Archive of Our Own

I knew you would forget forget-me-nots.

Prussia adjusted the strap of the bag he had carried here with him, barely registering how the wind was tearing at his clothes, as though it hoped to drag him down, down where he had buried the memories of the first person he had let see his heart in such an intimate manner that no other love could match.

Slow rain began falling, so slow it would take hours to fully drench Prussia’s clothes, even longer for the cold to reach deep into his bones and corrode them. He didn’t even bother hiding away his wings, perhaps the rain water would paint their grey black anew. Today was not the day he would turn into sea foam and join the person who had first captured him so fully. The first who had made his heart stutter in its rhythm, just so he could enrapture it with an entirely new one.

The hike itself was as much punishment as thinking of the man he was doing this for. No grave had been given to the flute maker turned high traitor and so Prussia had chosen this cliff to honour him.

His feet had started hurting a while ago, but Prussia would not disrespect Raban by making this easy on himself. He would torture himself for only a chance at the forgiveness that he had not earned. When he looked up, he had to squint through the slowly descending fog to see the cliff top. His goal.

Several minutes still separated him and the cliff but if he strained his ears against the howling wind, he could already hear the waves crashing against stone a few metres below. As he continued walking, a melody began whistling through the air, one that was all too familiar to Prussia. He could not be sure where it came from but it spoke to his heart all the same.

He hummed alongside the whistle, refusing to turn his head to see where it may have come from. Prussia knew, he would find nothing. Not a person or animal in the brewing storm. It had to be the wind itself, singing to him with the tune Raban had taught him first.

It was a simple one, for clumsy fingers still struggling to find the right tones. Raban had praised him for being so quick to learn. Nowadays, Prussia was convinced it had nothing to do with his talent but rather the teacher he had, but back then, barely 21, he had lapped up the praise until it stuck to his soul.

The sole of Prussia’s boot met stone instead of grass and he knew, he had reached the top. He took a few smaller steps forward, hearing a few splashes of water from gravel he had accidentally kicked down the cliff.

It begins with two graves. Two graves left right next to each other. Family members. There is a tear in my heart where these people should reside. Why is there so much ache between what was and what could have been? Anima Christi, sanctifica me. Soul of Christ, sanctify me.

But more will follow. Ever more.

A child’s body could not process the amount of pain inflicted for the first few seconds. Hanging there in the balance that marked what adults might call life and death was something a child could not yet grasp might be ripe already.

Red filled a vision where before there were colours and shapes, where there was beauty. It was not violence for a child did not grasp this either. The chink two swords made when they clashed against each other was play not warning. But it was red. And then it was nothing.

The common misconception was that nothingness was black. Prussia learned very early that nothingness was so much more than black. It was the scream tearing through lungs and air, vibrating until it was so loud no one could hear it anymore. It was the cold following the hot blinding pain that came rushing after the initial surprise.

It was the realisation that nothing would ever be as it once was. And the realisation that he could have prevented it that would haunt him the rest of his life.

His name was called. Prussia couldn’t see who it had been, couldn’t make out the person by voice alone. He didn’t know this person, did he?

And then again, louder and louder, unending, and he was staring, no stared at, no staring at something in the distance. But there was nothing, only the red tainting his vision, his eye, his hands, until he was drowning, deeper, ever deeper-- Five graves. They add to the other two, so much more belong to this life I will lead. To the person I am doomed to become. Corpus Christi, salve me. Body of Christ, save me.

The voice pierced through Prussia’s mind and his eyes snapped open, blearily taking in his surroundings as his mind began to wake up fully. The face in front of him was slightly out of focus and it took him a second until he recognised Königsberg.

“You’re getting old, my darling,” Königsberg teased quietly, her gaze searching Prussia’s face for any lingering distress.

Prussia accepted her help getting out of the armchair he had apparently fallen asleep in and chuckled wearily. “It appears I am.” He didn’t say that they all were older than him, didn’t say that despite this, his life seemed to sap away with every second, his fate hanging in the hands of people who didn’t know anything and yet decided so much.

He didn’t say any of that as he followed Königsberg into the kitchen of her flat.

None of them had stepped foot in their castles in a long time. Prussia had become used to the luxury but the thing that bothered him, oh, so much more was having to leave behind the safety of his former life. The routine, the people, the walls he had become so used to over the course of a little over a century.

Berlin had been the first to move. Then, Königsberg had left her own territories at the coast to live with him. With communication across the country being as easy as standing in the same room together, she could deal with her politics in the living room she shared with Berlin.

Prussia had entertained the idea of getting a small flat as well but hadn’t bothered, in the end. Brandenburg rented one and had offered Prussia a place to stay once the bombs had finally stopped dropping. There was just one bed, but it wasn’t the first time the two of them slept beside another. And despite its size, it was a welcoming space, one that Prussia adored very much, though if he was being honest with himself, the biggest perk was having Brandenburg so close.

Brandenburg leaned against the counter, sipping on a bottle of beer, looking like he had not a single care in the world. His eyes traced over Prussia, a question in them, deep enough to expose the abyss that pooled within.

