[Fanfiction] Observer Effect
Title: Observer Effect
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia, allusions to Discworld and Book Thief
Genre(s): Historical/Angst
Character(s)|Pairing(s): England, with very, very slight hints of England/France, France/Joan of Arc and England/Elizabeth I
Rating/Warning(s): R, violence, profanity, gruesome/graphic imagery in context of historical events
Word Count: 4,789
Summary: It isn’t so much of a courtship. Not when one hand is always holding a scythe in one hand and that voice talks about such things as violins and cats.
In short, England dies a lot. Death gets used to it (or possibly doesn’t).
“’s black,” he muttered.
NOT, said the stranger, WHEN SEEN FROM THE OUTSIDE. THE NIGHT SKY IS BLACK. BUT THAT IS JUST SPACE. INFINITY, HOWEVER IS BLUE.
-Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett
The first time, he drowned.
He had screamed, uselessly, feeling water flood through nose and mouth and burn hotter than coals. His limbs had flailed through the encompassing embrace, a hold that would never tire and would never break. He could pass his arms and legs through it but he could not escape.
The peace came suddenly, unexpectedly. And the pain had never existed. Pain had never existed. He-a boy, not a boy-had never existed before one moment and he would never exist again.
His body convulsed. Rocks dug into his back. He vomited and almost died again on the water that flooded back up his throat.
His head lifted up heavily and he met…
He was too young (though by later reckoning he was at least a hundred years old) to have the words to describe what was there. Green eyes bulged and the breath went away again, stolen by ghostly fingers that had never moved.
Even if he didn’t have the words, he knew what he saw.
“I- died,” he gasped into the air and he realized the silence. The river no longer babbled but instead sounded like the raindrops on a distant hill. No birds called. No insects sang. He could only hear the dense thickness of pressing noiselessness.
In body.
The words etched into the air, his head, the very fabric of the world not so much shaped as torn. No words would be realer. And the young- thing (body of people, piece of land, identity fiercely fought for and created with blood and words and things) screamed at the sound of it, hands clutching his ears. The wind (no, it was not wind, it was the lack of wind, the anti-wind that sucked things away to nothingness) snatched the sound from his swollen lips and spun it away, laughing with soundlessness.
After he had screamed himself hoarse, like a baby in paroxysms of unknowing, unseeing rage, he looked up at the figure outlined against a bloody setting sun.
“Not yet?” he croaked, and this sound fluttered against that grasping, silencing wind.
The presence caught it in a hand elegant like carved bone and exposed rocks. A thread fluttered from the edge of a hem, gleaming gold in moments and disappearing in others.
Not yet.
-
The next time the thing underwent that harrowing experience, it had been named England. He was named England, with the vague memories of being “Albion” (and that name always settles uneasily on him).
Peace had come again, only after he had spat out all the blood in his little body. Roses bloomed on his pale, wasting flesh. There were worse fates than being food for bushes but those vicious monstrous flowers would not wait until he was dead. He convulsed and he screamed through rotting lungs.
His bloodshot eyes (and his vision was filled with red and black because all was bleeding inside of his skull) had met that gaze and he had expired, able to flee at last and grateful at the chance.
He woke up again in the grave. His mouth opened to scream because he scrambled around in the dirt and the corpses. (Later, he thought of how it would have been, coming back to life after being burnt to ashes instead, and he shuddered.)
He struggled, attempting to swim upwards, out of that terrible, devouring darkness, and the dirt, the filth, the congealed blood and bodily fluids forced his jaws open further and poured into his belly and lungs. And still, his tortured throat screamed endlessly as he ate corpse dirt and disease. It was all in him, it was buried in him and it would be a taint that would never be gone because even when the earth had peacefully reclaimed it all, he would remember-
There, he died again.
Gagged with dirt and filth, he swam upwards, through hell, through darkness and rot (and he would forever sneer at the bellows of preachers who talked of horrors awaiting immortal souls because they had only one thing to worry about). His hand burst through the cairn, bleeding and ruined. The ruined fingers scrambled and grasped a stick. He clutched at it desperately because he knew that it would not move for all the world; that stick was rooted into the foundations of the world.
He came back into the world and he was mute, choked by all that he had swallowed. Born again and unable to breathe, until he convulsed and vomited. Years of filth fell onto the already filthy ground and he did not have the means to weep.
The butt of the stick he had seized pushed forward a leather sack. England’s useless fingers scrabbled at it and opened it, unearthing a cracked leather bottle. It had broken and out trickled something dark and sweet. He lifted it and he swallowed down fire. It seared through the dirt still in his throat and settled uneasily in his belly. The trickle tormented him until he vomited again and the fire cleansed him again.
He looked up and met the eyes that held-
No, he didn’t have that word yet, or maybe he did. He just refused to consider it.
(Centuries later, in a tale written by a sad little man, tears would shape ice and crystal to the word that human hands and human ingenuity and demonic perversion could never replicate.)
Neither of them spoke.
England took in the sight instead, but his eyes refused to fix on one thing or to even keep the memory of them. A bit of black. A bit of gold. A curving wooden stick. Bone white (skin or below?).
You should have a sign.
England stared at the figure in disbelief. He tried to speak but could not, his body recovering but speech was a luxury for the moment in favor of new lungs and working muscles.
So you do not get buried.
The words seared into his recovering brain (and he would never get used to the voice, just learned to temper his reactions so that he wouldn’t scream). He settled for giving the figure a confused expression and tried swallowing the abandoned wine again.
Later, when it did come the time (but nowhere near as awful, nowhere near as encompassing), he did take the care to hide himself, penning careful letters and he succumbed uneasily, though at least secure in the knowledge that he will not have to swim through earth again.
-
There was one silent witness to when England sat up jerkily in one gut churning series of movements. His face slowly recovered from swelling and his tongue shrank to its usual size.
The recovery came much quicker because he was stronger still (even though kingdoms struck the mortal blows for other kingdoms and little entities). He looked almost romantic, once his face returned to pale flesh though his throat bore livid bruises. His voice could not go any higher than a whisper for the moment.
England then touched his chest and pulled away a bloody hand. He stared at the strings of flesh too, the ragged hems. His fingers tugged away strings and rags of cloth and he looked at the flower of blood branded into his flesh.
He wants to join her.
“I won’t let him,” whispered England.
Why? The question had no intonation.
A pause.
You would have been happy to see him dead.
England gave a disgusted expression, the expression of an annoyed schoolmaster with an exceptionally dull pupil. Familiarity breeding contempt was not a familiar turn of phrase at this point in history but it still applied.
“Not dead. Why kill him? He won’t be able to watch.” He pressed his hand against the royal/holy flower etched into him. His teeth gritted. “She had to die.” He paused and his hand pressed harder into mortified flesh. “Where is she?”
I do not know.
