Eastern Flower, Western Bear Chapter 4, a hetalia - axis powers fanfic

Norwegian:

Jævla dust - Equivalent of "bloody moron" or "damn moron"

Faen - Lit: The devil; an exclaimation

Danish:

Min Elskede - My darling

Min Skat - My treasure

Someone was asking what "Jao" meant - I'm sorry; I used the phrase before but I didn't explain it. Basically, its a more "Russian" way to spell the name Yao, although the pronunciation is much the same. I just like it because it amuses me...

Hey, there is a new link in my profile to some fanart that was drawn for the RoChu contest on Deviantart, based on this story! Please check it out, its very very good. Anyway, I think there is only one chapter left? Ah, okay, done rambling...

Yao hoped that he wasn't dead, because the yelling was really getting on his nerves.

He wondered if he could open his eyes, even going so far as to twitch a lid, but then decided it was too much work and continued to lie still in a warm, heavy haze.

The yelling did not stop.

"Jævla dust! I always knew that you were a reckless idiot, but endangering someone else?" a voice ranted.

"Aww, min elskede, you were worried about me!" came the second voice, loud and obnoxious as well, but without the curling anger of the first. It was oddly familiar, and Yao fought through his haze to try to remember why.

"I'm worried about the other one! Faen, you're an idiot."

"Don't be like that! He wanted to get down the mountain double-quick, so I thought, hey, South Wind would be an easy way to go –"

South Wind. The name struck a chord in Yao's brain. South, East, West, gold, blindness, scarf, bear – Ivan.

Yao sat up with a panicked suddenness, breath stilling in his chest as he looked around the room where he sat. Lukas was there, smirking at another, shorter man with a vicious scowl on his face. He looked a bit like Tino, but his attitude clearly told Yao that he was not to be trifled with.

"See, he's awake, anyway!" Lukas said happily. He turned to Yao. "Sorry for dumping you in the snow and stuff. I passed out for a second, but luckily min skat found us both and got us all warmed up!" he announced, patting the other man on the head. The man bared his teeth, shoving Lukas away – though not roughly, Yao noticed.

"Thank you for coming to our aid, aru," said Yao politely, rubbing his forehead. He had a pounding headache that pulsed behind his eyes; he was abominably tired and sore from what he assumed was the impact of the toboggan. How they survived was a mystery, and one he didn't want to put much thought into.

"It's not much trouble. I'm used to it," the man told him. "My name is Orin."

"I'm Wang Yao, aru, and I search for the Troll King."

At the name, Orin's eyes narrowed dangerously and he swung his head to look at Lukas.

"Is this why you brought him here?" Orin spat.

Lukas bounded over to pat him on the shoulder. "Now, now, don't get pissy. This kid is off on some grand quest, and I thought, well, you could help him out a bit, right?"

Orin turned back to Yao. "You might be able to find the Troll King, but you will never defeat him."

Yao was taken aback at the frosty glare radiating from Orin. He had been lucky, receiving help from those he met on the way; what made Orin different? Still, he pressed on. "He stole something from me, aru, and I'm not going to sit around and mope. I have to get my white bear back. And so, thank you for your hospitality, but if you will not help me, I must go." Yao swung himself out of bed, feeling a little nauseous and wincing as his head pounded again. Orin caught him easily as he stumbled, and forced him sternly back onto the bed.

"I never said that I wouldn't help; I'm just telling you that you're running a fool's errand."

Yao glared at him. "Then a fool I will be."

Orin glared right back for a long moment, then sighed. "I'll get you something to drink, and then we can talk."

Yao wanted to protest, to say that he could not spend any more time recovering, but Orin had already brushed out of the room.

Yao shot a helpless stare at Lukas, who chuckled and ran a hand through his hair.

"Sorry 'bout him. He's been on edge for a while. The Troll King stole something important from him – well, from all of us, really – and we haven't been able to get it back."

Yao nodded. "What did the Troll King steal?"

"His brother."

Yao stopped, shocked.

"Oh… aru…" he muttered.

"Yeah. We've all tried to get him back but that castle's pretty darn impenetrable. I mean, you can get into the keep and all, pretty easy, lots of servants and stuff, but after that? Not a chance. They can see we are human right away."

Yao frowned but was determined to stay undeterred. "I will go, anyway. I will rescue the white bear, and I will rescue Orin's brother, and take back what does not belong to the Troll king."

