I'm very sorry I was late for this chapter, for those who hadn't read it on my profile, I had to go to my great-grandmother's funeral because she died last week. Nevertheless, I wouldn't've stopped writing for that, but I hope I didn't rush certain parts. Hope you'll enjoy it :)

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Chapter 3:

Smoking grin for Sleepy information

"Ah! Is that you Heracles?"

The anthro-caterpillar merely stared lazily at the Italians one after the other. Eventually, he started talking in a very sleepy voice.

"That... is a statement."

With that he started smoking his hookah once more. It did not seem very encouraging to start a conversation from Lovino's point of view, but Feliciano seemed to be oblivious to Greece's lack of repartee.

"Ve, since when do you smoke?"

Heracles blew a few butterfly-shaped smoke. It was undeniably beautiful. The smoke he blew out from the hookah swirled and changed shapes or faces, colors or tastes.

"This... was a present from Sadiq."

He paused to take a puff of the water-pipe.

"I... am using reverse psychology... by giving me this present, Sadiq... expects I shall throw it away, for I dislike him... however I use it to bother him."

Silence reached over sound once more. Still not seeming bothered by whatever, little Italy gazed at Heracles, eyes shining. There was something about the situation and the atmosphere around him that seemed surreal, even for this location. However Lovi had lost interest in Greece, and since no conversation was being constructed, he set about leaving, Feliciano or not, the other would follow him soon enough - none of them actually wanted to be left alone in this mess-of-a-world.

He succeeded in taking 5 steps before anything happened. New record.

"Wait." Said the Greek.

Lovino stopped and came back to his previous post near Feli expectedly. There was a long pause.

"What?" Romano was getting quite impatient.

The smoke that had been blown was dancing around Greece as a long forgotten tale playing itself for young eyes.

"I... have something to tell you two."

He opened his mouth as if about to state something, but quickly closed it to take another puff of the hookah. Seeing the older Italian's irritation, he finally said:

"Mind your temper."

It did not quite make things better. Nevertheless, the Greek caterpillar eventually put the water-pipe aside and leaned very slowly over the two brothers.

"What is it that you wish for?"

"I, I mean we, would most likely wish to grow, Heracles-san." Northern Italy had added the honorific suffix remembering that was what Japan usually did when talking to the Greek.

"Why is that?"

"Well, being three inches tall is a tad uncomfortable, you see."

"Not really, no... however, it is what you truly wish for... thus..."

Heracles did not finish his sentence and just nodded. He then smiled very slightly.

"A riddle... I will help you if you answer this riddle correctly. My mother had to find the solution herself a long time ago. "What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon and three at night?""

Little Italy looked horribly puzzled as he considered the riddle. After a few seconds, Lovino spoke up.

"Man. This answer is Man."

"That... is correct."

Greece nodded thoughtfully, then got off the giant mushroom.

"One side is meant to make you grow... One side is meant to make you shrink..."

And before Feliciano could ask, he swiftly added:

"...Mushroom."

He then disappeared in oblivion, living smoke dying slowly, colors turning to a dull grey, falling leisurely to the floor. Pushing smoke from his path, Lovi grabbed the two presumed sides of the mushroom to tear out a piece of each.

"Now then, which is which? Feli? You've been doing this from the very beginning, do you mind tasting these?"

Romano did not feel one bit bad about using his own brother as a guinea pig.

"Ve~, it's okay."

The younger Italian grasped one of the pieces of mushroom to take to his mouth. As he nibbled it he felt a sudden jolt of pain in his chin : it was now stuck to his feet. He quickly pleaded his brother to hand him the other piece, and so did the other. Feli swallowed what he could of the mushroom, and then his chin was free. Although, something did seem a tad odd.

"Ne, ne, Lovi! I grew! Hey- Lovi?! Where are you?!"

It was no good him trying to see round him, his view was obstructed by tree tops. Something else struck in pretty fast. Where are my feet? Again. This was definitely troublesome.

xXx

From his stand point, Lovino was quite bothered. His brother's neck was as long as ever with the rest of his body still standing next to him. That… was truly peculiar to look at. Disturbing even. He had thought of giving a kick in Feli's knee, since it was unlikely he would be caught. That's when he heard a really loud scream and saw his brother's arms beating the air. He swore he had not touched him.

xXx

Feliciano understood little by little the present situation. The issue was all he could see were tree tops and his all-too-long neck faintly waving underneath him. He found out fast enough that he was able to bend it in any direction he desired in the absence of being able to bring the rest of his body up. Suddenly something hastily flown at his face, and Feli tried to push whatever it was with his head. When the thing had eventually moved back, the Italian instantly recognized Pierre. What was France's pigeon doing here? Although not much seemed rational in this world, Feliciano felt mystified when the large pigeon started shouting at him in French.

