A/N: Chapter Three, up and ready to be read! Heh, I hope it didn't take me too long to post this chapter. And that you all like it as much as you liked the other chapters! I, personally, am not that fond of the beginning but think that it really picks up as the chapter continues. And, uh, I don't actually want to bore you by writing a crap-ton of stuff up here. Not like you all really read these things, right? ^.^' Anywho, enjjoy!
It had been almost three hours since everyone made it out of the burning shell of what used to be the back end of their plane and, still, nothing had gotten done. Injuries had not been tended to, shelter hadn't been found, and no one had even bothered to try and figure out what frozen chunk of land they had crashed onto. Everyone was too absorbed in their own misery and bewilderment to think straight.
Mathew thought it was all fairly pathetic.
The other Nations were acting like this was the first disaster they had ever been in. And, while it was one of the more unusual ones, that was far from being true. Living through disasters was what made a Nation a Nation. Rising up from the ashes of a fallen city or a lost battle: that was what they lived for and strived for, and everyone in that crash had shoved those ashes aside before. This should have been child's play for them.
But many of the Nations hadn't been to war for a long time, and they hadn't been through training for one in even longer. Wits and instincts had rusted over and been pushed into the back of their minds, replaced instead by the fantasies of their people and the urge to wallow instead of take action.
A harsh, icy wind drew Mathew out of his thoughts. Even through his thick hoodie, and the sun shining brightly above him, the cold of the snow capped mountain chilled him to the bone. It was one of the many things concerning him at that moment - along with the fact that his arms and legs were almost completely numb and that Alfred was still unconscious, sprawled out in the snow beside him.
The weather they were caught in was worse then the fact that not a single Nation had escaped uninjured. If it was that cold during the middle of the day, when the sun was high in the sky and unhindered by clouds of any sort, then when it started to get dark out they would be in serious trouble.
It's that thought that drove Mathew to his feet, despite the fact that he would much rather have just continued sitting in his little patch of snow with his brother. The sound of joints popping back into place filled the air and if he hadn't been so cold, he would have stopped to stretch his stiff muscles. Instead he crossed both arms over his chest, shoved his shaking hands under his armpits, and ducked his head as he made his way to where the other Nations were all sitting.
Their half of the plane had crashed on a ledge of sorts. It was a large snow-covered, open area. A small portion was lined with a thick grove of bushy pine trees and elm trees. The majority of their little ledge was lined with the steep and uneven walls of a mountain - one that just seemed to stretch on and on like a grey giant, covered in craggs and outcroppings and small caverns dug into the side of the cliff wall. And the rest of it, including just several feet away from where they had landed, was nothing more then a sheer drop off the side of the mountain. The plane itself was still smoldering in spots, letting dark whisps of smoke fill up the other wise clear sky.
And, for a reason that he hadn't yet figured out, Mathew felt as though he'd been there before. Rather, he felt the tug in his chest that told him when he was on his own soil or passing over his own waters. But this land was far from being a part of Canada and it was far from somewhere that the Canadian could actually remember being before.
Mathew's steps were slow as he made his way over to the two Nations he wanted to speak with. As far as he could tell, the Italy Twins were the two least hurt out of them all. They were also the closest to him out of everyone, both of them hunched in the snow next to a chunk of fuselage that had broken off the plane on impact.
"Excuse me, Romano? Feliciano? C-could I speak with you for a moment?" Mathew asked, tounge thick in his mouth and words stilted by the chattering of his teeth.
Romano scowled at him. "No. Fuck off."
"Romano!" Felicano scolded, waggling one shaking finger at his twin. "Don't be so mean, vee! Maybe what he needs is important!"
Romano just scowled some more and curled into a smaller ball.
"What do you need, Alfred?" Feliciano asked warmly, beaming at the Nation that he thought was his friend.
A twinge went through Mathew, breath catching and twisting in his throat. One hand twitched slightly, fingers shuddering and then curling into a fist - and his smile never wavered save for when the chattering of his teeth got too bad. "Actually, Felic-ciano, I'm n-not Alfred. I'm Mathew."
