Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia.

Talking to the Enemy

Chapter 1

Someone told me once that there was going to be sunny skies every day.

It was so long ago, it seems like ages. But I still remember it. I still remember my mother's laughter, her hands scratched by the thorns of yellow roses and the smell of the ginger... oh God, and how I miss it.

There were moments when I'd fight for everything that was holy to me. In times when I was courageous and willing to take on a whole battalion of enemies, I had more strength than anyone else.

My name is Ludwig... Ludwig Beilschmidt... and I am a sinner.

My life...

...was never simple. Since I can remember, since my very childhood, I wondered about whom I was, where my life would lead me and what the future might bring me. My mother worried about my soul, that the hopelessness would eat it. I fought with other rascals from our neighborhood every goddamn day, even Sunday, when she went to church and rejoiced in His eternal grace.

Oh, I do believe in God, he's like a blind driver behind the wheel.

Once, my mother told me that God had a bigger plan for me... that eventually, I would find sense in my life. Oh, the irony, oh, how I see it now! Perhaps she was right in the end. Because one day, one ugly freezing day, I found my purpose, I found my reason to live.

It is... as if the polar night has finally ended and the sun would have come out of the storm clouds. We arrive in a town, which name I don't know.

Even if I did, I wouldn't tell you.

There are only tall and strong-built blokes in my company. We sit down in the middle of the market square in our ragged dark green uniforms. People surround us, I don't understand a word that they are saying; they speak some kind of a Slavic language. This scene reminds me of how the army drafted me...

… on a similar place like that one. Their shoes and noses were high and their uniforms clean. The drafting officer, an overweight pimple, agitated about how our beloved country had to suffer the humiliation and mockery and withstand the abasement by the disgusting frog eaters and the scabby pommy bastards. He spoke of the future, of better times, the leadership, the power, predestination, of the role which our mother country was about to play in the world's theater. And we were the tools to make that happen.

'I love my country!' I shouted in absolute excitement. 'I love our leader!' and 'I love our God!' who, supposedly, was on our side at those times. Because we were different from the others, our nation, our race had been chosen by God. We had the means; we had the power to make that change. We wanted to change that rotten world we were living in. We were the superior race, and there would be order at last! That is how I joined Deutsches Heer; young, keen and full of rage, and believing in every word, whether it was true or false.

I sit 'till the evening downs, with my back against the fountain's stone statue of a lion. The unmoving beast is missing half of its face; the fountain is dry and stinking. The ground is cold, but as if by a miracle, it doesn't cool me down. My body is in fever, shaking in throes… or in anticipation… I do not know.

I am sick of the weather, sick of the army... why did I have to sign up for life? But at the same moment I am thinking of nothing else than about my comrades, about my homeland, about my rifle, and how I murdered those pasta-guzzling mother fuckers in their sleep last night… with a smile on my face.

I swore to God that I would hang in tight, never letting go of my flesh, even if someone would try to pull it out of my stone-cold fingers.

I am possessed by that thought. Often, I dream about my soul, hovering above my dead body…still smiling… no, smirking and waving a hand in goodbye.

I'm sorry; I didn't mean to rattle about a young boy's feelings. As I said…

…I am possessed by my bread-giver, by the army. I train a lot, until I lose the feeling of pain shooting through my body like arrows on fire. I have always obeyed the orders of my commander.

And I was...

…I am the best sharpshooter in my entire company.

My company got into action in the morning after we ceased that small, old town. Believe it or not, we could sense it. Beautiful, unbelievable; the feelings, the smells, the sounds, the experience, no one can replace that and no one can imagine that.

I think, I will not be able to describe that to you properly either. But I'll try anyway. You run, you run, and you run. While dashing for your life you hear all kinds of sounds, shouts, curses, rifle fire, mortar fire, falling grit. You get separated; you always get separated, until you're alone with your rifle. A sense lingers above your sorry existence like an ominous ghost from the past. It is the feeling that this could be it; that this could be the last day of your life or the life of your enemy, for which you're going to take care of. That feeling is like opium, it's intoxicating, better than cigarettes, better than sex. Nothing in the world can serve as a replacement for the odor of death in your nose and the power over one's life in your own hands: to give it, to take it, whatever you wish. The veins in your body pump adrenaline like an engine. Tiredness, hunger, thirst don't exist, you even stop thinking. Only the basic instinct propels you...

… forward...

… to survive...

… to kill.

I didn't have to think anymore, it was so deliberating; my army did that for me. Oh, God, yes, I had been waiting for that! Thank you! I didn't have to get carved up by thoughts of every day's being, didn't have to think, where to gain food and water, where to sleep, who made me and why, was this my purpose, my destiny?

My hair is damp with sweat; there is dirt underneath my fingernails, bruises and cuts all over my body... my flesh… my flesh? No, not really, not anymore; more like the body of a rag-doll, as ragged as my dear uniform. I am only broken bones. Each attempt to move a limb inflicts a wave of pain reminding me that I AM STILL ALIVE! I'm still around, in flesh and blood, not some lost spirit, some shadow of a man, not yet.

Please, don't call the doctor. I might have the 'white coat syndrome'.

When my dad was sick, an ugly old woman was taking care of me and Gil. I was five, scared, stupid and she was a rude bitch. She threw me outside the house on one occasion – I didn't want to eat that fucking mold she called soup. That old whore barked at me that I was a sinner, my father was the devil and my mother a witch... and I was their son, the malison of this town, this country, this world, decayed flesh feeding worms.

But you know what? Curse them… curse them all. After so many years, this is the first time I cannot feel their eyes on me. This is the first time I am truly happy, I am a soldier, and I am needed. I belong to my company, it's my family now.

