Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia. Otherwise, Gilbert and Elizabeth would have married and lived happily ever after.
The course of human history has rarely ever run smooth. Violence, plague and pestilence have wrought their marks upon the world, spurred on by natural disasters or manmade catastrophes. Men have warred with men for untold ages, for land, for wealth, for an ideology or for their very survival. Empire have risen to the pinnacle of the world and fallen into the Abyss in their turn; prey to time, hubris, war, decadence, revolution or their own foolhardiness.
The invincibility and immortality of a nation may last as short as a day – before being wiped off the face of the earth. In 476 AD, the Roman Empire fell from its seat as the greatest power the world had ever seen, plunging the Italian Peninsula into disunity and chaos for over a thousand years. In 1279 the Mongol Empire, ranging from the Sea of Japan to shores of the Danube River, began its cataclysmic descent from grace through infighting and the fragmentation of the world empire. In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated at Waterloo, marking the end of the glorious French Empire.
During the turmoil of the Seven Year's War and the Napoleonic Wars, the kingdom of Prussia, once a provincial backwater compared to the likes of Russia and France, had found its wings. Rising to new heights, it defeated some of the premier powers of Europe, upsetting the traditional balance of power of the Continent. Under Frederick the Great, Prussia became a military power unrivalled in the field until its defeat at the hands of Napoleon. Under Bismarck and Moltke the Elder, it would become the industrial and political leviathan of Continental Europe as the German Empire, its military prowess able to individually dominate the other Great Powers with ease. As time passed, however, even this mighty nation had to fall.
The blow was struck in 1918. The German Empire fell to revolution and ruin, its monarch abdicating and escaping to neutral Holland. Hand in hand, the royal Prussian eagle fell with the empire, the kingdom being ground to dust under the millstone of the Weimar Republic. Monarchists, conservatives and traditionalists wept for it whilst the rest of the country rejoiced. In a mansion on the outskirts of regal Potsdam, seat of the Hohenzollerns for centuries, one man was far too shaken – too plunged in his own despair – to weep.
His nation had fallen – what had happened to it? – his people, his children, in anarchy and starving. The Hohenzollerns no longer reigned. Chaos was everywhere. Gilbert couldn't think. Only the incessant questions; why and how; rang through his head. He had no answer to them. His mind was not working. He felt numb all over – too numb. He slowly rose from the chair at which he sat and attempted to walk to his kitchen to get a stiff drink. His feet did not respond to the whims of his mind and he tumbled forwards. Lying flat upon the floor, he could only hear his shallow breaths and the dull thud of his own heart. Beating, beating, its sound reminded him of the heavy march of a thousand booted feet. He knew the sound well – and it soothed him.
Slowly, he raised himself off the ground. The effort seemed beyond his grasped and he collapsed again. He lay there – how long he couldn't remember – unmoving. He might have been mistaken for a corpse, were the sound of his breathing inaudible: he lay so still. Minutes passed. He breathed. Once more he tried to raise himself from the floor. This time he succeeded, shakily and unsteady, but he was on his feet. As he did so, however, a wave of nausea consumed him. H swayed on his feet, his eyes clenched shut, trying to dispel the horrid feeling – to no avail. He staggered forward, desperate to reach the toilet. By luck or miracle he reached it, bracing himself against the toilet and emptied the contents of his stomach. The air was filled by the sound of his retching.
When he had finished, he felt weaker than he had in a long while. His entire body shook uncontrollably as he rose, moving to the sink. Washing out his mouth under a stream of frigid water, he gazed at himself in the mirror. Tired red eyes, ringed with dark shadows, gazed back at him in a face that seemed too old and worn to be his own. His white hair was also in a mess, limp and unkempt; his skin was pale, looking more akin to the white of his hair than its usual healthy tinge. In truth he felt as tired as he looked. All he wanted was to sleep – and perhaps never wake up again. He had nothing left – his country had fallen; his people were in turmoil; his king vanished – what had he left?
'I'm sure Old Fritz is turning in his grave right now,' he thought. The thought of how disappointed his favourite king might have felt at the situation helped clear his mind. He felt disgusted at himself; disgusted at the weakness of his mind, his body, and by extension, his country. He was mighty Prussia, not some pathetic weak little boy – he wasn't Russia for god's sake! He rose, straightening to his full height, a look of defiance fixing itself to his face. He had fought tooth and nail as a country to stay alive and rise as a great power – against France, against Austria, against Britain and against Russia. He had clawed his way past them all; through all the strife and turmoil, he had risen to his height. Prussia would not fall!
