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: Four (Part 7 of 8)
Rating: R
Characters: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Finland
Warnings: Ivan on Bloody Sunday.
Summary: January 1905. Ivan tries to make sense of a senseless situation, and Ukraine tries to be a good big sister.
Eight Men
Chapter 4: That Which Suffers
January 1905 - Moscow, Russia
God, protect the Tsar! [27]
Ivan could not stop his hands shaking. He stared at them, long and hard, trying to curse them into stillness. His hands refused to obey. Maybe if he ignored the trembling it would go away on its own. Ivan couldn't afford this kind of weakness. Not in winter time.
The door to his room opened softly. Thinking it was Toris again, Ivan did not turn from the fire. He didn't want to face Lithuania right now. Toris had seen too much.
"Vanya?"
He swung around, eyes wide. Katyusha crossed the expanse of rich carpet, catching him around the wide shoulders in a hug that rivaled the fire place in warmth. The trembling spread from his hands, up his arms and finally across his whole body. What was going wrong? Why wasn't his control working? He had become so big and strong. He had defeated Sweden. He had Defeated the Ottoman Empire. He had fought off the Tartars and the Golden Horde. He had brought so many nations to live with him and why didn't they care or love him? They were nations. They were all they had of each other, so why was it all breaking down, and why was he breaking?
Ukraine held Russia up as he practically fell on top of her, a heaving trembling mess. He could feel dampness sliding down her cheeks where they met with his cold skin. She was mumbling something, but in the confusion whirling through his head all he could really hear was the soothing Russian chant of "Vanya, Vanya, oh poor Vanya."
Swallowing heavily, he pushed her away, holding her at arms' length, looking at Katyusha with unhappy relief. "I thought that you weren't speaking to me," he whispered. Like Tin-Finland. Like Natalya. Like Poland [28].
"Oh Vanya," Katyusha stroked his cheek comfortingly through her tears. "Some things are bigger than what your tsars do to us."
Strong and majestic,
Katyusha brought him warm tea as he sat on the old carpet, crying like a child. The samovar gleamed in yellow brass and the reflected warmth of the fire lit up the corner of the room where it nestled between bookcases. Ivan stared at it gloomily as Katyusha settled the steaming teacup in his hands.
"I am Russia," he mumbled, feeling his skull crack again. The cracks widened and spread, and filled with snow, which lay in drifts across his brain. General Winter would know his weakness, and come to test him again. "I am Russia. I am Russia. I am Russia. I am Russia. I am Russia. I am Russia."
Katyusha sat next to him, her yarn out, as she began to knit. "Not right now. For tonight, be Ivan. Please?"
He did not want to be Ivan. He wanted to be Russia. He wanted to be land. A vast stretch of wilderness with no mind to be confused, or body to be hurt.
Reign for glory, For our glory!
"Have I failed them?" Ivan asked, looking at the books once more, and gulping his tea.
Wind rattled the window, calling to mind General Winter's laugh. Katyusha's needles clicked together soothingly. The domestic noises only emphasized the smothering silences pressing around them. Smokey curls off the remainder of the tea filled his head, melting the snow. Katyusha refused to answer. Silence pressed. Ivan gave.
"Why won't you tell me?" the fine china smashed into brass bound handles, crashing into a tinkle of bone. Ivan stormed to his feet, his face red with screaming. "Why won't you tell me what's wrong, Katyusha? Why do you hate me? Why won't you give me the answers? I'm only a stupid child! I need you to give me direction!"
Furiously, he grabbed the back of his tall wing chair, and smashed it into the wall. The wood cracked. Snap. Crack. Bones. Bones. Human Bones shattering under bullets. Their screams as he began to bleed from the mouth. He was mighty! He was Russia! He was more than human! He was a nation! No matter his hardships he could not die. He was immortal. Inhuman! Their petty concerns were not his! He did not need them. Why did they hurt so much as they died?
