In His Bones - Part 3
anonymous
December 10 2009, 15:54:03 UTC
Being the German Empire means, among other things, that he is the one who gets to nag Gilbert into cleaning after himself - Gilbert is rather notoriously untidy when it comes to non-military stuff, and the kitchen after Hurricane Gilbert has visited is an horror to behold.
He also considers it his duty to at least try get his brother out of the bazillion troubles he always seems to gets himself enmired in, though the results about this are mixed, to say the least.
"He's growing, isn't he."
Austria comments, sipping at his glass.
"Yeah, yeah he is. What of it - You expected him to stay a brat for ever?"
There is a pause. The glasses clink.
" - He is going to become taller then you quite soon at this rate, is he not?"
"...Quite possibly. He is supposed to be my Empire, after all..."
"Indeed. He apparently can not transform, even now - And yet he grows. I am rethinking certain things, actually."
"...Oh really?" His brother sounds wary.
" - He grows, and quickly at that. That implies a degree of - responsibility. He has things which he is responsible for, and he takes care of them."
"Well of course he does." Gilbert sounds annoyed. "He's the fuckin' German Empire, not some mollycoddled little colony off somewhere in the wilds!"
There is a long silence, at that.
" - Prussia. He will become taller then you, he will become an adult, and then - One day, he will not need your - guidance - any more."
A smack of a mug meeting a table.
"And he will look at you and say, this is my House and I give the orders. And then what would you do, Prussia? Will you simply accept becoming a mere Providence in truth as well as name? - I am sure that you will be treated reasonably well, if you do not resist - The boy appears to have a sentimental streak, from what I have observed."
And then the is the sound of a chair moving - It must be Austria's.
"And then the Household of the German Empire will have a Nation at the helm who can not even transform. - Oh, don't look at me like that, Gilbert - If Ludwig was capable of transforming at all, it should have happened by now, and you know it!"
"I know nothing of the sort!" His brother roars back, and then hurriedly lowers his voice.
"There is no set time for that kind of thing, and you know it!"
"Well, no, technically speaking, there is not." Austria sighs, then.
" - But still, Prussia...It worries me. I fear that he is growing up too quickly..."
"......It's better then never managing to grow up properly at all, I would think."
Gilbert sighs, too, his fingers drumming on the table.
"Just... Let him be young for a little while longer. Eh?"
In His Bones - Part 4
anonymous
January 5 2010, 05:29:20 UTC
The War that would later be called the First World War had been long shimmering in the pot before everything finally blew - The big arms race between England's Household and his own being only one factor among many.
Ludwig is terribly fond of his Kaiserliche Marine (They were going to be better then England's Royal Navy one day, better by far, just you wait -) and his U-boats, too, stealthy beneath the waves. Ships that could navigate under the seas - How fascinating!
His brother Gilbert, on the other hand, just loves his airplanes and Zeppelins - which was just to be expected, of course, though Ludwig sometimes thought about how fast new things seemed to be invented, nowadays, everything changing all the time, like time itself had started to go faster in some strange fashion, and was somewhat - uneasy - about what the future could bring. Though they did seem to be very useful, he did have to admit.
And then he meets that strange, strange Nation hiding with his paws over his ears in the tomato box, and everything begins to change.
The Italian border is so easy to get through, it just about has to be a trap - But if it is, it's the strangest trap that he ever heard of.
And then - A tomato box. Which talked.
"H-Hey, I'm a tomato box fairy! I came to be friends with you - Let's go play, alright?"
"There seems to be somebody in there..."
"No, no, there isn't anybody in here at all! Why would you want to look at my innards..."
"Damn, it's heavy...Now, show yourself!"
What falls out of the box, screeching, is cream-colored and warm and has big ears.
"Baaaaa! I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm not really a tomato box fairy - Please don't shoot me! I'll do anything, just don't shoot me..."
Wait. Wait...This was the descendant of the Roman Empire? Surely not...
"I wanted some good pasta as a last meal, baaaaaa~~"
"...I...I have a question. Are you my enemy, the decendent of Rome?"
"Oh, you know Grandpa Rome? I'm Italy, Rome's grandson. I love pasta and pizza, and - "
And that was how he meets North Italy, warm and furry and amber-eyed.
He carries Italy back to his base in a sack, warm against his back. "Baaaaa~~, Germany? Can I have pasta?"
"I do not have any pasta on hand, though you may have meat and potatoes once we get there."
