Kestrad's Hetalia Fics (New stories, comments welcome)

[Kestrad]

Yes, Kestrad is currently obsessed with Hetalia. And that means lots and lots of fics! And ones that I actually finish, unlike the ill-fated Hetalia Royale I attempted (which I may go back to at some point, who knows).

Anyway, in case anyone is interested, I've decided to gather the stories I've written for Hetalia into a thread here. Most are also posted on my Livejournal and/or my AO3 account.

I write mostly SuFin with the occasional story about other characters.


Newest
Third (is not the charm)
Summary: Why is China afraid of America? Because America is after Vietnam and Germany.
Pairing/characters: China, Vietnam, Germany, America

Mirrors
Summary: Mirrors are said to reveal the soul. 100 word drabble about Germany.
Pairing/characters: Germany

On ghosts
Summary: Ghosts, if they exist, can be killed. Bound, trapped, exorcised, dispelled. But there is no way to kill shame.
Pairing/characters: America

~*~
All Stories (alphabetical order)

Spoiler

1809
Summary: One last dance.
Pairing/characters: SuFin

Gloves
Summary: Each Nordic has his own reason for wearing gloves.
Pairing/characters: Nordics

I'm the hero
Summary: America reflects on the past.
Pairing/characters: America

Mirrors
Summary: Mirrors are said to reveal the soul. 100 word drabble about Germany.
Pairing/characters: Germany

Money and nothing else
Summary: China has power and money. China also doesn't have friends.
Pairing/characters: China, America

My eyes have seen
Summary: Switzerland keeps having vivid dreams of the terrible ways Liechtenstein can die
Pairing/characters: Switzerland, Liechtenstein

Nine Hundred Years
Summary: "Why do you love me?"
Pairing/characters: SuFin

Nothing gold can stay
Summary: "Don't speak to me of miracles. The only miracle that existed is dead."
Pairing/characters: SuFin, Norway

On ghosts
Summary: Ghosts, if they exist, can be killed. Bound, trapped, exorcised, dispelled. But there is no way to kill shame.
Pairing/characters: America

Pause
Summary: Six song-inspired drabbles
Pairing/characters: SuFin

Red rose, white lily
Summary: Unhappy nations in space
Pairing/characters: SuFin

Seven Loves
Summary: Seven drabbles, following the progression of Sweden's love for Finland
Pairing/characters: SuFin

A SuFin Sundae
Summary: Sweden and Finland find a mysterious sundae.
Pairing/characters: SuFin, Hungary

Sweden and Finland vs. Hat Guy
Summary: Hetalia meets XKCD! In which Hat Guy tries out the antics in this comic. Unfortunately, his victims have not had enough excitement in a loooooooong time.
Pairing/characters: SuFin, Hat Guy, America

Third (is not the charm)
Summary: Why is China afraid of America? Because America is after Vietnam and Germany.
Pairing/characters: China, Vietnam, Germany, America

Words and broken tables
Summary: "I thought I would love you forever, but forever is a long time to be wrong."
Pairing/characters: past SuFin

WARNING: Some stories could be about potentially sensitive topics, due to my attempts to incorporate history. I cannot claim to be an expert on any nations covered (though I am relatively confident about my knowledge of America and China), so there are quite possibly misrepresentations and factual errors. In addition, several stories posted were written before I delved deeper into the history behind Sweden and Finland and realized that it was far more complex and nuanced than I'd previously imagined, so please forgive me for oversimplifying their relationship multiple times.

[Kestrad]

Nine hundred years
...............................

Finland wakes up as he does every morning, in Sweden’s strong, reassuring arms, his body pressed against the other nation’s familiar warmth. They fit together well, as smoothly as the shared border of the countries they represent. He smiles as he looks over his husband’s sleeping face—so peaceful, so different from the intimidating glare the rest of the world knows him so well for—and so handsome. Giggling slightly, he leans in to plant a soft kiss on those lips, still expressionless as ever even in sleep, but set just the tiniest bit more softly.