A chair leg shattered in his hand. He stared at blood and splinters, before howling. His scream echoed beyond the walls of his room, swirling outside to be picked up by general winter's laugh. Katyusha, on the floor still, hid her streaming eyes behind the rapidly shuttling needles, raising the mere five inches of scarf as a badge of protection against her giant younger brother.
God, protect the Tsar!
No one would protect them. It had always been this way. His sister was the only one who would stand between him and the world, and one woman was not strong enough for that burden. Not for as long as she had to carry it, all alone. Ivan had vowed to help her, but he had been so helpless for so long. He had done her such disservice.
"I-I am sorry," he knelt to hug her. "You weren't supposed to see that."
Ukraine nodded, taking the tattered ends of his old scarf, ignoring the red brown stains of the morning, to dab her eyes. "I'm sorry, Vanya. I haven't done the best job of being a big sister. I should have seen this coming. I was so busy being angry with you for so long."
He stared at her, his face going rigid in shock. Katyusha was infallible. She had never hated him. Never. He had misheard that. She had just stopped speaking to him because she was concerned about Natalya and her own crops. That was all.
"You weren't really angry with me," Ivan told his older sister, reaching out to envelop her in a hug that would quench all protests.
She did not answer, because a good older sister would not shatter was little was left.
Strong and majestic,
What had gone wrong? Ivan asked himself as he cleaned up the shattered tea cup.
He was a land. He did not feel the pain of humans. Humans did not feel his pain. They were separate. He was alone, except for the others of his kind, and there were so few of them. They never wanted to visit. Why not? He was great and glorious. Toris could tell anyone who asked. So he was rough with Poland. He didn't like Feliks. He did not want to be stuck together with the heartless trickster for eternity.
"Did you really shoot your own humans?" Katyusha asked quietly.
Ivan smiled gently, trying to explain in a way that she would understand. "They weren't mine, really. They couldn't have been mine. They were betraying me. They refused to be happy. They were just peasants, you know. There are always more peasants."
Click. Click. Not so much as a sniffle. Ivan looked over. Katyusha had busied herself in her knitting. Her cheeks were still shiny with tear trails, and her eyes had that pink quality, but for some reason she was no longer crying. She was no longer even frowning. Her face had become that same blank Toris' became in the evening. Ivan hated that blankness. It meant that something had gone terribly wrong, and no one would tell him what was wrong.
"I was strong, Katyusha. You would have been proud of me."
The needles came to a halt. Ukraine turned her head to meet his innocent smiling eyes. Something flashed in her face, and Ivan wondered if she could see how broken his head was. He hoped not. Ukraine should never feel guilty.
Reign for glory, For our glory!
The clock surprised both of them, chiming a quarter hour. Ivan looked at the china and gold thing on the mantel piece. Katyusha looked at the decoration as well. "It's very pretty," her fingers swept the carpet under her knees. "I-You live in such a fine house, Vanya. Sometimes I forget that. Or I only remember the house and not you," she smiled sheepishly.
Ivan gazed at his hands. They were still shaking. Maybe they had never stopped. "Do you? Is that why you have been angry with me?" his voice was much quieter than he wanted it to be. He didn't sound strong enough to hear the truth. He had to be strong for his sister. Katyusha tried to protect him from too much.
She sighed. The knitting began once more, clever fingers working, probably in the hope of sorting out thoughts. She had told him before, when he was young and small, and the Tartars hurt them all, that she loved making scarves for him, because the act of knitting was relaxing. She could think everything through, and get her plans in order. Even if it's just for the next day, Vanya, having everything thought out is very important.
Russia tried to organize life along that same principal. If everything was planned out before hand then nothing could get in the way of those plans.
"You tried to take away my language. I know that you like Russian, Vanya, but to me, Ukranian is beautiful. I love to hear the children sing it-,"
Roaring filled his ears. Red filled his vision. Ivan sunk to the carpet moaning, as he hugged his knees. Happy children. He was supposed to have happy children. Why weren't they happy? Why didn't they love him? Why did they go against him?
Why did he go against them?