Prussia answered with a dry smile before he had to avert his gaze, wings fluttering under the heaviness. Brandenburg opened his mouth but, in that moment, Königsberg walked in, and Brandenburg fell quiet without a word leaving his lips.

Not for the first time Prussia wondered how often he had censored Brandenburg, how often his words would remain unsaid, unheard.

“Do you also want something?” Königsberg gestured to the bottle Brandenburg held, her eyes focused on Prussia.

“The same, thank you. Is everything set up?”

Berlin pressed the drink into Prussia’s waiting hand, nodding enthusiastically. “I just want to say, I’ll beat you all!”

Brandenburg laughed, raising his bottle in a toast. “Sure, you will.” He shoved Berlin slightly forward with his right wing. “Last time, you lost about two thousand reichsmark, at least if I remember correctly.”

“Actually,” Prussia interjected, smiling when he caught Berlin’s expression of pure betrayal, “I’m fairly certain it was closer to three thousand.”

“It was during the inflation, they had basically no value anyway!”

Königsberg joined in Prussia and Brandenburg’s laughter, steering Berlin out of the room by his shoulder while whispering something into his ear that Prussia didn’t catch even with enhanced hearing. Berlin made an offended sound later, much to all their amusement.

It was quiet, as both Brandenburg and Prussia watched Königsberg shuffle the cards once again, even though all of them had made sure to do the same just earlier this evening. Prussia fluttered his wings slightly, pulling them to the front of his body and inspecting the grey that had seeped into his once monotonous black feathers.

“I am scared,” Prussia broke the silence, letting go of the wing and turning to face Brandenburg.

He looked surprised. A widening of his eyes looked wholly unusual on his features paired a sadness that spoke both of trust and comfort, and there was something so terrible about it that Prussia was tempted to take back his words just to make him look... better. But that was not an option and Prussia was so unbelievably tired of lying – to his friends, to the world, to himself, and most importantly to the person who had loved him so unconditionally even though Prussia had done nothing to earn it.

“I am so scared of their decision,” he continued, his voice breaking at the end of the sentence. “I feel like I am facing the gallows, knowing my fate and yet forced to wait without knowing when the end may hit me.” Prussia shook his head. “And now I am waxing poetry.”

Brandenburg came towards him, hesitant at first before pulling Prussia in by his arm and hugging him. “You don’t know whether—”

“Yes, Bran,” Prussia interrupted without trying to sound kind, “I do. And you do too. They have not signed it yet but it will happen. I will die. I feel it.”

“You feel it?” Alarm crept into Brandenburg’s voice and, even though his hold remained gentle, he tensed as if readying himself for a fight.

Prussia stepped back, despite his mind’s yearning for the comfort. But he couldn’t afford to lose his composure right this second. “I’m getting weaker. I don’t know when it started but it’s clear why it is happening.” He brought his wings around his body, hugging himself. “As inane as that sounds, I wish they would just decide already.”

Brandenburg nodded, his face understanding even if it seemed like he was about to cry. “You’re hanging in limbo, just waiting for the blade to fall,” he supplied, sounding more as though he was talking to himself than having a conversation with Prussia.

It didn’t matter to Prussia, who was just glad to be understood by this man once again. There was a tension there, one he wished to break, and as if on its own, his gaze fell to Brandenburg’s lips.

“Are you coming or not?” Königsberg called from the other room, snapping the tension in half like a dry twig. She sounded sort of breathless, and Prussia shared a look with Brandenburg that was amused.

Prussia felt dizzy, in that odd way one did after diving head-first into cold water, when Brandenburg’s hand stayed on his arm, intimate in a way that was not entirely new but still... uncommon between them. He leaned into it, into the comfort Brandenburg so easily provided whenever they were with each other. How cruel that it had to end this way. Dying with hope on my lips is the sweetest poison You’ve ever given me.

The Christmas tree was decorated beautifully, the star atop glinting in the candle light and casting interesting patterns on the beige walls. Prussia traced one with his eye until he became dizzy and had to stop.

How many more? Am I meant to lose any person who ever came close? There is no fear of death when it means saving those I love. If I die, they all live. Or, at the very least, I won't be forced to mourn anymore. How awfully selfish of me, to think of my death as a positive. To be happy not to mourn anymore just by forcing my loved ones to be the ones to mourn me. Sanguis Christi, inebria me. Blood of Christ, inebriate me.

This grave was the closest to where he lived nowadays. The one man who was still loved, or at least known, by his people. The one they had genuinely mourned before they had decided that he’d been the one to lead them to ruin.

German Empire’s legacy was sure to shake generations to come. They’d jump to be the one to figure him out; was he the saviour who led their people to a more modern, better world? Or perhaps the monster who had doomed all of Germany into two wars that would destroy Europe?

And they’d all be wrong. Germany was no saviour and he was no monster. At his deepest, in those moments when he wasn’t the combination of man and nation, when he wasn’t a nation at all, just a human so raw that his soul sprung forth and engulfed those around him with its existence; in those moments, German Empire was a man with faults who was deeply loved by another.