Lukas slapped him heartily on the back, and Yao winced. "That's the spirit!"

Orin stepped into the room, laden with a tray of tea and food for Yao. "If you are done spilling secrets that do not belong to you?" he asked Lukas archly. Lukas just smiled at him.

"Yep. So, you takin' Yao over there?"

"It seems I have no choice," he muttered. "I'll take you Yao, but my warning still stands. We – the four of us, Tino, Berwald, Lukas, and I – barely escaped with our lives."

"I will go, aru."

"Then we go on the North Wind."

Yao raised an eyebrow.

"Tino named it; the kid has always been a bit touched," Orin replied with a shrug.

Yao finished eating quickly, and stood again, his headache having receded to at least a bearable level. Orin led him outside, leaving Lukas with the order to "Stay put and don't touch anything."

The house was at the foot of the mountain; Yao craned his neck up to see where he had descended from, and felt his knees go weak at the terrible height. Orin dragged him away quickly, however, toward the back of the house.

It was on the edge of an ocean.

Yao blinked; he had not been expecting that at all, but here it was – Orin's squat, wooden house was perched on the edge of a gravel beach that led down to steely, cold water that stretched out until it collided with a vast and distant outcrop of black slate.

If Yao had been wondering where the Troll King's castle was, he wasn't any longer.

It was perched on the black slate – it was the slate; a solid mass of slicing rock that arched above the sea, only just in sight.

On the silver-gravel strand, a small row-boat was beached, turned over and flimsy in the face of the stormy waves beyond.

He watched dumbly as Orin overturned the boat, dragging it towards the water. In small, black letters on the side of the boat were the words "North Wind."

… Fate really, really disliked Yao.

Orin stared at Yao tellingly, smirking as if he knew. "Scared?"

"No," Yao growled back, and after everything, he decided that he truly wasn't. He splashed through the shallows, and boarded the boat. Orin got on behind him, and before Yao had even gotten properly settled, he called out a few short syllables in a language Yao did not know, and the boat turned and began to immediately move.

There were no oars in the boat. There was nothing to propel it. And still, it struck out straight across the heaving waves, as if drawn by a rope. And yet still, it travelled north, between the sun as it rose in the east and the moon as it set in the west. Yao's fingers gripped the sides as it flew over the water, lifting up and slamming down with a jarring intensity. The skiff rolled so much that Yao could not even look back, question Orin, see how he was hanging on. It didn't matter. It didn't matter how the boat was moving or who else was with him, what matters was that he was advancing on the castle and advancing on the bear who had become a man who had become something too important for Yao to give up on.

When Ivan had woken, his first thought was of Yao, the mysterious beauty with a scalding fire. Or rather, he thought of Yao's eyes, as he had last seen them – sparking and golden and deep dark with a guilt and loss that he could not fathom properly –

And then he realized where he was, where he had laid for a week. The castle of the Troll King.

In the bed of his son.

Prince Alfred rolled over in his sleep, slinging a warm and thick arm over Ivan's chest, and Ivan tensed, closing his eyes and clenching his fists in the fabric of his sheets and wishing he was no longer human, wishing the arm across his chest was small and slight, the body beside him curling into him with a mischievous power instead of a spoilt possession.

He fingered the bandages over the burn marks on his neck, his only reminder that a home like that for him had ever existed. Then, he laughed, low and deep and frighteningly manic, his last scent of sanity dangerously thin. He giggled like a child and thought of someone he wanted more than anything in the world.

Yao found himself within the outer walls of the Troll King's castle in a shorter order than he realized was possible. Orin had slowed the boat – or had the boat slowed itself? – at the edge of a sharp outcrop of rock. He pointed warningly at a low scramble of rock, a hollow dip in the sheer sides of the castle.

"That is your entrance into Trondheim, the Troll King's castle," Orin said. "I go no further. You can enter through the tunnel there; they have not shorn it up. Beyond that, you are on your own."

Yao stepped out of the boat. "What am I to expect?"

Orin laughed once, humorlessly. "They're just like you or I, in looks, but you will know that they are not human. Their teeth are sharp and their eyes are wild – but if they do not see your eyes and you do not bear your teeth, they won't be able to distinguish you from their own."

Yao clicked his teeth together sharply. "I'll come back to you."

