Soon after the draft letter had been delivered and the mounted messenger had gone on his way, the thought occurred to Ludwig that he should perhaps inform someone in the world that he was going to war. The Great War, as they were calling it. A war, apparently, to end all wars. He supposed he might not come back, and there were a few possessions he had to put in order, including his father's substantial inheritance that had gone mostly untapped. After all, someone had to look after his horse. So, after the daily chores were done, Ludwig seated himself at his dark oak writing desk, where stationary paper, ink, a pen, and a gas lamp all seemed to wait with baited breath to be put into use. It was the twilight hour, and the landscape outside the square window above the desk was dyed strange colors as the mellow sunlight slowly surrendered to deep blue. The front of coniferous trees bordering the vast forest nearby were beginning to bleed darkness, as it were seeping in from the underbrush there-the wild-growing origin of night. Violet had found its way into the small room. Ludwig struck a match, and set the gas lamp aglow. As opposed to the feral, dusky light that cast capering shadows, its light was warm and trustworthy. It brought the room to artificial life. By this light, he would write a letter to someone. Someone.

The trouble was that Ludwig had few living relatives. Those who were alive lived in other countries—even his older brother. Apparently, wanderlust was a dominant gene in his family, and he was the only one who hadn't inherited it. He expected that his phenotype was "dull", spelled out in his genes with two lowercase "D"s.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.+.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

His mother had died when he was very young; a grisly suicide. She had leapt in front of a freight train. His father, now deceased, had come home to the telegram saying his wife was probably dead and would he please come to identify the body they had recovered from the "accident" to make certain. She left no note. Ludwig, of course, remembered little of the event, being six years old at the time. He could barely remember his mother, and there was no way of determining if the few vague recollections he did have were not merely generated by his hungry child's imagination and yellowed photographs. He only remembered witnessing-for the first and only time-his father cry. His father never knew to his dying day that Ludwig had seen; he had only glimpsed through an open door for a few seconds. It was enough. He still distinctly recalled the feeling of combined alarm, revulsion, and shame he had in that moment, before he knew what had happened. Men just didn't cry like that. Ludwig had in that instant quietly resolved never to cry that way himself.

That whole dreadful business of his mother's death was what incited his father to abruptly uproot him and Gilbert from their posh, tidy townhouse in Berlin to the woodland abode on the very rim of nowhere in which Ludwig now resided. They had left behind essentially all of their belongings—toys, mother's clothing, and left town within a day, to somewhere. His father had elected only to bring along the clothes on their backs and his most prized books. He remembered gripping his father's hand through train station after train station, which became progressively smaller and more deserted. He remembered the scrolling landscape gradually purging itself of all buildings as they made their way out. His father had remained mostly silent for the duration, and Ludwig dared not ask where they were fleeing to. Even Gilbert had held his tongue. At the end of the line was a small, nondescript town. When they'd arrived, Ludwig recalled finally asking, "Vater, where is this place? Are we still in Germany?" He didn't think he'd ever seen his father laugh quite so hard as he did then.

