"I'm sorry you won't get to meet the Baltics, I sent them on a grocery errand." Russia apologized kindly. He ushered his new mousy and raven haired friend inside and shut the door behind her. The second she walked in, Wonderland let out a sharp gasp and let her mouth hang open. Russia's house was monumental for someone as small as her. The ceilings seemed to rocket up over the girl's head only to arch over gracefully. Red flags embroidered with a yellow hammer and sickle alternated between horizontally striping white blue and red rectangles of fabric. In the middle of the large entryway appeared to be a fountain with a statue of the Virgin Mary peering down at the ground atop it. The ceiling had a huge window placed within it, allowing light to dapple down upon the water. Wonderland had never seen such a simple and beautiful place before. Where she came from, everything was bright colors and impossibilities, but in Russia's house, things seemed very well used and not in excess. The girl was a bit surprised by the lack of big helix shaped tubes filled with delicious candy or soda, but it's was almost as thought a house didn't need that to be beautiful. This confused Wonderland endlessly. How was it possible for something to be plain, yet also pretty? And very pretty at that! The girl's head started hurting from how hard she was thinking about this predicament.

"Fountain!" she cried after a long period of silence. It was all Wonderland could really think to say after working so hard to figure out simplistic beauty. Her mind seemed to have a daily limit of smart things she could do and say before she reverted back to her cutesy and childish self. The girl went stomping over to the carefully crafted stone fountain and clapped her hands together. "It's so pretty, Russia! Who's the lady on top?"

"That's the Virgin Mary, the sworn protectress of Russia." he remarked with his signature grin. Russia watched as Wonderland hopped up on the rim of the landmark. She put both hands straight out like she had when pretending to be a plane and rushed around the giant stone reservoir happily. The girl was so joyous all the time, so happy and sweet. Russia couldn't help but think about how adorable Wonderland looked with a silly smile on her face and her eyes closed in ecstasy. She was adorable, wasn't she? Not gorgeous, or beautiful, but cute and mousy. Belarus certainly wasn't going to like Wonderland, and especially not the fact that she and Russia were now friends. But Russia didn't care; he could finally have someone to hide from his little sister with. That would make sitting in a room being terrified far more fun for him.

"Is she a queen? There are two queens where I'm from. Well, only one that's ruling. The other was banished for being mean, because being mean is a mean thing to do!" Wonderland declared.

"No, the Virgin Mary is from the bible. She gave birth to Jesus." Russia replied.

"What's a Jesus?" the girl giggled. Jesus sounded strange to her coming from a land without any true or established religion. She had no idea what Christianity and Catholicism were. Russia opened his mouth to form a reply but before any words came out, he heard a high pitched squeal and a big splash. Wonderland had fallen in. The large blonde man rushed over, seeing his friend's top hat drifting about lazily on the surface, moving up and down with Wonderland's wake.

"Are you alright?" Russia exclaimed. He watched the minuscule girl pick herself up out of the water. She appeared to be very upset, trying to brush the water off her waistcoat angrily. But before too long, Wonderland was doubled over in laughter, her fluffy hair now softly tousled. Most people would have been extremely upset about falling in a fountain, but not her. She thought it was hilarious. Wonderland even enjoyed it! Even though her boots were waterlogged and her dress was gripping to her body, she couldn't think of any other way she'd like to be. The girl let out a final cackle and stared up at Russia with her big blue eyes.

"Just fine! Water's fun, isn't it? Especially in fountain form!" she cheered. Wonderland stood up and tried to wring some of the water out of her dress. She slid out of her boots and stockings and tugged off her waistcoat. The white gown beneath it had become embarrassingly see-through and Russia tried not to look.

"Would you like to borrow one of Belarus' dresses?" he offered.

"Is that your wife?" Wonderland inquired, perking up. She thought it would be funny if Russia had a wife. The girl sort of imagined her friend's life like and American sitcom, where every episode was exactly the last and jokes were reused to their full extent and beyond. She could picture him spewing corny lines about working at a vodka distillery and coming home to some prissy trophy wife.

"No." Russia said sharply. He didn't even want to imagine what being married to Belarus would be like. She was such a pessimist, and she was his sister, which would make things extremely awkward and gross. "Belarus is my little sister."