As he expects, Sweden stirs when their lips meet. “M’ning, wife,” the larger nation mumbles when they separate, pulling his arms more tightly around Finland.

“I’m not your wife,” Finland replies as always. Sweden mock pouts, and Finland can’t help but laugh at the expression. “Su-san, don’t—you know I love you.”

“Why?”

The question catches the smaller nation by surprise. “Why what?”

“Why d’y’ love me?”

Finland peruses Sweden’s face. The other nation looks back at him earnestly, a hint of guilt and fear that only someone who knows him as well as Finland could hope to read.

“Su-san…” Finland swallows, trying to reassure Sweden, though he knows where the other country’s thoughts are going. “Why wouldn’t I love you?”

“B’cause…b’cause I c’dn’ pr’tect y’ from Russia, all th’s times. B’cause I ab’ndon’d y’. B’cause—”

He stops as Finland cuts him off by placing a finger over his lips. “I love you because the sky is blue, and the rivers run to the sea,” he says. “I love you because it’s the way things are meant to be. I love you because you tried. I love you—” he pauses for a moment—“I love you because, because nine hundred years with you isn’t long enough, and even another nine hundred won’t be.”

There is silence when he finishes. Finland lies, still in Sweden’s arms, hoping that his answer is able to convey the depth of his feelings for the nation beside him.

The loving kiss that Sweden finally gives him in response is answer enough.
--
I may have posted this on here before somewhere. This was my first Hetalia fic ever, and I'm not particularly proud of it, but it for some reason remains one of my most popular stories.

[Kestrad]

I'm the hero
..................................

I’m the hero!

Some days America feels, well, old.

Ironic, really, because compared to England, compared to China, compared to any nation at all, he is very, very young.

But as the days and the years move on and the world spins faster and faster, he can’t tell the difference between two hundred years and a thousand. He’d never expected to be where he is now, back when he’d first roared his defiance at the British Empire, when despite his supernatural strength his future was very much uncertain. He’d certainly never imagined so many countries would look up to him as they do today, look to him to be the leader of the free world. Is that a title he made up for himself, or something he acquired along the way? He can’t remember, and frankly he no longer cares.

I’m the hero!

The past century especially has taken a toll on him. The tides of revolution crash, then find a new reason to rise, beginning with his women, sweeping up his minorities along the way, until he wakes up one morning holding a gun to someone’s head and feeling one at his own; he wakes up the next day finding himself on a journey for the sake of being contrary; he wakes up the next on the streets in a riot, screaming as he tears himself apart; he wakes up yet again the next day in the very average life he spurned just two days ago.

The last decade especially has taken a toll on everyone, as the communication becomes almost instantaneous and news news news is everywhere, all the time, becoming olds faster than the word news is finished being spoken. It reminds him of the insanity of the twenties, the collective highs of the sixties, only this time there’s no bottle at his lips, no needle in his vein.

Only at this peak the entire world has gone mad, and it is frighteningly sane. Only this time he is at the very top of the wave, and the others watch as they wait for him to crash.

I’m the hero!

Sitting at the top of the world, as Rome once did, as China has, he marvels at the view. He wonders if when he falls he’ll be succeeded like the Italies did with Rome, or if he’ll pick himself up again as China has for the past five thousand years. He sees the rest of the world eyeing him, watching in fear but in jealousy too. The world is a roller coaster and everyone wants their turn at the top, for that thrill right before the drop.

Oh, yes, he knows that drop will come some day, though a part of him still shouts that it never will. He can see China, already eager to snatch up the spot. It’s an addiction, one every nation seeks to fulfill, even if it breaks them.

He knows that he will fall, and it terrifies him. So while he has the chance—while he’s still riding on that high, he’ll throw every piece of his being into staying there.

I’m the hero, he screams.

Because only heroes can stop a wave from crashing on the shore. Because everything works out for heroes in the end.

[Kestrad]

1809
..........................

