Title: Fairytale
Author: AkaYuki2106
Rating: T
Characters/Pairings: Austria/Hungary, Prussia and Italy are involved to an extent, Grandpa Rome is mentioned.
Summary: 'Come with me, I'll be your fairytale princess and you can be my prince who always needs saving.' A review of Hungary's past and what lead up to her marriage with Austria.
Soundtrack: Various songs by Brooke Fraser and 'River Flows in You' by Yiruma
Warnings: Probably at least one historical error, and an attempt to consolidate at least 1000 years of history into roughly 3000 words.
Info: Fic for Austria & Hungary's anniversary. Not what I'd planned it to be.
[Important Notes: research was done via Wikipedia, which is probably not the most reliable but certainly the easiest source. Therefore I claim no responsibility for any errors or offence caused, and would like to point out that if you want an accurate account of Hungary's history here is not the place to get it. 2. The terminology is completely inaccurate and I realise that being historically accurate barely any of these would be kingdoms, but I changed a few things for the sake of the story. So no shouting at me. 3. In some places I sacrificed Hetalia canon for historical canon and vica versa if I couldn't find out what I needed to know, eg Hungary and Prussia's interactions.]
[Fun fact: I follow a bunch of Hetalia RP'ers on Twitter and it's fairytale day there XD]
Theirs is not a typical fairytale story. In a typical fairytale the princess is princess-like and gets kidnapped by the evil witch, and the prince saves her and they get married and live happily ever after. In their story, the princess acts like the prince they have lost, and she lived with the prince before they even thought of marriage and it is he who is kidnapped and she who saves him and the kidnapper is not a witch but an old friend.
She cannot remember her birth. But she can remember her childhood and what it was like to know. She knows that her parents are king and queen of their kingdom and that she is the princess, but she represents it too. It is she who falls ill when they hit hard times, she who cries out in pain as their people suffer, she who will fight for their land and she who will serve when they are defeated and she who will marry when an alliance with another kingdom is needed. And she knows that if she has a child that child will take on the burden of representing their kingdom and mortality will befall her and she will die.
She can remember her childhood, a free lifetime. She remembers her wild roots and how it feels to always need to move, searching for her home as she roams its halls. She remembers a young-found newly discovered faith which her parents let slide when their people follow her. She remembers power and the way it feels to battle. She remembers attacks from all sides and seeing frenzied eyes and knowing they were just like her.
She remembers the first time she bled for her people. She remembers being unable to move as forces sweep through her kingdom and she remembers her people's struggle and tears pricking at eyes. She remembers success and the taste of freedom once again. She remembers training and strengthening herself and promising that she would never feel that way again. She remembers the taste of blood and the feel of the battlefield and the joy that this time she helped keep her people free.
She remembers watching their power grow and their lands spread and she remembers the way it feels to have another prince serve her, if only for a little while. She remembers conquests. She remembers seeing her neighbouring prince for the first time and wondering at his youth. So young and yet, the prince of the kingdom who rules at their side in already in pain, and it is caused by her. Just for a second she feels a flash of pity but the glory of battle overtakes her and she throws her head back and laughs at victory and wonders where her brother is. It is only when she is in her room that she allows herself to marvel at his pale skin, unblemished and unwounded, and the violet eyes that shone despite being hurt and the minute details you notice when you are attracted to someone, such as the way his eyelashes cast shadows when they danced hesitatingly on his skin before he raised his head to her. And she remembers turning over in bed and thinking instead of their next conquest and where is her brother and hopes upon hope that she will not see him again, for even for her there is no denying what she feels.
She remembers soon after their first meeting all thoughts of the violet-eyed boy are pushed out of her head as her old enemies come back to attack their lands once again. This time they have fallen from their pedestal and when the armies come they are swept away. Their struggle comes to nothing and she is hauled off to another's house for the first time. There she is docile and hangs her head and does as she is told and dreams of freedom. For many long years she serves under his reign and hates the proud man who tells her who she must be. She remembers news of the wars waged by her neighbour (Roderich she hears is his name and his kingdom is called Österreich) and seeing her 'master' leave to fight wars and coming back defeated and the secret feeling of victory through another. She remembers waging her own wars and the small rebellions she held against him in private and how in the end she was always defeated. Long years later the wars end and she remembers how it feels to be liberated from the masked man, only to be thrown into the arms of another leader. It is her neighbour again and she is indebted to him for her freedom but it is lost once again, her wild spirit conquered by someone else.
