voi fi aici pentru totdeauna
Title: voi fi aici pentru totdeauna
Characters/pairing(s): Romania, Bulgaria
Rating: A
Gifter: kahlanaisling
Giftee: baconflag on dreamwidth
A/N: a series of vignettes about the times romania and bulgaria were enemies, lovers, bros, and ultimately friends. i decided to work backwards in chronological order, with some random history thrown in. also i'm only learning romanian, so if you have corrections please feel free!
Romania and Bulgaria being friends.
- - - - - -
1.
"Fortune cookies," Bulgaria said, rolling the paper into a tiny ball and tossing it on his tray with the rest of the trash.
Romania looked hurt, but he wasn't serious. "What's wrong with them?"
"They're useless, that's all. Little bits of paper with a generic list of words and numbers that are supposed to bring you luck, or tell your future, or shit like that."
The cookie was crunchy and sweet on Romania's tongue, an interesting contrast with the spicy food. "How do you know they're fake?"
"Fortune telling isn't real."
Romania smirked. "You know that's not true."
"It is, though," Bulgaria protested.
"You used to believe in it even more than I did, if I remember right." Bulgaria's expression was flat, disbelieving, in clear denial of what Romania could remember so clearly. "No, really," he continued. "You wouldn't let me leave the house if there was so much as a hint of an inauspicious omen within the last few hours."
"That's superstition, not fortune-telling. There's a difference. Superstitions are based in legitimate circumstances, but fortunes are just random guessing, one sentence spread out in a bunch of people."
Romania changed tactics. "Well, what if chance were involved? How do you know your fortune wouldn't be accurate, if so many people got the same one?"
"The odds are against me."
"Did you get a good fortune or a bad fortune?"
"Why does it matter?"
"Bad fortunes have this nasty habit of coming true," Romania said, "which is why people tend not to give them. Too many dissatisfied customers."
Bulgaria laughed once as Romania tapped his fingers on the table, grinning slightly. "And you would know that."
"I don't like to lie to people."
"Now you're the one lying."
"True," Romania admitted. "But you never answered my question. Was it a good fortune or a bad fortune?"
"Neither."
"Fortunes are never neutral," Romania said, lacing the word with distaste. "Why would you want a neutral fortune when you could know the girl you're going to marry, or when you're going to inherit that money, or even which alleyway to avoid because a murderer lies in wait? Though avoiding Fate never ended well."
"It was a random sentence," Bulgaria insisted, "with random numbers that mean absolutely nothing. Are you finished so we can go?"
Pointedly, Romania cracked open another fortune cookie. Bulgaria rolled his eyes in exasperation while Romania read aloud, "'There is a cemetery in your future.' That's cheery."
"Of course there's a cemetery in your future," Bulgaria said. "Mortals die. Their families attend funerals."
"I'm not mortal, though, and I don't know anyone who is."
"Then the fortune is wrong." His tone was matter-of-fact.
"But it isn't! I just so happen to go to cemeteries all the time," Romania pointed out. "So even though the original intention behind the fortune is wrong, it's still right."
"Chance."
"Exactly."
Bulgaria, confused, said, "I'm not sure what point you're trying to prove."
"Bad fortunes are always accurate."
"A man makes his own fortune."
"Perhaps. But don't you want to know what's in the future you're going to make?"
"Not until I get there," Bulgaria said with finality, and that was the end of the conversation.
2.
"If I had a lev for every time you've called demanding I pick you up from some god-forsaken bar in the middle of nowhere. . . ." Bulgaria did not look at him, instead content to mutter to himself under his breath. Romania climbed into his car, ignoring the seatbelt and settling back against the cloth that smelled faintly of cigarettes. Smoke had never been a pleasant scent to him, but this was mixed with Bulgaria's cheap cologne and cheaper shampoo (which he claimed wasn't scented, but Romania knew better), and it was better than the generic electrical fires and cigars that lingered in the streets of Sofia.
Romania closed his eyes, slouched, and tuned out the man's ranting. He would be finished soon, and in a little while they'd be at Bulgaria's house, and Romania could stagger inside and go to sleep.