Reign to foes' fear,
His shriek cut through the room. Books exploded. Papers ignited. Katyusha screamed, running for the hallway. A log from the fire burst in wonder and glory all over the bookshelves. Orange and red cascaded away in sparks, but the yellow caught and flared to bright white.
Ivan grinned, feeling warm at last. Yellow surrounded him in licking flames. This was it. This was right. This was his happiness. His true heart. Holding blistered and peeling flesh to the flames he laughed. So warm. So perfect. Bright and burning, this was what love felt like. His heart had been with him all along. In the fire. In the pain.
Right now he was beautiful.
Orthodox Tsar.
Water fountained. A sandbag slapped the flames. Wooden knitting needles became the sword of a just and loving sister, pulling him backwards from his office. Toris, kindly and fierce, ran in to combat the flames, a wet blanket muffling his head. Shouts and screaming reverberated in Ivan's ears as Katyusha organized people, trying to stop the fire before it spread.
They were all here, he thought, as Natalya's skirt dashed from the edge of his vision to the fore. Such a wonderful thing, to hear Tino and Eduard trying to convince Toris to let them in so that they might save the books [29], even as Feliks yelled to Toris to stay out of the place and work on the hallway, because the office was gone. Yet their argument, and the subsequent need to rescue Latvia from a falling beam only seemed to drop into a deep abyss. Hollow. Empty. Cold. Ivan wanted to be back there. Back in the fire. Where it was warm. Where everything was beautiful. Where he was marvelous, a bright shining star that shot from the back well of the heartless.
For a night, fighting flames, fighting Ivan's spirited efforts to join that fire, they were all as they were supposed to be. A family. Friends. Loved ones. Everything was perfect, as Ivan burned. But eventually enough water was procured, enough earth was thrown. Katyusha sat bandaging his torso, as Tino pronounced the blue military coat scrap. Natalya, banished to a corner by Katyusha after she proved a hindrance to bandaging Ivan, sharpened her knives, looking at Tino significantly.
Toris and Feliks pulled the samovar from the rubble. Eduard made tea. Silly little Raivis managed to burn himself on the first cup, which Ivan downed without tasting. He looked around at the assembled lands. No. Not lands. The words of Catherine were haunting him.
"Where am I going wrong?" he whispered, looking from one to the next.
He loved them all. They had to love him. They wouldn't have rescued his home, otherwise. But they hated him, too. Because they did not understand that he needed the inferno. He needed to burn to become pure to be beautiful. That was the secret. To be the last star in the sky you had to light it brighter than the sun.
He loved them. He asked them to tell him how to make his rule better. No one stepped forward with answers. He hated them.
Finally, scrubbing away the suspicion of tears, Katyusha spoke up. "You're not listening to us, Vanya."
"I am now!" Ivan thundered.
Tino, the first to truly betray him, looked around, and smiled sadly. It was a smile that said that this was old ground. "Venäjä, it's too late. Et kuuntele."
Ivan felt anger suffuse his body. "What does that even mean?"
Toris, green-eyed, tired, and slightly nervous looked up, always ready to draw Russia's ire. "It means you went too far for us. S-some of us, anyway."
"Totes, no," Feliks jabbed spitefully. "You've gone majorly too far for all of us! We've been telling you for, like, years."
Ivan cast around for something to throw at Feliks, but Katyusha caught his hand. "No, Vanya. Listen to what we are saying. Even if you don't like it. The way you treat humans, the way you treat us, and the way you treat yourself is what is wrong. You need to start listening, because something has to change."
Ivan looked at his older sister. Change was terrifying. It had to be avoided. But Katyusha loved him.
From the corner, Belarus caught his eyes, and held them. "I am fine with your language and customs, brother," she told him, her eyes red rimmed. "But I wish to have some of my own, too. Just a little. Not much. I love yours more. But sometimes you forget me, and then I need something of my own to keep me company."