Orin nodded curtly. "I'll be back in five days' time. If you are not here, I will leave." And the boat immediately began to pull away.

And then, so softly, so fleetingly, Yao thought that he imagined it, he heard Orin's voice. "Find my Eirik, and help him return to me…"

And then Yao was alone on the rock.

He scrambled towards the cave that Orin had pointed to him, ducking into the blinding darkness and stumbling forward.

It was night outside. It was night inside. Yao walked and walked and remembered his time as a blind man, tied the scarf over his eyes, and did not stumble until he felt cold, stale air on his face and was in the realm of the Trolls.

Ivan did not leave his room. He had been allowed, graciously, to walk the bare halls of the keep, allowed by a master who believed him to be loyal and yet tested his every step, but he did not take up the offer. He paced his room and he ate and slept and did not understand how time slipped away from him. And every night, the tall, blonde Troll Prince Alfred would bound into his room and declare that tonight was the night that they would fall in love and they would lie together under the sheets, barely touching, until it was morning.

He would not know it was morning by the set or slant of the sun; it has disappeared altogether, bathing the land in six months of endless night.

Alfred bounded in again, and Ivan realized he had wiled another day away – a sixth, six days he had been without the home he had built for himself and another in the woods. Ivan affixed the sharp and aching smile to his face, allowing the other to undress and beckon him to bed.

Today, however, Alfred had something bouncing in his palm. It was small and gold and looked heavy, and Alfred was obviously absolutely entranced.

"What have you got there?" Ivan asked, too cheerfully, feeling his voice crack.

Alfred immediately closed his palm around the object. "A tomato," he said quickly. "A golden tomato." He looked as if he had done something wrong, but Ivan was used to the sharp, wily look in his slit blue eyes – eyes inhuman, snakelike, and cruel, if offset by a glaring smile and a bounding step.

"Where did you get it?" Ivan pressed, feeling something pricking at the back of his skull.

"Oh. Um. Nowhere. Just – a blind beggar was sitting outside the keep. Just sitting – the whole world was bustling past him; you know, everyone getting ready for our marriage feast!" Alfred beamed, as if the song that should be playing were a march and not a dirge. "Anyway, he had something tied over his eyes, but he definitely saw me, cuz he just… offered me the gold thing! Out of the blue!" Alfred finished, smiling viciously and revealing sharp canines.

Ivan glared at the sight, again feeling the pricking in his skull, as if sensing the untruths. Before he could react, however, a warm clay mug was being forced into his hand.

"Drink this!" ordered Alfred with a strained smile. "You look worried. About the wedding, and stuff. So I – and dad – thought you should drink this!"

It looked like the strong tea that the Troll King favored, and Ivan shook his head.

"No. I am not thirsty." He refused Alfred.

Alfred smiled thinly. "C'mon. Think of it as a present from dad. He'd be upset if you didn't accept it."

Ivan frowned.

"You know how he gets when he's upset."

Ivan shuddered. The last time the Troll King was upset, he had let his magic run wild – lost control, for a few precious seconds – and had collapsed an entire wall of the castle, simply on accident. It had been on the advent of the escape of four former servants of his; the fifth, a small, silver-haired boy with impassive eyes, he had caught, punished violently, and thrown back into the cells.

That is what Ivan hated the most about the Troll King – his subjugation of others. He had magic, it was true, but he had no right to use that to kidnap those that had struck his fancy.

Ivan had been one that had somehow struck his fancy.

And knowing this, and knowing the Troll King's power, he grabbed the mug offered by Alfred, and drank deeply.

Within moments, he was fast asleep, dead to the world.

The moment that Alfred saw that Ivan was asleep, he ran to the door, hissing out of it.

"Alright, come in, quick, before dad finds out!" he ordered nervously, cupping his small gold bauble as if it were a talisman.

The blind man shuffled in, and Alfred wondered briefly what could have afflicted a troll so young as this to make him so crippled. He didn't wonder long, however.

"You have until morning," he told the blind troll, then shut the door behind him.

Yao removed the scarf. It had worked. None of them had seen his human eyes, none of them had suspected, and he was able to trade his first golden gift for an entire night with Ivan -

"Ivan…" the name fell out of Yao in a gasp, and for a moment he could only stare.

He was beautiful and tormented, just as Yao remembered – strong shoulders and sloping chest, the same rugged and fierce expression twisting his face, only barely softened by sleep; the familiar and half-silver hair splaying across his face.

