Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.
Ludwig walked downstairs. Feliciana had gone back to her love for drawing and went back to selling her drawings in town. When she was out that normally left Ludwig alone as Alfred would normally disappear off somewhere. He didn't mind this time to himself mainly due to the fact it let him focus on his reading without interruption. Besides Feliciana was only gone once every few days so it didn't get too lonely. One day as he sat in his room he heard some banging from downstairs. Not sure what is was he went down carefully for his arm was still bandaged and walked into the living room.
"Alfred what are doing?" Ludwig asked seeing the chimera in the living room.
"Hey Ludwig." Alfred greeted while looking at the wall. "You know how Alice sometimes says a painting or something would look great on this wall." Alfred gestured to a place on the wall.
"I remember her saying that." Ludwig agreed with him.
"Well I found one!" Alfred beamed gesturing to it. "I got it for only five bucks. Not to mention I think Feliciana will like this one."
Ludwig walked up to it. The painting was decently sized but the subject was what intrigued him. The painting highlighted a beautiful ocean scene with wave crashing on some rocks. But in the waves and sitting on the rocks were merpeople. Each of them look different for each other. They had different hair, skin, and scale colors.
"Do you think she'll like it?" Alfred asked as Ludwig kept looking at the painting,
"Alice or Feliciana?"
"Feli duh." Alfred answered empathizing the duh. "I don't care what Alice thinks of it. She never likes anything I'm involved with."
"Maybe if you actually did something besides disappear everyday then she might notice." Ludwig thought to himself as Alfred started hanging a sheet over the paint.
"When Feliciana comes home we'll surprise her." Alfred explained after he hung it up. "I can't wait to see her reaction."
Ludwig looked at the clock. "He have roughly an hour until she gets home."
"Well I'm sitting here until she does." Alfred said as he sat down. Ludwig noticed he was still holding the book he was reading upstairs. He decided it was probably a good idea to stay down here and continue reading. Alfred did his normal thing as Ludwig tried to read. It wasn't that Alfred was being too bothersome or something like that. It was more that his mind was busy thinking about the paint. He didn't know what it was but something seemed off about it and it was really distracting to him.
"When is Feliciana getting home?" Alfred complained now upside down.
Ludwig shrugged. "She may have decided to walk around town or something. She's not obligated to come home right after she's done."
"But I'm bored!" Alfred announced while getting up. "I'm going to get a snack while I'm waiting."
Alfred went downstairs while Ludwig's mind continued to focus solely on the painting. He could put his figure what exactly bugged him about it. Maybe it had something to do with a wave being drawn the wrong way or something like that. But why did it bug him so much?
"You know what could be in town that's so important she can't come home to see this?" Alfred asked in between bites while he gestured to the covered up painting.
"She doesn't know it's here Alfred." Ludwig reminded the chimera.
"Can't you send her some message to come home or something?" Alfred asked him like it was obvious.
"How and why could I do that?" Ludwig asked looking up from his book.
"Because you have that weird mate sense. You two can tell when you're in trouble so you can defiantly get her home." Alfred said with laughter.
"We aren't mates." Ludwig pointed out.
"Oh come on you can't deny that you have some attraction to her."
"I don't." Ludwig turned back to what he was trying to reading.
"Don't deny it. I've seen the way you look at her," Alfred teased.
"I'm not denying it. I don't have feelings for her."
"You're just saying that because you still haven't realized you do. I've seen the way you blush around her."
Ludwig chose to ignore Alfred after that. Since the two had grown closer overtime it led to jokes saying that he and Feliciana were a couple. It started with a few teases from Gilbert, which Ludwig found weird due to Gilbert's constant flirting with Feliciana, but somehow he got Alfred on board with it. He was pretty sure even Alice saw something between him and the mermaid. He was also him taking her to see the lilies wasn't helping the fact that the two were not a couple.
"Hey anyone home?" A familiar voiced asked opening the door. A few seconds later Feliciana could be seen in the kitchen.
"About time you get home!" Alfred yelled getting up from the couch.
"I don't understand." Feliciana said very confused as she walked into the room. Ludwig looked up at her and he could see that she was holding something in her right hand.
"Don't you get out at five o'clock?" Alfred asked walking over to her.
"Depends on the place. Some markets are even open all day. I can go and leave whenever I want."
"What if something happened?" Alfred asked obviously trying to hide his anger with the painting that Feliciana still had no idea about.
"But I saw this street food cart and brought it with me." She showed the box to Alfred. "You can have some if you want."
Feliciana opened the box to show Alfred what was inside. It seemed to be some sort of platter of rice topped with fish and vegetables.
"What even is it?" Alfred asked after examining the box's content.
"It's based on a dish from the human realm called sushi. It's made with raw fish."
"Eww gross." Alfred backed away from her. "I'm not eating some raw fish made by a I wish I could be human again vampire or some other creature like that."
"It was made by swamp monster and they can catch the best fish."
"Still who in their mind would eat raw fish?"
"I used to eat raw fish all the time." Feliciana pointed out. "We couldn't cook it."