“Liar.” England’s chest sang with a chorus of pain and sensation, high and sharp and dull and plodding. “She’s away.” He dug his filthy fingers into his exposed flesh.
“She’s gone,” he whispered and there were tears running down his cheeks and water oozing from his nostrils and his mouth was open and wide and upturned. He didn’t notice the other’s passing. Still, he did not sob, long after there was no one to witness him.
-
England was hapless enough to have two meetings within a century. He had gotten good at avoiding the messy business. It had become another thing to master, like swordsmanship and embroidery and politics. Like a game, really, though he would never be any good at bowls and its incarnations and chess frankly confounded him.
(He became good with cards though).
The first was not for him.
He could not witness the look that went from his beloved to the figure that took her gracefully proffered hand. Not even his eyes, which could pass from the Veil to the world under the hill, could see shades, especially when he stubbornly refused to see, refused to believe.
“Why her?” England spat. “Why?”
He did not stalk the room but his words had bitterness enough as he twisted a gold ring around his finger. Truth had no pity for him, offered no consolation. Knowledge made the parting crueler, not easier.
You know why.
“Get out of my sight!” howled England and he tore the ring off his finger and hurled it at no particular target. It arced, it thudded to the ground, rolling and ever rolling until it spun to a stop at the bottom of the scythe. This was then when the boy who had barely become a man unbent enough to sob as well as weep.
A sigh. Or could sighs be etched into gravestones?
A pale hand reached to pick up the ring, weighing it. The presence did not bother to ask or inquire further. But really…
Later then. Later.
And later there would be time for dancing lessons, perhaps. And to tell England about dancing lessons and legacies and endings. If the personification of stubbornness would listen.
But a few years… Or was it some decades?
England recovered from this ending with remarkably little bitterness or trouble. He stared down at the bullet holes spotting his chest.
“I liked this coat,” he remarked calmly. “Flemish lace too.”
But in his eyes the madness lay, the cracked ice quality of it spread and cooling. He absently dug into the holes with his own filthy fingers and drew out the warped balls, turning them this way and that in his bloody fingers.
“Cavalier, Roundhead,” he remarked, turning a mostly unscathed one over and over between thumb and forefinger.
There is a difference?
“Why else would they battle?” asked England.
I will be seeing much of you then.
“Aye,” said England. “Or this will be enough.” He dug out the two last balls from his belly. “Cavalier. Roundhead.” He tossed them aside and hissed as his flesh closed, but not completely.
His eyes caught a glimpse of gold. Something had fallen from a pocket in the recesses and folds of black cloth and gently, gently rolled towards him. He picked it up and it felt just as he had torn it from his own fingers yesterday. It felt heavy, far more than a circlet of thin gold should, but impossibly warm, like fire. His fingers closed around the ring, slowly.
England closed his eyes. And he never did take off that single band from his finger ever again.
-
England died little deaths throughout the centuries and he would sit up and dig out the shrapnel. Or he would adjust his neck again, brutally. He would choke out the water from his lungs (and one case, it was wine, and awful wine at that).
“What on earth is that sound?” England demanded on a hot night during the Boer War.
A cat tumbled out from long folds and gave a miffed expression. It had no left ear and a crooked tail and it indignantly began to wash itself, back leg held up high.
“A cat,” England said flatly. “A bloody cat.”
And?
“No hellhounds? No bone horse?” England went through his pockets and cursed. “Even my damn cigarillos. Do you know how much they cost?” He ignored the blood coursing down his throat. “They’re going to bloody hang for this,” he grumbled as he pinched the skin on his belly.
And many other things, as you will devise.
One crushed, bent fag end, bent so sharply in half it had nearly broken, came from the recesses of a pocket. He stared hard at it and the paper burst into flame at the same of it. England’s face turned the color of ancient porridge and he hurriedly brought the cigarette to his mouth and held it there as he breathed in the smoke.
The cat came over to him and rubbed along his uniform, leaving trails of dusty cat hairs and letting whatever vermin took refuge on it spread to new territories.
You will no longer be able to do that.
“Shove off. It’s the end of the whole damned world if I can’t even light my own fags.”
It may be closer than you think.
“You know?” And fear filled blood-shot eyes for the first time in- centuries? No. Fear had always been there; England had just gotten better at hiding it with bravado, with perverse humor, with sheer arrogant stubbornness.
No. But there are… patterns.
“History repeating itself. Bloody hell if it’s going to happen now to me. I won’t let it.”
I have heard that said.
“But I’ll make sure it won’t,” said England, flatly but with a grin. He moved as if to shove the cat away but thought better of it. There was a difference between telling someone to piss off and… that.
While directly using that scythe was not exactly… permitted, there were always extenuating circumstances, after all.
-
Of all the horrible things that England would have to eat over the years, his words were probably the hardest he had ever choked down.
He didn’t speak. He couldn’t produce any more words because the insides of his lungs had sloughed off in bleeding chunks. His throat had nothing. It had been perforated as thoroughly as one of Switzerland’s weird cheeses. Oh god, cheese. He would never look at it again the same way.
But there were three of them now. There was the damn frog in his arms now. He was the one holding the blonde bastard’s long and lanky limbed body. (so much damn trouble, so much damn weight though the frog was so damn skinny and thin and elegant-)
It would have been idyllic. Romantic imagery. Biblical, even, like that statue in Italy. If there had been more of the frog’s head.
There is more of his skull over there.
England would have laughed. He could have cried if he could feel tears.
I think he would appreciate the gesture.
A crippled hand pulled more of a broken bowl holding brains closer. It felt warm in the way the filthy mud started feeling warm after a while. The gore smeared and clung to the antique, ancient ring that still had a bright gleam after all these years.
He felt nothing then. A pause. Is that what you wanted to hear?
I don’t want your pity, England wanted to hiss. No pity. He looked up and met the eyes that held…
And he felt one tear slowly make its way down his flesh. It felt like acid. Then one more, then many. And he realized that they did not come from his eyes but from his brow and the drop became a rivulet, a stream, and river and he sighed, guttural and angry and his last proverbial rude gesture, before he sagged. His body froze and locked and that was how he and the damn frog were found, as if they were brothers, friends, clinging to one another in the mud as if they would never let go in futile resistance to a beckoning, inevitable Fate.
If he could have spoken, he would have snarled a final request to make sure that had not been their position. It wasn’t time, after all.
-
“How much time do I have left?”
England’s face dripped blood from the gashes across his forehead and cheek. It made black spots on his dusty uniform. Gobs of it congealed on his hair. He smelled like burnt meat and scorched rock. Still, he fumbled out a cigarette and lit it in the dying remains of a shed. Half the garden had been eliminated but the house didn’t so much as have a cracked window.
He decided to make use of what was left with no guilt at all.
As much as you are given.
“So I can die tomorrow and at least this fag end won’t be wasted.”
I am not omniscient.
