I say goodnight to my neck… Are seals just dog mermaids?
I'll agree with you humans for once. (Most of you are humans, right?) We nations have a complex way of looking at age. Our bodies do grow, but never on any consistent scale, and never to any predictable pattern. You have me, raised by knights to do all sorts of badassery and awesome-craft, and while in skill I grew to be the same savage evangelist as the Teutons, in body I was still a squeaky little prepubescent boy. My antics didn't help with this. More than once was the Order's most infamous warrior banished to the time-out corner for feeding the Body of Christ to a pigeon.
That pigeon was the only one delighted to see me on Sunday morning!
A good, balanced EP formula is my guess for how our cells decide to divide quicker and our brains release different, weird chemicals over time. You know that sallow, drapey kid HRE? He was my big brother! Huge in landmass, yes, but a cultural consciousness trainwreck. And so he stayed bone-crackly small 'til the day he died. Today, we've got that kid Sealand — total powerhouse of identity, but without much to show for. So he's an annoying little pinhead for the time being.
The sons of the old empires have their joint problems and thank God for coffee, if they still believe in Him. (How d'ya like me now, Francypants!?) The sons of new industry find themselves larger than life in a world that's shrinking around them. (Poor Germany!) And I, Prussia, who have never followed convention in my entire life, (except for plotting it out in black and white,) am as excited as a kindergartener to go swimming!
We checked into the hotel a few hours ago, and I'm already feeling all tingly inside with nostalgia. This place is like a palace! Winding corridors, eccentric lighting, the smell of must covered by hundreds of fragrances, and even the soft mandala carpet remind me of the old days, when I was treated like a prince… wait… my kings kicked my ass… Oh, nostalgia, you twister of memories.
There's a hopeful ding as the elevator brings us to the first floor. My feet go smack-smack-smack in their flippy-flops, and I savor the chafing feeling of my fabric-softened beach towel over my shoulders. The goggles dig into my forehead. The tropical trunks swish around my iron thighs. I slap the magnetic key card over the sensor, and the door to the pool area unlocks with that monumental little click. And there's the rush of a warm sea breeze steeped with the salt of chemicals that poison my earthen birth. I swing myself around and accidentally knock the Crichton out of Germany's hands.
"Can we order pizza!? We always order pizza the first night!"
"How do you want pizza with all the falafel you ate for lunch?"
"With sausage and extra cheese. That's how. Can you order it to be delivered in an hour? Get the cheese bread, too!"
"Only if you warp that into your other dimensions before I get a chance at it. I'm already at the carbohydrate limit for the day. I have my yogurt for a bedtime snack."
"Your breath's going to stink in the morning."
"Your other end is going to stink if you eat all that cheese."
The chubby guy in the corner of the pool area snorts. I catch his glare, and he goes back to his phone — searching for podcasts, I see in the bubble of Anticanon above his head.
Germany just picks up his Crichton and goes to sit in the hot tub with the other old men, while I mosey around the pool checking out the depths. Ach! No diving! I'll have to slip my footers in first, the old-fashioned way. As long as I can still have fun, I'll choose to be safe, too. Not that any head trauma would be new for me. That guy Poland has a fetish for pushing people down stairs!
I sit on the edge and pat down my legs, slipping my feets into the deep end to test the temperature. Born amidst a Baltic winter, cursed to burn under sunlight… you'd think I could plunge into even arctic waters no problem. But, (and this is the but you've all been waiting for,) yes, there is something torturously tedious about being cold for forty years straight… actually, most memories from my time in the east are just… cold. Like… there's no pain or anything, no images… I'm just cold, really cold, and I can feel strange auras around me, but that's about it… I can't even move…
"GAH! SHIT!"
SPLASH!
In the fraction of an instant, something's seized hold of my ankles and has torn me off the edge, right into the pool! I flounder and splutter, trying to remember tactics from the Octo War, but the slimy shadow's already got two tentacles wrapped firmly around my stomach and… is something licking the back of my neck!?
The shimmer of bubbles flickers and flares in my stinging vision. Blue water undulates on the approaching surface. I wrench my body to and fro, just to get a glimpse of my attacker. Seaweed is not supposed to be here! I know that much about modern conveniences! PAMNAC has a whole pamphlet about swimming pools!
