Sage and the Five Cats

by Kinoink

Sage lives like a normal college student, alone and in solitude, working at an art college in London. However, her lonely life gets turned upside down when she finds a box in the alley after hours of her work day.

Hetalia Fan Fiction

Summary: Sage attends a wonderful art school in London, England she lives in the dorms by herself, working a part time job in between. Coming home alone isn't enjoyable, until one day after work she comes upon a box filled with five cats.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Hetalia or the characters, if I did there would be a huge boatload of shipping and yaoi going on. The girl Sage though is an extension of me, no like, hit the red x button and please leave me to my business.

Sage and the Five Nordic Cats

By: Angel Ayami

Chapter 1: Worker Blues and Mews

A painting could be something of beauty, despair, or something symbolic, it is supposed to reveal what's in an artist's heart. In Sage Burwell's case she felt like she was trapped in this box that she couldn't get out of to reveal her true aesthetic. Her crystal blue eyes were lying slightly unfocused as she glanced at the beautiful image of a landscape that they as a class were to make out of chalk pastels. Sage had been in this school for almost two years and she was almost regretting it, she knew nothing of these kinds of things of pastels and landscapes…it felt too old school. Her fair skin was covered in different kinds of smudges and she was tapping a piece of yellow pastel chalk on a paper towel with her muddy colored fingers. Silently she glanced to the clock, it was going at a snail's pace and it was hesitating on those last five minutes. With a small breath she looked back at the photograph and started to rub some of the yellow pastel into the right spots on the picture, frowning. Last time she was unproductive she got a shock as a ruler slapped onto her desk and a lecture afterwards, so instead of enduring that type of punishment that would cut into her part time job time she just had her music going and went to scribbling small yellow dots.

Those five minutes that moved at such a snails pace were soon up and she picked up her black canvas messenger bag and stuffed her school things into it, not really caring about the muddy blends of chalk getting all over, it would wash out eventually. She boxed up her pastels and placed them in her bag too since she had to pick out something to make a project in pastels over by next week. So without much of a word to anyone she silently picked up her bag and walked out of the room. Sage had exited the school and went out to the parking lot nearest to the doors and pulled out the keys to a sleek black Volvo. The car had been a gift from her parents on her 20th birthday and it was a very wonderful car with heated seating and enough space with leather seats for an easy wash. She got into the car and set her bag down in her passenger side and put the keys in the ignition, looking over her shoulder as she backed out of the lot and drove off down to the busy London streets.

~o~o~

London was just like a city you would have always imagined, busy streets, triple decker busses and normal busses, cars going here and there, buildings that looked from old times, the view of Big Ben on the skyline. The place was actually very beautiful, despite it raining half the time and flooding the streets. Sage smiled a little bit as she took a breath pulling into the parking lot of a quaint little café sitting along the line of small shops with colorful parasols and seating for customers who wanted to eat and drink outdoors. She had been working at this café for over three years now before and after she began to go to the art college, she would go to school, then off to work, and go back home to the dorms to do school work in a never ending cycle so it seemed.

"Sage, good afternoon love!" called a nice young girl with long brown haired greeted with a sweet smile from behind the counter as she handed a customer a cake after giving the change and came from behind her spot. "Oh dear, your filthy."

"Thank you Angela…but it's just because of the pastel chalks I was working with in class, so I'll be able to wash up in no time, it's okay." Sage smiled and rubbed the back of her neck, running her fingers through her blonde pixie cut hair. Angela had been her friend at this café since the beginning, they had gone into orientation and training together, Angela lived up to the first five letters in her name, she was like an angel sent from above because they worked together helping each other out with mistakes and fixing things up together, the perfect pair of friends.

"Okay love, go wash up and clock in, I'll there are customers that need to be waited on and I can't handle it all on my own."

"You got it Angel, I'll be back in a moment." Sage spoke as she slipped through to the back and began to wash off her hands and face. Angela, sweet as she was, was only here for work…not at home when the shift was over, then she would be by herself again. Shaking that thought out of her head though she put on a smile and picked up an apron hanging on the wall after cleaning up and tied it around her waist, pulling out a notepad and pencil before walking out from the back. She walked over to the nearest person and smiled at them, asking the typical question of the day after a greeting 'May I take your order today?'

