[Fanfiction] "We aged a hundred years, and this happened in a single hour"
“We aged a hundred years, and this happened in a single hour”
Rating: PG
Characters: Russia, Ukraine
Prompt: Ivan’s feelings towards his big sister and her “cruel kindness”. For japanalisu.
He loves her most, he thinks, when she is very cruel. Because she is vicious without realising, heartless with blissful ignorance, and very beautiful because of it.
The first time she gives him a scarf, he is small and stricken with fear. He has no coin to give in return and he can only stand paralysed, rooted to the spot as she wraps it around his neck like a loosened noose.
She was beautiful that way, bending over him and haloed in dim winter sunlight, smiling as she tightened the scarf and tucked the loose ends away into his coat’s collar, pausing to press her lips to the crown of his head and then shoo him along to where their youngest sister waited for him impatiently, wanting to play.
He loves her most, perhaps, because she embraces him often. And just as often as she holds him, she is angry with him. Something inside him would like to believe that she holds on to him like this because she loves him as much as he loves her, but he thinks she does it because she is angry. It gives him a thrill that it shouldn’t; it reminds him that she is capable of holding and equally capable of oppressing.
On occasion, she presents him with scarves now as well and he is not frightened. He simply sighs inwardly and smiles for her, thanking her in tones of false gratitude as she beams up at him.
He does not give her a coin in return anymore. He simply runs thick, calloused fingers through her short locks and tells her (sternly, sternly) that he’ll give her another fortnight’s extension on her debt.
And without fail, she thanks him and stands on her toes to press her lips to his cheek (because she cannot reach the crown of his head anymore, but no one can), and he feels used.
When he was freshly fallen, he used to gain a bit of sick satisfaction from a widespread case of misinformation, a case of misplaced identity calling him the USSR, as if he’d done it all by himself. And they had been frightened of him.
Nowadays, it’s irritating and misleading. The USSR, he wants to tell them, was a house. Not a person. As it stands, the person they wish to place their fearful accusations and blame on simply wants to sit in his very small home (it is cozy, he tells them, and much cheaper to heat in the winter) and read Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky.
Today he is painting; there is a small, contented smile and serene closed eyes beneath his paint brush. He holds it as it dries, running his thumb over the patterns of flowers beneath it.
He runs a fond finger tip over the smallest piece, an almost sulky expression on its pretty face. He places it inside the middle piece with its plain face and placid expression that he ignores. And then he nests them both inside his freshly painted piece, letting the matryoshka’s top slide into place. He stares down at it for a moment, kisses the crown of its head, and then sets it on the shelf.
Notes:
A coin for a scarf- It is considered a bad omen (one for tears) in Russian culture to give a scarf as a gift. If such gift-giving occurs, it is customary to give the giver a small coin as an illusion of “buying” the gift and getting rid of the bad omen.
Rating: PG
Characters: Russia, Ukraine
Prompt: Ivan’s feelings towards his big sister and her “cruel kindness”. For japanalisu.
He loves her most, he thinks, when she is very cruel. Because she is vicious without realising, heartless with blissful ignorance, and very beautiful because of it.
The first time she gives him a scarf, he is small and stricken with fear. He has no coin to give in return and he can only stand paralysed, rooted to the spot as she wraps it around his neck like a loosened noose.
She was beautiful that way, bending over him and haloed in dim winter sunlight, smiling as she tightened the scarf and tucked the loose ends away into his coat’s collar, pausing to press her lips to the crown of his head and then shoo him along to where their youngest sister waited for him impatiently, wanting to play.
He loves her most, perhaps, because she embraces him often. And just as often as she holds him, she is angry with him. Something inside him would like to believe that she holds on to him like this because she loves him as much as he loves her, but he thinks she does it because she is angry. It gives him a thrill that it shouldn’t; it reminds him that she is capable of holding and equally capable of oppressing.
On occasion, she presents him with scarves now as well and he is not frightened. He simply sighs inwardly and smiles for her, thanking her in tones of false gratitude as she beams up at him.
He does not give her a coin in return anymore. He simply runs thick, calloused fingers through her short locks and tells her (sternly, sternly) that he’ll give her another fortnight’s extension on her debt.
And without fail, she thanks him and stands on her toes to press her lips to his cheek (because she cannot reach the crown of his head anymore, but no one can), and he feels used.
When he was freshly fallen, he used to gain a bit of sick satisfaction from a widespread case of misinformation, a case of misplaced identity calling him the USSR, as if he’d done it all by himself. And they had been frightened of him.
Nowadays, it’s irritating and misleading. The USSR, he wants to tell them, was a house. Not a person. As it stands, the person they wish to place their fearful accusations and blame on simply wants to sit in his very small home (it is cozy, he tells them, and much cheaper to heat in the winter) and read Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky.
Today he is painting; there is a small, contented smile and serene closed eyes beneath his paint brush. He holds it as it dries, running his thumb over the patterns of flowers beneath it.
He runs a fond finger tip over the smallest piece, an almost sulky expression on its pretty face. He places it inside the middle piece with its plain face and placid expression that he ignores. And then he nests them both inside his freshly painted piece, letting the matryoshka’s top slide into place. He stares down at it for a moment, kisses the crown of its head, and then sets it on the shelf.
Notes:
A coin for a scarf- It is considered a bad omen (one for tears) in Russian culture to give a scarf as a gift. If such gift-giving occurs, it is customary to give the giver a small coin as an illusion of “buying” the gift and getting rid of the bad omen.