| IMPORTANT NOTES |
○ This is set between the tenth and eleventh books (Into the Gauntlet and Vespers Rising, respectively) of the 39 Clues, not including the certain flashbacks○
○ I do not own either of the series. The 39 Clues belongs to Rick Riordan and Axis Powers Hetalia belongs to Himaruya Hidekazu ○
"Ned!"
"Ted!"
"Sinead!"
"STARLINGS!"
Elizabeta, Gilbert, and Ludwig were using raised voices in beckoning the triplets out of their hiding places. It was only their first day and they were already causing mayhem in Roderich's manor.
"Geez, where could those three be?" Hungary mused, tired and irritated. "We've been searching for them since nine in the morning!"
"Perhaps we are just looking in the wrong places," Germany said and suggested that they search in the gardens and grounds.
"And risk getting lost in prissy boy's frukin' maze?" Prussia exclaimed. "NEVER!"
Just then, Ludwig saw something by the corner of his eye: an auburn ponytail rushing past and into the next hallway. Elizabeta also claimed that she heard childish laughter.
"Maybe you're just hearing things again, Lizzie," Gilbert mocked her.
"Or maybe you're just so deaf these days, Gilbert," Elizabeta shot back at him.
Ludwig butted in as the two prepared to pit against each other. "Damit aufhören! Stop it, you two! Let's concentrate on the Starling triplets for now, okay?"
Sinead silently watched as the two Germans and the Hungarian woman ran down the opposite hallway. After checking to see if the coast was clear, she signaled her brothers to push her up and out of the gigantic marble vase they were hiding in.
"Gah, Sinead...what have you been eating these days?" Ned groaned as he massaged his pained shoulder. "You're pretty heavy."
The sister's ears went pink and she pursed her lips. She was in not the best shape, but Sinead Starling was no pig of a girl. Ekats are reasonable, from their speculations of the universe down to their personal dietary practices.
"Never mind that now," she said as she took them by their wrists and began to drag them down the hallway. "We have to find a way to get out of here before anything horrible happens to us."
They hadn't even gone a good two meters when a chambermaid spotted them, and as soon she started screaming the three siblings sprinted away.
Soon the whole house was hunting them down. Housemaids and butlers, guards with their bloodhounds, and even the groundskeepers were sniffing them out even though it was just in the house. But these people seemed to not know of their lineage as skilled Cahills and brilliant members of the Ekaterina branch.
Thanks to Ted's splendid sense of hearing, alerting them of a nearby enemy at every step and turn, Ned's sharp memory of the manor's hallways and staircases, and Sinead leading the way, the three were able to make it the front doors.
The heavily guarded front doors.
They skidded to a halt and planned to turn back and locate another exit. But as soon as they did, they found themselves surrounded by the house help and servants.
Sinead cursed under her breath and held on tight to her brothers' hands. She shut her eyes tight and began to chant out a silent prayer that a miracle would happen.
No, she said to herself. Ekats are rational. Doing such a thing is completely against our nature...
"What is going on here?"
Heads turned to the blue-clad aristocrat standing tall at the top of the grand staircase overlooking the mob and the Starlings.
"Herr Edelstein!" screamed a butler to Roderich. "These three tried to escape!"
"They did, now did they?" He appeared neither mad nor shocked. He simply cocked his head to the side and raised a brow at the crowd below.
"Roderich!"
"Specs, hey!"
Elizabeta, Gilbert, and Ludwig had just burst into the scene. They turned from the mob and the Starling triplets to Roderich atop the stairs.
Hungary was the first to speak. "We'd been searching high and low for those three!" She pointed an accused finger at the Cahills amongst the house help and personnel.
"Roderich, I speak for everybody here that they're a lot to handle!" Germany hollered and gained the support of most of the mob.
Austria said nothing for a while. He scrunched up his face in deep thought, and then he found Sinead in the sea of faces crowding near the front door. An expression of the greatest desperation and a plea for help was etched all over her face. It wasn't typical for him to pity another and actually do anything about it, but perhaps this would be a great exception.
He addressed everyone present in the vicinity, speaking loud and clear. "Is this how we treat our guests?"
No one answered. A bit of stirring in the crowd, but not an utter.
Austria spoke once more. This time it was louder and stronger.
"I said, Is this how the Austrian Royal Manor treats their esteemed guests?"
"N-no, Herr!" some sputtered out of their meekness.
"Absolutely not, Herr Edelstein!" others replied in stern voices.
The three nations at the side were staring in awe as Roderich commandeered his household.
A slight smirk of contentment surfaced on Austria's face, then it merged back into a straight stare.
"I will need coffee und Rocher torte in my office immediately," he order the maids, who hastily detached themselves from the crowd and ran off to the kitchens. Roderich then addressed the German brothers and his ex-wife. "And please, if you must, bring the Starling triplets with you as you follow me later on.
