Chapter 19: Magic Circle

The next morning, Fern-Lui got up to see Germany was about to wake up Prussia to help him with the morning rounds. "Guten Morgen, Vati Deutschland." She said, but not loudly.

"Guten Morgen, Fern-Lui. You're up rather early." He said, wondering if she had another nightmare after a month of not having any incidents.

She nodded. "Ja, I know. I must've fallen asleep while we were watching that movie." She said as she stretched. "I was up earlier, but I couldn't get back to sleep."

"It's not another nightmare, is it?"

She shook her head. "Nope. I didn't dream anything last night. I'm just not tired enough to go back to sleep."

He smiled, seeing that there was no evidence of her being in shock. "That's good to hear. What are you going to do?" He asked, knowing that he was going to be busy trying to get his brother to help him this morning, and he knew Italy won't be up for another hour.

"I'm going to practice some spells that Uncle Britain taught me the other day." She said.

Germany wasn't completely sure if he could trust the Brit to teaching her things like magic and such, but he has seen that trick with her blowing an unlit candle and a flame appeared. Needless to say he ranted out the Englishman after he saw that as the British nation told him that he trusted the girl to not abuse the serious and dangerous art and let it be.

"Which spell would that be?" He said, feeling awkward for even asking, let alone allowing his little girl to do something like magic since he knew England made a lot of mishaps than successes.

"It's the spell he gave me as extra practice."

"The…" He tried to remember what she dubbed it. "Messenger one?"

"Ja!"

"How's that going?"

She childishly frowned. "I haven't gotten it right."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well… I get the piece of paper, write down what I want to say to the person I'm thinking of, fold it up like any letter would be, say the words, and wait for something to happen." She crossed her arms. "I think he didn't get any use out of it because he did something wrong in the first place."

He grinned a bit at how put off the girl is. "Well, just remember you also have piano practice to work on as well."

"I know." She said as a smile brightened her face. "I think Onkle Österreich is coming today."

"Knowing him, he'll be lost." Germany said, wondering if that's where Italy got his lateness from, since Italy did live with Austria for a time.

"You never know." She said with a shrug. "What are you going to do?"

"Well, first off…" He said as he banged the door, hearing a yelp from the other side of the door. "Get your onkle out of his room and help me with some morning chores that need to be looked at."

She blinked. "What did he do now?"

"Not cleaning up after himself." He said.

"Oh, okay." She said as Prussia opened the door and glared at Germany.

"Not awesome, West." He grumbled as he petted the girl. "Have fun with that spell thing." He said, listening in earlier before the other German banged on his door where he had his ear press on.

She nodded as she headed to the library and took a piece of paper off of the small desk that was in the library, which can second as an office, and placed it on the ground. She started to write something down before folding it and placed her hands above the paper and closed her eyes.

"Send to the one on my mind

Go at haste

And never let thee down."

She said only to open her eyes to see that it didn't work… again. She sighed as she thought about what else she could do. She had called England about it and wondered if she should try using a magic circle on it or something. But she was told that a magic circle may work, but finding one that is unique to the caster is the difficult one that even he couldn't help. Being a nation gave him enough time to find a circle that can respond effectively to his castings, but he can't help her even if he wanted to.

"Maybe I can try drawing out some…" She said as she drew a circle and thought about a design for that circle.

0o0o0o0

She was in the small library for an hour before Germany found her, going to clean up the room.

"So this is where you were hiding." He said, finding that the place suited for what she's doing, surprisingly. "How's it going?" He asked as he bent down to her level.

She smiled when he came in, but then sighed when he asked the question. "I'm trying to figure out a magic circle that can hopefully make the spell work."

He blinked. "A magic circle?"

She nodded as she showed him a few designs, which reminded him of England's kind of style. "So far I'm not having any luck having one of them respond."

"Can't England help you with this?" He asked, not sure if this is safe for her.

She shook her head. "I asked, but he said it has to be unique only for me." She said with a sigh as she fell back so she was staring at the ceiling. "I'm going crazy by the second…" She whined.

He couldn't help but grin at such a childish act as he looked at the drawings. "Maybe you're using the wrong symbols." He commented, for once surprised just how perspective he is at helping her find the flaw in the situation.

She shot back up to a sitting position, just as surprised but very happy to hear what was wrong. "You're right!" She embraced her vati and kissed him on the cheek. "Danke!" She then looked at the books, reading the spine labels.

Germany knew what the girl was looking for, and he knew she wouldn't find it in his particular library. "I don't have that kind of book here. We'll have to go out to the public library later to check out one." He said as he stood back up. "Besides, Hungary called and said that she and Austria are going to be here in about two hours, so you better practice the piano for a while."