“I never said you were. But nothing like a death day?”
You know the answer for yourself.
“You’ve been spending too much time in the damned Orient. You sound like one of their philosophy books. Too much incense.”
And that… is not good?
“‘Incense,’” England said deliberately.
…Ah. Use of mind altering substances. Ingestions of toxins.
“In any case, bugger off. I want to have this in peace before I have to get back to work. And I want it alone.” Then he squinted; his vision was not what it used to be. “Wait… are you holding a shovel?”
A new requirement.
“Oh God.” England’s expression contorted, briefly. He stared down at his cigarette, looked back up and he swallowed. “I need a drink,” he whispered, softly. Then his face hardened, like the face of a child crying in a corner being found.
He refused to look into the eyes. He didn’t need to see that, though it was an answer to those terrifying questions that people asked themselves in the middle of the night and right before waking. In the presence of an answer, a new fear grew, blossomed and remained fixed in the mind, more stubborn than all the weeds in the world and more stubborn than a little island nation.
I will be seeing you.
“Bugger off. I’ve got work to do.”
We all do.
Then, a pause.
Do you dance?
“What?”
A gesture. There is all this talk of ‘a last dance.’ I was wondering what would be appropriate now. A gavotte?
“A waltz,” snapped England. “Even I know that.”
Ah.
“No, I won’t teach you! Just- bugger off and I swear if you try the Gravedigger routine on me, I’ll ding you around the earhole or whatever it is you’ve got!”
Another time then.
England spent the next few years wondering if he was going to be accosted at any given moment. He made a point of avoiding gramophones and radios. After all, dying was the easy part.
But occasionally, he would hear the distant strains of someone playing a violin. Badly.
-
It wasn’t as though that would be the only time that he would have those twisted conversations. They never became easier either. But he almost looked forward to them, as he tugged out more bullets from his chest and stomach and occasionally his head (and he was never going to get used to the feel of his own brains but who should?)
It was in Korea that the question of the violin music was finally answered.
“Dammit all, you strung it too tight!”
He was saying this because he was the only one alive in this field of the dead. His commanders, those that he chose to listen to and obey, would be absolutely pissed at him later for coming out here. But he’d lived through the Blitz to bomb Dresden in return and he’d do as he like because allies became enemies (though they wouldn’t say it aloud).
England could say this because if he thought about it all, he’d break down and he wasn’t going to break down here. He could fix on the sight of the badly strung violin and the mangled bow and really, it was such a crime to treat an instrument like that.
You play?
“Enough to know that you don’t do that. It’s a damned crime, that’s what it is. I’m not going to teach you because I just won’t.” He stopped. “Ask Austria.”
I did.
“You- did?” The results were worth imagining, if with something like mild horror.
He refused.
“I see.”
Then England sighed and said, “Hand it over here. I’ll tune it for you.” And he did, his worn fingers going over the rich wood, as if he were in his own study. He refused to let his eyes fill with tears and that sentimental nonsense. His fingers stilled and he loosened the too tight strings and he studied the much tortured bow.
“Do you… mind if I play?” he asked, softly.
Not at all.
England tucked the violin under his chin, held the bow in his suddenly stronger fingers. He drew out a long, melancholic note that frayed at its end. Slowly, he picked out the only song he had bothered to remember (the violin had never been his choice).
When he was done, he handed the instrument back and he got to his feet. “You have a bone horse?” he asked. “Since you’re playing the fiddle and all.”
Once, I did.
“It fell apart,” said England, knowing his narrative conventions better than most.
Yes.
“Sounds good in theory, though. Like a chocolate hammer.” He tested his leg and made a few steps on ligaments that had frayed like old ropes.
Not useful.
“My point, precisely.” And England staggered away, but on two good feet.
He did end up teaching the violin, though every chord would always sound minor, despite both their best efforts.
-
England rolled back his shoulders and ignored the headache behind his eyeballs. He ignored his mobile because he knew who it would be and be damned to it. His legs still worked and his arms were still sound. Perhaps it was appropriate that today he was a policeman, in the uniform though his helmet had been put aside for now. He had ash streaked on his cheeks and along his hair.
His stomach ached badly but it would not kill him. He knew what would, all too well, all those nasty and disturbing little ways…
Someone had spoken to him and he blinked as the echoes of their words sounded like the ringing sounds of closing coffin lids. He didn’t turn around. England remained with the dying man he had pulled from the wreckage as gently as he could. Not a man. The poor soul was just a child, just seventeen (Lewis Rainford, aged seventeen, hellish on the rugby pitch, had just kissed the girl he had loved since age nine before heading to his grandmother’s flat). The boy had been tall and lanky but somehow he fit just right into England’s arms and he stared upwards with bright blue eyes.
“Don’t… leave,” the boy had whispered. “Not… yet.”
“I’m not going anywhere, lad,” said England, gently. “I’m right here.”
The boy opened his mouth to say something else. And he mouthed a word, two syllables. England couldn’t read lips but he knew the word, knew the name.
The boy shuddered, shivered. And he let go with a sigh. England heard a hiss of tortured air molecules, heard the sounds of something moving through the air and being caught against it like a billowing silk flag. He heard a brief, wry laugh that mingled with a hint of a pained sigh. But peace. Peace and no regrets and distant gray sorrow.
England put the light, limp body down on a nearby bench. Softly, he reached out to shut the lids over the staring, empty eyes. Once that was done, he wiped his brow on his filthy sleeve and hand, almost catching his hair on the antique band upon his finger.
“He called her Katie when everyone else called her Kat,” he said to the figure behind him. “He loved her since she took out his front tooth by tackling him when they were ten.” He blinked as an insulated paper cup was gently deposited into his hand.
“You brew tea?” He sniffed at its contents. “It’s good stuff too.” He swallowed it because tea was tea and the first taste of it burnt his lips but felt like the best damn stuff in the world to ever have, to hell with the Greeks and their ambrosia and France and his wine.
Someone sent it with me.
“Good of them too. Wait… can you drink this stuff?”
I do.
“I can only imagine how it works…” England drank down to almost the dregs in a few more gulps. “This is good.”
You are very calm.
“This is nothing.” England’s smile came easy though naturally it was very, very wry. “If they think that something like this is Hell on earth, they’re a lot stupider than I thought they were. And that’s almost a good thing.”
You are all right?
“Hell’s bells, I’ll keep saying it.” He held out his cup. “Give me another, will you?”
A thermos was produced and more tea poured. England sipped it more sedately.
Ah, the Blitz. And… the stiff upper lip?
“Damn right.” England grinned, teeth pale against his smudged face. “And now there’s a damn good reason as to why the buses are late.” He rubbed his stomach through his jacket and surveyed it all.
I do not think that you will ever cease to surprise me.
“What? Me? Never. I’m predictable,” said England. “You know that.”
Mm… predictable but observation changes the object observed.
