I do not own Hetalia, the characters, people, anything. Hidekaz Himaruya does, and I own nothing that I might've stolen form anyone else. Please reveiw!
Chapter Two: The Basement
The gears from the clock tower filled the silence in between them. The air was dusty and tasteless, hard to breath in around the salty smell of old things and the musty, wet air was also collapsing around them. Their breath- hers, quickened and short, Ivan's collapsed in the scarf around his neck, and the long wheezes of the old man who was smiling at her shock, mocking her surprise without any teeth, making her blood boil. She wanted to protest, she wanted to shout out against that possibility he had just stated, because it was impossible, it couldn't be real. They were the earth, all of them, as one huge band of bickering people, they were the sea and the land and the sky. Yet… come to think of it, Abigail though as she scooted to the edge of her chair, trying to think this through clearly, they were just the land, right? Not the sea and the sky, they were the countries, and they could die but the land would still be there if their nation ever collapsed. It was possible, Abigail was just having trouble comprehending it. Beside her, Ivan blinked. It sort of made sense to him, but another thought entered his head: Being the first nation to send a man into space, wasn't it possible that the other planets had persons as well? His mind churned, his eyes dark. If that was possible, then couldn't they be inhabited easier than their research suggested? Couldn't he have won the Space Race almost thirty years ago if he'd befriended the moon?
"If you are Earth," Ivan said, tapping his fingers on the armrests of the chair, while beside him Abigail tittered, her mouth opening and closing as her mind boggled against the statement. "Then how come Alfred didn't find someone on the Moon as the moon when he sent his man up there?"
"People can't live on the moon, Ivan," Earth said softly. He spoke to them like an old scholar, ready to share their knowledge, and kind, but something about him still had Abigail on the edge of her seat. Earth, with his wrinkled old skin and the gnarled limbs, rubbed his bony kneecaps and stretched his feet. "With help, yes. When the day comes in the future when the moon is somewhere we can live, then someone will come along. But the moon is considered part of Earth, right? It is with Earth, in it's orbit. That might also be why."
"So you don't know?" Abigail said, dissatisfied with his wane answer. She stood up, haughtily wiping dust and grim off her clothes, tapping her feet as she pursed her lips. "Okay, Mr. Blue Planet, here's a question: What's with the silent treatment? Why haven't I seen you before- why hasn't anyone seen you before? If you're Earth, then where have you been?"
Earth smiled warmly, the corners of his eyes draping over the lids, and yet the dark brown eyes twinkled back at her in the same warm way that even Arthur had looked at her sometimes when she was little. She took a step back, wary, and Ivan finally came to his feet. "Because, Abigail," he said. "I don't think there's much I can do anymore now that humanity's so developed. I would be your…say….Great-great grandfather. Now, that far down the line in life, what does a man have to do but sit and wait? Yes, that's what I've been doing. And now you found me, and I'm very happy to see you."
Abigail and Ivan blinked in union, and Earth realized he was sitting across two very thick-skulled beings. He sighed. Further explanation was clearly necessary for these two- knowing that both were mostly about power and strength, not smarts. He stood up and walked over to the huge clock face and cleared a spot to look out-however, when he touched the glass, it melted with an imprint identical to his hand, but not all the way through. Ivan watched that more intently than he listened to what the old man had to say next. "I am Earth, you understand that. I am this planet. I have four hemispheres for each of the four directions. They had the earliest civilizations, which became…you. Now do you understand?"
Ivan was imagining a huge family tree with him at the head, nodding in comprehension. Abigail, however, was wondering how he managed to have children on his own. Maybe there was a girl version of Earth- Mother Earth- but then, where was she? Even still, that was strange. The old man looked expectantly from the edge of the black platform, his hands on the rail, breathing heavily. Abigail's eyebrows furrowed, and she accidentally backed into the box behind her. When Earth looked out the window again as he let the thought sink in, Abigail grabbed Ivan by the scarf and jerked his head down to hiss in his ear. "We should leave. Like, seriously, this guy is really scaring me."
