HETALIA - because it's not like anyone cares!
Title: All Our Hurt Is Now Our History
Author: grosse_averse (also known as tatterdemalion on fanfiction)
Characters: Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, for now.
Rating: Probably PG-15?
Warnings: Historical Inaccuracies...
Summary: In the end, Katya only tasted power.
Notes: Because I love the Ukraine and I wish she was in more stories, I decided to contribute with half-assed stories of my own.
Ukraine means “border-land”. Katya does not forget her roots, when she was not yet herself, not yet fully formed, balanced precariously in the mess of Kievan Rus’. She had other siblings - Chorna Rus’; Cherven’ Rus’; Belarus, such a darling angel in white with feathery hair and clear blue eyes. Katya would carry her around and whisper to her, whisper her stories about the people who had come before.
Sometimes when it gets hard for Katya to look at her brother, she remembers when they did used to be one, completely and without all this mess - did Vanya forget or was he simply striving to replicate? Either way, sometimes Katya closes her eyes in the darkness of her bedroom and thinks back to when life was simpler and she could feel their three hearts beating, simultaneously, within her land.
She remembers her Vladimirs, oh yes she does. Her Volodymyr who brought her a different deity to worship and love, and the Grand Prince Monomakh who tried so hard but simply couldn’t stop Katya from ripping apart.
That was what she felt like. Rus’, her Rus’ (because she feels like it was hers, not Natalia’s or Vanya’s, just Katya’s Kievan Rus’), was shifting and changing and tearing so swiftly that sometimes she had to stop and gasp for breath. This is what it feels like, she realizes, to be so big and to have so much that people just aren’t satisfied anymore.
(and maybe she can sympathize with Vanya years and years later, when he comes to her with eyes wide and babbling about the Romanovs and the blood in the square and oh Anastasia, I couldn't save you and she thinks, no, I couldn't save you, Vanya)
She was foolish enough to believe, of course, that after a while the pain would become bearable, even when her people within their states were fighting and arguing and expanding beyond her level of comfort. But she could never push past the searing pain of Natalia, little Natalia, standing there with her head held high and her little doll mouth set in a look of concentration Katya would see for many years, and
(autonomy autonomy)
would echo in her silence. Up north, Vanya surfaced, like a pin prick, like a reminder (сестра, don't forget about me). Katya felt like she was trying to carry water in a sieve while it spilled out the sides in a desperate bid. It made her crazy sometimes, trying to elbow the water back in
(scoop at the stream, drip drip to the house, hurry or mama won’t have water for the dinner...)
and eventually it wasn’t enough.
(Katya still has the scar over her heart from where her skin bubbled up in the heat of the flames of war)
Her people, her people. They left, they fled, or they were killed, ground to dust under all the sieges. Katya would curl in on herself and wish to die, and Natalia would be there to comb her hair, whispering in her ear, “That’s it, the end, that’s it”.
Vanya would tug on the ends of Katya's scarf and wonder.
In the end, Katya only tasted power.
FIN
HISTORICAL NOTES:
-Kievan Rus’ was a medieval state existing from 880 to around the 12th century. It was centered around the city of Kiev and was thought to be the predecessor of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine.
-Vladimir the Great (the first Volodymyr she is remembering) helped instill Christianity in Ukraine and surrounding areas in the 988 period. It was called the Christianization of Kievan Rus’. The second, Vladimir Monomakh, was the Grand Prince of Kievan Rus’ until his death in 1125.
-Around the beginning of the 12th century, things started to go to shit for poor ol' Kievan Rus'. Principalities expressed discontent. Some expanded their reign. One principality named Polotsk kept harping on autonomy for Belarus, and it was around this time that the city of Moscow appeared in historical records.
-Kiev took some hard hits. In 1169 it was sacked by the Vladimir principality, then again by the Cumans in the 12th century and the Mongols in the 13th.
AUTHOR’S NOTES:
Yes, I realize that Kievan Rus’ encompassed so much more land than simply the Ukraine, so it wouldn’t be just Katya who felt all of this, but it was centered around Kiev and Katya is the eldest of the siblings so I think she was the most coherent of the three to understand just what was happening. I find it funny how once, Katya felt like Ivan did, with all this land and all these people, and when things turned sour and people began elbowing their way in to acquire some of the land, Katya might have gone just a little insane.