Ludwig sighs, then.
"- Italy. You are a cat, correct?"
"I think so, ve?"
"...Then why are you baa-ing? You sound like a sheep of some kind..."
"Baaaa, my brother says that too, but I've always baa'd from the first time I transformed..."
In His Bones - Part 5
anonymous
January 5 2010, 05:33:02 UTC
Italy - whose 'human name' is Feliciano, according what he told him while he was carrying him home in the sack - is small and furry and cream-colored as a cat, somewhat bigger in human shape. In either shape, he never tries to escape at all, which annoys Ludwig in some strange way that he cannot explain properly. It was so - so un-military.
He feeds him properly anyway, even if he can't really make pasta every day, and even washes him when he comes home drunk and smelling of whiskey after one of his flirting-with-girls non-escapes, in cat-form of all things. Feliciano complains muzzily when he pours warm water over him, but rubs against his hand when he wipes him off with a towl.
One day, he wakes up to a warm Italy sleeping on top of him with a snickering Gilbert on the other side of the bed.
"Awww, if it isn't lil North Italy - Not so little now, it seems! Well, well, little Bruder, have you arranged some invasions of territory of the personal kind, or what?"
"Veee~~~??"
He grabs Italy, throws some clothes over him - He must have transformed in his sleep again - and tosses him back in his room, which is not quite a cell, whatever else it is supposed to be.
"Hey, hey, come on now - Don't throw him about. Awww, he's still cute, anyway..."
"Hmph. Nothing like what you are suggesting is going on, anyway!"
"Alriiiight? So you don't mind if I go and - renew our acquaintance, correct?"
Grrrr.
" - Go away, Bruder."
Gilbert can't stay at that particular base very long, but he does seem to like to hang around Italy - Feliciano - while he's with them. Ludwig makes sure to keep an eye on both of them. He didn't want to risk anything - untold - happening, after all.
"Ha ha, so you're a cat? ...Why do you baa, though? Are you sure you're not a sheep in disguise?"
"I don't think so, vee~.I've always just baa'd naturally, though everybody seems to think that it's strange..."
"Naah, naah, it's all right."
Feliciano seems to be happy, curled up on Gilbert's lap in cat-form. Ludwig does not really understand why the sight is so strangely endearing and yet so annoying at the same time.
"Say, Teuton - About the kitten here..."
" - Kitten?"
"Mmmm. There's a scrawny little kitten...thing that hangs around here sometimes, a bit funny-looking, but he just wouldn't stay still. I've been trying to talk to him, but..."
"Hmmm. Maybe it's the same kit I've seen wandering about Spec's place? Sort of weird-looking, like it's half bird or something..."
"Oh, so you know him too. Good. I was wondering if..."
Ludwig sighs, and finishes making then dinner. With big mugs of beer.
In His Bones - Part 6
anonymous
January 5 2010, 05:38:13 UTC
And then the Great War ends, and not in their favor, either.
Ludwig sends Italy - Feliciano - back as soon as the fighting is officially over. Feliciano squirms a bit and says that he wants to say goodbye to 'Heiny', whoever that is, but he goes quietly enough when Ludwig shakes him into cat-form (Ludwig isn't quite sure why that actually worked, but it did) and threw him over the walls, his small bag of belongings after him.
Gilbert - Prussia - loses so much of his lands, Austria and Hungary are made to separate, and France and the other countries all demand ridiculous amounts of money to pay for the damages.
The worst thing, though, is the economy, which seems to be spiraling down into a never-ending pit.
Everybody around him seemed to be miserable except Poland, who had gotten his House back and was happy as a clam, and even his economy was miserable, Ludwig knew.
Not that that seemed to stop Feliks from chasing his Bruder Gilbert around and pulling out his tail-feathers, gloating all the while.
"Ha ha ha ha, your so-called West Prussia is mine, oh former fiefdom of mine - "
Poland's transformed form is actually smaller then Ludwig remembers him being, strangely enough, but he's bright and colorful instead of a faded brown, green and grey, a small bird the colors of rainbows, plumage and tail-feathers floating across the skies.
"And my House is mine, mine and just mine, too, at long last -
"Which you will no doubt run into the ground. Again." Gilbert hisses back, bleeding and bedraggled.
"Will you stop harping on and on about that, Prussia. It's my House, and I'll run it so it suits me - "
And then Poland tosses Prussia - Gilbert - back at him, and turns to leave.