"Why?" Ivan said cheerfully. "He's family." He waved to the man for Abigail to look at as he fell into a noisy fit of coughs into his hands. The room started to heat up, strangely, making Abigail even more uncomfortable as she let go of Ivan's scarf and let him stand up straight again, looking down at her as she spoke again.
"I don't care, this place is really hot and it's obvious we weren't supposed to find it. Really, I think we should go…" She grabbed his sleeve and tried to yank him toward the door, but as she'd learned before, he was clearly stronger than her, so he didn't move. Abigail sniffled in protest.
"You don't have to leave," laughed Earth warmly, gesturing at her. "I never thought I'd ever speak to another one of my grandchildren. It's been a really long time since I have."
"Have?" Ivan repeated questionably. Abigail was ignoring everything around her, her head spinning with emergency escape plans. She didn't want to be in here anymore- she was starting to sweat in the heat, triggering adrenaline and making her jittery. "You've met one of us before? Did they have to keep it a secret?"
"No, no," Earth answered. "He didn't have to. He went where all the others are- I think of all people would know who I'm talking about. Abigail, maybe not. Ivan, you remember Prussia, don't you?"
Ivan immediately recalled Gilbert. Shaggy grey hair and red eyes- he'd been a been a rather rambunctious country and a little self-absorbed, but he'd known his for a long time. Prussia, or Gilbert Belschmidt, had been Germany's older brother, though they only were alike when drunk. Ivan saw Gilbert much more than Germany, being closer to each other had made that simple, but Gilbert didn't really like the idea of having an alliance as much as Ivan had, so he hadn't seen him often. Yet he remembered the devastation absence of the country when he had left, feeling extremely surrounded by people who refused to see him and people that hated him. Well, at least he'd had Toris after that, he thought optimistically. "Yes, I remember how his nation was dissolved." Then, a thought dawned on him, and he narrowed his eyes dangerously. "Did you have something to do with it?"
Earth laughed out loud now, a very loud, happy laugh that was extremely unnecessary and made Ivan nervous. "Oh, Russia," Earth began, this time approaching them with ease, not faltering in his steps as before. Ivan and Abigail took a simultaneous step back, keeping the space between them, and Earth halted, his face yet again serious as ever. He spoke with a low, dead voice that was all fact and no emotion. "Of course I did," he admitted without remorse. We all did- even you."
"I had nothing to do with that!" Ivan cried, his voice breaking with such sadness that Abigail bit her lip and looked away from him. "Gilbert was my friend! I wouldn't-" He had pointed to himself, leaning forward to shout a little while Earth grit his teeth. Ivan didn't continue, he didn't dare with the angry look Earth had now.
"And yet you took his land," Earth said harshly. He paced back and forth between them, mumbling something while pressing a finger to his lips. Ivan realized that this man had just as many mood swings as Belarus, and he wished he'd retreated while Abigail had said so. "You countries, all of you…" Earth said under his breath. Then he stopped pacing and looked them in the eye with dark anger written across his wrinkled face, his lips pressed together. "I suppose you're going to blame me for all this," he stated toward Ivan, yet the blame was just as much as Abigail's as it was his.
