Well, a new chapter, and not too much of a wait, huh? Ain't that amazing! I'd like to thank my translators - MalinChan, yotzie, Ruusu, kooliobutterflyhahaha, Sine-k, Another Mad Swiss, Lillens, DianeLeBlanc99, and Sarai Onyx Vainamoinen. Thank you so much! I do not own Hetalia but I do own this story! Enjoy and please review!

It didn't take long for Berwald to catch up to the Prince. The Swede had, before leaving the comfortable and somewhat strenuous memories of the stable, bid farewell to smiling Ivan, retrieved the goods from today's hunting trip, and made his way out into the bright sunshine that smelt sweeter than any rose.

The pheasant's body and feathers swayed limply in the breeze, followed by the light weight of the hare as Berwald trotted over to the Finn who was finishing up with the tune on his lips, his mouth puckered to make the twittering sound.

Berwald smiled and set his strides to match Tino, the two walking in comfortable silence all the way to the back opening of the kitchens, the stone and pine slabs stained black and brown with the cooking hearths fire.

As soon as they dipped their heads under the archway, their noses were pleasantly caressed with the smell of sharp herbs being cut, meat being soaked and boiled in fat cauldrons and the dainty scent of butter being cut into slabs and wrapped nicely in willow husks.

Tino smiled back at Berwald as he grabbed at the dead rabbit hanging from the rope at it's feet.

Then, with a smile bigger than the crescent moon, Tino spotted the sight of his mother, Lady Jaana, rolling her palm against a few springs of herbs, bruising them to get as much flavor as she could before they were thrown into the bubbling cauldron of lamb at her left.

"Mother! We come bearing gifts of plenty!" Tino laughed, holding up the dead brown rabbit, Berwald as well showing off the colorful body of the pheasant, the tail feathers something to marvel at.

At the laughter filled voice that rang around the room, Lady Jaana and Lady Elizabeta looked from their work to gaze with smiles on their faces at the two boys who indeed, came bringing gifts.

But, it was then that Lady Jaana, with motherly eyes so quick, took in the sight of her son, all muddied and disheveled, twigs sticking out from his hair in odd places.

"Tino! Look at you - your tunic is a mess - oh! And you have burs in your hair!" Her aghast voice chided the younger boy, his smile wavering some, having the decency to have grown sheepish.

Lady Jaana, with a annoyed huff, wiped her green soaked hands on her broached apron and made her way to her son, greeting Berwald with a kind look in her eye before she took the cheeky Finn by his ears, making Tino gas with pain.

"Ow! Mother!" He huffed as she pulled him on his way, Berwald collecting the hare from Tino's fumbling fingers to set it to rest on the low set work table where he took his seat, a smile etched on his face as he watched the Finn being led to a low lipped bucket that was quickly filled with hot water by the hearth.

Tino could only grumble as his tunic sleeves were rolled up and his elbows dunked into the warm water, his mother lathering her hands with lye soap before scrubbing his skin till it grew red. His pout could only resemble that of a child and it made Berwald chuckle.

"And look at you, handsome rascal!" Elizabeta's voice grinned at Berwald, her hands working at wringing a fresh cloth into some water, dabbing it on Berwald's mud flecked face from when he had raced Tino to the meadows. His face colored with embarrassment.

"Sorry, M'lady - It's M' fault." Berwald nodded his head to the floor, his brows creasing as the cold cloth was wiped across his neck to get at a pesky patch of dirt.

Elizabeta only chuckled and, deeming the Swede presentable enough, threw the cloth in the pale to soak. .

From her place near the herb rack, Lady Jaana laughed smoothly, her voice like the tinkering of bells.

"Never you mind whose fault it is - If anything Tino probably bested you and ran away from your gentle care. I know my Tino, always a trouble maker." She sighed with the undercurrents of contentment, her fingers coming up to the Finn's cheeks to pinch his face.

He swatted at her affectionately, blusing at his mothers words, whining slightly as Berwald chuckled, hands still clasped neatly behind his back like a good Vassal should. Nice and polite.

"Now, why don't you boys clean the dirt from under your nails and pluck and skin your catch." The Queen spoke, gesturing her slender hands at the two animals that laid soft and cold on the tables.

Tino nodded determinately, snatching at the hare with quick fingers as he set himself on the stool opposite Berwald.

Berwald too got to work, ignoring the fine feathers at the bids head to delicately pluck at the long and colorful tail feathers, setting each one aside to be later collected to make a ornamentation of sorts or later - whatever Lady Jaana and Lady Elizabeta decided to do with them.

