Dag Tre

Lukas would fully admit that he overreacted.

In his defense, he had been repressing all of his anger and frustration since the mid fourteenth century. It all had to come out at some point.

He just wished that it hadn't been like this.

He buried his head in his knees, glad that he was alone in his wilderness, where no one to see him break down. He shouldn't have gotten mad at what Mikkel had said; he had seemed to be drunk at the time, after all. But unlike every other time something like that had come up, he couldn't keep his feelings bottled inside.

He had been under the control of a foreign country for over five hundred years. Even if someone was just joking about forming a union with him, he couldn't find it funny. The sheer idea that they could look back on those days and want to go back to them…

Even during the war, even with the fact that no one recognized Germany's invasion of his land and his government had been evacuated to the United Kingdom, it still had been almost more than he could handle, especially with the fact that the thousands of soldiers stationed there discouraged any real attempt to free his land.

And Sweden had let them go through their country to conquer it.

Lukas didn't know if Berwald condoned it or not- and honestly, he didn't want to know- but that still didn't change the fact that he didn't stop it, and let his land fall under another's control again.

He honestly hated the very idea of a union after everything. Intellectually, he knew that it could sometimes not be that bad, but he would never be able to convince himself of that fact.

He sighed. He knew that Eiríkur would be worried about him- and honestly, that was the worst part of his outburst to him- but he couldn't deal with seeing the other two Scandinavians today. He just couldn't.

Mikkel hesitated and glanced over to make sure that Berwald was still next to him before knocking on the door to Lukas and Eiríkur's room.

Neither of them had come out of there the entire morning, even though it had been Eiríkur's turn to cook. Sure, they had found some sandwich stuff and had had that, but that wasn't important.

What was important was Lukas' completely out of character reaction to a comment the Dane had made during the game the night before. He admitted that he shouldn't have said anything, but he just wanted to know if they even wanted to make this work, and he had no reason to even think that the Norwegian would act that way.

Surprisingly, it was Berwald that suggested that they go and talk to Lukas. Mikkel had been shocked by two things: One, Berwald, who may be the god of the inability to talk to people, suggesting that to begin with, and Two, the fact he had willingly talked to him. Whichever way this would end, he was glad for that, at least.

No one answered the door, so he knocked again. They heard someone mutter something before the door opened, revealing Eiríkur, who scowled and said, "Oh, it's you two," before attempting to slam the door in their faces.

Luckily, Berwald managed to reach a hand out in time. "We just want to talk to L-Norway," Mikkel said once it became apparent that the Swede wouldn't say anything.

"Well, he's not here, and I doubt he'd want to talk to you two fífl if he was," the Icelander spat, attempting to force the door closed.

"Where is he?" Berwald asked.

"Far away from you two tyrants."

"Why are you calling us tyrants?" Mikkel asked, shocked. He knew that the Icelander could be aggressive sometimes, but this…

Eiríkur stopped trying to close the door in favor of glaring at the two nations. "Oh, really? You have no idea why?" he asked, venom dripping from his voice. "Think about that heimskulegur question you asked yesterday and maybe your microscopic brains can figure it out."

"You mean that question I asked about the early days of the Kalmar Union?" the Dane asked, frowning. "I agree I shouldn't have said that, but that still doesn't explain why he overreacted over something that doesn't really matter."

"It does not really matter?" the Icelander hissed. "You call fimm hundruð ár 'something that doesn't really matter?"

"What do you-"

"Oh, you two do not know? You cannot even guess what I mean?"

Mikkel shared a nervous glance with Berwald. Eiríkur being this mad was not a good sign. He had a habit of blowing stuff up if he got angry enough.

Seemingly not noticing that, he continued on. "What I mean is how you subjugated Norway for all of those centuries. Do not even bother to deny it. Danmörk, you didn't even raise a finger when your boss tried to force my brother's people to be Danish, even knowing there is a possibility that it could have killed bróður minn if it had succeeded. You abolished his written language and attempted to force them to speak in Danish. It is no wonder that he seems to prefer Nynorsk a little bit- it is not as close to your bölvaðir tungumál.

