I'm really freaking disillusioned with life right now. Obviously, this means I need to take my bitterness out on a fictional character. First try writing all Nyotalia, and names I'm using are as follows: Feliks = Felicja, Toris = Torija, Ivan = Anya, Kiku = Keiko, Alfred = Allie, Arthur = Alice, Natalia = Nikolai, Daiva = Raivis

All comments are taken freely. I would appreciate any thoughts you might have on this. Chapter 4 of NDWOH will be up soon.

Also, if you want to keep an idealized version of your favorite country in your head, don't read The Economist.

I own nothing.

"Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future." -Oscar Wilde

They make her out to be a saint.

Felicja knows better.

It was Japan who drew the manga, and at first everyone told her it was a terribly dangerous thing to do. Which it was. So Keiko made some changes. Everyone in the manga promptly had their genders reversed. Which was alright, Felicja supposed, but then came the personality changes. They were random, and Felicja didn't like them. Why should she be turned into an effeminate blond with a valley-girl accent when Allie Jones got to keep her crazy ideas of heroics? Why was Alice still a prickly tea-lover when Nikolai was turned into an insane knife wielder? Felicja didn't understand some of the changes at all.

But Torija's change irks her the most.

Viktorija Lauranaite has doe-like green eyes, a pale oval face, and silky brown hair long enough to braid a few inches below her shoulders. In Keiko's manga, she is as gentle as she looks.

Felicja knows better.

Felicja knows that when she took the crown meant for Torija's Grand Duke, Torija refused to speak to her unless it was to relay a government-approved message. That boy she's been portrayed as, that Toris, is of a completely forgiving nature. Toris probably would have been hurt by Felicja's- pardon, Feliks' betrayal.

Toris would not have thrown a heeled slipper at Feliks when he announced their engagement nearly a century later.

In Felicja's defense, Feliks probably wouldn't have ducked either.

Toris is portrayed as being madly and stupidly in love with Belarus, or, "Miss Natalia Arlovskaya."

Felicja knows better.

Felicja knows how it went back when the Commonwealth first absorbed Belarus. Really, Torija is more like this Natalia girl than anyone would know, Felicja thinks. It took Nikolai Arlovsky only one battle to realize Torija was probably more deadly in a skirt than any other adversary in pants. She fights to win, and Nikolai learned this quickly. He never held any illusions that he could not be beaten by a girl.

But Felicja also wonders if Keiko is more observant than she lets on, because she has indeed caught Nikolai's hands brushing Torija's as they gather their respective papers.

Toris is a martyr.

Torija is seen as a martyr.

God, Felicja knows better.

Felicja remembers Torija kicking and screaming at Anya. She remembers a flailing mass of petticoats and corset with a red face yowling like a scalded cat as Anya carried her off. She remembers Daiva telling her about how Nikolai always had to be in the room when Torija made tea for Anya, and how he would make her drink that same tea to make sure it wasn't laced with rue or something worse. And Felicja still remembers those meetings Anya took Torija to as her "secretary," where Torija would have a bruise that she "tried" to cover up.

"But really, it's n-nothing, I swear. Please don't worry about me!"

Felicja always noticed the corresponding marks on Anya. No one ever noticed that the Russian's arms were littered with bite marks and scratches from the Lithuanian fighting back.

Toris trembles when Ivan touches him.

Torija has been known to try to hit Anya.

Torija is very good at what she does. She is careful to be seen as a good girl, or an innocent victim. A martyred saint.

And she is better. She's civil; she's polite; she "prefers not to dredge up events of the past." One might even say freedom has softened her; that it has made her into a lady.

But Felicja? Felicja knows better.

Sainted Torija isn't called a "Baltic Tiger" for nothing.

And sainted Torija isn't done with her past just yet.

Gild, n, def. 5: To adorn with a fair appearance or show of beauty: esp. to give a specious brilliance or lustre to (actions or things) by the use of fair words.