Ivan looked at them all. He was still missing something. They all thought the way Belarus did, as far as he could see. But thinking like Natalya was dangerous. He could not let them think that he would forget them. He could never forget them. They were his family. His friends. Yet their complaints made them hate him.
"I love you all," he mumbled, at a loss. But only Natalya beamed at this pronouncement.
Eduard just shook his head. "Th-that doesn't m-m-matter, now."
"Whatever's in your head totally isn't love," Feliks muttered, understanding the role of the scarf much better than anyone else.
God, protect the Tsar!
Reign to foes' fear,
Orthodox Tsar.
God, protect the Tsar.
Footnotes and Annotations
[27] - The text interrupting the scene is a translation of an orthodox hymn sung by the Russian protesters as they were gunned down by tsarist troops. It sounds beautiful in Russian, but everything sounds beautiful in Russian. Case in point: 'Become one with Russia' should sound like: 'Stan'te odnim s Vanya/Rossiyeĭ.' (I prefer 'Become one with Vanya,' because the message is oddly much creepier).
[28] - All these regions had experienced Tsar Alexander II's program of Russification, and for them most part reacted very badly to it. Even Belarus, which was at the time just an ethnic grouping, found ways to subtly rebel against the insistence on a unified Russian culture across the Empire at the expense of the White Russian culture. Russia faced the same problems that Austria had as nationalism swept through Europe, and chose to force ethnic homogeneity on its disparate groups, so that it would not have the rebellions that Austria faced. This approach did not seem to work any better than ignoring the problem.
[29] - Thanks to reader Anon for pointing out that "In 1827, the University of Helsinki got the right to obtain a copy of every book printed in the Russian Empire for its collections. This collection was almost sold after Finland gained independence, but for some reason it was not, and collecting continued, it was just harder than it used to be." I had Estonia and Finland trying to save the books because Estonia cares deeply about knowledge and Finland would want to be there for Estonia, but this piece of knowledge makes it even better.
Links to Other PartsGo Back a Section: That Which Suffers - Part Six
Go Forward a Section: That Which Suffers - Part Eight
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: Four (Part 7 of 8)
Rating: R
Characters: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Finland
Warnings: Ivan on Bloody Sunday.
Summary: January 1905. Ivan tries to make sense of a senseless situation, and Ukraine tries to be a good big sister.
Eight Men
Chapter 4: That Which Suffers
January 1905 - Moscow, Russia
God, protect the Tsar! [27]
Ivan could not stop his hands shaking. He stared at them, long and hard, trying to curse them into stillness. His hands refused to obey. Maybe if he ignored the trembling it would go away on its own. Ivan couldn't afford this kind of weakness. Not in winter time.
The door to his room opened softly. Thinking it was Toris again, Ivan did not turn from the fire. He didn't want to face Lithuania right now. Toris had seen too much.
"Vanya?"
He swung around, eyes wide. Katyusha crossed the expanse of rich carpet, catching him around the wide shoulders in a hug that rivaled the fire place in warmth. The trembling spread from his hands, up his arms and finally across his whole body. What was going wrong? Why wasn't his control working? He had become so big and strong. He had defeated Sweden. He had Defeated the Ottoman Empire. He had fought off the Tartars and the Golden Horde. He had brought so many nations to live with him and why didn't they care or love him? They were nations. They were all they had of each other, so why was it all breaking down, and why was he breaking?
Ukraine held Russia up as he practically fell on top of her, a heaving trembling mess. He could feel dampness sliding down her cheeks where they met with his cold skin. She was mumbling something, but in the confusion whirling through his head all he could really hear was the soothing Russian chant of "Vanya, Vanya, oh poor Vanya."
Swallowing heavily, he pushed her away, holding her at arms' length, looking at Katyusha with unhappy relief. "I thought that you weren't speaking to me," he whispered. Like Tin-Finland. Like Natalya. Like Poland [28].
"Oh Vanya," Katyusha stroked his cheek comfortingly through her tears. "Some things are bigger than what your tsars do to us."