"Will you stop this, Feliks?"
"...I don't think so." Feliks snickers.
"I don't hear a please, there, either. Hey Gilbert - You should have taught your little bro to say please when he's asking people to do something~~"
"Shut up." Gilbert growls, trying to get out of Ludwig's arms. Not that Ludwig is about to let him go - not while he's in this state.
"Oh, and you should have taught him Polish too, while you're about it. What's left of your Polish is soo old-fashioned - Not that that's all bad, mind. I'll really have to see if I can make you beg again, eh?"
" - In your dreams, Polska!" Gilbert hisses, but it sounds more wearily then anything.
Feliks snickers, yet again. "Sure, sure. - Hey, Germany, did you ever try scritching his ears and wings when he's like this? You should try it~~"
" - Go away." Gilbert whispers, pushing his head into Ludwig's hair.
Feliks turns to leave with a final snicker, and Ludwig holds his brother tight.
Gilbert's - Prussia's- 'normal' transformed form is not a black eagle, no matter what the flag signifies.
It's a black crow - not even a raven, as he's not really big enough to be a raven.
Though he used to be bigger when Frederick the Great was alive, if his ridiculously, vague memories were at all relevant.
Ludwig has never told him that he doesn't care that he's not a eagle. Gilbert is a crow, and he always has been a crow, and that was all there was to it.
And that is when Ludwig realizes that Poland - Feliks - hadn't once called Gilbert a carrion eater, even in the thick of their fighting, not while Ludwig himself could hear, anyway. Others had called Gilbert that quite often, Austria, France, almost anybody his brother fought with or even besides, and Gilbert usually just laughed it off, but...
He has no idea if that is significient in any way, but he remembers it.
In His Bones - Part 7
anonymous
January 5 2010, 05:40:03 UTC
Ludwig takes Gilbert the crow home, back to their House, now chopped in two with half of Gilbert's rooms on the other side of Poland's not-so-little garden path, leading to the sea.
Feliks is - strange, now that he is one once more, Ludwig thinks. The Poland that had used to belong to Prussia and Russia and Austria and the parts that had run off to France and whatnot apparently had all recombined into just one Feliks, and the result is even more fey then the Feliks who had used to drift through Gilbert's rooms sometimes.
And shiny. And colorful. Let us not forget colorful.
"Bruder?" Ludwig calls to Gilbert the crow, nestling against him sleepily.
"Um hum?"
"Poland seems to be...smaller then I remember, somehow. Younger. But shinier, too. He's so colorful!"
"Well, sure he is..." Gilbert grumps. "All the bits and pieces left of him came back together, and then- fires fires burning bright. He's a brand new bird now, yeah... Still nowhere as big or strong as he used to be back in the Commonwealth days, though, thank goodness."
"Oh." Ludwig murmurs. He had known, in a general fashion, that Poland had used to be a major power, back in the day, but...
"But just you see - One day I'll get it back, I'll get everything back, I -"
Gilbert rants and raves, and Ludwig pets him and tries to clean the blood off his feathers.
Fires burning bright, eh? There was a word for something like Feliks was, Ludwig thinks.
Phoenix.
Even if what he looked like now was a over-sized rainbow-hued canary, roughly the size of a crow...
In His Bones - Part 8
anonymous
January 5 2010, 05:44:58 UTC
If anybody had bothered to ask Ludwig, he would have told his Goverment that printing mountains of money to cover the money certain people insisted they had to pay (Mostly France, that is - Damn that idiot Frog) was a Very Bad Idea, but then, nobody had bothered to ask him anything about that, really.
So inflation soared and soared, and the value of money sank like a stone, and Ludwig sat in his House and made Cuckoo Clocks every day, when he wasn't doing other things. What else was he supposed to do, really?
And that was when Italy, for some unphantomable reason, came back,
"Germany, Germany! Please, Germany, give me a job?"
Um, what? Was that Nation insane? Well, he'd suspected that before, but...
"My place is even worse off then yours is, and everybody's going hungry, and my family... I really need a job, Germany! Please?"
Though he really, truly doubted that Italy's economy was actually worse then his was, he ended up giving him a job anyway, printing even more money that was just this side of worthless.
In His Bones - Part 9
anonymous
January 5 2010, 05:50:31 UTC
His life did become somewhat different once Italy - Feliciano - started to hang around his House, Ludwig did have to admit. Even Gilbert seemed to be in a better mood when he talked to Feliciano, and most of his other siblings - His major Providences, that is - seemed to like him, too.
