Waiting for Spring: Chapter 4, Axis Powers Hetalia, Russia x America (AU)
C h a p t e r F o u r
Once Alfred accepted that no matter what he did, the Baltic Three would follow, he was eager to begin the journey. As the trio prepared food, water and other supplies for the journey, Alfred changed into travel clothes (the plainest he owned, at their insistence); per agreement before they parted ways, when these tasks were complete, they met up at the stables.
Alfred was the last to arrive, and as he stepped into the stables, the Baltics paused in their final travel preparations to give him nods of acknowledgement. Ravis leaned his satchel against the wall and lead a grey stallion by the reins to the prince. "This is Nicholai," he announced. "He was meant to be a gift for Ivan from Her Majesty, but given the circumstances-" He offered Alfred the reins-"he's yours for now."
Alfred accepted the reins and thanked Ravis before checking the horse's saddle. "Does Her Majesty know about all this?" he asked, almost casually.
"Unfortunately," Tolys replied. "She's terribly upset this came to pass."
"Does she know I'm bringing Ivan home?" Alfred questioned.
"She does," Ravis confirmed.
"But I'm sure you understand a mother's worry," Eduard finished.
"Her Majesty's worry will be short-lived, then," Alfred announced. He tied the last of his bags to the saddle and quickly mounted.
"As we said, Your Highness, it won't be so easy," Tolys reminded.
"Yes, I know," Alfred replied, wrapping the reins once around his hand. "We discussed this at length."
"We can't leave," Tolys explained. "Not just yet."
"Why not?" Alfred asked incredulously. "You were all so eager to leave in His Majesty's presence."
"There's someone we need to see," Eduard replied, mounting his horse and positively grinning.
• • •
At the edge of the capital, just past the farms, was a solitary cottage. Thin tendrils of smoke rose from the chimney as Alfred and the Baltic Three rode up the path. "What is this place?" Alfred asked, watching the smoke be blown away by a cold wind.
"Arthur's cottage," Ravis replied simply.
"And he'll tell us where Ivan is?" Alfred said.
"He might," Eduard commented. "He's a mage, one of the best in the kingdom."
"The best," Tolys corrected.
"How is a mage going to help return Ivan?" the prince demanded.
"You're to learn magic," Tolys answered.
"Why?" Alfred snapped. "Ivan is in danger-I don't have time to learn a trade!"
"Your Highness, Lady Natalia's magic is very powerful," Eduard reminded. "She's practiced her entire life-"
"You need to learn in just a few days what she's learned in many years," Ravis added, "if you hope to have any chance of defeating her."
"How long will this take?" Alfred asked, looking almost warily at the cottage once more.
"If you're a quick study, perhaps only a few days," Tolys answered with a slight shrug.
"Then I'm not wasting any more time," Alfred announced, dismounting from the horse. The other three followed suit and accompanied him as he walked up the path to the cottage and pushed the door open.
The smell in the cottage was damp and earthen, and the light that filtered in through the windows was dim. Something bubbled in an iron pot in the fireplace, while bundles of herbs and flowers, both fresh and dried, hung on the walls and from the rafters. A long wooden table in the middle of the room was covered in books and sheets of parchment. While the cottage looked lived in, there was no sign of life, human o otherwise, apart from Alfred and the Baltic Three.
"Hello?" Alfred called. Silence was the only reply. "Hello? Is anyone here?" He glanced over his shoulder at the Baltic Three, all of them crowded in the doorway and looking just as surprised as he at the emptiness of the cottage.
Just as the prince opened his mouth to demand to know what kind of game they were playing, footsteps from the back of the cottage caught their attention. Alfred turned and found himself eye to eye with a man slightly older than himself. Shaggy blond hair and flinty green eyes caught the prince's attention, but that was before took note of the other man's dark, unusually thick eyebrows. "Are you Arthur?" Alfred asked with little prelude.
"Who the bloody hell are you?" the other man replied, his voice just as cold as his eyes. His hand slid into a trouser pocket, as if it were to close around a weapon.
The action quickly loosened Alfred's tongue. "I'm Pr-" He could almost hear the Baltics draw a nervous breath, given how they had coached him to conceal his identity, and he spoke again. "My name is Alfred. I'm here to see Arthur Kirkland the mage."
"Well, you've seen me," the other replied, withdrawing his hand and shrugging slightly.
"It's more than that," Alfred said quickly.
"Then what is it?" Arthur asked, turning to the clutter on his table.
"I need to be taught magic," Alfred announced. He squared his shoulders tried not to feel silly.
The mage turned his gaze to Alfred. "And why's that?" Arthur answered, heavy eyebrows lifted slightly.
"I'm about to take a long journey," the prince explained, "and my companions-" He thumbed over his shoulder at Tolys, Eduard and Ravis-"insist I need such training."
