Transcendence (1c/?)
anonymous
February 9 2010, 06:26:16 UTC
There is a slight pause before England replies, “So…if there’s such a thing as reincarnation, we’ll always find each other and fall in love?”
“Yep.”
Again, England pauses slightly. “…Do you promise?”
America laughs quietly. “I promise, England…Arthur Kirkland. I promise, no matter what happens to us, I will always love you. Even if I just meet you, I’ll love you. You’ll never be lonely, unloved or unwanted…no matter what. I promise.”
And England wants to cry, because it means so much to hear that, but he can’t, he just can’t, so he settles for shifting onto his back and saying, in a quiet voice, “I think you’re going to have to prove it to me, America…Alfred F. Jones. Prove to me that you mean every word you just said, because…” He doesn’t finish his sentence. He doesn’t have to. America will finish it for him, for it means he’s accepted the challenge presented to him, even if England has utmost faith in the promise he was just given.
“It’s time,” Alfred murmurs, sitting up so that he can cradle the other nation on his arm. He presses his ear against Arthur’s ribcage, just above the heart, and listens to the steady thrum of the nation below him begin to fade, listens to his lover die, and remains so perfectly calm as he does so. “I love you, and I always will, Arthur.”
“I love you…too, Alfred,” his words are sluggish and slow, but they are packed with emotion and meaning - Alfred could not ask for anything more. “You promised…don’t forget.”
America smiles soothingly at England as the steady thrum beneath flesh and bone slows to a complete halt. His words are still audible to the nation, he knows, because as he says them, the free hand of the dead-or-dying nation comes up to press its palm against his ribcage, feeling the lifeforce of America drumming against it. “I’ll never forget a promise, and I’ll never forget this…even if I forget your face and your name. I’ll always love you.” The drumming of his own heart just seems to halt - there is no sluggish end for him - the moment he is sure England won’t come back to this lifetime.
As he feels some strange darkness wash over him, he smiles, just as England has.
This is how the other nations find them the next morning, with their fingers still entwined like the threads of their intertwined destinies, and their smiles showing how truly happy they are, even after death has taken them.
Re: Transcendence (1c/?)
anonymous
February 9 2010, 17:07:00 UTC
I'm close to tears Authoranon. That part about alfred saying that he'll love him no matter what and the paragraph i was reading it from got me in tears.
Almost lost it in the end. Is it silly that i felt that way?
Please! Please continue soon, i like to read more of it.
Transcendence (2a?)
anonymous
February 21 2010, 23:17:57 UTC
Authornon is so sorry for the uber-late update, OP and other anons! I'm glad you anons all like it so far, though! (Authornon is also excited to see the other promised fill for SpainxFrance. <3)
Yao wipes his brow with the back of his hand, heaving a heavy sigh. His eyes are focused anywhere else than Arthur’s bed. “How? They seemed fine, and…now look at everyone else!” Wiping his brow again, China murmurs under his breath, “Aiyah, why the both of them?”
France is frowning, leaned against a wall for support. In a shaking hand, he produces a handkerchief for Yao, pushing it silently closer to the sweating nation. When China takes it, he lets it slowly slip from his fingers, which then curl inward, his gloves preventing the blunt nails beneath from digging into soft flesh. “We all know as well as everyone else that, without the two of them, it will be nearly impossible to recover…” By the time Francis finishes, he is trying to catch his breath.
“It’s strange, though, how they perished at the same time,” Ivan adds. Out of the three of them, he looks the least affected by the global economy, but the dullness of his lilac irises tells China that Russia is simply hiding his suffering. The massive nation was more than likely tired, dying, and ready to give up by now.
“Oh, please,” Francis laughs a bit, struggling to regain normality in his breathing at the same time. “There’s - there’s nothing…strange - about it!” He makes his way towards the door, still using the wall as support. Before he has left the room, he adds, “They loved each other, did they not?” And he’s gone.
Russia turns to look at Yao with concern. “You know as well as I do what will happen next. What are your plans?”