"Hors d'ici, Serpent!"

"A-ah! You can talk Pierre?!"

"No!"

"B-b-but..."

No, Feli had no idea what to say to that. The argument was so sharply displayed one would want to believe it. No, no, no, no, no, Pierre had just said he could not talk, so it must be true.

"Fine! You can't talk, but I'm not a serpent!"

"I said you are, so it must be true! I'm always right you know? Now then, merde, hit the road, serpent!" The bird had flown back to Feliciano's face at the last sentence to beat him with his wings.

"I'm not! I'm no~t!" The Italian whined.

He tried moving his arms, but it was no use, they would not come up this high to help him. That's when he could hear his brother from far below.

"Hey, Feli! Can you even hear me?! Merda. What's going on up there?!"

"Uhwaa, nii-chan, help me! Pierre is here and thinks I'm a serpent and tries to scratch off my face with his wings!"

"There's no helping it, Feli, that bastard of a pigeon must be Parisian! Now if you don't want it all off, you better get your empty head down here, 'cause I am not moving!"

Somehow, his brother's words encouraged little Italy. It might seem rough from an outsider's point of view, but for him who considered knowing in some way how Lovino functioned, he accepted the words as no one could hear them. Of course, these words would seem way nicer than what Feli found in them for a certain Spaniard (but you'd never know how he could hear such different things). Despite the infuriated bird, he tried to bend his neck further down, till he got close enough to the rest of his body, though having an entangled neck in the trees and a pigeon beating his face.

"Fucking pigeon!" Lovi shouted as he threw a rock he had earlier picked at the bird.

Pierre went away fast enough with a shriek, flying away to his nest muttering French cusses. When he was completely out of sight, the brothers proceeded finding a solution for the umpteenth time. Northern Italy took a piece of mushroom in each hand, noting with his brother which was which, and started nibbling them one after the other, taking various sizes, until he was able to come back to his initial size. They proceeded in the same way for Romano, having a bit more knowledge in the question at that point. Satisfied with this, they again set about going off, Lovino suggesting they tried to find the garden they had earlier seen through the small door behind the curtain. But, oh my - that seemed such a long time since they had been even near to that place.

Arriving to a clearing during their walk, the brothers stumbled upon a small house about four feet high. It was decided they would get near it after resizing themselves to nine inches tall to not cause too much trouble.

"Ve, I have a question."

"What is it?"

"Why are we making ourselves small again? Are people afraid of giants?"

"…silenzio, Feli."

The Italians started to walk over the house, when they stopped. A footman in livery came unexpectedly out of the woods, a huge letter in his right hand as he knocked on the door. It was stated silently that he looked like a fish. The door was opened by another footman in livery, resembling a frog. Lovino could hear his brother chuckle as they interacted, especially when they both bowed very low, and the curls of their powdered hair entangled in one another. When the door was closed and the other odd footman in livery gone, Lovi finally allowed himself to talk. He shot his little brother a dirty look.

"Did you just have to giggle like a girl when fish-head handed the letter to frog-head? I couldn't hear a word they were saying. And I don't guess you heard it either."

"Ve~ that's easy! They said the letter was an invitation from the Queen for the Duchess to play crocket." Feliciano said simply.

Lovi blinked. Oh seriously.

And so they went over to the house. They realized that the footman in livery that had opened the door had actually not got back inside and was now sitting in front of it, his big round eyes staring idly at the sky. Feli looked up too, just in case there truly was something interesting above them. …It's blue.

As Romano knocked on the door, the sitting other talked, not taking his eyes off the sky.

"You might think it is very clever to knock on the door, just as you are doing. One would think it is the most logical thing to do. But this once, you are wrong, and there are two reasons for that: if I were on the other side of the door, I would open, but this attempt must fail for I am not on the other side of the door. As you can see, we are on the same side of the door. Of course correct me if I'm wrong, which you shan't do, for I am not. The second reason to my statement is that too much noise is made inside. Therefore, your inconsequential knock shan't be heard."

One had to admit, the points were taken, and even from the outside, the Italians could here the ruckus they were doing inside. But that did not matter to Lovino.

"How do we get in then?"

"In my case, the wiser would be to sit here till to-morrow."

"How do we get in?"

A loud noise indicated something had crashed on the door.

"…or perhaps the day after that."

"How do we get in?"

The footman in livery looked up at the older Italian.

"Must you go in at all?"

Lovino opened his mouth several times to answer, but was at loss for words. At this, the footman in livery nodded and set about staring at the cloudless sky once more.

