TALES FROM THE ASHEN | A COUNTRYHUMANS UNDERWORLD STORY

ACT 1 PART 5

Chapter 5)

(Act i part v)

(The pov will switch halfway through btw, this chapter is mostly for expanding the world and it takes place during chapter four)

-UKRAINIAN PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC yawned, that all she could really do right now, traveling through the eternal library of the ashen had made her feet weary and busted with splinters, even if she was wearing boots. It did not help that a current visitor was arguing with her little brother.

"Poland! If you're only here to make a mess and complain, why not just go back to the mortal realm, you know you can!!!" UPR groaned, getting up from the makeshift bed she was sitting on.

"Yeah, but there's always the thrill of danger here! And besides, most of my best friends are dead anyway." Poland laughed.

"And so are your worst enemies." Ukraine shot back. "You knew completely what you were doing when you and my brothers grandfather invaded her lands!!!" 

"Relax, okay? You're always so defensive. Besides, Ruthenia is dead now—oh." Poland paused, just realizing that that meant he might meet her somewhere in this afterlife, even if he was technically just visiting in one of his past live dead bodies.

"Wha? Who's ruthenia?" A small voice spoke, Poland recognized that voice immediately , it was SSR Lib, his young nephew . He had died at 3 years old during a war where Poland had the upper hand. But his nephew was all too innocent and unknowing who his killer was.

"Nobody important." Poland said sweetly to the young—but now dead country.

"NOBODY IMPORTANT?! SHE'S MY MOTHER, FOR SAINT OLGA'S SAKE!!!" Ukraine yelled, getting her younger brother's attention. Poland and SSR LiB shutted up for a while after that.

"Uhhhh... big sister?" Her brother asked.

"Yes, green Ukraine?" She looked over him, still seething .

"D-do you think the Bolshevik's may be stalking us again? I don't want to die again—I don't want to get bashed by a rock.." He muttered, shivering despite the ashen never getting any weather except for rain or scorching heat or a thick fog, nothing in between.

"I hope not..." Ukraine walked over to her little brother, brushing his hair with her hand, calming down the paranoid tween for a bit.

"B-but Bolshevik's my grandpa!!!" SSR LiB pouted and whined, stomping his foot on the ground like the child he was. "Family protects family!!"

"I know.. but sometimes family can be bad, they can be abusive and awful. My whole living life I had to deal with those abusive people." She reflected on the child, still innocent and not knowing of what was to come, just like her little sister , now alive, when UPR was forced to leave. So many countries had died in the Russian civil war or forced to exile themselves, it was sad that SSR LiB was an infant at the time of his death, but it was not uncommon like Don SR, who was stillborn before his big brother had to take charge, but only living for two years himself.

Bolshevik had destroyed everything for power and he did it with the support of Poland's 'father' and turned siblings against each other, corrupting bonds of trust that had been there for generations, almost every day back then was constant bloodshed, and it never helped when the allies had gotten involved.

"I cannot believe that that horrible man already had grandchildren when he rose to power." Poland said, taking out a cigar and using a 1910s old German soldier's lighter he had been given by his own 'father' from his boot.

"He should never have been a father in the first place, I'm glad he doesn't know who his children are other than the obvious ones." 

"Like Far Eastern republic?" Green Ukraine perked up.