Strong and majestic,
Katyusha brought him warm tea as he sat on the old carpet, crying like a child. The samovar gleamed in yellow brass and the reflected warmth of the fire lit up the corner of the room where it nestled between bookcases. Ivan stared at it gloomily as Katyusha settled the steaming teacup in his hands.
"I am Russia," he mumbled, feeling his skull crack again. The cracks widened and spread, and filled with snow, which lay in drifts across his brain. General Winter would know his weakness, and come to test him again. "I am Russia. I am Russia. I am Russia. I am Russia. I am Russia. I am Russia."
Katyusha sat next to him, her yarn out, as she began to knit. "Not right now. For tonight, be Ivan. Please?"
He did not want to be Ivan. He wanted to be Russia. He wanted to be land. A vast stretch of wilderness with no mind to be confused, or body to be hurt.
Reign for glory, For our glory!
"Have I failed them?" Ivan asked, looking at the books once more, and gulping his tea.
Wind rattled the window, calling to mind General Winter's laugh. Katyusha's needles clicked together soothingly. The domestic noises only emphasized the smothering silences pressing around them. Smokey curls off the remainder of the tea filled his head, melting the snow. Katyusha refused to answer. Silence pressed. Ivan gave.
"Why won't you tell me?" the fine china smashed into brass bound handles, crashing into a tinkle of bone. Ivan stormed to his feet, his face red with screaming. "Why won't you tell me what's wrong, Katyusha? Why do you hate me? Why won't you give me the answers? I'm only a stupid child! I need you to give me direction!"
Furiously, he grabbed the back of his tall wing chair, and smashed it into the wall. The wood cracked. Snap. Crack. Bones. Bones. Human Bones shattering under bullets. Their screams as he began to bleed from the mouth. He was mighty! He was Russia! He was more than human! He was a nation! No matter his hardships he could not die. He was immortal. Inhuman! Their petty concerns were not his! He did not need them. Why did they hurt so much as they died?
A chair leg shattered in his hand. He stared at blood and splinters, before howling. His scream echoed beyond the walls of his room, swirling outside to be picked up by general winter's laugh. Katyusha, on the floor still, hid her streaming eyes behind the rapidly shuttling needles, raising the mere five inches of scarf as a badge of protection against her giant younger brother.
God, protect the Tsar!
No one would protect them. It had always been this way. His sister was the only one who would stand between him and the world, and one woman was not strong enough for that burden. Not for as long as she had to carry it, all alone. Ivan had vowed to help her, but he had been so helpless for so long. He had done her such disservice.
"I-I am sorry," he knelt to hug her. "You weren't supposed to see that."
Ukraine nodded, taking the tattered ends of his old scarf, ignoring the red brown stains of the morning, to dab her eyes. "I'm sorry, Vanya. I haven't done the best job of being a big sister. I should have seen this coming. I was so busy being angry with you for so long."
He stared at her, his face going rigid in shock. Katyusha was infallible. She had never hated him. Never. He had misheard that. She had just stopped speaking to him because she was concerned about Natalya and her own crops. That was all.
"You weren't really angry with me," Ivan told his older sister, reaching out to envelop her in a hug that would quench all protests.
She did not answer, because a good older sister would not shatter was little was left.
Strong and majestic,
What had gone wrong? Ivan asked himself as he cleaned up the shattered tea cup.
He was a land. He did not feel the pain of humans. Humans did not feel his pain. They were separate. He was alone, except for the others of his kind, and there were so few of them. They never wanted to visit. Why not? He was great and glorious. Toris could tell anyone who asked. So he was rough with Poland. He didn't like Feliks. He did not want to be stuck together with the heartless trickster for eternity.
"Did you really shoot your own humans?" Katyusha asked quietly.
Ivan smiled gently, trying to explain in a way that she would understand. "They weren't mine, really. They couldn't have been mine. They were betraying me. They refused to be happy. They were just peasants, you know. There are always more peasants."
