands grimaced at one of her superiors, the man already laughing and eating soundly. "By the God I don't believe in! You look gorgeous, child!" Netherlands gave an, unladylike, broadly smile and tried to steal his gin. "Ney ney ney!" Michiel boomed over he table and slapped her hand. The room went silent as the angry man grabbed another bottle. "I got your own jenever, you always get seasick of gin, because you drink it before a battle." The room's awkward silence was quickly relaxed and Netherlands happily took the jenever. Netherlands took in the room before looking at the bottle. Six people, including two constant servants.
She wanted to grab the bottle. Something stopped her. Well, something mentally stopped her. Instincts perhaps. She slowly retracted her hand and looked at it from her lap.
- In our, darkest moments... We find something.-
Call it her xenophobia. Call it instinct. Call it paranoia. "Netherlands? Michiel stood up and grabbed her shoulder, forcing Netherlands out of her thoughts once more. "I want to show you something." Netherlands looked at William and saw the man with green brown eyes wink at her. They walked up the stairs to her fathers meeting room. When she opened the door to the round room, her eyes fell on a golden chest. She looked for approval to her self proclaimed grandfather. "Go on." He whispered. Netherlands kneeled in front of the chest and let her fingertips slide over the golden inscriptions. "Open the blasted box already." Netherlands smiled. "Don't you know this is an actual Aztek chest from..." "NO! I DON'T! OPEN IT ALREADY!" Michiel shouted frustrated as Netherlands shook her head. She opened it and her mouth fell open. "Anything Aztek-...ish?" Bestevaêr asked. Netherlands shook her head. Poems. Hundreds of poems were in the chest. "They are from famous poem writers from all over Europe!"Netherlands let out an actual laugh. Not a grimace, not a fake sly smile. A sincere smile, laughter of the soul. She even let out a tear of gratitude. "Sure, she'll kill two hundred people in one time and she won't even twitch, but dear Lord, when you give her poetry..." Michiel muttered. Netherlands smiled and wiped the tear away. "Oh but tears are the mirror of the soul." Netherlands did not think she could get happier.
Until she heard two shots.
- Something that keeps us going-
Her sincere smile faded slowly as Michiel ran in front of her, to the screaming and the yelling. Her heart stopped when she saw Michiel kneeled next to William. He was laying on the stairs, with a hand across his heart. He was shot.
-Something pushes us.-
Netherlands let out an unaudiable scream and was a guest in her own body when she ran down the stairs. Michiel saw her and quikly ran after the assailant.
Netherlands eyes only focused on her papa.
"Papa! Alstublieft!" The girl was already sobbing, both of her hands held the two bleeding wounds.
"I will bring you to the hospital! Just stay calm..." Netherlands managed to choke out. He was already paling and his heartbeat dropped per second. She knew he wouldn't survive.
- It is always said how ignorance is bliss. Solely a blessing I was not granted..-
William wiped away the tear flowing from her porcelain face with his already cold hand.
He smiled, and she knew he only did that to make her feel better, he was in pain. "... Please ... do not cry,.. my sweet... sweet Netherlands." He managed to cough out. He pointed to her heart with a shaky hand. "I... Will always be... There... Even if .. You cannot see me.." She quickly grabbed his hand as it failed to lift. "Mon Dieu, ayez pitié de mon âme; mon Dieu, ayez pitié de ce pauvre peuple..." He whispered in his last breath.
Netherlands sobbed in the chest of her dead father, the fact that he was dead while the only thing he wanted was a country where people were granted to live in peace with different religions. She still held the dead hand of the man against her face. The way he would always cheer up.
- It's a world of cruelness and hurt. But it was also the moment that I found a truth. Something deep inside of me snapped.-
Netherlands stood in front of her dead father, not moving. Until Michiel came in. With the murderer. Netherlands turned around slowly. To get a good inprention of the murderer. He was tall, quite thin and had curly black hair to his shoulders. His nose was crooked and bleeding, probably from when he tried to escape. "Take him to the dungeons. Unharmed. He's mine."
