A/N- This is just a little two-shot I felt like writing.
The Turkish Abductions were when some Turkish pirates had a Danish sailor take them to Iceland in hopes that they would find treasure. Failing that, they just took around two, three, four hundred people and sold them into slavery on the Barbury Coast and Algeria back home. Around a decade later, the Danish managed to get around a dozen or so of them back via ransom.
I feel the need to apologize to Turkey for making him the villain. I swear, when he isn't the protagonist, he's the bad guy. Always. He's too good at it. All his fault. So, sorry, Turkey, I do love you, just so you know.
Also, did I genre fail?
Review?
He refused to speak. If he spoke, opened his eyes, questioned his situation out loud, then it would be real.
This wasn't real. No way. There was no way that masked freak took him from his home. He was in his room, in Denmark's house, and Greenland and Faroe were in other rooms, and Norway and Sweden and Finland were there, and Norway was arguing with Denmark over coffee, and everything was happy.
Everything was happy.
So he stayed in the corner of the room (not a rich, giant, extravagant bedroom possibly a little on the gaudy side, that was just his imagination, right?), curled in a little ball of white hair and clothing, not even that funny talking puffin to accompany him. He didn't move, or intend to make any move. Just this little ball of miniature nation. Nothing else. In his room. Peaceful.
That is, until the loud creak of the door snapped him out of his reassurances, and he watched the door open with wide violet eyes.
The masked man stepped in, frowning while holding a flailing brunet older than himself. He flinched back and pressed himself against the wall as the masked guy tossed the flailing boy to the ground with a "You annoying brat!" A dark-skinned boy with a white cloth on his head at his side calmly entered through the door, followed by a black dog-like animal, watching as the brunet scrambled back up. The masked man shut the door with a slam, leaving the two boys in the room.
"Stupid Ottobastard!" The boy snapped. There was a certain quietness to his voice, even though he was clearly trying to be loud. "England's a better pirate than you any day!" The brunet glared at the door with a passionate ferocity. In his corner, he wondered what the point was in glaring at the door, when clearly the masked man had left and wouldn't even know.
The darker skinned boy made no move to stop him, instead attending to his dog. "Talking with Hungary again?"
"Hm? Yeah, why?" The brunet had transformed from a glaring, slightly murderous little demon to a more calm, lethargic-seeming boy.
It was startling, to say the least.
"Her word." They talked in accents he didn't recognize.
"Ottobastard?" The dark skinned one nodded. "Mm, yeah, she says it a lot. I'm tired." The brunet yawned, back turned to the little nation in the corner. "I can't believe my attack failed."
"Not really an attack."
"Is to."
"'Fly at giant masked man while flailing' is an attack?" There was an amused note in his voice.
The brunet paused, and then promptly ignored it. "Anyway, you're not in 'time out'," there was an audible grimace in his words, "What are you going to do?" No response. "Hello? Egypt?"
Except Egypt wasn't paying attention to the brunet anymore. He was staring at a cowering Iceland.
"This is your fault." The voice was cold and unforgiving, matching the navy glare that belonged to the same person.
"Norway, I didn't know!" His voice was tinged with desperation, dismay, and apology.
"This is your. fucking. fault."
"Norway, I didn't think—"
"Of course you didn't think. When do you ever fucking think? You're not exactly one to think, Denmark."
"You're not listening to me! He didn't tell me he was going to take Iceland!"
Norway's usually calm frown formed into gritted teeth. "Why the hell would he, you idiot? When someone wants to go somewhere, they don't use 'I'm going to kidnap your little brother' as an incentive! I know you're not all that bright, but most empires have more forethought than that!"
"I can fix this!"
"Really." It wasn't a question, and even Denmark didn't missed the dry, "I-don't-believe-you" tone. "Because you already screwed it up. So, King of Scandinavia," He also managed to not completely miss the sarcastic use of his (self-made) title, "how about you stay out of this because you can't ever do anything right?"
"Norway, I can get him back!" But Norway, not listening to the pleas for forgiveness, had already stormed out, calling out to his mystical friends in furious Norwegian.
Denmark ran a hand through his hair, eyes fixed on the ground. He knew it was his fault the Ottoman Empire took Iceland. And he knew he needed to fix this.
And probably before Sweden and Finland decided to lecture him on it, too. He already felt guilty, and facing Sweden's glare and Finland's disappointed voice, especially after everything last century, would not help him concentrate on the task at hand.
He was going to get Iceland back.
"Hey, Egypt, what are you looking at?"
Iceland tried to avoid the gaze of the quiet, curious nation, but Egypt seemed intent on meeting his eye. It was annoying.
"Child." Iceland inwardly pouted at that. He was not a child!
... Okay, so maybe he was.
"What child?"
"Behind you?" Iceland could sense impatience behind the calm tone.
The other one whirled around to see the small white-haired boy. He would have taken a step back away from the two forest-colored gazes if the wall hadn't been there.