Click. Click. Not so much as a sniffle. Ivan looked over. Katyusha had busied herself in her knitting. Her cheeks were still shiny with tear trails, and her eyes had that pink quality, but for some reason she was no longer crying. She was no longer even frowning. Her face had become that same blank Toris' became in the evening. Ivan hated that blankness. It meant that something had gone terribly wrong, and no one would tell him what was wrong.
"I was strong, Katyusha. You would have been proud of me."
The needles came to a halt. Ukraine turned her head to meet his innocent smiling eyes. Something flashed in her face, and Ivan wondered if she could see how broken his head was. He hoped not. Ukraine should never feel guilty.
Reign for glory, For our glory!
The clock surprised both of them, chiming a quarter hour. Ivan looked at the china and gold thing on the mantel piece. Katyusha looked at the decoration as well. "It's very pretty," her fingers swept the carpet under her knees. "I-You live in such a fine house, Vanya. Sometimes I forget that. Or I only remember the house and not you," she smiled sheepishly.
Ivan gazed at his hands. They were still shaking. Maybe they had never stopped. "Do you? Is that why you have been angry with me?" his voice was much quieter than he wanted it to be. He didn't sound strong enough to hear the truth. He had to be strong for his sister. Katyusha tried to protect him from too much.
She sighed. The knitting began once more, clever fingers working, probably in the hope of sorting out thoughts. She had told him before, when he was young and small, and the Tartars hurt them all, that she loved making scarves for him, because the act of knitting was relaxing. She could think everything through, and get her plans in order. Even if it's just for the next day, Vanya, having everything thought out is very important.
Russia tried to organize life along that same principal. If everything was planned out before hand then nothing could get in the way of those plans.
"You tried to take away my language. I know that you like Russian, Vanya, but to me, Ukranian is beautiful. I love to hear the children sing it-,"
Roaring filled his ears. Red filled his vision. Ivan sunk to the carpet moaning, as he hugged his knees. Happy children. He was supposed to have happy children. Why weren't they happy? Why didn't they love him? Why did they go against him?
Why did he go against them?
Reign to foes' fear,
His shriek cut through the room. Books exploded. Papers ignited. Katyusha screamed, running for the hallway. A log from the fire burst in wonder and glory all over the bookshelves. Orange and red cascaded away in sparks, but the yellow caught and flared to bright white.
Ivan grinned, feeling warm at last. Yellow surrounded him in licking flames. This was it. This was right. This was his happiness. His true heart. Holding blistered and peeling flesh to the flames he laughed. So warm. So perfect. Bright and burning, this was what love felt like. His heart had been with him all along. In the fire. In the pain.
Right now he was beautiful.
Orthodox Tsar.
Water fountained. A sandbag slapped the flames. Wooden knitting needles became the sword of a just and loving sister, pulling him backwards from his office. Toris, kindly and fierce, ran in to combat the flames, a wet blanket muffling his head. Shouts and screaming reverberated in Ivan's ears as Katyusha organized people, trying to stop the fire before it spread.
They were all here, he thought, as Natalya's skirt dashed from the edge of his vision to the fore. Such a wonderful thing, to hear Tino and Eduard trying to convince Toris to let them in so that they might save the books [29], even as Feliks yelled to Toris to stay out of the place and work on the hallway, because the office was gone. Yet their argument, and the subsequent need to rescue Latvia from a falling beam only seemed to drop into a deep abyss. Hollow. Empty. Cold. Ivan wanted to be back there. Back in the fire. Where it was warm. Where everything was beautiful. Where he was marvelous, a bright shining star that shot from the back well of the heartless.
For a night, fighting flames, fighting Ivan's spirited efforts to join that fire, they were all as they were supposed to be. A family. Friends. Loved ones. Everything was perfect, as Ivan burned. But eventually enough water was procured, enough earth was thrown. Katyusha sat bandaging his torso, as Tino pronounced the blue military coat scrap. Natalya, banished to a corner by Katyusha after she proved a hindrance to bandaging Ivan, sharpened her knives, looking at Tino significantly.