Though he did put his foot down at Feliciano trying to cuddle Gilbert in crow-form. Feliciano was a cat, baa-ing or no baa-ing, and cats should not be cuddling birds.
"But Germany~ Prussia is so cute when you pet his ears or do this along his wings when he's a crow~~"
"No, no, no, no, no - And that is final!"
"...Awww. I wouldn't eat him or anything, Germany..."
In the end, Feliciano ended up doing exactly what he wanted. Well, it was Feliciano, after all.
"You know, Gilbert, Heiny is looking so much better now - His fur is shiny and he's all sleek. His wings are growing in, too!"
"...Caw?"
"He says he admires me, though - His Leader says that he wants to follow my example! Though I suppose he means follow Benito's example, I guess...Can you imagine?"
"Caw." Gilbert sounds puzzles.
"Oh, yes, Heiny has a Boss, even though he's so tiny! He's growing up so fast, though..."
It is 1923 when Ludwig first fights something that jumps at him from the shadows of his kitchen, bites his hand, and runs away hissing and miowing when he backhands it, smashing it down into the floor.
He spends some time cleaning and binding up his hand after that, and then cleaning up the floor and the kitchen at large.
He is looking at his bandaged hand when Feliciano comes home, and looks at him.
"...Are you all right, Germany?"
" - Yes."
He had used his bone-knives, cutting deep into the small furry body, drinking blood.
Enough. Enough. Something Needs To Be Done.
Ludwig wakes up that night, feeling his right hand - the hand that had been bitten and had bit in turn- detaching itself from the rest of him.
"Hey. Hey. Come back here - What am I supposed to do without my right hand!?"
The hand, apparently, had other ideas.
Ludwig watched bemusedly as the hand inched over his entire bedroom, annoyance apparent in it's every move.
And then it found a box of old newspapers, and started to work in earnest, looking less and less like a hand as time passed, white and cleanly semi-transparent bones showing and curving.
Ludwig went back to sleep, eventually - There didn't seem to be much point in staying up, after all.
He woke up later then usually the next day, to find a little golem made of newspapers sitting on his chest, about the size of his hand.
(Take me to the Leader)
" - The Chancellor, you mean?"
(...Yes.) The little paper golem shifted a bit, twirling.
(And I want you to hold him down.)
And so Ludwig did just down, holding down the Chanceller in his chair as the little golem knelt down to him on his desk.
The Chancellor gave him a look, later that day, staring at the thing that the little paper golem had turned into, once the Chancellor had acknowledged and Chosen it in turn.
A small paper knife, made of white thin semi- transparent bone.
"What am I supposed to do with this?"
" - I think you should just...keep it with you. Sir."
And so he does.
The Golden Years of the Weimar Republic began that day, though nobody knew it.
Yet.
"You know Gilbert - Heiny says that your brother has knives in his hands. I wonder what he means?"
He also considers it his duty to at least try get his brother out of the bazillion troubles he always seems to gets himself enmired in, though the results about this are mixed, to say the least.
"He's growing, isn't he."
Austria comments, sipping at his glass.
"Yeah, yeah he is. What of it - You expected him to stay a brat for ever?"
There is a pause. The glasses clink.
" - He is going to become taller then you quite soon at this rate, is he not?"
"...Quite possibly. He is supposed to be my Empire, after all..."
"Indeed. He apparently can not transform, even now - And yet he grows. I am rethinking certain things, actually."
"...Oh really?" His brother sounds wary.
" - He grows, and quickly at that. That implies a degree of - responsibility. He has things which he is responsible for, and he takes care of them."
"Well of course he does." Gilbert sounds annoyed. "He's the fuckin' German Empire, not some mollycoddled little colony off somewhere in the wilds!"
There is a long silence, at that.
" - Prussia. He will become taller then you, he will become an adult, and then - One day, he will not need your - guidance - any more."
A smack of a mug meeting a table.
"And he will look at you and say, this is my House and I give the orders. And then what would you do, Prussia? Will you simply accept becoming a mere Providence in truth as well as name? - I am sure that you will be treated reasonably well, if you do not resist - The boy appears to have a sentimental streak, from what I have observed."
And then the is the sound of a chair moving - It must be Austria's.
