Eight Men [fanfic]
Title: Eight Men
Author: MorriganFearn
Rating: R
Characters: Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Prussia, Poland, America, Russia
Genre: Dark, History, Friendship, Drama
Pairings: SuFin, DenNor, GerIta, LietPol and hinted others
Warnings: Violence, extreme sexual situations, dark themes
Summary: August 1945. While the humans debate the proper end to the Second World War in Potsdam, the nations are already in Nuremberg, trying to decide what to do with Germany, Bulgaria, and Finland. For eight of them, Allied and Axis alike, this has just been the inevitable conclusion of history.
Chapter: Five (Part 2 of 8)
Rating: R
Characters: Prussia, Russia, France, Poland, Lithuania, Belarus
Pairings: LietPol, distressing hints of one-sided RusLiet, Belarus declares marriage to Russia as usual.
Warnings: Prussia swearing in English and German; Poland getting in touch with a sharper side of himself; Belarus losing her Catholicism; and excessive human on nation violence. Lots of kolkolkol, which is the reason behind the 'R' label. Russia has worked hard for this.
Summary: November 1866. Poland and Lithuania try to resist Russification.
Eight Men
Historical Notes
Warsaw - In January 1863 riots broke out in the Polish-Lithuanian partition of Poland. These riots were not fully quelled until the last insurgents were killed in 1865. The Uprising had many factors that helped set it in motion. Russia had just lost the Crimean War, and looked weak enough for people from the partitioned lands to think that they could become a free state once more. As a reaction to losing the Crimean War, Russia instituted a program to eliminate all differences between nationalities within the Empire. People would be Russians or traitors, end of statement. Lithuanian and Polish were no longer the languages of business, and it was illegal to use them in public. Catholic churches were demolished, while crumbling Eastern Orthodox Churches were given a fresh coat of paint. Books published in the Lithuanian language were completely banned. Serfdom had been eliminated, but the Russian nobles were griping about that, so the state paid them off, while collecting a freedom fee from the former serfs, which meant that they were now free, with no means of income, and a complete inability to get anything even remotely good as far as land went. So, in reaction to all of this, the Lithuanians, Poles, and Belorussians rose up against the Russian oppressor. Most of the people being peasants, they rose up only to discover that the Russian Army was not a friendly fighting force, and its commanders were by and large, not precisely sympathetic men.
In the Russian Grand Duchy of Lithuania there was a man named Mikhail Muravyov, who was the Governor of this district and a staunchly pro-Russians only in the Empire kind of guy. How he was viewed by his contemporaries is a bit of a mixed bag. Either he was a patriot acting in the defense of a fracturing Empire, using measures that were not unheard for his time and place, or he was a raving psychopath dressing up his violence in the guise of a tsarist. During the January uprising he hanged any insurgents he found still alive after his troops had finished burning their villages to the ground, tortured all useful information about the other local insurgents in the area from them, and possibly raped a few to be on the safe side. It was he who instituted the ban on written Lithuanian in 1864. After the uprising ended with mass deportations to Siberia, the Lithuanians decided that the only way to keep their ways alive was to keep their print culture alive. As Latin alphabet presses were banned in Russian held Lithuania, the profession of book smuggler from other continental areas became a very prestigious job. Most of the books were printed on the presses of the Prussian partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Chapter 5: That Which Is Indomitable
November 1866 - Warsaw, Russia (Warsaw, Poland)
They crashed towards the ground, Feliks internally bemoaning the fate of his lovely dress with the old velvet. Remaking this one was going to be a pain. He kicked Ivan in the stomach before the absolute behemoth could actually fall on top of him, and then rolled to one side. Russia caught himself on sturdy arms as Poland bounded upright, trembling in full out rage. "You dare take Polish away from my streets?"
Ivan's smile lit his eyes with a savage, nasty joy. "You-a liar, a cheat, and a thief, with your eyes and your arrogance. You turn my Toris against me. You turned my little sister against me. I will kill you, Польша [13]. It will be long and slow, but I will kill you."
Furious, Feliks grasped his skirt, raising it hoop and all, and kicked Russia in the face. "I never turned them against you. The totally weren't on your side to begin with!"
He found Natalya sitting in front of the statue, her skirt spread out on the ground before her, gazing inscrutably up at the sweeping wings and sword. Poland coughed. She had been crying. Not the way Ukraine cried, a massive blubbering bawl that left her face red, eyes sticky, and heart pure. No, the youngest child of Kievanrus held only silent tears in her cold body, leaving no evidence of their passing besides a slug shiny trail. Feliks hated her inhuman freakishness.
However, whatever had just happened had left a deranged young woman a wreck, and if it had been Ivan that had happened, Poland would show solidarity with the girl.
"That's the champion of God," he began.
Natalya nodded. "That is me. It is what I am supposed to be. His champion. His savior. His wife."
Poland rolled his eyes. Oh yes, Ivan had happened to her alright. The maniac had only broken Toris' hand, and shot Feliks in the lung, before beating him with a lead pipe, and who knew what he was doing to the White Russians, and his little sister would forgive-
"I am his. He does not need to tell my people to act more like his," she brought her hand up to her face, and Feliks realized in horror that her pale skin was cracking, revealing earth brown. Revealing the soil where long ago Ruthenians had stood and said that they were a people, and this was to be their land [14]. "He will not make me disappear. I am to be his wife!"
Toris would have rushed over, and tried to bandage her hands. He would have words of encouragement, and soothing stories for her. Feliks just listened, getting a feel for the fire that was driving her. Allies were allies after all. Feliks needed them.
"Well, then, Natalya, you should go out and show him, like yeah? Because he's under the impression that you need to, you know, return to the earth."
Poland slid on the cobbles, and cursed his neat boots vehemently as he rounded the corner. Frost and horse shit remained in thick ridges on the street as he flew past dull eyed humans. C'mon, alley, get closer. The rumbling of Ivan's boots on the ground behind Feliks only sped him along the street. His breath caught harshly in his chest, and he was only too aware of where the cloth around the whalebone of his corset had worn bare. Well, one should be prepared to know the trials of one's citizens, even the female contingent.
There! He barreled sideways into the welcoming shade of the alley he had been looking for. An old awning from the days when this had been a storefront on a different street cast gloomy shadows over the narrow path. With a grateful sob the nation pulled more air into his lungs, listening. Winding on the wind, the crunch of military boots on stone, and soft chanting wove their way to Feliks' watchful ears. He shook out a muddy ruffle lining the base of his lovely skirt, holding onto his hat, as the rope for the awning swung dangerously close to his head.
Ivan's bulky shadow suddenly extinguished all light. Shoulders heaving as he grabbed air, the giant nation thrust himself between the tight buildings.
"Uwolnij Kościół, Rosja [15]!" Feliks yelled, yanking on the rope.
The support joist from the awning fell and with it came down the rocks and tons of gravel that Feliks and Toris had placed there this morning. Russia was buried in an instant, and Feliks began to laugh incredulously.
A hand shot from the huge brown pile, grabbing the once white ruffle on the red velvet. Oh, right, Russia was a machine. Poland grabbed his skirt, and, feeling for the seamstress who had spent so much of her time on it, ripped the cloth from the grasping hand. They would not allow this, not ever!
He took off, jumping the pile, and continuing down the street.
"What do you think you're doing?" Feliks screamed, as he was pulled into a doorway by a familiarly cold grip.
Ruby eyes sparkled. "I thought I'd warn you off the train station," Prussia purred. "I want to see a proper fight between you and Russland."
Stamping on his hard boots produced no effect. Poland punched him in the chin. Prussia took the blow, but retained his eagle's killing grip. Ugh, this bastard needed to just grow up!
"You totally let him use your rail, like, didn't you?" the blonde hissed [16].
The Germanic country tried to step back, and shrug at the same time, a difficult feat in a recessed doorway that only allowed for one and a half men's space in any case. But the constraints of the physical world just gave the Empire the appearance of an artful lounger, his little smirk twitching around the corners of his mouth. "Gotta get rid of your dirty influence somehow, Polen. Don't worry," he tried to school his expression into something serious, but those rapacious eyes danced in foul joy, "you're helping with the unity of the Deutchesbund each time you die."
Suddenly Prussia switched his gaze, scowling at the street. Poland turned his head. France was buying a flower at a stall. Prussia stalked out of the door, his hat tipped aggressively. "Hoi, meinen Freund, was machst du heir [17]?"
France raised an elegant eyebrow. "You know I can't understand you, when you pretend to be uncouth, Gilbert. Speak in the language we all understand. Mine. Yes, madame, those lovely roses with the white tips. If I may, you are an excellent gardener. These are exquisite."
Poland slipped from the doorway. Hearing a train whistle, before the great locomotive began to chug west, he remembered Prussia's warning. Crouching low, he shoved himself into the earth, screaming a warning at the humans.
A flood of deep blue coats appeared at one end of the street. Producing a pistol from his waistband, Francis flashed Prussia a dazzling grin. "Well, if this is how it must be, mon ami."
"You'd better fucking believe it!" Prussia snapped gleefully, before gasping.
Blood flowered on his white waistcoat, only slight in advance of the steel edge that poked through. Francis laughed, as Feliks pulled out the short sword, and then the Russians were on them in a shower of delightful flower petals. Back to back the two blondes fought the uniformed, well armed soldiers. All around human screams of fury blended into song.
And then Feliks caught sight of their real opponent, beheading a child. "Rosja! Walcz ze mną [18]!"
Fire began licking over the buildings closest to the train station. Smiling at the flames, Ivan turned, cutting down one of his own men who prevented purple eyes meeting with turquoise.
"Ладно, Польша [19]."
Feliks felt Francis crumple wetly behind him over come by the sheer numbers of Russians. "Such a pity about the flowers, non?"
"Like, what kept you?" Feliks burst into the tea parlor, leaving heavy gold tassels on the curtains that roped off the private parlor swinging.
Toris, the rope burns from, like, months ago still visible under the loose collar of an ill-fitting shirt smiled nervously. "I was chained up in his basement, Feliks."
That nearly wiped the smile off his face, but like Hell was Feliks going to let anyone know that he was anything but confident and ready. He fixed Toris with a tight smile. "Aww, Lietuva, that's a silly excuse. C'mon! I pulled the dead fall on him. Time for stage three!"
