The Goliath Beetle and I were bored and decided to take on 50 sentence challenges together. We each did one with the German bros and one with France and Canada (to be uploaded in a few days). I wrote set Alpha with Germany and Prussia and set Beta with France and Canada, while she did Beta with the Germans and Alpha with the Francophones. Go check hers out, too!
There is a gradual progression through history in these sentences, beginning with the rebirth of the Holy Roman Empire as Germany (yes, I subscribe to the HRE=Germany theory… who doesn't anymore?) and ending in contemporary-ish times (I'm thinking early 2000s, probably).
Two brothers, 1961
On a road ninety miles too long
Someone don't want us together but
We just keep on walking cause we're one, oh
I got a voice and you got a reason
For the glory we sing our broken song
Take a side and I'll take the other one
Two brothers under one nation.
"1961," The Fray
Comfort
He's got this crying little kid in his arms and no idea what to do about it, how to make him be quiet, how to make him stop crying, how to make him smile.
Kiss
Prussia's not sure what to do the first time his little brother kisses him goodnight.
Soft
His big brother's hair is so soft that he can't stop touching it, much to Prussia's dismay and Hungary's amusement.
Pain
When Germany falls and bloodies up his knee, Prussia tells him to suck it up and winds up trying desperately to take it back when his gruff tone only makes his brother cry more.
Potatoes
"Those two eat disgusting amounts of potatoes," Hungary mutters one night to Austria after Germany has fallen asleep on top of a half-awake Prussia on the living room armchair after dinner.
Rain
Germany wants to go out to play in the rain, but by the time his brother has finished dressing him in five different layers of clothing, he's not so sure about jumping in puddles anymore.
Chocolate
Prussia sometimes leaves little squares strewn throughout the house, right where he knows his brother will find them.
Happiness
He really doesn't know the first thing about taking care of a little kid, but as long as they're both happy, he can't be doing that bad of a job.
Telephone
When Germany asks if Prussia just said he loved him, Prussia just turns a little red and laughs and says his brother must have misheard, and they'd better get back to their morning training.
Ears
"Your left earlobe looks just like mine," Prussia says one day while they joust, prompting Germany to make a face and tell him to focus.
Name
Germany asks Prussia one day why he goes by Gilbert when they're among their people, to which Prussia responds that it's because it means "awesome," of course.
Sensual
Germany would never tell anyone, but his brother gives the best hugs.
Death
Prussia's not afraid of death—his death, anyway.
Sex
Prussia giving Germany "the talk" is quite the spectacle; Hungary swears to take every chance she gets to tell the story at the next hundred world meetings, including a full tally of every time Prussia used the highly technical term "thingy."
Touch
Prussia's a little sad when Germany starts refusing to hold his hand during their daily walk around the grounds of their home.
Weakness
Love is not a weakness, but try telling that to Prussia when he thinks about how Holy Roman Empire died.
Tears
Germany used to be able to go to his brother when he cried; now he just locks his bedroom door and piles up all his furniture behind it for good measure.
Speed
Before Prussia knows it, Germany can (almost) beat him in a footrace.
Wind
"It's all going to change soon," Germany says to Prussia as they watch King Wilhelm appoint Bismarck Minister President on a chilly September morning.
Freedom
If freedom is the ability to do the right thing, Prussia thinks as 1871 dawns, he's finally free.
Life
Prussia has to struggle not to hug his little brother right there in front of God and the new Emperor and everybody, before the unification ceremony has even started.
Jealousy
As much as he hates them, and no matter how hard he tries to push them away, insidious thoughts keep creeping into Germany's head demanding why his brother has to be the leader of the empire.
Hands
Germany's tremble a little when he hears about the assassination of Ferdinand.
Taste
And then only months pass before he and Prussia are sucked into the quagmire and every breath they take tastes of chlorine and dirt and soggy cigarettes.
Devotion
Even though Prussia insists that he can handle Russia on his own, Germany still insists on sending at least some of his troops east to help.
Forever
Germany knows he won't be hungry forever, but the thin bones peeking out beneath his neck on Christmas 1916 certainly make his fasting seem eternal.