Ivan didn't even think about the words he blurted next. "Yes, I do," he said, his eyebrows in a hurt arch on his forehead. "You took a friend away from me, and a brother from Ludwig-"
"A brother?" Earth was suddenly insane, and the room began getting hotter and hotter. He rushed at Ivan, getting in his face, the heat radiating off of him like he was a fire in the middle of the room, droplets of water all over his skin, dripping onto the floor with little wisps of steam floating up from the floor and curling up around them. Ivan flinched. "His brother couldn't tolerate him, we both know that. And you? you fool. Gilbert hated you. He told me himself. So don't you blame me for-"
"Hey, hey now," Abigail sputtered, watching Ivan's face turn from confusion to utter offense. "Listen, we didn't mean to make you angry," she said, timidly trying to move between them. "We just-" Then, as she put a hand on Earth's shoulder to try and create some space between them, she gave out an ear-shattering scream and leapt back, holding her hand while tears suddenly streamed down her face. Ivan twisted around, startled to see that her hand had somehow turned instantly black like she'd thrown her hand into a fire, charcoal and blood seeming to seep from her palm and fingers as she wailed in pain. Abigail stumbled back, gripping her wounded hand, and suddenly Earth rushed forward, and, enemy or not, he squashed himself between them, feeling the heat of his body that was unbearably hot. Abigail had fallen back over a box, blood now dripping on her clothes and through the cracks of the metal platform, unable to do anything.
They needed to leave, Ivan realized. Now. He backed away, putting his hands up, and then bent down to pull Abigail to her feet by the waist as she cringed around her hand. "Goodbye," Ivan said shortly, trying to step toward the elevator, but Earth was there in front of them, his face a sick, twisted, angry mess or wrinkles and skin. With a flourish, he backhanded Ivan across the face and grabbed his coat, which set on fire almost instantly. His face burned in the prints of Earth's wrinkled, bony hand, and he twitched against the wound, wanting to cover it with his hand. He frowned as Earth shook him, his lips twitching, beads of sweat all over his old body and dropping all over the floor like acid.
"Don't defy me, Ivan Braginski," Earth hissed loudly, his eyes slits as the little flames between them threatened to set Ivan on fire. He definitely wasn't an old man physically, Ivan figured, and not a very good great-great grandfather either. However, Earth snarled. "Don't think that I killed Gilbert just because I wanted to-"
"MURDERER!" Ivan screeched, only hearing the first part of the sentence before going positively wild, and without hesitation, he shoved Earth out of the way and patted down his coat, his hands feeling as if they were on fire, but he hadn't touched him long enough to become charred and black like Abigail's. Earth flew back into the railing and bounced off it, unscathed, while Ivan grabbed Abigail before she could fully react and together they ran toward the elevator as fast as they possibly could, weaving between boxes and old objects, littering things everywhere and in their path, breaking lamps and creating a very loud trail behind them as they ran. The metal ramp clinked and shook as Abigail tittered, fumbling around, almost over the edge and then toward the other side as Ivan ran ahead while holding her good hand. The path was long, she doubted they'd make it to the elevator in time before Great-Great Grandpa Earth came after them faster than they could manage, but she ran as fast as she could, though her lungs burst before she wanted them to and she needed to slow, she needed a break-
Earth was behind her in a second, she hadn't even noticed he'd been following them, and before she could quicken her pace in one last attempt to get away, He'd grabbed the back of her hood, jerking her arm away from Ivan and the hood melting into a rubbed puddle on the plank. Ivan screeched to a stop, turned around and looked at the play before him. Earth didn't touch Abigail again, but she made a point of making sure not to move, her hand still throbbing and burning and bleeding, a reminder. Ivan didn't exactly know what to do- he could leave Abigail here, but his grudge was not against her. If it had been Alfred, he would've kept going without a second thought, but Abigail? He was struck with what to do, but staying was obvious, for now it was too late to run. He composed himself, realizing that Earth just made him mad, and if Abigail was going to be pushed around by anyone it should be one of the Russian nations, not the entire world.
"Give her back," Ivan said, his voice taking on an entire new air that was coated in sugar but layered with poison as his eyes hooded, dark purple.
"I might've let you go," Earth said. "I didn't want anyone finding out about me, but-"
"Oh, we won't tell!" Abigail said quickly, wheezing. She laughed hysterically, her eyes wide with fear as she tried to struggle away, but his grip was tight, tighter than Ivan's- tighter than ten of him. "Really, not a soul!" She assured his again, her boots scraping the metal floor loudly, the soles wearing.