". . . I wouldn't be able to do a lot, actually," Bulgaria continued sharply, "what with the economy these days. But I'd still be able to pay off your fucking drinking bills and more."
"I only call you half the time," Romania said.
"Which is way too much as it is. I can't be your babysitter every time you get kicked out of some establishment because of intoxication or loitering or money or whatever it is you can add to your record this time."
Romania's lips curled into a smirk as he corrected, "Arson."
"Why the hell you burn down a bar."
"I got bored."
The driver in front of them was too slow and they found themselves stuck at a red light; Bulgaria swore, Romania didn't, but their attitudes toward the situation were the same. "That isn't a reason," Bulgaria told him.
"What is the reason, then?"
"I don't know, I don't know what the fuck goes on in your head. If I did my life would be a hell of a lot easier."
"I would tell you if I could."
"Don't even try to pull that shit with me, Mircea, you're not nearly as ignorant about yourself as you claim to be."
"I don't claim to be anything."
"You're impossible."
"But I made no claim to that, see?"
The light turned green and Bulgaria didn't reply, so Romania let the purring of the car lull him nearly to unconsciousness.
"Wake up."
Romania grimaced as he demanded, "Why?"
"You're not even drunk."
"I don't have to be drunk to be tired," Romania said. Bulgaria's driving was frustrated and impatient, but still more careful than his own.
"You should have gone to sleep hours ago," Bulgaria retorted, "if you were just going to pass out in an alley later."
"I wasn't tired then."
"Neither was I, but I went to bed anyway."
Romania cracked open one eye. Bulgaria's hair and clothing were rumpled and there were shadows under his eyes, but the smokey scent pervading throughout the vehicle was too strong and fresh to be mere shadows. "You weren't asleep," he said, laughing.
Bulgaria kept his eyes on the road. "Maybe so. Doesn't change that I'm up way too late because of you."
"I'm sorry."
"No you're not."
"I'm sorry I'm not sorry, then."
"Romania?"
"Yes?"
"Just shut up."
3.
In the seventies, Romania tried not to think about it, because if he thought about it then it would just make things awkward and nobody wanted that.
Tried not to think about Bulgaria, and about Bulgaria's hair, and about Bulgaria's eyes and legs and mouth and ears too sometimes and tried to think about other things in general.
He tried not to sleep, because sometimes sleeping led to nightmares and other times it led to dreams too wonderful to wake up from. (All of them included Bulgaria, which was unfair.)
He asked for advice about it, and Prussia pursed his lips. Not Prussia, not anymore, East Germany. But Romania would never get used to that name.
"Well?" Romania had asked.
"How old are you now, kid?"
Romania didn't know how old he was as a nation, but as a human he placed himself at about seventeen.
Prussia cautioned him not to think about it. You'll get over it, he said. And then he went and locked himself in the library for the rest of the day.
Hungary had found him later and laughed, so he'd shaved her head in retaliation and scared Prussia shitless for the next couple of weeks. Not only had the man been entirely unhelpful, he'd also told Romania's worst enemy about highly confidential circumstances and that was uncalled for.
Bulgaria found out, and roomed with the Czechoslovakian twins for a few days.
Romania had never been lonelier.
4.
The scariest day of Romania's life wasn't the day Bulgaria disappeared, and it wasn't the day Bulgaria didn't come back, and it wasn't the day Bulgaria stayed gone. Rather, it was the day Bulgaria came back wrong.
"Bulgaria?"
No answer.
"This is not funny, Bulgaria."
Still no answer.
Romania's voice was smaller than he'd like it to be. "Marko?"
From somewhere behind him, Poland said, "How long was he gone again?"
Hungary replied, "Too long."
"Long enough not to come back." There was the faintest hint of arrogance in Serbia's voice. Serbia was never Romania's enemy; they'd fought, but mostly they were friends, except when his rivalry with Bulgaria got in the way. Romania let his concern take priority over his disgust at Serbia's mocking of a clear invalid.