It is here where her fairytale story begins. It begins with the rising sun as she lies in bed and contemplates her past and wonders again where her brother is, if he still lives or if mortality has claimed him. For they, the origins, the starting places of all these kingdoms, were all born one spirit in two bodies, a male and a female. And while the male fought and built and conquered, the female sat at home and married and kept their past alive. All their neighbouring kingdoms had king and queen and prince and princess except for theirs. For when she was young, when their kingdom was just beginning, her brother left and disappeared and she was left to be both prince and princess. And she fought when she was allowed to or needed and stayed at home and prayed when she wasn't. And as she rises and begins her day's work she desperately pleads for her brother never to return.
She is not alone serving in his house. Under his rule lie many other kingdoms, some that she has met and fought before, others she has never seen. One of these is a small boy who declares himself the prince of a kingdom called Italia. He is neither a warrior nor a servant but an artist, and while they work they discuss the Renaissance and her kingdom's heritage. He explains that he is not an origin, but rather the third generation, and as such he does not have a female counterpart, as even her violet-eyed master does. Instead, he and his brother represent the two halves of the kingdom. His brother still serves under the prince of the Kingdom of España, while he, the younger, serves now with her. She tells him stories of her past and talks about how her parents must have known his grandfather, the 'prince' of the empire of Rome.
All the while she deals with the forbidden attraction to the man who calls himself her master. He is not cruel to her and he talks to her willingly and thanks her for her help. And yet, her people will not allow her to love like she does. In the early days they rebelled often and she was forced unwillingly into her own rebellions against him, which were all put down, gently by him, roughly by his people. After that a peace is found between the two, with his recognition that he cannot control her absolutely and instead must bow, when he rules her, to her rules. She still serves under him and her lands are still his, but he becomes prince in name to rule her. And she falls more and more in love and grows closer and closer and yet there is a wall between them, the wall of her pride. She is still in her heart the wild nomadic princess of her younger years and her people remember in tales the stories of their past and the power they once held and she cannot belong to him in heart. So she loves him secretly and knows him well and they become equals in their own way, her ways tempered by his and his opened by hers. And in name she is nothing more than the princess still of a land of which he is prince.
And then their story turns to atypical fairytale. For while he may be the prince of his lands, and his parents (long passed like hers, mortality took them when she first breathed) may once have been the king and queen there is another king and another queen and another family. These are mortals and can never live, like them, unchecked until a child of their own is born, but instead must suffer the short years. Unlike them, this family is changeable and wars have been fought by them over who is to rule next. When her old friend comes into play, it is over such a thing that they are finally divided. He calls himself the prince of Preußen and they have fought with each other many times and fought against each other just as many, and their relationship is halfway between emnity and friendship. She has not seen him for many a year and when they meet again he is fighting against the man who holds her heart. For the king of her violet-eyed love's lands had died and his daughter has taken his place. The peace between her people and his remains, and she has no choice but to accept it. However other kingdoms see his queen as weak and they take the opportunity to claim his lands for their own. One of these is this prince of Preußen and when they meet he greets her with cordiality. She refuses him, tells him she is not who he once knew and when he expresses regret she tells him that she is not the prince of her land. And when he makes his claim on her love's southern parts she knows she must make her decision. The prince of Preußen offers his protection to her love, to guard him against the other kingdoms that desire his land. When he refuses the result is immediate. He does not just take her master's southern lands. He takes her master himself.
She makes her decision. But when his queen comes to her begging for help and her rulers refuse her she has no choice. Pride, and the desire to be free again ensnare her and she turns away. But when his queen begs her again and again she feels her resolve crumble. And when the queen pulls her away and whispers to her that only she can save him she feels her will break. And when the queen looks her in the eyes and says she knows how she feels and that she is not alone she is broken. She returns to her rulers. She argues with them. And when the queen begs her once again her answer is ready before the question.
There is much discussion after that. Discussion over where he is and how to save him and eventually she snaps. She tells them the truth. She knows where he will be. She knows how to save him. And she knows only she can do it. They do not wish to let her fight and she fears that his queen will agree with them and yet to her surprise it is her who is her only ally. And eventually, too long she fears, she leaves to find her heart. And while war rages on his southern front and her violet-eyed love bites his lips in pain in his tower she walks calmly through the roads of her memories. When they were children, and her brother still fought and she believed she was truly a boy as well (her people then were more tolerant of female fighters and though she kept her beliefs to herself she met no resistance) she met, on the roads of her kingdom, another prince, young, a fighter, who knew no other life. Their contests were friendly and while he was constantly away fighting, a friendship grew between them. There was a tower, on the corner of her lands which was claimed by no kingdom, as old as it was, and he claimed that this was his home. She contested this, and he said that his people didn't claim it, but that he was nomadic like her roots and he used it as his home. She relented and he lived there when he was with her. And that tower was the root of their memories, the base of their dreams and the home of their friendship. And she is unsurprised, as she makes her way there now, to see him standing in the road.
