Chapter 3

Man or Woman

Tino was standing in the middle of the room, breathing heavily from the rush and the shock of turning into a woman. Emil stared at him and let out a small giggle "Well, should we call you Tina now or what?"

"Very funny Emil" He sat down in one of the comfy chairs and tried to get his breathing under control again but it didn't go very well when he looked at the other two. His eyes grew wide when he suddenly saw the ears on Mathias head. "WHAT IS THAT?"

"Oh yeah, I got a matching tail too."

He stood up and turned around, showing off his new style. Tino stared at him and shook his head to try and clear his mind "What exactly IS going on?"

"Well…"

After telling him about the failed spell, the explosion and the conversation with Arthur, Tino had finally calmed down and was listening carefully.

"…so we agreed that the best thing to do was to call for a world meeting. We're going to hold it in Copenhagen in a few days and meanwhile, Arthur will look for a solution."

Tino leaned back to process all that he had heard while twirling his now long hair between his fingers. Mathias suddenly realized something. "How did you get here so fast?"

Tino was brought back from his thoughts by the question "I was already on my way here to check how Emil was doing when I suddenly was pushed back in my seat and fell asleep or something, luckily there wasn't much to crash into at the side of the road!" His positivity made the others chuckle, only Tino would take a car crash this easily. "Well the car is pretty much ruined and I had to walk some part of the way, but I'm here now at least!" Tino smiled and looked at Emil. "And it looks like you're feeling better now!"

"Why don't you stay here until the meeting then? You will have a hard time getting back if your car is broken and we have plenty of space!"

Mathias made an inviting movement with his hands, smiling at the thought of more people in the house. "Why not? I can't get back home anyways" They both turned towards Emil when he suddenly burst out in a laughing fit very unlike his usually calm self. He lifted one hand and pointed towards Mathias.

"I can't believe it" He managed to say between his chuckles. "You really like people visiting don't you?"

"Well of course I do! The more the merrier, right?" He really enjoyed having a lot of people around him and when he was alone at home he could never help but feeling a bit sad. Of course he would never admit that to the others. Tino suddenly started laughing as well and Mathias begun questioning their sanity. "What is it with you guys?" Tino pointed at him.

"Well, you can't hide your emotions very well like this, can you?" Mathias suddenly realized what they were all laughing about. He looked behind him where his tail was quickly waving from side to side, out of his control. Mathias couldn't do anything else besides joining the other two. It felt good to laugh like this and they all felt like they needed it. Tino looked around suddenly realizing something.

"Isn't Berwald here?" The other two stopped laughing and looked at each other.

"No he isn't"

"And you haven't heard from him?"

"No"

"Oh God I hope nothing bad has happened"

Emil stood up, a bit embarrassed that he had forgotten about the big nation "I'll try to call him". He walked out into the kitchen where the phone was located and dialed the well-known number. As Emil left, Mathias looked over at Tino.

"So how does it feel to be a woman?" he said jokingly.

"I'm not a woman!"

"Take it easy, I'm just joking!

"Just because I have a woman's body doesn't mean I'm a woman, I'm a man. A manly man!"

"Yeah, Yeah. The manliest." Mathias smiled as Tino slowly sat down again. Tino was used to being called girly and he usually didn't care but right now it just felt wrong being called a woman. Probably because he actually wasn't sure what he was right now, he still felt like himself but he did have the body of a woman. After a moment of silence Tino grabbed Mathias by the collar.

"What is the definition of a woman?"

"What?" Mathias wasn't sure about what Tino was asking and he didn't have long to think about it either because Emil was just returning from the kitchen.

"He isn't picking up, not on his cell phone or the one he has at home, I'm getting worried" He looked at the other two and added "Maybe we should go look for him."

"No need to worry, It's late and he's probably sleeping by now and you know what a heavy sleeper he is" Mathias patted the young boys head "He probably won't notice any change until tomorrow" Emil nodded, he didn't look completely convinced but then he let out a big yawn quickly followed by another one from Tino. Mathias looked at the clock, it was really late. "How about this?" We all go to sleep now and if we can't reach him tomorrow morning we'll go looking for him, okay?"

"Okay" Emil went back to his room while Mathias showed Tino where he could sleep. After making sure he had everything he needed, Mathias went to check on Lukas. He gently opened the door and walked up to the sleeping nation. He looked really peaceful like this, but Mathias didn't want anything more than for him to wake up again. To be honest, he would like to scoot down next to him to make sure nothing happened during the night, but he knew that would be crossing some boundaries. He pulled up the covers and decided to sleep on the couch right outside the room instead, so he hopefully could hear if something happened. As he laid down and pulled up the covers, he couldn't help but worry. About Lukas, about Berwald, about this whole situation and also about what would happen to Emil when they broke the spell. Would he get sick again? After a lot of turning and tossing around, he finally fell into a restless sleep filled with unpleasant dreams.

.

Arthur yawned as he closed the book and added it to the growing pile. He hadn't found any answer in this one either. Alfred and Francis had gone to bed long ago and Matthew was currently sleeping in his lap, purring when Arthur patted his head. He looked at the clock and decided to look through one more book before going to bed, but as he opened it he felt a sudden pressure on his shoulder and something puffing at his arm. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before he continued reading as the puffing continued. The others had been far too busy with their own problems to ask him what his was. He didn't care about that, they wouldn't see it as a big problem anyway since they had never seen them.

His friends. The ones that had always been there for him. The ones very few could see. The ones the others claimed was "Imaginary". But they were very real to him and he cared for them a lot. That's why he had to work hard to undo this magic, for all the other nations as well, but mostly so he could see his friends again. Right now he couldn't, he couldn't see them and he couldn't hear them. He could only feel their presence.

"Two more books, I can handle two more books"

A/N: Thank you to Marzue for your feedback! I have tried improving the things you mentioned and the chapters will get longer!