Author's Note: The 365 Project is an experimental multi-fandom project to write and post at least one short every day for the next year, not including my semi-regular bi-weekly updates. For more details, see the relevent section in my profile. This is The 365 Project, 24 November. Gah, me and Inspiration did not seem on speaking terms today...

In the immortal words of Samuel L. Clemens... "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR."

Disclaimer; I don't own or make money from Hetalia or any characters thereof, using them without permission for entertainment purposes solely.


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"Look Away"
By J.T. Magnus, 'Turbo'

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It was depressing, John R. Sutherland realised, to see so many men he had known for years, men whose hearts he thought he had known, doff their hats to him as a Nation and to his Country one last time as they crossed the borders of the Confederacy and pass beyond his awareness. The next time he would see many, if not most, of them would be on the field of battle. As tragic as it was, they had to do what they thought was right, just like he and his people would do. John turned his head and looked away to hide the tears that threatened to appear; it wouldn't do for his people to see their Nation crying. How many of those leaving for the Union he would never see again, John couldn't know, just as he couldn't know how many of those who stayed would give their new Country their last full measure of devotion in hopes to see it through its birth throes. Silently, he cursed the Union and Alfred F. Jones for trying to deny the Confederacy the very thing that they had fought Arthur and England for all those years ago and John wished it would rain so that he would have an honorable excuse for the water on his face, because it wasn't seemly for a gentleman to cry; even when that gentleman was a Nation.