Arthur straightened a pile of parchment; the rustling of paper filled the air between them. "So you come to me?" he said when he finished the task.
"I've been told you're the best in the kingdom," Alfred informed him.
"I'm the best in the world," Arthur corrected archly.
"All the better then," Alfred announced with a grin.
There was a long pause, Alfred watching the mage expectantly and Arthur watching the bespectacled young man coolly. "Well?" Alfred asked after several moments.
"Well what?" Arthur replied, quirking an eyebrow.
"Will you teach me magic?" Alfred asked, almost exasperated. Shouldn't it have been obvious?
"No," Arthur answered simply, shaking his head.
Behind Alfred, the Baltics drew a soft, collective gasp of surprise. The prince paid them no mind, all of his attention directed at Arthur. "And why not?" he demanded coldly.
"You've not asked me," Arthur said easily, shrugging again.
Alfred blinked once… twice… three times-apparently, he was quite serious. "Will you teach me magic?"
The look Arthur gave Alfred was one of almost parental reproach, and the prince had to work to suppress an agitated sigh. "Will you please teach me magic to aid me and my companions in our journey?"
"For what purpose is this journey?" the mage asked.
Seizing Arthur by the shoulders and shaking these foolish questions from him was becoming more and more tempting. For all the irritation he felt, Alfred's answer was surprisingly calm: "Love-my fiancé was taken, and I'll need magic to bring him home safely."
A smile touched Arthur's features, making his face immediately soften. He clapped Alfred on the shoulder as he spoke. "That's a good enough reason for me."
A sense of relief washed over Alfred-finally, an ally! "Thank you," he said sincerely, "and I'm sure my fiancé will thank you, as well."
"As am I," Arthur replied. He clapped his hands together, rubbing his palms as if planning something. "We'll start your training tomorrow. In the meantime-" he nodded toward the door-"go gather rue please."
"…What?" Alfred asked flatly.
Arthur pointed to the bundles of flowers and herbs hanging overhead. "You think these grow from the ceiling?"
Alfred barely glanced up at the items in question. "You're a mage-it wouldn't surprise me," he replied.
Arthur's expression became chilly once more. "Your attempts at humor are very ill-timed-have you ever gathered rue?"
"I don't even know what it looks like," the prince answered truthfully.
The mage considered Alfred with an expression of dull surprise before looking past him to address Eduard, Tolys and Ravis. "Do any of you three-"
"Rue is plentiful in my home," Tolys volunteered, stepping forward. "I know it very well."
"Good-you three can help him." Arthur turned his attention back to Alfred, briefly, and smiled wryly. "He's going to need it."
• • •
"Why am I out here?" Alfred muttered, looking resentfully at the long, flat basket in his hand.
"Rue doesn't gather itself, Your Highness," Ravis commented, keeping his voice low.
Alfred continued to grumble as though Ravis hadn’t spoken. "I'm a prince-" He swiped at a low tree branch-"and I should be out there rescuing Ivan-" He kicked at the ground, dust swirling about his boots-"but you three insist I need magic. I come to get it-" His cloak hood was tightened against a gust of cold wind-"and I'm sent into the woods to pick weeds-"
"Rue isn’t a weed," Eduard noted. "It protects against venoms and evil spirits."
"So when the time comes, what am I to say?" Alfred demanded. "'I can't fight for Ivan's life and honor and our kingdoms yet-I have to gather plants to stop you'?"
"You may not need to," Tolys replied, leading the group into a grove of birch trees. "You may have some on you, or a vial of the oil."
"But doesn't rue oil leave blisters?" Ravis asked.
"If you're not careful," Tolys answered, kneeling amid a patch of yellow-headed flowers. He withdrew a long, narrow blade from his inner boot and speared it into the ground around the plant; using the blade as a trowel, he dug around the stem and lifted the plant, roots and all, into his palm.
"This way you get only soil on your fingers," he explained. "Later, we'll bleed the stems for the oil, and I'll show you that as well." He deposited the plant in the basket before inviting the others to start, as well. Eduard and Ravis remained close to Tolys, speaking in their shared native tongue, while Alfred broke apart to gather from the edge of the patch.
Their work had hardly begun when Alfred cried out from the edge of the field. "Are you alright?" Ravis asked, sheathing his knife and joining the prince.
"Does this look alright?" Alfred snapped, turning his palms toward Ravis; ugly red blisters now decorated his fingers.
"What did you do?" Tolys asked as he and Eduard joined their companions.
"What our wonderful wizard friend asked!" Alfred replied, nodding toward the cottage, his hands held out stiffly in front of him. "Rue!"
"How did you do it?" Eduard asked, meeting Alfred's growing upset with a level voice. He pulled a pair of riding gloves from his back trouser pocket and held them out to the prince with the explanation that sunlight made the blisters hurt even more.
