A/N: I don't own Hetalia or any of its characters, or any fairytale I use. Dedicated to Dragon-Sigma; here you go, Austria the hero! Though this is another story with no pairing.
Guide
Au = Austria
L = Lichtenstein
Sw = Switzerland
F = France
Hansel and Gretel
Ok, you'd better be happy, now, Austria. I made you the hero (despite the protests of America, who thinks he's the only hero in the world…)!
Au: Yes, thank you.
Sw: W-wait you… Gah, you put us in the same story again?
Well, you two kind of-
L: D-don't be mad, big brother… I-I'm excited… This will be my first fairytale!
Sw: … Y-yeah, ok…
Alright, then! Away we go!
Once upon a time, there was a woodcutter named Vash Zwingli, who had two children. The oldest was a boy named Roderich with brown hair and glasses, who one day became an emperor, but that's honestly beside the point*. The other was a lovely young blonde girl, whose name was Lili. Now, Vash loved his children very much; but he felt that they needed a mother figure in their lives too, as their birth mother had died. So he remarried, but his new wife was cold and harsh, and did not love Roderich and Lili.
L: O-oh no… How sad…
Sw: Who would marry a woman like that? Hmph.
I know, I know, just keep listening, ok?
Beyond that, Vash didn't make much money as a woodcutter, and it was getting harder and harder to feed his family, even with how very frugal he was.
"How on earth will we feed the children tomorrow?" he asked his wife one evening, sighing.
"We can't afford to feed them anymore!" she snapped. "We don't have enough money! They can find their own food, in the forest. Tomorrow we can take them into the forest and leave them."
Vash glared.
"We're not leaving my children out in the middle of the forest! What if they're eaten by bears?"
L: I-I don't want to be eaten by bears…
As the two argued downstairs, Lili and Roderich were woken by the noise, and listened in. And then Lili began to cry. But her brother placed an arm around her shoulders.
"Don't worry," he told her, putting on his glasses. "I have a plan."
And when their parents had gone to bed, Roderich snuck out into the garden and filled his pockets with pebbles.
Au: Pebbles…?
You'll see.
The next morning, their stepmother called the children down, and told them that everyone would be going into the woods, and that the two of them could play while she helped Vash chop wood. The two children followed, and Vash was scowling the whole way, gripping his wood-cutter's axe tightly.
Sw: I would never leave Lili behind!
L: Y-yeah… I know.
It's just a story, guys. Um… Let's see.
"Keep up, Roderich," their stepmother snapped, as the brunette boy lagged behind.
He didn't listen to her, and continued to drop a pebble on the ground every time she turned back forward. Finally, the adults halted, and Lili and Roderich's stepmother smiled.
"Why don't you two play here and eat your lunch while you wait," she said sweetly, and then led Vash away.
The two kids ate their bread and then played for a while, before falling asleep. When they both woke, the sky was dark, except for the light from the moon.
"They left us here! They did leave us…" Lili sniffled. "We'll get eaten by bears for sure!"
But Roderich shook his head, taking his sister's hand. Then he pointed to his trail of pebbles. Lili stopped crying and smiled. Then the two children followed the trail home, and knocked on the door of the cottage. Vash was delighted to see that they'd made it back, and swept both children up in his arms.
L: Hooray! We did it!
Au: Y-yeah, we did…
Oh, but the story's not over yet…
You see, the stepmother was very upset that the children had made it home. So she locked the door that night, and Roderich wasn't able to go get any pebbles. And then she had the children come out into the woods again the next day.
"You can carry the bread for your lunch, Roderich," she told the brunette boy.
And once again, Roderich lagged behind. He used pieces of the loaf of bread to mark their trail, since he had no pebbles. Their stepmother made them all walk farther and farther into the forest; much deeper than last time. So when their parents left, Roderich and Lili went straight to sleep.
Once again, it was dark when the two of them woke, but Lili wasn't worried this time.
"What did you use to mark the trail?" she asked Roderich.
Then he told her about the trail of bread crumbs, but the two looked and looked and couldn't find anything.
L: Oh no! What will we do now?
Just wait and find out…
You see, the birds had eaten all of the bread, and when they heard Lili crying and realized that they had eaten Roderich's trail, they felt terrible. So, as the poor children were shivering under a tree, they draped many leaves over them to keep them warm.