“I’m a case study for you. I hope you have a lot of paper.”
I mean, all of you.
“We’re us. You’re you. They’re them,” England said far too reasonably. It really was good tea.
How very wise.
“Is that sarcasm I hear?”
Never.
“And the observation also changes the observer,” said England. He put his cup down carefully and stretched. As his spine popped and creaked, he winced, especially as his stomach complained and threatened revolt.
Indeed.
A pause. “Have you learned to dance?”
No.
“And I haven’t seen you around with that fiddle of yours lately.”
I have had different… interests.
“What is it this time? Building models out of matchsticks? Collecting humorous root vegetables? Checkers?”
The waltz.
“You’re out of date then,” England said. “It’s all grinding and thrusting and simulated sex now. And don’t try it. It doesn’t bear thinking about.”
I shall not.
Someone had turned on a radio. Or maybe it was blaring by one of those freak chances. Who knew? England’s fingers counted out the time. “One-two-three, one-two-three.”
He tilted his head back. “Sometimes… I do miss it,” he said. “Those times. Not the pox and no real toilets but just…” He shook his head, not knowing what possessed him. Then he extended his hand. “It’s not too hard,” he said. “It’s the easiest dance you can ever learn. You’re just holding someone, closely.” He smiled and the years accumulated in his eyes and on his face.
A hand took his. England stepped into the embrace that so many fled and so many sought. But he knew that he would not stay there for long, for this partner could refuse you and yet not be refused in the end. For once, the feet that stepped so surely all over the world stumbled and he corrected them. He counted out the time, to assure himself that he still was there. And they danced to the dying music of an abandoned radio for a few endless, brief turns.
“You can use some practice but you’re not half bad,” said England.
Thank you. A pause. You did not look at me.
“It’s not a last dance,” England said. “It’s not. It’s… practice. So you can get it right when it comes.” He smiled thinly.
Why…?
“Because I’ll do what I’ll bloody well want,” England retorted sharply. “No matter what people say.” He tilted up his chin imperiously and he winced, just a little, at the stab of new pain in his stomach.
There is time. And there is work.
“No need for that, I know. Thank you for the tea.” And England went back to the body of the poor dead boy, picked it up again with not quite the same ease (his legs shook a little bit under the weight), and headed away. He never said goodbye. But he did say, now looking into the eyes that followed him:
“Au revoir.”
Eternity watched him leave.
See you soon.
Author’s Notes (Warning, this is massive):
I saw a prompt on the kink meme. It stuck to me like a burr; it gnawed on me inexorably. Then I sat down and I wrote all of this in one go.
This is decidedly not what the original requester wanted. The original request was for a romanticized Death, der Tod from the musical Elisabeth. Someone gave the requestor that, showing a courtship of many, many countries by a romantic, idealized, idealistic lover. Not that I’m denigrating it, I swear. But I didn’t see Death that way, personally.
I was trying to get a mix of Death from Discworld (befuddled about humanity, quirky = High INT) and Death from The Book Thief (sardonic, aloof = High WIS). Oh god, I just used D&D stats… But in any case, I think it became more about England than Death. And how much shit I can put him through (that’s historically relevant).
On a morbid note, I wouldn’t mind meeting either of them, when the time comes (though I think I’d like to meet Pratchett’s Death a bit more; he’s funnier). Because no matter their differences, they are characterized as extraordinarily compassionate and they do their job with- not love, but with kindness, with gentleness, with care.
I highly recommend the following titles as depictions of Death as an anthropomorphic personification (though they are damn good books on their own anyways):
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (warning, this book is gutwrenching, though YMMV)
Mort by Terry Pratchett
Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Historical Notes/References:
-The title refers to the exchange between England and Death about observation, a phenomenon in physics in which in order to measure events, one must alter the stage of what is being measured.
-The bolded script for Death’s speech is a shout-out to Pratchett.
-While hourglasses have been around for thousands of years, the original depiction of a person’s life was through thread, with the Greek Fates or the Norse Norns spinning, measuring and cutting it for every human.
-Part of the original story of “The Snow Queen,” a character sought to recreate the word “Eternity” using pieces of ice.
-England’s relationship with Elizabeth I is made all the more amusing with a quoted declaration that she was wed to England. I just took it to its next logical conclusion.
-The 1600s… were not nice to England. Elizabeth I’s death, beginning of the Stuart dynasty, and the English Civil War.
-Chemical warfare was developed during WWI, specifically with the use of chlorine gas and mustard gas as a weapon.
-“Gravedigger” - sadly, I didn’t invent the Hamlet joke; Terry Pratchett got to it first.
-On that note, the shovel is a reference to “The Book Thief.”
-The waltz was invented as early as the late 1500s but became especially popular in the 1800s because it was a way to have close physical contact with another person.
-The mention of the gavotte (a somewhat dated 1700s French dance) is a reference to “Good Omens.”
-Yes, Great Britain participated in the Korean War. During a battle, the British took heavily casualties (though kicked ass anyways) when there was a communications breakdown between the Brits and the Americans. The Americans failed to realize that when a British officer says, “Things are a bit sticky here,” it translates more to “We’re in deep shit.” Fine tradition of the British capacity for understatement, according to TVTropes
-I’ll let whatever song England remembers be up to you. It’s probably “Greensleeves.”
-The name of the boy isn’t really relevant. Though if the namesake ever finds out… I’m dead.
-At this point, most Hetalia fans know about the London subway bombings on July 7, 2005. I’ll let TVTropes say all that could be said about how I view how England would have been (and I’m an American):
The attack on the London Underground on the 7th of July 2005 was one of the worst terrorism attacks to ever hit the United Kingdom. Suicide bombers on multiple trains and at least one bus, people trapped and injured in dark tunnels beneath the city, people missing left, right and centre. Like every terrorist attack, the aftermath was a scene of confusion, fear and sadness, which will probably be felt for decades. So what did the British people do in response to this suicide attack against innocent civilians? They got their Badass out of storage where it had been since about the Second World War, rolled up their sleeves and got to freaking work. People in the streets were grouping together to help out complete strangers, the mostly unhurt were walking, sometimes for miles, to get out of the underground tunnels (there's one particuarly tear jerking tale of a man sitting with another in a carriage as he died), rows of buses were lined up to act as makeshift hospitals because there was no time to get anyone to the real one... It was a horrible, horrible mess, and yet the whole time, beneath the anger and fear, there was an air of resilience, telling the world that scared as we were, we were not going to be terrorised. Whenever this troper thinks about how disillusioning, rotten and outright dense the country she calls home can be sometimes, she reminds herself of things like this. Her country sucks sometimes, but be damned if we're not strong little blighters.
And that is how I can see England teaching Death to waltz in the middle of the street and he will be smiling, all the while.