Tino then began to skin the rabbit, making neat little slices here and there with a silvered meat knife, the edge decorated by a hare. After the slitting was done and his fingers were dipped nicely in red, the Finn grabbed the cute little thing by it's legs and pulled, the skin toughening and peeling off to leave a red stained pelt.

The smell was horrendous, but Tino only winced as he held the hide up, soon handing it to a pretty servant girl with the loveliest of complexions. He smiled quickly, easily at her as her small fingers took the pelt to be stiffened and stretched. Her face erupted into the shade of pink like that of a sunset as her fingers brushed against Tino's own. She left in a hurry, her eyes glassy and flushed.

Tino grinned with amusement, his eyes catching Berwald watching him over the soft little display. Tino smile widened, his lips mouthing the word, "Jealous?" to the Swede.

Berwald rolled his eyes and quickly went back to plucking, shaking his head at the Finn who had yet to stop smiling. Berwald let out a huffed sigh, wondering how his love interest could be this brash and irritable. Only he would go for the charming spit-fire type, he brooded.

After a few minutes of comfortable silence, only the hissing of cauldrons and the shaking of dried herbs heard, the soft patter of feet greeted the stone mason kitchen, and Katyusha, armed with a little stub of a candle and a basket of blackberries, greeted them with a quiet hello.

Grabbing her skirts in her hands and bowing her head to the floor she addressed the Queen and Prince, her basket tipping some, a few blackberries falling to the floor.

Her eyes widen as she quickly bends to pick them up, muttering apologies as the little fruits start to stain the floor red from where the fell.

Lady Jaana only smiles and helps pick up the berries, ushering the girl to stand, telling her once more that, if the King and nobles are not around, she need not bend her head. Lady Jaana remembered Katyusha all those years ago, when the Ukrainian girl was just a baby wrapped in blankets - the Queen practically thought of her as her daughter. And daughters need not bow before their mothers in comfortable settings.

"And you shall no longer call me Prince! It sounds too stuffy - Tino will do!" The Finn smiled to the elder girl who had long ago blossomed into a woman, her hair still kept in braids at her head to make her hair look short, a ribbon dyed with indigo atop her corn silk locks.

She nodded to the Finn, blushing.

" You are too generous to an old women." She mumbled with a shy smile, setting her basket down on the work table.

"Ah, Katyusha, take compliments when they are given! You are only thirty four, a spinster maybe, but you could still find a husband on Kupalets night!"* He kindly told her, making her pretty cheeks blush even more as she mumbled something under her breath sweetly in Ukrainian.

After Tino is apparently done with his sweet talking, Kayusha takes her seat net to Berwald and busied herself with weeding out any left over stems or leaves on the plump and blackened berries, her fingers mindful of the thorns prick.

"All this talk of marriage reminds me! Tino, have you and your father discussed the proposition of a bride? I hear the Gaulish King of the Northern city state has three lovely daughters. Both ripe for child bearing, with peach faces and the most loveliest of red hair." Tino's mother smiled at her child, her hands coming up to her brow to wipe away the sweat caused by the hot cauldron at her attending.

Tino frowned for only a second before he collected himself, sitting up straighter on the three legged stool.

"Aye, I have talked to father about those triplets. Though I prefer blonde hair on my maidens, with pretty eyes the color of Eastern Jade, and a grim dog face that will scare me in the morning." Tino spoke simply, hiding a giggle in his throat that dared to erupt.

Berwald swiftly kicked him under the table.

Lady Jaana the had the graces to look taken a back for a bit, confused by her sons words. But, at looking at the Finn's face to see that he is completely serious with his requests, she sighed and went back to tying herb sachets for flavoring stews - setting some off to the side to be stored for winter when the wild Finnish herbs were scarce in the snow.

"Well...What about the Danish Princess - Lady Kerstin?" Lady Jaana tried again, raising her brows in question.

"Danes are insufferable." Tino mumbled, sliding his cooking knife into the stomach of the rabbit, the guts spilling outward like a dam's waters breaking through. He sets his knife to work once again, scraping the insides out to be dealt with later by his mothers capable hands.

Lady Jaana sighed once more as she handed a readied basket of sachets to Elizabeta who smiled at her with knowing. Only Tino could be this stubborn.

"Alright. You want a wife with blonde hair, green eyes-"

"Jade." Tino corrected her as he moved to now quarter the hare, getting whatever meat he could off and into an iron cooking pot to either be stewed or boiled. Either way it made his stomach aching for the final product, having a special place in his heart for the wild taste of rabbit.

"Ah. Alright. Jade." Lady Jaana murmured out exasperatedly her palms on the edge of the stone work platform as she brushed the unwanted stems from the herbs to collect on the straw covered floor. The dogs sniffed eagerly at the plants, until, realizing it was not meat, they scurried on their way under the tables to await for scraps.