They lived in a hostel in the brief interval that his father was having their cottage built, over in the hills a few kilometers from town. When it was completed, his father shipped in all the new furniture he had ordered from the store in the nearby town, and it became their own as much as a wild place like that ever could. It was nestled between two hills, and encroached on two sides by rugged, endless forest. A dirt road lay between it and a gorge. To the immediate east of it was a downward sloping field that was fenced in and equipped with a small stable, for a horse. The cottage was four rooms: kitchen, parlor, and two bedrooms. Directly behind it were an outhouse and a garden plot. To two boys that had spent the entirety of their young lives in a spacious metropolitan domicile, this took no small amount of adjustment. Ludwig stoically accepted the move and quickly grew accustomed to the pervading silence of the country. He was happy playing by himself in the woods, taking heed never to wander too far. He was eager to learn how to help with the chores, as they were a novelty to him, having never lived in a place where it was necessary to pump water, gather firewood, or feed a horse. His brother, who was three years older, did not adjust so well. He grew increasingly disobedient and derisive to his father. Punishment yielded no results; the child only became more petulant. Gilbert, who found himself bored more often and was woefully lacking in imagination, spent his spare time tormenting Ludwig behind their father's back. He'd mock him incessantly, and put him in a headlock or sit on his chest when he ran out of sing-song insults. Any toy or intriguing gizmo that Ludwig would receive, Gilbert would steal and then break when he lost interest in it. Sometimes he would guide Ludwig as deep into the woods as he could, and abandon him as soon as darkness fell. One of these times, Ludwig couldn't find his way back, and he found himself utterly alone in the darkening woods. When it had become too dark even to move between the trees, he had curled up against a thick trunk and closed his eyes, hugging himself tightly, determined not to make a sound. In his six-year-old mind, the smallest whimper showed fatal weakness to the carnivorous creatures that waited in the gloom. It had taken hours for his father, lamp in one hand, ear of a protesting Gilbert in the other, to find Ludwig. What a fright he must have given both of them when their lamplight illuminated him, catatonic and huddled, motionless, against a tree. Gilbert had received an unforgettable whipping on that night, and Ludwig was in turn spared that particularly life-threatening method of Gilbert's fraternal bullying for good.
Having abandoned his lucrative career as a biological researcher at the prestigious university back in Berlin, Ludwig's father put forth the utmost care into homeschooling him and his brother when time permitted him. Ludwig learned far more from his father's engaging lessons than he ever would have at the all boys' school in Berlin he had briefly been enrolled in. He took instant, passionate interest to his father's subject—science. He was introduced to physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, and biology, and he studied each with unabashed enthusiasm that made his father very pleased. Consequentially, he was on to advanced courses on those subjects quite early in his studies. That isn't to say that he neglected his other subjects. English and Italian, in addition to German literature, were areas which he grasped easily, although not with half as much zeal. At the age of eleven, Ludwig was reading Charles Darwin's Origin of Species for the second time—in English. At age thirteen he was able to read The Divine Comedy in Italian. Indeed, his father was deeply pleased. Between all this he was chopping wood and hoeing the vegetable garden. In that manner, Ludwig lived a peasant like existence with an aristocrat's education. Gilbert, on the other hand, took absolutely no interest in schooling. He rejected every subject their father presented to him. It was as if he was dead set on remaining ignorant. No amount of scolding, reprimands, or thrashings could budge the stubborn boy. His father sometimes confided in Ludwig. He though that perhaps Gilbert was punishing him for taking them from Berlin. It got so difficult that he even considered moving back and reclaiming his position at the university. Once again enrolling the boys in that all boys' school. To this Ludwig had said, "No. I think that is simply who Gilbert is. He will always be himself, no matter where he is placed. It would be pointless to go back, Vater." Ultimately, his father had agreed.

It was glaringly clear that Gilbert had no place in academics; this they both saw. Their father's disappointment was obvious even to dense Gilbert himself. The punishments stopped coming, as did Gilbert's assignments (which had been dropped down to remedial level of late). He had given up on him. Their father looked at his eldest son the way one might look if they saw a dead kitten in the gutter. Something of this must have bothered Gilbert on a certain level; for, at the age of sixteen, he ran away from home. One spring morning, Ludwig had awoken and glanced over at Gilbert's side of the room to see his brother's bed, neatly made and empty. Gilbert never made his bed. His clothing, which usually littered the floor, was nowhere to be seen. The domed brass birdcage where he'd kept his pet canary, insipidly named Gilbird, had vanished from its usual perch on the end table against the window. He had cherished that bird since his father had bought it for him on his twelfth birthday, and caring for it fanatically had been the only act of responsibility he had ever displayed. That was when Ludwig knew. His brother was gone, and he wasn't planning on coming back. Ludwig had risen from bed and padded to the kitchen, where his father was sitting at the table with his back to him. Ludwig accompanied him at the table. There was one empty chair, which was what his father was staring at. "He's left. Not even a note for us." was all he said. They sat and shared a long silence.