I fought for my fatherland, I had a purpose. Finally I had a purpose: I had work, the reason to wake up in the morning, to eat, to live for! It was wonderful. I interacted with people, I talked to them and they talked back to me, they saw me! They looked at me with reverence and awe, because I was better than them. And because I was better than them and I knew it, I wanted to be even better. I have always listened to my superiors and never disobeyed an order. When they said 'do two hundred handles', I did two hundred handles. When they said 'make your gear', I made my gear. When they said 'polish your boots', I polished my boots. And if they said 'win a battle', oh well, I won a battle, without murmuring, without hesitation, without questions. I was a machine... a machine of German Reich.

Then the one battle came. I was sixteen… or seventeen... yeah, I lied to the drafting officer for the lure of adventure. So tell on me if it makes you feel better. It was the third year of the Great War, on a Godforsaken place somewhere in Alps, where my commanding officer transferred me to join my Austrian brothers. I felt so old when I entered the camp with so many victories and so many friends left behind. I was a young and talented leader. Anyone would follow me to hell and back.

We have fallen into five lines on the temporary airfield. The Kaiser comes for a short inspection; I am lucky, very lucky. His Majesty enters our camp, he walks around the tents. Suddenly, he gestures towards me and says something to my commander, who bows, nods, withdraws about three steps and whispers into the fox ears of his adjutant. The young Austrian lieutenant knocks his heels together and salutes. His Majesty turns around and walks out of my sight. And my commander comes to me. My heart beats wildly and pumps boiling-hot blood into my ears. I have hoped very much that he'd come to me and trembled with fear in the same time.

Did I do something wrong?

Was I going to die?

Or would I live?

I didn't know any of that for sure. Seconds crawled by as he walked to me. I remember thinking of passing my rifle from my shoulder into my hands, and shooting him down and everyone else who would try to attack me. And then I'd have shot myself and saved the firing squad the trouble.

„Soldier! Yes! You! Fall out and follow me!"

My heels knock together, my right hand salutes. „Jawohl, Herr Kommandant!"

At a swift pace, I followed my commanding officer into his tent. I had to restrain myself from running, from leaping over the fencing and vanishing into the mists. I was so scared. Now, after seeing death so many times, I am not scared anymore. If death should come, it'll come as an old friend of mine. But on that day... it was different on that day. I really thought I could run. Just like that. I must have been sick and hallucinating. Yes, that had to be it, and I hadn't sleep well for a month.

I walk into the tent. My commander is standing with his back to me. How dramatic! How theatrical! His empty eyes gaze on a faded photograph of his deceased Hungarian wife. What a surprise, civilians are dying too.

„Close the gap behind you, soldier."

I sheet the entrance of the green military tent. My commander faces me with his red eyes. I feel the blood draining from my face. I would hang myself if I had the guts.

„I've heard," he continues, „about the victory upon that hill. Your strategy was… flawless."

„Sir! Only through our German discipline! Sir!" It's true, the drill and the books – only thanks to them I am… what I am.

„Right, right," he rubs his chin and pulls out the Luger from his leather holster. It's black and polished. Then he approaches me. I can feel his breath, I watch his eyes narrowing, he whispers: „This pistol was given to me by my father. He told me: ´Son, you can achieve great things, great…'," my commander pats the gun as if it were a cat. „He said that as long as there is one round in that chamber, the hope of the German nation will never die and the world will be ours. We are the supreme race, Ludwig, the chosen one."

„Yes, Gilbert, we are." There is no need for formalities anymore.

„You, my brother, you are perfect. You are the most perfect human I have ever met. You are the ideal. That is how I have been imagining a man belonging to the supreme race. You are our hope." Gil whispers fervently, almost passionately. He takes my right hand and puts the gun in it. „As our father had given this pistol to me, I'm giving it to you now. You will continue in what I've started. Do you understand?" My brother takes my face into his both pale hands firmly, unconditionally. „And in order to do that, you are going to let go of your past. Are you? Answer me!"

„Sir… yes Sir!" I manage to yelp out.

„You will relinquish your life for me!"

„Sir! Yes Sir!"

„You will relinquish your soul!"

„Sir! Yes Sir!"

„You will renounce your name!"

„Sir! Yes Sir!"

„And you'll give that all to me… to Old Germany."

„Yes," I whisper, „yes Sir."

„From now on… you're not Ludwig anymore, you are New Germany."

...and I was.

There is one thing I know for sure: how to control myself in front of my brother, my commander. Gil gives me an envelope at our meeting, sealed with a familiar signet. My eyes set upon the mark and everything clears up like the sky after the rain: the emperor's ring. I tear apart the paraffin seal and gulp a few times. I'm a fast reader; I'll go through the order in seconds. One time is enough. Looks like I'm going into battle. I rebuke myself for my stupid remark instantly. I am a soldier damn it! I ought to go to battle! But none of my commander's orders is a regular order. Nine out of ten are suicidal ones.

I have got the feeling that this one isn't different.

My face remains blank, drained of all emotions. After I memorize the order, I destroy the piece of silky paper in a camp fire. We are forbidden to lay camp fires, enemy's eyes are everywhere. Fuck them. The freezing cold is far worse than a few lazy Italians. The paper burns with a crisping sound.

There will be no sleep tonight. I take my rifle and my horse, and I ride off into the dark.

To be continued...

Bavaria

Author's notes: I'd like to thank Schauspielerinnen for beta-ing; for she had to lead her own battle against my spelling and grammar flaws, and some syntax or semantic-related nonsense I invent when I've got nothing better to do. Thank you :p