"Hello?" The brunet said, smiling with a natural friendliness Iceland didn't trust, not after seeing him yell and flail and glare at the door.
"Light hair." Egypt commented. "He's from the north."
The brunet glanced back to Egypt and then to Iceland. "Right?" Iceland nodded cautiously. "What's your name?"
He didn't know whether or not to answer. He didn't really like to talk anyway, so he could always push it off onto Norway or Denmark. Plus, they always knew when it was best to answer something like that, so he didn't have to. In the end, he finally said, "I... Iceland."
"Iceland. I'm Greece, and he's Egypt."
"Anubis." Egypt said, gesturing to his dog-thing. "Jackal." Iceland was pretty sure he preferred 'dog-thing'. "How did you get here?"
"Masked man took me."
"Ottoman?" Greece clarified. Nod. "Always knew he had a thing for kids." Before the island nation could begin to figure out what that meant, the Mediterranian nation continued. "Are you hungry? We can go eat."
"Aren't you in time out?" Iceland asked, immediately regretting it upon seeing the friendly smile dissolve into a slightly annoyed frown, and then sheer relief when it went back to the smile, even if it was a bit more neutral.
"It's fine, Ottoman's an idiot, anyway."
"Why not?" Denmark yelled, outraged.
King Christian IV stayed calm in the face of his nation's anger, even after announcing they wouldn't make a move yet to speak with the Ottoman Empire about this. "Denmark, I know what happened was bad, but—"
"Yes! Yes, it was bad! And that is why we need to get the Icelanders back!"
Christian's eyes narrowed. He was insulted. Fucking perfect, as the sarcastic saying goes. "Denmark. Quiet."
"But—"
"Enough. We have enough to do as it is, especially recovery-wise. We will deal with this at another time. You're dismissed."
"Christian!"
"Denmark." The stern tone of voice made the boisterous nation flinch. "Wait for now. We will discuss the Icelanders again soon enough."
Denmark gave his boss one last glare before leaving the room. He was angry, disappointed, yes, very. But he was not hindered. No, never hindered, not in this.
If Christian wanted to talk about it soon enough, then soon enough it would be.
During their wandering (Greece assured him they were not lost, they were simply taking a detour. Egypt was more doubtful, which fed Iceland's own doubt), they came across Ottoman Empire. He was talking to someone else, but Iceland couldn't understand the conversation—he wasn't exactly fluent in Turkish.
He did see a very large number of his people—at least half of the captives—being loaded into carriages. A few of them saw him and looked to him hopefully, but he didn't know why and thus didn't know what to do.
Ottoman was calling a goodbye when he noticed the trio. "What is it, brat?" It was clearly aimed towards Greece. He was probably glaring behind his mask.
"Where are they going?" Iceland asked, tilting his head in the direction of his people.
"Hm?" Ottoman might or might not have glanced back at the carriages—it was hard to tell given the mask. "They're going to the Barbary Coast, kid."
"Why?" Iceland didn't want to admit he knew the answer.
"Ah, that's not important." Ottoman waved a hand dismissively. Some form of comfort? "Now shoo, I have work to do."
"Slavery." Egypt stated, completely matter-of-fact. Ottoman froze. "They're being sold as slaves."
The Ottoman Empire sighed, maybe pityingly, maybe sympathetically. Iceland picked pitying, since it made him hate Ottoman more. "Yeah. Anyway, like I said, got work to do." He left without another word.
Iceland watched with stoic eyes as his people left for new, unwanted lives.
"I don't see what's so difficult about this." Norway said, crossing his arms, setting his best glare on his verbal opponent.
Christian IV was unimpressed. "Norway, I have other things I need to focus on right now."
"Iceland is our territory. As such, we should retaliate."
"And we will."
Norway's permanent kinda-frown became much more of a real frown. "It doesn't seem like that."
Denmark watched the exchange, hiding. So maybe he had felt a bit of hope when he saw Norway talking to their boss. And maybe that hope had crashed and burned when Norway was unsuccessful. Things like that happened. Right?
He hadn't tried to talk to Christian about it again, yet, instead writing a letter and sending it via his little bird to Ottoman to see what the hell.
He had yet to get a response.
Iceland, maybe you'll find it, little bro. I'm sorry. You know that, right?
Right?
A/N- So I totally wanted to use tiny-boy!Hungary in this fic, right? But I went back to make sure my canon was right and it wasn't and I was so mad... Life is unfair! So instead she got a mention and I replaced her with Egypt. Hungary, why couldn't you have been a boy for a bit longer? Speaking of which, Hungary got lots of Greek immigrants around this time. I take it to mean they were buddies.
Poor Denmark. He really should be careful. At least he fixes it in the end! Be positive, Den!
I kind of wanted to do mwahaha!Turkey, but I already felt bad that he had to be the villain, so... Yeah.
Reviews are loverly, no matter how brutal!