Life is a fleeting thing, Sweden reflects, even for nations that no mortal weapon can kill. A single stroke of a pen, a single battle lost, and the work of hundreds of years comes tumbling down. Perhaps it's this thought, the knowledge that they may never meet again, that causes him to reach for Finland's hand. Or perhaps it's simply the desire to forget for a moment; to lose himself in shared movement one last time with the one he loves.

"Dance w' me," he half-whispers, half-pleads. Wordlessly, Finland places his hand on Sweden's shoulder and complies.

The motion is a familiar one, one they fall into with ease. They move together slowly, weaving a small circle with their bodies and their feet. If he closes his eyes, Sweden can almost pretend that they are safe, back at his house, whiling away another long winter night with a long slow dance until the fire burns low. So close them he does, pulling Finland closer and letting his body move of its own accord, to the steps so familiar neither of them need to think anymore.

Step left, turn. Step right, turn.

Finland follows Sweden's steps naturally, with an ease and familiarity born from centuries' worth of dances together. Sweden opens his eyes again, his vision filling with the smaller nation's tight, solemn face. There is no use pretending anymore, not when even with his eyes closed, he can feel the heaviness of Finland's once light steps, the slight tightness of his grip on Sweden's shoulder, giving away that this dance is different from the countless ones before.

They do not speak. There is no need. In the silence they twirl together to a tune only they can hear, speaking with their bodies a language far more eloquent than any words can express. For that, Sweden is grateful, even if he misses Finland's chatter and the easy smile that comes with it. His throat is tight, too tight to let words through. Instead he brings their dance to a stop so he can simply wrap his arms around Finland and hold the other nation tightly. Despite his best efforts, a few tears escape his eyes. He reaches up to brush them aside, but before his hand can reach his face Finland pushes him away gently and wipes them away for him.

"Sve," Finland says softly, and his voice is trembling. "Don't cry. I'll come back to you."

It's a lie, and they both know it. The past century has not been kind to Sweden. He doesn't have the strength to fight for Finland anymore. But the taller nation simply nods, and Finland responds with a shaky smile.

"Dance with me again," Finland says, reaching to hold Sweden's hands once more.

Step right, turn. Step left, turn.

Together they whirl through the night, not stopping even when their fire burns itself out.
--
In 1809, Sweden ceded Finland to Russia for the final time.

[Kestrad]

Words and broken tables
.................................................

The legs to Sweden’s table were uneven, so that whenever someone sat at it (usually Denmark, showing up unannounced to help himself to a beer) it would tilt dangerously, threatening to spill whatever had been placed on it. “Eh, Sve,” Denmark would say as he rescued his beer, “Your table sucks!” To which Sweden would reply with a mumble something along the lines of “’ll fix ‘t later.”

So it was that on one particular day, Sweden found himself standing before the table with his box of tools. It was an old table, covered with scratches and burn marks and coffee stains. It really wasn’t worth fixing, Sweden thought to himself as he set the tool box down. Better to toss it out and make himself a new one. He went up to the table and lifted it halfheartedly, then set it back down again.

He couldn’t throw it out. He never could bring himself to. He pulled up a chair and sat down at the table, leaning his elbows on it and his head on his palms, ignoring the way his weight made the table tilt. Idly he reached out with one hand, tracing along the marks and scratches. There were several discolors splotches from when he’d set down a mug of coffee and forgot to get a coaster—a common occurrence for him these days. In the corner were the scratches from the time Iceland had decided he wanted to carve his name somewhere. Countless marks and scratches from the time Denmark had gotten drunk enough to dance on the table, and a similarly intoxicated Finland had joined in.

Finland.

All the marks from all the Nordics, but Finland was who he had built the table for. When the one before this one had broken from activities a table wasn’t meant for.

Finland, who would never come back to him again.

Sweden returned his hand to his chin and stared off, out the window, as if he could look all the way across the 398 kilometers that separated him from the other nation, if only he gazed off far enough. As if he could see Finland smiling before him again.

But all he saw was Finland’s hurt, angry, betrayed stare, the stare that pierced him more than any sword could hurt. I needed help, but you never came. Sweden shrank back, as he did all those decades ago, guilt and shame eating away at him as strongly as ever.

