These Wounds Won't Seem to Heal - Chapter 17 - Rain Drops

Drip

There was water slipping from the tip of a Birchwood branch, into the pond it hung over.

Drip

Each drop colliding with the water right near a Prussian man's ear.

Drip

He closed his eyes, and in the darkness a gentle drip became a splash.

It was a little boy, hair yellow and unkept, eyes that could pierce the heart like icicles, and a his lips poised into a stern, unentertained line as he splashed his bare feet about a muddy puddle. It was the first time that Prussia had felt good about having dominion over Germany. He watched the boy - who had previously been quiet, detached, and perhaps a little scared – play around in the yard.

He wasn't happy to see his bruder simply for the fact that he got to be an elder to him; it was the way the boy pretended to not be interested in a butterfly he stared at for thirty minutes that made Prussia pleased to call him a little sibling. He wasn't happy to be leading a new nation just because it meant Austria didn't get to do it, he just wanted to see what this child could become.

Germany touched his head, and seemed displeased with the mud now in his hair. He tried using his hand to clean it, but once he realized this would only make the problem worse, he looked at Prussia. To any outsider he would just look like a stoic, dirty, little boy staring without reason at an adult. To Prussia, his brother, who was happy to finally be getting to understand him, he looked affronted with a problem he couldn't fix on his own, and thus, he looked about ready to cry.

Prussia stood, walked over to, and scooped up the little nation. He wondered what the child and his people would develop into as he carried the little one closer to the stream. Instead of just cleaning the boy's hair, Prussia showed his brother how to clean his hands in the stream, and how to use his clean hands to clean his hair himself. The boy seemed endlessly pleased to have done it "on his own", and Prussia grinned as he ran off only to stop after a few steps, and watch a bug crawl up a tree.

Prussia recalled when he and France were that small, and how powerful they had all become since then. Would the boy follow in their footsteps? He tried to imagine Vati being small and muddy.

"Don't screw this up," was the last thing he got to hear from his Germanic family members before Germany was handed over. He wouldn't. He couldn't screw this up – not after everyone that had gone into the creation of this boy. His brother would prosper.

Drip

Drip

Prussia opened his eyes and looked up into the endless sky of perfect blue. It looked as though he could raise his arm and let his fingers caress the cushioned cotton of the clouds. He rolled over in the foliage, and came face to face with a frail flower.

He plucked it.

Drip

It had shining, grey petals, that almost looked silver under the drops of dew. Its pollinated center was a red-orange color, and it was small and cute. The length of its stem almost made it look even smaller.

Drip

Prussia realized as the little flower spun between his fingertips that he had killed it. It wasn't dead yet, but its fate was sealed. What was to happen, would happen. Could the flower feel that its roots were gone, or had that not yet dawned on it? Would a new flower sprout from the root while this one decaying and fertilize it?

Was the flower scared?

He set it back in the grass and enjoyed the feeling of each cool blade of green brushing on his skin. It was a part of the circle of life. And death.

Drip

Mortality was not something Prussia ever saw himself having to think about. It was so easy to think himself invincible when he watched millions of people die around him as he marched on effortlessly. It wasn't that the nations didn't age, it was that they aged slowly. It wasn't that the nations didn't die, it was that they died after living many human lives over. Most of them didn't like to think about this, or even realize it, until they were at the end themselves.

Drip

Humans these days don't tend to know much of the past. Most of them don't know there was such a great difference between Ancient Egypt and Egypt, or between Romans who wore drapery and Romans who wear jeans. They maybe knew of Britannia's existence because of a similarly named dictionary, or they could still see Scandinavia's influence, but did they know of Germania?

He was such a great man, and nation, and father with a beautiful sovereignty. Prussia knew he, as the man's son, was lucky.

Drip

He wondered again what that little flower would fertilize. How would it make itself useful in repose?

Drip

The man closed his eyes with nothing but the sound of wind winding down a hill, and birds chirping gently some distance away.

He let himself drift into sleep.

Welcome to Sunny uploads weeks late because she forgot!

Now, why is this chapter so short? Because I kind of like this bit standing alone. And because I have had to do a lot of essays lately, and that made me not want to add on to this.

I don't know where I'm going next, but it will (hopefully) return to my format of long chapters. I took some time to dabble in poetry (and created a tumblr! intense! kaygee-writes ) and am feelign my creative juices are ready to flow again! So, sooner rather than later I hope, we will contine this story. I've realized i've been writing it for over two years now, and it's drawing towards it's close. This has been a wild ride. I'm not sure how many more chapters are left to come, but thank you all for your patience, and for growing with me through this story. Hope you enjoyed this SHORT snippet of a chapter. Happy late Valentine's day!