Romania closed the door to his and Bulgaria's room, shutting out the hushed whispers and voices of the rest of the Eastern Bloc. Then he sat on the bed beside Bulgaria and looked at the man's hands.
Bulgaria's hands were rough and calloused, from farming and from fighting and from protecting his land. Four hundred years of servitude to the Ottoman Empire had not broken them, and Romania had begun to think they could not be broken at all. Those hands had never lain still before, never simply sat as little welts let red liquid stain their clothing. Too see them that way now was uncanny.
Romania took the hands gently with his own and pulled off his belt, wrapping the dark cloth around the wounds. He was grateful Bulgaria let him do so. If their places had been reversed, Romania knew he'd have sooner bled to death than let anyone near.
"Don't let them get to you," Romania said in Bulgarian, whispering so as to keep the walls from listening. "Hungary, she was like this not long ago. A year? Two? She's gotten better. I'm sure you will too."
Bulgaria's eyes are green. Normally, when they look at Romania it's with exasperation or some strange sort of affection. Occasionally it's with disgust. He'd take any of those over the emptiness that plagues them now.
Romania bites his lip. He does this a lot, and the scabs that have formed are torn away, leaving the hot, coppery, salty taste of blood in his mouth too. "I wonder why they took you? You never do anything, coward." He laughs.
"Well, maybe that's a lie. You do things, just . . . not you personally, see? So it's confusing.
"What did you see? Hungary had said something about food, but she wouldn't say more and I don't take her word for it. Only an idiot would, and we are far from idiots."
Bulgaria closed his eyes - so he was alive! success! - and leaned against the wall. He appeared to want nothing to do with Romania at the moment.
His lingering hands said otherwise, so Romania did not move an inch.
5.
In Romania's dream, it is 1913 and he and Bulgaria are at war- with each other.
They aren't on the battlefield. Bulgaria no doubt wishes he was, if only to fight Serbia or Turkey or take down the namless, faceless foes that belong to the numerous factions trying to intervene. Romania more than understands the desire, for on some level he wants it himself so desperately it cannot be described. Bulgaria once said he had an unmatched taste for war. Hungary had dismissed this theory. In her eyes, Romania's taste is only for blood.
One could always rely on one's enemies to tell the bitter truth, Romania had mused as he nursed his wounded pride, and that truth was the reason he let the king kep him from the war front. Given the opportunity, though it can be denied all Bulgaria likes, Romania would not be the one dead at the end of the day.
"I'm sorry," Bulgaria says, staring past Romania and out the window.
"No you aren't" is Romania's reply. Simple, matter-of-fact, as Bulgaria had always spoken to him. They've fought before, that isn't new - but to be officially at war, for Bulgaria to look at him and hold nothing but vitriol in his eyes, is a new experience for Romania.
"It's your own fault, you could have chosen me."
"I can't fight Fate."
"You say that now, but wait until you get a little older." Romania's always been small, young, for his age, and now he looks fourteen at best. "Fighting fate is all we do."
Bulgaria is wrong about this, but for once Romania is not in the mood to argue with him.
6.
"Me and you, against the world," Bulgaria cautioned. "That's what it is from now on."
Romania was ten and grieving, or celebrating, or dying or sick or having fun or he wasn't really sure what he was doing? Only that Bulgaria was constantly pulling him aside sometimes, placing two hands on his shoulders and saying, "Mircea. Breathe. In through your nose, out through your mouth."
Romania would do so and then feel strangely calm, and he would realize that there was a knife or some other sharp object in his hand along with a few drops of blood trickling down his wrist. He would drop it and stare, suddenly paralyzed with fear because that knife could hurt someone or kill someone and he had been wielding it it was him how did he get it who did he maim-
Right now, though, Romania was sitting on his bed in Istanbul and letting Bulgaria hold his hands. Bulgaria was maybe twelve or so. Romania would catch up to him soon, of course. "You understand?" Bulgaria said.
"You and me," Romania repeated, then laughed. "Us. Against them. And we're the ones with the knife, yes?"
"We can be, but you have to stay calm."
"I'm calm."