"Don't forget the dog-face." Tino piped up suddenly, grinning from ear to ear.

Berwald kicked him silently again, this time in the shin.

Tino only smirked back, his tongue peeking out.

"Now why on earth would you want a wife with a dog face!" Elizabeta quipped back at him, knowing that the Queen was kind enough to not ban her servants from speaking like many other Ladies did. Lady Jaana was kind in that respect, in fact, in many respects.

"Because…" Tino drawled out, as if it was the most obvious of things.

"Then I will always be fed." He stated with a knowing nod.

Everyone in the room paused what they were doing to stare at the Prince, their eyes confused beyond belief. Even Berwald had no clue where the Finn was going with his words.

"What do you mean 'you will always be fed'?" Katyuha finally timidly asked, hr hands still reverently working to sift through the berries, her fingers and palms stained by their juices.

Tino sighed dramatically, waving the knife in the air as he did.

"Because if she has a dogs face then she's' bound to have a dogs bite, and if she has a dogs bite then she's bound to have a dogs temperament, and if she has a dogs temperament then she's bound to be good use when I leave her outside for the night and she presents me with an elk's neck in her teeth in the morning." Finnish lips molded into a shit eating grin.

Lady Jaana rolled her eyes, not believing that this was her sweet little boy who used to cower at her skirts when the lightning struck in the night.

"You are incorrigible." She laughed, shaking her head as she busied herself with stirring the cauldron as it boiled on top of the grey coals.

"Thank you, mother." Tino laughed as well, his eyes shining with mirth.

"What is so funny?" Came a sudden voice from the top of the stairs, a voice that silently shook them all to quietness, the easement from before gone as if it was chased out of the door by a pack of hungry hounds.

Tino swallowed thickly, the laughter dying in his throat.

Atop the stairs stood his father, dressed nicely enough, with a robe dyed blue and a crown of gold, harvested jewels decorated along it's edges. Purple Amethyst, shapely pearls, and golden amber.

"Nothing." Tino whispered, his voice becoming hoarse as he stared at the magnificent of his father. His stomach began to knot it's self, the Finn feeling sick.

"Nothing? Why, my son and wife are splitting sides inside a smoky kitchen - it must be good fun to have you smiling over a rabbits carcass." The King made his way downward, from the rickety stairs to the stone flooring that was littered with hay and unwanted parts from flowers and herbs.

King Mauno eyed his son carefully, tying to place his own smile on his face but failing miserably.

Tino shrugged his shoulders, now deciding he was done with the meat that he had silvered and paled into the bowl at the crook of his arm.

He began to break the fine little bones of the rabbit to be ground into a paste later for use - perhaps to feed the dogs, or to add flavoring and fatness to a pie. Berwald just kept on plucking away at the bird that was now almost naked, it's flesh bumpy and pale pink. The Swede realizing since the King first showed himself in the kitchen that silence was the best way to stay on the Monarchs good side.

"We were merely discussing Tino's candidates for Brides, my king." Lady Jaana spoke, doing her best to hide her bitterness that desperately wanted to flare against her cheeks. Both her and Tino were still not able to forgive King Mauno after twenty years, and they never thought they could. Each one had made a silent pack to never forget what happened on that December night.

"Ah! Is that so? Then, have you decided upon a bride my son? One of the Gualish triplets?" He grinned, rubbing his hands together before he took a blackberry from the basket in front of Katyusha, popping it in his mouth. A bit of purple juice dribbled down the crevice of his lips.

Tino was about to sneer that, yes, he had found a bride, and that bride was sitting right next him plucking feathers off the ass of a pheasant when his mother cleared her throat, sensing the tension about to erupt.

"He has no interest in those ladies, My Lord. He fancies a woman with blonde hair, jade eyes, and a dog-face." Lady Jaana spoke without even a hint of laughter in her throat, her eyes never leaving the small twine wrapped bundle of angelica. Her serious face however, made the situation all the more hilarious - the servants that dotted around the fires hearth covering their mouths to keep from laughing and having themselves thrown in the stalks.

King Mauno scowled.

"Now, I'll have no more of your games, boy. Pick a bride within the fortnight or I will pick one for you!" He barked. Tino didn't even flinch.

Yet when the amethyst eyed Finn did not answer the Kings voice right away, Mauno began to grow red faces and testy.

Looking to his sons hands which were bloody and flecked with sticky rabbit guts, slightly all the more warm, the king watched Tino's fingers idly working the backbone of the creature into seconds, thirds, and fourths.

Crack, Crack, Crack.

King Mauno sneered at the corpse of the animal, it's misshapen shape looking even more grotesque with it's skull ripped off.

