A/N: This chapter is about twice as long as usual, but a lot of it is choppy and cringe-worthy word vomit with a lot of mood swings among the characters . . . *sweatdrops* I apologize in advance, but it advances the story.
Disclaimer: I own neither Hetalia: Axis Powers nor The Jungle Book.
Belarus mentally cursed herself when the footprints came to an abrupt stop. The trees overhead did a good job of keeping the snow from covering England's footprints, so the tracks she had been following for the past hour were still cleanly preserved. Knowing this, she had wandered alongside them without a rush—each footprint stared back at her just as crisply as the one before. However, she'd failed to consider that England might walk into a clearing, where the lack of trees allowed snow to fill up his tracks almost as soon as he made them. Now, all she was left staring at level snow.
She took a step back and glared intently at the footprints behind her. If he'd gone in a straight line, the trail would have continued directly on the opposite side of the clearing, she reasoned. His footprints had to continue somewhere, since England obviously wasn't still standing in the middle of the clearing. All Belarus had to do was find where that "somewhere" was.
Her path of action clear, she placed herself next to the last clear footprint and resolutely marched directly forward across the clearing. When the trees on the other side came into view, so did England's footprints underneath them. Belarus fingered her knife in satisfaction and continued following the trail.
Twenty minutes later, she spotted a blond head wearing a green uniform and boots standing impatiently next to a large tree. Several heavy-looking bags were stacked on the ground next to him, and occasionally he would lean over and adjust one absentmindedly; it was clear that he had been standing there for quite a while.
And now Belarus had finally caught up to him.
"England!" she called, using the blunt end of her knife to turn his shoulder. "Have you had enough time to think over my offer? Surely you must see by now that this way is the . . ."
She trailed off when she realized that the nation in question was blinking at her uncomprehendingly. And that his eyes were a different shade of green than she remembered. And that unless she'd been following him for a lot more than an hour, there was no way England's hair would have grown out almost to his shoulders in such a short period of time.
"You're not England," she deadpanned. Belarus lowered her knife, but continued to hold it warily.
"Nope, I'm Poland!" said this so-called Poland, smiling cheerily, "And for the record, I'm, like, way more fabulous than whoever that guy is."
"These tracks are yours, then?" Belarus asked, stiffly indicating the footprints in the snow that led right under Poland's feet. Then she blinked. There was another set of footprints that intersected with Poland's, veering off to the side. "Whose are those?"
Poland's eyes lit up like stars. To Belarus, they looked like alarm bells, for it was suddenly apparent that she would be on the receiving end of a long rambling session.
"Oh! I'm, like, totally traveling with my friend," Poland gushed, gesturing animatedly at the bags slumping in the snow. Now that Belarus thought about it, it did look like an awful lot of supplies for just one person to carry. "He, like, always makes me wake up early so that we can spend more time trudging through the snow—totally boring, by the way, and I have to do all the talking too because he doesn't know how to lighten up; lucky for him, I have my fabulous best-friend powers so he doesn't keel over from his own wet blanket-ness because, well, how unfabulous would that be?—and he always makes me stay behind and watch the stuff for him while he's off, like, doing whatever-it-is-he's-doing—right now that would be gathering firewood, in case you want to know—but really he's a nice guy and without me, people would totally be walking all over him—like, totally—and so it's up to me to fulfill my best-friend duties by being the most fabulous companion he's ever had and ever will have. Like, ever."
Belarus blinked at the information overload, feeling uncomfortably overwhelmed and, which she found both surprising and utterly horrifying, perhaps even begrudgingly impressed by his monologue. ". . . Right."
Since leaving France's employment, she couldn't recall hearing anyone talk that long or casually to her before. They had just met, and yet Poland had easily told her a lot more—and by that, she meant a lot, lot more—than she'd even considered possibly-wanting to know about him and this so-called best friend of his. And Poland had been glad to do so, which was also a lot more than she could say for most of the conversationalists she'd engaged with in the past month. Though to be fair, she did kind of sort of greet England with a knife at his throat, so that probably hadn't left much room for small talk. But it was the thought that counted.
And right now, Belarus's thoughts seemed to be fiercely latched onto the idea, the absurd notion that whatever "wet blanket" had Poland as a friend was a lucky, lucky one indeed. Every complaint had had an underlying fondness that wasn't hard to dig up, and she could see something tugging upward at his mouth every time he said the words "best friend". As flighty as he appeared, it was clear that Poland cared deeply for this friend of his, and was proud to be able to call him one.
Belarus wondered what that was like, having a best friend. Having someone like Poland to talk to instead of having to feebly label piles and piles of interrogations and negotiations as conversations for the sole reason that those were the two things her "social life" was built on these days. She'd never been very extroverted, but to have someone like that . . .