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia, allusions to Discworld and Book Thief
Genre(s): Historical/Angst
Character(s)|Pairing(s): England, with very, very slight hints of England/France, France/Joan of Arc and England/Elizabeth I
Rating/Warning(s): R, violence, profanity, gruesome/graphic imagery in context of historical events
Word Count: 4,789
Summary: It isn’t so much of a courtship. Not when one hand is always holding a scythe in one hand and that voice talks about such things as violins and cats.
In short, England dies a lot. Death gets used to it (or possibly doesn’t).
“’s black,” he muttered.
NOT, said the stranger, WHEN SEEN FROM THE OUTSIDE. THE NIGHT SKY IS BLACK. BUT THAT IS JUST SPACE. INFINITY, HOWEVER IS BLUE.
-Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett
The first time, he drowned.
He had screamed, uselessly, feeling water flood through nose and mouth and burn hotter than coals. His limbs had flailed through the encompassing embrace, a hold that would never tire and would never break. He could pass his arms and legs through it but he could not escape.
The peace came suddenly, unexpectedly. And the pain had never existed. Pain had never existed. He-a boy, not a boy-had never existed before one moment and he would never exist again.
His body convulsed. Rocks dug into his back. He vomited and almost died again on the water that flooded back up his throat.
His head lifted up heavily and he met…
He was too young (though by later reckoning he was at least a hundred years old) to have the words to describe what was there. Green eyes bulged and the breath went away again, stolen by ghostly fingers that had never moved.
Even if he didn’t have the words, he knew what he saw.
“I- died,” he gasped into the air and he realized the silence. The river no longer babbled but instead sounded like the raindrops on a distant hill. No birds called. No insects sang. He could only hear the dense thickness of pressing noiselessness.
In body.
The words etched into the air, his head, the very fabric of the world not so much shaped as torn. No words would be realer. And the young- thing (body of people, piece of land, identity fiercely fought for and created with blood and words and things) screamed at the sound of it, hands clutching his ears. The wind (no, it was not wind, it was the lack of wind, the anti-wind that sucked things away to nothingness) snatched the sound from his swollen lips and spun it away, laughing with soundlessness.
After he had screamed himself hoarse, like a baby in paroxysms of unknowing, unseeing rage, he looked up at the figure outlined against a bloody setting sun.
“Not yet?” he croaked, and this sound fluttered against that grasping, silencing wind.
The presence caught it in a hand elegant like carved bone and exposed rocks. A thread fluttered from the edge of a hem, gleaming gold in moments and disappearing in others.
Not yet.
-
The next time the thing underwent that harrowing experience, it had been named England. He was named England, with the vague memories of being “Albion” (and that name always settles uneasily on him).
Peace had come again, only after he had spat out all the blood in his little body. Roses bloomed on his pale, wasting flesh. There were worse fates than being food for bushes but those vicious monstrous flowers would not wait until he was dead. He convulsed and he screamed through rotting lungs.
His bloodshot eyes (and his vision was filled with red and black because all was bleeding inside of his skull) had met that gaze and he had expired, able to flee at last and grateful at the chance.
He woke up again in the grave. His mouth opened to scream because he scrambled around in the dirt and the corpses. (Later, he thought of how it would have been, coming back to life after being burnt to ashes instead, and he shuddered.)
He struggled, attempting to swim upwards, out of that terrible, devouring darkness, and the dirt, the filth, the congealed blood and bodily fluids forced his jaws open further and poured into his belly and lungs. And still, his tortured throat screamed endlessly as he ate corpse dirt and disease. It was all in him, it was buried in him and it would be a taint that would never be gone because even when the earth had peacefully reclaimed it all, he would remember-
There, he died again.
Gagged with dirt and filth, he swam upwards, through hell, through darkness and rot (and he would forever sneer at the bellows of preachers who talked of horrors awaiting immortal souls because they had only one thing to worry about). His hand burst through the cairn, bleeding and ruined. The ruined fingers scrambled and grasped a stick. He clutched at it desperately because he knew that it would not move for all the world; that stick was rooted into the foundations of the world.
He came back into the world and he was mute, choked by all that he had swallowed. Born again and unable to breathe, until he convulsed and vomited. Years of filth fell onto the already filthy ground and he did not have the means to weep.
The butt of the stick he had seized pushed forward a leather sack. England’s useless fingers scrabbled at it and opened it, unearthing a cracked leather bottle. It had broken and out trickled something dark and sweet. He lifted it and he swallowed down fire. It seared through the dirt still in his throat and settled uneasily in his belly. The trickle tormented him until he vomited again and the fire cleansed him again.
He looked up and met the eyes that held-
No, he didn’t have that word yet, or maybe he did. He just refused to consider it.
(Centuries later, in a tale written by a sad little man, tears would shape ice and crystal to the word that human hands and human ingenuity and demonic perversion could never replicate.)
Neither of them spoke.
England took in the sight instead, but his eyes refused to fix on one thing or to even keep the memory of them. A bit of black. A bit of gold. A curving wooden stick. Bone white (skin or below?).
You should have a sign.
England stared at the figure in disbelief. He tried to speak but could not, his body recovering but speech was a luxury for the moment in favor of new lungs and working muscles.
So you do not get buried.
The words seared into his recovering brain (and he would never get used to the voice, just learned to temper his reactions so that he wouldn’t scream). He settled for giving the figure a confused expression and tried swallowing the abandoned wine again.
Later, when it did come the time (but nowhere near as awful, nowhere near as encompassing), he did take the care to hide himself, penning careful letters and he succumbed uneasily, though at least secure in the knowledge that he will not have to swim through earth again.
-
There was one silent witness to when England sat up jerkily in one gut churning series of movements. His face slowly recovered from swelling and his tongue shrank to its usual size.
The recovery came much quicker because he was stronger still (even though kingdoms struck the mortal blows for other kingdoms and little entities). He looked almost romantic, once his face returned to pale flesh though his throat bore livid bruises. His voice could not go any higher than a whisper for the moment.
England then touched his chest and pulled away a bloody hand. He stared at the strings of flesh too, the ragged hems. His fingers tugged away strings and rags of cloth and he looked at the flower of blood branded into his flesh.
He wants to join her.
“I won’t let him,” whispered England.
Why? The question had no intonation.
A pause.
You would have been happy to see him dead.
England gave a disgusted expression, the expression of an annoyed schoolmaster with an exceptionally dull pupil. Familiarity breeding contempt was not a familiar turn of phrase at this point in history but it still applied.
“Not dead. Why kill him? He won’t be able to watch.” He pressed his hand against the royal/holy flower etched into him. His teeth gritted. “She had to die.” He paused and his hand pressed harder into mortified flesh. “Where is she?”
I do not know.
“Liar.” England’s chest sang with a chorus of pain and sensation, high and sharp and dull and plodding. “She’s away.” He dug his filthy fingers into his exposed flesh.