Alfred scrambled to accept the gloves and slide them on his hands. "Cut the stem at the ground," he explained as he gingerly flexed his fingers in the gloves.
"That's what I said not to do!" Tolys groaned. "Weren't you listening?"
"We don't have time!" Alfred snapped. "I don't even have time to be doing this plant gathering and magic training!" The glare with which he fixed the Baltic Three was positively frigid. "Damn your helpful ideas, and damn Kirkland's magic." Without another word, Alfred turned away from the trio and started to stalk away.
"Where are you going?" Eduard called after him.
"On ahead," Alfred replied, barely offering them a backwards glance. "I'll take on Lady Natalia myself."
"That's suicide," Tolys protested.
"What do you want me to do?" Alfred snapped. "Go back and admit defeat? I would rather die first!"
"That's what will happen if you rush into the battle without training," Eduard reminded.
"And what about us?" Tolys asked, barely able to keep a note of… hurt from his voice.
Alfred wheeled on the trio, his eyes blazing behind his spectacles. "If-if you get to Ivan first, so be it! We'll make a game of it, since you three like to play them so much-first one to Ivan gets all the glory! Hell, you might get to marry him instead."
"IT's not like that, Your Highness," Eduard cut in, his use of the prince's title deliberate. "We want you to be well-armed for when you go up against Lady Natalia."
"The only armaments I need are my wits and the sword on my horse," Alfred replied, practically snarling, as he tuned to stalk back to his horse.
The was a pause-not very long, but just long enough to let Alfred nearly leave the clearing-before Ravis asked, "What will we tell Ivan?"
The prince paused at the edge of the clearing; when he spoke, he didn't look at the three. "What do you mean?"
"If we were to get to Ivan first," Ravis started, "he's bound to ask where you are, and… probably why you didn't come first."
The glance the prince offered them was brief, but telling. "He thinks that highly of me, that it would make a difference?"
The three brothers exchanged glances, almost silently debating what to say. "Well, when we first explained who he was and who you were, he was pretty taken with you," Tolys started. "He hasn't been in love with anyone since."
Now it Alfred turned to face the three. "There's been no one else?" he asked slowly.
"No one," Eduard confirmed. "Like Tolys said-he's utterly taken with you."
Alfred was still and silent for several moments before he rejoined the trio, his hands folded in front of his groin. "What am I supposed to do?" he mumbled.
"You'll do it the way I showed you?" Tolys asked, sounding like a father addressing his son.
"Whatever it takes to bring Ivan home safely, I'm willing to do or learn," Alfred replied, shaking his head slightly.
"Then pick up your blade and we'll start again-the right way."
• • •
The sun was starting to dip below the horizon when the four returned to the cottage, baskets filed with rue. Arthur met them inside the door, complimenting their haul and Tolys' method before instructing them to place the baskets on the worktable. As Alfred passed, the mage caught him by the shirtsleeve. "You speak rather boldly about someone who's going out of his way to help you," he noted.
"I don't know what you mean," Alfred replied, lifting his chin defiantly.
"Damn my magic, then?" Arthur quoted.
"What makes you think I said anything like that?" Alfred said, puling his shirtsleeve free.
"I know you did," the other answered.
The thought of a complete stranger, an ally or not, overhearing his conversation made his stomach twist in a way that not even the news of Ivan's current circumstances hadn’t. "Do you make it a policy to spy on the people who come to you for help?" Alfred demanded.
"Of course not," Arthur replied easily. "The forest has ears, and you're lucky that those ears happened to be mine." He shifted his attention away from Alfred and smiled, not to himself but at an unseen person, before speaking to the younger man once more. "Put your things on the table with the others, and I'll leave you and your companions to your own devices for the afternoon."
• • •
While Arthur was bent over the rue and his books (and carrying on a rather animated conversation with several unseen companions) inside the cottage, Alfred and the Baltic Three ventured out of doors. Eduard and Tolys started tending to the horses and preparing to bed them down for the night, while Ravis rubbed a healing salve on Alfred's hands. "Have you seen Kirkland?" Alfred asked, his voice only slightly lower than his usual volume. "He talks to thin air like he talks to us-is that… normal?"
Ravis tilted his head slightly and chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. "They say he can see magic creatures-fae, pixies, unicorns-"
"He sees things?!" Alfred cried. The trio quickly hushed him, which only made him whisper rather than silence him completely. "Kirkland sees things?" Is he mad?" The idea of staying with a madman to "learn magic" made Alfred angry, but more fearful for Ivan's safety than anything else. God only knew what tortures he was enduring at this moment.
"Oh no, he's quite sane," Ravis replied, pouring more of the salve onto his palms and rubbing it onto the blisters on Alfred's hands. "That's just one of the ways his magic manifests himself."
"I think it's the whole place," Eduard chimed in, brushing dust from his horse's hide. "I saw fae in the kitchen."