Earth laughed, squeezing the back of her coat while he looked pointedly at Ivan. "I'm sure you won't," he said with a snakelike smile that Ivan did not like in the slightest as his lips came together. "And I'm sure you promise that now, but Americans have a bad rap about being able to keep secrets," Earth added, moving ever so closely to the edge of the rail.
"Not all of them!" Abigail protested, knowing fully that a fall from the top of the platform wasn't going to kill her, (not a lot could, but it had to be strength) though she didn't fancy being in pain for the few days. She looked franticly at Ivan, who was still wondering what exactly he should do, his head rotating between Earth and Abigail.
"Say hello to Prussia for me, why don't you?" Earth said with a mocking smile, then, with one gigantic heave, the American country was hurled over the edge of the platform and plummeted with an echoing scream toward the floor.
Ivan scrambled toward the edge, ignoring Earth just long enough to reach the edge, and be pushed over himself, the planet's hands burning into his back. Pain, searing all over his face and on his back, his coat burned, Abigail's scream hitting his ears that cut off so suddenly he knew exactly what happened and he knew that same thing would happen to him as the dusty floor came up to him faster and faster. The air hit his face as the ground rushed up at him like a bad dream, he wished he'd wake up, because only in dreams would he ever be so concerned about Abigail's general safety, but the ground coming ever so closer to them was now his main worry, because there was nothing he could grab to save himself, and as his hands flailed out into the air around him. He didn't scream as he fell, no…the air, rushing in and out of his lungs yet his mouth was open as if to scream something, anything, but he couldn't breath, he was too surprised. The cold air of the ground chilled him, it was no longer hot, and he was going to die cold, he was going to die by the same person that killed Gilbert, he was going to die-
With a sudden, painful jerk, everything was black.
Nobody heard the cacophony of screams and smashes outside the tower. No one would've suspected that the Earth just did away with Russia's male personification and America's female one- Alfred, in his apartment didn't notice a thing as he finally climbed into bed after playing almost an hour straight of Modern Warfare, suspecting that Abigail had gone to get some non-soggy McDonald's, and he'd wake up to her nagging him all the time, as usual. He'd just come back with telling her he'd go to Arthur's alone-see how she liked that. He rolled over in his bed and fell asleep, dreaming many American dreams and sleeping long into the morning. Ivisse waited for Ivan to come back, and when he didn't hours later, she merely set out a note from him angrily expressing in Russian how she worried about him all night long, then went to bed as well. Allison didn't know what happened, neither did Arthur or anyone who ever made random thoughts about Ivan or Abigail. Nobody cared, really, they weren't the most favorite countries in the world, and nobody suspected a thing.
You might wonder where exactly they ended up. Well, it's rather hard to explain. What we have in this story, I say, is a town that does not exist with a demonic clock tower with the planet itself rotting inside, who has gone mad much like the world and all it's people have as well. Yes, I believe that the world itself will bring it's most disastrous destruction, whatever that may be, like a massive pile of nuclear waste spreading all throughout the sea, making every droplet of water poisonous or something. My imagination is a funny one, but Earth is a strange planet, so thus, we have Ivan and Abigail unconscious underneath the tower in a basement that does not exist underneath a town that does not exist. This may be confusing. But think of it like this: this world that does not exist has layers of non-existence. You have the top layer (the town, the tower, ect, ect,) which is the most 'existent' of the nonexistent. Then you have the basement which is slightly less existent. Anything below that is just madness. So, think of an old, grimy basement. Pick the darkest place out of your memory and then imagine slime growing up the walls all around you, shelves of things you don't recognize piled all over the surface and a musty smell so thick you could taste it. Yes. That is the nonexistent basement-world that happens to be below the place that does not exist, and it is a right labyrinth of a lower level. Then again, many countries in their time of dire need took a good liking to the underground. Abigail, when she woke a couple hours later, had always sort of imagined The Underground Railroad, had it ever existed in real life, to look exactly like this. But Abigail and Ivan, both in pain as they lie on their backs on the floor, ironically enough, almost touching- ironic to think that two enemies such as this would be so close to each other and not trying to rip out their throats. Actually, these two 'enemies' neither thought contempt toward each other when they woke, or anything at all for that matter, because the only thought that went through their head that was conceivable went like this: What is going on? (with many variations, of course)