The Italian Nation gave him a blank stare and an even blanker smile. "Oh. I knew that, vee! I was just teasing! What do you need?"
Mathew didn't miss the fact that Feliciano didn't say his name, or how the light blue eyes darted over to his twin for a moment before coming back to land on him. "I w-was wondering if I c-could get both of your h-help with something?"
Romano ignored him and Feliciano kept on smiling so the True North took that as a sign to continue.
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"Is everyone out of the plane yet, Gilbert? Is there anyone still hurt, Gilbert? Go get me this, Gilbert, and now go get me that, Gilbert, and why isn't this done yet?" The Nation of Prussia muttered angrily to himself as he walked through the dense woods, voice dropped into a horrible impression of his younger brother.
Both hands were shoved in his jeans pockets, head tilted down in an attempt to keep the sharply cold wind from cutting into his face. Gilbert was firmly refusing to let himself shudder, despite the fact that in nothing but a tee-shirt and jeans he was absolutely freezing. But Ludwig had scolded him earlier for not wearing a jacket on the plane so now the Ex-Nation was refusing to admit to his brother that he was cold. Instead he tried to focus on talking to himself as he wondered around looking for a couple of large branches to use as firewood.
The front half of the plane, and it bothered Gilbert that they could only find the one half, had landed in a dip between two jagged chunks of mountain. The huge stone walls acted as a barrier for the wind and, back there, not having a coat on was just past being unbareable for someone like himself that was used to frigid weather. Out here, even with the protection of the closely grown spruce and fir trees, the wind was like a knife cutting into all of his exposed flesh.
"Of course West sent me out to get the stupid wood. Like someone that had a jacket wouldn't have been just as able." Gilbert kicked at a small mound of snow in front of him, letting out a delighted noise when the cold powder fell off of the top of a half-rotted log.
That would be the perfect base for a fire!
Scooping the log up and tucking it underneath of one arm, resolutely telling himself that he hadn't started shaking and was just jittery from nerves, Gilbert continued on searching for more fuel.
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Mathew wasn't in a good mood. Of course, he hadn't be in that great of a mood back when they were at the sight of the plane crash but now it was even worse. It was beyond cold and his shoulder and hands hurt and his head was throbbing again and, for the better part of an hour, Romano had done nothing but stare at him. The simple fact that Mathew knew an hour had passed was disturbing the Nation as well - because, unless he was in his own country, he shouldn't be able to figure out how much time had passed. He shouldn't be able to just sense that the sun would set in exactly three hours or that it was only four o' clock in the evening.
But he did. And that bothered the blond almost more than the persistant staring did.
Wrapping his arms closer to his body, ignoring the uncomfortable and tell-tale prickle at the base of his shoulder as he did, Mathew risked lifting his head away from his chest to look at the forest surrounding him. Immidiatly, strong gusts of freezing air slapped him in the face. It stung his eyes and burnt his too-chapped lips. Not seeing anything that stood out, he let his chin drop back to rest on his chest.
Almost an hour away from the crash site and he still hadn't found anything that even remotely resembled shelter. Mathew had been hoping that, in all of the woodland on the mountain, they would be able to find something decent to shelter them from the wind. Somewhere that they could easily start a fire without worry of wind or snow. Maybe where they could find something to eat; though he'd seen no sign of wildlife so far, not even a lonely squirrel, and none of the plants that he'd spotted bore anything that appeared edible.
It was beyond down-heartening.
If they couldn't find shelter from the wind and the cold, then they would all die before they could even begin to think of a plane for getting off of the mountain. That much the blond knew. Because, even though they were Nations, they still hadn't healed themselves. His hands were still blistered and his muscles stiff, the one shoulder still giving dull pricks of not-quite-pain, and the long scratch on Romano's cheek had only barely scabbed over. Which meant that they weren't healing right. And, to Mathew, that told him that there was quite a possibility that other things, such as death, could effect them while they were here.
It was a terriffying thought to someone that had never known the cold grip that Death had on a persons spirit. For a man that could fight and be injured and get maimed and burnt but never worry about closing his eyes and never opening them again.
