Author's Notes: It has been a while since I have last written a fanfic for Hetalia, and it turns out to be an AU based off a Gothic romance novel, because I could not resist. I fear I might not have the same feel for the characters as before. Hopefully, it turns out fine. Please enjoy this short prologue for now.
Can anyone guess which novel inspired this?
Character Names: Erzsébet - Hungary; Julia Maria - fem!Prussia; Roderich - Austria
That night, as with every night since, Erzsébet dreamt of Edelweiss, a shade of its past splendor. Where once an inviting orange warmth beckoned from behind the glass, only the cold, shattered windows of dark, gutted rooms stared out at the snow-covered path. No smoke rose from the chimneys, only the memory of ash pressed into the back of her throat. Nobody lived there now, but her. There, she still reigned.
She left no footprints upon the snow, waist-deep, as light as a ghost, or a dream. There were no more doors to open.
A hole in the roof of the foyer let in the moon and the howling wind. Drifts of snow had piled up on the blackened floor without melting and a profusion of wildflowers, summer blooms, burst forth from the white. The proofs that they have lived there at all were long gone, lost to the garden's intrusion. The ever vigilant portraits that had borne witness to everything were nothing more than dark stains upon the walls.
She sat enthroned at the top of the grand staircase in a halo of frozen moonlight, Julia Maria, her husband's first. Her quicksilver hair pooled around her on the floor, twisted about the balustrades and up the great pillars to hang from the rafters. Her hair had always been everywhere: Twined in the teeth of her combs and brushes, still tucked into the corners that the maids have neglected to sweep, caught between the floorboards, strewn beneath the blankets, tangled in his fingers.
Erzsébet walked forward to the base of the staircase. It was only in this shadowy world where Julia Maria had substance, and she made no secret of her delight in that fact as she swooped down to meet her successor, wild hair uncoiling as she went, gossamer wrap billowing in an otherworldly gale.
Have you missed me?
Her death white face loomed before Erzsébet's, too close. The color of her eyes had always fascinated, pale, crystalline blue dipped halfway in cerise. Her smile was a colorless thing.
Erzsébet stood as still as she could. To indulge Julia Maria was to succumb to her.
I spoke true, didn't I?
Without an answer, Erzsébet raised her fist and swung at cold air.
Fine. Be that way.
Erzsébet found herself frozen to her soul upon her back in a pile of snow. She hadn't noticed that the flowers had thorns. Above her, Julia Maria floated, and she was drowning in her hair that smelled of gunpowder.
Come follow me.
This was how it would always be. Erzsébet had seen every room, all that Julia Maria had wished for her to see, and she would not bear to see again the hollowed ruins of the places where she had once lived however short. She had tired long ago of this little game of theirs.
Reaching up, she wrapped her fingers around the other woman's throat. Julia Maria merely laughed, a susurrating noise that did not match her delicately crafted face. This too was part of her game.
Too tired to play tonight? So are you going to tell him finally about us?
Erzsébet did not deem to give an answer. She would never tell Roderich. For his sake, she won't.
More Author's Notes: This was very short, and probably vague.
As for character names: I know that Elizaveta is Hungary's official human name, but I always felt that it was more appropriate to call her Erzsébet, which is the Hungarian form of the name, in my fanfics. Fem!Prussia's name is a combination of two of her more popular human names, Julchen (which is in diminutive form) and Maria. Usually, I just use one or the other, but Julia Maria sounded more distinctive as a title than the two apart, so I ended up using both. I hope it does not sound too clunky.