"Ivan –" Yao's breath caught in his throat. After all this time, the trek and the hardship and the worry and the guilt, he was finally here, with his bear, with his prince. He rushed to the bed, intent to shake the man awake, but touching that strangely cold skin, Yao could not gain a response.

For a quick, violent moment, Yao feared that perhaps Ivan was dead, but the warm press of breath against his fingertips allayed his fear almost immediately. He was not dead – only asleep. Insensibly asleep, and Ivan would not wake.

Yao was close to breaking down completely that evening. Six days of sleepless worry, trading away the first of his gifts to a greedy prince in a furtive exchange for a single night with Ivan - and now this. Now Ivan would not wake for him.

Yao ran soft fingers through Ivan's hair, biting back tears that he refused to let fall.

"Stupid, stupid, aru…" Yao mumbled. "Ivan, wake up. Wake up for me, aru. Let me tell you how sorry I am. Let me rescue you."

The words dripped from his mouth like tallow, the entire night. They did not stop, and Yao did not tire, until Prince Alfred unlocked the bedroom door and heralded a morning that was not met with sunlight. And Yao drew his blindfold back onto his eyes, hiding his humanity from the slit gaze of the Troll Prince, and left Ivan behind.

And then he realized where he was, where he had laid for a week and one day. The castle of the Troll King.

In the bed of his son.

Alfred was not there when he awoke that morning; strange, as the boy often slept longer than Ivan did. He shook it off, and for a moment caught the scent of something that didn't belong in the room or the castle or this northern wasteland – he thought he smelled a forest, a wood fire, cooking vegetables. He thought he smelled Yao.

Shaking his head, Ivan stood and stretched, feeling the burns at his neck. A knock came at the door.

Affixing his strained smile, the one that kept him alive in the polite aristocracy the Troll King sought to emulate, he called to his visitor. "Come in~!" His voice was cheerful. His aura was not.

The visitor, a small, shy servant named Matthew, was in the doorway. He was human, as well, another changeling victim of the Troll King's will. Ivan tolerated him, feeling a kindred spirit, but tried not to associate with the human slaves – he feared the attention paid to him would doom the others to a life like his. Besides, they themselves feared Ivan's station, or what it would be in just three – now two – short days.

And perhaps they feared the fury he exuded from every pore – a warning sign to stay away, that he never wished to be here.

"The King requests you to attend Alfred's private chambers, for a fitting of your wedding clothes…" Matthew mumbled. He looked up at Ivan inquisitively – the boy was always a bit curious, a bit less scared than the others. Ivan's smile almost softened at the sight, but he quickly regained his edge as he contemplated what he would be doing. Wedding clothes. For him. It seemed like a bad dream.

The entire day, then, was a bad dream – a whirl of pins and fabric, colors and styles strange and garish to human eyes. The Troll seamstress was assisted by two other human slaves, a quick and deft brunette called Roderich and a rather uncooperative boy referred to as Romano. Ivan, from afar, admired the fire in each of them – they were still fighting, in their own small ways, to be free of the Troll king. Even if it was just Romano sticking the seamstress with a stray pin.

Alfred had twirled in sometime during the day, to get a last fitting of the overly-opulent white robes he was to wear. He looked dashing, of course, but the inhuman air surrounding him was almost as threatening as Ivan's own barely-concealed rage.

Alfred was fingering a small gold rose.

"Where did you get it?" Ivan pressed, the most he had spoken all day, feeling something pricking at the back of his skull. Matthew, attending Alfred, looked strangely intrigued as well.

"Oh. Um. Nowhere. Just – that same blind beggar! Man, I didn't know so many Trolls lived in the castle, but we just have so many guests. Anyway, gave me the rose, just out of the blue!" Alfred blustered. Matthew frowned. Ivan never dropped his smile, but he watched as Alfred nervously fingered his prize.

That night, he dropped into bed, head throbbing. He was not used to speaking to so many people. He was used to locking himself in his rooms, or perhaps wandering a southern forest with only the acquaintance of a single companion…

Prince Alfred, viciously prompt in his most hated of routines, bounded in, bearing another clay mug of tea as he had the night before.

"Hey, you still seem awfully on edge, but you slept well last night, right?" the young man pressed. "I – dad – thought you might want more tea."

Ivan did not want more tea. He drank it anyway.