"Stage three?" Toris asked, bewildered, his tea cup rattling a little on his saucer. "What did I say about making things up as you went along?"
Feliks grabbed his partner in rebellion's hand. "That it is totally the only way to get anything done!"
"I'm pretty certain my exact words were closer to 'don't invoke the Poland Rule, for the love of God!'" Liet called out, as Feliks began to pull him deeper into the tea house. Pssht. Kvailas Lietuva. Keeping his ears pricked, Feliks was happy that the only sounds he heard were the patrons, and Toris' shambling footsteps. "Alright, Feliks, what exactly is step three? My people are almost in place. Yours?"
Feliks felt his mouth harden, slightly. "We lost two of our people. Organizing this is going to take a long while on my end. But, that's like totes okay. We're already got some of the houses picked out. As for step three-,"
At the front of the tea house, the door exploded open in a shower of splinters. Above the human screams the chant was audible. Oh boy, Ivan was angry. Well, marvelously enough, angry people had a habit of making mistakes.
"Step three is we run!" and skirt and all, Feliks vaulted for the stairs, Toris trailing.
He almost thought that it was the Commonwealth again. Sharp steel whirled from Natalya's hands, in a sweeping circle of indiscriminate death. Feliks laughed, clear and bell-like as he drove Russians before him, right into Toris' waiting arms. His hands sliding along the shaft of his scythe shifted the sickle hook to swing left, just as the humans ran right.
Metal struck with meaty thunks. Metal slid free. A shot exploded past his ear. Catching the bullet with his throat, another peasant fell, his pain ripping into Feliks' heart. Poland had never felt this so keenly. So violently. The lower classes had always been Liet's people.
Whumm. A curved reaper's blade snaked by his face, neatly decapitating the oncoming Russian. Natalya appeared next to him, her face clean as snow. "This is not the time for crying. We must show Russia that we belong. That we love him."
She killed a man rushing her without a qualm.
In a murder of crows, Poland saw the shape of her mind. In the screams around her, he heard her crying. In the shine of her bright wheat-hair, and the cycle of the death in a simple farmer's implement, the Archangel visited her, filled her, and worked through her.
"Circle them to Toris!" Feliks yelled to Natalya.
Because there, in the village square, Lithuania held the day, side by side with his farmers. Not like Natalya, a vision of purity in slaughter, or Poland, crying as he realized his own lack of feeling for those flaming, raging, wonderful people he had held within his land for so many years.
They ran, one goal in mind. The street was a gulf of shadows between fires. The blood trough of a butcher's stall. It opened around them, swallowed them in darkness, until the only light came from topaz bright eyes and alabaster hard skin of two nations without homes, farm implements the only weapons to hand. Their boots slammed into muddy earth as they barreled along, heedless of the humans that they met, yet wrapped together, thrumming in their veins all those lives burst into glory, and filled their heads, lending light to the land.
Before them, the village square opened. Toris. Toris. Toris. The shadows turned with a slash of a hiltless eastern sword.
Ivan.
"TORIS!"
The shriek did nothing to reattach his head, lying at the grinning behemoth's booted feet, in rivers of human blood. Feliks drove forward, his scythe swinging high.
Ting! Steel shivered into steel with a noise that did nothing to explain the strength of their meeting. But Ivan's blocking arm twisted, turning the blades with all his strength, and knocking Poland far from the tall body. Just as a second weapon scythed through the air, delicately slicing through the cloth and flesh of Russia's back in an explosion of red.
"Brother, you will see it our way!" Natalya screamed through a river of tears.
She was behind Ivan, ripping her weapon from his spine. She could not see the light that suddenly entered his face, purple crawling from his eyes, spreading in a pool of morning star brilliance. Feliks could, and for all the bitter liquid in his mouth, his throat was dry. He tried. God he tried. But Natalya could not hear his croaked warning, or did not want to, ready to give up the burden of Champion.
Ivan sheathed his sword in black leather. The humans around them were silenced in a moment. Just a moment. As though they could feel the nations going beyond their man-shaped bounds. Russia pivoted on his little sister, the scabbard raised high. She looked up, meeting the devil in his face.
Poland watched as Natalya was crushed, her head split open, disgorging its contents to the world. Again and again and again and again and again and again. The scabbard slammed down on her loving smile.
Poland climbed out from an upper garret, Toris sliding gracefully after him, balancing carefully on rounded terracotta tile. Poland's boots skittered, their slight heels planning to send him to the street below, if not for the warping and buckling of the roof. As he turned, and hiked to the high gable, Toris began to chuckle.
"Like, what has possessed you?" Feliks called over his shoulder, trying to rearrange the tatter tasseled shawl protecting the beading on his morning jacket.
Lithuania's soft shoes, flexible for mountain climbing, or burglary-of course, Toris would be smart enough to come prepared, unlike Feliks' lovely, but impractical city walking shoes-padded over the tile. If they didn't want to give themselves away, they would have to tread very lightly until they could cross to a row of houses not connected to each other. They had to get away without getting caught, and without Feliks' people, Poland had no idea what to do next. He had to help Toris somehow. Somehow. Feliks still had his schools, he still had the church. Toris had been stripped almost to nothing, and today's plan was coming apart at the seams.
Odd. You totally wouldn't think that anything could go wrong with a plan like 'making Russia so angry that he could not notice your real objectives.'
"Oh, just thinking about how a century ago you would have been so offended by the lack of upkeep on the roofs in your capital city," Toris chuckled, in response to a question posed, like, last month.
Geeze, he never could keep up, Poland thought fondly as he carefully placed his feet. "Well, you know how circumstances can end up compleeetely changing your over-all perspective," he stuck his arms out for balance as the breeze tugged unpleasantly at his skirts. "Like, note, Toris, I totally need to change the fashions to be better for roof walking, yeah?"
He heard a smothered laugh, and turned his head slightly to see Lithuania hiding his grin in his sleeve. Wanting more of that laugh, he patted the up sweep of curls hiding under his tilted hat. "I'm like, a genius, am I not?"
"Totally," Toris agreed seriously, as he should, balancing for a moment on the thin ridge, where another building leaned drunkenly against their own to cut off the alley below. The tiles looked rotten, but once on this building they could start putting streets and neighborhoods between them and Russia. Fast as they could run.
On the other hand, those tiles looked really gray green, and chipped. Poland looked at his partner. "Like, other side of the dead roof, and then we lay low for a few seconds. I need to get my second wind in order to be totally fantabulous."
They clambered and scrambled to the perpendicular roof, which at its apex was half a story higher than the eaves of their current walkway. The trek to the other side of the lane and the jump to the next roof was nothing more than five minutes of heart stopping creaking and groaning. But they made it, sliding flat on the side furthest from the tea house.
Pale blue skies fusing to white and gray as clouds mixed without a care stretched out far above them. Poland looked up, seeing some birds flying free above the city. "Ever think that everything would be solved if we could just fly away? I mean, lose connection to the earth and just be, y'know, up there."
Toris sighed. His exasperation was only a few minutes from becoming a full raging scream. "Polska, if we could do that, we'd just fight it out up there. This is the way life is. And I don't see any end to it."
Feliks risked a peek at the kind face. Lithuania was watching the sky, his expression drawn in a frown, and his hand at his neck. The blond returned to looking at that wide open sky, which was the wide open sky of their youth, and would still be the wide open sky in a hundred years. Nothing could change that. Nothing.
"There will be, Liet. We'll get out of this, you'll see!"
Silence. Wanting to find the other's warm hand and grab it, Poland tried to shift, only to discover that he was stuck on some tiling. Lithuania cleared his throat. "He's killing our people. Your people, Feliks. My people. Natalya's people. He's eliminated my language and tried to replace it with his own. He's just trying to kill your Polish. He burned the faith from Natalya. What do you think we'll be if we get out of this?"
If. Poland wanted to sneer. If. If. If. No! Screw Ivan! The scarf wearing maniac was not going to tear them down! He was not going to win. Poland would never truly be beaten. And if he had to rig Liet's leg with pulley's and rope in order to get him to kick Ivan back, well, that was how he was going to do it.
"Kvailas Lietuva. We'll be ourselves. I know that my printers were totes uncool and got caught the other day, but there's gotta be a way to save your words."
Lithuania moaned slightly, covering his eyes with the hand that been at his neck. "There is. It was my back up plan-but you're not going to like it, Lenkija."
"Oh?" Poland propped himself up by one elbow as he tried to yank the wide sleeve of his dress free from the broken pottery. "Like what is it?"
Through a crack in the fingers, Liet's green eyes swiveled in his direction. "Really not like it, Feliks. There are a lot of my people in the old fief, and it's far enough east to get smugglers in as far as Ivan's house. All I need is the cooperation of the official land-,"
Poland ripped his sleeve from the roof. "NO! Like, seriously, Liet, are you crazy?"
"It's no weirder than the Ottoman Empire treating you as though you're still a landed country [20]," Lithuania replied.
Poland was ready to spit fire. "Yes, it totally is! Sadiq and I share a deep faith-okay, massively different faiths, but we share a deep belief in the evidence of things unseen, if you like-and we both hate Russia."
Now Toris took the hand away from his face. His smile was wry. "Oh, Feliks. Oh Feliks, have you ever-do you ever think about things from a perspective other than your own?"
"Totes no," Feliks crossed his arms, pouting. "It give me a major headache."
With a worrying creak of tiles and wood, Lithuania sat up as well. "Please, Feliks. Try to be reasonable? He definitely has the printers, and for all he and Russia are allies, it's Prūsija [21]. When is he going to turn up the chance to spit in anybody's tea? Especially Ivan's."
Feliks felt himself growing red. "He used to use you as a pin cushion for his arrows!"
"You asked him to," Liet's calm about that made something smolder uncomfortably inside Poland's cheeks.
"I didn't know you, then! He can't be trusted, Liet!"
A snort. Liet pressed his hand over his mouth, trying to suppress his laughter, tears forming on his eyelashes. "Seriously? Seriously Lenkija?" his gasping for air sounded suspiciously like sobs. "You've been partitioned three times. We watched Ivan's people destroy Natalya. We've seen churches burn. How can you even begin to imagine that trust exists in this day and age?"