"Well then..." Austria lifted his hand into the air and waved away his servants. "You may all return to your stations."
The mob dispersed in such quick motion as if Roderich had sprayed them like ants with water. Second by second, the crowd thinned and the room emptied until it was only the four nations and the three Cahills inside the main lobby.
"Folgen Sie mir bitte," Roderich said curtly, turning on his heel and marching up the stairs. "Follow me, please."
Ludwig, Elizabeta, and Gilbert collected the Starlings and trailed behind Roderich. Down hallways and up stairs they went until they came upon a room sealed with two large and grand oak doors and guarded by some guardsmen. They opened the door for their master and the rest, and they all entered Austria's office.
An aristocrat just being who he is, Roderich's office shone with great grandeur and dauntlessness: finely-woven carpets from the best in the East, strong and sturdy furniture that also gave off a regal radiance, suits of armor dangerously staring at the room's occupants with nonexistent eyes, and a large portrait of Roderich during the Seven-Year War mounted on the wall behind his desk.
As the triplets were made to sit, Prussia snickered.
"I feel sorry for the poor sap who was forced to paint you, Roddy," he jeered.
And I think you would know what happens next.
So there, Gilbert slumped on the couch as he massaged his bruised head. When she knew that they had to sit on the same couch, Elizabeta tried to keep as much distance between her and the albino as possible. And Ludwig was in the middle, creating a safe barrier between two powerful forces that could destroy the universe when they were given even the slightest chance to interact.
A knock came to the door and so did a servant boy's voice. "Herr Edelstein, I have brought you your tea and cake."
"Ah, come in then," Roderich said, and the doors were opened for the servant to come pushing in a cart filled with a high-class snack served on an expensive set of china. The servant placed the food and drink on the coffee table surrounded by the couches everyone sat on, and he pushed the cart back out and into the hallway.
Roderich saw through the hesitance in the eyes of the triplets and told them to help themselves for they were his esteemed guests of his and that he must treat them like so.
Sinead glanced at the cake, and a bulb lit in her mind. "Rocher torte? Specially-made by the Rocher Hotel? That's very pricey..."
The Austrian huffed out defiantly. "I have absolutely no problem with that. I practically own the hotel," he gloated as he cut a piece of the cake for himself. "And haven't you tasted this kind of torte already?"
All three Starlings shook their heads in dismay.
Roderich gave them a slight frown, but quickly dismissed it. "Well, I insist that you do it now. You are missing a lot, I say."
"I tell you, West, he's going to get a heart attack someday," Prussia told Germany when they were outside Austria's office. "Stuffing himself with all those sweets and other stuff diabetic people shouldn't take in." He snickered, laughing at his own joke, while his brother simply shrugged his shoulders and sighed.
"He's got some nerve, telling us to get out while he talks to them alone," Ludwig said is a baritone. "And only because we're using his house..." He gave Gilbert a sudden death glare as well as to a certain Italian taking care of the two Madrigal children and their au pair and Egyptian Mau somewhere beyond the Alps. "If our own house wasn't so chaotic and like that, I could have easily taken the Starlings there instead."
"Well, it's good that you didn't," Prussia remarked with a voice full of spite, greatly contradicting his cheery mood just a few moments ago. "I don't like those three at all, and the only reason why Specs likes them is because they didn't trash his place during their petty Clue hunt like all the other saps in their stupid family did."
Just then, one of the oak doors of the office opened and Sinead rushed out and went running down the opposite end of the hall. Shortly after, her brothers came out as well and chased her until their calls for her faded along with their thumping footsteps on the floors. Gilbert and Ludwig suspected them of running away again, and were just about as ready to hurl themselves into another hunt for the triplets when Roderich and Elizabeta stepped into the hall and halted them.
"Where are they going?" Prussia asked them, a bit angered and confused. "Are they planning to escape again?"
"I sure would," Hungary told him off, "after hearing a complete idiot and stranger bash my family like that."
Gilbert retreated two steps from her. "They...they heard us...?"
Elizabeta placed her hands and her hips and stared him down. "Who wouldn't? Your voice is just about as loud as the alarms during the bomb raids of '44!"
Then, Roderich decided to cut in. He placed a hand on Hungary's shoulder and told her: "That should be enough, Elizabeta. I'll handle it from here."
She gave a worried look, but he gave her a reassuring nod. Hungary took it well, but kept glaring at Prussia the entire time Austria talked.
"I've already planned four days' worth of work for the Starlings," Roderich told Ludwig and Gilbert, "and we have them fully-informed of it. The load will cover Central Europe (if Vash has no violent reactions), Hungary, and the Netherlands and Belgium. But of course, whatever happens after that is all up to you, Ludwig."
"That will be a lot of work for them, then," said Elizabeta, ignoring the great urge the smack Gilbert for telling her off, pointing out that it was obvious without her saying so. "Don't you think we're going a little bit too rough on those three?"