"And then the Household of the German Empire will have a Nation at the helm who can not even transform. - Oh, don't look at me like that, Gilbert - If Ludwig was capable of transforming at all, it should have happened by now, and you know it!"
"I know nothing of the sort!" His brother roars back, and then hurriedly lowers his voice.
"There is no set time for that kind of thing, and you know it!"
"Well, no, technically speaking, there is not." Austria sighs, then.
" - But still, Prussia...It worries me. I fear that he is growing up too quickly..."
"......It's better then never managing to grow up properly at all, I would think."
Gilbert sighs, too, his fingers drumming on the table.
"Just... Let him be young for a little while longer. Eh?"
And then there is only the sound of the rain.
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Ludwig is terribly fond of his Kaiserliche Marine (They were going to be better then England's Royal Navy one day, better by far, just you wait -) and his U-boats, too, stealthy beneath the waves. Ships that could navigate under the seas - How fascinating!
His brother Gilbert, on the other hand, just loves his airplanes and Zeppelins - which was just to be expected, of course, though Ludwig sometimes thought about how fast new things seemed to be invented, nowadays, everything changing all the time, like time itself had started to go faster in some strange fashion, and was somewhat - uneasy - about what the future could bring. Though they did seem to be very useful, he did have to admit.
And then he meets that strange, strange Nation hiding with his paws over his ears in the tomato box, and everything begins to change.
The Italian border is so easy to get through, it just about has to be a trap - But if it is, it's the strangest trap that he ever heard of.
And then - A tomato box. Which talked.
"H-Hey, I'm a tomato box fairy! I came to be friends with you - Let's go play, alright?"
"There seems to be somebody in there..."
"No, no, there isn't anybody in here at all! Why would you want to look at my innards..."
"Damn, it's heavy...Now, show yourself!"
What falls out of the box, screeching, is cream-colored and warm and has big ears.
"Baaaaa! I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm not really a tomato box fairy - Please don't shoot me! I'll do anything, just don't shoot me..."
Wait. Wait...This was the descendant of the Roman Empire? Surely not...
"I wanted some good pasta as a last meal, baaaaaa~~"
"...I...I have a question. Are you my enemy, the decendent of Rome?"
"Oh, you know Grandpa Rome? I'm Italy, Rome's grandson. I love pasta and pizza, and - "
And that was how he meets North Italy, warm and furry and amber-eyed.
He carries Italy back to his base in a sack, warm against his back.
"Baaaaa~~, Germany? Can I have pasta?"
"I do not have any pasta on hand, though you may have meat and potatoes once we get there."
Ludwig sighs, then.
"- Italy. You are a cat, correct?"
"I think so, ve?"
"...Then why are you baa-ing? You sound like a sheep of some kind..."
"Baaaa, my brother says that too, but I've always baa'd from the first time I transformed..."
" - I see. Do you eat meat or greens?"
"I eat everything, baa, but especially pasta!"
Even as a cat...thing? Ludwig sighs yet again.
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is small and furry and cream-colored as a cat, somewhat bigger in human shape. In either shape, he never tries to escape at all, which annoys Ludwig in some strange way that he cannot explain properly. It was so - so un-military.
He feeds him properly anyway, even if he can't really make pasta every day, and even washes him when he comes home drunk and smelling of whiskey after one of his flirting-with-girls non-escapes, in cat-form of all things. Feliciano complains muzzily when he pours warm water over him, but rubs against his hand when he wipes him off with a towl.
One day, he wakes up to a warm Italy sleeping on top of him with a snickering Gilbert on the other side of the bed.
"Awww, if it isn't lil North Italy - Not so little now, it seems! Well, well, little Bruder, have you arranged some invasions of territory of the personal kind, or what?"
"Veee~~~??"
He grabs Italy, throws some clothes over him - He must have transformed in his sleep again - and tosses him back in his room, which is not quite a cell, whatever else it is supposed to be.
"Hey, hey, come on now - Don't throw him about. Awww, he's still cute, anyway..."
"Hmph. Nothing like what you are suggesting is going on, anyway!"
"Alriiiight? So you don't mind if I go and - renew our acquaintance, correct?"
Grrrr.
" - Go away, Bruder."
Gilbert can't stay at that particular base very long, but he does seem to like to hang around Italy - Feliciano - while he's with them. Ludwig makes sure to keep an eye on both of them. He didn't want to risk anything - untold - happening, after all.
"Ha ha, so you're a cat? ...Why do you baa, though? Are you sure you're not a sheep in disguise?"