Feliks was not hearing this. He absolutely was not. This was not Liet. This was some simulacrum, a homunculus done up to look like his old partner. Liet was strong, and brave, and could exist on his own. He was the kindest, most trusting nation ever born from the ground and the promise of a people. He was the heart of the earth, ripened grains, sweat, honesty, both strange and so normal that it didn't matter who you were, or how you felt, he wanted to be your friend.
"I can, and I do," Poland whispered fiercely. "We'll win free of this, and you'll get your language back on your farms, and my streets!"
That set Liet's shoulders shaking. "I'm not Finland, Polska, with land of my own. I'm not you, with free reign in Galacia, and a grudging allowance in Berlin. I live in his house. Do you understand? Natalya forgot almost all of her dialects. Her language is almost gone. I'm trying to remember her human tongue, but it's very difficult to keep one illicit language alive in Ivan's house, much less two. I need the books. Please, I already set up a meeting for-,"
Poland stared. "You invited him-,"
"To Warsawa," Lithuania nodded, his mouth twitching. "When you put it like that, it does sound kind of ironic. But, Lenkija, I'm on my last thread. I was just going to make something up and give him a square meal, if your people made it, but I guess it's a good thing that I had a back up plan, huh?"
That was Liet to the core. Thinking ahead, and ready for the worst. It made Feliks smile, even if he did not like the now inevitable solution. He focused on the wandering birds in the sky imagining the feeling of wings propelling his body aloft.
Shouts went up from the street below, the noise dragging the nation back to earth. Lithuania had been listening this whole time, because he dragged Poland flat by his elegant sleeves. "Rusai [22]."
"Kolkolkol. Я видел, как ты, Полвша! Не помочь ему, Литва [23]!"
Poland quirked a sarcastic eyebrow at his partner. "Rosja. I plan on totally not understanding that. Gotta new plan. You run-,"
Toris shook his head, biting his lip. "I know how to delay him. You run. I told Prussia to meet me at the Wheat Sheaf. Even if he doesn't remember where that is, you tend to be really good at running into people you don't like."
Poland felt his mouth stretch into a smile that strained at the edges to actually curl. He clapped Lithuania on the free shoulder. "Like, let's do this."
Lithuania shook his head with a sigh. "So much for sticking to plan. I'm counting on you, Feliks."
He rose with the agility of a cat, and toppled theatrically from the roof, only saved from multi-storied death by grabbing the leaden lip of the gutter. Cries in Russian echoed in the street below. Poland bounded onto his feet, red and black skirt swinging from its hoops. Casting a glance at the clinging fingers, his smile became quiet. "Use Lenkija, Toris. If you can keep that, you can't forget the rest. I won't allow it, right?"
"Go, will you?"
Once again, Poland took to his (amazingly fashionable) heels, clattering away across the rooftops and into an endless blue sky.
Russian he pretended not to understand poured into his ear. Poland, stuck in the watching crowd, had never felt so helpless. He tugged at the ropes once more, causing the humans around him to laugh.
"You're a monster, Ivan!" he spat, twisting his arms futilely.
From a scaffold another body jerked. Swung. Lived. Suffocated. Russia's governor was hanging two men to a crossbeam. The very first ones the portly lame human had strung up with his own two hands.
Kerosene soaked the breeze. Poland managed to wrench his head around. They-Oh God, not the church! Poland's sudden lunge forward jiggled the stake to which he had been bound. Dried branches were being placed at the base of the walls. "That one isn't even mine, you bastard!" Feliks screamed. "It's Natalya's! She's your own sister!"
The bear paw of a fist slammed into his nose. Russia grabbed his hair, twisting it cruelly around his fingers, as he drew Poland's head up to his eye level. "You twisted her! Your church and your tricks and your perversions!"
Feliks looked away from the maddened expression in scorn. "And she wants to be your savior."
"I must save her first, да."
The human over seeing it all, that murderous wieszatiel [24], crooked a finger. "Мало земли императорской России, не говорить сним," addressing the blue coated soldiers with a click of his gloved fingers, the human stared right past the two nations. "Привести последние повстанцев [25]."
Feliks felt the skin of his wrists tear as he wrenched against the bindings. Every breath through his bleeding nose burned with the fury of something that refused to heal as instantly as it should. Suddenly Russia, the fearsome guard against a fallen nation's resistance, did a sterling impression of a tree captured in the moment when its roots are severed from the trunk, but it has not yet chosen the direction in which it will fall.
The two people being lead to the final gallows tree were not people. No. Of course not. Feliks began to laugh. His laughter rang out over the village. It echoed in gutted, empty huts. It rang from the sides of the church. It wrapped around dying bodies and bloated faces. Toris, a clean white scar wrapping around his neck did not look up at the noise, or the weight of the thick rope that fell over his shoulders. Natalya twitched as the human hands guided her into place, back to back with Lithuania.
"Take them back to the prison!" Russia yelled, not using the human language he forced on them all.
His words shivered through bones. Rippled in flesh and blood. The humans halted for a moment. Feliks' laughter guttered and died with a sob like rain on already wet wood. Silence engulfed the humans. Something was wrong. Oh, something was very wrong. Eyes all swiveled to their lord. The governor. Not Russia. Not the land. Not the nation.
Feliks had seen that happen before. Once they had looked to Litwa for confirmation of Poland's orders. But never would humans look to other humans when the nation was right before them. Except for now. Ivan shivered. His flesh physically crawled for a moment, purple engulfing his eyes once more, as his pupil shrunk to a horrifying pinprick.
A gloved hand moved. "Это для вас, России [26]," the man lied through his mustache.
Ivan was transformed. He smiled, his face lighting like a young boy's asking for sweets. "See? Nothing bad will happen to them," Russia nodded. "My people are fixing them."
The ropes hoisted higher. Men lifted Lithuania into the air, clinging to his knees. Feliks watched, unable to say anything, as Natalya, small, fragile, her head swathed in bandages, rose in the same manner. Then her eyes, slate stones of things, looked straight at the prisoner and his guard. "Brother."
Another electric moment, time and thoughts crackling like frozen lightning, swished between the nations. The humans let go. Russia broke into a run toward the gallows. From the church came a roar. Thick doors shot off the building with bone crushing swiftness as fire in bursting grandeur piled from the hollow tomb of the building. Poland looked over his shoulder, as the first one nearly ripped his broken nose from his face.
Although it was invisible among the white and orange laughter of the element, he imagined that he could see the stone angel he had found the lady of the White Russians examining last year. The fires wreathed the champion of God, cracking his long blade, blackening the stony white wings, until finally the wooden nook that had stored the great angel crumbled, cracked, and disintegrated. In his mind, Feliks watched an angel fall.
In reality, he trained his eyes on the square, where Russia had been crushed by one of those doors, while the other had done the slowly asphyxiating, bent-necked humans a final mercy. Natalya's neck had snapped properly as she fell, and her lifeless body dangled there, glaze eyes accusing the world. Toris jerked and twitched, still dying, ready to swell up purple as the air slowly was starved from his face. It was quicker to drown.
The Russian governor, who was supposed to be helping Lithuania administer his land, looked at the hanging nations, the crushed Empire, and captured Poland with cold unsympathetic eyes. Looking to some ghastly boyish lieutenant, the old man nodded at the nations. "Дьявол никогда не умирает [27]."
He honestly never was going to get out of Poland's life, was he? "Behind you, Prusy. And take the salt cellar from your pocket," Feliks slid around the tavern bench, shaking the dust from his skirt. He was not going to sit-that would have required more bench maneuvering than he wanted to deal with, and Poland had no intention of taking his supper with the man.
The white haired man, still wearing his great coat, the tight sleeves in danger of being dipped in his soup as he negligently handled his spoon, started indolently at his accuser. "What the Hell are you doing here, Polen?"
The blond snorted, rolling his eyes. God, really? "This is Warsawa, Prusy. I never really left. I should ask what you're doing here, but I already know."
Prussia shrugged indolently, stretching out his legs to take up far more room under the table than was necessary. "Well, you know I never can resist a good gloat at your expense."
Poland leaned forward until he could rest his fists on the table. "Prikąsk liežuvį, Prūsija [28]. I'm not here to play games."
The white faced man whistled. "You just spoke some kind of magic, Polen. How long has it been since you last used that?"
"Oh, some time before 1793," the reply was delivered with a flippant pop of his hip, a pose which did not work well in the current fashion, and of course Poland's persecutor made certain to comment.
"You look like a street walker, Królowa. Or should I say Karalienė [29]? So, how much?" despite the bad taste of the comment, Prussia was losing his near perpetual smirk in favor of a serious, business-like face. "Or rather, why did Lithuania set the two of us up?"
Poland scowled. "You know what Russia's doing to us."
Prussia waved his spoon, letting it trail soup in the air. "Sure. We get together and trade tips. Russia's got some crazy idea that he can make us actually die if we remove the last vestiges of our culture from the humans and absorb the rest."
"You say that as though you don't want it to be true," Feliks fixed him with a hard stare.
Prussia snorted, working the smooth ancient wood grains on the table with gloved fingers. "It isn't true. The only way we can die is if we want it to happen. Stands to reason. Earth may be blown away, the people may have forgotten everything that you were and did, but there's still some kind of soul there, and until you snuff it out, nothing and no one can take life from you. But, eh, I'll let Russland keep thinking whatever he likes. Long as it keeps the bastard busy."
Feliks listened to the speech, wishing that he had sat down, if only so he could put his chin on an elbow supported fist. Duuuuuuull, Prusy, as always. "Yeah, yeah. Like, look, Prusy, I need you to supply books. In the Latin alphabet. In Liet's language. Either do it, or this is going to be a done conversation, like, get it?"
Leaning back on the bench once more, Prussia dropped the spoon in the dish, and reached into the interior of his great coat. Feliks, sensing a revolver had the soup bowl ready to smash down on the hand, but the black gloves returned bearing a book. Poland could just make out "Giesmės" [30] on the cover before Prussia tossed the small volume in cheap cardboard across the table.
Prussia made one of his little sneezy noises in the back of his throat as Poland caught the book clumsily. "You're lucky I fucking hate Cyrillic, and like Toris, Królowa. I wouldn't do this otherwise. Now, you run back, and get Lithuania, who can actually pull together a plan on occasion. He wants more of that, he's going to have to arrange it. I like the idea of hoodwinking tubguts, but it's not my ass on the line, you got me?"
