a totter'd weed of small worth held

[pixietea]

Characters: England and all of you!
Setting: Floor fifteen, the workshop or floor thirteen, the cathedral.
Format: Starting prose. Have action? Will match!
Summary: Everyone has different ways of dealing with stress. England's chief outlets are consumption of tea, and a seam well-sewn.
Warnings: None yet (aside from England having girly hobbies and me

Comments

Floor 13!

[eastern_awsum]

Prussia hadn't been himself. Even now after everything had settled down and he'd found himself not replaying the same routine and believing that the tower was a good place he'd settled into a monotony of wandering the halls and floors like an overly grumpy ghost.

The cathedral was one of the few places that made him feel nearly human once again. But even the cathedral pressed in on him, reminding him of how he was trapped and merely waiting for judgement if he did eventually fade from the tower.

Ghosting by the pew Arthur was in the colour of the thread caught his attention. It was a nice colour, especially since the rest of the tower lacked it.

"Nice colour choice."

[pixietea]

England had started to regain a bit of his normal pace by the time Prussia came along, agile fingers working the needle through the fabric with the utmost care. He pushed a little too hard on the eye end of the needle at the sound of Prussia's voice and paused to look up at the man, momentarily stilling in his work.

"Got an eye for design now, have you?" questioned the Englishman, the normal sarcasm in his voice lazy from something slightly resembling relaxation. He still found it in himself to give the other nation a wondering half-glare, though, as was par for the course when Arthur was dealing with Gilbert.

He didn't verbalize the concern in the expression (because he wasn't concerned about Prussia, that was ridiculous), but something about the Germanic man seemed off to him.

[eastern_awsum]

Prussia shrugged, putting his hands in the pockets of his his rumpled coat. not that it mattered, it wasn't like they hadn't seen him in the same outfit daily for the past fifty years.

"I just said it was a nice colour." Gilbert muttered and didn't bother to give England a glare in return. He just didn't feel like it.

He watched England's hands with the thread for a few more moment, enjoying the brightness of the colour in the dreariness of the cathedral.

[pixietea]

The halfhearted response gave the glare a turn for curious more than anything else, but England didn't say anything in return, returning his gaze to his embroidery. He continued stitching along with the red for a few moments in silence, letting Prussia watch him without comment.

Eventually, though, his mouth pulled into a bit of a troubled grimace and he graced Prussia with his attentions once more. "You may sit, if you would like," he offered with a note of discomfort. What had gotten into the usually-boisterous man? Perhaps he was still feeling the effects of the experiment. ...Not that England cared, of course, but honestly, no one seemed to be acting themselves anymore.

[eastern_awsum]

Prussia looked at England again, looking away from the nice orangey-red colour that England was using. But he decided he did want to sit, keeping his distance and leaning his arms against the pew ahead of him. Even the cathedral didn't seem to be able to alleviate the melancholy that had settled around him. It wasn't that he didn't know the root of his problems, the helplessness and caged feeling that had been following him like a disease.

It was slowly eating at him, causing this sickness that he didn't know if it was curable or not. Especially within the confines of the tower it seemed that he was even more helpless than ever before, not even being able to help his little brother or best friend after such a terrifying event.

Prussia keeps quiet, a rare thing for him and presses his face against his hands on the pew ahead of himself.

[pixietea]

England continued to embroider at a moderate pace as Prussia sat, stopping only once he had outlined a cluster of red petals around a smaller arrangement of off-white petals in the center that he had completed earlier. He watched the other nation with a sidelong glance from the corner of his eye as he moved to thin out his thread and start a new stitch to begin the interior details of the rose.

The kingdom didn't get too far before the silence from Prussia began to disturb him. He set his embroidery ring down on his lap and turned his head to look full-on at the other man, eyebrows marginally furrowed. "Is there something you'd like to talk about?" England prodded with what was definitely curiosity and most certainly not concern.

[eastern_awsum]

Prussia sat still for another moment, lost in his thoughts of wondering if he would ever leave this place, and even if he didn't if he could at least get West and France out. Even, Mattie he knew wanted to leave so desperately it was like they were drowning slowly in the toxins of this tower.

"There's no point...We'll still be trapped here no matter what I say."

[pixietea]

Ah, so that was it. He couldn't really say he was surprised. It couldn't have been good for someone like Prussia to be cooped up in a place where he had no control, seeing as the albino nation had always had a history of glory-seizing livelihood.

"All the more reason to verbalize your thoughts, lest they drive you even madder than this damn place likely will," England countered easily, picking up his needlework again. "I doubt any miracles will come of it, but sparing a withering sanity and a fraying will seems cause enough for me."

This is him repaying Prussia for last time when he got cajoled into talking about his own problems. He'd admit (but only to himself) that maybe he was a little worried.

