March 1980
Spain was happy, so happy.
The meeting had only begun and he had already spent ten minutes daydreaming about dancing around his kitchen with Lovi, a flower tucked behind the older Italy's ear, while tomatoes simmered on the stove. He didn't worry that someone might notice he was staring at the same spot on the wall he was staring at ten minutes ago. No one ever cared if he paid attention. He was not a big player on the world stage, not anymore.
He didn't miss it.
Poland, due to an unfortunate incident involving his chair and Russia, was sitting next to him. He was reading a newspaper, the world section, it looked, surprisingly. Spain knew this not because he could read Polish (he couldn't- probably only Lithuania and Germany could), but because he saw a name in small print, down at the bottom of the front page.
Kolumbia.
His good humor vanished as panic surged through him. Nothing good ever came from one of his children making the news.
He poked Poland.
"Wha-at?" the other country complained, smacking his gum in annoyance.
"What does that say?" Spain asked, pointing at the article.
"Hm? Oh, Colombia's, like, totally at war again."
"Colombia?"
"Yep. With Ecuador. They're, like, two of these, um, South American countries. They never come to meetings." Poland blew a huge, pink bubble and popped it, earning a disgruntled glare from Germany. Poland rolled his eyes. "I've, like, never met either of them. Have you?"
"Have I?" Spain repeated, confused.
Poland blew a stray hair out of his face and blinked at him with his heavily lidded eyes. His eye shadow was subtle, just a shade darker than his skin. What would Lovi~ (Spain paused to sigh) look like with eye shadow? Cuter than Poland, certainly.
"That's, like, what I said, isn't it?"
Spain stared at him, smiling in disbelief. He didn't expect the younger countries to remember but Poland? Poland was old, as old as Spain, but he had forgotten, just like everyone else.
ØØØ
The first thing Spain always thought of when he stopped to think about Colombia was her mothers.
Tairona and Muisca had been sisters. Tairona, the elder, was a talented goldsmith. Spain fell in love with her caciques before he fell in love with her. Muisca was colder, more intelligent and complex, and rich with emeralds, copper, coal, salt, and best of all, gold.
He still had some of their goldwork in his museums. The rest was long since melted down or demanded back by their daughter. Spain never did discover which one had been her mother. After Muisca's last boss was killed, Tairona waited forty-eight years to revolt. Spain's boss had her villages burned and her people forcibly removed from their homes.
Tairona took Colombia, whom she called Kogi, and ran.
Ecuador was one of his adopted children, a little boy that he found outside of Quito, a thin, strange, fiercely independent child. He didn't claim to be Inca Empire's son but Spain would never believe otherwise.
He was dying when Spain first met him and, yet, all Spain could remember of that first meeting was how strong he was. Inca Empire was a short, compact man with legs that could run for miles. His cities were high up in mountains the likes of which Spain had never seen, his cities made of stone without mortar, and his gold of a quality that still haunted Spain's dreams. Spain had wondered at the time whether his boss had been wrong in conquering him. He was young, Inca Empire, but he had accomplished more in his short time than Spain had when he was that age.
Ecuador looked just like him. He punched just like him, too.
Ecuador was independent for ten years- a mere moment in the eyes of a nation- before he joined with Colombia, Panama, and Venezuela to form the Republic of Gran Colombia. Spain had never known young nations to survive an alliance like that. He waited for three children he barely knew to die.
Instead, Ecuador, ever independent, broke away and became his own country. Spain breathed a sigh of relief and went to meet these new children, Panama and Venezuela, who had cropped up out of nothing.
Panama was more Spain than the others, a child born out of Spain's own people and slaves from Africa. She was dark and beautiful, with skin the color of the earth and hair as black as ink. Venezuela came from the first permanent colony Spain created in South America. She was a scrappy little thing and gave him trouble he could have lived without. All of Spain's children did.
That was only the northern part of South America. There were more: Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Belize, Peru, Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, the list went on and on. He had known the mothers and fathers of some; others he had simply found or forced into creation.
They grew fast and they grew wild. Spain's children turned on him as soon as they were old enough to want independence. They were young, they were poor, and no one paid much attention to them, except America.
The other countries complained about America, how loud he was, how forgetful, how geographically challenged. Yet, not one of them could name three of Spain's children. Spain knew for a fact America could: Guam, Puerto Rico, and Philippines. He knew because he had sold them to him.
