Disclaimer: Crazy magic time, self esteem issues and painfully obvious foreshadowing. Hetalia is not made by this weirdo and you are glad that it's not.


How Arthur normally imagined waking up would be to an itchy cot or splayed outside somewhere, dead drunk and with little memory of the night before. Imagine his surprise at being trapped in the arms of a smiling moron, fully aware of his surroundings and able to recall most everything that happened last night.

"You know that 'personal space' thing I keep stressing?" he asked slowly, annoyed by the tickle of the moron's hair against his neck and how it made his heart pound. Alfred nodded earnestly, his warm breath causing goosebumps even in the humid weather. "Fabulous. If you could just invade it some more, that'd absolutely make my day." He perked up behind him, his chest leaning closer on the grump's stiff back as if he hadn't heard him right.

"Really?" Arthur rolled his eyes. Unbelievable.

"No, not really! Let go of me at once! I am not your cuddle bunny, you cannot squeeze me as you please." Alfred quickly unwrapped his arms from Arthur's torso, the latter ignoring the empty feeling he got from the loss of contact.

Now free of the tight embrace, the Brit stood up and stretched, seeming to look around for something. Or rather, someone. He had forgotten something yesterday, this he knew for sure.

Well, wasn't that strange. He never recalled the events of a night's past, usually being too drunk to speak. All he could recall after those mornings were hazy hallucinations, accentuated by the random sensation of his head swimming. But, he did recall it this time. That significantly improved his mood, even if he didn't know why that was.

Getting back to his current predicament, if he could just retrace his steps... One at a time, then maybe he could-

Ah, that was it! He was supposed to be showing those idiots his magic and all that rot! He was way too forgetful about things. Anything, really. He'd probably forget to steal his food if it wasn't for all that damn drinking he did. Though he only ever wound up acquiring stale bread, pig entrails and a couple handfuls of raw beans from the Grove's rubbish bins, it was still better than starving.

"Artie, don'chu think it's time we go?" it made Alfred anxious just watching the shorter male as he continued looking around the forest to no avail. "Y'know, before the sun sets 'gain. Heaven knows I'm ina heap o' trouble when I get back..." the emerald-eyed lad sharply turned to him, eying the bespectacled teen with disbelief.

"Don't rush me! All of that was your own fault anyhow. Do you not know how dangerous it is out here? And at nighttime, too? You both could have been seriously hurt if it wasn't for me showing up when I did," a boyish chuckle interrupted his statement as he forcefully glared at the back of the other's head, when a thought occurred to him. "Speaking of that, where'd the squirt run off to? Someplace he can mouth off to strangers, I presume."

"Nah, he's swimmin' in the stream. Says he wanna test somethin' out real fast in the chamber pot he found dis mornin'." Arthur only looked at him like he was madder than a hatter, furrowing his thick eyebrows in disdain at this fool's logic.

"And you let him do this without another thought? You do know what a chamber pot is traditionally used for, right?" Alfred mistook his questions for interest, pointing to a traveling ripple on the stream's otherwise still surface.

What was he pointing to? There's clearly nothing there-

"Al! I think the thing you tripped over is some kind of newfangled floatation device! See, it's bobbing like an apple!" called an annoyingly familiar voice in the distance, causing Arthur to turn his head and gape at the sight before him.

Floating down the stream was his grandmother's favorite cauldron being occupied by an exuberant Peter, who was using his hands to paddle across the crystalline liquid, sitting inside of the iron receptacle that was quickly being submerged.

The gall of this one! It was one thing to take his coin and play keep-away with it, but there was no way he would have a corpse along with another broken family heirloom on his hands.

"You will remove yourself from that cauldron at once or so help me..." he started, flexing and unflexing his fingers in well-practiced preparation. It had been quite awhile since he last used this.

"I'd like to see you try." the cocky child challenged, inciting the Brit to mumble an incantation under his breath.

"Gladly." he replied at once, the words gradually turning into a looming chant as his voice grew louder. He raised a finger to point at the cauldron and after lowering it to end the chant, a swarm of effervescent spheroids appeared to gather underneath the make-believe vessel, effortlessly lifting it out of the water. Depositing it back onto solid ground as the occupant of said vessel marveled in amazement, even the constant chorus of insects hushing to join the boys in their moment of awe.

Seizing this opportune moment to pull the smaller boy out of the cauldron and place him near a berry bush, he collected the unharmed heirloom, pouring out the water still inside of it. Acknowledging the open-mouthed stares he was receiving with a none-too-subtle smirk, the Brit felt he should be a bit daring today.

With that idea in mind, he used another incantation he had memorized to shrink the cauldron to the size of a snail. As he caught the miniature pot in the palm of his hand, he placed it in his pants pocket beside the coin with no expressed purpose and the pocketwatch already there. Running his fingers against the smooth surface of the watch, Arthur knew exactly what he wanted to show those idiots now.

As he leafed through several sections of spells in his mind, he easily found the one he was looking for, though he still needed a target of choice to perform it on. Emeralds scanned the expanse of greenery with a critical eye, wanting only the most damaged of specimens to work on. The worse its condition was, the grander it would be to fix it.