"I mean calm calm." Bulgaria narrowed his eyes. "You can't throw a tantrum and tear the palace to shreds, or put the animals on stakes or . . . decapitate the servants. You might be locked up again if you do. Remember Hungary's dungeons?"
Dungeons and Hungary in the same sentence brought up images of darkness, paired with damp and dank and the skittering of rats and food that wasn't filling. Romania nodded. He had a fantastic memory.
"You watch my back and I'll watch yours, and it'll be our alliance, forever. There isn't anyone else that cares, got it?"
Romania nodded again. He understood perfectly.
7.
Bulgaria had no faith in the child - Wallachia, or Moldavia, or Transylvania, depending on the day - as he was.
He was betting on what the child would become.
8.
"I'm not superstitious," Bulgaria said, as Mircea smiled and continued mixing his egg whites with water or whatever it was he was doing.
"Of course you are not."
"I'm not."
"Don't you believe in Fate, though?" Mircea asked curiously. He was young, and small, but there was this air he had about him that made Bulgaria think he was far more intelligent than he came across.
"I don't."
"I do," Mircea said. He held up the jar, peering at its contents. "How else do you explain friendship? People who don't have anything in common staying together forever! There's got to be something else in it."
"Whatever it is, it's not Fate. A man makes his own fortune."
Mircea laughed. "You're obsessed with making your own fortune. Don't you want to know if you make it or not?"
Bulgaria thought about it for a minute.
"No," he decided.
"Why not?"
"Then there won't be any surprises. It'll be like cheating."
Mircea ignored him, instead saying, "Hmm."
"What?"
"There's a man in your future."
Might as well humor the child, Bulgaria thought; he didn't intend to have anything to do with him later. "Who is it?"
"I don't know. But he's very important."
"Is there a name?"
"Not yet. You have to help him find it."
Bulgaria scowled. He wasn't going to help anyone find anything unless it benefitted him, he'd known that since the beginning. "He can go find his own damn name."
Mircea shrugged. "He probably will. But he'll want to share it with you."
"How can you even know all of that?"
Mircea's lips curled into a smile. "Fate."
Characters/pairing(s): Romania, Bulgaria
Rating: A
Gifter: kahlanaisling
Giftee: baconflag on dreamwidth
A/N: a series of vignettes about the times romania and bulgaria were enemies, lovers, bros, and ultimately friends. i decided to work backwards in chronological order, with some random history thrown in. also i'm only learning romanian, so if you have corrections please feel free!
Romania and Bulgaria being friends.
- - - - - -
1.
"Fortune cookies," Bulgaria said, rolling the paper into a tiny ball and tossing it on his tray with the rest of the trash.
Romania looked hurt, but he wasn't serious. "What's wrong with them?"
"They're useless, that's all. Little bits of paper with a generic list of words and numbers that are supposed to bring you luck, or tell your future, or shit like that."
The cookie was crunchy and sweet on Romania's tongue, an interesting contrast with the spicy food. "How do you know they're fake?"
"Fortune telling isn't real."
Romania smirked. "You know that's not true."
"It is, though," Bulgaria protested.
"You used to believe in it even more than I did, if I remember right." Bulgaria's expression was flat, disbelieving, in clear denial of what Romania could remember so clearly. "No, really," he continued. "You wouldn't let me leave the house if there was so much as a hint of an inauspicious omen within the last few hours."
"That's superstition, not fortune-telling. There's a difference. Superstitions are based in legitimate circumstances, but fortunes are just random guessing, one sentence spread out in a bunch of people."
Romania changed tactics. "Well, what if chance were involved? How do you know your fortune wouldn't be accurate, if so many people got the same one?"
"The odds are against me."
"Did you get a good fortune or a bad fortune?"
"Why does it matter?"
"Bad fortunes have this nasty habit of coming true," Romania said, "which is why people tend not to give them. Too many dissatisfied customers."
Bulgaria laughed once as Romania tapped his fingers on the table, grinning slightly. "And you would know that."
"I don't like to lie to people."
"Now you're the one lying."
"True," Romania admitted. "But you never answered my question. Was it a good fortune or a bad fortune?"