Author: grosse_averse (also known as tatterdemalion on fanfiction)
Characters: Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, for now.
Rating: Probably PG-15?
Warnings: Historical Inaccuracies...
Summary: In the end, Katya only tasted power.
Notes: Because I love the Ukraine and I wish she was in more stories, I decided to contribute with half-assed stories of my own.
Ukraine means “border-land”. Katya does not forget her roots, when she was not yet herself, not yet fully formed, balanced precariously in the mess of Kievan Rus’. She had other siblings - Chorna Rus’; Cherven’ Rus’; Belarus, such a darling angel in white with feathery hair and clear blue eyes. Katya would carry her around and whisper to her, whisper her stories about the people who had come before.
Sometimes when it gets hard for Katya to look at her brother, she remembers when they did used to be one, completely and without all this mess - did Vanya forget or was he simply striving to replicate? Either way, sometimes Katya closes her eyes in the darkness of her bedroom and thinks back to when life was simpler and she could feel their three hearts beating, simultaneously, within her land.
She remembers her Vladimirs, oh yes she does. Her Volodymyr who brought her a different deity to worship and love, and the Grand Prince Monomakh who tried so hard but simply couldn’t stop Katya from ripping apart.
That was what she felt like. Rus’, her Rus’ (because she feels like it was hers, not Natalia’s or Vanya’s, just Katya’s Kievan Rus’), was shifting and changing and tearing so swiftly that sometimes she had to stop and gasp for breath. This is what it feels like, she realizes, to be so big and to have so much that people just aren’t satisfied anymore.
(and maybe she can sympathize with Vanya years and years later, when he comes to her with eyes wide and babbling about the Romanovs and the blood in the square and oh Anastasia, I couldn't save you and she thinks, no, I couldn't save you, Vanya)
She was foolish enough to believe, of course, that after a while the pain would become bearable, even when her people within their states were fighting and arguing and expanding beyond her level of comfort. But she could never push past the searing pain of Natalia, little Natalia, standing there with her head held high and her little doll mouth set in a look of concentration Katya would see for many years, and
(autonomy autonomy)
would echo in her silence. Up north, Vanya surfaced, like a pin prick, like a reminder (сестра, don't forget about me). Katya felt like she was trying to carry water in a sieve while it spilled out the sides in a desperate bid. It made her crazy sometimes, trying to elbow the water back in
(scoop at the stream, drip drip to the house, hurry or mama won’t have water for the dinner...)
and eventually it wasn’t enough.
(Katya still has the scar over her heart from where her skin bubbled up in the heat of the flames of war)
Her people, her people. They left, they fled, or they were killed, ground to dust under all the sieges. Katya would curl in on herself and wish to die, and Natalia would be there to comb her hair, whispering in her ear, “That’s it, the end, that’s it”.
Vanya would tug on the ends of Katya's scarf and wonder.
In the end, Katya only tasted power.
FIN
HISTORICAL NOTES:
-Kievan Rus’ was a medieval state existing from 880 to around the 12th century. It was centered around the city of Kiev and was thought to be the predecessor of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine.
-Vladimir the Great (the first Volodymyr she is remembering) helped instill Christianity in Ukraine and surrounding areas in the 988 period. It was called the Christianization of Kievan Rus’. The second, Vladimir Monomakh, was the Grand Prince of Kievan Rus’ until his death in 1125.
-Around the beginning of the 12th century, things started to go to shit for poor ol' Kievan Rus'. Principalities expressed discontent. Some expanded their reign. One principality named Polotsk kept harping on autonomy for Belarus, and it was around this time that the city of Moscow appeared in historical records.
-Kiev took some hard hits. In 1169 it was sacked by the Vladimir principality, then again by the Cumans in the 12th century and the Mongols in the 13th.
AUTHOR’S NOTES:
Yes, I realize that Kievan Rus’ encompassed so much more land than simply the Ukraine, so it wouldn’t be just Katya who felt all of this, but it was centered around Kiev and Katya is the eldest of the siblings so I think she was the most coherent of the three to understand just what was happening. I find it funny how once, Katya felt like Ivan did, with all this land and all these people, and when things turned sour and people began elbowing their way in to acquire some of the land, Katya might have gone just a little insane.