"Aww, she sounds adorable!" Wonderland crooned.

"She's not... She's very... Angry." Russia frowned and stared at the floor.

"Angry people are only angry because they're sad! Unless they're just naturally angry, and then they're just... Angry, I guess." she said thoughtfully. "But I won't need to borrow any of your sister's things. I'm all dry!" Wonderland pointed at her dress which had reverted back to its fluffy self. It appeared that the rest of her clothing was dry as well, not to mention her skin looked a little scaly. Russia furrowed his brow, how was that possible? It had hardly been more than a minute, five at the most, and there Wonderland was, with her big, silly, smile and perfectly dry clothing.

"How-" he began before being interrupted by his friend.

"You just have to think dry thoughts! It's super easy! You do that and not even a river of tears could keep you wet! I think about history, because it's the most boring and dry subject I've ever experienced, but some people think about politics and others about English." Wonderland took Russia's hand and ran it down the dress. "See? Dry as the driest dry could be!" Russia smiled; she was so strange but so interesting. Who ever knew you could dry yourself off by thinking about history? He was beginning to like Wonderland more and more, she was fun. Russia really like fun people, the kind that weren't like Belarus and just enjoyed life the way it was.

"Come, I'll show you the rest of my house." he placed a hand on the girl's shoulder lightly. Russia remembered how badly Italy had reacted when he'd done that, but Wonderland didn't worry at all. She beamed up at him and nodded eagerly.

"It's so pretty in here! I can't imagine what the rest of it looks like!" she cried. Russia ushered her down a small hallway, keeping his hand perched on her shoulder. He liked the way it felt to touch someone. The other countries got so terrified they could hardly look at him and even then they never looked him straight in the eye.

LATER:

"What is this? It's so... Strange..." Wonderland mumbled. She was staring at a black box with a little screen in the middle, raising one eyebrow. The girl prodded it with one of her fingers, leaning in and sniffing it lightly. It was a very strange object to Wonderland as where she came from there was no technology. The thought of a car had fascinated her earlier, but this was even more amazing.

"It's a television. You've never seen one before?" Russia replied. He leant down and pressed a small button labeled 'PWR'. The screen burst to life in a flash of bright colors and loud music. A strange man speaking in rapid-fire Russian popped up. Wonderland skittered away as fast as possible, diving under a small black table and covering her head with her delicate hands. What was that thing? It was terrifying. All the random colors and loud voices coming together at once in the vortex of a foreign language. Russia suddenly felt like he'd done something horribly wrong. He took a knee and peered under the coffee table at a fear-ridden Wonderland. "Hey, it's okay. It won't hurt you."

"I-it won't?" she gulped. Wonderland craned her neck to take a second look at the television before sucking her head back beneath the table. The girl was still mortified.

"If anything tries to happens, I promise I'll protect you." Russia smiled; cheek pressed again the cold floor of his house. He thought the words sounded weird coming from him; he'd never said anything like that to anyone. Maybe it was because no one gave him a chance like Wonderland did. And part of being friends was protecting each other, or at least that's what he'd been told. Not to mention, Russia was beginning to like his new bestest friend immensely. She didn't run away from him or cower in fear when he touched her shoulder. Wonderland was so nice to him he hardly knew what to do.

"Really?" Wonderland asked her eyes wide with a combination of fear and confusion. Russia nodded kindly. He watched the tiny girl nervously crawl out from her hiding spot. The man followed behind Wonderland as she approached the television slowly. Her mind was filled with questions about the odd mechanism. New things tended to scare her a lot. She'd had no fear of the fountain but televisions were completely foreign, she had no idea if the strange man was going to attack her or not. But her main fear was that something would set off one of her war-fits. The plump man on TV screamed something loudly, waving his hands around like a chicken with it's head cut off. Wonderland immediately turned to slide back under the table but she instead slammed straight into Russia.

"It's okay, he won't hurt you." Russia reassured softly. He patted Wonderland's head and flicked the screen. "See, there's no one inside."

"But-" she began. This time it was Russia who interrupted.

"I'll be right here." he smiled.

Another fluff chapter! Hope you liked it! Next chap will be more plot oriented. Reviews wanted BADLY.