Feliks was too busy staring at the book in astonishment. Prussia had one of these made up before even coming down here? It might have been just to annoy Russia, should the Empire see the smaller nation, but it was not exactly reading material for the train. On the other hand, it was exactly the kind of gift Prussia would give someone for inviting him over. Sharp, liable to get them in trouble, but too useful to throw away. A gift, in short, picked with malice aforethought, and only the mother of God knew what ahinterthought.
"Why are you like this, Gilbert? There are only, like, sixteen less complicated ways to get your point across," Poland looked up, just as the table rocked on uneven trestles, bowing under the weight of the unrecognized Empire getting to his feet.
His shoulders hunched, and Feliks got the impression of a great bird of some sort ruffling its wings. Prussia was too in love with his own standard. "Like what, Polen?"
The cheap and precious volume of paper slapped against Poland's palm. "Like this. Duh. You forbid my people their language in your streets, keep them from any job better than rag man and then you turn around, and hand Toris something like this. It's not like Russia, who, like, is loop-di-loo, and believes that we all love him or are working against him by the way the wind blows, or whatever."
A cackle rose in Prussia's throat. "I like messing with the less fortunate, I guess. What do you care, Polen?"
"Because you've always been totally weird, and I can't have Liet relying on someone who is unreliably traitorous," Feliks snapped.
Prussia drew himself to his impressive height. His upper lip lifted in an aristocratic sneer that he must have stolen, like the salt cellar, from Austria. His hand went to his hips, but he did not shove one forward into the argument. "Because you can't have, oh, of course, like, how foolish of me," he tried to make those blood pooled eyes wide and bat them in typical Poland mockery, "anything bad happening to precious Liet. My God and your God, Polen, why wouldn't I do this? Toris is a man I can respect. He is made of iron, and isn't above fighting for what he wants. Real fighting. Dirty guts, heart and soul fighting.
"You cling to him like a security blanket. You-I can't stand you. Look at yourself, tarted up like a fashionable whore, with the spine of an over-cooked Italian noodle. I can't imagine how any man could stand being in your presence without the crawling need to go take a shower just in case whatever you have is catching. You stand there, being pretty and useless, as your people slowly choke and die. It's always been this way, though, hasn't it? You find something pretty or shiny, and then that's all that matters, while people like Lithuania, and yes, me-remember the days I was your vassal state?-ran around saving your dozy kitten ass. Why shouldn't I oppress the Polish?"
Forgetting that Russia probably still remembered the morning's antics, and would be looking for Poland, Feliks over turned the table. The startling crash would have been more satisfying if it had caught Prussia underneath it, but light-footed as always he had hopped to safety. The ugly face was shining with eager excitement.
Placing his elegant heels with fierce determination, Poland strode over the wreck he had caused. "You wanna fight, you pissy little nothing of an army that can't even convert a damn pagan tribe by force without help from the big boys? What have you actually accomplished in your life, huh? Sponging off the rest of us like a giant tick. You failed in your mission to the Holy Roman Empire, and you failed in your loyalty to me, and you failed to become anything worth noticing in either Eastern or Western Europe, you failed to do everything you've set your aspirations to, and you've done it by stabbing everyone who could have helped you in the back."
"I'm the greatest fucking Empire the world will ever see," Prussia snarled, reaching out to shove Poland away from him, but Poland just yielded one side, forcing Prussia into an unbalanced slant across his body. "I made Austria grovel before me. I fought off all the powers of Europe! I partitioned you, the great Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth!"
Felicks, feeling cold fury, stuck an elbow in his side. "Yes, and didn't you need big brother Austria for that?"
"Not the second time," Prussia's barb worked like a double edged sword always did in the hands of an angry novice. His face lost what little color there was, and then he laughed nastily. "Or the third time-he just wanted a piece of the pie. Seems like he's got a thing for nations I'm done with. I dare you to find me some guilt. I dare it. I'd be happy to rip you apart for a fourth time, too, if it was possible. Hell, I would almost give you your land back just to snatch it from you again, you little shit."
The humans occupying the poor tavern, Feliks was dimly aware, were staring. They had been since the table went over, but now their gazes were shifting, and with their shifting attention, Poland shifted, too.
Prussia, tense, still looking for a fight, grimaced. "Russland?"
Over his shoulder, Feliks saw long angel wheat hair. "His messenger. Like, hate to dash, but-,"
"Totes gotta fly if you want to actually be competent about something for once," Prussia cackled. "Just remember: I won, and you lost. 'Twas ever thus, because I am-"
"A blow hard." Gritting his teeth, Feliks looked towards the door, and then eyed the back room. Natalya brought a small dagger to her lips, where scars still showed in white spider line cracks.
Prussia smirked, turning slowly to look at the messenger. "I was going to say 'awesome.' You going to run, or not?"
"I've been running all day," Feliks replied lightly, ready to meet the executioner with a joke. "I'm thinking about it. Tell you what: if I rip out your spine, and beat her to death with it, will you just acknowledge that you're a worthless piece of tripe, and limp off home?"
Gilbert eyed the back door. "I'd counter by saying I'm worth my name. Something you can't even claim, as there is no more Polska, now is there? The side door looks like your best bet."
"Thanks, I had that one figured out," Feliks rolled his eyes. "We'll totes have to continue this tea break in Berlin."
Prussia shuddered slightly at that idea. "Cabaret?"
Nodding decisively, Feliks tensed himself to run. "Oh, how well you know me."
He shot for the door, clutching Toris' book to his chest. Behind him, his heart lifted, as he heard Prussia intercept the broken doll thing that had once fought at his side.
"Guten Abend, Fraulein. Ich heiße Norddeutscher Bund. Uuf! Nicht geil, liebchen! Ich mag meinen Hände [31]."
A crash of someone hitting a table with their full weight followed Poland out of the building.
Footnotes and Annotations
[13] - 'Польша' is Russian for 'Poland' and is pronounced Pol'sha.
[14] - In Chapter One I mentioned Belarus' history giving me an almighty headache. This is part of the reason why. There was a third minority in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Ruthenians. These people were their own people, a little bit of Ukraine's people, and mostly the White Russians. They are as closely as I can figure out, the original ethnic group from which the unifying aspects of White Russian-ness come from. And remember, not all White Russians are in Belarus, and not all the people in Belarus are white Russians. Most of the books I've read have used the term interchangeably with Belorussians. That might say something about the quality of books I have. Anyway, at the time of the steam-rollering of Russification, Belorussians fought along side Poles and Lithuanians, and were symbolized by the Archangel Michael, champion of God.
[15] - 'Uwolnij Kościół, Rosja' is Polish for 'Free the Catholic Church, Russia.' Thanks to thepolishone1 on dA for the translation
[16] - As part of trying to eliminate the Polishness from the Polish partition, Prussia and Russia suddenly discovered a bonding activity between the two countries. Prussia ran the railways of the East, and to areas that were having problems with Polish strikes, and protests. So, the Prussians gave the Russian soldiery free use of the rail, and that way the Russians could come in and burn the Poles out.
[17] - 'meinen Freund, was machst du heir' is German for 'What are you doing her, my friend?' At this time, still smarting over that Napoleon business, France and Prussia were in a bit of a rivalry. One of the ways that this manifested itself was that France became a proponent of a free Polish state, and even sent foreign troops into combat for Poland during the uprisings. These troops were known as the Zouaves of Death, and they were basically a French trained militia of Polish sympathizers who fought until they were brutally slaughtered by the Russian Army.
[18] - 'Walcz ze mną' is Polish for 'fight me!' Many thanks to thepolishone1 for the correct translation
[19] - 'Ладно, Польша' is Russian for 'Okay, Poland' and is pronounced 'Ladno, Pol'sha'
[20] - The Ottoman Empire (probably because it did not want to recognize Russia as even existing) never recognized the Partitions of Poland, and still kept its Polish-Lithuanian embassy open. It was the only country of the "civilized" world not to recognize the Partitions. Just something to think about, the next time you want to try writing Sadiq. He does things other than steal baby Italies, after all.
[21] - 'Prūsija' is Lithuanian for 'Prussia.' Sounds a bit manlier than Poland's variant, doesn't it?
[22] - 'Rusai' is Lithuanian for 'Russia'
[23] - 'Я видел, как ты, Полвша! Не помочь ему, Литва!' is Russian for 'I saw you Poland! Do not help him, Lithuania!' and is pronounced 'Ya videl kak ty, Pol'sha! Ne pomoch' yemu, Litva!'
[24] - 'wieszatiel' was one of the Polish epithets for Muravyov. It means 'hangman'
[25] - 'Мало земли императорской России, не говорить с ним. ... Привести последние повстанцев' is Russian for 'Little Land of Imperial Russia, do not speak to him. ... Bring out the last insurgents' at least, I think it does. Corrections from a Russian speaker/reader would be dear to me. The pronounciation is 'Malo zemli imperatorskoĭ Rossii, ne govoritʹ s nim. Privesti poslednie povstantsev.' The choice for 'Little Land' is based on the fact that tsars were referred to as 'Little Father' as a sort of endearment for the ruler. Something you would say to express your love and appreciation for them. It sounds like the kind of address Ivan would prefer, although my translation could be miles into the wrong side of the woods.
[26] - 'Это для вас, России' is Russian for 'This is for you, and Russia' and is pronounced 'eto dlya vas, Rossii.'
[27] - 'Дьявол никогда не умирает' is Russian for 'The devil never dies.' It is pronounced 'Dʹyavol nikogda ne umiraet.' I wanted to use a plural here, but I couldn't find the plural form of 'devil' that wasn't a transliteration of the English, 'devils' or 'demons.' It works in the singular, too, so I ended up keeping it singular.
[28] - 'Prikąsk liežuvį, Prūsija' is Lithuanian for 'Shut up, Prussia.' (I hope, again, if you speak it, drop me a line.)
[29] - 'Karalienė' is Lithuanian for 'Queen.'
[30] - 'Giesmės' is Lithuanian for 'Hymns'
[31] - 'Guten Abend, Fraulein. Ich heiße Norddeutscher Bund. Uuf! Nicht geil, liebchen! Ich mag meinen Hände' is German for 'Good evening, miss. My name is Confederation of Northern Germany. Uuf! Hey, not nice, darling. I like my hands.'