Alfred arched his eyebrow, but before he could comment or question, Tolys added, "I've seen things, too-pixies in the window, just before we arrived."
"So it wasn't just me," Ravis said, lifting his head from his medical work and grinning. The other three regarded him curiously. "A brownie, by the hearth."
Alfred considered the trio with growing disbelief. "Am I the only one can't see any of these things?"
Apparently, he was.
• • •
There was a shortage of beds, but not of blankets and cloaks, leading Alfred and the Baltic Trio to bed down in the small barn just off a small dirt path from the cottage. Despite having room for half a dozen mounts, a single horse occupied the otherwise empty building. As Alfred, Ravis and Tolys guided the horses into the open stalls, Eduard ventured up into the loft.
"There's a lot of dry straw up here," Eduard called, poking his head over the loft edge.
"Does it look comfortable?" Tolys called back, pushing some of his hair out of his face.
"Comfortable enough," Eduard replied, disappearing back into the loft, followed shortly by the sound of hay and straw being pushed across the wood floor above.
Comfortable enough. Alfred dipped his head briefly; the idea of going from a soft bed and feather pillows to a pile of straw and a cloak made his bones ache. He didn't dare say it aloud. He'd already been scolded enough for the day. (Scolding a prince-whoever heard of that?)
After the horses were locked in their stalls and fed, Alfred, Ravis and Tolys climbed the ladder into the loft to join Eduard. When all four were up, Tolys turned to the prince. "Help me pull the ladder up."
"Sure, but why?" Alfred asked, grasping one side of the ladder.
"His Majesty isn’t the only one who has aides," Tolys replied, giving a signal to hoist the ladder up. "Should Lady Natalia send mercenaries in search of anyone on our mission, and should those mercenaries find us…"
"Say no more," Alfred replied, drawing the ladder fully into the loft. The life of a prince was meant to end, if not as a powerful and prosperous king, then with honor and dignity on a battlefield. Being slaughtered in a hay loft was probably as far from honor and dignity as one could get.
"Hopefully none of us will have to leave the loft in the night," Eduard remarked. The comment earned warm chuckles from his brothers, and even Alfred had to smile a little, and they continued to chat and joke as they continue to prepare for the night ahead.
• • •
Sleep came easily for the Baltics, Alfred supposed it was because they were used to close, uncomfortable quarters. He, however, could only wish for sleep to claim. While exhaustion had dulled most of his senses-the sensation of Ravis' back pressed against his own and the weight of his spectacles clutched loosely in his palm, the faint gleam of moonlight on the lenses of Eduard's spectacles-but it did little to slow the turnings of his mind.
In a perfect world, he mused, he and Ivan would be married by now. For never having felt the sensation any longer than their meeting in the forest (was it really only a day prior?), he found himself missing Ivan's touch, and the closeness of sharing a bed with him. It doesn't even have to be sexual, he found himself thinking, almost bargaining. Just the closeness.
He shifted slightly, away from the straw that poked him in the side. It was ironic, he thought. He was a prince who could have anything he wanted-except, of course, what he really wanted.
-.-.-.-
Title: Waiting for Spring
Chapter Title: Chapter IV: The Mage, part 1
Author: TheCrazyAlaskan
Fandom / Setting: Axis Powers Hetalia (anime) - Folklore and Fairy Tales AU
Characters / Pairings: Ivan R Braginsky x Alfred F Jones; Tolys Laurinaitis, Eduard von Bock, Ravis Galente; Natalia Arlovskova; appearances by many more
Characters / Pairings in This Chapter: Alfred F Jones, Tolys Laurinaitis, Eduard von Bock, Ravis Galente; Arthur Kirkland; mentions of Natalia Arlovskova
Rating: T+
Genre: Adventure, romance
Warnings / Notes: None so far
Relevant Quotes: I am fond of this Thy stubborn project, / And to play my part I am content. / But another drama is in progress, / And, this once, O let me be exempt.
-- "Hamlet," Boris Leonidovich Pasternak
" I am not sorry that I've met you, / and not afraid to love you, too."
-- "Rain Flogs My Face...", Izabella Akhatovna Akhmadulina
Summary: Princes Ivan Braginsky and Alfred Jones are betrothed, so that their marriage will strengthen their two kingdoms. However, Lady Natalia promises to steal the young prince for herself. Teaming up with Prince Ivan's guardians, Prince Alfred embarks on a journey to save his betrothed and the kingdom, and to learn what it takes to be a leader.
It was time for an update and this is a long chapter, so I broke it into two parts.
I had perhaps a little too much fun looking up things for this chapter. I think in the process of writing England's characterization, I got a little bit of Miracle Max from The Princess Bride, and you know what? I'm okay with that. :D
All characters, Axis Powers Hetalia © Hidekaz Himaruya