However, the last time Ivan had ever felt so comfortable, he'd been passed out drunk in a snowy bank in the middle of Siberia, absolutely comfortable, the taste of vodka on his lips. He felt no pain at all, which was surprising for the massive fall he'd taken. He lay on his back, his arms spread a little beside him, his coat still smelling burnt and his face still stinging, his back on fire. A few feet from where he lay, Abigail's coat that was mainly rubber was almost completely melted in the back- Earth's core was extremely hot, so that must be the reason for the steam and the fire, and when he touched both of them, the temperature had burned through everything, including Abigail's own flesh, which probably meant (in actual world terms) that some forest in California or somewhere just burnt to the ground, and some field in Russia experienced a wildfire. Abigail's hand made a little pool of blood on the floor, not quite yet clotted from how much she'd stretched the cracks and creases in the wound, causing pain to flow up and down her wrist, her fingers twitching involuntarily to the pain. There was something irritating about the drunken feeling that finally brought Abigail to breath in, and open her eyes. It was dark. Well, she wondered mostly if she was dead or not. It wasn't exactly what she'd been expecting. She'd hoped not to feel the pain she was experiencing now when she did eventually die, but the pain finally bothered her enough that she sat upright and cupped it to her chest, whimpering. She wasn't sore, no, not in any place other than her hand. Nations healed quickly and only rarely got sick at all, so it must've been a couple hours at least for her to have been asleep and fallen that far. Becoming unconscious was inevitable with a fall like that, she guessed, but she wasn't a doctor either, so she didn't quite know.
As Abigail was sitting in the dark and Ivan was having present memories of snowy fields and vodka, let's switch to the underscore of our problem and take a look at what was happening at that moment in time above. Ironically, there was only one person that knew of the 'basement' part of the town that did not exist, and that person didn't give a care in the world about it. He thought it was all ordinary, that it was just a basement for his own disposal to use. And use it he did, when no one was looking. This person happened to be Arthur Kirkland.
Now, taking a closer look at Arthur Kirkland's background, a few things come to mind: One; the positive insanity of many of his monarchs that had ruled the country, causing himself to go a bit on the loopy end as well (for example: King George the Third, Henry the Eight, ect, ect,) which might be a cause for the next thing (no, it is not his eyebrows, but they are definitely worth mentioning, aren't they?) which was the fact he considered himself to be able to practice magic. He was able to, on occasion, though Ivan himself could boast stronger magic if the opportunity ever presented itself in a battle of such skills. Arthur's basement was constructed for that purpose- to be somewhere where he could do this and that without being bothered. In the moment, you might wonder if Allison knows about this basement, and the answer is, quite shockingly, no. Allison was more obsessed in keeping things tidy and learning bubbly, useful little skills, if anything supernatural, so the fact that she did not know about this basement wasn't entirely unbelievable. Arthur didn't often use his basement these days- the last time he had was to cure Alfred of a stomach ache almost a full year ago because his digestive system was giving his plumbing a little trouble. So, the hope that Arthur would go downstairs and conjure up a curse for no apparent reason was a dim one. But a hope was a hope, because, coincidentally, the only was out that the two could hope for would be the entrance to his basement. Even more ironically, neither of them knew it existed. Arthur was particularly good at keeping a secret, which, in this case, was a bad thing.