"I believe that they did not consider that when their kind wrecked havoc in our lands," Ludwig told the group as he tried his best not to let old and painful memories get the better of him now.
"But that was their family, Ludwig, not them," Hungary insisted. "They had nothing to do with most of it."
"Yeah, but you can't deny that made a little trouble of their own, Lizzie," Prussia told her, sneering. He held up his pointing finger and waggled it playfully while saying in sing-song: "Don't forget the 39 Clues~!"
It was a lovely day, definitely not the best time to sit under the blue skies and sun in remorse and fear.
"I hate them."
The triplets were somewhere in the tall hedges, brilliantly clipped and cut into a complicated maze. The Starlings boy chased their sister all the way from the office to where they think was the center of the maze.
"I hate them all!"
Sinead sat on the ground, pulling her legs close to her and burying her head in her knees. She would swear out loud in between her spiteful screams.
Ned and Ted sat on each side of her, patting her back and rubbing her head, respectively, in sympathy. This was all awkward for them, considering that Sinead is usually the tough one, the triplet that would be the one to assist and comfort her handicapped brothers (who are more handicapped than her).
When she finally lifted her head, they both saw that their sister had puffy eyes and a wet and red face. Her lip was trembling, and they think that if she wanted to tell them something she wouldn't be able to do it properly.
Ted took Sinead's head and placed it on his shoulder, then settling his own head on hers. Meanwhile, Ned scooched a closer to them and laid his head on his sister's shoulder. The moment felt warm and reassuring that they wanted it last even a bit longer.
Later, they broke the silence (Sinead's sniffling, the cries of birds flying about their heads, and the faint voices of people from afar being the only noise around).
"I want to go home," all three of them said simultaneously.
They rose their heads, exchanged looks, and laughed steadily until their were howling like hyenas. As their laughter died out, Sinead spoke up.
"We know getting away from these people isn't going to be easy, even for three Ekaterina Starlings," she said, abandoning her sense of pride for once. "We might as well play along."
She wiped her face with her sleeve, sniffled, and huffed out defiantly, her body inflating with sudden courage. Ned and Ted notice this, and they agreed to her idea of obeyed their hosts' orders. They will have to play it safe for now, and blowing up the house with Ned's genius remedy can wait for another day.
Then, beyond their proper hearing distance up to a certain radius they could their names being called out.
"It's those guys again," Ned said as he stood up. He was referring to Ludwig, Gilbert, and Elizabeta. He turned to his siblings. "Should we reveal our current whereabouts?"
"I guess so," Ted replied. "We may get another scolding from the wrong people if we do otherwise."
.o.o.o.o.o.
The maze was easy. They were Ekats, after all. There really was no need for three dogs to go on a search for them.
A large Doberman ran up to the two Starling boys and nearly scared the daylights out of them when it knocked them both down to the ground and started licking their faces.
"There they are!" came Gilbert's voice.
Elizabeta ran ahead of the German brothers and pulled Sinead into a tight embrace.
"I was so, so, so worried!" she wailed.
And Sinead was too much under a state of shock to react. When Hungary pulled away, she saw on the woman's face what was hers not an hour long ago: puffy, red eyes, a trembling lip, and a tear-streaked and totally flushed face.
Elizabeta held the Starling girl's face and told her in a shaky voice: "Please...don't even make us worry like that again okay?"
"Us?" Gilbert asked, raising a brow at the two. "Since when did I give a damn?"
But nobody was paying enough attention to him to care: Ludwig was too busy trying to get his dogs off Ned and Ted (who weren't complaining about the sudden affection they were receiving from animals they'd just encountered), and Elizabeta was hugging Sinead (maybe tight enough to brink of suffocating the girl).
Now, from one of the windows of the manor, Roderich looked upon with scene with a hefty smile. He had too many things on his mind: how impressed he was at the Starlings' speed and strategy in getting out of his maze (where he would normally throw a servant in as punishment and watch them wander around the hedge until starvation and other factors got the better of them), their bonds as siblings, and Sinead's crying from the earlier minutes.
Even though he may never be able to tell it to his face, but he thanked Ludwig for bringing him into this mission.
He would rather call it a game, though.
[Author's Note]
When was the last time I updated this story...? Oh, nevermind that. What matters is that it's updated now, right? Right?
...Right, guys?
...
Oh, please just don't start throwing bricks at me.
Anyway, I have finally been able to get some Hetalia episodes into my laptop. Episodes 1-52, to be specific. Thanks to a senior of mine. Bless his soul. Oh, and VLC Media Player. *starts singing like a lunatic*
Now, if you don't mind, I'm off to write the next chapter...after I watch some more Hetalia.
P.S. I will have to slap myself for writing Hungary and the Starlings in such a sappy scene...DARN HAPPY HOUR ON HBO.