She tried to shoo it off, finding the mere thought of the thought to be an utterly repulsive one, but it refused to budge, as if it were a solid thing planted inside her head. A body. A confidant. A friend. It started to sound less and less detestable, but that only made her bristle more.
It couldn't hurt, having someone like Poland. But it wouldn't help, either.
Small talk wasn't enough to change the fact that it was Poland she was talking to and not England; it didn't alter the fact that she'd lost England's trail after the clearing; it did nothing to change the fact that this one had turned out to be a dud, regardless of Poland's presence at the end of it—because she was looking for Russia and to find Russia she was going to find England, and Poland was neither. Idle chatter wasn't going to get her to her Big Brother's doorstep. It was a distraction that was more likely to slow her down, a weight made out of words dragging along behind her.
If she wanted to get there any faster, the best thing she could do right now was walk away while it was still an option and retreat to the clearing. If she was fast enough, perhaps she could still find England's—the real England's—footprints before they were erased by snow. And being as practical as she was, Belarus twisted around nicely on her heels to do just that. Only, the universe seemed to have something else in mind.
"Belarus?"
The voice didn't come from Poland, who had been talking away while Belarus wasn't paying attention but stopped at the sound of the newcomer. No, the voice came from the trees to the side, where the other set of footprints, those of Poland's oh-so-mysterious friend, had led into. Belarus fought the urge to step back at the sight of a familiar brown-haired and wide-eyed nation staring back at her in surprise. She faintly registered a clumsy clunking sound; Lithuania was holding a heap of branches that had been carefully collected from the ground for firewood, but nearly dropped it upon locking gazes with the female nation in front of him.
"Belarus," he repeated. She remained silent, but made a move to walk away. "W-wait, don't leave! We have a lot to catch up on, don't we? Surely you can stay with us a little longer—we have food—and you can warm up by the fire, too."
Her knees felt a bit wobbly and she had to stop to keep from falling over. A mantra was playing in her head like an earworm. Lithuania. Poland's friend is Lithuania.
She wasn't sure why this seemed to upset her so much. Back when they'd lived in Russia's house, she had scorned Lithuania for being her brother's favorite, for being in her way, for being utterly enamored with Belarus herself. She couldn't understand why Russia preferred Lithuania over Belarus when Lithuania always seemed to tiptoe around him, like a maid trying not to be seen. Lithuania was weak in Belarus's eyes, and she spent many nights entertaining the thought that she could easily take him down in a fight. But, as she gradually came to see, not when the fight was over the affections of her own brother. Yet, as much as Russia enjoyed Lithuania's company over Belarus's, the same could not be said vice versa.
The aforementioned fact was that Lithuania's own affections lay elsewhere. While Russia terrified him to no end, Lithuania's relationship with Belarus had managed to become something even unhealthier. Every time he came back with a gift or a story or a request for a date, Belarus would turn him down both swiftly and vehemently. But in the rare instances that she did accept, they usually ended with Lithuania's fingers looking like they had been drawn on by a two-year-old. And Lithuania always came back, no matter how many times she pushed him away when he offered his company, no matter how hard she crushed his hand whenever he wanted to hold hers, no matter how much she refused him and stepped on him and ruthlessly punished him for taking her brother away from her—Lithuania would unfailingly return to her like a lost puppy with a tennis ball.
Belarus wasn't playing hard-to-get. Belarus was trapped in limbo, playing a game of fetch with Lithuania's love.
Don't you see, Big Brother? He doesn't love you like I do, he can't love you like I can. His affections are something to be thrown away.
It made her shake—physically shake—to see where Lithuania's affections had gotten them. Belarus and Lithuania were now wanderers in the Jungle, houseless without Russia. Belarus's affections hadn't been enough to keep her from leaving Russia. Russia's affections hadn't been enough to make Lithuania stay. Lithuania's affections hadn't been enough to be reciprocated, because he was not Russia, because Russia was not Belarus, because Belarus was not Lithuania. And Lithuania was one part of the Soviet Union that Belarus had insisted she'd be okay with never laying eyes on ever again.
Belarus opened her mouth to decline his offer, but Poland—who had gone strangely silent—beat her to speaking. "H-hold the horses, this is Belarus?"
Poland, aside from being inherently fabulous, could also be very persuasive when he set his mind to it.
It was at his demands that Belarus somehow wound up sitting around a campfire with Poland planted resolutely between her and Lithuania. She hadn't been particularly inclined to stay close to Lithuania anyway, given their history with Russia, so Poland's presence was a small relief. That is, until he opened his mouth for the first time since they'd sat down.
"You're Belarus," he said, studying her intensely. It was all that seemed to be on his mind.