Links to Other PartsGo Back a Section: That Which Is Indomitable - Part One
Go Forward a Section: That Which Is Indomitable - Part Three
Author: MorriganFearn
Rating: R
Characters: Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Prussia, Poland, America, Russia
Genre: Dark, History, Friendship, Drama
Pairings: SuFin, DenNor, GerIta, LietPol and hinted others
Warnings: Violence, extreme sexual situations, dark themes
Summary: August 1945. While the humans debate the proper end to the Second World War in Potsdam, the nations are already in Nuremberg, trying to decide what to do with Germany, Bulgaria, and Finland. For eight of them, Allied and Axis alike, this has just been the inevitable conclusion of history.
Chapter: Five (Part 2 of 8)
Rating: R
Characters: Prussia, Russia, France, Poland, Lithuania, Belarus
Pairings: LietPol, distressing hints of one-sided RusLiet, Belarus declares marriage to Russia as usual.
Warnings: Prussia swearing in English and German; Poland getting in touch with a sharper side of himself; Belarus losing her Catholicism; and excessive human on nation violence. Lots of kolkolkol, which is the reason behind the 'R' label. Russia has worked hard for this.
Summary: November 1866. Poland and Lithuania try to resist Russification.
Eight Men
Historical Notes
Warsaw - In January 1863 riots broke out in the Polish-Lithuanian partition of Poland. These riots were not fully quelled until the last insurgents were killed in 1865. The Uprising had many factors that helped set it in motion. Russia had just lost the Crimean War, and looked weak enough for people from the partitioned lands to think that they could become a free state once more. As a reaction to losing the Crimean War, Russia instituted a program to eliminate all differences between nationalities within the Empire. People would be Russians or traitors, end of statement. Lithuanian and Polish were no longer the languages of business, and it was illegal to use them in public. Catholic churches were demolished, while crumbling Eastern Orthodox Churches were given a fresh coat of paint. Books published in the Lithuanian language were completely banned. Serfdom had been eliminated, but the Russian nobles were griping about that, so the state paid them off, while collecting a freedom fee from the former serfs, which meant that they were now free, with no means of income, and a complete inability to get anything even remotely good as far as land went. So, in reaction to all of this, the Lithuanians, Poles, and Belorussians rose up against the Russian oppressor. Most of the people being peasants, they rose up only to discover that the Russian Army was not a friendly fighting force, and its commanders were by and large, not precisely sympathetic men.
In the Russian Grand Duchy of Lithuania there was a man named Mikhail Muravyov, who was the Governor of this district and a staunchly pro-Russians only in the Empire kind of guy. How he was viewed by his contemporaries is a bit of a mixed bag. Either he was a patriot acting in the defense of a fracturing Empire, using measures that were not unheard for his time and place, or he was a raving psychopath dressing up his violence in the guise of a tsarist. During the January uprising he hanged any insurgents he found still alive after his troops had finished burning their villages to the ground, tortured all useful information about the other local insurgents in the area from them, and possibly raped a few to be on the safe side. It was he who instituted the ban on written Lithuanian in 1864. After the uprising ended with mass deportations to Siberia, the Lithuanians decided that the only way to keep their ways alive was to keep their print culture alive. As Latin alphabet presses were banned in Russian held Lithuania, the profession of book smuggler from other continental areas became a very prestigious job. Most of the books were printed on the presses of the Prussian partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Chapter 5: That Which Is Indomitable
November 1866 - Warsaw, Russia (Warsaw, Poland)
They crashed towards the ground, Feliks internally bemoaning the fate of his lovely dress with the old velvet. Remaking this one was going to be a pain. He kicked Ivan in the stomach before the absolute behemoth could actually fall on top of him, and then rolled to one side. Russia caught himself on sturdy arms as Poland bounded upright, trembling in full out rage. "You dare take Polish away from my streets?"
Ivan's smile lit his eyes with a savage, nasty joy. "You-a liar, a cheat, and a thief, with your eyes and your arrogance. You turn my Toris against me. You turned my little sister against me. I will kill you, Польша [13]. It will be long and slow, but I will kill you."
Furious, Feliks grasped his skirt, raising it hoop and all, and kicked Russia in the face. "I never turned them against you. The totally weren't on your side to begin with!"
He found Natalya sitting in front of the statue, her skirt spread out on the ground before her, gazing inscrutably up at the sweeping wings and sword. Poland coughed. She had been crying. Not the way Ukraine cried, a massive blubbering bawl that left her face red, eyes sticky, and heart pure. No, the youngest child of Kievanrus held only silent tears in her cold body, leaving no evidence of their passing besides a slug shiny trail. Feliks hated her inhuman freakishness.
However, whatever had just happened had left a deranged young woman a wreck, and if it had been Ivan that had happened, Poland would show solidarity with the girl.
"That's the champion of God," he began.
Natalya nodded. "That is me. It is what I am supposed to be. His champion. His savior. His wife."
Poland rolled his eyes. Oh yes, Ivan had happened to her alright. The maniac had only broken Toris' hand, and shot Feliks in the lung, before beating him with a lead pipe, and who knew what he was doing to the White Russians, and his little sister would forgive-
"I am his. He does not need to tell my people to act more like his," she brought her hand up to her face, and Feliks realized in horror that her pale skin was cracking, revealing earth brown. Revealing the soil where long ago Ruthenians had stood and said that they were a people, and this was to be their land [14]. "He will not make me disappear. I am to be his wife!"
Toris would have rushed over, and tried to bandage her hands. He would have words of encouragement, and soothing stories for her. Feliks just listened, getting a feel for the fire that was driving her. Allies were allies after all. Feliks needed them.
"Well, then, Natalya, you should go out and show him, like yeah? Because he's under the impression that you need to, you know, return to the earth."
Poland slid on the cobbles, and cursed his neat boots vehemently as he rounded the corner. Frost and horse shit remained in thick ridges on the street as he flew past dull eyed humans. C'mon, alley, get closer. The rumbling of Ivan's boots on the ground behind Feliks only sped him along the street. His breath caught harshly in his chest, and he was only too aware of where the cloth around the whalebone of his corset had worn bare. Well, one should be prepared to know the trials of one's citizens, even the female contingent.
There! He barreled sideways into the welcoming shade of the alley he had been looking for. An old awning from the days when this had been a storefront on a different street cast gloomy shadows over the narrow path. With a grateful sob the nation pulled more air into his lungs, listening. Winding on the wind, the crunch of military boots on stone, and soft chanting wove their way to Feliks' watchful ears. He shook out a muddy ruffle lining the base of his lovely skirt, holding onto his hat, as the rope for the awning swung dangerously close to his head.
Ivan's bulky shadow suddenly extinguished all light. Shoulders heaving as he grabbed air, the giant nation thrust himself between the tight buildings.
"Uwolnij Kościół, Rosja [15]!" Feliks yelled, yanking on the rope.
The support joist from the awning fell and with it came down the rocks and tons of gravel that Feliks and Toris had placed there this morning. Russia was buried in an instant, and Feliks began to laugh incredulously.
A hand shot from the huge brown pile, grabbing the once white ruffle on the red velvet. Oh, right, Russia was a machine. Poland grabbed his skirt, and, feeling for the seamstress who had spent so much of her time on it, ripped the cloth from the grasping hand. They would not allow this, not ever!
He took off, jumping the pile, and continuing down the street.
"What do you think you're doing?" Feliks screamed, as he was pulled into a doorway by a familiarly cold grip.
Ruby eyes sparkled. "I thought I'd warn you off the train station," Prussia purred. "I want to see a proper fight between you and Russland."
Stamping on his hard boots produced no effect. Poland punched him in the chin. Prussia took the blow, but retained his eagle's killing grip. Ugh, this bastard needed to just grow up!
"You totally let him use your rail, like, didn't you?" the blonde hissed [16].
The Germanic country tried to step back, and shrug at the same time, a difficult feat in a recessed doorway that only allowed for one and a half men's space in any case. But the constraints of the physical world just gave the Empire the appearance of an artful lounger, his little smirk twitching around the corners of his mouth. "Gotta get rid of your dirty influence somehow, Polen. Don't worry," he tried to school his expression into something serious, but those rapacious eyes danced in foul joy, "you're helping with the unity of the Deutchesbund each time you die."
Suddenly Prussia switched his gaze, scowling at the street. Poland turned his head. France was buying a flower at a stall. Prussia stalked out of the door, his hat tipped aggressively. "Hoi, meinen Freund, was machst du heir [17]?"
France raised an elegant eyebrow. "You know I can't understand you, when you pretend to be uncouth, Gilbert. Speak in the language we all understand. Mine. Yes, madame, those lovely roses with the white tips. If I may, you are an excellent gardener. These are exquisite."
Poland slipped from the doorway. Hearing a train whistle, before the great locomotive began to chug west, he remembered Prussia's warning. Crouching low, he shoved himself into the earth, screaming a warning at the humans.
A flood of deep blue coats appeared at one end of the street. Producing a pistol from his waistband, Francis flashed Prussia a dazzling grin. "Well, if this is how it must be, mon ami."
"You'd better fucking believe it!" Prussia snapped gleefully, before gasping.
Blood flowered on his white waistcoat, only slight in advance of the steel edge that poked through. Francis laughed, as Feliks pulled out the short sword, and then the Russians were on them in a shower of delightful flower petals. Back to back the two blondes fought the uniformed, well armed soldiers. All around human screams of fury blended into song.
And then Feliks caught sight of their real opponent, beheading a child. "Rosja! Walcz ze mną [18]!"
Fire began licking over the buildings closest to the train station. Smiling at the flames, Ivan turned, cutting down one of his own men who prevented purple eyes meeting with turquoise.
"Ладно, Польша [19]."
Feliks felt Francis crumple wetly behind him over come by the sheer numbers of Russians. "Such a pity about the flowers, non?"
"Like, what kept you?" Feliks burst into the tea parlor, leaving heavy gold tassels on the curtains that roped off the private parlor swinging.
Toris, the rope burns from, like, months ago still visible under the loose collar of an ill-fitting shirt smiled nervously. "I was chained up in his basement, Feliks."
That nearly wiped the smile off his face, but like Hell was Feliks going to let anyone know that he was anything but confident and ready. He fixed Toris with a tight smile. "Aww, Lietuva, that's a silly excuse. C'mon! I pulled the dead fall on him. Time for stage three!"