He knew he deserved the words Finland spoke to him. Words spoken calmly, without any of the lively cheer he’d come to expect from the smaller nation.

“I thought I would love you forever, Sve. But…forever is a long time to be wrong.”

Yes, he deserved them.

But that didn’t make them hurt any less.
--
Prompt was to use the quote "I thought I would love you forever, but forever is a long time to be wrong."

[Kestrad]

Pause
......................

1. Newgrange—Celtic Woman, ft. Orla Fallon
Something about old monuments, steeped with legend and folklore, draws Sweden and Finland to them. Finland thinks, as he slips his hand into Sweden’s before the ring of stones, perhaps it’s because in the middle of a world that spins faster and faster every day, the mysterious mounds are a reminder that some things remain constant through too many centuries to remember.

2. You Did a Good Thing—Sleepthief, ft. Nicola Hitchcock
Sweden sits alone, the fire throwing his face into sharp relief, all shifting yellow and stark shadow. His blue eyes stare into the flames, but the light they see comes from a source far different from the one before him. Purple eyes that twinkle with perpetual laughter; a delicate mouth open in genuine joy—but the sight lasts only for a moment before the flames claim their rightful place once more.

How could he ever have let such a nation with such a smile go? Yet he knows that setting the smaller nation free was the only way that some day, Finland will return, lighting up Sweden’s world with his grin.

But until then, the fire will have to do.

3. Somebody—Connie Dover
In the dead of night, he walks quietly, steadily west, leaving only a fine trail of fine marks in the snow. If he stops, he’ll have to acknowledge his effort is futile—because Sweden won’t be there, not when there’s no way for him to know Finland is coming, and all the journey will accomplish is angering Russia—so he keeps moving, step following endless step, imagining the smile that will dance in Sweden’s aquamarine eyes when they meet at the border.

4. Gimme Gimme Gimme (a man after midnight)—ABBA
Sweden raises his head from his pillow with a gasp, knowing instantly something is wrong. He is right—the spot next to his in bed is empty, cold, hasn’t been slept in. For a moment there is sheer panic—and then he remembers that Finland is gone and has been gone and he’s lost count how many times he’s woken up like this in the middle of the night.

The adrenaline keeps him from falling back asleep, so instead he gets up, steps over the window, and throws it open, not caring that the cold winter wind chills his room in an instant.

5. It’s the Fear—Within Temptation
If the choice had been between Finland and anyone else, Sweden would have known exactly what to choose.

But how could he choose between Finland and Finland?

The Finland who calls himself White raises his rifle and Red Finland crumples to the ground, as Sweden watches silently from his side. White lowers his weapon slowly, silently. There is no joy in their hearts at the victory, no exclamations of glee or relief. Only the slightest rustle of wind and a soft thud when the one remaining Finland drops to his knees and Sweden bends down to hold him. Only scattered sobs barely audible above the wind as red blood drips from one Finland and pools under the other onto white, white snow.

6. You Raise Me Up
A lion is an apt representation of Sweden, Finland thinks, as he watches the former empire brood by the window. Calm and dignified, yet filled with latent power ready to burst forth at a moment’s notice.

It’s one of the small joys in Finland’s life, how he can tame the lion with nothing more than his quiet presence, his gentle touch against Sweden’s back. And when Sweden turns to grace Finland with the tiniest upward tilt of his lips, the smaller nation is hard pressed to find anything else that fills him with such a blend of exhilaration and happiness and, most of all, love.

[Kestrad]

Money and nothing else
...............................................

China is drinking when America arrives, the small blue-lacquered cup and half-empty bottle of baijiu hinting he’s been at it for a while.

“Alfred! How good of you to come visit. Come join me!” From somewhere China produces another tiny cup, reaches for the bottle. America shakes his head.

“You shouldn’t drink so much,” he says, as reproachfully as he can towards a nation several thousand years older than he is. It isn’t very much.

