Saudade | CountryHumans RusAme

64 ‎ ‎ A World All Alone

SWITZERLAND
"Switzerland, you're roasting it the wrong way."

"I am?"

Netherlands laughs. "You're burning the marshmallow. You're putting it too close to the fire. Look at mine, see? It's a charred, golden brown. It's supposed to be that color, not the black."

"The Icarus Marshmallow," Switzerland jokes, peeling away the dark, unappetizing crust to reveal gooey threads of sugary goodness and pops it into his mouth. "I always liked that story," he adds, mouth full.

"He was too daring and then he got burnt," Netherland hums. "People do that a lot, kinda."

"Do things too dangerous and then have it backfire?"

"Something like that."

Switzerland pauses, lets the words hang fleetingly in the air between them and the crackling. "But he set a precedent. He's a legendary tale. People use him in allusions far and wide."

"I suppose that's true," Netherlands shrugs. He stabs another marshmallow onto the skewer and blows the ash away before wavering it above the heat. "Would you like to be Icarus?"

"What an odd question. It depends. Do you take the his story as one of bravery or hubris?"

There's a silence.

"Dunno," Netherlands concludes finally. "Well, I wouldn't want to be Icarus if it puts my life at risk," he says truthfully. "Do I drown in the sea or do I somehow miraculously survive?"

"You drown," Switzerland replies bluntly. Netherlands purses his lips before trying another attempt at a perfect marshmallow.

★

RUSSIA
Let's be friends, Russia.

"America," he barely managed through the disarray, trying despairingly to treasure the second lifeless body that day. His voice came out a wretched croak, hoarse in uncertainty, a loss of that youth, a cracked cacophony of thoughts and dreams. "Please." He didn't know how to act, whether he could move, felt almost as if his body had been immobilized and maybe in that case he would be able to consider the possibility of an hallucination—

Just perhaps, he thought (futile, really) and sharply pressed his ear to America's chest. His heart dropped depths, dug deeper into the chasm. There wasn't a heartbeat, only the warm stickiness of blood, scarlet and mottled and terrifying.

He raised his face. The entire left side was coated in red.

I think you guys aren't really half as bad. You know, we wouldn't be here if it weren't for China.

The students looked on, scrutinized for a change in reaction. And still, he wasn't quite sure how to express his desperation efficiently, to cry, to throw up, to scream and shout until his throat burned red and raw, flames and tepid tears licking at his insides. Whether to mourn when he could press his head to America's chest and feel the song of life within, to allow himself to fall unconscious—

He knew surely that he would've shook America until he woke, somehow, tried to furiously revitalize a pitter-patter of life, if not for a haggard yell from the crowd: the assailant, NATO, brandishing a gun with a red face full of fury.

I think about you really often, you know. What is it about you that intrigues me?

"It's you," the man hissed through his teeth, practically venom in the way that it left his lips and scarred his gums. "You're the cause of all of this. You marred Britain and France's prized pupil. You're ruining this dimension, you're ruining him, and if it weren't for you—"