"Ne, ne~" Romano heard his brother whispering at him. He turned round to see the matter.

"It's open." The other whispered while showing the door he had half-opened.

And so they entered without minding the other anymore.

xXx

He purred. Hmmm... Yes, he had indeed guessed things would process that way. He did not know how, but surely it was because he was just awesome like that. He stretched. This shall be a promising show. Just awesome.

xXx

When the first impression sunk in, it simply seemed like an atrocious nightmare. It was truly horrifying. Then, opinions split.

Feliciano was quite puzzled and his emotions were mixed between fright, embarrassment, astonishment and actual like. He blushed furiously and stuttered incoherent onomatopoeias, suddenly not knowing what to do with his hands. Lovino was a good deal shocked at first by the sight, but then a smile split his face in half. It seemed it would crack his face in two and that the upper half could fall off at any moment. He also started to laugh hysterically pointing in the direction of the object of his hilarity.

"L-Lovi, it's not funny, stop laughing!!"

Little Italy tried to reprimand his brother with not much success. He himself was at loss for a reaction. He was half whining, half screaming. Lovino was too cracked up to stop.

"L-L-L-L-Ludwig, w-w-w-what happened?!"

Germany glared at the brothers one after the other, though not in the same way. He blushed imperceptibly as well, was it more at the sight of Feli wearing a dress than having his troublesome older brother making fun of him. He was sitting on a rocking chair, dressed quite oddly, a baby in his arms. Hungary was at the stove of the kitchen in the corner of the one-room house, smokes of pepper flying from a meal she was cooking. Eyes stumbled without truly noticing on a grinning anthro-cat who said nothing, just watched as if enjoying a good show. Now, who it was, one couldn't tell yet for not noticing it while seeing it.

Soon, the pepper smoke invaded the room in an oppressive way, as a bit of the grey steam had got out when the door had been earlier opened. All of them sneezed or coughed, except for Elizaveta, adding as much pepper she could to the meal. She completely ignored everyone in the room. After a good sneeze, and having the baby crying, Ludwig spoke up for the first time.

"I'm not sure. This place is very strange. I'm… wearing a dress. This is very humiliating." He glanced down, looking fairly disgusted. "I won't be able to endure much longer…"

"Don't worry Ludwig, that dress looks really cute on you!" The German glared at Feli. "I-I meant it in a good way, I sw- Ah~! Is that a baby?? Where did you get it, it's cute!! Buon giorno bambino~"

The younger Italian skipped next to Ludwig to look at the baby with delight. The poor thing was crying so much. From his stand point, Lovino was coughing pepper, sure a good load of it had somewhat stayed still in his lungs. His triumph moments sure were short and rare. He gazed at Potato-freak and his stupid little brother. This looks like a fucking family picture with that whining kid.

"It won't stop crying. I don't know what to do." Germany sighed heavily.

"Hmm, have you tried singing a song?"

"Singing… I don't see how…"

"Trust me, he'll love it! And you have a very nice voice, Ludwig~! Very deep and manly."

Ludwig did not know how to take what Northern Italy had said, but considered his advice. There was a song he had heard, Prussia had sung it to him once when he had been sick. But that was a long time ago. Still he considered. Children seemed to love that song, and as he was singing, he could remember how he had himself really liked the song.

Alle Vögel sind schon da, alle Vögel, alle.

Welch ein Singen, Musiziern, Pfeifen, Zwitschern, Tiriliern!

Frühling will nun einmarschier'n, kommt mit Sang und Schalle.

Wie sie alle lustig sind, flink und froh sich regen!

Amsel, Drossel, Fink und Star und die ganze Vogelschar

wünschen dir ein frohes Jahr, lauter Heil und Segen.

Was sie uns verkünden nun, nehmen wir zu Herzen:

Wir auch wollen lustig sein, lustig wie die Vögelein,

hier und dort, feldaus, feldein, singen, springen, scherzen.

They had not became aware of the movement at the moment it had occurred, however, Elizaveta had brusquely turned around when little Italy got very close to Germany. Her eyes shined evilly, however at the instant she shifted as if searching for a camera, her face fell. Perhaps for the reason she had none. She grabbed whatever kitchen utensils she could find, and started throwing them randomly in the room, hitting the people around her.

"Elizaveta, s-s-stop it!"

"What is wrong with her?!"

As he was whimpering, Feliciano could have sworn he had heard a whisper, the cat perhaps, but he saw nobody in the room anymore at the spot he might have been. Meanwhile, Ludwig turned to Feli and shove the baby in his arms.

"Ludwig?" The Italian looked up at the other, his eyes questioning him.

