A Brief Summary of Luxembourg's Academy Life

Without clear adult supervision, the law of the jungle reigned in Hetalia Academy of the Arts. The older students reigned over the younger, and while there was usually little violence, bullying did sometimes occur, especially when someone new arrived.
For Gustave, who was quite young at the time and spoke little other than his native language, Luxembourgish, it was a quite miserable first week. As the lowest on the pecking order, he was left with the scraps from each meal, old materials and harsh words that he didn't even understand from the older students.
Eventually, two people came to his rescue; within the Academy they were known as Belgium and Netherlands, for there were only one student per country, with very few exceptions. He was quickly dubbed Luxembourg, and instructed to adapt to the Academy norms by introducing himself as such; real names were rarely used except for when dealing with the Outside.
The two helped him adjust to life within the walls and earn himself some grudging respect from the other students, and eventually fame on the Outside.

What Happened One Day in Winter

Usually, the painting room (affectionately nick-named 'the redroom', since someone had painted 'redrum' on the wall one Halloween) was quite desolate on Sunday mornings, especially so on winter weekends; those that bothered to get up in a relatively normal time of day preferred to either sit a long time in the food hall (or the cafeteria, if they were old enough to be allowed in) or engage in snowball fights outside. The snowball fights of HAA were almost ridiculously intricate in design; all students, without exception, were tangled up in a system of alliances and oaths that made the newcomers' heads spin. And even if you managed to quickly pick up who was allied with whom you still had to keep your wits about you, for underneath the extensive but orderly arrangement of official alliances and feuds were the secret alliances, the long-forgotten arguments that were never quite resolved and the instinctive hate some people had for each other despite fighting on essentially the same side. Even though everyone automatically had a place in the war there were of course those who preferred more peaceful activities and rarely joined in on the 'fun', most notably those students who were more accustomed to warmer climates and found that "too much snow was too much snow". Even some of the more frost-hardy students could sometimes get sick of all the snow; being snowed in was not an uncommon occurrence.

Luxembourg, as he'd become accustomed to refer to himself as, had yet to develop a feel for the game despite having been at the Academy for a few years already. There was too much he hadn't been a part of, too much he didn't know, and it had him severely disadvantaged especially considering that he had to relearn everything each winter and that during the summer months things could have happened that would fundamentally alter the system of allies. That, and he was not particularly gifted when it came to sports. As long as he was just part of the defence he was brilliant; architecture was something he enjoyed and with the help of his friends he'd built many an impressive snow fort, but as soon as he had to fight himself he always seemed to be defeated. Or captured by France, who had declared himself grand frére and taught Luxembourg French, much to Netherland's great annoyance. Thus, he stayed in the redroom for as long as possible until someone discovered him and dragged him out to play.

He was not only hiding, though, if he was he'd quickly be chastised by his allies and punished in some way or another (this usually involved snow tucked into clothes in uncomfortable places), he was always working on his paintings. They had just started to sell for a modest sum on the Outside, and this little piece of success spurred him on to paint more, especially his landscape paintings were popular, those of the streets of the capital Luxembourg with their cobblestone roads and forts. If there was something he sorely missed it was looking down into Grund from the bridges, looking at the houses down below, next to the streams and lush gardens.

At that moment, however, the scene on his canvas was quite different. It was the snowy scene of outside the window, where a battle was already raging. The Nordics were clearly in the lead; Finland kept appearing out of nowhere, sometimes hanging from the branches of trees, to bombard people with small snow marbles that did little to knock people down but attracted their attention, upon which the two older boys - Sweden and Denmark - could sneak up upon their targets with huge snowballs that might as well be the beginning of a snowman for its size. This was otherwise hard for them to do; everybody kept an eye on Sweden - he was just so scary - and let's just say that 'discretion' wasn't Denmark's middle name. Iceland was rarely seen, but whenever a defensive structure collapsed or a stash of hidden snowballs disappeared you could almost always blame it on Iceland. If he was ever cornered he did not hesitate to strike someone square in the face with a snowball that was more ice than snow.

Norway oftentimes fought his own battles; his alliance was with the Nordics, but if his own goals demanded sacrifice (usually Denmark), he was quick to give them. Some even claimed that he could do magic, and considering the regular strange phenomena (food appearing even though no one cooked, hallways clean even though no one cleaned etc) it was not so hard to believe. At the moment, Norway was in hiding behind one of Luxembourg's own forts. From his vantage point at the window Luxembourg could see the Norwegian, but to everyone else on the front he was effectively concealed - as he was supposed to be. Norway was quickly building up a small stash of hard-packed snowballs to fire at his target, which as usual was England (he had tried to make people call him 'United Kingdom', but his brothers had just scoffed at him and America had laughed loudly). The two had some kind of fight going that extended throughout the year, Luxembourg had never figured out why. He had tried asking once, but England had just sneered and said that 'it was not for muggles'.

Luxembourg was trying to reproduce some of the action below in his winter landscape, but was having trouble making the students look like they were moving - he had always preferred still-life, but variation was good and it wouldn't do to get locked into one mode only. It could perhaps work for people that had managed to find a unique style that would become their trademark, but Luxembourg was not that great and far too young to claim something as such. He sighed, trying out various brushstrokes on a separate paper while trying to figure out how to bring some life to his painting. Snowball fights were a pain even if you weren't in them.

What Happened One Day in Winter (II)

"Take that!"

