Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia

Thank you's today go to Quinn Fiberoptic. The story today is the Brothers Grimm story "the six swans." The characters are as follows: Italy as the first king, Russia as the queen, Liechtenstein as the princess, Prussia as a huntsman, Switzerland as the second king, and Austria as the mother-in-law. Enjoy~

Liechtenstein and the six swans

Long ago there lived a king called Italy, who got lost in the woods in his kingdom. With night quickly approaching, he began to become frightened. He then saw a woman and asked her for directions. The woman told him however, that if he wanted to get out of the forest he had to marry her son. Scared of the woman for he could tell she was a witch, he agreed to her request and followed her to her cottage. Here he met the son, a tall man with purple eyes and an eerie smile called Russia. After meeting Russia, his mother gave them directions and they left for the castle to be married.

At this time Italy had seven children, six boys and a young girl, who he feared for due to his new marriage. Due to this fear, he had a castle for his children built deep in the forest where Russia would never find them.

Soon after the children were moved to it however, Russia began to notice how often Italy was gone. Wondering where his husband kept running off to, he paid a huntsman to follow Italy and find the place of the castle. After learning where it was, she went to work sewing six shirts that were entwined with the magic he learned from his mother.

The next day, Russia went off to the castle with the shirts. The six sons who saw the man at first thought that it was their father and rushed up to Russia, who then took the opportunity to place a shirt on each of the sons. As the shirt touched each boy, the six of them began to turn into swans and flew away. After watching this, Russia left for the castle where he lived, forgetting about the boys' sister, Liechtenstein.

The next day when Italy went to see his children, he was surprised to find only Liechtenstein left. She then began to tell him of everything that had happened the day before about the stranger and the shirts; causing the king to want to take her somewhere she would be safer. Liechtenstein however begged him to let her stay for one more night; and eventually got this.

When night came, Liechtenstein left the castle and began her search for her brothers. She searched for them all night and all of the next day until at last she was too tired to go on. As she felt as if ready to collapse at any moment, she found a small house with six little beds in it.

Tired, she crawled into one of them, only to then get up when she saw six swans come to the doorway and remove their skins; turning into her brothers. She rushed up to them and was happy to see them, but they warned her that she had to leave for this house belonged to thieves who would kill her and that they could not protect her for they could only take their human form for fifteen minutes a day.

She then asked them if there was any way to lift the spell. To her question they told her that if she was completely silent for six years and spent that time weaving for them shirts made out of asters the spell would be lifted. After saying all of this, the boys once again turned into swans and flew off.

The next morning, Liechtenstein searched for an aster tree and upon finding one climbed it and gathered the leaves. She then began to sew in silence. Sometime later as she sewed, a huntsman known as Prussia found her and asked why she was in a tree. She tried to ignore him, but he kept insisting that she come down and talk. Thinking that he would leave if she threw things at him, she began to throw everything she could from her person; until soon all she had with her was the materials for the shirts and her own shirt. By now Prussia had become impatient and decided to climb the tree and force her down.

Once she was down, he noticed how beautiful she was and decided to bring her to the land's king, a man called Switzerland. At the castle, Switzerland began to ask her who she was in every language he knew, but she did not respond to any of them. His heart was touched however by her beauty, so he had her dressed in rich garments and feed at his table with him. Soon afterwards, the two of them were married.

Switzerland's friend, a man called Austria, still lived at the castle however, and was not as pleased with the silent girl as Switzerland. He would often speak ill of her to Switzerland and constantly reminded him that they knew nothing of the girl.

A year later, Liechtenstein brought into the world a child, but shortly afterwards while she slept Austria came into the room, took the child and smeared blood over her mouth. He then hid the child and went to Switzerland accusing the girl of being a cannibal. Switzerland however did not believe him, and watched as she simply continued sewing the shirts.

The next year she gave Switzerland a son, and like with the last child Austria took him and smeared her mouth with blood. Again he told Switzerland that the girl was a cannibal, and again Switzerland defended her.

The year after this, Liechtenstein gave Switzerland yet another child, and again she was framed as a cannibal. When this came again to Switzerland's attention, he could not simply let her go again. So with a heavy heart he sentenced her to burn at the stake the following day at sunset.

It so happened that the day she was to die was the last day she had to be quiet. So as she prepared for her execution she gathered the shirts which were for the most part finished and went to the court yard. Above her as she walked flew her brothers, and as she walked she threw the shirts up to them so that they landed around their necks.

As the shirts touched the swans, they once again gained their human shapes, all except the youngest who still had a swan wing for an arm, and protected their sister. Liechtenstein then went to her husband and explained to him what happened. When Switzerland heard this, he became angry with Austria and ordered him to be burned at the stake.

Hope you liked it, and as always if you have a request for a certain story or characters please send it to me as a review~

To Ayumi Koduo: I will most likely get to your story, just not right now since I did Rapunzel with different characters in the later half in June.