Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.
Theodore Roosevelt
Theme Number 2: Light
"Don't you ever stop moving?" said Vietnam, amazed.
Spain stopped in surprise. Then he laughed at the irony. "Sometimes. Not often"
"You know," said Vietnam, sensing a golden opportunity for expanding young minds, "If you get really, really, good at meditation you can lower your core body temperature by up to 10 degrees."
"Really?" Spain grinned. "Is that why that monk set himself on fire?"
"That's totally different," hissed Vietnam, "Now shut up and sit down." Spain grinned again. He sat. "Okay, now breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Fill your belly first…"
Spain was pleasantly surprised. He was actually pretty good at this meditation stuff.
As he moved deeper into to core of his mind, he noticed that it was slowly getting darker. Eventually, it became so impossibly dark that Spain wasn't sure if this kind of dark even existed in the real world. Experimentally, he swiped his hand across the darkness.
It left a streak of burning white. Amazing. He did it again. Another streak, just as bright as the first. Spain grinned. He drew a sun in the darkness with his fingertips. Although Spain considered himself a pretty good artist (Picasso, Dali, Gaudi, anybody?), he noticed that the sun looked more like a blazing fried egg without something else to put it in perspective. So he drew a horizon.
A fried egg and a line, fiery white against the blackness. This would never do. Spain put a little church on the ground. Trees. A grape plantation. Miniature farmhouses, roads, horses, markets. In a fit of creativity, he changed the horizon a little and made a mountain.
There. That looked more like it. His mural took up his whole field of view. The details were stunning; it might have been a photograph if not for the strange contrast of smoldering white light and dense, tarry, darkness.
But it looked like the darkness was more brittle than it looked, because Spain saw it breaking. He saw little white pinpricks where he definitely hadn't put any. On the roads, under the trees, in the church, in the fields. They were moving, too. There was even one on the horse! And the horse was moving!
Spain was amazed. Wow, he really was a good artist.
He watched the little people make friends. They sang hymns together in church. They plowed the fields together. Sometimes they took naps. Spain could swear that he watched a couple of amateur hikers plan their weekend on the mountain. Magnificent. Out of curiosity, Spain prodded one of the little people with his finger. No reaction. He smeared a lightning bolt that started in the sky and ended on the head of a sleeping baby. A small one, so there wouldn't be much mess if he did something wrong.
When he lifted his finger, it was stained ruby red. Perfect! Spain was tired of all the black and white. His eyes drank the rich red color like a couple of thirsty horses at a desert oasis. He decided it was a lovely shade, just the color of the sky at sunset. That would be his next project. He would make the sun set. Wiping the red on the corner of the sky, he looked back on the ground and chose his next victim. There. The parents of the baby had found the poor thing dead, broken, bleeding. To his great surprise, Spain could actually hear them crying. He put them out of their misery and squashed them too.
Wonderful. Beautiful. Fabulous. But he needed more. The sky was rather large.
It didn't take long for Spain, ever inventive, to find new ways to get that perfect shade of red. He drew weaknesses in the structure of a farmhouse roof. A gentle nudge at the right time made it fall on the heads of the hikers, who had been about to depart for their long-awaited hike. Adding an extra couple of inches of cloth to a dress, hung dangerously close to a cooking fire, set a whole plantation, and everyone in it, ablaze. The people were close to hysterical now. Strict, new building regulations were passed in the town hall, and the volunteer fire department tripled in size. Angry citizens burned down the sheriff's house. It was very cute.
But it took too long. Spain could be collapsing buildings and setting fires for the next decade and he still wouldn't be able to fill the sky.
So he gave them guns.
They did the rest themselves. Poor, scared, desperate little things.
Spain was delighted. At first, he hadn't been sure if there were enough people. Apparently there were! He spread the red all over his hands and wiped it across the sky. The picture looked better than ever now. The ruins were picturesque and lovely. The many fires had left delicate shades of ashy gray on the cobblestone streets. Everything, even the birds, was dead.
The sun set in a sky of blood, and night fell upon the deserted village.
Theme number 3: Dark
The convicted felon had escaped, and was running unimpeded through the streets of Moscow. Horns honked, taxis swreved, lights flashed through the rain in irritation. Glowing advertisements were lighting up, one by one, and it was getting colder. Russia was running as fast as he could from those bad men who wanted to take him to a bad place, far away from his sisters.
He knew they were only trying to help. They thought he was the bad one; that they should lock him up to keep him from hurting good people. Russia could go quietly and hope they would let him explain, but they wouldn't understand. They hadn't at the trial.
Belarus was so scary! She had knives under her dress, and she just kept coming closer and closer… It was self-defense. He didn't want his sister to get hurt. But, he thought, the look on her face when he turned her own knives against her? That was priceless. Normally, she was the one scaring everybody else. Hah! Russia giggled. Irony at its finest. Too bad he had to cut her face off, because he would rather have kept her scared.
The lawyers hadn't spent much time on what he had done to Belarus. They sort of understood his situation there, guessed Russia. Belarus probably scared them too. But Estonia had been a pretty likeable guy. Sure, he was a little cold, but once you got to know him he was really great. Estonia was one of Russia's best friends! He would sing folk songs whenever Russia asked him to, he would fix his computer whenever it crashed, and he knew a lot of great ghost stories too!
Which was why Russia was really hurt when Estonia blamed him for what happened to Belarus. Estonia didn't even like Belarus! He didn't even wait to hear Russia's side of the story. Maybe he was a little disturbed after he found her. She had looked pretty disturbing. Pretty… she was pretty. Pretty disturbing. Heh heh. Russia giggled at the clever pun.
Still, friends didn't call the cops on friends. When he found Estonia on the phone, he had been so angry. Estonia was a nice guy, but he deserved what he got.
"A-and, I think I might know who did it. It was probably Iv-Ivan Brag- Oh God! He's here!"
In hindsight, Russia should have hung up the phone before Estonia started screaming. That must have looked very bad. And he screamed for such a long time, too.
He didn't know why they spent so much time at the trial on the way he treated Estonia (Latvia and Lithuania too) before that little incident. It it was wrong, surely someone would have told him so. And no one had. Russia thought there was a severe lack of communication going on. He didn't understand them, and they didn't understand him.
Wait! There- wasn't that the hospital where they were keeping his dear sister, Belarus? Russia decided to pop in for a bit, just to see how she was doing. But if she was creepy or mean to him again, he might have finish her. You know, out of self-defense. He hoped that wouldn't happen.
He loved his sister so.
Theme 2: Light: Author's note:
Yeahhh…. Sane people don't see things like that when they meditate; Spain is completely batshit. Basically, I wanted to explore Spain's other "face" while keeping him in character. I think of Spain as being like the "light" half of a yin yang. He's mostly cheerful and bubbly and that's what people see, but he has some darkness in him too. That's the theme… Kind of obscure, I know. I don't really like how the whole thing takes place in his head. It's too abstract.
Think of it like this: Spain is an innocent guy with a sadistic streak, and Russia is a sadistic guy with an innocent heart. Which brings us to the next theme:
Theme 3: Dark: Author's note
NEW GOAL: end a story with a full paragraph! Haha… And write something funny, too. And more setting… sorry I'm just running my mouth now.
I realized that I kind of lost the themes in these two. I was having too much fun writing the crazy. Whatevs. xD I like this one a lot better than the first one.
I put a lot of effort into these! Please review so I can make it through the next ninety seven!