"Oh yeah." Alfred shook his head for a bit. "Well we can let that slide. Ludwig and I got something we want to show you."
"What is it?" Feliciana asked putting the box down as Alfred gestured for Ludwig to get up.
"It's a surprise." Alfred said as Ludwig got up. The two then led her to the covered up painting.
"What a lovely sheet." Feliciana joked as she pretended to admire the sheet.
"It does complement the room." Ludwig played along with Feliciana's joke.
"It's not the sheet." Alfred grabbed the sheet. "It's what's under it."
Feliciana jokingly placed one of Ludwig's hands over her eyes trying to hide her laughter. Alfred smiled to tease Ludwig as he pulled the sheet down. "You can look now."
Feliciana opened her eyes and smiled at what was in front of her. "It's beautiful."
"Yeah I found it for only five bucks. I figured this room could use something in it." Alfred explained as Feliciana walked over to it.
"I think Alice mentioned the same thing." Feliciana pointed out still looking at the painting.
"Doesn't matter? Ludwig and I just thought you would like it."
"Really?" Feliciana turned to the two of the smiling widely.
"Uh yeah." Ludwig agreed with Alfred.
"Thank you both."
"I wish I could find something where the mermaids had your scale color."
"That was it." Ludwig thought to himself looking at the painting again. None of the mermaids had her scale color. There were blue, green, yellow, and even some light red. But not a single one matched hers.
"Oh you probably won't." Feliciana admitted looking at her scales. "I'm the only mermaid I know with dark blue scales. Most mermaids have lighter colors. I have no idea why I have dark colored ones."
"I think they suit you nicely." Ludwig complemted her causing the mermaid to smile.
"Thank you." She said still smiling. "I'm going to eat the food I bought you can have some if you want."
The next Ludwig sat in his room when he heard a knock on his door. Opening it he saw Alfred standing there.
"What are you doing here?" Ludwig asked him.
"Is it just me or did Feliciana seem insecure about her scale color?" Alfred asked.
Ludwig thought about it for a moment. She didn't seem to like how they made her stand out in old home. But also seemed to be trying to hide the fact that it did. "You're right about that."
"Do you really think that she's the only mermaid with those scale colors?"
"She can't be." Ludwig said shaking his head.
"That's what I thought. So I got some books to prove she isn't."
"Did you find anything?" Ludwig asked out of curiosity.
"I found a few things." He started to gesture for Ludwig to follow him. "Come on I want to show you."
Ludwig followed Alfred downstairs. There he saw a few books laid out and some writing on some paper.
"I've read everything on scale colors I could find in these books." Alfred walked over to his work. He picked up one of the books. "I didn't know if I should read this one though. It's about mythology and legends from mermaid culture and I'm kind of afraid to read that."
"Did you buy all these?" Ludwig asked looking at the books.
"No I borrowed these three but I bought these two." Alfred gestured to the books as he was talking about them.
"Since you bought this one," Ludwig picked up the mythology and legends book, "why don't you give it to Feliciana? I'm sure she'll love to have something of her culture."
"It was your idea. You can it give to her." Alfred suggested despite Ludwig clearly realizing it was another ship thing.
"So what did you find?" Ludwig asked still holding the book.
"A lot of stuff." Alfred sat down and Ludwig followed. "So thankfully for Feliciana she is not the only one with dark blue or her color is more of a midnight blue. It turns out it's a rare color. The reason it's rare as lighter colors tend to protect mermaids more. But here's something interesting most dark tailed mermaids are abandoned at birth for their higher death rate. Not to mention that some areas have a higher chance of merpeople being born with dark scales."
"Do you think being born in a lake had something to do with her scale colors?" Ludwig was highly intrigued by this subject.
"Well only this book." Alfred held up the thickest of the books, "had information on mermaids living in lakes."
"What did it say?" Ludwig asked accidently leaning on his bandages arms causing him to rub it.
"Well her tribe had to move there at some point."
"I'm pretty sure she mentioned that a couple of times." Ludwig thought aloud.
"But here's the thing. It causes mutations more likely to happen. Even if her great grandparents were born in the ocean Feliciana still has a decently high chance of having a mutation. She would be the first generation to have this high chance."
Ludwig didn't say anything. He was surprised not only because of all the work Alfred put in to this project but because on all the unexcepted information present.
"Here's the strangest part. Feliciana has a higher life expectancy here on land than she does at home."
"Are you serious?" Ludwig asked not believing it.
"Read for yourself." Alfred opened the book up to the page. Ludwig carefully read it over. "Should we tell her this?"
"I don't think so." Ludwig said after reading the section. "It might hurt her."
"You're right." Alfred started gathering up all his stuff. "I'm going to put these in my room."
After Alfred left Ludwig decided to read the mythology book. Surprisingly he found one of the section on darker scaled merpeople. Turning to the page about he decided to read. What he read made him nearly drop the book. According to the book and her own culture, Feliciana's midnight blue scales were an omen of death.
AN: Okay this took a little longer than excepted. Not really sure why. I really liked this chapter and normally that makes me write faster. Oh well it's done anyway. Hope everyone enjoyed. See you next chapter.