- In my life I witnessed many deaths. Gaul's, Burgundy's, Frisia, Germania, Rome, Holy Roman Empire... This was different. Different from all the people that were hanged because they were protestant. Or the Catholics protecting the protestants. All were cruel and life changing. In this, I saw irony.-
She limped, once again a guest in her own body, to the church. Behind her were quite some people. Some where crying, other curious. In front of her, four men carried her father to the church. She wanted to bury him with his family, but that was still on Spanish territory. Netherlands followed the carriers to the church as her soldiers stopped others from entering.
Netherlands stopped and watched in front of the tomb how her boss was buried in the cold dirt beneath the church. The four men went up and Bestevaêr looked at the girl still standing, watching the grave. "Netherlands, we need to go to that pig of a murderer, but if you feel more comfortable staying he..." "No. I'm fine. Tell the judge I will deal with him."
HELL'S SINGER.
Netherlands loved poetry. It was a way to reflect how you felt in your soul. How supersticious you must be to believe one parchment can sum up someone's feelings for a person. Yet,how arational and unNetherlands as it seemed, she has a soft spot. Just not for murderers.
Netherlands took one deep breath as she heard loud hissing and violence in the hallway of the torture room. She must have been sitting there to come up with a decent punishment for at least two hours. She lazily opened her eye as Balthasar was thrown in. He fell face-first on the floor, breathing heavily, yet grinning like an idiot. He was already pre-tortured. In his hands and feet were sharp nails between his skin and nails, his feet were burnt due an exceptional torture involving leather shoes and fire, and his armpits were set on fire. His shirt was covered with alcohol, the toxic in the white shirt showing all his whip slashes. "Pays Bas" He said slowly, nodding his head and licking his lip."Vous êtes dans ma territoire. Je dois vous demandons d'arrêter de parler comme le diable." He frowned. "Viva Espâgna." "Dat zullen we nog wel eens zien." "Qoui?" "You'll feel it." Netherlands said as she walked to the fire, while some skilled executioners lay his hand on a wooden bench. "Judge, the procedure, if you'd please." Netherlands whispered, eyes fixed on the red hot pliers. "Oh yes, the priest as well as the judge said.
"Uche, uche:
Zijn rechterhand waarmee hij het moorddadige feit heeft gepleegd zal met een gloeiende tang worden afgeknepen; vervolgens zal men met gloeiende tangen op verscheidene plaatsen op zijn lichaam het vlees afknijpen tot op het bot. Vervolgens vierendele men hem levend waarna het hart uit zijn borstkas gesneden en hem in het gezicht zal worden geworpen. Tenslotte zal men zijn hoofd afhakken waarna zijn vier uiteengetrokken delen op de Haagpoort, Oostpoort, Ketelpoort en de Waterslootsepoort tentoongesteld dienen te worden. Zijn hoofd moet op een staak gespietst en vervolgens bij het voormalige huis van de prins worden geplaatst. Zijn bezittingen worden geconfisceerd en komen aan de Heer ten goede"
"Thank you, my Lord. You may leave. These two executionars as well as the two guards will do for this monster."
Netherlands grabbed the pliers, once again, from the fire and walked over to Gérard. He looked at her. She took his hand between her pliers and burnt them off. Much to everyone's horror, he only hissed and then laughed. Netherlands remained silent as she heard the guards. "... He's mad!..." Then she grabbed another set of pliers to perform the second act, on different places on the human body, ripping flesh of the bone. He kept laughing. "The man is a demon!" One of the executionars proclaimed. Netherlands remained silent. She then grabbed a saw, to dismember him. She was not afraid to get close to him, on contrairy of her other men.
Then, out of no-where, a poet came from her mouth. The moment she started to saw in his side.
"Wilhelmus van Nassau,
ben ik van Duytsen bloed."
My people sang along.
"Den Vaderland getrouwe,
blijf ik tot in den Dood."
She heard him give a high-pitched scream that turned into a bonescattering laughter.
Her guards sang soundly as wel as the executionairs.
"Een Prinse van, Oranje,
ben ik vrij onverveerd."
The voices faded as she grabbed a battle axe.
"Den Koning van Hispanje,
Heb ik altijd geëerd..."
SNIKT
