HETALIA BELONGS TO HIDEKAZ HIMARUYA

The parents of the Nordics have been selected attending to importance and genetic impact on the countries. As you know, no nation is born from a single tribe or two. This was done in an attempt to adjust to Hetalia's canon and way of portraying nations.

An empty street. It is cold, that sharp cold one only gets in Scandinavia and outsiders are surprised about. But Sami knows how to deal with it. Her beaska, made with reindeer fur, is all she needs to keep herself warm. Her prominent cheeks are exposed to the freezing air, but she doesn't mind. She is more than used to it. She walks without a rush or a care, and one could say she looks through the window of that house like she is completely unaware of anything.

There is no one else apart from her, and someone who rushes towards the nearest block or tavern. The natives know better than to be outside with this weather and the tourists are not that daring. It is only Sami in there.

Wait. That is not true. The blizzard makes a spiderweb in a corner under the window box wave. Its owner is in there, holding onto it in an almost heroic manner.

The scientific name is agelena labyrinthica, but it is widely known as labyrinth spider, though Sami ignores all of its names. She just knows that this tiny thing is completely harmless to humans, unlike grasshoppers and crickets, which it feeds from.

And to their own kind.

Seeing that worn out spiderweb, she remembers the old times…When you are old, you can't help remembering…And how could one ever forget those sharp blue eyes?

They came from the sea. It was a good bunch of them. They were looking for new lands to conquer. Their father, Germania, had instructed them to go; some just wanted to be lords of their own piece of land, away from the patriarch's control. They found natives, and did away with most of them to claim their territory, exterminating them, then replacing them with their own progeny, sometimes born from their union with their own siblings. Others decided they didn't like certain things to stay in the family and decided the original tribes were still useful.

She had tried to stay out of trouble and away from those people until such pretension became impossible, for all nations tend to expand themselves. And so, she had Swede face to face.

She had always thought that the Norsemen had hotter blood, but his eyes…Sami would never forget those eyes as long as she lived, how they impressed her. They cast a spell on her, put her defenses down. Before she knew, Swede and her were one.

In many ways, nations were like spiders. They craft their webs very carefully, and wait for their prey to fall in…Females also wait for the males to come, to get confident, inseminate them…, then take advantage of this source of energy willingly falling into their arms.

She waited until he was asleep and slit his throat with her hunting knife—she was sure he would have done the same...There was just not plenty of space for everyone to live peacefully. She just packed her things, to which she added everything Swede was carrying along, and kept on living her life as if this was an unimportant event.

Though she would have to make a few adjustments. Nine months later, she was giving birth to a son, blond like his father.

A boy who never cried—ever. But that was not the most striking thing about him.

When he first opened his eyes and looked at her, she felt like she was being stabbed in the heart by two blue daggers.

He really took after his father…

He loved him, nevertheless, nurtured him and taught him everything she knew, so he could have a good future.

Little did she know that someone else had decided it for her.

Swede had family in the area. His older brother Dane, terminally ill, dreamed of uniting all of the Norse family into one house, and came looking for the boy. Sami's pleas and violent response didn't matter, he still took him away and banished her to the Northern lands. She got in touch with Finn through trade, who gave her news of her son, which had been named Sweden, after his father, and now lived with his cousins.

It was thanks to trading that she could get in touch with her son. She met Nordmann, Swede's brother, who didn't seem to know about her being the mother of his nephew or didn't care—in fact, they were a little more than friends. Nordmann had a child, one of the most beautiful children Sami had ever seen and which she loved like he was her own son, made blankets and clothes for him and told him stories. She also made sure Sweden was well taken care of, gave him everything he could need, not only the material, but also motherly love.

His response, though cordial, was freezing cold.