"I don't think so, vee~.I've always just baa'd naturally, though everybody seems to think that it's strange..."
"Naah, naah, it's all right."
Feliciano seems to be happy, curled up on Gilbert's lap in cat-form. Ludwig does not really understand why the sight is so strangely endearing and yet so annoying at the same time.
"Say, Teuton - About the kitten here..."
" - Kitten?"
"Mmmm. There's a scrawny little kitten...thing that hangs around here sometimes, a bit funny-looking, but he just wouldn't stay still. I've been trying to talk to him, but..."
"Hmmm. Maybe it's the same kit I've seen wandering about Spec's place? Sort of weird-looking, like it's half bird or something..."
"Oh, so you know him too. Good. I was wondering if..."
Ludwig sighs, and finishes making then dinner. With big mugs of beer.
Italy can do without his wine for a change.
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Ludwig sends Italy - Feliciano - back as soon as the fighting is officially over. Feliciano squirms a bit and says that he wants to say goodbye to 'Heiny', whoever that is, but he goes quietly enough when Ludwig shakes him into cat-form (Ludwig isn't quite sure why that actually worked, but it did) and threw him over the walls, his small bag of belongings after him.
Gilbert - Prussia - loses so much of his lands, Austria and Hungary are made to separate, and France and the other countries all demand ridiculous amounts of money to pay for the damages.
The worst thing, though, is the economy, which seems to be spiraling down into a never-ending pit.
Everybody around him seemed to be miserable except Poland, who had gotten his House back and was happy as a clam, and even his economy was miserable, Ludwig knew.
Not that that seemed to stop Feliks from chasing his Bruder Gilbert around and pulling out his tail-feathers, gloating all the while.
"Ha ha ha ha, your so-called West Prussia is mine, oh former fiefdom of mine - "
Poland's transformed form is actually smaller then Ludwig remembers him being, strangely enough, but he's bright and colorful instead of a faded brown, green and grey, a small bird the colors of rainbows, plumage and tail-feathers floating across the skies.
"And my House is mine, mine and just mine, too, at long last -
"Which you will no doubt run into the ground. Again." Gilbert hisses back, bleeding and bedraggled.
"Will you stop harping on and on about that, Prussia. It's my House, and I'll run it so it suits me - "
And then Poland tosses Prussia - Gilbert - back at him, and turns to leave.
"Will you stop this, Feliks?"
"...I don't think so." Feliks snickers.
"I don't hear a please, there, either. Hey Gilbert - You should have taught your little bro to say please when he's asking people to do something~~"
"Shut up." Gilbert growls, trying to get out of Ludwig's arms. Not that Ludwig is about to let him go - not while he's in this state.
"Oh, and you should have taught him Polish too, while you're about it. What's left of your Polish is soo old-fashioned - Not that that's all bad, mind. I'll really have to see if I can make you beg again, eh?"
" - In your dreams, Polska!" Gilbert hisses, but it sounds more wearily then anything.
Feliks snickers, yet again. "Sure, sure. - Hey, Germany, did you ever try scritching his ears and wings when he's like this? You should try it~~"
" - Go away." Gilbert whispers, pushing his head into Ludwig's hair.
Feliks turns to leave with a final snicker, and Ludwig holds his brother tight.
Gilbert's - Prussia's- 'normal' transformed form is not a black eagle, no matter what the flag signifies.
It's a black crow - not even a raven, as he's not really big enough to be a raven.
Though he used to be bigger when Frederick the Great was alive, if his ridiculously, vague memories were at all relevant.
Ludwig has never told him that he doesn't care that he's not a eagle. Gilbert is a crow, and he always has been a crow, and that was all there was to it.
And that is when Ludwig realizes that Poland - Feliks - hadn't once called Gilbert a carrion eater, even in the thick of their fighting, not while Ludwig himself could hear, anyway. Others had called Gilbert that quite often, Austria, France, almost anybody his brother fought with or even besides, and Gilbert usually just laughed it off, but...
He has no idea if that is significient in any way, but he remembers it.
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Feliks is - strange, now that he is one once more, Ludwig thinks. The Poland that had used to belong to Prussia and Russia and Austria and the parts that had run off to France and whatnot apparently had all recombined into just one Feliks, and the result is even more fey then the Feliks who had used to drift through Gilbert's rooms sometimes.
And shiny. And colorful. Let us not forget colorful.