To bore you even further with useless facts that will come in handy later that you might want to skip over but just be confused with later, the basement of the town that did not exist may have had one legit exit that could properly be called such, yet there were other ways out that aren't as cozy to think about. Actually, taking a trip somewhere Arthur keeps curses and spells isn't all that inviting either, if you really want to think about it. Yes, you could get out of the basements by this cozy alternative: the sewer. Every town has one beneath it (every proper town, some small villages don't, but for fiction's sake, we can say this one did), so, as such you might thing this: Wouldn't it not exist more than the town itself did not exists? But then again, when exactly do you think of the sewer on a whim? So, the sewer does not exist as much as the town doesn't exist. That's all very confusing, so we won't go farther downstairs for now. (Then it would exist even less than the sewer exists which doesn't quite exist as much as the town doesn't exist, which, to say, does not exist, for a little sample) So, to narrow it down, the basement did have other 'unofficial' exists such as sewer taps and little windows below apartments, and Ivan and Abigail aren't quite doomed to have to wander around until they find Arthur's basement which happens to hold a cauldron inside it.
Back to the top side of our story, where Abigail painfully sits up in the middle of a basement room holding her hand painfully, Ivan is jerked from his sleep to experience a rather cold, dank, floor. After a fall such as the one the two have experienced, obviously they were sharing the same thought (other than 'what was going on,' after they got over that in the first seconds of their disaster they thought this thought): Where they dead? No, Ivan couldn't really think he was dead. His idea of dead had to do with bright white lights at the end of a dark tunnel. Well, he had the tunnel part in abundance. Where was the light? And never in his wildest dreams would he ever want to share his afterlife with Abigail F. Jones. No, he was still painfully alive, he figured, and he flopped backward back onto the floor in hopes he could die of thirst or hunger very quick. This hope was not granted, and the two sat in silence, waiting for one or the other to make a move and say something. Abigail, is was given a choice of words to lead out with, would've said, "This is your fault." Which, was a lie, obviously, but Ivan beat her to speaking first by saying, "I think we are in a pickle."
Hearing Ivan Braginski saying the word 'pickle' with his deep voice that had no body Abigail could see, and despite their condition, she burst out laughing. Her laughter was joined hesitantly, and for a couple minutes, Ivan and Abigail, two enemies, spent their first moments in a wasteland beneath the town that did not exist cracking up about something completely pointless. Ivan wasn't exactly sure what he was laughing about, but for all he could tell, laughing was a lot better than screaming bloody murder like he wished deep, deep, deep, deep inside himself. And then they both stopped abruptly, and silence consumed. Not total silence- there was an eerie drip, drip coming from the left and a scary yawning, howling noise coming from the right, and something, Ivan could've sworn he knew it was alive, scurried around the room. Had they been friends, they might've screamed rather loudly and held on to each other, and, in both of their minds, they wished they could do that, because-even though Abigail expressed it more than Ivan- they were very afraid. Afraid of what they had discovered together, afraid of each other, afraid of what exactly was going to happen to them. They both expressed fear in different ways. Abigail and Alfred often would scream and frantically run about, grabbing on to anything that could possibly save them, but adrenaline (and the fact that groping Ivan didn't exactly appeal to her) was the only thing keeping Abigail doing more than chatting her teeth together and rubbing her forearms, her feet twitching nervously. When Ivan and Ivisse were frightened, usually they hid anywhere that could shelter from the said horror and hope it would leave. Unfortunately, there was no place he could see that was suitable to hide, so the two of them sat for a long time in painful, frightened agony.