"Yes," she replied, turning the stick she held over the fire slowly like a rotisserie. Without looking over, she almost lazily alerted, "Your marshmallow is burning."
Poland blinked once before registering the statement and pulling his flaming marshmallow out of the fire—"ACK, YOU'RE, LIKE, TOTALLY RIGHT!"—and stabbing it into the snow before the stick caught fire as well. Apparently, the "food" Lithuania had promised consisted of eleven bags of jumbo marshmallows. They had been like a troupe of contortionists, somehow managing to fit all eleven bags into a single backpack.
A Conversation Using "Like" and "Totally"
. . . You said there was food.
Well, duh! Marshmallows are, like, totally food, aren't they?
Don't listen to him, they're really not. We just have all these left over from the first—and last—time I let him do the grocery shopping. He also returned with a bright-pink tent.
Because pink is a totally fabulous color and you know it, Liet! Now let's dig in already, I'm, like, starving.
That makes sense if the two of you have been living off of . . . these . . .
Hmmph. Yeah, yeah. Now make up your mind, do you want marshmallows or not?
Belarus looked at Poland, who she had expected to see at least slightly irked by her comments but who was, instead, smiling as pleasantly as usual. Well, at least free "food" still didn't cost money.
. . . Hand me a stick.
After Poland had grabbed a new marshmallow from the bag and returned to the fire sulking over the loss of the first one, it was Belarus's turn to ask him something. "Why do you find it so noteworthy that I am Belarus?"
"I don't find it noteworthy, I find it totally worry-worthy," Poland replied matter-of-factly. Then his eyes narrowed slightly in suspicion. "You're the one who totally used to date Liet as an excuse to break all the bones in his hands."
"Don't worry, it was just the fingers and most of the wrist," Lithuania hastily assured him. "The bones in my palm area were relatively unharmed."
"Case in point," said Poland, remembering to lift his marshmallow this time to keep it from dipping too low.
Lithuania sighed, shaking his head as he stood up. "We have this conversation every time. He's like a broken record, I'm telling you! I'll go see if I can find some other food for you, if you still want."
With that, Lithuania left the fire. Poland scooted into a position across from Belarus so that he could look directly into her eyes.
"Liet's not the only one I know you from," he said quietly, waiting until Lithuania had disappeared from view. "I've heard of you, the one who's, like, totally obsessed with Russia. Well, like it or not, Liet thinks of you the same way you think of Russia—but he's a nice guy, so probably less violently—and you might not see it, but he tries just as hard to win you over as you do with Russia, too—but again, he's a nice guy, so probably less violently. You know what, totally less violently. Every time he's tried to approach you, he's wound up getting hurt, whether it was his fingers or his back or wherever, but what sucks is that he totally didn't care about it at all. He said that love was being able to come back, even when things were rough and totally unfabulous, so that he would be there when they got better. But you were in, like, a limbo or something together, and things didn't get better until after the collapse, when you split up and went all over the place."
He was referring to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when they had all abandoned Russia's place to go their own separate ways. Her brother was left behind, alone in a suddenly-oversized house. Poland took a bite out of his marshmallow.
"So now that you're back, I'm totally worried about Liet because I don't want it to happen all over again, you know?" he finished, chewing his marshmallow while he talked. "That would be totally unfabulous, for both you and him. I know you know how much it sucks to go after someone who's not into you."
This was soon followed by the sound of approaching footsteps crunching in the snow as Lithuania returned sheepishly, having missed their discussion. Another bag of marshmallows was in his hand, which he set down as he greeted them with an awkward little laugh. "Sorry, this was all I found. Turns out we have more than eleven bags of marshmallows."
Belarus didn't bat an eye at his return, too focused on continuing her conversation with Poland to respond. Bluntly, she stated, "Russia loves me."
"Yeah, yeah," said Poland, casting a brief nod of acknowledgment in Lithuania's direction. And to check for any signs of distress at Belarus's blatant statement. He found none, but was still uneasy as he turned his attention back to Belarus. "But then why are you, like, chasing him?"
"I'm finding him."
"By totally chasing him because he totally doesn't want to be found."
"That's not it," Belarus straightened her back. "He still pushed me away before I left his house—I'll admit that that much hasn't changed—but right now I can tell that Russia isn't himself."
Lithuania sat down to listen. "He's not? How do you know?"
"I'm not sure if I should say."
"Oh, come on!" Poland exclaimed. "You're totally set on looking for him, so there, like, has to be a good reason behind it."
Belarus was quiet for a moment, eyeing the fire contemplatively. Lithuania was one of the last people she wanted to potentially reunite with her brother, but perhaps she owed him after everything she'd put him through back under Russia's roof. Finally, she inhaled and began speaking again.