"Okay!" She said, not at all put out that Germany doesn't have a book of symbols, but that can wait as she enjoyed playing the piano as well. She ran to where the piano was, where Prussia was cleaning, donned with an apron, bandana, and a duster in his hand.

Prussia saw that he wasn't alone and looked shocked. "Don't say anything about this!" He said, obviously horrified that someone caught him in such an embarrassing attire. "West forced me to wear this girly crap!"

"Chill Onkel, it's just me." She said, not at all shocked by the language. "Mind if I practice while you're working?"

"This isn't work, this is torture. But go ahead." He said.

"Magyarország néni and Onkel Österreich are going to be here in a couple hours."

"I heard."

She smiled as she pulled out the piano bench, sat down, flipped the papers to her music book, and started playing on the practice notes.

0o0o0o0

Two hours passed, and Prussia was free to escape to meet up with France, since Spain was occupied with Romano, when Hungary and Austria arrived to a very clean home with the scent of tomato sauce in the air.

Both nations greeted the other two nations, Italy obviously being in the kitchen and Germany in the living room looking over some papers, since his desk wasn't wide enough to organize them all. With that done, Austria followed the sound of the piano, where he found the girl, practicing and knowing that she improved from their last practice meet.

For the next two hours, the sounds of musical success and errors were heard throughout the house as Germany finished the day's worth of papers before finding both Italy and Hungary in the piano room, simply listening to the teacher and student playing out a note at a time.

He'll admit that she wasn't bad, but due to her small reach and hands, she can't play difficult songs just yet, even on the baby grand that he has. Italy opted that they would get her a toy piano, but Austria heatedly refused such a thing, seeing that it was only a child's toy and not a real instrument, which scared the poor Italian and both he and Hungary had a talking to him. But even with the handicap, she was able to play at least one song without difficulty, but mostly it was reading notes for her than playing.

When the piano lessons were done, Germany and Fern-Lui went to the library and checked out a couple books of symbols and myths and legends, went home and she immediately looked through the books.

She knew some of the symbols, but unlike history, she has to see the illustrations to remember the meanings, and even then she would only know one meaning where some symbols have more than one.

"Ve~ Where's Fern-Lui?" Italy asked when he came out of the kitchen to find Germany reading in his study.

"She's in the library next door, drawing out a few possible designs for her magic circle."

"Ve~ Is it really okay for her to try something like that?"

Germany shrugged. "I'm not comfortable with the idea either, but England said that she wouldn't abuse magic as long as she knows her limits, and he's sure as anyone that she knows her limits better than him. Which is saying a lot." He said, remembering a lot of times that England would overdo his magic to try to curse someone, mainly America or France, and end up either halfway or not what he wanted at all.

"Ve~ I hope she gets that one spell though. She seems really intent to get that one to work." Italy said as he sat next to the German and leaned into the other, making him blush slightly.

"Ja. And it seems innocent enough." He said when the lights started to flicker on and off for a moment.

"Ve…?"

"Yatta!" The girl cried out as the two nations rushed to the small library to see a small glowing circle on a piece of paper. "I've got it! I've found my magic circle!" She cheered happily as the glow faded to nothing, leaving the drawn symbol there. She grabbed the parchment and showed it to them. "It took trial and error, but I've got it!"

The two nations looked at the symbol, which was a circle made up of a ring with three smaller circles with horoscope symbols of Capricorn, Pisces, and Gemini in a triangle point fashion. Then there was another ring with another three small circles with some element symbol of Earth, Water, and Air in them in another triangle point fashion, but this was a mirrored version. And in the center there was what looked like the Iron Cross, but there was a circle around it, as if it was a Roman Christian Cross.

"Ve~ This is really good!" Italy said. "What do the symbols mean?"

"Well…" She looked at her drawn circle. "I actually had a hard time finding symbols representing both your houses. So I went with the horoscope approach instead." She pointed to the Gemini symbol, found on the upper tip of the triangle formation. "Since I was born under Gemini, this would represent me." She then pointed to the one for Capricorn on the right point. "Mein vati was born under Capricorn, so does mein onkel, but that represents him." She pointed to the last symbol. "And mi mamma was born under Pisces, so it represents her."

She then went into the next ring of symbols. "The symbols here are elements in regards to the horoscope symbols. Mine is air, Vati's earth, and Mamma's water."

"That's interesting to know." Germany said as he looked at the combination of the iron cross and the Roman Christian cross. "What made you do this symbol?"

She looked at the symbol he was talking about and smiled. "Well, I found out a bit about the iron cross that I really like about."

"Really?" Both nations said, Germany for wondering what can be good about it and Italy for being curious.