While all this was happening, let me remind you of something: Ivan and Abigail, when they first met in the courtyard outside, broke down the door and left it propped up in the doorway. Earth did not know this, so it wasn't in his interest to go down the elevator and prop it back in the right place. On the surface, the sun was rising, giving light to this fact, but all throughout the day, only two people would notice and two people would take action. The first person to notice it happened to be Abigail's sister, a thin Canadian girl named Matilda that enjoyed taking walks when the sun was just rising. Being mostly shy like her brother, though both of them wanted to have friends, she did pick the time of day where almost nobody was awake. Except maybe Germany, but he took jogs out in the country to satisfy the personal need to stay fit, and didn't wander around the town that did not exists in the morning. Matilda liked to walk around the town and see the light come up through the buildings and empty shops. If there was anyone in the world that would be lonely in a town that gave you everything, it would be her and her brother Matthew, for…obvious reasons. The Canadian country itself was often forgotten, and that was because there just wasn't much special about it. Most it it's land, like Russia, was uninhabitable, full of tundra and cold. There was a low crime rate and a good government, so not much made the news, exactly, and their citizens were extremely friendly to everyone. The fact that it was a large country didn't really have effect on Matthew and Matilda's body size, both of them were shorter than their American siblings, though the entire family of England and France's succession had blonde hair and blue eyes. However, Abigail and Matilda did have their differences. Even though both their male counterparts wore glasses, neither of them did, but Abigail wore her hair short and was in more frumpy, busy waves whereas Matilda's hard reached the middle of her back and was neatly wavy because she slept in braids. Abigail often dressed like she didn't care at all, but Matilda picked out her outfits carefully to set off her looks- she was pretty, but Abigail could always boast being more attractive to the social crowd, so Matilda just wore nice shirts and skirts. As she walked past the tower that day, which she hadn't really noticed until then because she had a little nightstand version of it in her bedroom, she saw this: the door was open. With an umbrella propped on her shoulder, she leaned over and looked inside, and saw what lay there: dust, books, and lost of old furniture. Though, one thing did stand out to her, and it was a jacket of Arthur's.
Why it was there, Matilda didn't know, but to say that there was many other possessions he'd lost over the ages (and other countries as well) jumbled in there was a big of an understatement. Though, this was the only thing she really noticed, because she recalled Arthur making a loud fuss and blaming Alfred for it, who denied it in a way that Arthur could've only marked him as lying. Well, she stepped inside and took the jacket from where it lay, covered in dust, and put it on her arm. She might as well return it, she thought, and she quietly stepped out of the clock tower, and on her way out, she noticed a canon, two strange uniforms, a cracked mirror, and an old coat. Who lived here? Matilda couldn't help but wonder as she weaved back through the dusty place with Arthur's jacket draped over her arm, and she silently left the building staying where, up above where she didn't even bother to look, Earth laughed at himself in triumph for getting rid of two pesky great-great-grandchildren. She didn't hear his laughs, but they echoed loudly off the walls like a vibraphone singing out it's praise to a deaf person. And Matilda walked through the streets, and around the corner where the little English cottage stood in a little section of highland outside the town. If you wandered far enough on that highland eventually you'd find the elegant French mansion where she often visited Francis Bonnefoy and his female gender (which were oddly similar, to tell the truth), and beyond that was the Russian house that Matilda rarely visited, if ever. However, Ivan and Ivisse were two very friendly people- not someone she didn't mind hanging around at all, to be exact, it was Alfred and Abigail who disapproved of those kind of visits.
She knocked on the low wooden door softly, but loudly enough that anyone who was awake would hear. A second passed, and then a voice flitted through the door, and it opened a crack, a green eye looked out, then it fully swung open.
Arthur must've forgotten he was wearing his pajamas the second Matilda knocked on the door. Or maybe she'd gotten him out of bed, she didn't know, but there had to be a reason the usually refined British gentlemen was wearing a black shirt with white letters that said "I Am Not Amused," and plaid pajamas pants that clearly needed a wash. Maybe he'd been out to the pub the night before, one could only guess, but then against, Arthur was more familiar with Matilda than Abigail and Alfred combined- when he remembered her, that is.
"Matilda!" He cried, clearly delight, his face contorting into the friendly older-brother figure she'd always known. "What a surprise! You can come out the rain, if you like."
Matilda smiled nervously. "Actually I just dropped by to give this back to you," she said, her voice naturally rather quite and airy. She handed him the jacket carefully, and he raised the jacket up, wondering whether or not to be surprised or grateful.
"You had it all this time?" Arthur laughed in nervous apprehension. Matilda knew his reaction was much different than one he would've given Alfred or Abigail. "My God, I would've never guessed!"