Doing a few onceovers of the area, his eyes rested on a particularly twisted eyesore of a tree, its trunk swirling up into a curious shape while its limbs hung limply at its sides. The defected timber looked like it was going to shrivel down to its dry roots and exude puffs of dust. Poor thing probably hadn't received enough rainfall to nourish it because of all of the sunlight they have been getting lately. Well, Arthur was going to help the sad little organism if he could. And why not, he needed to blow off some steam anyway.

"Wha's he doin' walkin' up to tha' ol' tree?" Alfred asked with curious confusion, turning to the young chap who watched from his spot beside the bountiful shrubbery.

"Shhhh! I think he's about to do something." Peter shushed the other, not looking away from the impromptu performance in front of him as he waited, staring ahead as not to miss a single second of what the man had been promising to explain these past couple of days. His limited patience telling him that he waited long enough. He was more than ready to see just what the man could do, if he could do anything at all without those nonsense words of his to help him out.

Smoothly ambling his way up to the dilapidated tree, Arthur continued inspecting every intricacy of the pitiful plant from up-close, grazing a hand along one specifically rotting hole in its bark, he nodded to himself in approval. This was the perfect spot to start. The target now chosen and his mind clear to focus, he set to work on renewing life to what would have likely become a festering waste of rootstock. The palm of his hand glowing brightly as he swiped across the hole, the action depositing golden shimmers that steadily repaired the tree inside out before slowly fading away. Applying the same treatment to any and all scratch and opening in the tree, his healing hands left in its wake a restored beauty of nature with another chance at growing into something worthy of a second glance. He stared at it whilst his thoughts ran away from him, the fresh wood situated apart from the rest of the flora and fauna, not even the longest pair of arms able to touch it from its solitary perch on the edge of the stream. Standing on its own with no one else to care about it, sitting around day after day, waiting for a purpose. Unwanted by those who know it and by that conclusion, eternally alone.

...Just like me. Nobody has any use for a vagrant like me. I'm just... a nuisance, a meaningless pawn in the way of their happiness and nothing will ever change that about me. Nothing...

"I can't believe... You fixed up tha' nasty ol' tree wit' one lil' touch! Tha's so amazin', Artie! Wish I could do tha' to save me some trouble wit' my boss." Alfred exclaimed, breaking through the shorter teen's thoughts as he came to stand next to him, smiling happily at the Brit who looked up in shock.

"You think so?" He didn't think it was such a big deal, especially for someone who should be able to do greater things by now considering the many relatives who practiced magic in his family.

"Well, yeah! I thought wha' I do was cool, but den you did tha' crazy stuff wit' yer finger 'nd I know I can't compete wit' tha'." the bespectacled boy replied zealously, bright eyes as blue as ever he placed a hand on the shoulder of the emerald-eyed lad, who didn't know how to respond and simply stared at those damned endless pools like a bumbling idiot in heat. Peter choosing this moment to interrupt the two before they got all gross and mushy like his parents tended to when they looked at each other the way these two did.

"I was surprised you even showed us at all with how long it took you. But I gotta say, not bad, Eyebrows. Not bad," seeing as he now had both of their attention, he finished up his thought with a smirk. "Now... Let's see if you can do better." Arthur raised a thick brow at the child.

"By that you mean...?" The little boy only whistled as he waited for the answer, Alfred snapping his fingers as he knew what the child was talking about.

"Oh, you wanna test somethin' out in The Grove," Peter motioned for him to continue, "With Artie's magic?" The young boy gave him a thumbs-up, laughing wildly as the tall man cheered about being right, picking him up and running around with him as he rode piggyback.

Arthur would normally find such a display to be annoying or unnecessary, but that was on a normal day amongst normal circumstances. He woke up outside with these wankers whilst pressed up on by the moron, almost made to harm the squirt for using his family heirloom as a sailboat, showed them his powers and for some stupid reason, had the desire to indulge them in one of their harebrained schemes. So, yes, it was safe to say that this was not any normal day.

You did say you wanted to try something daring today, his mind felt the need to remind him. Fine then, I'll agree to do whatever ridiculous idea the kid has up his sleeve. It can't be that bad, I mean, I lived with the embodiments of evil split into three separate bodies, so I'll survive.

Not questioning his logic at this point, the foolish Brit said to his carefree companions:

"Alright, what do I do and to whom do I have to do it to?" A smirk taking over his usually expressionless face, he knew what he was doing and was alright with being stupid when he wanted to be.

The dawn of a new order being one of those times.


You know those smaller chapters I (don't meant to) write where not much else happens except a transition to another location?

Yeah. I wrote a second one...

Again, this took me WAY too long to do and especially for such a short chapter. *sigh* Excuse me while I get my priorities straight... This chapter came out nothing like I planned, but ey, that's just how writing goes.

I have many things I need to do to keep my tail in gear and writing this story is one of them. Summer's coming up in June, a.k.a. real soon, but break time never guarantees my ability to write, so I'll make myself push this out like I do. Sounds gut, ja? Hopefully by then I'll know exactly what'll happen next each chapter and I won't have to have this huge gap of nothing happening again. At least I got my handy-dandy beta reader back! :)

I meant to mention this earlier, but you guys have knocked my views into the quadruple digits and I don't know how to respond to that. Just, thank you. Thank you all very much for your interest.