She greets him by name, and he replies likewise. She tells him why she is here. He takes out his sword. He tells her that her heart's southern lands are his, that it was agreed long before that they belong to him. She tells him that she does not care and that all she wants is her love. He says he will fight before he gives him back. She agrees. She does not want to fight him, but her decision has been made. She cannot control the wiles of her heart and an old friendship long abandoned by both pales in comparison to a fresh love still wild and untamed. The fight is long and both are well matched and she relishes in the fact that she has not weakened in years of servitude and that her childhood strength is still within her. And when he kneels before her, defeated, he says that he has missed her. She bends down to face him and replies likewise, but says that her heart belongs to someone else now. He moves aside. He begins to walk home. And he turns around to look at her and tells her not to grow weak. And she promises she never will.
The tower's door has long been sealed, and there is no entry from outside (obviously he lives in his own kingdom now) and so instead she scales the wall, strength proving her ally despite the exhaustion of battle. And when she reaches the top and tumbles into the window (grace, she had none of) her love looks up at her in surprise. And she smiles at him through the pain and blood and dirt and tells him that she has come to save him. And when he stumbles across the room she supports him and they sit together in the growing dusk. And finally he comes out with the words promised to her by his queen and, stumbling over words never spoken before, they break their last wall.
The next morning she kicks the door down from inside and, carrying him on her back, she brings him home. He is too weak now to continue the fight and the land is relinquished, and she can see in the back of her mind the smile on her old friend's face and she promises to herself to forget him. And they are in love.
Of course, he is still rankled by the thought of his lands under another's control and he and his queen together wage war again to take back control of the lands lost. And although she helps him and fights by his side, her bravery proven by her saving of him, he loses again and once again, until finally he recognises that the land is no longer his own and it passes over to another's kingdom. They live then in comparative peace, but her people grow poorer and she falls more ill, and he looks at her with worried eyes. Their relationship, both as prince and princess and people, continues if only in secret and she feels the truth, that they belong together, but fears the future. And despite various attempts by his rulers she still does not get any better, until war sweeps across the kingdoms. Then she becomes well again and her people are needed and she feels her strength grow, and the first seeds of revolution are planted into her mind. But when war ends, and the prince of the kingdom of France's ruler is defeated she falls into illness once again.
And it is in this illness that the idea of revolution takes over her mind and that of her people's. They speak of becoming a new land, their own, of freedom and better economy and the regaining of what had been lost for so long. And finally she appeals to her violet-eyed love and he agrees. And for a short while, she becomes princess of her own kingdom once again. But all too soon her love makes a compromise with the prince of a northern kingdom and she is crushed and brought back to his home. For a while she hates him, despite the love that had once filled her heart, and she despises him in not letting her be free. But he weathers her anger and explains his position, and she begins to warm to him again.
Her people, like her, are split. A part of them, and a part of her still wishes for freedom and complete independence, still dreams of the power they once had. Another part of them, and of her, would allow an agreement of belonging between the two, provided her kingdom and she retains some of their freedom. He has been weakened and lost land to other countries once again. The prince of Preußen has defeated him in battle, and her young friend, the prince of Italia has left their home and reunited with his brother, and he admits, with some embarrassment, that he requires her strength. And in private he tells her that he missed her being with him, and that he realises now that she could never be his servant. That, despite her longs years of servitude, she is his equal, not subservient to him. That he loves her as his wife. And so she agrees.
And finally, on the 8th of June, nearly 400 years after their first meeting, with midsummer approaching and the days growing long, she and her love are married in name, spirit, and heart. And she promises to herself that no matter her suffering, no matter how long or short their marriage is and no matter how much their people may hate each other, she, Elizaveta, the princess of Magyarország, would never stop loving him, Roderich, the prince of Österreich.
That...was not how I'd planned it to be. It was supposed to be very different. I would just like to point out that I came up with this idea during a maths exam, and have been planning it for two days since then, and wrote and researched the entire thing today. I would also like to point out that all my research is from Wikipedia, that I know almost nothing about Hungary, or indeed Austria-Hungary, and that if I have anything wrong I offer my sincerest apologies. I will also say that I'm going to leave this as ongoing because there's a strong chance I will post a second chapter covering post Austro-Hungarian Compromise Hungary. And I will also beg that if you have any questions, comments, critiques or suggestions, please leave a review.