“We need to alert everyone. They need to know that they’re walking on thin ice, Ivan. And they need to know now, because, if I’m correct, it won’t be long before they end up like those two.” China wipes his face again with the borrowed piece of cloth. “We’re going to have to give one another support, if we want to live through this.”
“You would be correct. I’ll make the announcement,” he pauses to give the two on the bed a look of disdain. “Figure out what you’d like to do with those two, if you’d please.” Ivan leaves the room at a fast-walking pace.
Yao doesn’t want to look at them, but he knows he has to, so he turns his head and forces himself to do so, forces himself to look at the deceased United States of America holding the United Kingdom, and the United Kingdom holding the United States of America he loved so dearly in return. With a whimpering sigh, he speaks to himself, “What am I going to do with you two?” Making up his mind seconds later to leave them there, he leaves the room, shutting the door after him, as if to give the couple long gone some privacy. He would not find them there later. Their bodies just seemed to disappear.
That night, Canada left them. And when Matthew died, others were quick to follow.
Germany, upon leaving, took Feliciano with him. The personification of Northern Italy simply could not be without him. Southern Italy, by some miracle, clung to the world of the living, fought tooth and nail to stay in it, if only because he refused to end up the way Spain did, in the end.
France died among the others at a mandatory meeting. He’d just stopped breathing, and with his eyes open, sat staring at Sweden until someone realized he was dead. It was as if he’d predicted Sweden would die next, for Sweden never woke up after he’d went to bed that night.
China, believing this to be strange, searched Francis’ home, and found, among many mementos of the nation’s life (memoirs, photographs, extensive history books), a detailed list of nations, labeled: ‘Liste Noire.’ Some were crossed out already. When he saw the date, he soon realized that Francis had made this list months before the first death took place. Yao folded the list up, stuffed it in the pocket of his uniform, and ran for Ivan’s house.
Transcendence (2b/?)
anonymous
February 21 2010, 23:19:38 UTC
“Look at this!” He shoved it into the massive nation’s hands, waiting impatiently for him to read it.
“…The last one to be crossed out is Sweden,” Russia’s eyes are wide. He looks over the list once again, disbelief showing clearly on his face. “And the first-”
“England and America. They’re listed together, see?”
“I do,” Ivan nods. “But I can’t quite believe it. Canada, Germany, Northern Italy, Spain…France…”
“Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Demark…Norway is next, Russia! We have to do something about this!” China begins to gather his things frantically.
“Wait!”
Yao stops putting on his shoes and glances up at Russia. “What? We don’t have any time left to lose, Ivan!”
“There’s…there’s nothing you can do about it, China. The dates, they…they’re all going to die tomorrow morning.” Russia holds the list up, showing it to China. “There are dates, China. And did you notice?” China slowly takes the list from Russia’s outstretched hand, looking it over a little slower this time. “There are nations that aren’t listed, either. We can’t stop this, Yao. All we can do is wait this out.”
“J-Japan, Korea-tomorrow night? But-”
“You can’t stop it, China! You can’t do anything about it! The most you can do is - is help those that aren’t on the list.” Russia takes the paper from China’s limp hands. “Come on, now. Let’s look this over…”
It was, perhaps, this list that managed to save the few nations not on it. Southern Italy took over the entirety of Italy for his brother. Finland, out of all the Nordics, managed to survive. When Germany was gone, Prussia replaced him, to live on for his brother. The only reason Russia remained with the living was due to China’s extensive assistance.
China watched the world begin anew again. He watched the nations fall, and he watched new ones rise, as he had for many, many years before. There would be more to fall and more to rise - and perhaps even he would, one day. All that he knew could be so easily destroyed.
What he would never see, and never come to know or understand if he did, was the rebirth, the new beginning, of the mortal lives of the first victims.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that you had updated this! Loved this part, as well.