From then on, Gilbert led a transient lifestyle. This is what the occasional letters from him (sans return addresses) told. He hopped trains from city to city, then from country to country, following jobs. His father would always lapse into that same silence after reading them; a silence which Ludwig couldn't dispel with any amount of prompting. He'd only shake his head slowly, sighing something along the lines of a damn shame. Then he'd fix his winter blue eyes on Ludwig with an unsettling expression, as if he were mentally scouring him, searching for something to salvage. It always made Ludwig feel hopelessly inadequate.

His father died of a stroke before Ludwig ever managed to salvage that something. He had been only fifty, Ludwig seventeen. He had discovered him in his armchair on an otherwise uneventful December night, after chopping firewood. Limp, and defunct. It had happened so quickly.

When Ludwig had left the house, his father was, and when he had returned, his father wasn't.

Even then, Ludwig wasn't foolish enough to believe in souls. There was no method, only madness. He could not look at the lifeless eyes of his father and see anything but the end result dispassionate nature.

All those miserable beetles, grasshoppers, and rats they'd dissected together; his father and them were now one and the same. The ends could never justify the means, because there was no justification. There were only means to an end, he realized.

Gilbert didn't even find out about Vater until a year after the fact, when he had come to visit. He must have been expecting some semblance of an emotional reunion—father's attention, maybe even some tears. What he came home to, instead, was Ludwig's pale, solitary face-aged about five years, with all the sharper edges and harder contours that came with a fulfilled adolescence—staring coldly at him from the doorway. Before Gilbert could even say, 'Hallo, Ludwig. You look like hell,' Ludwig had spoken.

"Vater's dead, if that's who you're looking for."

He'd known it was the worst thing he could say at that moment, but it had felt so damned good. Suffer, Bruder, as you have made me suffer.

After the less than warm reunion and a thorough summary of Vater's death, Gilbert had silently brought in his scant luggage from the stoop, along with that same brass birdcage, canary and all. Ludwig had wondered idly if it was the same bird he'd run away with. Gilbert himself had not changed very much. He was a little taller than before, but he measured up to be a few centimeters shorter than Ludwig, much to Ludwig's satisfaction. He was more muscular than when he had left, yet eighteen-year-old Ludwig equaled him in that respect already. He was as disturbingly albino as ever, still the horrific genetic foible that his parents had birthed and generously kept alive. After the verbal bombshell Ludwig had dropped on him, Gilbert was uncharacteristically quiet. A look of incredulity had replaced his usual supercilious smirk on his bone white face. Ludwig liked him better that way.

"I didn't know, Ludwig…"

Of course he didn't. He'd been out on his harebrained escapades without leaving so much as a return address.

"Let me take you to his grave. It's back with Mutter's," he'd replied instead.

It was only fair.

They ended up taking the train back to Berlin. Steeped in silence, they viewed the same scrolling landscape from their childhood, in reverse. It felt as if they were rapidly becoming younger, too, and would emerge in Berlin as their six and nine-year-old selves, memories wiped spotless, all the blood stains lifted. Ludwig would have preferred not to go, but he had to. They emerged in the middle of Berlin unaltered, just as ruined. First they stopped by a florist. Flowers were in order. Gilbert chose some white calla lilies that were like pale little throats. Together they wended their way through the labyrinthine city to the graveyard where their parents waited patiently.

"There isn't much to see, but there you have it."

The graves were placed side by side, as if the intervening years between their deaths were irrelevant; as if they had actually died together. The only difference was the lichen creeping up their Mutter'sheadstone. Gilbert kneeled and placed three calla lilies on both sections of bright grave grass. His slumped shoulders made him look so very defeated.

"You should have been there."

"I know. Gottverdammt noch mal, I know!" He'd looked genuinely angry, but not at Ludwig. Was it possible that Gilbert really had been angry with himself?

They took the train back out to the rim of nowhere, speaking little. Gilbert chose not to stay after all; he'd seen enough. So he whisked his luggage and his caged canary away with him, to someplace else. Ludwig had given a half-hearted wave as Gilbert disappeared on foot down the dirt road to hitch a ride. That was the last time Ludwig had seen him. Three years had passed, and he was twenty-one, Gilbert twenty-four. From his last letter, he only knew that his brother was working on a trade ship somewhere. He could be anywhere on earth, for all he knew.