I burst out of the water and pinch myself to prevent the electromagnetic field of the water molecules from distorting. Something's still hugging me from behind. I try shaking it off, but two squirming limbs are squeezing around my waist, and two more are trying to tickle my chest. All righty, then! If we rule out the supernatural, this beast must breathe air! I'll just duck under the water and sit on the bottom of the pool until the thing releases! And then I'll re-enact the opening scene of the shittiest movie ever made, where I just kind of pretend the pool walls are interesting to look at!
I somersault down, and then I see the big goggled googly eyes of my attacker above me. The thing smiles, and its hair flows out around it like a soaking blanket… or some shit.
"Eliza…" I mouth under the water. Then I pop myself up again and hug her. This time, she's taken aback, and gives me an awkward slap on the back of the head.
"Good to see you, Gilbert Asswipe Beilschmidt."
"Hi, Hungary. How's your fat husband?"
"Hopeless. I fill a donut box with stuffed peppers, and he starves."
We both laugh at this, then take turns splashing each other until I'm seriously at my limit. If this woman makes my eyes any redder, I will waterbend on her ass!
"Are you here for Pam?" She asks, treading water like an absolute… er… not sure if those pretty water sprites of England's have a scary German equivalent…
"No, we're here looking for real estate."
"Well, that house you wanted two hundred years ago is on the market again, but it's falling apart."
"Well, Ludwig generally bitches about two things on any given weeknight: the nutella fingerprints I leave on the remote, and the German subtitles on Fixer-Upper. I bet he could fix that house right up, while speaking impeccable English the entire time."
"Ooh! I do need another English lesson. Could he teach me the difference between hardwood and laminate?"
"Well, that's an advanced question. He'll start by explaining all the different doorknobs you can find in a 1960s bungalow in the LA suburbs."
"Stop giving him so much shit," Hungary says with another splash over my head.
"Can't help it. He keeps buying bananas. So what are you here for?"
"Well, Austria and I came for Pam, but if you're going to be busy with reno projects, I suppose we won't see you at the office tomorrow."
I give her my best Prussian smirk. "I think we can fit a little office visit in. God, did you have to listen to his whining the entire way here?"
"He only whines if you don't have the Chopin CD in. He's like a baby."
"You are a saint!"
"And you're my pagan," she snorts, dunking my head under the water.
When I bob up again, she's at the pool edge talking to the guy who snorted at me earlier. Gets along with everybody, does she? I swim over and plop my chin on my knuckles.
"Look who's here!" Hungary says, pulling me closer like a wet puppy.
"I saw," the man says…
Oh… Oh Gott… that's Austria. Man, I cannot recognize the guy without all his frills! Nobody can! It's only now when I see the conditioned hair, the curled eyelashes, the beauty mark, the pillowy gut from all that cake and beer, and the worst part about him: those… those LONG-ASS WHITE SPIDER FINGERS! I WANT TO BREAK THEM OFF ONE BY ONE LIKE PRETZEL STICKS AND WRAP THEM IN A TARP AND BURY THEM IN THE CRYPT WITH THE "VON" HE USED TO HAVE IN HIS NAME—
"Good evening, Gilbert," he says with that disgusting lilt of aloofness.
"Hi," I say, smiling like a kindergartener.
After a little chat, (only going as far as me mentioning how much I hate Austria's fingers for the six-thousandth time this century,) Germany's finished another Iteration and hauls me away from the old gang. We promise to meet each other in the morning and head to bed.
In our hotel room, I shower off and slip into a clean pair of boxers — the ones with hedgehogs on them. Then I flop on my stomach on the bed, my head sandwiched between two throw pillows and my arms all tingly where they lay at my sides.
"Can we talk now about what you're going to say tomorrow? I need to know what to expect."
Precious Germany. He's alert as ever, even after a dip.
"We're going to go to the Pam office, and then there's a waiting room, and you're gonna get called in… and the nice agent is gonna ask you your name, and you can tell him the one you prefer… and… then... I dunno… maybe I'll just reverse some entropy and keep the floating a secret."
"Entropy reversion is the most impossible thing you can do."
I shrug. My eyelids are too heavy for this, and my body feels like it's sinking into the comforter. A good swim is so good for making me sleepy! Inside, I'm a little kid in the body of a twenty-something in the body of an 800-year-old twenty-something.