Poor China, having to live through that over and over again. I like that he was trying to stop it from occurring, and that he went to such great lengths to keep Russia alive. (Thanks for not making Russia evil, by the way)
I'm looking forward to Arthur and Alfred fulfilling their promise! I shall patiently wait for your next update! :>
Blue eyes, staring down at his motionless body. A mouth on his forehead, lips against his ear. Hot breath and moist words. “I love you.”
There, a man feigning sleep in hopes of morning affection gets what he wants. He fakes a yawn and opens his eyes to those above him, seeing blue, only blue, a continual blue, something beautiful and memorable.
And Arthur’s alarm wakes him up at precisely that moment. He shoots straight up, glowering at the bright-red numbers in the dawn-light, fingers numbly turning off the loud screech of the electronic device. Again, he realizes, he has had that dream. As he dresses himself, he thinks of how strange that dream always is, but how fond of it he is, speaking aloud to his own ears as he normally does. What he says is written on paper, in a poem, amongst many other entries from days, weeks, months and years earlier.
I saw the face of a lover, A face I know and can recall, And yet I know of no other In crowds, in cities, at all.
It is in dreams, only, Where I see his eyes. Without him I feel lonely Under similar blue skies.
Yet I have not met him. I do not know who I miss. His countenance is on the rim Of my memories, like his kiss.
Afterwards he touches his lips, and sits at his small desk like a silent, untouched question. When he has shaken himself from his daydream, he curses his dissatisfaction on being late for work, and rushes from the door of his tiny two-bedroom apartment (the second bedroom empty, gone, leaving Arthur with no company for three months) with his poetry book pressed between his arm and his chest.
The streets are very busy, even in the mornings, in this city. Arthur brushes past people carelessly, glaring and letting fake apologies slide down his tongue and into open air in order to placate the angry offender and continue on his way. He knows nothing of the fateful encounter lying in wait just two feet away.
Before he’s fully aware of it, Arthur is knocked down and onto his back, staring up at the sky. What he feels first is the pain, the numb pain, and finally nothing at all. “What the hell,” Arthur glares at the man’s legs.
“Sorry about that!”
Arthur freezes as chills run down his spine. ‘That voice,’ he thinks, ‘I-It’s so familiar…’
The man that knocked him over offers a hand. “Let me help you up, okay?” Arthur glares at that hand, pushing it away and standing on his own, finally face-to-face with him. His palms are sweaty, and he feels his whole body covered in nervous perspiration; electric currents jolts through his body, coursing through his veins recklessly when he sees that face. Bright blue eyes, a warm face, confident demeanor, wheat-blond hair…the subject of his dreams and entire collection of poetry. “Are you alright, man?” It’s only when he says this that Arthur realizes he has been staring with his mouth hanging open.
Transcendence (3b/?)
anonymous
March 1 2010, 04:11:50 UTC
“Yes, I’m alright,” he recovers quickly, however, and snaps sharply at the man. “Now if you’ll excuse me, your annoying distraction has made me even later for work.”
And Arthur brushes past the man without any further conversation, ignoring the desperate cry of, “Wait!” from behind him. The blue-eyed man picks up the thick leather-bound book left, like a memento, on the concrete sidewalk where Arthur had stood minutes ago. Opening to the inside of the cover, he reads: ‘Arthur Kirkland, Magnum Opus ’. “Magnum Opus?” Looking in the direction that Arthur had took off in, the man furrows his brows, deciding to pay this store a visit in the near future as he walks the way Arthur had come.
When Arthur has reached his bookstore (fondly reading the window, Magnum Opus, with its black, looped script, and smiling at the familiar smell and the chime of the bell hanging overhead as he enters the doorway), he flips the ‘Closed’ sign to ‘Open’, walking over to the counter and setting his things down afterward. “Wait a minute,” he mutters to himself, looking about with widened eyes. With an utterance of a cry that voices his distress; Arthur realizes that he has lost his poetry book. “Ah, damn it all! I must have dropped it when that bastard knocked into me!”