“Shouldn’t I?” China asks. He picks up his cup, throws the contents down his throat. Pours himself another cup. “I believe it was one of yours who once said, ‘To alcohol: the cause of—and solution to—all of man’s problems.’ I may be a nation, but I’m also a man.” He smiles wryly and lifts his cup in a mock toast.

America presses his lips together into a thin line, but says nothing. China calmly sips more baijiu. Several minutes elapse in silence this way.

Finally, China speaks again. “You’re here for money again, aren’t you?” America nods. “Of course,” China continues. “It’s always about the money. You’re never here to see me just for the sake of seeing me. No one ever is.” America opens his mouth to say something, but China cuts him off. “At least give me something in return. Stop refusing to sell me weapons, and we’ll talk.”

America shakes his head. “You know I can’t do that.”

China laughs humorlessly. His breath is the bitter reek of alcohol and anger. “And why not? Afraid I’ll take over the world?” He pours himself yet another cup. “Surely it can’t still be about morals. About the human rights that you and the Europeans are all so hung up about. Hypocritical bastards, all of you. At least Ivan doesn’t even pretend to be righteous, even if he only sells me stuff I’ve learned to make myself already.”

“Yao—”

“A hundred thousand shirts and a couple million toys and drawing the belts tighter about our waists to save a few dollars a day while you spend yourselves into oblivion, all so we can be accused of stealing your jobs while throwing blank checks at you. You could at least pretend to be my friend.” China reaches for his bottle again. America wonders what the point of drinking from such a small cup is, if all you do is refill it again and again and again.

China downs another cup, and then another. Finally he sighs. “All right, take the money. You know where it is.” He gestures vaguely at the rest of the house. America nods and heads inside.

China watches him leave. Pours himself another cup. Sighs again. The bottle of baijiu is almost empty. That’s alright—he can always buy more. Money’s the one thing he doesn’t lack, after all.

[Kestrad]

Nothing gold can stay
.............................................

The roof of the old building is surprisingly...pleasant, for lack of a better word. A breeze chases the worst of the summer heat away and ruffles Sweden's hair as he emerges from his climb. It's tranquil all around. The sun is uncharacteristically gentle, the silence dotted by the cheerful peeps and chirps from little birds fluttering around.

And Sweden hates it.

The world is too happy, too calm, too pleasant. Doesn't it care that Finland is gone?

He steps to the edge and looks down, at the hard ground below, at the trees a short distance away, at the sun setting slowly in the west. "This place will be yours and mine alone," Finland once said to Sweden when they first found the place, and he giggled, because they were nations, and in a sense everything under the sun within their borders belonged to them.

They'd claimed the abandoned roof and made it their own, like two young boys keeping a treehouse, swearing never to tell anyone else of its existence, meeting there often to simply bask in the fading sun, enjoy the breeze caressing their faces. Finland pressed up against Sweden's side, Sweden's arm over Finland's shoulder. Alone, together. Perhaps it was a bit childish, but Sweden figured that after a few hundred years spent being adults they deserved the break.

"If I'd only known," Sweden whispers into the wind, stepping away from the edge, just a tiny bit. A few lilies-of-the-valley have grown out of the cracks in the concrete and brick, all delicate green stems and pure white buds. He bends down to pluck a sprig, not caring about--no, welcoming--the poison seeping into his hands. Finland's national flower, and unofficially his own too. Lily-of-the-valley, for happiness to come, and had it really only been a month ago that Finland handed him a sprig carefully wrapped with cloth, on what should have been the first night of their union and turned out to be their last as well?

"I could bring him back, you know."

Sweden whirls around at the flat, apathetic words, finding himself face-to-face with Norway. "How'd ya know I was here?"

"Easy. I followed you." The two nations stare at each other in silence, blue eyes into violet, violet like Finland's except Finland's eyes were never so dull. Norway breaks the pause. "As I was saying. I could bring him back. For a price. I can perform you a miracle."

Norway's words hang in the air between them for several long moments, growing heavier and heavier. Then Sweden turns his head away from Norway, towards where the sun slowly transforms the sky into gold.