"I c'n also travel through space-time… Y'know… that Face-Eater guy? He said there are thirteen dimensions…"
"Brother, if I order you pizza, will you be awake enough to discuss this in a serious manner? The… the Fate of the World—"
Without even looking, I extend my right hand, locking onto Germany's physical presence. With a simple flick of my wrist, his molecules disperse, and I reassemble them under the comforter of his bed. Then I wiggle my pinky finger, and all the lights flip off.
"Don't do that!"
"Does it hurt?"
"No—"
"Good… I'm sleepy… my birdie-thing is sleepy… so much splashing and playing in the water needs a good rest after…"
But I can't let myself drift off just yet. My body… it still feels like it's sinking somehow. Am I phasing through the bed? I still feel the blankets beneath me, and my face is still between the pillows. I'm just super relaxed. I can't be getting… heavier…?
Should my stomach be making that bubbling noise? Or my skin…
My eyes crack open, and the first thing I see is a blob of skin thickening on either side of my nose. All over, flesh is tingling harder and harder until it feels like needles. I feel fat… like… super fat. I try to wiggle, and my insides give a literal sloshing sound before I feel my whole torso inflating with squishy flab.
"G-germany… something weird's going on."
I turn my bloating neck and look at him. He's got his headphones in, listening to steam engine sounds to help him sleep. (Someone makes those!)
I wiggle some more, but the more I imagine how grotesque I must look, the more some invisible force pushes at the walls of my insides, filling them up, stretching them out, tightening and loosening my skin until it's forced to expand from the generous rolls of fat pouring onto my frame from nowhere. It's particularly worrying on my bottom half, where a schlik-schluk noise is steadily reducing all feeling in my legs.
I grasp for the bedside table, but the bones in my arms are dissolving and shrinking away like icicles. They crackle and snap until my hands are nothing but little flabby remnants, webbed by flesh. Even my neck is now consumed by a gruesome squelch. My lips puff up. My nose swells. My eyes sink into my skull, and all the while I'm growing wider, longer, so much bigger—
"AAAHHHAHHCHCH!" I squeal. I wriggle myself so hard left and right that I tumble off the bed with a sloshy glunk. It's dark in the room, but I slap my tiny hands over what used to be my chest and stomach, trying to get some sense of what I could've transformed into. It's large. It's heavy. It's… it can't even be human. My legs feel searing hot, like they've been broken and fused into something larger and fatter than they were before. My feet are still there, but they're fused as well, and they're flat, packed with useless substance.
My cheeks tickle, and I sneeze. Then my lips vibrate. I roll over with a massive heave and draw myself into myself, fearful of the whole situation. When I squeeze myself down, the fat all condenses and contracts until I feel I'm perfectly spherical. Only the bump of my nose sticks out.
Not gonna lie. This is incredibly warm and cozy. I wish I had a slab of ice to lie on. Swimming tired me out.
"Did you fall out of bed?" Germany whispers. I hear it and squeal some more. My mouth can make surprisingly human sounds. Maybe this is just a weird rendering issue! Did some 4-D energy warp in here and deform my molecular lattice structure? Then why did I gain so much mass?
The lights flick on, and I flounder on the carpet. Germany stands over me, utterly stupefied.
I'm stupefied, too. Because now, rolling onto my back, I see myself fully.
"You turned into a seal?"
Well, I'm a hairless seal, and despite the flippers and the whiskers, my body just feels extremely over-bloated instead of mutated, but…
Great Fritz in Four Dimensions, I changed shape.
"EGG!" I tell Germany. "D'EGG, EGG!"
"Great. You can shapeshift now. Where do we rank that on the list of impossible powers?"
Well, shapeshifting isn't that impossible, I want to tell him. But we can figure that out in the morning. You should just hug me right now! I'm like a giant heated pillow, and life is amazing.
I spread my flippers wide, but he rejects the idea of touching me and crawls back into bed. Meanwhile, the same sleepiness that probably spurned the transformation in the first place returns… and I… squish myself into a ball.
~N~
When I was a baby, I screamed for hours in the car unless my parents had the VeggieTales CD on. All these jokes about John Mayer when I should be worshipping Phil.
I was told Germans find German subtitles on American shows annoying.
Updated by Syntax-N on FanFiction . Net September 16th, 2020. The prayer shawl yarn is consecrated! :D Don't repost.