"After Russia's house was divided, I tried my best to search for him, but to no avail. Eventually, I ran out of money, so I got a job working in a tavern. I figured that since there were so many travelers that passed through, it would be a good place to catch news of the latest occurrences without having to go too far. For the first week or so, there was nothing. But before the month ended, I started hearing some very alarming rumors among the visitors to the tavern."
"Do you, like, have to say it so forebodingly?" Poland squeaked, moving a little closer to the fire.
"Do you want to hear the story or not?" Belarus huffed. Poland reluctantly closed his mouth and tried not to shudder. "So, as I was saying then. When I passed by the tables in the dining hall, I would hear the travelers whispering about a mysterious figure they would see at night. A tall man, with a long coat and a scarf around his neck. He was usually seen silhouetted against the moonlight on nights when it shone particularly strong, so the other details of his appearance varied, but this was the description that they all seemed to agree upon. It fits Russia very well, don't you think? I did, and perhaps they did, too, but it wasn't confirmed and so the mysterious figure remained unattached to a name. Still, from all the sightings, I figured that he must have been in the area of the tavern, so I set out to look for him on the night after the next, when the moon was large and bright. If he appeared when the moonlight was strong, then surely that would be the night I saw him for myself—there was enough light for me to count each blade of grass that grew from the ground. It was perfect."
She paused, as if still seeing the world under the moon. Lithuania cleared his throat, quietly urging her to continue. It was then that Belarus laughed almost inaudibly, sending her breath floating up in the cold air.
"It was a failure. There was not a single trace of him, nor was there anyone who looked even remotely like him," she said, a twinge of bitterness to her voice. Then she eyed them both simultaneously. Her expression was more serious than usual. "The next night, I heard that he had spoken with some of the travelers, saying something odd—he promised that he would answer one question, any question, at the price of 'becoming one'. They were still frightened when they whispered about it—apparently, 'becoming one' had sounded really, really creepy to them for some reason—but he hadn't tried to pursue them after they declined, so they eventually got over it. Other travelers experienced the same thing in the following weeks—when they passed him, he would make his offer, they would decline, and he would let them leave—but then that changed."
"Why do I get the feeling that the next part is going to totally get worse?" Poland wailed. Lithuania gave him a pointed look and Belarus kept going with the story.
"My boss, France, was friends with Japan, and like France's other friends, Japan would come by the area to visit the tavern every now and then. Sometimes, he brought a micronation with him—the Republic of Nikoniko, I believe his name was—who would sit by and smile and order a load of radium eggs each time he joined us. However, one night, Japan burst into the tavern shouting for France in a panic. Nikoniko had accepted Russia's—for Japan could now confirm that it was, indeed, Russia's—offer, but he had refused to 'become one' when it was explained that to do so meant becoming bonded to Russia indefinitely. This upset Russia, and Japan had run for help when Russia's scarf had started to wrap itself around Nikoniko, according to his account. France quickly organized a group of travelers from the tavern to send aid to Nikoniko, but when Japan led them back to the spot where Russia and Nikoniko were last seen, both of them were gone."
They fell into silence once more as she let this sink in.
When the lack of talking became unbearable, Lithuania asked, "What happened after that? Did you see either of them again?"
"I don't know how it's possible, but when we finally found Nikoniko a week later, he was . . . a human," Belarus said, wincing slightly at the word "human". "As for Russia, he apparently decided to lay low afterward—other than the conundrum with Nikoniko and a few other isolated incidents, there were no more reported sightings of him. He just vanished.
"I wanted to go looking for him immediately after that, I really did, but I didn't have enough money to go far yet, nor did I have a good place to start," she admitted. "That is, until last month, when France mentioned that England was also looking for Russia. I'd accumulated a decent amount of money, so financially I should be okay. And as for England himself, although he was probably doled the same set of cards—metaphorically—as I was in the search for Russia, he's a fresh set of eyes. If there's the slightest chance that he's going to find something that I've missed, then I have to take it."
"But why?" Lithuania wondered.
"Like, we already know that you care about him and all," Poland chimed in, "but I think you've pretty much established the fact that Russia's gone totally cuckoo."
"Then I need to find him so that I can restore his sanity."
Notes on this Chapter:
Poland, Lithuania, and Nikoniko! And a bit more about Russia. We haven't returned to talking about America quite yet, but his honey business is still faring quite well economically. ^J^ Don't ask me how Poland found marshmallows.
. . .
*cough*it-was-with-his-total-fabulousness*cough*
Some of the grammar is strange in this chapter and I think the writing overall is pretty unsatisfying, so if I ever do revisions then this will probably be one of the first chapters to be rewritten.
Feedback is greatly appreciated!