"And then you just handed him over as a term in a treaty. And Svíþjóð, you could not leave them alone. Nei, you just had to declare war on them when they made the treaty invalid by declaring their independence. You could not leave them alone or even try to convince your boss to because you were busy moping over losing your 'dýrmætur konu'. And then, finally, when they abolished that union with you, you came close to declaring war aftur.

"And if that was not enough, you could not even bring yourself to help nágranni þinn when the Germans decided to invade. In fact, you let them walk all over you to get to him. You must be so proud of yourself for that.

"If you want to talk to him, I have one last thing to say to you two: Ég fyrirlít þig."

On that note, Eiríkur slammed the door in their shocked faces.

Neither of them knew how long they stood there, just staring at the door with shocked and remorseful expressions on their faces. Finally, Mikkel slumped down against the wall and said brokenly, "Min Gud, hvad har jeg gjort?"

Berwald didn't say anything, but his eyes showed he was thinking the exact same thing.

"How could we not have known?" the Dane continued, burying his face in his hands.

The Swede shook his head. "Why didn't I do anything?" he muttered. "I could've…"

Mikkel gave a humorless laugh. "At least you didn't try to kill him. You let them be recognized as their own country."

"Not what I'm referring to."

"Then what are you?"

"That horrible war that I did nothing in."

"You helped save my people," Mikkel said, looking at his brother. "You kept them from getting murdered, and the ones that weren't evacuated were my fault."

"Not about that."

They stayed silent for a while. Finally, Berwald said, "When do you think he'll be back?"

Mikkel shrugged. "Who knows when he will be? We don't seem to know him at all anymore."

"Can try to know him… and can try to be a family again…"

The Dane stared at his brother, who looked right back at him. Had he really heard him say that? His eyes said yes. He took a shaky breath. "Sve… Berwald," he said, forcing himself to say his brother's human name to him for the first time in centuries, "we… really should fix things with him first… but after that… can we talk about everything?"

Berwald nodded. "Skulle vilja det," he muttered.

Mikkel broke out into a smile and could barely restrain himself from tackling him in a hug.

Icelandic Translations:

Fífl- idiots

Heimskulegur- idiotic

Fimm hundruð ár- five hundred years

Bróður minn- My brother

Bölvaðir tungumál- cursed language

Dýrmætur konu- precious wife

Aftur- again

Nágranni þinn- your neighbor

Ég fyrirlít þig- I despise you

(Why did I have to come up with that headcanon of Eiríkur sprouting random Icelandic words when he's mad enough? Seriously, why?)

Other Translations:

Min Gud, hvad har jeg gjort? (Danish)- My God, what have I done?

Skulle vilja det (Swedish)- Would like that

Notes:

Short version of what Eiríkur was ranting about:

After the Kalmar Union fell apart, Norway was forced to stay under Danish rule. About ten years or so after that, the Danish rulers banned their written language, forcing all documents to be written in Danish, and declared Norway to be a provenance of Denmark.

During the Napoleonic Wars, Denmark made the mistake of siding with France. (You can't really blame them though. England apparently burned down Copenhagen for some reason I can't remember.) During the Treaty of Kiel, they were forced to give up Norway to Sweden. Norway attempted to declare independence and basically rendered the treaty moot, since Denmark couldn't give up something they didn't have. (They actually supported their independence, but that's a whole other can of worms I don't want to get into.) They failed and were forced into a union.

During WWII, the Germans invaded Norway and Sweden let some troops go through their land in return for continued neutrality. The Norwegian's weren't and probably still aren't happy about that.

That's the short version. Go look up this stuff on the internet if you want to know more.

If you have anything else to ask, just pm me or ask me in a review.