She nodded. "Originally…" She looked for the book, flipped a few pages, and showed a picture similar to the iron cross, but it was pointed. "Originally it was the Maltese cross, a Christian symbol from Malta that knights have before it was adopted and altered during Prussia's reign to look like the Iron Cross." She said as she pointed out to the sharp points of the Maltese cross. "There are eight points and each represent a vow that the knights at the time have to follow. One is to live in truth, to have faith, repent of sins, give proof of humility, love justice, be merciful, be sincere and whole hearted, and lastly to endure persecution."

The two nations looked at the magic circle and then back at her. Germany, although still having a debate on the iron cross due to the past, figured that as long as the girl only uses the positive side of the symbol, he wouldn't mind it at all. He knew for a fact months back that the iron cross clips are just something that her parents left for her to remember them by. Italy really liked the whole thing entirely, and because most of his people are Roman Catholic, the Christian meanings fall in line to his beliefs.

"Ve~ Is that why it looks like a Roman Christian cross?"

"Sì, because that's the religion me and mein vati and mamma practice."

"Really?" Both nations asked in unison as she nodded.

"Ve~ That's wonderful to know." Italy said, happy to know a bit more about his adoptive daughter. "Oh! Are you gonna try this on the spell you wanted to do?"

"Not tonight…" She said as she let herself looked exhausted. "Making a magic circle and then getting it to work took a lot out of me." She sighed. "Now I know why Uncle Britain keeps warning me about the strain magic can do to a caster."

Germany couldn't help but chuckle as he picked her up. "You can tell him about it in the morning then."

"At this point I may not be up until lunch tomorrow." She groaned, making the German nation chuckle once more.

"At least you got one thing out of this."

"Ja…" With that she was carried to her room, changed, and went to bed, immediately falling asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

0o0o0o0

Prussia came in not too long after that, and he joked about if she got her spell to work, which he shut up when he saw the magic circle.

"Seriously? That's what the cross is supposed to mean?"

"One of your leaders adopted and altered it." Germany said as he opened a bottle of beer. "But it still doesn't change what my people feel about the iron cross."

Prussia shrugged. "Not everyone can like the cross. But it's still a part of my history that I let you borrow."

"Ja, ja, I know." Germany said.

"Are you really okay with her doing all this magic stuff? It's not really something our people or Italy's people are known for."

"It's either that or have England try to attempt teaching her how to cook."

"Doubt it." Prussia said. "I bet she would give him hell trying to correct anything that he does when he's teaching. Teachers don't like to be corrected."

"Not all of them." He said, since he also teaches on his days off.

"Anything else going on?"

"Fern-Lui is improving in her piano lessons."

"That's good, otherwise we'll never hear the end of Spec's rants about her not appreciating music and all that crap."

Germany didn't like the thought of it as much as the other before calling it a night, when a heart stopping, blood curling scream cut through the still of the night, causing both German nations run up, followed by dogs barking and Italy running out of the bedroom to the girl's room.

What their eyes met was the girl curled up in a tight ball, shaking like a leaf in a storm. Italy immediately went up to the girl and started to say something in Italian which was soothing, almost alluring as if a lullaby. Fern-Lui clung onto Italy, not paying any mind that the nation has nothing on and was crying on his shoulder until they were reduced to sobs, then hiccups, and finally shaky breathing.

The two German nations stood there, unsure what to do to help the situation, but not feeling comfortable leaving after seeing the girl at her most frightened state yet.

It took an hour before Germany whispered to Italy to carry her to their room, which the other agreed without a second thought and carried the barely conscious girl to their shared room, where she clung onto both nations like a vine as she slipped back to slumber.

Both of them looked at each other, wondering what they're going to do. It wasn't the first they experienced their adoptive daughter's on and off nightmare fits, even a few other nations have seen this as well, but this was by far the worst they've seen it happen.

"Ve~ What are we gonna do?" Italy asked.

Germany sighed. "I know these nightmares have to do with her other family… And she and TRNC talk about a lot of things. I wouldn't be surprised if he knows more about her than any of us." He said as he moved a strand of hair away from the slumbering pale face of the girl. "And England mentioned that if it ever gotten bad, then we should talk to him."

"Ve~…" Italy voiced unsurely.

"I'm sure there's something he can tell us. And if he mentions about using magic to either drown the nightmares or something… we'll talk about it."

Italy nodded as he kissed the girl's forehead. "I just don't want her to see anymore nightmares… It's just plain awful to have them so often… Especially since she was so happy earlier."

"Ja…" He said as both looked down at their adopted girl, weighing options and seeing pros and cons before they fell to an uneasy slumber.