Arthur forces himself to ignore the panic rushing through his mind, and instead picks up the morning paper, flipping through to make sure that his ad is still there - an ad left unanswered for three months.
Today, however, his poor luck with finding a roommate is about to turn around.
“Yep.”
Again, England pauses slightly. “…Do you promise?”
America laughs quietly. “I promise, England…Arthur Kirkland. I promise, no matter what happens to us, I will always love you. Even if I just meet you, I’ll love you. You’ll never be lonely, unloved or unwanted…no matter what. I promise.”
And England wants to cry, because it means so much to hear that, but he can’t, he just can’t, so he settles for shifting onto his back and saying, in a quiet voice, “I think you’re going to have to prove it to me, America…Alfred F. Jones. Prove to me that you mean every word you just said, because…” He doesn’t finish his sentence. He doesn’t have to. America will finish it for him, for it means he’s accepted the challenge presented to him, even if England has utmost faith in the promise he was just given.
“It’s time,” Alfred murmurs, sitting up so that he can cradle the other nation on his arm. He presses his ear against Arthur’s ribcage, just above the heart, and listens to the steady thrum of the nation below him begin to fade, listens to his lover die, and remains so perfectly calm as he does so. “I love you, and I always will, Arthur.”
“I love you…too, Alfred,” his words are sluggish and slow, but they are packed with emotion and meaning - Alfred could not ask for anything more. “You promised…don’t forget.”
America smiles soothingly at England as the steady thrum beneath flesh and bone slows to a complete halt. His words are still audible to the nation, he knows, because as he says them, the free hand of the dead-or-dying nation comes up to press its palm against his ribcage, feeling the lifeforce of America drumming against it. “I’ll never forget a promise, and I’ll never forget this…even if I forget your face and your name. I’ll always love you.” The drumming of his own heart just seems to halt - there is no sluggish end for him - the moment he is sure England won’t come back to this lifetime.
As he feels some strange darkness wash over him, he smiles, just as England has.
This is how the other nations find them the next morning, with their fingers still entwined like the threads of their intertwined destinies, and their smiles showing how truly happy they are, even after death has taken them.
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Authornon is off to get some sleep now...
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eagerly waiting for the next
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Almost lost it in the end. Is it silly that i felt that way?
Please! Please continue soon, i like to read more of it.
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I should not be so attached over fictional characters, but that just means you wrote it very well.
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This! This is definitely the sort of romantic story I was looking for. Transcending time and space to find each other, yessss.
Don't worry about being too busy, author!anon. I know this story will be worth waiting for. ♥
Thank you so much for filling this!
reCAPTCHA: renewal solace. Oh, captcha.
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Yao wipes his brow with the back of his hand, heaving a heavy sigh. His eyes are focused anywhere else than Arthur’s bed. “How? They seemed fine, and…now look at everyone else!” Wiping his brow again, China murmurs under his breath, “Aiyah, why the both of them?”
France is frowning, leaned against a wall for support. In a shaking hand, he produces a handkerchief for Yao, pushing it silently closer to the sweating nation. When China takes it, he lets it slowly slip from his fingers, which then curl inward, his gloves preventing the blunt nails beneath from digging into soft flesh. “We all know as well as everyone else that, without the two of them, it will be nearly impossible to recover…” By the time Francis finishes, he is trying to catch his breath.
“It’s strange, though, how they perished at the same time,” Ivan adds. Out of the three of them, he looks the least affected by the global economy, but the dullness of his lilac irises tells China that Russia is simply hiding his suffering. The massive nation was more than likely tired, dying, and ready to give up by now.
“Oh, please,” Francis laughs a bit, struggling to regain normality in his breathing at the same time. “There’s - there’s nothing…strange - about it!” He makes his way towards the door, still using the wall as support. Before he has left the room, he adds, “They loved each other, did they not?” And he’s gone.
Russia turns to look at Yao with concern. “You know as well as I do what will happen next. What are your plans?”