"Neither."
"Fortunes are never neutral," Romania said, lacing the word with distaste. "Why would you want a neutral fortune when you could know the girl you're going to marry, or when you're going to inherit that money, or even which alleyway to avoid because a murderer lies in wait? Though avoiding Fate never ended well."
"It was a random sentence," Bulgaria insisted, "with random numbers that mean absolutely nothing. Are you finished so we can go?"
Pointedly, Romania cracked open another fortune cookie. Bulgaria rolled his eyes in exasperation while Romania read aloud, "'There is a cemetery in your future.' That's cheery."
"Of course there's a cemetery in your future," Bulgaria said. "Mortals die. Their families attend funerals."
"I'm not mortal, though, and I don't know anyone who is."
"Then the fortune is wrong." His tone was matter-of-fact.
"But it isn't! I just so happen to go to cemeteries all the time," Romania pointed out. "So even though the original intention behind the fortune is wrong, it's still right."
"Chance."
"Exactly."
Bulgaria, confused, said, "I'm not sure what point you're trying to prove."
"Bad fortunes are always accurate."
"A man makes his own fortune."
"Perhaps. But don't you want to know what's in the future you're going to make?"
"Not until I get there," Bulgaria said with finality, and that was the end of the conversation.
2.
"If I had a lev for every time you've called demanding I pick you up from some god-forsaken bar in the middle of nowhere. . . ." Bulgaria did not look at him, instead content to mutter to himself under his breath. Romania climbed into his car, ignoring the seatbelt and settling back against the cloth that smelled faintly of cigarettes. Smoke had never been a pleasant scent to him, but this was mixed with Bulgaria's cheap cologne and cheaper shampoo (which he claimed wasn't scented, but Romania knew better), and it was better than the generic electrical fires and cigars that lingered in the streets of Sofia.
Romania closed his eyes, slouched, and tuned out the man's ranting. He would be finished soon, and in a little while they'd be at Bulgaria's house, and Romania could stagger inside and go to sleep.
". . . I wouldn't be able to do a lot, actually," Bulgaria continued sharply, "what with the economy these days. But I'd still be able to pay off your fucking drinking bills and more."
"I only call you half the time," Romania said.
"Which is way too much as it is. I can't be your babysitter every time you get kicked out of some establishment because of intoxication or loitering or money or whatever it is you can add to your record this time."
Romania's lips curled into a smirk as he corrected, "Arson."
"Why the hell you burn down a bar."
"I got bored."
The driver in front of them was too slow and they found themselves stuck at a red light; Bulgaria swore, Romania didn't, but their attitudes toward the situation were the same. "That isn't a reason," Bulgaria told him.
"What is the reason, then?"
"I don't know, I don't know what the fuck goes on in your head. If I did my life would be a hell of a lot easier."
"I would tell you if I could."
"Don't even try to pull that shit with me, Mircea, you're not nearly as ignorant about yourself as you claim to be."
"I don't claim to be anything."
"You're impossible."
"But I made no claim to that, see?"
The light turned green and Bulgaria didn't reply, so Romania let the purring of the car lull him nearly to unconsciousness.
"Wake up."
Romania grimaced as he demanded, "Why?"
"You're not even drunk."
"I don't have to be drunk to be tired," Romania said. Bulgaria's driving was frustrated and impatient, but still more careful than his own.
"You should have gone to sleep hours ago," Bulgaria retorted, "if you were just going to pass out in an alley later."
"I wasn't tired then."
"Neither was I, but I went to bed anyway."
Romania cracked open one eye. Bulgaria's hair and clothing were rumpled and there were shadows under his eyes, but the smokey scent pervading throughout the vehicle was too strong and fresh to be mere shadows. "You weren't asleep," he said, laughing.
Bulgaria kept his eyes on the road. "Maybe so. Doesn't change that I'm up way too late because of you."
"I'm sorry."
"No you're not."
"I'm sorry I'm not sorry, then."
"Romania?"
"Yes?"
"Just shut up."
3.
