Prussia Meows

If I Die, Reality Implodes… Does that make me an antic master?

No, you foolish fools, I am not dead!

I know many jokes have been made about the state of my existence, but let me tell you, numero uno, my last resting place will not be under a tombstone with some shitty meme-like image of myself in the eighteenth century. If I'm dead, I am getting a statue! Of myself, in golden armor, with a badass mane, slaying the bad guy, getting the girl of my dreams, tossing my golden crown down to a little Germany, who worships the ground where my boots have stepped. Is that clear!? Just keep the image in your mind forever because I am not dead and cannot die!

At the same time, I'm no longer alive.

I've died before. Several times, actually. It comes with being an animate nation and probably the bastard son of a war god who deserves nothing and inherits everything anyway, and then loses everything again, but is still everyone's favorite because who could hate such a handsome face? I don't deny my manly scars — sword, dagger, bayonet, bullet, trampoline pole. That last one got me straight in the forehead!

Yes, I have died as much as a nation can die. I've gone to that dark state of consciousness that feels like a physical loading screen while my body regenerates from the heart outward. Our hearts are the only inhuman things about us, you could say. They're indestructible. I've been lethally wounded and seen cuts close, scars fade, toes grow back, liver un-poison itself, and the like. But I suppose that isn't quite the human definition of "death," is it? Death is ceasing to exist. Losing yourself altogether. Or, I guess if you're religious, it's changing into a form that lasts longer.

My heart still beats. My stomach still gurgles. My brain still needs sleep. I can feel the burn working out, and feel the sludge drinking. So in human terms, I'm definitely alive. As for my nationhood, it's fuzzy. The same moment Prussia was dissolved, Germany started absorbing all my earth power.

Yes, it does work like that.

He didn't mean to take my strength away. The earth just decided, "Hey, this guy's the shit now. Out with the old." I didn't see him for a while after that, my awesome sacrifice and the partition and all, but he tells me now how he suddenly felt way stronger. He was sick for years, but he felt bigger and lighter on his feet. Amazing what some extra earth power can do! Tones the muscles, clears up the skin, boosts the mood — come to think of it, I've never paid for gummy vitamins!

Germany was the dauphin, I the old, cooky wizard on my way out. Pick your poison for what you think happened to me on the other side of that wall. Some of you really need help! Anyway, even though I was over there for the longest time, I could feel my brother's aura. We were still connected at the roots. When I concentrated, which got tougher and tougher, I could know when he was strong and when he was happy. My power was too weak to let me "zoom," as America calls it, so I could never visit him. Big Boss Nation had rules about zooming anyway. He'd know if I warped out of my own neighborhood, much less across a border. But I tried to send him signals. When earth power refracted off my body, I tried to distort it a bit. Probably why I'm so good at this kind of thing now.

After reunification, Germany held like ninety-nine percent of our shared power. That still made me immortal. Micronations exist within larger states, you know. But my soul had been Prussia for hundreds of years, and when "Prussia" started to become only some pretentious joke for bloggers and a tidbit in history classrooms, that's when my spark started to fade. Even the awesome me felt purposeless for a while. That kid Sealand told me I might be able to shed my quirks and age like a human, but I didn't see the point. It would kill my little brother to watch that, and I already get along with old people enough to annoy him. Don't see what he has against old people!

It was what, 2006? When I actually died for the first time. Boom. Kaput. Flies 'round my head. Germany was painting a neighbor's kitchen, and his strength suddenly increased so dramatically, he shoved the paintbrush through the wall and rained bricks onto the front garden. If I'd been alive, that would top Austria riding an ostrich as the funniest shit I've ever seen. Germany at one hundred percent! Said he felt like a god! For about half a day. Then I woke up in bed, and he threw his guts up all over me.

I'd felt fine all morning! But some stupid American middle-schooler must have confused Prussia for Russia for the last time, and my heart stopped! Right while I was having toast! I saw the light and everything! I saw things that would make your feeble mortal brains squeeze themselves into a pile of mushy worm poop. I saw the universe! I saw what everything really looks like! I saw the afterlife, too, or at least, a "checkpoint," of sorts, on the way to a new life. This one was mostly populated by singing puppets. I saw Fritz in there! But the toga guy at the front desk told me I wasn't allowed in.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because you're not supposed to come in."

"Why not? Aren't I dead?"

"You can't die. That would upset the balance of everything as we know it."

