A crystal heart

This is for the incredible Caroline

Prolouge:

Cold. He felt cold. Not because of the sharp wind, not because of the icy snow that flew through the moved air. Not because of his lack of warm clothes. Not because of the blizzard raging where he stood, on the highest point of his country. The Kebnekaise.
Sweden wanted to scream but there were no sound.
He wanted to cry but there were no tears.
He wanted to beg to heaven for forgiveness, for mercy, but he found no words. No words.
He wanted to be destroyed by someone, anyone, but no one came and he was all alone.
He wanted to stand up and start running without a goal, just in the hope to find him.
To embrace him, touch him, feel him and tell him that he was so sorry.
He would like to tear his heart outside in despair, because he knew it was impossible right now.
The icy coldness that slowly took over did not manage to erase the pain and to make him numb.
Numb for all those thoughts inside his mind – so that he was able to ignore those question that slowly begun to make him doubt that everything he had done through the last three hundred years had been right.

Had he done so much wrong? Had he destroyed so much? Hurt others? Did the same things Denmark did? Had he spread so much blood? Had he done so much wrong that he deserved this? That he deserved to lose everything? To be hated by everyone? To be stab into the back like this?
By his former friends. By the ones he had sailed with, that had told him stories. With whom he had laughed with, ate with, danced with, and celebrated with? Sure it was not all Norway's and Denmark's fault. Deep down in his heart he knew that it was his own fault. All of it.
The power had changed him like it had changed Denmark, turning the once so loud but loveable nation into a cruel tyrant that was obsessed with the lust for might and glory. His own change…it was not so clear, but it had been there. He had found it fun to beat others up. He had craved for more. And more and more. He just hadn't known how to stop. He had not wanted to at all.
Nations like him were destined to fall. And those falls were cruel and brutal. He had done so much wrong. He felt the guilt onto his shoulders and it wanted to kill him. This was a fact he was aware of.
He knew that he had suppressed Finland, knew that the tiny country had suffered under his hands.
He knew that it had been unfair…Berwald did not even learned the language of him. He was not able to speak one word in finish. In contrast to that Tino had done everything to support him. He had smiled at him.

Oh how he missed this smile. Wide, friendly, warm, open. Loving. Loving. Loving.
He missed how the fragile boy felt when he embraced him. So thin. So little. So small. So, so warm.
He missed everything like he remembered everything.
How his skin felt. It was so milky, so incredible soft to touch.
How his hair looked, like honey or like the first sunrays after the long, dark, Nordic winter.
And oh – how it felt to kiss him. Those pretty heart shaped lips, soft and a little pink just like a girl's.
How he smelled – a mixture of licorice and sweet little flowers. And the taste of nordic berries and cowberries. He was so incredible sweet. He had cheered him up. Or at least he had tried to. With all he was. Oh, how he loved him.
He was his source of strength, his warmth, his heat, his love, his everything.
Without him he was heartless, shapeless, useless. Brutal. Cruel. A monster. He had kept him sane through centuries and granted him the one thing he had never thought he would become:
A pure heart that loved him with all its might.

Yes, he had felt his heart frozen in the second the boy was ripped away from his side.
And…and those scary visions that flew through his mind and gripped his soul, never to let go of him. What would become of his love? What was with that guy Russia? Sweden hated him so much that he could not stay quiet. Although he was such a calm guy. Too calm somehow.
Damn that!
Why could he not cry? Not scream? Not curse that other country that had forced Finland away? Not beg him to give the tiny nation back to him…or, at least, promise not to hurt him. Not to do any of those things Ivan did to his one and only in his visions. Was he that calm that he was cold inside…? Cold. Cold. Cold.
His world turned grey. His once so colorful world, enlightened by the rainbow spirit of Finland.
It had been full of sounds and full of love – why had he ignored that lightly side? Why had he been so harsh, so rough, so cold and so cruel with just one goal in his lifetime? Posession? Power? A huge empire? What was all of this? It was worth nothing – just a stupid dream. He had pushed away Finland and forced him – on the other side – to be close to him, to spend time with him. To become his. And still the younger one had smiled at him – sometimes in a sad way. But if he had been on Finlands position…he had long left him, or at least tried too. Or stab him into the back. But no, Finland had endured it all. Finland had smiled.

He hated himself, he could not help it.
He could not help but remember the time he had first met him. He could not help but revive those feels, feelings, that he would never forget and that stabbed his heart like draggers now. Like ice, like lightning, like thunder, making him wish he would just become numb. Or better – to die right away. But he was a nation so he could not die and he would not die. And he could not granted himself this wish – he had to suffer because he had let him torn away, because he had not fight enough, because…he had not protect him! He had broken that promise he had gave him in this dark night that sparkled because of the million starts above them.
He had broken it the second time. The second time. Maybe Mathias had been right, back then, in 1523 when he had told him that he would never be able to protect the ones he loved.
For one moment he was happy that Norway did not follow his pleads to come with him too and he regretted each word he throw onto the others head, every sharp insult in that night he had left.
He felt even sorry for leaving Mathias although he did not regret his decision to leave. He suddenly knew now how it felt to be left, how it felt when something, no, someone was missing. Of course neither Tino nor him had ever been for Mathias what Lukas was for him but…They had been one family. They had been together for centuries. Centuries.

The cold snow did not bother him. The wind that had taken his glasses…he did not felt it. The sound of the howling air, he did not hear it. Maybe it was cold outside. Maybe it was stormy. But this storm would end. It was just a matter of time until the nature slowed down. Even here on this mountain the sun would shine.
But not for him. There was no sun anymore and nothing that could have made the storm inside him calm. Nothing to keep him sane, calm and at least (although it was just a little bit) friendly.
The memories, he could not flee them.
The voices inside his head, they would never stop.
The feelings inside his heart weren't warm anymore but like eternal ice.
His heart had turned to crystal that was blinking in the winter sun.

Slowly the first picture became clear right in front of his eyes, like it was living, like it was not a memory but the reality. Like Finland was still here, small, tiny, tender. Sweden had the urge to stretch his arms to this vision but he touched nothing but the snow.