Angela hummed to herself as the streetlamps came on along the street and she walked over to the front door, turning the open sign to 'closed' and stretched her arms over her head. It was 10 in the evening with the last customer finally trickled out. Their goods were sold out now and the coffee machines were turned off and the workers in the kitchen have long since left. "Mn…good they're all gone for the day." Angela hummed happily. "It was really packed today I was worried we couldn't handle it." She spoke then looked to Sage who was mopping up the floor of the leftover reminents of the rush. "Are you sure you can handle the rest of the cleaning up?"

"I'm sure, I'll be done in no time Angela, you head home and take a rest." Sage spoke with a soft smile as she was mopping out from under the table.

"Okay, don't forget to lock up when you leave, turn on the security lights, you know the drill." Angela smiled a little then waved as she left leaving Sage to clean.

The short haired blonde sighed and stretched her arms over her head, placing the mop into the dirty water bucket then took the bucket into the janitorial area and dumped the water down the drain. She felt a sore knot in her back and sighed rubbing it slowly before going back out to the front, pulling out today's garbage from the cans tying them into knots at the top before dragging the bags out the side door that led to an alley.

Rain had begun to pitter patter softly against the old cobblestone alley and she sighed looking up, pleased she at least had a car. She dragged the garbage bags and lifted up the lid to the dumpster and began to lift a bag into the bin and stopped…she heard a low mewl, muffled, yet it echoed. She shrugged a little then tossed the bag into the dumpster, jostling up a little bit of the garbage, but the mew started again, it was not one but multiple. She paused and looked around a little in the alley then picked up the last bag, putting it into the dumpster. There was a soft sloshy bump on the cobblestone alley as something moved; looking in the corner of her eyes she jumped when she saw a soggy box starting to move.

Sage looked at the soggy box and slowly walked over, picking it up into her arm, goodness sake it was heavy, she traced her fingers over the top, feeling holes at the top where the muffled meowing could be heard. Were they airholes? As she felt the box she could feel it was taped shut right down the middle to prevent any escape of anything and the bottom was nearly soaked through that she was surprised that the weight of whatever was inside didn't break through from the bottom. She thought about leaving it, but there was something inside meowing probably wet and scared, so quietly she walked into the café and placed the box in the back room. "Okay, it's nice and warm in here, wait here…okay? I'll be right back…whatever you are." She spoke to the box and walked out to the front to finish cleaning up.

The cleaning was finished in almost no time at all, scrubbing the sneeze guards free of smudges from the display case and the tables off, refilling the napkin holders and reorganizing some of the tables so they would look nice and cleaned up. Going behind the register she counted the change up and nodded seeing the correct amount of change needed to start the next morning. Sage went back to the back room and removed her apron and hung it back up, the thing in the box had quieted down and the box had been steadily warming up because the room was always set at a comfortable temperature. Curiously she tapped the top of the box and jumped back a little, she had seen a curious blue eye peering out from one of the air holes. There was definitely something in there. Taking a breath she picked up her bag to sling over her shoulder, pulling out her car keys before picking up the box.

As Sage left the building she reached over and flicked out the light of the café, but turned on the security lights before heading out the front door, turning and locking it up then went to the black Volvo that waited the return of its master.

The rain was still going and was tapping on the roof of Sage's car as she turned it on, the engine roaring into life then settled to a soft purr. She put the box in her passenger side and her school bag into the back. With a soft sigh she settled back, feeling the heat rise up from the seat then looked over at the box with a small glance. Sage took a breath again and reached back, pulling out a knife and cut away the tape carefully so whatever was inside wouldn't be hurt, the box skittered a little bit as she cut open the top but she pat the side, making small hushing noises then pulled back a flap of the box, reaching up and turning on an inner light of her car. At first she had seen nothing but shadow, but as she pulled open the box top more she stared in shock to see not one giant cat, but five all squished together in a huddle at the bottom, sopping wet…and all five pairs of different colored eyes stared right up at her.

To be continued…

~o~o~

Angel Ayami's Notes: As usual here come my notes at the end of every chapter. Okay for this fanfiction I wanted to base a lot of it of just the cat aspects of the nations being found by a regular person off the street. To be honest I only came up with this chapter in a few hours, leave a review if you would like to see more of it. I'd be more than happy to oblige to your needs. Also there's to be a surprise at the end and since this has no singular character pairing I'm giving you the opportunity to place a vote on in the end who the main one is and I'll put up the votes every chapter, so here's your choices;

Norway (Lukas):

Denmark (Mathias):

Iceland (Emil):

The reason why Sweden and Finland aren't there, to be honest I ship them together like I ship DenNor, but Sweden would have my ass if he had me put him or Finland up for voting. For now though, hope you had a good time reading and maybe we'll see each other again. Kisses~!