Toris and Feliks pulled the samovar from the rubble. Eduard made tea. Silly little Raivis managed to burn himself on the first cup, which Ivan downed without tasting. He looked around at the assembled lands. No. Not lands. The words of Catherine were haunting him.
"Where am I going wrong?" he whispered, looking from one to the next.
He loved them all. They had to love him. They wouldn't have rescued his home, otherwise. But they hated him, too. Because they did not understand that he needed the inferno. He needed to burn to become pure to be beautiful. That was the secret. To be the last star in the sky you had to light it brighter than the sun.
He loved them. He asked them to tell him how to make his rule better. No one stepped forward with answers. He hated them.
Finally, scrubbing away the suspicion of tears, Katyusha spoke up. "You're not listening to us, Vanya."
"I am now!" Ivan thundered.
Tino, the first to truly betray him, looked around, and smiled sadly. It was a smile that said that this was old ground. "Venäjä, it's too late. Et kuuntele."
Ivan felt anger suffuse his body. "What does that even mean?"
Toris, green-eyed, tired, and slightly nervous looked up, always ready to draw Russia's ire. "It means you went too far for us. S-some of us, anyway."
"Totes, no," Feliks jabbed spitefully. "You've gone majorly too far for all of us! We've been telling you for, like, years."
Ivan cast around for something to throw at Feliks, but Katyusha caught his hand. "No, Vanya. Listen to what we are saying. Even if you don't like it. The way you treat humans, the way you treat us, and the way you treat yourself is what is wrong. You need to start listening, because something has to change."
Ivan looked at his older sister. Change was terrifying. It had to be avoided. But Katyusha loved him.
From the corner, Belarus caught his eyes, and held them. "I am fine with your language and customs, brother," she told him, her eyes red rimmed. "But I wish to have some of my own, too. Just a little. Not much. I love yours more. But sometimes you forget me, and then I need something of my own to keep me company."
Ivan looked at them all. He was still missing something. They all thought the way Belarus did, as far as he could see. But thinking like Natalya was dangerous. He could not let them think that he would forget them. He could never forget them. They were his family. His friends. Yet their complaints made them hate him.
"I love you all," he mumbled, at a loss. But only Natalya beamed at this pronouncement.
Eduard just shook his head. "Th-that doesn't m-m-matter, now."
"Whatever's in your head totally isn't love," Feliks muttered, understanding the role of the scarf much better than anyone else.
God, protect the Tsar!
Reign to foes' fear,
Orthodox Tsar.
God, protect the Tsar.
Footnotes and Annotations
[27] - The text interrupting the scene is a translation of an orthodox hymn sung by the Russian protesters as they were gunned down by tsarist troops. It sounds beautiful in Russian, but everything sounds beautiful in Russian. Case in point: 'Become one with Russia' should sound like: 'Stan'te odnim s Vanya/Rossiyeĭ.' (I prefer 'Become one with Vanya,' because the message is oddly much creepier).
[28] - All these regions had experienced Tsar Alexander II's program of Russification, and for them most part reacted very badly to it. Even Belarus, which was at the time just an ethnic grouping, found ways to subtly rebel against the insistence on a unified Russian culture across the Empire at the expense of the White Russian culture. Russia faced the same problems that Austria had as nationalism swept through Europe, and chose to force ethnic homogeneity on its disparate groups, so that it would not have the rebellions that Austria faced. This approach did not seem to work any better than ignoring the problem.
[29] - Thanks to reader Anon for pointing out that "In 1827, the University of Helsinki got the right to obtain a copy of every book printed in the Russian Empire for its collections. This collection was almost sold after Finland gained independence, but for some reason it was not, and collecting continued, it was just harder than it used to be." I had Estonia and Finland trying to save the books because Estonia cares deeply about knowledge and Finland would want to be there for Estonia, but this piece of knowledge makes it even better.
Links to Other PartsGo Back a Section: That Which Suffers - Part Six
Go Forward a Section: That Which Suffers - Part Eight