“She’s gone,” he whispered and there were tears running down his cheeks and water oozing from his nostrils and his mouth was open and wide and upturned. He didn’t notice the other’s passing. Still, he did not sob, long after there was no one to witness him.
-
England was hapless enough to have two meetings within a century. He had gotten good at avoiding the messy business. It had become another thing to master, like swordsmanship and embroidery and politics. Like a game, really, though he would never be any good at bowls and its incarnations and chess frankly confounded him.
(He became good with cards though).
The first was not for him.
He could not witness the look that went from his beloved to the figure that took her gracefully proffered hand. Not even his eyes, which could pass from the Veil to the world under the hill, could see shades, especially when he stubbornly refused to see, refused to believe.
“Why her?” England spat. “Why?”
He did not stalk the room but his words had bitterness enough as he twisted a gold ring around his finger. Truth had no pity for him, offered no consolation. Knowledge made the parting crueler, not easier.
You know why.
“Get out of my sight!” howled England and he tore the ring off his finger and hurled it at no particular target. It arced, it thudded to the ground, rolling and ever rolling until it spun to a stop at the bottom of the scythe. This was then when the boy who had barely become a man unbent enough to sob as well as weep.
A sigh. Or could sighs be etched into gravestones?
A pale hand reached to pick up the ring, weighing it. The presence did not bother to ask or inquire further. But really…
Later then. Later.
And later there would be time for dancing lessons, perhaps. And to tell England about dancing lessons and legacies and endings. If the personification of stubbornness would listen.
But a few years… Or was it some decades?
England recovered from this ending with remarkably little bitterness or trouble. He stared down at the bullet holes spotting his chest.
“I liked this coat,” he remarked calmly. “Flemish lace too.”
But in his eyes the madness lay, the cracked ice quality of it spread and cooling. He absently dug into the holes with his own filthy fingers and drew out the warped balls, turning them this way and that in his bloody fingers.
“Cavalier, Roundhead,” he remarked, turning a mostly unscathed one over and over between thumb and forefinger.
There is a difference?
“Why else would they battle?” asked England.
I will be seeing much of you then.
“Aye,” said England. “Or this will be enough.” He dug out the two last balls from his belly. “Cavalier. Roundhead.” He tossed them aside and hissed as his flesh closed, but not completely.
His eyes caught a glimpse of gold. Something had fallen from a pocket in the recesses and folds of black cloth and gently, gently rolled towards him. He picked it up and it felt just as he had torn it from his own fingers yesterday. It felt heavy, far more than a circlet of thin gold should, but impossibly warm, like fire. His fingers closed around the ring, slowly.
England closed his eyes. And he never did take off that single band from his finger ever again.
-
England died little deaths throughout the centuries and he would sit up and dig out the shrapnel. Or he would adjust his neck again, brutally. He would choke out the water from his lungs (and one case, it was wine, and awful wine at that).
“What on earth is that sound?” England demanded on a hot night during the Boer War.
A cat tumbled out from long folds and gave a miffed expression. It had no left ear and a crooked tail and it indignantly began to wash itself, back leg held up high.
“A cat,” England said flatly. “A bloody cat.”
And?
“No hellhounds? No bone horse?” England went through his pockets and cursed. “Even my damn cigarillos. Do you know how much they cost?” He ignored the blood coursing down his throat. “They’re going to bloody hang for this,” he grumbled as he pinched the skin on his belly.
And many other things, as you will devise.
One crushed, bent fag end, bent so sharply in half it had nearly broken, came from the recesses of a pocket. He stared hard at it and the paper burst into flame at the same of it. England’s face turned the color of ancient porridge and he hurriedly brought the cigarette to his mouth and held it there as he breathed in the smoke.
The cat came over to him and rubbed along his uniform, leaving trails of dusty cat hairs and letting whatever vermin took refuge on it spread to new territories.
You will no longer be able to do that.
“Shove off. It’s the end of the whole damned world if I can’t even light my own fags.”
It may be closer than you think.
“You know?” And fear filled blood-shot eyes for the first time in- centuries? No. Fear had always been there; England had just gotten better at hiding it with bravado, with perverse humor, with sheer arrogant stubbornness.
No. But there are… patterns.
“History repeating itself. Bloody hell if it’s going to happen now to me. I won’t let it.”
I have heard that said.
“But I’ll make sure it won’t,” said England, flatly but with a grin. He moved as if to shove the cat away but thought better of it. There was a difference between telling someone to piss off and… that.
While directly using that scythe was not exactly… permitted, there were always extenuating circumstances, after all.
-
Of all the horrible things that England would have to eat over the years, his words were probably the hardest he had ever choked down.
He didn’t speak. He couldn’t produce any more words because the insides of his lungs had sloughed off in bleeding chunks. His throat had nothing. It had been perforated as thoroughly as one of Switzerland’s weird cheeses. Oh god, cheese. He would never look at it again the same way.
But there were three of them now. There was the damn frog in his arms now. He was the one holding the blonde bastard’s long and lanky limbed body. (so much damn trouble, so much damn weight though the frog was so damn skinny and thin and elegant-)
It would have been idyllic. Romantic imagery. Biblical, even, like that statue in Italy. If there had been more of the frog’s head.
There is more of his skull over there.
England would have laughed. He could have cried if he could feel tears.
I think he would appreciate the gesture.
A crippled hand pulled more of a broken bowl holding brains closer. It felt warm in the way the filthy mud started feeling warm after a while. The gore smeared and clung to the antique, ancient ring that still had a bright gleam after all these years.
He felt nothing then. A pause. Is that what you wanted to hear?
I don’t want your pity, England wanted to hiss. No pity. He looked up and met the eyes that held…
And he felt one tear slowly make its way down his flesh. It felt like acid. Then one more, then many. And he realized that they did not come from his eyes but from his brow and the drop became a rivulet, a stream, and river and he sighed, guttural and angry and his last proverbial rude gesture, before he sagged. His body froze and locked and that was how he and the damn frog were found, as if they were brothers, friends, clinging to one another in the mud as if they would never let go in futile resistance to a beckoning, inevitable Fate.
If he could have spoken, he would have snarled a final request to make sure that had not been their position. It wasn’t time, after all.
-
“How much time do I have left?”
England’s face dripped blood from the gashes across his forehead and cheek. It made black spots on his dusty uniform. Gobs of it congealed on his hair. He smelled like burnt meat and scorched rock. Still, he fumbled out a cigarette and lit it in the dying remains of a shed. Half the garden had been eliminated but the house didn’t so much as have a cracked window.
He decided to make use of what was left with no guilt at all.
As much as you are given.
“So I can die tomorrow and at least this fag end won’t be wasted.”
I am not omniscient.
“I never said you were. But nothing like a death day?”
You know the answer for yourself.
“You’ve been spending too much time in the damned Orient. You sound like one of their philosophy books. Too much incense.”