Mathew had never faced off with Death before. He didn't want to do it now.
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It was a mound. Made up of large stones, black and grey and almost blue in shade, the pile was twice as tall as Gilbert was. The base was almost three times as wide as it was tall, tapering into a thinner point as it reached towards the sky. Most of the stones were no bigger than his fist, with small cracks running over their surfaces, but on the very top of the stack sat one that appeared to be roughly the size of the Ex-Nation's head. This rock caused the mound to form not a point, but a leveled out top.
The forest abruptly stopped a good twenty feet away from the mound. There hadn't been any thinning of trees before hand to let Gilbert know about a break in the woods. It just stopped; and with it so did the dirt-tainted snow that had covered the ground. Instead the snow that surrounded the odd pile of rocks was a pure white, as if no creature had ever set foot on it before.
From where Gilbert was standing, just on the inside of the ring of trees and not quite in the clearing, the top stone appeared to be just as white and unblemished as the snow on the ground. It struck him as odd that only that one rock was lightly colored and uncracked. Though, really the whole image before him was a strange one.
But that one stone was different from all of the others. Gilbert could feel that it was different. That there was something about it that wasn't the same as the others - something that wasn't right or normal. So he did what he always did in a situation like this.
He tucked the pile of sticks that he was carrying under one arm, ignoring the couple of twigs that fell to the ground, and took a step into the clearing to investigate.
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The cave, if you wanted to call it that, was small. It had a wide mouth that let both wind and snow inside and looked like it was just barely big enough to hold most of the Nations that had been in the back end of the plane. Maybe with enough room for a fire - though, in the rapdily fading light, that seemed like an unlikely possibility. The air coming out of the cave carried a musty odor, almost as if something inside of it was molded over or rotting.
But, to Mathew and Romano, it looked like it came straight down from Heaven.
"F-finally! I didn't think we'd ever f-find something out h-here!" Romano said.
Mathew nodded in agreement. "We h-have been walking f-for a while."
It had been for longer than 'a while' though, and Mathew knew that. They only had an hour and a half until the sun set completely. Barely enough time to get back to plane and no where near enough time to get everyone to the cave. The thought sent Mathew's heart sinking.
"No s-shit." Romano snapped at him. "Now are you g-going to s-stand around 'till it g-gets dark or what? You h-have s-some s-sort of a brilliant plan, right?"
Mathew ignored the mocking tone in the Italian's voice. Instead he took a deep breath of the icy air and closed his eyes. Thought back to other times when he had been lost in the cold at night, back to when he held no name but his own and held the respect of many, imagined a place of nothing but sprawling snow and ice and a storm that had never been surpassed when it came to size or strength. He opened up a locked door in his mind, just a crack, and let the red haze that seeped out envelop him. Savoring its warmth and familiarity, Mathew gave a small crooked smile.
"Actually,' Mathew said softly, voice clear of the stutter that the cold had caused. 'I do."
"W-well, tell me w-what the f-fuck it is already!" Romano snapped. He was cold and tired and not in the mood for games.
"Clear out as much of the snow as you can and try to get a fire going. I'll go get the others." And then Mathew was gone, dissapearing back into the cramped forest and heading in what he was sure was the direction of the plane.
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The moment that Gilbert stepped into the clearing he could feel it. A change in the air. The former Nation couldn't think of a word that fit it but the sensation filled him with unease. With a feeling so eerily similar to being fear, which didn't make sense because the great nation of Prussia was not afriad of a silly rock pile, creeped into him. Cold air brushed against his face, even though there was no wind.
And then a high-pitched scream seemed to fill the clearing. It came from everywhere and nowhere at once. A long, wordless screech - filled with so much pain and sadness and anger that it seemed almost demonic.
"Shit!" Gilbert shouted. Red eyes wide he stumbled backwards. One foot slipped in the fresh looking snow, his leg flying out from underneath of him, and he ended up falling backwards into the ring of forest.
The mountain side fell silent once again.