The snowball arched beautifully through the air and hit the cheerier Italian twin, Veneziano, smack in the middle of his face. Prussia cackled victoriously. Luckily the other twin, Romano, was busy on another front trying to keep a far-too-cheery Spain from coming inappropriately close, or Prussia would have found himself under angry retaliation fire mixed with Italian obscenities. As it was, the battle on his front lulled to a stand-still as Veneziano remained standing, motionless, as the snow slid off his face.

Uh-oh.

Prussia knew what would happen and started running before Veneziano even opened his mouth:

"Germanyyy!"

Maybe it had been a bit mean to hit him in the face, but come on! Calling West was a bit extreme, wasn't it? Now he would have to run very, very quickly.

"What is it, Veneziano?" Germany's voice could be heard far off.

"Prussia, he-! He-!"

"Verdammt, Prussia, what did you do now?"

"Run Prussia!" Spain and France taunted as he ran past, and he flashed them a rude hand gesture before heading to the relative safety of the main building. When had his little brother gotten so big that Prussia had to run? He used to be so little and cute. So unawesome!

He ran inside, pausing only to close the door behind him so as to slow his brother down and then quickly sped up again, options running through his mind. He'd have to go somewhere that wouldn't be obvious, somewhere he didn't go often...

Redroom!

What Happened One Day in Winter (III)

The door flew open, but the white-haired, red-eyed upperclassman caught it just before it slammed into the wall, closing it silently and carefully after having looked out into the hallway nervously. Luxembourg watched him from his place near the window, finding Prussia's behaviour very suspicious.

"What are you doing?"

Prussia jumped at his voice, reeling around, red eyes discovering him. He opened his mouth to sneer at the younger student but blanched as Germany's voice roared somewhere in the building.

"PRUSSIA!"

Luxembourg changed his question.

"What have you done?" If the albino was caught up in something bad Luxembourg did not want to get involved; the student court was rarely forgiving.

"Nothing! West is over-reacting!" Prussia huffed, stepping away from the door towards the centre of the room.

"Apologise to Veneziano!"

"What did you do to Veneziano?" The Italian had been one of the few that had been friendly from the start and had often helped Luxembourg improve his painting, and Luxembourg much admired the Italian's skills in painting as well as sculpting; they truly were masterpieces. He stood up. "Is he hurt?"

"Just a snowball to the face, sheesh! It wasn't even hard!"

Germany's steps could be heard as he came closer to the redroom, and Luxembourg opened his mouth to call him over. Anything to help the Italian.

"Oh no, you won't!" Prussia growled and was suddenly behind Luxembourg, a hand clamped over his mouth. "It was nothing serious; everybody knows what a crybaby he can be and I really don't feel like fighting West now."

Luxembourg's angry remark about how Prussia had started the fight in the first place was heard only as an enraged, muffled noise as he tried to break free.

"Shut up and stay still!" Prussia hissed. "I'll apologise to Veneziano later!" And then Prussia too fell silent, for Germany's steps came ever closer. Luxembourg could feel Prussia's heartbeat quicken as Germany passed outside the room excruciatingly slowly, and then return to a normal rate as the danger passed and the footsteps faded away. Prussia slowly let out a breath.

"Okay, he's gone... Promise not to scream?"

Luxembourg nodded; Germany probably wouldn't hear him anymore and he was sick of being held still by the annoying 'Prussian'. Prussia let him go and Luxembourg returned to his painting with a sour face.

For a while, he was left in peace as he tried to add movement to his winter scene, but he noticed that Prussia didn't move far, and that his foul mood and impatience was more likely to further ruin his painting than improve it. He lifted the brush, stood up and took a few steps away from the painting to get a new perspective. It wasn't bad, but it looked very frozen, stiff. Especially the people supposed to be throwing snowballs, the snowballs flying were okay, but the characters weren't moving. Maybe I should take a break...

"If you do it like this, with quick strokes, you get a much more lively effect," Prussia said, adding quick, small strokes to the canvas. Luxembourg thought his heart would stop. The incredible impertinence of just grabbing a brush and applying paint to someone else's painting without permission was almost unthinkable.

"Stop that!" He snapped, grabbing hold of the upperclassman's wrist, taking care not to accidentally push the brush back onto the canvas. The albino's red eyes widened in surprise for a split second, but then he cackled and gestured towards the painting.

"Doesn't it look much better, though?"

Not letting go, Luxembourg shifted his eyes to the character Prussia had started altering, and to his great dismay it did look a lot better.

"Nothing like a dose of awesome to improve an art piece! Hey, since I'm hiding anyway, I'll give you a free lesson so you can paint on your own the next time!" And without waiting for an answer, Prussia started instructing Luxembourg on how to awesome-ify paintings (on a sheet of paper, so as to not upset him further). After a while of explanation, demonstration and finally application, the winter scene looked much more lively, and Luxembourg was in better spirits. As he went to wash the brushes and palette, he was smiling. Painting was his favourite pastime, after all.

"Where do you bunker now?"

"What? Oh, I sleep in the northwest hall with Netherlands and Belgium."

"Hmm..." The thoughtful silence did not last long. "Not anymore!"

"Huh?"

"You're moving in with us. You can find your things in the center hall once you're done, ciao!"

This was to start a minor war that wasn't really related to snow, but that will have to wait for another story.

Happy Valentine's! I hope this chapter will please you~ My most grateful thanks to crocious and TGDoL, both Tonio and Mir, for always supporting me! ^o^