"And what are you doing? Rooting around the guts of a rabbit - that's servants work!" He growled, scrunching up his nose at the stench of hot blood and intestines.

Tino didn't look up.

"No, Father. It's not servants work - it's just work." He said smoothly, coldly.

The Kings eyes glared down at his son, his neck flushing crimson.

"How dare you give me lip! You know what I meant!" The King thundered, his teeth gnashing.

Berwald took a calming breath through his nose, keeping his hands steady as they worked at the birds neck with a knife to chop if off, setting the thing on the wooden tables surface for the easiest cut. Nice and clean.

Tino looked up at his father with the beginnings of a glare, his fingers now twisting at the rabbits carcass, splattering blood everywhere on the table without care. Katyusha screamed with shock as her sleeves were wetted with a few thick drops of blood.

"Oh, be quiet girl! It's just guts!" The King snapped at her, quieting her.

She rolled her tongue behind her teeth, down casting her eyes away from the King.

"Mauno..." Lady Jaana was about to protest when the King swiftly turned his bitter and enraged face to her.

"Do you see what he's been reared into? He has no class, no tact! Always coughing at engagements, drinking rose wine and riding horses near to death! He is worthless! And it's all that boys fault," The King pointed to Berwald, "I should have never let that ruffian Swede in my sons presence."

"He has a name, father!" Tino snapped suddenly, making Berwald swallow thickly in his throat.

"I do not care if he has a thousand names! He is a horrible influence!" King Mauno stormed right back at his son.

At his fathers outburst Tino sat up hastily from the table, the stool clacking to the floor at the force of his movements.

Tino's breathing became shallow at his next words, his lungs paining him some from their struggle to draw breath.

"Is it not the father who has the most influence over his child? If so, then take a look at me father - I mirror you in everyway. Tactless, Classless - Worthless." Tino scowled, his eyes meeting his old mans with fury, like that of a wild horse intent on smashing it's riders skull.

All at once the Kings face turned venomous and his arm, weighed down by heavy cloth, pulled itself back to smack his hand into Tino's face.

The Finn yelped, the force making him stumble backward, the bruise and angry red blossoming on his skin below his eye. Tino cupping his cheek gingerly, his eyes wet now.

At the sound of the hit Berwald immediately scraped his chair backward, lurching forward to attend to the Finn - attesting the damage with careful fingers and sweetened words. Tino tried desperately to hold back his tears.

"Get out of my sight! The both of you." Roared King Mauno, his eyes dangerously threatening as his hand raised again, balled into a fist. He shook it at his sons face in a gesture of promising violence. Somewhere next to Tino Katyusha wailed like a child caught in a storm.

Wordlessly, Lady Jaana whispered and muttered for Katyusha to take Tino to his room to press a compressor of yarrow flowers to his face to stop the bruising.

Wrapping her hand around the Finn' shoulders, she pushed him to the direction of the stairs where the Ukrainian woman led him with her hand to the wooden steps, tears trailing down her face, her voice shaking with sobs.

Then, the Queen turned to Berwald, whose hands were shaking with hidden rage at the King.

Pressing her cool hands to the Swede's redden cheek, she whispered soothingly to him to go to her garden to pick some roses, the big sweet red ones that grow near the yellow broom.

"Tino will like to have some fresh flowers by his bedside…" She assures him as she sets him on his way, a pat on his back to calm him down while she silently makes her way to her fuming King to calm him down next.

Berwald does as he is told, deciding that snapping a few heads of the Finnish roses will be violet enough to release his aggression.

Yet, the Swede, before he made his way to the garden, softly looked to Tino as the Finn was being led up the stairs, eyes glossy and wet with tears, but a brave smile still on his lips.

Berwald's heart breaks at that face, at the tender bruise on his cheek that has now turned a plum purple, Berwald knowing full well that Tino's skin will hurt for days.

But, those amethyst eyes catch his again, and before the Swede could realize it, Tino began to stare down at him with a soft smile.

"Tonight."Is all the Finn mouths with hope in his eyes before he then allowed himself to be led away to his chambers and Berwald to the rose garden where the wild roses bloomed.

Wow. King Mauno is a Dick! Please Review! It makes me oh-so-happy, and keeps the Dolphins away!

Authors Notes:

-"Ah, Katyusha, take compliments when they are given! You are only thirty four, a spinster maybe, but you could still find a husband on Kupalets night!"* - "Kupalets" is a Pagan Slavic Holiday in June that honors the Water-Mother, Kupala. Eligible women looking for a husband would place wreaths of flowers on their hair and set off flowers into the river in honor of the "Little-Water-Mother".