"Stage three?" Toris asked, bewildered, his tea cup rattling a little on his saucer. "What did I say about making things up as you went along?"
Feliks grabbed his partner in rebellion's hand. "That it is totally the only way to get anything done!"
"I'm pretty certain my exact words were closer to 'don't invoke the Poland Rule, for the love of God!'" Liet called out, as Feliks began to pull him deeper into the tea house. Pssht. Kvailas Lietuva. Keeping his ears pricked, Feliks was happy that the only sounds he heard were the patrons, and Toris' shambling footsteps. "Alright, Feliks, what exactly is step three? My people are almost in place. Yours?"
Feliks felt his mouth harden, slightly. "We lost two of our people. Organizing this is going to take a long while on my end. But, that's like totes okay. We're already got some of the houses picked out. As for step three-,"
At the front of the tea house, the door exploded open in a shower of splinters. Above the human screams the chant was audible. Oh boy, Ivan was angry. Well, marvelously enough, angry people had a habit of making mistakes.
"Step three is we run!" and skirt and all, Feliks vaulted for the stairs, Toris trailing.
He almost thought that it was the Commonwealth again. Sharp steel whirled from Natalya's hands, in a sweeping circle of indiscriminate death. Feliks laughed, clear and bell-like as he drove Russians before him, right into Toris' waiting arms. His hands sliding along the shaft of his scythe shifted the sickle hook to swing left, just as the humans ran right.
Metal struck with meaty thunks. Metal slid free. A shot exploded past his ear. Catching the bullet with his throat, another peasant fell, his pain ripping into Feliks' heart. Poland had never felt this so keenly. So violently. The lower classes had always been Liet's people.
Whumm. A curved reaper's blade snaked by his face, neatly decapitating the oncoming Russian. Natalya appeared next to him, her face clean as snow. "This is not the time for crying. We must show Russia that we belong. That we love him."
She killed a man rushing her without a qualm.
In a murder of crows, Poland saw the shape of her mind. In the screams around her, he heard her crying. In the shine of her bright wheat-hair, and the cycle of the death in a simple farmer's implement, the Archangel visited her, filled her, and worked through her.
"Circle them to Toris!" Feliks yelled to Natalya.
Because there, in the village square, Lithuania held the day, side by side with his farmers. Not like Natalya, a vision of purity in slaughter, or Poland, crying as he realized his own lack of feeling for those flaming, raging, wonderful people he had held within his land for so many years.
They ran, one goal in mind. The street was a gulf of shadows between fires. The blood trough of a butcher's stall. It opened around them, swallowed them in darkness, until the only light came from topaz bright eyes and alabaster hard skin of two nations without homes, farm implements the only weapons to hand. Their boots slammed into muddy earth as they barreled along, heedless of the humans that they met, yet wrapped together, thrumming in their veins all those lives burst into glory, and filled their heads, lending light to the land.
Before them, the village square opened. Toris. Toris. Toris. The shadows turned with a slash of a hiltless eastern sword.
Ivan.
"TORIS!"
The shriek did nothing to reattach his head, lying at the grinning behemoth's booted feet, in rivers of human blood. Feliks drove forward, his scythe swinging high.
Ting! Steel shivered into steel with a noise that did nothing to explain the strength of their meeting. But Ivan's blocking arm twisted, turning the blades with all his strength, and knocking Poland far from the tall body. Just as a second weapon scythed through the air, delicately slicing through the cloth and flesh of Russia's back in an explosion of red.
"Brother, you will see it our way!" Natalya screamed through a river of tears.
She was behind Ivan, ripping her weapon from his spine. She could not see the light that suddenly entered his face, purple crawling from his eyes, spreading in a pool of morning star brilliance. Feliks could, and for all the bitter liquid in his mouth, his throat was dry. He tried. God he tried. But Natalya could not hear his croaked warning, or did not want to, ready to give up the burden of Champion.
Ivan sheathed his sword in black leather. The humans around them were silenced in a moment. Just a moment. As though they could feel the nations going beyond their man-shaped bounds. Russia pivoted on his little sister, the scabbard raised high. She looked up, meeting the devil in his face.
Poland watched as Natalya was crushed, her head split open, disgorging its contents to the world. Again and again and again and again and again and again. The scabbard slammed down on her loving smile.
Poland climbed out from an upper garret, Toris sliding gracefully after him, balancing carefully on rounded terracotta tile. Poland's boots skittered, their slight heels planning to send him to the street below, if not for the warping and buckling of the roof. As he turned, and hiked to the high gable, Toris began to chuckle.
"Like, what has possessed you?" Feliks called over his shoulder, trying to rearrange the tatter tasseled shawl protecting the beading on his morning jacket.
Lithuania's soft shoes, flexible for mountain climbing, or burglary-of course, Toris would be smart enough to come prepared, unlike Feliks' lovely, but impractical city walking shoes-padded over the tile. If they didn't want to give themselves away, they would have to tread very lightly until they could cross to a row of houses not connected to each other. They had to get away without getting caught, and without Feliks' people, Poland had no idea what to do next. He had to help Toris somehow. Somehow. Feliks still had his schools, he still had the church. Toris had been stripped almost to nothing, and today's plan was coming apart at the seams.
Odd. You totally wouldn't think that anything could go wrong with a plan like 'making Russia so angry that he could not notice your real objectives.'
"Oh, just thinking about how a century ago you would have been so offended by the lack of upkeep on the roofs in your capital city," Toris chuckled, in response to a question posed, like, last month.
Geeze, he never could keep up, Poland thought fondly as he carefully placed his feet. "Well, you know how circumstances can end up compleeetely changing your over-all perspective," he stuck his arms out for balance as the breeze tugged unpleasantly at his skirts. "Like, note, Toris, I totally need to change the fashions to be better for roof walking, yeah?"
He heard a smothered laugh, and turned his head slightly to see Lithuania hiding his grin in his sleeve. Wanting more of that laugh, he patted the up sweep of curls hiding under his tilted hat. "I'm like, a genius, am I not?"
"Totally," Toris agreed seriously, as he should, balancing for a moment on the thin ridge, where another building leaned drunkenly against their own to cut off the alley below. The tiles looked rotten, but once on this building they could start putting streets and neighborhoods between them and Russia. Fast as they could run.
On the other hand, those tiles looked really gray green, and chipped. Poland looked at his partner. "Like, other side of the dead roof, and then we lay low for a few seconds. I need to get my second wind in order to be totally fantabulous."
They clambered and scrambled to the perpendicular roof, which at its apex was half a story higher than the eaves of their current walkway. The trek to the other side of the lane and the jump to the next roof was nothing more than five minutes of heart stopping creaking and groaning. But they made it, sliding flat on the side furthest from the tea house.
Pale blue skies fusing to white and gray as clouds mixed without a care stretched out far above them. Poland looked up, seeing some birds flying free above the city. "Ever think that everything would be solved if we could just fly away? I mean, lose connection to the earth and just be, y'know, up there."
Toris sighed. His exasperation was only a few minutes from becoming a full raging scream. "Polska, if we could do that, we'd just fight it out up there. This is the way life is. And I don't see any end to it."
Feliks risked a peek at the kind face. Lithuania was watching the sky, his expression drawn in a frown, and his hand at his neck. The blond returned to looking at that wide open sky, which was the wide open sky of their youth, and would still be the wide open sky in a hundred years. Nothing could change that. Nothing.
"There will be, Liet. We'll get out of this, you'll see!"
Silence. Wanting to find the other's warm hand and grab it, Poland tried to shift, only to discover that he was stuck on some tiling. Lithuania cleared his throat. "He's killing our people. Your people, Feliks. My people. Natalya's people. He's eliminated my language and tried to replace it with his own. He's just trying to kill your Polish. He burned the faith from Natalya. What do you think we'll be if we get out of this?"
If. Poland wanted to sneer. If. If. If. No! Screw Ivan! The scarf wearing maniac was not going to tear them down! He was not going to win. Poland would never truly be beaten. And if he had to rig Liet's leg with pulley's and rope in order to get him to kick Ivan back, well, that was how he was going to do it.
"Kvailas Lietuva. We'll be ourselves. I know that my printers were totes uncool and got caught the other day, but there's gotta be a way to save your words."
Lithuania moaned slightly, covering his eyes with the hand that been at his neck. "There is. It was my back up plan-but you're not going to like it, Lenkija."
"Oh?" Poland propped himself up by one elbow as he tried to yank the wide sleeve of his dress free from the broken pottery. "Like what is it?"
Through a crack in the fingers, Liet's green eyes swiveled in his direction. "Really not like it, Feliks. There are a lot of my people in the old fief, and it's far enough east to get smugglers in as far as Ivan's house. All I need is the cooperation of the official land-,"
Poland ripped his sleeve from the roof. "NO! Like, seriously, Liet, are you crazy?"
"It's no weirder than the Ottoman Empire treating you as though you're still a landed country [20]," Lithuania replied.
Poland was ready to spit fire. "Yes, it totally is! Sadiq and I share a deep faith-okay, massively different faiths, but we share a deep belief in the evidence of things unseen, if you like-and we both hate Russia."
Now Toris took the hand away from his face. His smile was wry. "Oh, Feliks. Oh Feliks, have you ever-do you ever think about things from a perspective other than your own?"
"Totes no," Feliks crossed his arms, pouting. "It give me a major headache."
With a worrying creak of tiles and wood, Lithuania sat up as well. "Please, Feliks. Try to be reasonable? He definitely has the printers, and for all he and Russia are allies, it's Prūsija [21]. When is he going to turn up the chance to spit in anybody's tea? Especially Ivan's."
Feliks felt himself growing red. "He used to use you as a pin cushion for his arrows!"
"You asked him to," Liet's calm about that made something smolder uncomfortably inside Poland's cheeks.
"I didn't know you, then! He can't be trusted, Liet!"
A snort. Liet pressed his hand over his mouth, trying to suppress his laughter, tears forming on his eyelashes. "Seriously? Seriously Lenkija?" his gasping for air sounded suspiciously like sobs. "You've been partitioned three times. We watched Ivan's people destroy Natalya. We've seen churches burn. How can you even begin to imagine that trust exists in this day and age?"