“We need to alert everyone. They need to know that they’re walking on thin ice, Ivan. And they need to know now, because, if I’m correct, it won’t be long before they end up like those two.” China wipes his face again with the borrowed piece of cloth. “We’re going to have to give one another support, if we want to live through this.”
“You would be correct. I’ll make the announcement,” he pauses to give the two on the bed a look of disdain. “Figure out what you’d like to do with those two, if you’d please.” Ivan leaves the room at a fast-walking pace.
Yao doesn’t want to look at them, but he knows he has to, so he turns his head and forces himself to do so, forces himself to look at the deceased United States of America holding the United Kingdom, and the United Kingdom holding the United States of America he loved so dearly in return. With a whimpering sigh, he speaks to himself, “What am I going to do with you two?” Making up his mind seconds later to leave them there, he leaves the room, shutting the door after him, as if to give the couple long gone some privacy. He would not find them there later. Their bodies just seemed to disappear.
That night, Canada left them. And when Matthew died, others were quick to follow.
Germany, upon leaving, took Feliciano with him. The personification of Northern Italy simply could not be without him. Southern Italy, by some miracle, clung to the world of the living, fought tooth and nail to stay in it, if only because he refused to end up the way Spain did, in the end.
France died among the others at a mandatory meeting. He’d just stopped breathing, and with his eyes open, sat staring at Sweden until someone realized he was dead. It was as if he’d predicted Sweden would die next, for Sweden never woke up after he’d went to bed that night.
China, believing this to be strange, searched Francis’ home, and found, among many mementos of the nation’s life (memoirs, photographs, extensive history books), a detailed list of nations, labeled: ‘Liste Noire.’ Some were crossed out already. When he saw the date, he soon realized that Francis had made this list months before the first death took place. Yao folded the list up, stuffed it in the pocket of his uniform, and ran for Ivan’s house.
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“…The last one to be crossed out is Sweden,” Russia’s eyes are wide. He looks over the list once again, disbelief showing clearly on his face. “And the first-”
“England and America. They’re listed together, see?”
“I do,” Ivan nods. “But I can’t quite believe it. Canada, Germany, Northern Italy, Spain…France…”
“Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Demark…Norway is next, Russia! We have to do something about this!” China begins to gather his things frantically.
“Wait!”
Yao stops putting on his shoes and glances up at Russia. “What? We don’t have any time left to lose, Ivan!”
“There’s…there’s nothing you can do about it, China. The dates, they…they’re all going to die tomorrow morning.” Russia holds the list up, showing it to China. “There are dates, China. And did you notice?” China slowly takes the list from Russia’s outstretched hand, looking it over a little slower this time. “There are nations that aren’t listed, either. We can’t stop this, Yao. All we can do is wait this out.”
“J-Japan, Korea-tomorrow night? But-”
“You can’t stop it, China! You can’t do anything about it! The most you can do is - is help those that aren’t on the list.” Russia takes the paper from China’s limp hands. “Come on, now. Let’s look this over…”
It was, perhaps, this list that managed to save the few nations not on it. Southern Italy took over the entirety of Italy for his brother. Finland, out of all the Nordics, managed to survive. When Germany was gone, Prussia replaced him, to live on for his brother. The only reason Russia remained with the living was due to China’s extensive assistance.
China watched the world begin anew again. He watched the nations fall, and he watched new ones rise, as he had for many, many years before. There would be more to fall and more to rise - and perhaps even he would, one day. All that he knew could be so easily destroyed.
What he would never see, and never come to know or understand if he did, was the rebirth, the new beginning, of the mortal lives of the first victims.
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I hope it gets better
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Poor China, having to live through that over and over again. I like that he was trying to stop it from occurring, and that he went to such great lengths to keep Russia alive. (Thanks for not making Russia evil, by the way)
I'm looking forward to Arthur and Alfred fulfilling their promise! I shall patiently wait for your next update! :>
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It hurts too much to imagine them dying one after one! It's so sad TT___TT Waaaaa~
And China... He's been seeing this before and to experience it again. It's just so cruel TT___TT -Sob-
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How sad... OMIGODD... -bawls like a baby- F5555
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
The sky…?