Yet it had. This thought rang in his mind once more, and his posture became less confident. Prussia had fallen. That much was fact. It was no longer a separate power in the Europe. It no longer controlled the empire. It was now nothing more a single province of Ludwig's Germany. Gilbert never resented his brother. On the contrary, he had never had cause to dislike Ludwig, having technically given birth to him by unifying Germany. Now however, Gilbert was filled with dread. As a province, Gilbert was now at Ludwig's mercy, just as so many other Germanic nations had been at his several decades ago. He had asked them to live as civilians in Germany, but otherwise, their status as nations had altogether ceased to exist. Gilbert wondered if Ludwig would do the same to him. He couldn't imagine dear Ludwig doing it to the man who virtually raised him as both a younger brother and an ersatz son, but Gilbert knew that, at the very least, his time has Prussia was now at an end.
That final thought caused him to howl with a fury that would have been more suited to Ivan. His fists smashed into the mirror, sending a rain of shattered fragments onto the cold floor. A pain shot through both his hands as he felt the jagged mirror-shards prick but not pierce them. The pain caused his anger to slowly disappear, leaving him with a hollow feeling in his chest. It wasn't fear, but it still chilled him to the bone. He shivered. He missed the old patriotic fervour that usually burned in his heart and gave him the boldness he needed to go forth and conquer. Without it, he felt frighteningly vulnerable. Looking about the house, he felt uneasy and unfamiliar.
It was no longer his home. He had to leave.
An hour later, Gilbert stood before what used to be his home, dressed in the finest old Prussian uniform – from the Seven Year's War – he had. Strapped to his left side was a finely polished and sharpened officer's sword; sitting proudly on his head, a handsome tricorne. He held a large bag in his right hand, filled to bursting with several sets of uniforms as well as oddments and mementos of better times; from manuscripts and letters from various old friends: Hegel, Goethe, Bismarck and Old Fritz; to trinkets and jewellery that had been gifted to him by the various nobles that had so favoured him. Two rolled-up flags – one for Prussia, one for the Empire – and a needle-gun from 1870 were the final things he had placed in the sack, poking out awkwardly of an opening in the bag. With these, he turned away from his mansion, preparing to begin his long journey southwards.
Behind him, his mansion looked empty and worn out as it stood, the curtains being drawn closed, while the sun began setting behind its battlements. Perhaps it was a reflection of himself. He felt more tired than he could remember ever being, but in true Prussian fashion, he never faltered in his soldierly march. He passed the Potsdam City Palace and the Nikolas Church within the hour, gazing at them with a pang of nostalgia – he had seen them built after all; seen them inhabited and visited by those kings and the people whom he loved best: the people of the Mark Brandenburg, the people of Prussia immemorial – his people.
Continuing his march, he saw a crowd amassed by a stone statue of Frederick William I of Prussia. Some were shouting slogans and calling for reforms by its pedestal; a larger number were trying to tear the monument down. Wrapped in cords and ropes, the larger-than-life statue was teetering on the brink of destruction, but – with typical Prussian spirit – stubbornly refused to fall over, returning to its position once the crowds began to lose steam. Gilbert smirked, perhaps for the first time since he had heard news of the end of the Great War.
'Good old Solder-King,' he thought with fond remembrance. The second King in Prussia had never been a favourite of his, but nonetheless, Gilbert liked him far more than the rest of his family, save the Great Elector, Frederick William; the first King in Prussia, Frederick I; and Old Fritz himself. 'Those were the good old days.'
However, by this time, more cords and lines had been wrapped around the statue. After several more minutes of bitter tugging and fierce teetering, the statue toppled to the ground. Stone fragments littered the floor as a ragged cheer came from the mob. Men began shouting again, trying to whip the crowd up into a frenzy. Gilbert looked on bitterly, before approaching one of the pieces of stone. Scooping it up with his free hand, he pocketed it quickly, before turning away. He heard a shout behind him and looked back. Several of the men had seen his uniform and were running towards him. All wore coats or hats emblazoned with a red star: symbols of the Spartacus League – only recently renamed the Communist Party of Germany.
Gilbert broke into a run, heading towards the centre of Potsdam. Shoving through the people who milled aimlessly hither and dither, he ducked into a side alley between a tailor's and a bakery. Breathing heavily, he stood perfectly still, waiting to see whether he had lost his pursuers. The approaching sound of booted feet stamping on to the cobbled street told him they were passing and he held his breath, closing his eyes in fear lest they find him. He heard shouting and confused voices right outside the alley. His free hand flew instinctively to his sword – he would not go down with a fight. After a few moments, he heard them, still shouting at one another, walk away.