And that… is not good?
“‘Incense,’” England said deliberately.
…Ah. Use of mind altering substances. Ingestions of toxins.
“In any case, bugger off. I want to have this in peace before I have to get back to work. And I want it alone.” Then he squinted; his vision was not what it used to be. “Wait… are you holding a shovel?”
A new requirement.
“Oh God.” England’s expression contorted, briefly. He stared down at his cigarette, looked back up and he swallowed. “I need a drink,” he whispered, softly. Then his face hardened, like the face of a child crying in a corner being found.
He refused to look into the eyes. He didn’t need to see that, though it was an answer to those terrifying questions that people asked themselves in the middle of the night and right before waking. In the presence of an answer, a new fear grew, blossomed and remained fixed in the mind, more stubborn than all the weeds in the world and more stubborn than a little island nation.
I will be seeing you.
“Bugger off. I’ve got work to do.”
We all do.
Then, a pause.
Do you dance?
“What?”
A gesture. There is all this talk of ‘a last dance.’ I was wondering what would be appropriate now. A gavotte?
“A waltz,” snapped England. “Even I know that.”
Ah.
“No, I won’t teach you! Just- bugger off and I swear if you try the Gravedigger routine on me, I’ll ding you around the earhole or whatever it is you’ve got!”
Another time then.
England spent the next few years wondering if he was going to be accosted at any given moment. He made a point of avoiding gramophones and radios. After all, dying was the easy part.
But occasionally, he would hear the distant strains of someone playing a violin. Badly.
-
It wasn’t as though that would be the only time that he would have those twisted conversations. They never became easier either. But he almost looked forward to them, as he tugged out more bullets from his chest and stomach and occasionally his head (and he was never going to get used to the feel of his own brains but who should?)
It was in Korea that the question of the violin music was finally answered.
“Dammit all, you strung it too tight!”
He was saying this because he was the only one alive in this field of the dead. His commanders, those that he chose to listen to and obey, would be absolutely pissed at him later for coming out here. But he’d lived through the Blitz to bomb Dresden in return and he’d do as he like because allies became enemies (though they wouldn’t say it aloud).
England could say this because if he thought about it all, he’d break down and he wasn’t going to break down here. He could fix on the sight of the badly strung violin and the mangled bow and really, it was such a crime to treat an instrument like that.
You play?
“Enough to know that you don’t do that. It’s a damned crime, that’s what it is. I’m not going to teach you because I just won’t.” He stopped. “Ask Austria.”
I did.
“You- did?” The results were worth imagining, if with something like mild horror.
He refused.
“I see.”
Then England sighed and said, “Hand it over here. I’ll tune it for you.” And he did, his worn fingers going over the rich wood, as if he were in his own study. He refused to let his eyes fill with tears and that sentimental nonsense. His fingers stilled and he loosened the too tight strings and he studied the much tortured bow.
“Do you… mind if I play?” he asked, softly.
Not at all.
England tucked the violin under his chin, held the bow in his suddenly stronger fingers. He drew out a long, melancholic note that frayed at its end. Slowly, he picked out the only song he had bothered to remember (the violin had never been his choice).
When he was done, he handed the instrument back and he got to his feet. “You have a bone horse?” he asked. “Since you’re playing the fiddle and all.”
Once, I did.
“It fell apart,” said England, knowing his narrative conventions better than most.
Yes.
“Sounds good in theory, though. Like a chocolate hammer.” He tested his leg and made a few steps on ligaments that had frayed like old ropes.
Not useful.
“My point, precisely.” And England staggered away, but on two good feet.
He did end up teaching the violin, though every chord would always sound minor, despite both their best efforts.
-
England rolled back his shoulders and ignored the headache behind his eyeballs. He ignored his mobile because he knew who it would be and be damned to it. His legs still worked and his arms were still sound. Perhaps it was appropriate that today he was a policeman, in the uniform though his helmet had been put aside for now. He had ash streaked on his cheeks and along his hair.
His stomach ached badly but it would not kill him. He knew what would, all too well, all those nasty and disturbing little ways…
Someone had spoken to him and he blinked as the echoes of their words sounded like the ringing sounds of closing coffin lids. He didn’t turn around. England remained with the dying man he had pulled from the wreckage as gently as he could. Not a man. The poor soul was just a child, just seventeen (Lewis Rainford, aged seventeen, hellish on the rugby pitch, had just kissed the girl he had loved since age nine before heading to his grandmother’s flat). The boy had been tall and lanky but somehow he fit just right into England’s arms and he stared upwards with bright blue eyes.
“Don’t… leave,” the boy had whispered. “Not… yet.”
“I’m not going anywhere, lad,” said England, gently. “I’m right here.”
The boy opened his mouth to say something else. And he mouthed a word, two syllables. England couldn’t read lips but he knew the word, knew the name.
The boy shuddered, shivered. And he let go with a sigh. England heard a hiss of tortured air molecules, heard the sounds of something moving through the air and being caught against it like a billowing silk flag. He heard a brief, wry laugh that mingled with a hint of a pained sigh. But peace. Peace and no regrets and distant gray sorrow.
England put the light, limp body down on a nearby bench. Softly, he reached out to shut the lids over the staring, empty eyes. Once that was done, he wiped his brow on his filthy sleeve and hand, almost catching his hair on the antique band upon his finger.
“He called her Katie when everyone else called her Kat,” he said to the figure behind him. “He loved her since she took out his front tooth by tackling him when they were ten.” He blinked as an insulated paper cup was gently deposited into his hand.
“You brew tea?” He sniffed at its contents. “It’s good stuff too.” He swallowed it because tea was tea and the first taste of it burnt his lips but felt like the best damn stuff in the world to ever have, to hell with the Greeks and their ambrosia and France and his wine.
Someone sent it with me.
“Good of them too. Wait… can you drink this stuff?”
I do.
“I can only imagine how it works…” England drank down to almost the dregs in a few more gulps. “This is good.”
You are very calm.
“This is nothing.” England’s smile came easy though naturally it was very, very wry. “If they think that something like this is Hell on earth, they’re a lot stupider than I thought they were. And that’s almost a good thing.”
You are all right?
“Hell’s bells, I’ll keep saying it.” He held out his cup. “Give me another, will you?”
A thermos was produced and more tea poured. England sipped it more sedately.
Ah, the Blitz. And… the stiff upper lip?
“Damn right.” England grinned, teeth pale against his smudged face. “And now there’s a damn good reason as to why the buses are late.” He rubbed his stomach through his jacket and surveyed it all.
I do not think that you will ever cease to surprise me.
“What? Me? Never. I’m predictable,” said England. “You know that.”
Mm… predictable but observation changes the object observed.
“I’m a case study for you. I hope you have a lot of paper.”
I mean, all of you.