"I didn't take it," she contradicted quickly, and continued after his confused look. "I found it." She pointed over her shoulder on the horizon behind them. "In the clock tower. Along with some… other… stuff."
Arthur leaned curiously out the doorway and looked beyond Matilda's shoulder at the ominous clock tower hovering above the town's walls. He threw the jacket on his shoulder and stiffened back into his doorway. "What kind of things?" he asked slowly, not able to say he wasn't interested in something a little off-limits. Of course, Arthur liked to stay at home, calm, but even Matilda knew that he had a bit of a wild side that liked this sort of things.
"Some canons," Matilda described, moving her hands around to show what she meant. "A couple coats, a mirror, some of the Revolution stuff-"
At the drop of the last thing, Arthur was running up the stairs to get dressed. "You have to show me this! Let yourself in, of course, I'll get cleaned up!" He cried, mischievously delighted at another hint into what exactly made Alfred and Abigail come out so strong at the end of the Revolution. It wasn't the canons, that was for sure, Matilda thought, and she closed her umbrella and stepped inside the cozy entrance as she listened to Arthur scurry from his room to the bathroom multiple times, all the while Allison somehow sleeping through the flurry of bangs and slams. Then, only about two minutes later, Arthur stumbled down the steps again wearing plain pants, a button up shirt and the jacket she'd found, holding a flashlight. She wondered how he could tell they needed it- but it was obvious that anything that came from Alfred's Independence had to come from somewhere dark and crawling with dust. They walked out into the rain together, the umbrella over their heads, and Matilda showed him the door that was propped open on the side while Arthur greedily slipped into the room and picked through the items. He recognized some, some he didn't, but then, in the middle of a silent, triumphant chuckle, he froze, standing in between a few desks, but in the middle of the clear spot on the floor.
You might wonder what Arthur felt just then. Having no experience that I can recall having to do with magics (because anyone sane wouldn't have experienced them) but I would imagine a sensation coming from something supernatural would feel tingly or at least chilling. Whatever it felt like, Arthur was immediately aware that the tower was not normal. The floor seemed to vibrate with some sort of energy that Matilda didn't notice as she picked up a big feather had and tested it on her head in the mirror, but Arthur did. He blinked, clearly feeling like he was getting a message from the other world, and crouched on the floor, putting his fingers on the stone floor and thinking for a while.
If you recall, I said Arthur would simply not go into his basement on a whim. No, this was not a whim- this was something completely different. During his magic practices that rarely worked, he always felt something, something like this, at least. But he wouldn't quite figure it out for a while, how they would live in a town that did not exist, but it was still there- how was it possible? He wasn't thinking about that, though, as he crouched with his hands on that floor, testing the depth of the magic. Earth, above them, did not notice their presence, however, Arthur knew that whoever was using the floor that seemed to hum had a lot of magic up his sleeve- of course, when he was with Russia when he cast his curse on Japan, it felt like something was slithering into his body, which caused him to become nervous. This feeling, however, felt like a step down from an electric shock- jolting, but yet, vibrating.
"Arthur?" Matilda leaned over and had come up to him, starting him in the face quietly. "What's the matter? Your hair's standing up on end."
"Um, uh," Arthur had a little trouble finding his words. Actually, he thought with sedated brain activity, it felt a lot like the sixties when he'd listened to 'Lucy in The Sky With Diamonds' and had agreed to smoke weed with France. An experience that was delightful, but one he didn't want to happen twice, and he shook off the powerful feeling and stood up, grabbing Matilda by the arm and hauling her out of tower quickly. "Let's go get some tea at my place," he said, daring to drag her as far as possible from that strange place. "Wouldn't you fancy some tea?" He laughed nervously. "I know I would." Anything to get him away from that place, at least.
I was up at six something eating almost a package of mints while I typed this- the morning hours are the best for typing, I think. Well, with that said, please read and review.