"Bruder?" Ludwig calls to Gilbert the crow, nestling against him sleepily.
"Um hum?"
"Poland seems to be...smaller then I remember, somehow. Younger. But shinier, too. He's so colorful!"
"Well, sure he is..." Gilbert grumps. "All the bits and pieces left of him came back together, and then- fires fires burning bright. He's a brand new bird now, yeah... Still nowhere as big or strong as he used to be back in the Commonwealth days, though, thank goodness."
"Oh." Ludwig murmurs. He had known, in a general fashion, that Poland had used to be a major power, back in the day, but...
"But just you see - One day I'll get it back, I'll get everything back, I -"
Gilbert rants and raves, and Ludwig pets him and tries to clean the blood off his feathers.
Fires burning bright, eh? There was a word for something like Feliks was, Ludwig thinks.
Phoenix.
Even if what he looked like now was a over-sized rainbow-hued canary, roughly the size of a crow...
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So inflation soared and soared, and the value of money sank like a stone, and Ludwig sat in his House and made Cuckoo Clocks every day, when he wasn't doing other things. What else was he supposed to do, really?
And that was when Italy, for some unphantomable reason, came back,
"Germany, Germany! Please, Germany, give me a job?"
Um, what? Was that Nation insane? Well, he'd suspected that before, but...
"My place is even worse off then yours is, and everybody's going hungry, and my family... I really need a job, Germany! Please?"
Though he really, truly doubted that Italy's economy was actually worse then his was, he ended up giving him a job anyway, printing even more money that was just this side of worthless.
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Though he did put his foot down at Feliciano trying to cuddle Gilbert in crow-form. Feliciano was a cat, baa-ing or no baa-ing, and cats should not be cuddling birds.
"But Germany~ Prussia is so cute when you pet his ears or do this along his wings when he's a crow~~"
"No, no, no, no, no - And that is final!"
"...Awww. I wouldn't eat him or anything, Germany..."
In the end, Feliciano ended up doing exactly what he wanted. Well, it was Feliciano, after all.
"You know, Gilbert, Heiny is looking so much better now - His fur is shiny and he's all sleek. His wings are growing in, too!"
"...Caw?"
"He says he admires me, though - His Leader says that he wants to follow my example! Though I suppose he means follow Benito's example, I guess...Can you imagine?"
"Caw." Gilbert sounds puzzles.
"Oh, yes, Heiny has a Boss, even though he's so tiny! He's growing up so fast, though..."
It is 1923 when Ludwig first fights something that jumps at him from the shadows of his kitchen, bites his hand, and runs away hissing and miowing when he backhands it, smashing it down into the floor.
He spends some time cleaning and binding up his hand after that, and then cleaning up the floor and the kitchen at large.
He is looking at his bandaged hand when Feliciano comes home, and looks at him.
"...Are you all right, Germany?"
" - Yes."
He had used his bone-knives, cutting deep into the small furry body, drinking blood.
Enough. Enough. Something Needs To Be Done.
Ludwig wakes up that night, feeling his right hand - the hand that had been bitten and had bit in turn- detaching itself from the rest of him.
"Hey. Hey. Come back here - What am I supposed to do without my right hand!?"
The hand, apparently, had other ideas.
Ludwig watched bemusedly as the hand inched over his entire bedroom, annoyance apparent in it's every move.
And then it found a box of old newspapers, and started to work in earnest, looking less and less like a hand as time passed, white and cleanly semi-transparent bones showing and curving.
Ludwig went back to sleep, eventually - There didn't seem to be much point in staying up, after all.
He woke up later then usually the next day, to find a little golem made of newspapers sitting on his chest, about the size of his hand.
(Take me to the Leader)
" - The Chancellor, you mean?"
(...Yes.) The little paper golem shifted a bit, twirling.
(And I want you to hold him down.)
And so Ludwig did just down, holding down the Chanceller in his chair as the little golem knelt down to him on his desk.
The Chancellor gave him a look, later that day, staring at the thing that the little paper golem had turned into, once the Chancellor had acknowledged and Chosen it in turn.
A small paper knife, made of white thin semi- transparent bone.
"What am I supposed to do with this?"
" - I think you should just...keep it with you. Sir."
And so he does.
The Golden Years of the Weimar Republic began that day, though nobody knew it.
Yet.
"You know Gilbert - Heiny says that your brother has knives in his hands. I wonder what he means?"
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