In the seventies, Romania tried not to think about it, because if he thought about it then it would just make things awkward and nobody wanted that.
Tried not to think about Bulgaria, and about Bulgaria's hair, and about Bulgaria's eyes and legs and mouth and ears too sometimes and tried to think about other things in general.
He tried not to sleep, because sometimes sleeping led to nightmares and other times it led to dreams too wonderful to wake up from. (All of them included Bulgaria, which was unfair.)
He asked for advice about it, and Prussia pursed his lips. Not Prussia, not anymore, East Germany. But Romania would never get used to that name.
"Well?" Romania had asked.
"How old are you now, kid?"
Romania didn't know how old he was as a nation, but as a human he placed himself at about seventeen.
Prussia cautioned him not to think about it. You'll get over it, he said. And then he went and locked himself in the library for the rest of the day.
Hungary had found him later and laughed, so he'd shaved her head in retaliation and scared Prussia shitless for the next couple of weeks. Not only had the man been entirely unhelpful, he'd also told Romania's worst enemy about highly confidential circumstances and that was uncalled for.
Bulgaria found out, and roomed with the Czechoslovakian twins for a few days.
Romania had never been lonelier.
4.
The scariest day of Romania's life wasn't the day Bulgaria disappeared, and it wasn't the day Bulgaria didn't come back, and it wasn't the day Bulgaria stayed gone. Rather, it was the day Bulgaria came back wrong.
"Bulgaria?"
No answer.
"This is not funny, Bulgaria."
Still no answer.
Romania's voice was smaller than he'd like it to be. "Marko?"
From somewhere behind him, Poland said, "How long was he gone again?"
Hungary replied, "Too long."
"Long enough not to come back." There was the faintest hint of arrogance in Serbia's voice. Serbia was never Romania's enemy; they'd fought, but mostly they were friends, except when his rivalry with Bulgaria got in the way. Romania let his concern take priority over his disgust at Serbia's mocking of a clear invalid.
Romania closed the door to his and Bulgaria's room, shutting out the hushed whispers and voices of the rest of the Eastern Bloc. Then he sat on the bed beside Bulgaria and looked at the man's hands.
Bulgaria's hands were rough and calloused, from farming and from fighting and from protecting his land. Four hundred years of servitude to the Ottoman Empire had not broken them, and Romania had begun to think they could not be broken at all. Those hands had never lain still before, never simply sat as little welts let red liquid stain their clothing. Too see them that way now was uncanny.
Romania took the hands gently with his own and pulled off his belt, wrapping the dark cloth around the wounds. He was grateful Bulgaria let him do so. If their places had been reversed, Romania knew he'd have sooner bled to death than let anyone near.
"Don't let them get to you," Romania said in Bulgarian, whispering so as to keep the walls from listening. "Hungary, she was like this not long ago. A year? Two? She's gotten better. I'm sure you will too."
Bulgaria's eyes are green. Normally, when they look at Romania it's with exasperation or some strange sort of affection. Occasionally it's with disgust. He'd take any of those over the emptiness that plagues them now.
Romania bites his lip. He does this a lot, and the scabs that have formed are torn away, leaving the hot, coppery, salty taste of blood in his mouth too. "I wonder why they took you? You never do anything, coward." He laughs.
"Well, maybe that's a lie. You do things, just . . . not you personally, see? So it's confusing.
"What did you see? Hungary had said something about food, but she wouldn't say more and I don't take her word for it. Only an idiot would, and we are far from idiots."
Bulgaria closed his eyes - so he was alive! success! - and leaned against the wall. He appeared to want nothing to do with Romania at the moment.
His lingering hands said otherwise, so Romania did not move an inch.
5.
In Romania's dream, it is 1913 and he and Bulgaria are at war- with each other.
They aren't on the battlefield. Bulgaria no doubt wishes he was, if only to fight Serbia or Turkey or take down the namless, faceless foes that belong to the numerous factions trying to intervene. Romania more than understands the desire, for on some level he wants it himself so desperately it cannot be described. Bulgaria once said he had an unmatched taste for war. Hungary had dismissed this theory. In her eyes, Romania's taste is only for blood.