L: Those birds… They were pretty nice, huh, big brother.
Sw: Yeah… Yeah they were.
The next morning, the two children wandered the forest, and eventually found a clearing with a cottage. Now, it wasn't their cottage; not even close. But it was a cottage made entirely of sweets! From a chocolate roof to gingerbread walls, to a candy cane doorframe, and with many more sweets besides! And the two were so hungry that they all but pounced on the house, tearing off pieces and eating them hungrily.
"Hey!" an old woman cried, stepping out of the cottage. "Don't eat my house!"
She had blond hair and suspicious blue eyes. But when she offered to make them omelets, if only they would come inside and stop biting off bits of her home, they readily agreed.
F: S-suspicious-! Don't tell me I-? Ma cheri, that is not-!
Ah, France. Welcome back.
The old woman introduced herself as Francisca Bonnefoy, and she cooked while Roderich and Lili told her about getting lost, and trying to find their way home. When she set the omelets in front of them, Lili and Roderich ate hungrily.
"May I help you wash the dishes?" Roderich asked politely.
"Oh, no, no, it's fine," Francisca said. "But if you'd really like to help me, do you think that you could clean out that cage for me?"
She pointed to a gigantic bird cage in the corner; Roderich nodded, and grabbed a little duster. He crawled inside to clean it out, but once he had, Francisca locked him inside. Because… She was really a witch who ate children!
L: Oh no… Poor Mr. Austria…
Au: I-I'm sure it'll be fine…
F: Yes, mon cher… You can trust me, no?
Au: Let's try no. Pervert.
Sw: Yeah; and you'd better stay away from Lili, France!
G-guys, I don't think we need guns involved… Really, Switzerland, put it down… Er… Where was I?
The witch made poor Lili work for her as a servant, but something worse was in store for poor Roderich.
"I'm going to fatten you up, and then roast you for dinner," she announced to him.
But the witch had terrible eyesight; she asked Roderich to poke a finger through the bars every day, to see if he was getting fatter. So clever Roderich got an idea. The next time the witch asked, he poked the end of his glasses through the bars.
Au: That's pretty clever…
"You are too thin!" the witch snapped. "Mon Dieu, you will never be fat enough to roast! I'll just have to cook you in a soup instead!"
So she ordered Lili to put a big pan of water on the stove, and then light a fire.
"Remember, the fire needs to be very, very hot!" the witch ordered.
Roderich motioned his sister over, and whispered his plan to her. Lili felt bad about what she was going to do, but it was her only chance to save her brother!
"I'm sorry," Lili said to Francisca the witch. "I lit the fire and got the pan, but I don't know if the fire is hot enough…"
The witch scowled, hobbling over to the stove. As she bent down to check the fire, Lili pushed her in.
L: … I-I'm sorry, Mr. France.
F: Oh, it is ok, my little-
Sw: Don't apologize to that pervert.
L: O-ok…
Then, the blond girl ran to Roderich's cage and unlocked it.
The two children began to race from the clearing when Roderich stopped.
"We can't go home empty-handed," he explained to Lili.
So, they broke the witch's candy house into pieces, and loaded all on the chocolate roof. Then, the two of them drug it through the forest until finally, finally, they found the path leading home.
L: We made it home!
Vash was sitting on the steps of the house as the children ran up. He'd chased away his unkind wife angrily, when he'd realized the children hadn't found their way home again. His eyes had dark rings beneath them from all the time he spent searching the forest for his kids.
When he saw them, he hugged them both close. Then Roderich showed him all of the candy! They sold it in town, and made enough money to live happily ever after, and none of them was ever in danger of going hungry again!
L: That was a pretty good story, right big brother? Right Mr. Austria?
Sw: Y-yeah, it was…
Au: I think so too.
F: Well, I, personally, don't think that it was very-
The End
* Ok, so some of you may question my making Switzerland the dad, and Austria Hansel. BUT! I thought long and hard about it, and my logic goes like this; in canon Hetalia, Switzerland always took care of Austria, when they were kids. Then, in the present timeline, he takes care of Lichtenstein the same way. Thus why Austria and Lichtenstein are the kids. Ok? Ok.