[eastern_awsum]

"You know as well as I do that me verbalizing anything is shit. I'm terrible at getting anything across unless I'm being awesome and taking someone over." Prussia sighed and let his head hit the pew ahead of him with a soft thunk of forehead on aged wood. "Besides, according to some I've already lost it and we all need a goddamn miracle for being trapped here." he huffed and fell silent for several long moments before he swallowed.

"England... have you ever actually been afraid of dying?"

[pixietea]

He ran a finger over the stitches that had been made on the kerchief, gently tracing the forming petals of the Tudor rose on the scrap of cloth. "When actions speak louder than words, violence and war are a proverbial scream," England remarked dryly -- and wasn't it the truth?

He fell silent as Prussia did. The needle was expertly weaved in and out of the cloth in the hush, until the Germanic nation's question slowed it to a thoughtful halt.

England's eyebrows furrowed together as a pensive expression overtook him. "When I was younger, quite often," the man eventually answered. "I have come to accept it as an inevitability; I'm quite fortunate to have lived as long as I have as it is." He took a pause to make one last red stitch and tie off the thread. "I merely hope that the day does not arrive soon."

In all honesty, there was a specific kind of death that he still feared, but that phobia was to be kept under lock and key deep within his psyche, not aired out in the open for Prussia to hear.

[eastern_awsum]

"Yeah, inevitable." Prussia muttered and sighed. he knew deep down his death was inevitable. The paper signed, the treaties made, the land captured. Now all there was left was time and the slow descent of getting weaker until he knew he would fade. He had watched Germania go, the slow descent that in the end he had lost. The short end to the Holy Roman Empire, cut down suddenly by France.

It was the slow death that scared him, the fading and weakness that he already knew were slowly encroaching on him.

"You're a lucky prick, England. Even if it looks bad you seem to be able to keep going."

[pixietea]

England sighed. He knew he was fortunate. For an empire as large as his to live past its prime -- and still come out of it with a Commonwealth -- was amazing. Of course, it hadn't exactly made him any friends. He was little but a lonely, traditionalist old man nowadays.

But, at least he was alive.

"It took some fighting," he conceded. "Some" was sort of an understatement, especially in his younger days, but he'd always preferred to go down kicking and screaming. "Though, if it's not too terribly bold, you're still alive as well, I hope you realize?" How long had it been since Prussia's nation had been dissolved? And yet, he was still around to be an energetic pain in the arse.

[eastern_awsum]

"Barely. Only reason I'm still around is because of Berlin... and Mattie was kind enough to rename one of his regions New Prussia." Gilbert sighed. He hated taking charity, but now there was nothing left but to pity him. He'd wagered it all to save his brother and unite the German states and he'd lost it all.

He'd fought until he just couldn't physically anymore and only then he had the rug ripped out from under his feet with his dissolution. Now it was merely a waiting game, at times his limbs would become so transparent he could barely make out the tips of his fingers and others he seemed as solid as before. How long would it last? Likely not long seeing as how quickly the world was changing and people forgetting his name.

"Heh. Seems when you get old all people do is pity you or hate you or both."

[pixietea]

His stitching slowed to a gradual stop so that he could look at Prussia as he spoke this time. For all his being an insufferable, boorish bastard, England respected Prussia's strength. And he'd quickly discovered that the Germanic nation could be insightful when he wanted to. He knew better than to feel sorry for Prussia, but he did reserve a degree of sympathy for the other man.

"Isn't that the truth," England scoffed lightly, slumping a little against the back support of the pew preceding a weary sigh. "The price of wisdom and experience, I suppose."

[eastern_awsum]

"Wisdom and experience? Experience I've got, hell, I had enough enemies back in the day and I still do. Can't say anything without someone getting their fucking panties in a goddamn knot. I doubt they'd say anything about me for wisdom, they'd say West got whatever I had," he gestures to the church around them. "Two thousand years people were shitting their drawers when they heard about me coming. Now, most humans, people who were my own don't even know who I am. They think I'm just a subpart of Russia" It made the hair on the back of Gil's neck stand on end to be associated with that bastard, even if Koingsberg had been renamed Kalingrad.

"Fuck, try to do right by someone and they fucking give you the axe."

[pixietea]

"As they say such a lack of eloquence, 'nice guys finish last'," England quipped bitterly. He didn't think it was true in all cases, but making yourself vulnerable to manipulation like that was almost a guarantee that you would get yourself screwed over. Someone would take advantage of your vulnerability, and then there would only be you left to pick up the pieces.

He wasn't sure what to say to Prussia -- Prussia was too old, too jaded for most of his advice to really sink in -- as even England himself wasn't in such a bad position that his country was dissolved altogether. All he could really offer was a dry sense of humor and vague kinship, not that he'd fess up to the latter.