Once he was known the world over for his love of gold, and yet he would have given all the gold in the world for Finland's love. But now he's tasted the sweetness of Finland's lips, held his warm body close at night, and in the end all their fleeting love gained was Finland's destruction.

"What do you say, Konungariket Sverige-Finland?" Norway's tone has grown mocking, bitter, accusatory. Sweden feels bile rising in his throat. Norway misses his brother, perhaps, but he can't even begin to understand the depth the hole that exists inside of Sweden.

He'd only wanted for them to be together forever. Had that been too much to ask? Sweden clenches his hand tighter around the lilies, turns towards Norway once more. "Don't speak to me of miracles," he says. He opens his palm, looks down at the flowers, crushed by his grip, brown bruises on white. "The only miracle that existed is dead."

He tosses the flowers over the edge. They flash golden in the setting sun as they fall.
--
Title is a reference to the Robert Frost poem.

[Kestrad]

Red rose, white lily
...........................................

The new planet has global temperatures on average ten degrees colder than the earth’s.

That’s just fine for Sweden. His people thrived for centuries in the cold, after all.

*

The colony expands to fill the continent in just over half a century. Admittedly it’s a small one, but it’s still an accomplishment and Sweden celebrates accordingly. He sends out a note—a single line—via a network he’s no longer sure works, to addresses that may no longer be connected.

Several replies trickle in, similarly short, cautiously congratulatory.

The address he wants to hear from most is silent.

*

His people are forgetting.

Like his days as a Viking, like the time he ruled his own corner of the earth, time swallows his past in an inexorable tide, turning his final greatest voyage into a distant dream. History is better documented this time around, but already his people cannot comprehend a time when the world contained more than one language, more than one country, crammed next to each other like so many herrings into one single jar.

Sweden wakes up some mornings with the image of a man with shining blue eyes and wild gold hair and mouth set in a permanent grin and remembers someone like that was important to him once, but no matter how hard Sweden tries he just can’t quite remember the man’s name.

Other mornings he wakes up from dreams of lilac eyes and gentle caresses and wishes nothing more than to forget.

*

There are rows and rows of roses in Sweden’s garden.

They’re a parting gift from when he left the earth, from a nation who chose to stay. A nation who’d dropped roses off with each departing ship. “Roses, like love, are meant to be given away,” he’d said with a smile and a wink, though his face was weary and his eyes had lost their shine.

Sweden had accepted the flowers without comment. Without asking who there could possibly be in the cold void of space for him to give roses to.

The flowers thrive in the soil of the foreign planet, scattering blood-red petals into the blowing wind.

*

One hundred years in, a spaceship requests permission to land. The make is old—one Sweden vaguely recognizes from the diaspora from earth a century ago. There’s probably a nation on board. Sweden wonders if it’s one he knew or if it’s one of the new ones, born when nations sent their citizens away in more than one ship. He wonders if he’ll be able to tell the difference.

He turns on his video screen. Starry violet eyes made serious by age bloom before him, and a delicate mouth that falls open in shock before rearranging itself into a soft smile. A smile Sweden has spent the better part of a millennium looking for something beautiful enough to compare it to. A smile he thought he would never see again.

Permission is granted immediately. Sweden sees to that.

Just one hour later a small, slender man rushes into the taller one’s arms as their respective people look on bemusedly. Sweden clings onto Finland like a drowning man to driftwood, silently wondering if a god he stopped believing in long ago exists after all.

*

Finland builds his house on the other side of the planet. Sweden visits often whenever he can, dropping off supplies.

He arrives one day to find Finland in his garden, planting row upon row of snow-white flowers. Lily of the valley. Returning happiness.

Wordlessly, Finland hands Sweden a few.

Sweden plants them in his own garden when he returns home, beside the rows of roses, a field of snow for the blood-red petals to fall.

