Chapter Three
The next morning, Katyusha woke her brother up early to find food before the General arrived. They were lucky and managed to find a cache of saplings. Each of them chewed on four plants before the bitter taste was too strong for them to stomach. That left ten sprouts for them to store back at home.
Day break came and Winter still had no shown up. It was odd for him to in the late morning. After waiting a couple more hours, Ivan made the first move. He picked up the large ax they kept by the door before exiting silently.
"Ivan?" She got up to follow him. "Where are you going?"
"Firewood," he chirped without stopping.
"But what about General Winter?"
He turned around and seemed rather perplexed by her question. "The General told me to collect firewood."
"Oh…" She thought that must have been what they had spoken about when he was stuck in the snow. It was not unusual for Winter to add extra chores if one of them displeased him, but he would supervise to make sure the job was done to his liking. He still had yet to arrive. "Is it okay for you to be doing this on your own?"
"Da." He added a quick nod. "He told me to do it myself."
"I see…" Katyusha was a little skeptical, but did not want to risk interfering with the General's orders. "Be safe."
Ivan smiled pleasantly before venturing off. When he disappeared behind the tree line, she looked around for any sign of their guardian. There was none to be found. The coast was clear. She could feel her lips pull into a tight smile as she headed west. If she traveled far enough today, she might be able to find signs of other nations.
General Winter always warned them that other nations were evil and not to be trusted, but that only fueled her curiosity. It had been forever since she saw a nation other than her little brother and she wanted to know there was still a world out there somewhere.
Katyusha ran through the snow as fast as she could to go as far as possible before having to go back the way she came. Occasionally she would find footprints or broken object littering the ground on her excursions. Every discovery reassured her that they were not alone. She kept running until her lungs stung and her legs began to cramp. Her heart was racing, but the sensation was far more enjoyable than that of the previous day. Lying down on the white covered ground, she let out a long string of bubbly giggles.
"Oh. I didn't know that there was anyone around here."
She thought that she had died right then and there. Katyusha's heartbeat was roaring in her ears. Eyes widened in terror as the foreign nation looked down at her. His eyes shared the same blue coloring as hers, but his hair was similar to that of tree bark. He was bundled up in a thick green jacket and heavy brown boots.
"Hello."
Katyusha rolled away from him as quickly as possible; apparently startling the other nation in the process. He fell backwards and landed on his butt with a loud crunch as the snow beneath him was crushed. Trying to make sure she sounded tough, Katyusha lowered her voice an octave before speaking. "What do you want?"
The boy looked just as frightened as she felt. Now that she could see him better, she noticed how thin and short he was. He did not look like any sort of threat, but the General's warnings kept her slightly wary.
"N-n-nothing," he stammered. "I just was not expecting to find someone so close to such a scary place."
A pang of guilt struck her in the chest. It looked almost as if the boy was going to cry. She offered her hand to help him up. "It's not so scary."
The boy smiled as he accepted her hand. "Then you are much braver than I am."
It was then that Katyusha noticed the shaft of an arrow protruding from the boy's shoulder. In an instant, she forgot every one of the General's warnings and all of her fear evaporated into genuine concern. "You're hurt!"
"Oh!" The boy did not appear to have noticed the arrow until she mentioned it. "Looks like I missed one. That Prussia boy came over again to bully me. Guess it's a good thing my jacket is so thick."
"Someone has been picking on you?"
"Yeah, I'm not that strong…" He then smiled after a moment's contemplation. "But one day I will make friends with lots of other nations. Then no one will be able to beat us up because we will protect each other."
His smile reminded her of Ivan's back when they lived in happier days. It made her happy to see such a sincere smile. "Do you have friends already?"
The boy laughed nervously. "Well, my boss is going to marry this other nation's boss soon. My boss really wants me to get along with that guy, but he is a little hard to handle."
"What is it like to have a friend?"
"You don't have friends?"
She answered by shaking her head no. Ivan was her dear little brother, but she doubted that the boy included siblings into the count. Winter was no longer her friend, so she then concluded that she must be friendless.
"I could be your friend…"
At first she thought that she had imagined hearing the boy say such words. "You would be friends with me?"
"Only if you were okay with being friends with someone like me, of course."
Katyusha could not keep herself from hugging the boy. He was the first person to ever offer her friendship of any kind. It was a kindness that she would never forget.
"Um… Is it normal for two boys to hug where you are from?"
"…" She let go of him and crouched down and held her knees together with one arm while twiddling her hair with her free hand. "I'm a girl…"
The boy blinked at her in confusion."Girl?" Anyone could plainly see the exact moment that the word sunk in. His face flushed pink. "I'm sorry! It's my fault! I just assumed with your short hair and thick coat that.. Not that you look masculine or anything!"
The boy continued to shower her with apologies, but Katyusha was distracted by the slowly diming daylight. She needed to start heading home soon. Looking up at the boy, she said, "Thank you very much for your offer to be my friend, but we cannot be friends. At least not right now."
"We can't?"
General Winter was very strict on his no friends policy, as he was with all of his policies. If she broke the rules, there would be hell to pay later. She also worried about what would happen to the boy if Winter ever found out about him. "But I would like to see you again… But I don't know when I will get another chance to leave… Can we meet again?"
"Of course!" The boy pinkened again. "I don't live too far from here, and I take a lot of walks over here so…"
Katyusha smiled and started running back toward home before he could finish. She turned around to look at the boy only once. "Then I will meet you here again some other day. It's a promise."
"Wait!" the boy called after her, but she kept on running. "I never caught your name!"
It was a hard run, but she managed to smile most of the way home. The first thing that she wanted to do was tell Ivan about the strange boy from the west. He would love to hear about the encounter; she just knew it. Katyusha felt giddy as she tried to think of the perfect way to tell the story when their house finally came into view. She could hardly make out her brother sitting out front holding something up to his face. When she came closer, she could see that he was hurt. That meant only one thing. General Winter was there and he knew that she had left.
