FIC: The Beginning of an Age
Fanfic masterlist here.
Title: The Beginning of an Age
Length: 1240 words
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Genre: whoa, damn
Characters, Pairings: Fem!Prussia
Summary: She remembers nothing of her life before she becomes an enclave. She only dreams of them.
Notes: This is about (fem!)Prussia's origins (take out the gender part and it still is my idea of how Prussia came to be). She only vaguely recalls her time with the Baltic Prussians (Old Prussians) as slivers of images and sights and sounds during the 1100s, but her life, so to speak, begins with the Teutons. It's written in a deliberately disjointed manner. All the scenes are scrambled around in no particular order.
I also want to quickly mention here that the only thing she truly remembers are the feelings. Whenever she wakes up, she always forgets these vague flashes of recollection, only remembering the emotions associated with whatever had been going on. She only really remembers the robes and the monastery but everything else doesn't stick with her.
This is the very first part of the fem!Prussia history arc.
Her earliest memory was that of the sea.
(In this, she was like most nations.)
There was sky and wind and water, and it was a warm spring that swept through the lands as she lowered her tiny feet into the pristine waves that rolled and swelled and seeped into the powder white sands ashore. She could see fish weaving in and out of the seaweed, tinted blue and green from the light that penetrated the sea, and when she reached forward to touch them, her fingers broke the surface of the water and caused it to shatter into a thousand reflective shards that refracted the fleeing fish into a hundred amorphous reflections until they had all but emptied that expanse of the sea.
-------
Her earliest memory was that of a monastery, pristine and bare, with high ceilings and white walls.
She was seated at a table alongside the rest of the monastery’s inhabitants, waiting her turn for soup and bread. The sun had just risen and filled the room with a warm and soft orange light. The quiet was reverent. The silence broke with a soft chant of prayer and they supped together.
The sister came by her, pressed a hand on her shoulder and encouraged her to thank the Lord and partake of the meal. She could not speak but clasped her hands in prayer and closed her eyes.
-------
Her earliest memory was of her running.
She ran and ran as fast as her tiny legs could carry her, feet bare and clad in only thin rags that she had been wearing for as long as she could remember. She heard laughter. She heard shouting. She heard the sound of metal clacking against metal. She was out of breath and began to falter, began to tire, and slowed, aware that her captors were so close, so close behind her.
She fell against a dilapidated wall, into a bale of hay, lungs burning for air as shadows loomed over her, the voices of grown men wheezing as they spoke things she no longer recalled, letting out low chuckles and vexed grunts and she felt resignation.
-------
Her earliest memory was of being scrubbed down in a tub.
The cloth they used was rough and the abbess who held her down was not kind to her unhappy squawks. She struggled, protested, but ultimately it felt good to be clean. She lingered in the tub and watched the water run through her fingers and down her palm, causing ripples in the water that distorted her reflection. They put her in a small robe, just like the monks wore, and an emotion began to well up inside her chest that she had never felt before. The sister took her by her hand. She no longer remembered what her face looked like but she remembered that kind and warm smile and followed when she was led. The sister touched her face and swept her hair aside so that they didn’t get into her eyes.
Her voice was soothing.
-------
Her earliest memory was of the sun.
She remembered staring up at it, being blinded by the brilliance of it as it hung in the bright blue sky. She was lying down in a meadow, skin tickled by grass as it fluttered with the breeze.
-------
Her earliest memory was of blood.
She gazed up unflinchingly at a man whose body was growing cold, suspended over her as gravity pulled him and slid him further down the length of the blood drenched sword in her hands. His face was hidden behind a helmet but through the visor, she could see his eyes roll up into his head, his mouth gaping, the sputters of death guttering through metal as he choked blood and spit. It oozed through his helmet and dripped in a steady metronome, drip, drip, drip, pooling on her cheek and staining the whiteness of his robe with crimson.
He fell.
She slid the sword out of him, too big for her to handle with ease, and as it wobbled in her grip, she gazed steadfastly on the man who had been behind the one she had just killed and she lunged forward, catching him in the throat.
-------
Her earliest memory was the sister who sneaked her half a loaf of bread through the window of a big white monastery.
-------
Her earliest memory was her hair being pulled.
There were cries and shouts and snarls. She heard words like ‘demon’ and ‘sacrifce’ and ‘heathen’ but she didn’t understand and was too weak to repel full grown men with their swords and armour.
She remembered a kick to the stomach toppling her to the ground, heavy boots continuing the assault on her fragile body until someone found rope to tighten around her neck and string her up from a tree.
She was barely conscious when she felt someone cut her down.
-------
Her earliest memory was of calloused hands touching her face.
Those hands belonged to the sister who had an ashen look instead of the usual mild expression. The blood had been wiped away from her cheek but the sister's distress came from her nakedness. The sister had disrobed her, intending on giving her a bath and clean clothes to wear, but her eyes were drawn to what was not between her legs and she trembled when she remembered the sword in her hands.
With wet eyes, the sister hugged her so tightly she could barely breathe.
Later on, they gave her the clothes of a monk and she never again slept in the nun’s quarters.
The sister returned in the night with dirt-covered knees and a shovel.
-------
Her earliest memory was of men in white robes and helmets ruffling her hair.
They called her ‘boy’. They touched her hair and laughed and offered her some water from their wineskin to help her recover her strength. Her lips were cracked and her neck ached, but they had applied bandages to it and she was starting to feel better. They kept her in the beds for a week until she could swallow again.
Later, she would, in good nature, nick one of their crosses.
They chased after her.
-------
Her earliest memory was the pale face of the abbot when they cut her down.
He looked kind and gentle but so, so old, and her eyes were watery, and she felt tired. She slept.
-------
Her earliest memory was the stained glass windows of a French church.
It sparkled beautifully under the morning sun, illuminating the choir with colours she never thought could be made by human hands. As she knelt at the altar and prayed with the other knights, one of them nudged her and slipped her a small cross. She smiled in reply and prayed to god to let her find her voice. Afterwards, she slipped the cross over her head to keep it safe under her robes.
They called her Gilbert. It was the abbot's idea.
-------
Her earliest memory is of the break of dawn.
The entire monastery prays together and gave their thanks to their Lord and Saviour every morning. As the sun completes its break over the horizon, they are ushered into the refectory and she is seated with the brothers and sisters and waits her turn for soup and bread.
The sister rests her hand on her shoulder.
She prays.
-------
They call her Ordensstaat.
By then, she can speak. She can fight.
The sister is long dead, buried by the grave of the two knights she had slaughtered a lifetime ago.
Her smile is wild, like the blood in her eyes.
-------
She remembers nothing else.