*

Finland is silent. Like the sound of ages transpiring. The sound of years trickling by. Sweden and Finland sit side by side in silence, waiting for—for what? Perhaps waiting for noise. For someone to break the quiet that hangs between them like ice.

Was Finland always so silent? Sweden’s forgotten too many things during a century separated by too many miles to count.

Sweden realizes too late he’s forgotten something else important.

Strangers breed distrust. Distrust breeds hate.

And one hundred years apart turns the best of friends into strangers.

*

One thousand years is the time they spent on their bond.

It takes one hundred and ten to break it.

A century to forget. Eight years for tenuous reconciliation. Two years for the tension to boil over.

“Sve…remember when—?”

Remember when you I held you? Remember when we lived, side by side, and even though the world was small we were content? Remember when we were happy? Sweden finishes Finland’s question for him a thousand times and never finds the answer.

Finland is on his knees, blood flowing freely from a gash in his stomach. He doesn’t even bother trying to staunch the wound. Sweden brings his bloody knife up.

“I remember.”

The knife plunges into Finland’s neck and the small body crumples to the ground. Sweden gently lays it out, smoothes the hair, closes those violet eyes.

Sometime tonight they’ll open again. Tomorrow it’ll be Finland’s turn with the knife. Finland’s turn for revenge. Sweden’s turn to die. They’ll continue until neither of them have the people or the strength for the cycle anymore.

Then perhaps one day Sweden can bring Finland roses and apologize. Perhaps one day Finland can hand Sweden lilies without conveying a lie.

Or perhaps they’ll both fade away completely, and in one thousand years only the flowers thriving on a planet that is not theirs will hint there ever was a story to tell.

Sweden waits, gently cradling his lover’s body, waits to see which ending it will be.

[Kestrad]

My eyes have seen
.........................................

The first night he sees her lying broken on the ground, a pool of blood beneath her head, another thinner stream between her legs, and he drops his sword and runs to her side, howling at the sky when she won’t wake up, howling at himself for being away when she needed him.

“Brother,” Liechtenstein says the next morning, “you look tired.”

“It’s nothing,” he says, sipping some coffee from his mug and pulling out his smartphone to check the stock markets so he doesn’t have to look at her, because he’ll just see her covered with blood again and she’ll know because she reads him like a book. “Just worried about my rising currency.”

He finishes his breakfast resolutely ignoring his sister’s worried glances.

*

The second night he stands before a scaffold and he’s too close to see the victim’s face, but he can see her feet swinging freely and she’s wearing a familiar pair of dainty green shoes with a short curved heels and bright silver buckles, and he doesn’t need to look up to feel sick with recognition at who the accused witch could be.

“Brother,” Liechtenstein says the next morning, “you have bags under your eyes.”

“I worked late last night,” he replies between sips of coffee, though he knows she knows when he went to bed, he knows she’ll know it’s a lie.

Liechtenstein purses her lips but doesn’t say anything.

*

The third night he finds her lying in a rude bed, her pretty face deathly pale, her lips red with the blood covering the pile of rags littering the floor beside her, and by the time he reaches her side her eyes have closed and she’s rasping something incomprehensible because surely she can’t really be saying “I love you” when he’s letting her die like this, fevered and alone.

“Brother,” Liechtenstein calls the next morning, “it’s not like you to get up late.”

He sits up in bed as she brings him coffee and doesn’t say anything at all.

*

The fourth night she brings him some warm milk before he goes to sleep, and the words “stay with me” fall out of his mouth before he realizes what he’s saying and he looks away ashamed because he should be taking care of her not demanding care from her.

But Liechtenstein only smiles and sets the cup aside and climbs in under the covers with him, and from somewhere she brings out a book of fairy tales and reads to him as he clings to her until his grip grows slack and he finally nods off.

“Brother,” Liechtenstein says the next morning, “you look happy today.”

“Good news came about the economy,” he says as he makes himself some coffee, checking the stock markets as he waits so he doesn’t need to look at her, because she reads him like a book anyway.

Liechtenstein simply smiles and nods and starts making them breakfast.
--
I am quite proud of this story right now.