Feliks was not hearing this. He absolutely was not. This was not Liet. This was some simulacrum, a homunculus done up to look like his old partner. Liet was strong, and brave, and could exist on his own. He was the kindest, most trusting nation ever born from the ground and the promise of a people. He was the heart of the earth, ripened grains, sweat, honesty, both strange and so normal that it didn't matter who you were, or how you felt, he wanted to be your friend.
"I can, and I do," Poland whispered fiercely. "We'll win free of this, and you'll get your language back on your farms, and my streets!"
That set Liet's shoulders shaking. "I'm not Finland, Polska, with land of my own. I'm not you, with free reign in Galacia, and a grudging allowance in Berlin. I live in his house. Do you understand? Natalya forgot almost all of her dialects. Her language is almost gone. I'm trying to remember her human tongue, but it's very difficult to keep one illicit language alive in Ivan's house, much less two. I need the books. Please, I already set up a meeting for-,"
Poland stared. "You invited him-,"
"To Warsawa," Lithuania nodded, his mouth twitching. "When you put it like that, it does sound kind of ironic. But, Lenkija, I'm on my last thread. I was just going to make something up and give him a square meal, if your people made it, but I guess it's a good thing that I had a back up plan, huh?"
That was Liet to the core. Thinking ahead, and ready for the worst. It made Feliks smile, even if he did not like the now inevitable solution. He focused on the wandering birds in the sky imagining the feeling of wings propelling his body aloft.
Shouts went up from the street below, the noise dragging the nation back to earth. Lithuania had been listening this whole time, because he dragged Poland flat by his elegant sleeves. "Rusai [22]."
"Kolkolkol. Я видел, как ты, Полвша! Не помочь ему, Литва [23]!"
Poland quirked a sarcastic eyebrow at his partner. "Rosja. I plan on totally not understanding that. Gotta new plan. You run-,"
Toris shook his head, biting his lip. "I know how to delay him. You run. I told Prussia to meet me at the Wheat Sheaf. Even if he doesn't remember where that is, you tend to be really good at running into people you don't like."
Poland felt his mouth stretch into a smile that strained at the edges to actually curl. He clapped Lithuania on the free shoulder. "Like, let's do this."
Lithuania shook his head with a sigh. "So much for sticking to plan. I'm counting on you, Feliks."
He rose with the agility of a cat, and toppled theatrically from the roof, only saved from multi-storied death by grabbing the leaden lip of the gutter. Cries in Russian echoed in the street below. Poland bounded onto his feet, red and black skirt swinging from its hoops. Casting a glance at the clinging fingers, his smile became quiet. "Use Lenkija, Toris. If you can keep that, you can't forget the rest. I won't allow it, right?"
"Go, will you?"
Once again, Poland took to his (amazingly fashionable) heels, clattering away across the rooftops and into an endless blue sky.
Russian he pretended not to understand poured into his ear. Poland, stuck in the watching crowd, had never felt so helpless. He tugged at the ropes once more, causing the humans around him to laugh.
"You're a monster, Ivan!" he spat, twisting his arms futilely.
From a scaffold another body jerked. Swung. Lived. Suffocated. Russia's governor was hanging two men to a crossbeam. The very first ones the portly lame human had strung up with his own two hands.
Kerosene soaked the breeze. Poland managed to wrench his head around. They-Oh God, not the church! Poland's sudden lunge forward jiggled the stake to which he had been bound. Dried branches were being placed at the base of the walls. "That one isn't even mine, you bastard!" Feliks screamed. "It's Natalya's! She's your own sister!"
The bear paw of a fist slammed into his nose. Russia grabbed his hair, twisting it cruelly around his fingers, as he drew Poland's head up to his eye level. "You twisted her! Your church and your tricks and your perversions!"
Feliks looked away from the maddened expression in scorn. "And she wants to be your savior."
"I must save her first, да."
The human over seeing it all, that murderous wieszatiel [24], crooked a finger. "Мало земли императорской России, не говорить сним," addressing the blue coated soldiers with a click of his gloved fingers, the human stared right past the two nations. "Привести последние повстанцев [25]."
Feliks felt the skin of his wrists tear as he wrenched against the bindings. Every breath through his bleeding nose burned with the fury of something that refused to heal as instantly as it should. Suddenly Russia, the fearsome guard against a fallen nation's resistance, did a sterling impression of a tree captured in the moment when its roots are severed from the trunk, but it has not yet chosen the direction in which it will fall.
The two people being lead to the final gallows tree were not people. No. Of course not. Feliks began to laugh. His laughter rang out over the village. It echoed in gutted, empty huts. It rang from the sides of the church. It wrapped around dying bodies and bloated faces. Toris, a clean white scar wrapping around his neck did not look up at the noise, or the weight of the thick rope that fell over his shoulders. Natalya twitched as the human hands guided her into place, back to back with Lithuania.
"Take them back to the prison!" Russia yelled, not using the human language he forced on them all.
His words shivered through bones. Rippled in flesh and blood. The humans halted for a moment. Feliks' laughter guttered and died with a sob like rain on already wet wood. Silence engulfed the humans. Something was wrong. Oh, something was very wrong. Eyes all swiveled to their lord. The governor. Not Russia. Not the land. Not the nation.
Feliks had seen that happen before. Once they had looked to Litwa for confirmation of Poland's orders. But never would humans look to other humans when the nation was right before them. Except for now. Ivan shivered. His flesh physically crawled for a moment, purple engulfing his eyes once more, as his pupil shrunk to a horrifying pinprick.
A gloved hand moved. "Это для вас, России [26]," the man lied through his mustache.
Ivan was transformed. He smiled, his face lighting like a young boy's asking for sweets. "See? Nothing bad will happen to them," Russia nodded. "My people are fixing them."
The ropes hoisted higher. Men lifted Lithuania into the air, clinging to his knees. Feliks watched, unable to say anything, as Natalya, small, fragile, her head swathed in bandages, rose in the same manner. Then her eyes, slate stones of things, looked straight at the prisoner and his guard. "Brother."
Another electric moment, time and thoughts crackling like frozen lightning, swished between the nations. The humans let go. Russia broke into a run toward the gallows. From the church came a roar. Thick doors shot off the building with bone crushing swiftness as fire in bursting grandeur piled from the hollow tomb of the building. Poland looked over his shoulder, as the first one nearly ripped his broken nose from his face.
Although it was invisible among the white and orange laughter of the element, he imagined that he could see the stone angel he had found the lady of the White Russians examining last year. The fires wreathed the champion of God, cracking his long blade, blackening the stony white wings, until finally the wooden nook that had stored the great angel crumbled, cracked, and disintegrated. In his mind, Feliks watched an angel fall.
In reality, he trained his eyes on the square, where Russia had been crushed by one of those doors, while the other had done the slowly asphyxiating, bent-necked humans a final mercy. Natalya's neck had snapped properly as she fell, and her lifeless body dangled there, glaze eyes accusing the world. Toris jerked and twitched, still dying, ready to swell up purple as the air slowly was starved from his face. It was quicker to drown.
The Russian governor, who was supposed to be helping Lithuania administer his land, looked at the hanging nations, the crushed Empire, and captured Poland with cold unsympathetic eyes. Looking to some ghastly boyish lieutenant, the old man nodded at the nations. "Дьявол никогда не умирает [27]."
He honestly never was going to get out of Poland's life, was he? "Behind you, Prusy. And take the salt cellar from your pocket," Feliks slid around the tavern bench, shaking the dust from his skirt. He was not going to sit-that would have required more bench maneuvering than he wanted to deal with, and Poland had no intention of taking his supper with the man.
The white haired man, still wearing his great coat, the tight sleeves in danger of being dipped in his soup as he negligently handled his spoon, started indolently at his accuser. "What the Hell are you doing here, Polen?"
The blond snorted, rolling his eyes. God, really? "This is Warsawa, Prusy. I never really left. I should ask what you're doing here, but I already know."
Prussia shrugged indolently, stretching out his legs to take up far more room under the table than was necessary. "Well, you know I never can resist a good gloat at your expense."
Poland leaned forward until he could rest his fists on the table. "Prikąsk liežuvį, Prūsija [28]. I'm not here to play games."
The white faced man whistled. "You just spoke some kind of magic, Polen. How long has it been since you last used that?"
"Oh, some time before 1793," the reply was delivered with a flippant pop of his hip, a pose which did not work well in the current fashion, and of course Poland's persecutor made certain to comment.
"You look like a street walker, Królowa. Or should I say Karalienė [29]? So, how much?" despite the bad taste of the comment, Prussia was losing his near perpetual smirk in favor of a serious, business-like face. "Or rather, why did Lithuania set the two of us up?"
Poland scowled. "You know what Russia's doing to us."
Prussia waved his spoon, letting it trail soup in the air. "Sure. We get together and trade tips. Russia's got some crazy idea that he can make us actually die if we remove the last vestiges of our culture from the humans and absorb the rest."
"You say that as though you don't want it to be true," Feliks fixed him with a hard stare.
Prussia snorted, working the smooth ancient wood grains on the table with gloved fingers. "It isn't true. The only way we can die is if we want it to happen. Stands to reason. Earth may be blown away, the people may have forgotten everything that you were and did, but there's still some kind of soul there, and until you snuff it out, nothing and no one can take life from you. But, eh, I'll let Russland keep thinking whatever he likes. Long as it keeps the bastard busy."
Feliks listened to the speech, wishing that he had sat down, if only so he could put his chin on an elbow supported fist. Duuuuuuull, Prusy, as always. "Yeah, yeah. Like, look, Prusy, I need you to supply books. In the Latin alphabet. In Liet's language. Either do it, or this is going to be a done conversation, like, get it?"
Leaning back on the bench once more, Prussia dropped the spoon in the dish, and reached into the interior of his great coat. Feliks, sensing a revolver had the soup bowl ready to smash down on the hand, but the black gloves returned bearing a book. Poland could just make out "Giesmės" [30] on the cover before Prussia tossed the small volume in cheap cardboard across the table.
Prussia made one of his little sneezy noises in the back of his throat as Poland caught the book clumsily. "You're lucky I fucking hate Cyrillic, and like Toris, Królowa. I wouldn't do this otherwise. Now, you run back, and get Lithuania, who can actually pull together a plan on occasion. He wants more of that, he's going to have to arrange it. I like the idea of hoodwinking tubguts, but it's not my ass on the line, you got me?"