He was falling apart then, his empire breaking apart until each of his children became their own nation at too young an age, in a world too harsh for them. America was on the cusp of his rise to glory. Spain was on the way out.
America won and the only children Spain still had contact with slipped through his fingers.
He was cruel then, violent, bloody, lusty for gold and women and glory.
They didn't talk to him now, his children, except Mexico. She hated him, still, for what he had done to her mother, the Aztec Empire.
Now there was a cruel woman. Spain had met his match in her. She was so close to driving him back when the epidemics hit. He planted his seed in her when she was weak with fever and they created Mexico together. She faded soon after, leaving him with the first daughter he raised by himself.
If he tried, he could still remember Aztec Empire: harsh, dressed in a huipil and cuēitl, a crown of quetzal feathers and gold adorning her head, her nose curved, and her lips sneering at him. She had liked him at first, before her people started dying in the millions.
The Nations didn't talk about how they conquered others. Word got around the bigger you got. Everyone knew how Russia had taken over Northern Europe. But North and South America? Spain had never really sat down with America and asked. All he knew was that the older Nations were gone in North America. Illinois and Ojibwa might still be alive and in hiding somewhere but Navajo, Cherokee, Choctaw, Sioux, Iroquois, and Apache had all joined America and faded away. All beautiful women, Spain had known them back when he owned half of America's land.
He liked to think America had been as bad as he was, had done the same terrible things he had done. Somehow, he doubted The Hero had.
Some of the Old Nations were still alive in the South. Like Prussia, they hadn't faded when their countries ceased to exist. Those Old Nations still nurtured their hatred for Spain. They still taught his sons and daughters to hate him.
There was a reason he hadn't been back since 1898.
ØØØ
He smiled at Romano, who glared at him before going back to glaring daggers at Germany as he talked at length about nuclear energy. Germany hated nuclear energy with a passion. Next to him, Italy was hunched over a napkin, pen in hand, fully absorbed in his art. They made such a wonderful contrast. So lindo! Aw, how Spain had always loved them.
They gave him hope that his children would be strong enough one day to come to these meetings. They were young, so, so young, but they could be strong. If Italy could be strong, they could be strong. Maybe America could help them. He had helped in that part of the world before, in Haiti, in Cuba, even though Cuba wasn't his biggest fan.
Spain was never sure where he stood with Cuba himself, who was alternately strange and terrifying. In recent times, Cuba had sided with Russia during Russia and America's war. His people didn't want to be communist and too many wanted to leave for Cuba's liking. Some went to America; some tried to come to Spain. Cuba cursed at them both. So Spain gave him money. He was happy to give his son what he could.
La Siempre Fidelísima Isla, one of Spain's bosses named him. Cuba was faithful even after his brothers and sisters left. He was Spain's best behaved child. He would have stayed with Spain forever if Spain hadn't tried to sell him to America. Spain apologized to him when he did it, telling him how poor he had become and how good America would be to him.
America was never good to him.
"Poland," Spain asked quietly, "did you ever have any colonies?"
The pretty nation raised a finely-plucked eyebrow. "No. Duh."
"Oh."
"But, I did, like have New Courland and Gambia for a while. Colonies are, like, way hard work, you know?"
"Yeah."
Germany called a fifteen minute break at that very moment. Poland folded his newspaper under his arm before standing to leave, giving Germany a look that could not be healthy.
"¡Oiga!" Spain called to him. Poland turned, one hand on his hip.
"Like, yah?"
"May I borrow that newspaper?"
It might be time to start talking to his children again.
-The Tairona and Muisca cultures were the two most complex cultures in present-day Colombia before the Spanish conquest. The Tairona are admired today for their gold work and the Muisca for their political structure. Los Kuigos is the name the Tairona's descendants call themselves.
-The Inca Empire was almost completely decimated by smallpox before the Spanish ever tried to conquer them.
-Ecuador was the first Spanish colony to declare independence on May 24, 1822. It joined the Republic of Gran Columbia but declared independence again in 1830.
-Following the Spanish-American War, Spain and the U.S. signed the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1899, which ceded the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, and other Spanish territories to America in exchange for $20 million. Spain relinquished sovereignty of Cuba but President Roosevelt, who succeeded McKinley, who was president when the treaty was signed, didn't follow through (this was a bit of a trend).