France smiled and looked out over the sea. It was very beautiful today. Much like him.

He had needed to get away from England, so he had gone down south to one of his beautiful port cities: Marseilles.

He looked over to a ship just pulling in and smiled. But then he noticed something that made him frown. Where were all the crewmembers? There was no one at the anchor, no one at the mast, and the captain wasn't at the wheel. The deck was deserted and it felt like a cemetery.

France frowned deeper and walked over to the crowd who were just as confused as he was. They were finally able to pull the boat in to dock, as it was just drifting close enough, and sent up a plank from the dock to the ship. Some of the workers walked on and France made a move to follow them. But one of the workers who didn't know who he was stopped him.

"I'm sorry sir but you need to stay here," But France just shook him off and walked on the ship anyways. The man was stopped from stopping him again by one of his co-workers came up and explained that that was France.

The first thing France noticed when he stepped on the ship was that the deck wasn't as deserted as everyone thought. They just couldn't see it from the dock but the deck had 4 or 5 dead bodies.

A violent coughing fit snapped France out of his trance and made him jump. Ok, maybe not all of them were dead... But even the one that proved to be alive didn't have much time left. So France calmly, or as calm as he could muster as he was quietly freaking out over the dead bodies, walked over to the "alive" man and knelt down beside him, careful not to get to close to the blood puddle that was forming near his head.

But after a few minutes, it became clear that the man was now dead and France, seeing no reason to stay on the ship, quickly stood up and went back to the docks. The other workers that went on the ship soon followed him out and the ship was emptied of the goods from Italy. Then it was quickly pushed out to open water and set on fire, as hopes that whatever killed the crew wouldn't spread. Everyone was put at ease with this and continued their day as they would normally.

However, France couldn't help but feel that they hadn't seen the last of the illness.

...

"Francia,

Sé que estás enojado conmigo por mi rey acuerdo para el príncipe para casarse con la princesa de Inglaterra y ser su aliado, pero mi amigo, creo que tenemos grandes problemas en este momento. Mi pueblo se está muriendo y es de la misma cosa que mató a los miembros de la tripulación de un barco desde Italia! Y yo sé que tu pueblo se está muriendo, así ... "

("France,

I know you are mad at me for my king agreeing for the prince to marry England's princess and being his ally but mi amigo, I think we have bigger problems right now. My people are dying and it's from the same thing that killed the crewmembers from a ship from Italy! And I know your people are dying as well...")

France stopped reading the note from Spain (the poor man was so frantic that he had forgotten to write it in the nations language) and looked up at the 5th funeral he attended today.

Yes, they had not seen the last of the illness.