One could always rely on one's enemies to tell the bitter truth, Romania had mused as he nursed his wounded pride, and that truth was the reason he let the king kep him from the war front. Given the opportunity, though it can be denied all Bulgaria likes, Romania would not be the one dead at the end of the day.
"I'm sorry," Bulgaria says, staring past Romania and out the window.
"No you aren't" is Romania's reply. Simple, matter-of-fact, as Bulgaria had always spoken to him. They've fought before, that isn't new - but to be officially at war, for Bulgaria to look at him and hold nothing but vitriol in his eyes, is a new experience for Romania.
"It's your own fault, you could have chosen me."
"I can't fight Fate."
"You say that now, but wait until you get a little older." Romania's always been small, young, for his age, and now he looks fourteen at best. "Fighting fate is all we do."
Bulgaria is wrong about this, but for once Romania is not in the mood to argue with him.
6.
"Me and you, against the world," Bulgaria cautioned. "That's what it is from now on."
Romania was ten and grieving, or celebrating, or dying or sick or having fun or he wasn't really sure what he was doing? Only that Bulgaria was constantly pulling him aside sometimes, placing two hands on his shoulders and saying, "Mircea. Breathe. In through your nose, out through your mouth."
Romania would do so and then feel strangely calm, and he would realize that there was a knife or some other sharp object in his hand along with a few drops of blood trickling down his wrist. He would drop it and stare, suddenly paralyzed with fear because that knife could hurt someone or kill someone and he had been wielding it it was him how did he get it who did he maim-
Right now, though, Romania was sitting on his bed in Istanbul and letting Bulgaria hold his hands. Bulgaria was maybe twelve or so. Romania would catch up to him soon, of course. "You understand?" Bulgaria said.
"You and me," Romania repeated, then laughed. "Us. Against them. And we're the ones with the knife, yes?"
"We can be, but you have to stay calm."
"I'm calm."
"I mean calm calm." Bulgaria narrowed his eyes. "You can't throw a tantrum and tear the palace to shreds, or put the animals on stakes or . . . decapitate the servants. You might be locked up again if you do. Remember Hungary's dungeons?"
Dungeons and Hungary in the same sentence brought up images of darkness, paired with damp and dank and the skittering of rats and food that wasn't filling. Romania nodded. He had a fantastic memory.
"You watch my back and I'll watch yours, and it'll be our alliance, forever. There isn't anyone else that cares, got it?"
Romania nodded again. He understood perfectly.
7.
Bulgaria had no faith in the child - Wallachia, or Moldavia, or Transylvania, depending on the day - as he was.
He was betting on what the child would become.
8.
"I'm not superstitious," Bulgaria said, as Mircea smiled and continued mixing his egg whites with water or whatever it was he was doing.
"Of course you are not."
"I'm not."
"Don't you believe in Fate, though?" Mircea asked curiously. He was young, and small, but there was this air he had about him that made Bulgaria think he was far more intelligent than he came across.
"I don't."
"I do," Mircea said. He held up the jar, peering at its contents. "How else do you explain friendship? People who don't have anything in common staying together forever! There's got to be something else in it."
"Whatever it is, it's not Fate. A man makes his own fortune."
Mircea laughed. "You're obsessed with making your own fortune. Don't you want to know if you make it or not?"
Bulgaria thought about it for a minute.
"No," he decided.
"Why not?"
"Then there won't be any surprises. It'll be like cheating."
Mircea ignored him, instead saying, "Hmm."
"What?"
"There's a man in your future."
Might as well humor the child, Bulgaria thought; he didn't intend to have anything to do with him later. "Who is it?"
"I don't know. But he's very important."
"Is there a name?"
"Not yet. You have to help him find it."
Bulgaria scowled. He wasn't going to help anyone find anything unless it benefitted him, he'd known that since the beginning. "He can go find his own damn name."
Mircea shrugged. "He probably will. But he'll want to share it with you."
"How can you even know all of that?"
Mircea's lips curled into a smile. "Fate."