Time passed, lethally for the Norse. Nordmann took his spouse and navigated to far away lands, looking for an opportunity, since food was becoming scarce. They never returned, though many centuries later Sami would hear that they had another son, who wouldn't even know about his ancestry until the twenty-first century. Dane died as well, leaving the children under the protection of the Vikings—and a son more than willing to become the chief of them all. The children seemed to be doing well without their parents. Sami didn't need to worry about them. The instincts all nations are born with were starting to kick in. Finn's child, Finland, was stolen by her Sweden, kept more like a pet than an underling. Under the influence of his warrior family and the cruel environment, Sweden grew stronger and ruthless.

He kept growing and becoming more sophisticated. He kept on fighting his cousins for dominance, like they did as kids, but now he had firearms to do some serious harm to them and be more convincing. He started being demanded taxes and demanding them to those in a lower position.

He asked her for taxes.

Sami tried to make him see that her territory spread through the houses of all of them, and she would end up with nothing if she had to pay them all. Couldn't he exclude her? She was his mother! But when it came to money, the source of life for modern civilizations, there were no family bonds. She would have to wait for the seventeenth century and Norway negotiating the matter with him for her son to accept her paying taxes only to one of them.

It was just that...well, don't all mothers sacrifice themselves for their children?

Many of their people and Russia's would come. To prey on her resources. Sent as a punishment. To claim her territory. Destroy it, so they could build and feed their cattle. She was forced to move. Her house became increasingly smaller. Finland took up most of it. She thought of telling Sweden about it, but she scratched that idea, after discovering that he was encouraging it through tax relief. On the contrary, it was Sweden who approached her, to offer her a mean to survive, working on some silver and iron mines he had discovered in his house.

Is it still an offer, if you've got someone aiming a gun at your head in case you want to flee or even take a rest?

She couldn't even pray to her gods to give her at least some spiritual belief. Sweden had accepted Jesus Christ as his savior and, of course, wanted his mother to save her soul, so he made her give up her ceremonial drums and customs and attend church. He made her sit by his side and made sure she wasn't just moving her lips when singing the hymns. No one would say that he was the son of a damned pagan.

I am your mother!, a cry would rise from her throat, to die in her lips, seeing how he was too busy fighting others, trying to gain positions in the board game, keeping up with the times, to mind about her.

I am your mother!, she still wanted to whine, when Russia came, and talked to her about the wonders of collectivization, and threatened her until she gave up the religion she had finally come to accept and internalize, so she ended up in an empty universe with no one around to listen to her. In which language should she utter it? Sweden had sent her children and herself to schools where they talked to them exclusively in Swedish and sometimes got severely punished for communicating in their tongue.

No, that wouldn't move the boy who never cried, the boy who had ice cold eyes.

After all, once they have consumed their first nourishment, spiders feed off their own mothers…

Sami stops looking at the specimen under the window and rises her eyes again to the living room she can see through the glass. The boys are all together, plus that child Sweden bought on the Internet, enjoying some kind of get-together. They are warm and comfortable, and eating some nice-looking desserts.

Sweden grabs some kind of toast and, perhaps feeling observed, turns his eyes warily at the window. The others do as well.

Finland is the first to look away. She now lives primarily in Lapland, which he has managed to present to the whole world as Santa Claus' village. The tourists come to take pictures of her as well and he shows her off.

Norway does it as well and keeps on chatting with Iceland. He looks like his father but he is not. Nordmann would have never put her people into human zoos, for everyone to see and him to profit.

The boy with the thick eyebrows asks Sweden something, not taking his eyes off her. Sami believes he is inquiring him about her. Who's that?, probably.

The European Union has agreed that she is a nation, a first nation, something worth protecting.

Sweden answers very briefly, Sami can't guess what, before turning his back on the window and keeping on eating. The child stares at her a little more before going to play with the little dog which is lurking around, hoping it will get some of that food.

What does he say she is?

She heard what he said in the meeting when they conceded her such recognition and protection. Such few but heartwarming words.

But, seriously, what does he really think she is?

What does the carcass where it originated mean for the grown up spider?

THE END