Sighing with relief, Gilbert opened his eyes and cautiously peeked out of the ally to see if the coast was truly clear. The street was void of red stars. He knew the communists – or the socialists for that matter – certainly would ask some interesting questions if they caught him. After all, they had been the ones who started the November Revolution and brought down the empire. His fist shook with a rage that was nothing more than half-hearted. He unclenched his hand, letting it hang limply by his side as he approached the station. As he reached it, an exodus of soldiers from the front swept out of its doors. Some looked downcast; others were enraged; even more were laden with the horrors of the trenches: missing limbs and eyes, bandages and blood were to be found on most of them. Only two looked gleeful that the war had ended and as he passed, one spat at him in the face, berating him as an imperial relic and a threat to the liberal, democratic and socialist system.
Gilbert wiped his face with a handkerchief, a look of utmost disgust on his features. He wanted to lash out, to draw blood in traditional fashion, but a hollow fear stilled his hand. This was how people looked at Prussia, it seemed and it brought him to new levels of depression. Even in the very seat of the Hohenzollerns, Prussia was now a hated concept. He bought a train ticket to Berlin for several Papiermarks – there he would get a train out of the country. It was a dear price compared to several years ago: he probably could have bought a dozen tickets for about the same price in 1914, but he was too tired to care at the moment. The man at the counter looked at him with distain or suspicion; Gilbert couldn't tell which.
'Probably the uniform,' he thought as he took the ticket, 'at least I've still got a very full purse with me.' This last thought made him smile, if only very slightly.
Walking to the platform, he waited for the train to arrive. Judging by the clock that hung from the ceiling, the train was immensely late – by rights, he should been late, having missed it by a hair. He should have seen it disappear into the distance, but no: there was nothing; no fading sound of a speeding engine, no steam cloud showing where it had left. Suddenly he heard a uniformed man with a megaphone shouting, "the train to Berlin has been delayed by ten minutes. Please wait patiently if you are boarding that train." Gilbert sighed and waited, gazing about. The platform was, in truth, woefully empty. The few people who stood waiting were mostly dressed in rags; the sweeping dresses and top hats of the 1800s nowhere in sight. He felt more out of place than ever.
The steam locomotive finally pulled itself into the station, a billow of steam and the sound of slowing pistons filling the air. A rumpled-looking conductor flung open the doors to the carriages and Gilbert boarded. Finding an empty compartment, he sat down, placing his bag on the seat next to him and gazing out the window. Several minutes later, the doors were closed and the train, with a whistling of pipes and another burst of steam, began to laboriously head towards Berlin Main Station. Picking up speed, it rumbled past the various houses and sights, before leaving Potsdam entirely. Trees filled Gilbert's window as he gazed out of it, lost in thought.
The P8 locomotive arrived in Berlin under the hour and Gilbert disembarked. Brushing his coat off, he hurried to the ticket office to purchase another ticket. This time, the ticket officer refused to let him buy one. "We ain't sellin' to 'em nobility or royalty 'ere," he said imperiously. Gilbert blanched. The officer stood up and pointed to a sign that proclaimed, "By order of the peoples' committee, all members of the noble and imperialistic classes are forbidden to travel out of the country without a permit. No tickets are to be sold unless relevant papers, undersigned by the local party committee, have been presented to the relevant officials."
Gilbert eyed his impressively long moustache with a dazed fascination, choosing not to answer. "You got a permit?" the man asked with a superior gaze. The man tapped imperiously at the sign, before pointing to a red armband he wore on his left upper arm. "Spartacus League orders. If you ain't got membership, you ain't gettin' a permit. An' without a permit, you ain't gettin' on a train." Gilbert scowled, before simply turning away with soldierly about-turn and angrily marching away.
'Damn these revolutionaries,' he thought. He would get to his destination – permit or no permit. Of that he was determined.
He walked nonchalantly onto the platform and boarded the final carriage before the luggage car. When the locomotive began its journey, Gilbert quietly entered the luggage compartment and hid behind a particularly bulky mound of bags. Lying down on the floor, his bag at his feet, he tried to get comfortable. He rather wished to be back at home, sleeping in his bed, but home no longer existed for him. Finally, with that feeling of emptiness in his hear, Gilbert curled up and drifted into an uneasy sleep, as the train rattled and roared towards once lovely Silesia and the now German-Czechoslovakian border and beyond.
First Hetalia fic! Please enjoy and review!