Circa 815 A.D.
Years had passed since Ingrid was born. In that time, Norovegr changed immensely.
He'd grown taller, if not more muscular. His supernatural abilities had increased in strength, as if to compensate.
More disturbing (in his own mind), was the development of insatiable appetites. For land.
Yes, definitely land. Just land. Nothing else. Nothing at all. Nope. Land.
He craved it at night while he tried to sleep. He craved it when he was with Danmark, knowing that though the Dane possessed relatively few lands, even a little more would help.
Eventually, something gave. Ships sailed west and when they returned, they brought gold and other riches.
So of course more ships were built and more raids were executed.
It wasn't enough.
So Norovegr himself went on a raid perhaps twenty years after the first.
He looked out across the sea to land. The first land not his own he'd ever been to, now that he'd claimed the Faroe Islands.
What did they say this land was called? Gaul? No, that wasn't right…
Well, no matter. It hardly mattered what it was called, provided there were riches for the taking. And he had been assured there were.
Once his ship landed, however, he became distracted. By what, he could not say. A few of the warriors looked questioningly at him, wondering what was holding him up. He gestured for them to go ahead. He wanted to see what was drawing him.
So, he went the opposite direction of the rest, into the woods.
He did not get far before someone behind shouted something in a language he could not understand. It was probably something along the lines of "Stop!", but who knew; it could have been sneezes.
Slowly, Norovegr turned around, keeping one hand in plain sight and the other on his sword-hilt.
A young man-hardly a man, at all, really; more an over-grown boy; stood there, a gigantic sword held in two hands. It probably took two hands to hold the fucking thing, let along wield. The man-boy himself was decent enough to look at, with fiery red hair and eerily green eyes.
"So, yer th' man who's been orderin' th' raids." Finally, a tongue Norovegr could understand. He sized up his opponent: this was no mere human. This was a country, like himself. This opened up new, more interesting prospects. As far as he was aware, countries could not be killed. But they did feel pain.
Damn the voice in the back of his head. He just met the guy! He wasn't going to harm him…yet.
"Perhaps I am."
"I can't let you continue doing that."
"I doubt you could stop me." Magic and whatnot being what it was… "Still, even if I could kill you, I feel that would be a waste. Perhaps an alliance can be forged?" He looked almost like a man-perhaps-?
Probably better stop thinking about that. What would Danmark say?
Oh, fuck Danmark. He was off in Rome or Constantinople or where the fuck ever. Again.
Gods damn the voice in his head.
The other man snorted. "An alliance? As if."
"No? Not even for the night? It must get lonely on this island, alone."
"I'm hardly alone. I have three brothers." The other man seemed both disgusted and oddly unaware of what was happening.
Norovegr was getting nowhere, fast. He hadn't originally intended to… do whatever this was going to turn out to be; he'd intended to raid villages and get gold. But hey, surprises.
Seriously, he was going to murder the voice in his head.
Well, either way, what happened next was a rather large surprise to all parties involved.
They weren't standing very far away; it was a simple matter to reach over and pulled the other country over to him by the shirt front, an even simpler matter to mash their lips together.
They ended up both pulling away at the same time.
Awkward…
Whoever said that adolescence was a good time to experiment was a damn liar.
Norovegr got his breath back first. "I- um, I'm very sorry. I have no idea- less than no idea- what just happened. Yep, I'm going to sail back to my homeland- maybe I'll drown myself on the way back…gods that was so awkward…." His voice trailed off, and he didn't have the courage to look at the other man. At least, not directly. Out of the corner of his eye, though, he could tell that this attractive stranger was now a very bright red color, almost the same shade as his hair.
"Well, that's a terrible way to start an alliance," the stranger muttered dryly.
Norovegr felt his face burn. Yep, he was so going to throw himself off a ship…
"Here's a better way: I'm Norovegr." Yep. Way to sound like a total dweeb.
"I'm Scotland. My brothers call me Alistor, though, so I'll answer t' that too."
"My, um-" What the hell was Danmark to him, anyway? "My friends call me Lukas."
Well, more like friend, singular, but who was counting?
And it wasn't exactly friendship either… but of course, Alistor knew none of this, so what did it matter?
"So, this is Scotland, then?" Well, that was a terrible way to start a conversation.
Scotland gave him a look, like "how could you be such an idiot?"
"Yeah, of course it is." Fuck, why did Danmark always leave him to do these things on his own? He never would have tried this if Danmark were present.
Head were gonna roll.
"Anyway…"
"Do you want to try that again?"
What.
Those words had not come from Norovegr's lips; he was 100% sure.
"What?"
"You heard me."
Well, an offer like that could not be turned down.
Minutes later, Norovegr asked breathlessly, "Is there somewhere we can go?"
Night was setting in, and as much as the dark was nice for seeing stars, he had better things to do.
The voice in his head aggressively avoided making a joke.
"Aye, not too far from here. But aren't you going t' miss your ships?"
"They'll wait for me."
Add this experience to the list of things Danmark did not need to know.
A/N: This was far too much fun to write.
And the voice in Norway's head? It's there. But that's another story. (No, seriously, I wrote that one already.)
Awkward teen-age countries are what's going to keep me young, I swear.