Author Note:

Apologies for the long Author's note! The first chapter is below, but I want to say a few things first:

This may contain HISTORICALLY INACCURRATE FACTS, Headcanons, Potential OOC-Ness and OCs. If you are not okay with any of that, now is a good time to leave.

Also, if you spot any grammatical and/or spelling (disregarding the factor I do NOT use American grammar and spelling) please point them out. The same applies to translation errors as I only have the unreliable Google translate.

Translations used will appear here when I've used them:

Ilyushka = Diminutive for Ilya

Stasya = Diminutive for Nastasya

Siastra = Belarusian for Sister

Lyubov Moya = Russian for My Love

Ma Chérie = French for My Dear

Mademoiselle = French for Miss

Moi = French for Me

Bonjour = French for Hello

Tetushka = Russian for Auntie

~Liz

Time did not stop, but the change it usually caused seemed to have. The World was established, the ways of its people and the borders of its Nations more or less totally set.

But those who have lived long enough to remember a time when the World was constantly in motion, ever-changing and unpredictable, would be able to know that it is never truly still. And that history repeats itself.

The changes were smaller now, Cities, not Countries, grew and changed. But to some, this was a big part of their lives. To the Personifications of those Cities, for example. And for the Nations that came before them, who now watched history repeat. Those Nations, who had lost their parents and had to make it on their own, were now the parents and had to decide if they should sit back and see what their children made of themselves or if they should stand by their sides.

For the fiercely protective, clingy Representative of Belarus, that answer was obvious. She didn't remember her own mother, so she was going to make damn sure she was always there for her children. Even as they grew up, and they were growing up, more than she cared to admit.

Her eldest daughter, Moscow, was already an adult, well past the point at which her physical ageing at pretty much stopped altogether. Physically, she was about 19, the same age as her mother, and almost exactly like her, which could cause some confusion. Both women had long, platinum blonde hair, though Belarus's was longer, reaching down to around her waist while Moscow's rested in the middle of her back, and dark, indigo eyes, pale skin and, more often than not deadpan expressions.

Belarus was reminded of herself in many ways when she was around her daughter, and in some ways, it scared her. But her life had turned out so much better than she had expected it would, so she imagined her eldest would be okay. The Muscovite was already becoming self-sufficient, after all, and technically had her own house in her home City now, although she seemed in no worry to move out and was always making the journey to the City outskirts to hang around her childhood home.

With her siblings...The Belarusian conjured the image of her younger children up in her mind. Her middle child, and own Capital City, Minsk was roughly fourteen physically now, and it showed. She was, as her younger sibling would mercilessly taunt her by chanting, a 'moody teenager'. Belarus had hoped that her children, as Personifications, would skip the obnoxious puberty stage Humans went through. But Minsk's lilac eyes were either narrowed in unexplained rage, usually directed at her innocent father, Russia, or full of hormone-induced tears.

Cutting off that train of annoying thoughts, the mother moved on in her ponderings of her children. Well, at least the baby was alright, right?

But no, the 'baby' was not necessarily 'alright.' One problem with her young son, Saint Petersburg, was that he wasn't her little baby anymore, he was eight and getting too big to listen to her by default, which frustrated her. The second, much bigger problem was that her little boy had decided somewhere along the lines that he was a little Prince and had his sights set on World domination.

She didn't mind that so much...It was nothing her husband and Beloved Big Brother hadn't tried before, she had always supported him and besides, she encouraged ambition in her children. But she couldn't help wondering if just perhaps...She spoilt him a little?

No, she was just being a loving parent, she reassured herself. Ilya would grow up to be a wonderful young man, of course he would, when he was so much like his father, with his violet eyes and ever-present grin. Nastasya, her oldest child, was already a capable young woman who, despite her stoic attitude, was both beautiful and hard-working, often helping her father carry out his duties as a Nation. She was, even now, away on a business trip on his behalf, representing him as his Capital at a meeting in France.

And Minsk...Well, stubborn young Inna refused to be similarly helpful as a Capital, didn't get along with her father at all, a trait Belarus had hoped she would eventually grow out of, and was just generally difficult to deal with a lot of the time. But she loved her little Capital no matter what. Natalya Rusovna Braginskaya, Belarus Personified, had vowed from a very young age to always love and defend her Precious family, be it her Beloved siblings Russia and Ukraine, or her Dear children. Because she had struggled through a hard life and her family were the few who had loved and supported her, fully understanding.

She had kept to that vow for years, decades, centuries, possibly even millennia, though she had lost track of the time now. And it had helped her achieve her dream, of being in a Union State and marriage with her Big Brother Ivan, of having her babies with him, and surviving her where her own parents had not. So she would keep it still, and support her children, even as they began to slowly turn into adults, no matter what challenges misadventures they might throw in her face along the course of their progress on their path to adulthood.

Natalya smiled slightly to herself and rose up off her bed where she had been sitting, wrapped deep in these special thoughts, for a while now. It was oddly silent downstairs now, and so she decided it was up to her to go and check one such misadventure hadn't occurred. And deal with it accordingly if it had. She may well have to separate an angry Minsk from her smug, tormenting little brother again. And no doubt scold the childishly warring siblings yet again.

But she would always love them, no matter what misadventures were to come from the young Cities.