“We’re us. You’re you. They’re them,” England said far too reasonably. It really was good tea.
How very wise.
“Is that sarcasm I hear?”
Never.
“And the observation also changes the observer,” said England. He put his cup down carefully and stretched. As his spine popped and creaked, he winced, especially as his stomach complained and threatened revolt.
Indeed.
A pause. “Have you learned to dance?”
No.
“And I haven’t seen you around with that fiddle of yours lately.”
I have had different… interests.
“What is it this time? Building models out of matchsticks? Collecting humorous root vegetables? Checkers?”
The waltz.
“You’re out of date then,” England said. “It’s all grinding and thrusting and simulated sex now. And don’t try it. It doesn’t bear thinking about.”
I shall not.
Someone had turned on a radio. Or maybe it was blaring by one of those freak chances. Who knew? England’s fingers counted out the time. “One-two-three, one-two-three.”
He tilted his head back. “Sometimes… I do miss it,” he said. “Those times. Not the pox and no real toilets but just…” He shook his head, not knowing what possessed him. Then he extended his hand. “It’s not too hard,” he said. “It’s the easiest dance you can ever learn. You’re just holding someone, closely.” He smiled and the years accumulated in his eyes and on his face.
A hand took his. England stepped into the embrace that so many fled and so many sought. But he knew that he would not stay there for long, for this partner could refuse you and yet not be refused in the end. For once, the feet that stepped so surely all over the world stumbled and he corrected them. He counted out the time, to assure himself that he still was there. And they danced to the dying music of an abandoned radio for a few endless, brief turns.
“You can use some practice but you’re not half bad,” said England.
Thank you. A pause. You did not look at me.
“It’s not a last dance,” England said. “It’s not. It’s… practice. So you can get it right when it comes.” He smiled thinly.
Why…?
“Because I’ll do what I’ll bloody well want,” England retorted sharply. “No matter what people say.” He tilted up his chin imperiously and he winced, just a little, at the stab of new pain in his stomach.
There is time. And there is work.
“No need for that, I know. Thank you for the tea.” And England went back to the body of the poor dead boy, picked it up again with not quite the same ease (his legs shook a little bit under the weight), and headed away. He never said goodbye. But he did say, now looking into the eyes that followed him:
“Au revoir.”
Eternity watched him leave.
See you soon.
Author’s Notes (Warning, this is massive):
I saw a prompt on the kink meme. It stuck to me like a burr; it gnawed on me inexorably. Then I sat down and I wrote all of this in one go.
This is decidedly not what the original requester wanted. The original request was for a romanticized Death, der Tod from the musical Elisabeth. Someone gave the requestor that, showing a courtship of many, many countries by a romantic, idealized, idealistic lover. Not that I’m denigrating it, I swear. But I didn’t see Death that way, personally.
I was trying to get a mix of Death from Discworld (befuddled about humanity, quirky = High INT) and Death from The Book Thief (sardonic, aloof = High WIS). Oh god, I just used D&D stats… But in any case, I think it became more about England than Death. And how much shit I can put him through (that’s historically relevant).
On a morbid note, I wouldn’t mind meeting either of them, when the time comes (though I think I’d like to meet Pratchett’s Death a bit more; he’s funnier). Because no matter their differences, they are characterized as extraordinarily compassionate and they do their job with- not love, but with kindness, with gentleness, with care.
I highly recommend the following titles as depictions of Death as an anthropomorphic personification (though they are damn good books on their own anyways):
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (warning, this book is gutwrenching, though YMMV)
Mort by Terry Pratchett
Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Historical Notes/References:
-The title refers to the exchange between England and Death about observation, a phenomenon in physics in which in order to measure events, one must alter the stage of what is being measured.
-The bolded script for Death’s speech is a shout-out to Pratchett.
-While hourglasses have been around for thousands of years, the original depiction of a person’s life was through thread, with the Greek Fates or the Norse Norns spinning, measuring and cutting it for every human.
-Part of the original story of “The Snow Queen,” a character sought to recreate the word “Eternity” using pieces of ice.
-England’s relationship with Elizabeth I is made all the more amusing with a quoted declaration that she was wed to England. I just took it to its next logical conclusion.
-The 1600s… were not nice to England. Elizabeth I’s death, beginning of the Stuart dynasty, and the English Civil War.
-Chemical warfare was developed during WWI, specifically with the use of chlorine gas and mustard gas as a weapon.
-“Gravedigger” - sadly, I didn’t invent the Hamlet joke; Terry Pratchett got to it first.
-On that note, the shovel is a reference to “The Book Thief.”
-The waltz was invented as early as the late 1500s but became especially popular in the 1800s because it was a way to have close physical contact with another person.
-The mention of the gavotte (a somewhat dated 1700s French dance) is a reference to “Good Omens.”
-Yes, Great Britain participated in the Korean War. During a battle, the British took heavily casualties (though kicked ass anyways) when there was a communications breakdown between the Brits and the Americans. The Americans failed to realize that when a British officer says, “Things are a bit sticky here,” it translates more to “We’re in deep shit.” Fine tradition of the British capacity for understatement, according to TVTropes
-I’ll let whatever song England remembers be up to you. It’s probably “Greensleeves.”
-The name of the boy isn’t really relevant. Though if the namesake ever finds out… I’m dead.
-At this point, most Hetalia fans know about the London subway bombings on July 7, 2005. I’ll let TVTropes say all that could be said about how I view how England would have been (and I’m an American):
The attack on the London Underground on the 7th of July 2005 was one of the worst terrorism attacks to ever hit the United Kingdom. Suicide bombers on multiple trains and at least one bus, people trapped and injured in dark tunnels beneath the city, people missing left, right and centre. Like every terrorist attack, the aftermath was a scene of confusion, fear and sadness, which will probably be felt for decades. So what did the British people do in response to this suicide attack against innocent civilians? They got their Badass out of storage where it had been since about the Second World War, rolled up their sleeves and got to freaking work. People in the streets were grouping together to help out complete strangers, the mostly unhurt were walking, sometimes for miles, to get out of the underground tunnels (there's one particuarly tear jerking tale of a man sitting with another in a carriage as he died), rows of buses were lined up to act as makeshift hospitals because there was no time to get anyone to the real one... It was a horrible, horrible mess, and yet the whole time, beneath the anger and fear, there was an air of resilience, telling the world that scared as we were, we were not going to be terrorised. Whenever this troper thinks about how disillusioning, rotten and outright dense the country she calls home can be sometimes, she reminds herself of things like this. Her country sucks sometimes, but be damned if we're not strong little blighters.
- What's more, less than 24 hours after the attacks, people were queueing at the bus stop where the events of a previous day had seen a double-decker shredded. Takes 'Keep Calm And Carry On' and Stiff Upper Lip to legendary levels.
And that is how I can see England teaching Death to waltz in the middle of the street and he will be smiling, all the while.