Blood
Prussia starts getting nosebleeds after the Treaty of Versailles.
Sickness
"You are not going to die, Prussia," Germany says (through his teeth) while trying to force his half-conscious brother to take his medicine during the latest wave of influenza.
Melody
They can't piece together all the terrible things happening to them, to their people—the disease, the famine, the fear—into anything more coherent than a nonsensical chaos.
Star
They want the pain to stop so badly that they'll follow anyone, even this slowly darkening rising star.
Home
And yet Prussia knows there might be more ways to protect their home that Germany hasn't seen in his desperation, and so he finds himself torn.
Confusion
Germany doesn't know what to say as nation after nation surrenders to him: how can something that he knows has to be so right feel so wrong?
Fear
After the Battle of the Bulge, Prussia realizes he's afraid, and not for himself but for his brother.
Lightning/Thunder
Germany does nothing but stare at the sky, not moving, not breathing, as Dresden burns with the fury of war.
Bonds
It's not enough for them to kill his brother on paper; they have to take him away and give him a new name, East Germany, too.
Market
As he struggles out of the economic black hole the war has forced him into, Germany only wishes his brother could be with him, watching him be as strong as he'd always taught him to be.
Technology
He thinks sometimes of talking to his older brother on the phone, but he always stops short of responding to Prussia's "Hello?"
Gift
Prussia rolls his eyes with a small smile when West manages to send him a birthday present—some thick book that he'll never read, not in a million years—because it's just so like his baby brother.
Smile
Prussia actually smiles at his younger brother at a UN meeting in the early 1980s.
Innocence
That half-smirk, half-smile that he's known ever since he was a child buoys Germany's heart higher than the towering wall tearing his heart in two.
Completion
Germany will never forget the night of November 9, 1989 and the warmth of his brother's arms encircling him in the frigid autumn air—in front of God and their united people and everybody.
Clouds
It's still not over—they haven't been formally reunited yet—but Germany's counting down the days until the clouds of the Cold War begin to part.
Sky
And then they do, and the morning of October 3, 1990 dawns sunny and clear.
Heaven
"I knew you'd wait for me whether I wanted you to or not," Prussia says off-handedly a few days later, and Germany knows they're two brothers in one nation again.
Hell
Still, Germany comes to discover, reunification isn't all sunny skies and happy house-sharing with his brother: it seems the stronger he gets, the weaker Prussia becomes.
Sun
If reunification is the sunny affair Germany initially believed it to be, Prussia is quickly being blinded by the sun.
Moon
Some nights, Germany finds himself sitting outside his brother's bedroom door, just as Prussia used to sit outside his when little Germany had shut him out.
Waves
There's a rumbling and a roiling in the depths of their hearts: this isn't working, and yet it simply has to.
Hair
Germany barges into Prussia's room one night and apologizes out of the blue, though he doesn't know quite what he's sorry for, and Prussia first laughs, then sighs and musses up Germany's hair, and then finally asks if they can at least keep the Ost-Ampelmännchen, to which Germany agrees (though he doesn't quite know what he's agreeing to).
Supernova
Their reunification turns out to be more of a twinkle than a supernova, but it's a bright star nonetheless, shining over them both.
Some historical notes/glossary:
Does anyone know where the inspiration for the left earlobe joke came from?
Otto von Bismarck was the architect of German unification in 1871. King Wilhelm I (later named German Emperor, or kaiser) appointed him Minister President shortly before unification.
I did some research on German resistance to Nazism, and one of the interesting things I found was that many active resisters came from the Prussian aristocracy (hence Prussia's other way described in "Home").
Prussia was officially dissolved by the Allies shortly after WWII (they "killed him on paper").
East Germans had a hard time after reunification in 1990. They felt ignored by the united government. They moreover had a difficult time adjusting to the new economy. Many of them felt "Ostalgie," or nostalgia for East Germany. Some parts of Germany, as a result, kept the "Ost-Ampelmännchen," the man on pedestrian signals in East Germany (you know, the little "stop" or "walk" guy). He's a beloved figure in the Eastern part of the country. Of course Prussia would want to keep him. ;)