Meanwhile, his remaining living relatives resided in neighboring countries. There was his cousin, Roderich, living with his wife in Vienna in a mansion worthy of a noble. They were never particularly close, partially due to the wide gap in their ages, but namely due to the grudge Ludwig's father had held with Roderich's father. Roderich's father had been devoutly religious, shunning his father's work as ungodly. Ludwig's father could, and did, rant for hours on what a disgrace his brother-in-law was to intellectualism, how ashamed he was that his sister had married such a fool. Ludwig hadn't seen Roderich since a violent argument fueled by the free-flowing Austrian beer over dinner at the Edelstein mansion had culminated in Ludwig's father smashing a beer bottle over Herr Edelstein's head. A year after that, Roderich had sent them the invitation to his wedding, but Ludwig's had father declined, choosing to mail them a congratulatory card and a wedding gift instead.

Ludwig was closer to his second cousins, Vash and Lili. They had been the part of his mother's family that had splintered off and settled in Switzerland. Ludwig, though older than both of the siblings, found more common ground with them than with Roderich. When he was young, his father would occasionally take them to stay at the Zwingli manor in the lap of the Swiss Alps, where Vash and Lili's parents lived. On the brick expanse of their back patio, they would play marbles. Ludwig's competitive streak combined with Vash's deep attachment to his own unique marbles made for some intense matches, which young Lili viewed from a safe distance, lest any thrown marbles find their way to her and "put her pretty green eye out," in the words of her mother.

Ludwig ceased visiting for the summers after his father died. He'd stopped by the previous Christmas season on a whim. It wasn't far, after all. Vash had been eighteen and Lili eleven. In an agreement with his parents, Vash had gotten to keep the elegant Zwingli mansion after his father had taken a job on Wall Street, provided that he attended college in (no surprise) finance, which he happily obliged. He had grown up to be quite the austere individual, with a stringent work ethic and a need for privacy bordering on the neurotic. They were quite alike in that aspect. Vash clearly cherished his younger sister very much, which he expressed by keeping her on a short leash. She was rarely even permitted to be alone with Ludwig, and never longer than five minutes at that. Lili was unlike Vash in that she was the kindest and soft-spoken girl he had ever met. She hung on every word he would say with rapt attention. She was untouched by the cynicism which disenfranchised her brother from mainstream society, yet she loved him unconditionally. Ludwig understood Vash's protective grip on her, though. It just didn't pay for such a charming, pretty girl to be so damned trusting in this world.

The pair of them only left the manor to go to their respective schools, which they left to and returned from together. Vash's hand was always on Lili's shoulder, emerald eyes flashing—daring anyone to try something. Ludwig had witnessed that look, and it was rather frightening, especially considering that the threat implicit in his eyes wasn't an empty one. Vash had also inherited his father's extensive collection of firearms, all of which he knew from butt to barrel. The few times they had gone shooting together, Ludwig was impressed by Vash's dead-on aim.

"How did you get so good at this, Vash?"

Vash had shrugged, rifle over his shoulder. "I have to pass the time somehow."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.+.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Ludwig decided to write to Vash. He dipped his pen to begin the letter, and glanced through the window to see that night had prevailed.

A/N: Well, that turned out considerably longer than the first chapter. I hope that's a good thing. Huzzah for back stories and traumatic childhood memories! In this chapter, Prussia, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein made their first pseudo-appearances. (I say "pseudo" because they didn't actually appear in real time.) And, if you're wondering who Austria's wife is—it's Hungary. Sorry, die-hard yaoi fans. I refuse to pair him with Switzerland. And if you're wondering about the German I snuck into this chapter—Vater = father, Mutter = mother, Bruder = brother, and Gott verdammt noch mal = God damn it. (That's all according to Google translate, so if it's less than accurate, please forgive me. I don't take German. I take Japanese.) Let's see… I haven't anything else to say, except: 1.) thanks for reading this far, and 2.) please review and tell me what you think! Pretty please with sugar on top?