No.
Blue eyes, staring down at his motionless body. A mouth on his forehead, lips against his ear. Hot breath and moist words. “I love you.”
There, a man feigning sleep in hopes of morning affection gets what he wants. He fakes a yawn and opens his eyes to those above him, seeing blue, only blue, a continual blue, something beautiful and memorable.
And Arthur’s alarm wakes him up at precisely that moment. He shoots straight up, glowering at the bright-red numbers in the dawn-light, fingers numbly turning off the loud screech of the electronic device. Again, he realizes, he has had that dream. As he dresses himself, he thinks of how strange that dream always is, but how fond of it he is, speaking aloud to his own ears as he normally does. What he says is written on paper, in a poem, amongst many other entries from days, weeks, months and years earlier.
I saw the face of a lover,
A face I know and can recall,
And yet I know of no other
In crowds, in cities, at all.
It is in dreams, only,
Where I see his eyes.
Without him I feel lonely
Under similar blue skies.
Yet I have not met him.
I do not know who I miss.
His countenance is on the rim
Of my memories, like his kiss.
Afterwards he touches his lips, and sits at his small desk like a silent, untouched question. When he has shaken himself from his daydream, he curses his dissatisfaction on being late for work, and rushes from the door of his tiny two-bedroom apartment (the second bedroom empty, gone, leaving Arthur with no company for three months) with his poetry book pressed between his arm and his chest.
The streets are very busy, even in the mornings, in this city. Arthur brushes past people carelessly, glaring and letting fake apologies slide down his tongue and into open air in order to placate the angry offender and continue on his way. He knows nothing of the fateful encounter lying in wait just two feet away.
Before he’s fully aware of it, Arthur is knocked down and onto his back, staring up at the sky. What he feels first is the pain, the numb pain, and finally nothing at all. “What the hell,” Arthur glares at the man’s legs.
“Sorry about that!”
Arthur freezes as chills run down his spine. ‘That voice,’ he thinks, ‘I-It’s so familiar…’
The man that knocked him over offers a hand. “Let me help you up, okay?” Arthur glares at that hand, pushing it away and standing on his own, finally face-to-face with him. His palms are sweaty, and he feels his whole body covered in nervous perspiration; electric currents jolts through his body, coursing through his veins recklessly when he sees that face. Bright blue eyes, a warm face, confident demeanor, wheat-blond hair…the subject of his dreams and entire collection of poetry. “Are you alright, man?” It’s only when he says this that Arthur realizes he has been staring with his mouth hanging open.
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And Arthur brushes past the man without any further conversation, ignoring the desperate cry of, “Wait!” from behind him. The blue-eyed man picks up the thick leather-bound book left, like a memento, on the concrete sidewalk where Arthur had stood minutes ago. Opening to the inside of the cover, he reads: ‘Arthur Kirkland, Magnum Opus ’. “Magnum Opus?” Looking in the direction that Arthur had took off in, the man furrows his brows, deciding to pay this store a visit in the near future as he walks the way Arthur had come.
When Arthur has reached his bookstore (fondly reading the window, Magnum Opus, with its black, looped script, and smiling at the familiar smell and the chime of the bell hanging overhead as he enters the doorway), he flips the ‘Closed’ sign to ‘Open’, walking over to the counter and setting his things down afterward. “Wait a minute,” he mutters to himself, looking about with widened eyes. With an utterance of a cry that voices his distress; Arthur realizes that he has lost his poetry book. “Ah, damn it all! I must have dropped it when that bastard knocked into me!”
Arthur forces himself to ignore the panic rushing through his mind, and instead picks up the morning paper, flipping through to make sure that his ad is still there - an ad left unanswered for three months.
Today, however, his poor luck with finding a roommate is about to turn around.
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and the poem? AMAZING addition!
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