Feliks was too busy staring at the book in astonishment. Prussia had one of these made up before even coming down here? It might have been just to annoy Russia, should the Empire see the smaller nation, but it was not exactly reading material for the train. On the other hand, it was exactly the kind of gift Prussia would give someone for inviting him over. Sharp, liable to get them in trouble, but too useful to throw away. A gift, in short, picked with malice aforethought, and only the mother of God knew what ahinterthought.
"Why are you like this, Gilbert? There are only, like, sixteen less complicated ways to get your point across," Poland looked up, just as the table rocked on uneven trestles, bowing under the weight of the unrecognized Empire getting to his feet.
His shoulders hunched, and Feliks got the impression of a great bird of some sort ruffling its wings. Prussia was too in love with his own standard. "Like what, Polen?"
The cheap and precious volume of paper slapped against Poland's palm. "Like this. Duh. You forbid my people their language in your streets, keep them from any job better than rag man and then you turn around, and hand Toris something like this. It's not like Russia, who, like, is loop-di-loo, and believes that we all love him or are working against him by the way the wind blows, or whatever."
A cackle rose in Prussia's throat. "I like messing with the less fortunate, I guess. What do you care, Polen?"
"Because you've always been totally weird, and I can't have Liet relying on someone who is unreliably traitorous," Feliks snapped.
Prussia drew himself to his impressive height. His upper lip lifted in an aristocratic sneer that he must have stolen, like the salt cellar, from Austria. His hand went to his hips, but he did not shove one forward into the argument. "Because you can't have, oh, of course, like, how foolish of me," he tried to make those blood pooled eyes wide and bat them in typical Poland mockery, "anything bad happening to precious Liet. My God and your God, Polen, why wouldn't I do this? Toris is a man I can respect. He is made of iron, and isn't above fighting for what he wants. Real fighting. Dirty guts, heart and soul fighting.
"You cling to him like a security blanket. You-I can't stand you. Look at yourself, tarted up like a fashionable whore, with the spine of an over-cooked Italian noodle. I can't imagine how any man could stand being in your presence without the crawling need to go take a shower just in case whatever you have is catching. You stand there, being pretty and useless, as your people slowly choke and die. It's always been this way, though, hasn't it? You find something pretty or shiny, and then that's all that matters, while people like Lithuania, and yes, me-remember the days I was your vassal state?-ran around saving your dozy kitten ass. Why shouldn't I oppress the Polish?"
Forgetting that Russia probably still remembered the morning's antics, and would be looking for Poland, Feliks over turned the table. The startling crash would have been more satisfying if it had caught Prussia underneath it, but light-footed as always he had hopped to safety. The ugly face was shining with eager excitement.
Placing his elegant heels with fierce determination, Poland strode over the wreck he had caused. "You wanna fight, you pissy little nothing of an army that can't even convert a damn pagan tribe by force without help from the big boys? What have you actually accomplished in your life, huh? Sponging off the rest of us like a giant tick. You failed in your mission to the Holy Roman Empire, and you failed in your loyalty to me, and you failed to become anything worth noticing in either Eastern or Western Europe, you failed to do everything you've set your aspirations to, and you've done it by stabbing everyone who could have helped you in the back."
"I'm the greatest fucking Empire the world will ever see," Prussia snarled, reaching out to shove Poland away from him, but Poland just yielded one side, forcing Prussia into an unbalanced slant across his body. "I made Austria grovel before me. I fought off all the powers of Europe! I partitioned you, the great Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth!"
Felicks, feeling cold fury, stuck an elbow in his side. "Yes, and didn't you need big brother Austria for that?"
"Not the second time," Prussia's barb worked like a double edged sword always did in the hands of an angry novice. His face lost what little color there was, and then he laughed nastily. "Or the third time-he just wanted a piece of the pie. Seems like he's got a thing for nations I'm done with. I dare you to find me some guilt. I dare it. I'd be happy to rip you apart for a fourth time, too, if it was possible. Hell, I would almost give you your land back just to snatch it from you again, you little shit."
The humans occupying the poor tavern, Feliks was dimly aware, were staring. They had been since the table went over, but now their gazes were shifting, and with their shifting attention, Poland shifted, too.
Prussia, tense, still looking for a fight, grimaced. "Russland?"
Over his shoulder, Feliks saw long angel wheat hair. "His messenger. Like, hate to dash, but-,"
"Totes gotta fly if you want to actually be competent about something for once," Prussia cackled. "Just remember: I won, and you lost. 'Twas ever thus, because I am-"
"A blow hard." Gritting his teeth, Feliks looked towards the door, and then eyed the back room. Natalya brought a small dagger to her lips, where scars still showed in white spider line cracks.
Prussia smirked, turning slowly to look at the messenger. "I was going to say 'awesome.' You going to run, or not?"
"I've been running all day," Feliks replied lightly, ready to meet the executioner with a joke. "I'm thinking about it. Tell you what: if I rip out your spine, and beat her to death with it, will you just acknowledge that you're a worthless piece of tripe, and limp off home?"
Gilbert eyed the back door. "I'd counter by saying I'm worth my name. Something you can't even claim, as there is no more Polska, now is there? The side door looks like your best bet."
"Thanks, I had that one figured out," Feliks rolled his eyes. "We'll totes have to continue this tea break in Berlin."
Prussia shuddered slightly at that idea. "Cabaret?"
Nodding decisively, Feliks tensed himself to run. "Oh, how well you know me."
He shot for the door, clutching Toris' book to his chest. Behind him, his heart lifted, as he heard Prussia intercept the broken doll thing that had once fought at his side.
"Guten Abend, Fraulein. Ich heiße Norddeutscher Bund. Uuf! Nicht geil, liebchen! Ich mag meinen Hände [31]."
A crash of someone hitting a table with their full weight followed Poland out of the building.
Footnotes and Annotations
[13] - 'Польша' is Russian for 'Poland' and is pronounced Pol'sha.
[14] - In Chapter One I mentioned Belarus' history giving me an almighty headache. This is part of the reason why. There was a third minority in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Ruthenians. These people were their own people, a little bit of Ukraine's people, and mostly the White Russians. They are as closely as I can figure out, the original ethnic group from which the unifying aspects of White Russian-ness come from. And remember, not all White Russians are in Belarus, and not all the people in Belarus are white Russians. Most of the books I've read have used the term interchangeably with Belorussians. That might say something about the quality of books I have. Anyway, at the time of the steam-rollering of Russification, Belorussians fought along side Poles and Lithuanians, and were symbolized by the Archangel Michael, champion of God.
[15] - 'Uwolnij Kościół, Rosja' is Polish for 'Free the Catholic Church, Russia.' Thanks to thepolishone1 on dA for the translation
[16] - As part of trying to eliminate the Polishness from the Polish partition, Prussia and Russia suddenly discovered a bonding activity between the two countries. Prussia ran the railways of the East, and to areas that were having problems with Polish strikes, and protests. So, the Prussians gave the Russian soldiery free use of the rail, and that way the Russians could come in and burn the Poles out.
[17] - 'meinen Freund, was machst du heir' is German for 'What are you doing her, my friend?' At this time, still smarting over that Napoleon business, France and Prussia were in a bit of a rivalry. One of the ways that this manifested itself was that France became a proponent of a free Polish state, and even sent foreign troops into combat for Poland during the uprisings. These troops were known as the Zouaves of Death, and they were basically a French trained militia of Polish sympathizers who fought until they were brutally slaughtered by the Russian Army.
[18] - 'Walcz ze mną' is Polish for 'fight me!' Many thanks to thepolishone1 for the correct translation
[19] - 'Ладно, Польша' is Russian for 'Okay, Poland' and is pronounced 'Ladno, Pol'sha'
[20] - The Ottoman Empire (probably because it did not want to recognize Russia as even existing) never recognized the Partitions of Poland, and still kept its Polish-Lithuanian embassy open. It was the only country of the "civilized" world not to recognize the Partitions. Just something to think about, the next time you want to try writing Sadiq. He does things other than steal baby Italies, after all.
[21] - 'Prūsija' is Lithuanian for 'Prussia.' Sounds a bit manlier than Poland's variant, doesn't it?
[22] - 'Rusai' is Lithuanian for 'Russia'
[23] - 'Я видел, как ты, Полвша! Не помочь ему, Литва!' is Russian for 'I saw you Poland! Do not help him, Lithuania!' and is pronounced 'Ya videl kak ty, Pol'sha! Ne pomoch' yemu, Litva!'
[24] - 'wieszatiel' was one of the Polish epithets for Muravyov. It means 'hangman'
[25] - 'Мало земли императорской России, не говорить с ним. ... Привести последние повстанцев' is Russian for 'Little Land of Imperial Russia, do not speak to him. ... Bring out the last insurgents' at least, I think it does. Corrections from a Russian speaker/reader would be dear to me. The pronounciation is 'Malo zemli imperatorskoĭ Rossii, ne govoritʹ s nim. Privesti poslednie povstantsev.' The choice for 'Little Land' is based on the fact that tsars were referred to as 'Little Father' as a sort of endearment for the ruler. Something you would say to express your love and appreciation for them. It sounds like the kind of address Ivan would prefer, although my translation could be miles into the wrong side of the woods.
[26] - 'Это для вас, России' is Russian for 'This is for you, and Russia' and is pronounced 'eto dlya vas, Rossii.'
[27] - 'Дьявол никогда не умирает' is Russian for 'The devil never dies.' It is pronounced 'Dʹyavol nikogda ne umiraet.' I wanted to use a plural here, but I couldn't find the plural form of 'devil' that wasn't a transliteration of the English, 'devils' or 'demons.' It works in the singular, too, so I ended up keeping it singular.
[28] - 'Prikąsk liežuvį, Prūsija' is Lithuanian for 'Shut up, Prussia.' (I hope, again, if you speak it, drop me a line.)
[29] - 'Karalienė' is Lithuanian for 'Queen.'
[30] - 'Giesmės' is Lithuanian for 'Hymns'
[31] - 'Guten Abend, Fraulein. Ich heiße Norddeutscher Bund. Uuf! Nicht geil, liebchen! Ich mag meinen Hände' is German for 'Good evening, miss. My name is Confederation of Northern Germany. Uuf! Hey, not nice, darling. I like my hands.'
Links to Other PartsGo Back a Section: That Which Is Indomitable - Part One
Go Forward a Section: That Which Is Indomitable - Part Three