"Just take that and raus! I'll take care of her, and I don't want you to be hurt."

He leaned over and kissed Feliciano on the forehead.

"Don't worry, I'm sure we'll meet again in this madness." he whispered.

"It's a promise?"

"Of course. Now raus."

And so he did, the baby in his arms, closely followed by Lovino, grabbing his apron's ribbon while trying to dodge the kitchen utensils. Making it easily through the door, they passed as simply the clearing into the woods. As this was done, Feliciano threw the baby in Lovi's arms.

"What the…?!"

"I'm so sorry Lovi, but I don't like babies! I just didn't want Ludwig to know!"

"You- What?"

"They're scary…"

Romano just sighed heavily, guessing it could not be helped. He tried to hold the baby correctly, but it was quite difficult, as it stretched helplessly. He honestly tried, but got rapidly tired of it and just grabbed whatever he could to not make it fall. Then followed a very awkward silence where Lovino stared at the baby, and the baby stared back at Lovino. The Italian glanced quickly at his brother for a quick moment, making sure he was not doing anything too stupid and cursing him with a deadly glare. Gazing back to the baby, he hastily let go of his leg, realizing the thing had had the nerve to turn into a pig. He ran behind his brother without a word, letting the animal behind. No regrets were to be expected, that was a certitude. He then walked a few thirty steps before anything actually happened. Times were getting better, it seemed.

"Kesesesesesesesese."

That sound? Feliciano had already heard it. He looked up and saw Gilbert perched on a branch. So he was the anthro-cat.

"Looking quite disappointed, eh, Italy-chan!" He took a dramatic pose. "Ah, my awesomeness is too much to manage, is that it?"

"Well…"

"No need to say, I'm so awesome, I know what you're thinking! Why me? Why not Canada? Not enough self-confidence! Russia? Way too creepy, and anyway… you'll see him soon enough. Anyone else than me? Not awesome enough! It's a question genes, you hear me? My genes are just awesome like that!"

Feliciano processed Prussia's words while Lovino was standing behind him, cursing. The Prussian just continued rambling, and the Italians were just half-listening.

"Aw, Ita-chan, you look adorable in that dress! I wish you could wear one more often."

"Ve~, you said we would see Ivan?"

"Correct. Matthew too for that matter."

"How do you know all those things?"

"Hm? Do you listen to me sometimes? I'm awesome! But other than that…" The grin he had been wearing as a mask all the while grew and he gazed at the Italians with an odd cat-like eye.

"…The Cheshire Cat rules the Wonderland anarchy,

against the Queen's chaos his role is far from easy.

It seems a work of cards and odd,

it is in fact of fools and blood.

But in the end who cares, I'm awesome!

Besides I do it out of boredom.

This story leads the two Alices through dangerous doors.

Be now quite careful to discern ceiling from floors,

being two is new but could be deadly,

who knows, that Queen must want you dearly.

You'll soon regret of dreaming daily,

great dangers awaits in the unconscious mystery.

I know much things, my cute oblivious.

But should you trust me? I am a vicious.

Over there stands a house,

you might go see that sweet dormouse.

But that is not the main attraction,

some fools with mutual affection,

are spitting tea and soiling bread,

One even has hay on his head!

I know this doesn't sound appealing,

but surely there I would be hurrying.

But worry not, I shall be somewhere,

just like my brother we'll meet for sure there.

Go to the crocket game,

we'll be there though it's lame,

I'd like to see the King loose his wig,

and, oh my, did that kid turn into a pig?"

While saying these lines, Gilbert had been gradually disappearing, his last sentence pronounced with an only remaining grin. He then was gone, but the words danced in the Italians' minds, and the memory of a ghost grin spilling information haunted their eyes. Stumbling out of his peculiar trance, Feliciano looked at the direction Prussia had earlier indicated. 'Some fools with mutual affection are spitting tea and soiling bread?' Without a word, he tugged at his big brother's apron, who just nodded, and they set about following the path in the most loud silence they had ever known.

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Voilà.

Huh. Greece must be my favorite character from Hetalia. I made a fanart of him half caterpillar actually, since it's vacation I'll scan it and post it at my deviant. I have to remember to post the link on my profile.

Uh, you probably want to know where the Parisian opinion came from. Yeah, so I live in Paris, and there's that big cliché that Parisian's are really irritable and scream all the time, and they seem to always be right and others wrong. Yeah; well those people exist, I can tell, I take the metro every morning sitting among these people. But usually they sulk, actually.

The song Ludwig is singing is Alle Vögel sind schon da. It's a German song for kids, my grandmother sung it for me when I was searching for a song. It's story about birds or something.

Hope you liked it :)