"Am I really that awesome?"

"Yes," said the toga guy. "If Prussia dies, reality implodes. Everybody knows that. You can die, but you're never really dead. There's always some twist. You're a ghost, or reincarnated back into your own world, or Germany attaches your consciousness to a spiked helmet and wears you around. The fact is, enough women ages 15-25 in enough universes agree that your actual death would be the greatest catastrophe and disappointment to ever befall the idea of thought. You are the greatest man who ever lived and never died. Congratulations."

Did I mention he had a British accent?

And then the whole universe went "whoosh" by me again, and I woke up good as new. This happened several times. The earth spat all my power at Germany, I detached, died, and got rejected. Spat out by Earth. Spat back by Heaven. Sometimes I'd die for no reason, other times I got sick, and sometimes I just didn't get enough sleep and forgot I was Prussia! None of it was pleasant. It wasn't until about a year ago that both sides got tired of swapping spit and stopped their antics altogether.

That was the day when the teeny-tiny percentage of the earth power Germany can never absorb, the power that makes me eternally Prussia, became a different kind of power. It's earth power, but it's also celestial power. I'm bound, and I'm unbound. I'm trapped, and I'm free. I'm dead… and I'm alive.

Me-OW!

I'm like an anomaly in the fabric of existence. Some kind of quantum glitch or cosmic pea under the mattress, too complex and bothersome for the universe to destroy. I still don't know what this makes me. A demon? An antic master like Fegelein? Some kind of extra-dimensional being? I can see other dimensions. I can melt into them if I want. All it takes to travel one universe to another is a quick jaunt through the Anticanon — that's where dreams happen. And spacetime is like putty in my hands! I can create shit! Like, I can poof cake into being! I haven't been daring enough to time-travel too far yet, but I did get an excellent second look at all those chickens scurrying about on Austria's highway!

So listen up! This will be a different kind of diary! A voyage not of this world! An epic across the stars and the veil that lies beyond! Anddddddddid jfrenh uip hiof;e hwafohaoi hae—

Germany waves the butter knife. A bright shimmer of Prussian blue, purer than any pigment, flashes right in the middle of the kitchen. He feels an electric sort of warmth tingle from his toes to the top of his head — a reservoir of earthy energy feeling around for its missing piece. His brother tumbles out of the sparkling distortion in logic and falls to the tiled floor, where he flounders about and pats himself free of glitter.

"Stop summoning me from the basement!"

"How do I know when you're in the basement?" Germany grumbles. He replaces the knife and passes a shopping list down to where Prussia's puckered expression can see it.

"You feel when I leave this plane. You feel that ebb of power make a hollow inside you. The teeny-tiny hollow. Minuscule. Itty-bitty—"

"It's not itty-bitty! It's huge, and it makes me worry about you!"

"There it is," Prussia says, smirking. He snatches the shopping list and eyes its contents. "You know, I could zap all this right onto the counter without money or gas. My powers are eco-friendly."

He catches the tiny wrinkle in Germany's forehead — that sweet little idiosyncrasy signifying when he is frightened and trying to hide it. Prussia reaches up, and he flinches.

"Summoning me makes me think you accept the weirdness a bit. Weird enough it's a butter knife that does the trick. I think it's because it represents my old sword."

"It means you have limits. I wave a butter knife, and I know where you are. You're not some rampaging god three solar systems that way. You're my regular brother in my regular kitchen. Please just go get groceries the normal way."

Prussia nods and pats Germany on the shoulder to show him he was still corporeal. Then he grabs the car keys and whistles on his way outside.

Okay, here's a secret. Not a secret. This diary? It's for Germany. He asked me to write a record of what I do as Ultra Prussia. Ultrussia? PRUSS ULTRA!? Yeah, some things I'd rather he not know about, but if understanding my destiny helps him accept it, I'll catalogue the butt size of every alien in America's dreams and divulge the true power of Italy's demon dance.

So onward to an unearthly adventure!

~N~

A new writer's block anthology, based on various headcanons and dreams. I daresay I've had prophetic visions of this crazy undead man. I once summoned him with a butter knife, and he gave me brownies. XD .

Want to see all your favorite Heta characters with magic powers? Check out my Fataverse fics! "The Snarled Circle Chronicles" is just about to rewrite Chibitalia... With fairies!

Published by Syntax-N on FanFiction . Net 19 May 2020. Reposters will be cursed.