Surely it was the stress of the day that left him unconscious on the bed so quickly.

The moment that Alfred saw that Ivan was asleep, he ran to the door, hissing out of it.

"Alright, come in, quick, before dad finds out!" he ordered nervously, and again he let the blind Troll enter, warning him again – "You've only got until morning."

And Yao drew off his blindfold, this time sparing a glare at the prince behind the closed door. He had easily traded his second gift of gold for another night with Ivan, but now, realizing that he had been somehow drugged or magicked, understood why Alfred had given into his demands so easily.

And, still insensibly asleep, Ivan would not wake.

Yao did not sit idly. He tried everything he could, shaking and talking to the man late into the night. Seven days without sleep, seven days on a useless search – if Yao could not find a way to wake Ivan then he knew the man could not be rescued.

And still, nothing worked.

Yao ran soft fingers through Ivan's hair, biting back tears that he refused to let fall.

"Stupid, stupid, aru…" Yao mumbled. "Ivan, wake up. Wake up for me, aru. Let me tell you how sorry I am. Let me rescue you."

The mantra continued until the sounds of the castle restarted, and morning was upon them. Before Prince Alfred could return and sweep him away, Yao tried the only other idea he had – he leaned down and softly brought his lips to Ivan's.

Yao could feel the warmth of the man's breath against his skin, could feel the life and heat there, but Ivan did not awake or kiss him back. This was not their first kiss, Yao decided, not really. It was as useless as his cardinal attempt, that had dissolved into air before it could even come into being.

He had to let Ivan know that someone was here. He had to do something.

Yao undid the bandages at Ivan's neck, clean and unsoiled. Beneath the bandages were the three burns from the drops of tallow. Untwisting his scarf from the worried knot in his fingers, Yao saw the three dark stains from the same tallow, that he had tried in vain to wipe from Ivan's neck. Yao left the scarf around his bear. He took the bandages for his eyes instead.

And then Alfred was at the door, urging him out, and another night was over.

And then he realized where he was, where he had laid for a week and two days. The castle of the Troll King.

In the bed of his son.

Alfred was again, not there – Ivan felt like he had slept far later than he did normally, but did not feel any less tired; as if he had been drugged asleep.

He reached up again to tug at his bandages, his last reminder that anything lasted outside the slate walls.

Instead of clean muslin, his fingers were met with soft yarn. Curious, he unwound the fabric from his neck. It was a length of pale violet, perfect but for soft wear and three small, dark stains…

Jao

Ivan blinked, closing his eyes and putting his head in his hands. He did not understand. It was not possible. How could Yao's scarf be here – and certainly it had belonged to him. Nothing else could be stained in such a way.

His head throbbed, and without warning, the door to his chamber swung open. Alfred stood in the door, smiling brightly. Ivan affixed his own grin, too large and too brittle, even for Alfred. Somehow, though, the façade was ignored.

"Hey, there. Wow, you were out for a long time, it's almost afternoon." The boy said.

Much too long. Ivan woke at dawn, no matter the lack of sun. Things were not making sense.

"Anyway, are you excited about tomorrow?" Alfred asked brightly. Ivan wondered if the Troll Prince was the only one unaffected by the air of barely suppressed rage he was giving off.

Alfred was playing, again, absently and with great possession, with a small gold bauble.

"What is it?" Ivan asked, ignoring Alfred's question for fear of snapping altogether.

"Oh, it's a little gold chick. Cool, huh?"

The prickling began in Ivan's skull. This time he did not ignore it.

"Where did you get it?" he asked, smoothly, dangerously.

"Same place I got the others!" Alfred replied quickly, loudly. "Some old blind guy. Man, he's generous."

And Alfred quickly shoved the bird in his pocket, as if willing the conversation to be closed.

"Anyway, just checking on ya. The wedding is to be bright and early tomorrow; dad's really excited."

Ivan just smiled, as he always did.

"If you're getting cold feet, I'll bring ya tea later, to calm you down. It seems to work, huh?"

And maybe that was the key to it all. Three days ago, Alfred had begun to receive small golden gifts. Three days ago, Ivan began to sense deceit thicker than a Troll's natural sheen. And three days ago, he had been offered tea to help him calm, and had fallen asleep quickly and slept deeply.

Ivan resolved to unravel the strange pieces of tangled thread that had been laid in his lap.