Loved by a disgraced queen, a hidden person who showed the public none of his real self, who had come here, now, today, to say his final goodbye before he too would be forever forgotten. Prussia opened his wings, the grey in his feathers now intersected with white.

“You wouldn’t have liked this era anyway,” Prussia muttered, a strange greeting to the fallen emperor. “All this war and the death. You would have hated it. Perhaps you would have hated me too, for doing too little, for doing too much. Pardon me, husband of mine, for these words, but all ends in misery. I don’t even remember the last time we had something worth celebrating.”

“Your children...— our children,” a swallow, heavy in the silence of the graveyard, “have not made it. Luise, bless her soul for I have forsaken her when she needed me most, died at the hands of Wilhelm. He took control, transformed our empire into a bestialised version of itself. There is a blank slate now, where we ruled, a canvas yet to be tainted by our cruelty.”

“I was too harsh just now, all is not bad. They both had children as well. Can you imagine that?”

I cannot ask anymore for You to bless me, Your most dishonourable child, Your least deserving servant. And still, I see myself confronted with You. Bless me, my God, make me believe that the way I have lived made You appreciate me, heart, body and soul. Aqua lateris Christ, lava me. Water from the side of Christ, wash me.

This year, Prussia had gone all in to make buy his friends suitable presents. Perhaps because he had already felt his end nearing, perhaps as an apology for the years they had just endured, if not under his rule, then under someone’s rule who had grown up under Prussia’s tutelage.

He had gotten all of them photo albums, each with a different focus, but created with all the same love. Königsberg’s was adorned with dried flowers, at least the few he had salvaged after knocking over the stack of books he had dried them under. For the one Prussia had made for Berlin, he had sat in a library for several hours, trying to understand the differences in fashion trends across history. Not all of them had been documented with photography after all.

In the end, Prussia had asked the librarian for help, who had directed him to an archive of historical documents, which had reopened in the months following the end of the war. Prussia had a lengthy discussion with the archivist, before the man had helped Prussia with the few things he needed to finish some handwritten instructions on sewing that Prussia would not be able to follow even if he wanted to.

Brandenburg’s was the most elaborate of them all. Adding to the photographs were several anecdotes of the centuries they had spent together. A hunting trip gone wrong, a vacation they had taken together, and finally, on the very last page – or, well, rather the last ten pages – Prussia had written a letter of gratitude to Brandenburg.

“Don’t open them before I am gone,” Prussia said mildly when handing out his gifts. Neither Königsberg nor Berlin listened, though Prussia hadn’t exactly expected them to. It was only Brandenburg, meeting Prussia’s gaze with a twinkle in his eyes, who restrained himself from flipping to the first page.

He had asked to receive nothing from them, but, of course, Prussia’s friends had not listened. His gifts included a pair of earrings from Königsberg, who cooed when Prussia immediately put them into his lobes, a book on languages from Berlin that was only a couple hundred pages long but went into detail of some obscure dialects and non-European languages.

And, finally, the smallest package of them all, wrapped in what Prussia identified as pages from Schiller’s Intrigue and Love . He had to smile at the detail, even as he ripped open the paper to find what was inside. There were four bags of flower seeds, all with the label Myosotis scorpioides , Prussia’s favourite.

Berlin and Königsberg leaned in curiously, when Prussia didn’t immediately show what he held in his hands. He was busy fighting back the sudden lump that had grown in his throat. Prussia could have sworn he had left the emotional baggage in the kitchen for the time being but it seemed this was not the case.

Prussia wiped his left eye as innocuously as possible, handing the gift to Königsberg, so she could look at it once more and hugged Brandenburg, his wings granting them at least a bit of privacy from the other two people in the room.

“You won’t see them bloom,” Brandenburg murmured into his ear, “but at least then I will not forget you.”

“As if you ever would,” Prussia answered, his voice a little more choked than before. “I’ll watch over you.”

Was Your love always meant to hurt? From the day this life has welcomed me, You have haunted me, followed me. Passio Christi, conforta me. Passion of Christ, strengthen me.

Prussia sat down carefully, letting his feet hang down as he stared out into the ocean, the high waves and the grey clouds blending in the distance until they were nearly indistinguishable. Here, he reached for his bag and pulled out the flute.

It was a true shame that the day he had picked for this was so grey but, so Prussia mused, it seemed to fit his mood just fine. And he doubted the flute would be played once his fate was sealed definitively. For a few more minutes, Prussia listened to the melody in the wind before lifting the flute to his mouth and starting to play a piece of his own.

This one was a recent creation, barely a year old. Prussia could not have known that his end was so close already, not back then, but the melancholy he had felt in the wake of the war had been more than enough to push him further than ever.

He had played it first for Brandenburg, trying not too hard to think of the feeling of betrayal creeping into his heart. Raban would have encouraged him to play for others, especially if Prussia had a close relationship to them but Prussia simply couldn’t convince himself that he wasn’t being a horrible person.

Brandenburg had cried upon hearing it, those quiet tears rolling down his cheeks nearly enough to make Prussia regret it all. In the end, he had simply embraced his friend and let him cry it out against Prussia’s shoulder until they fell asleep like that.

He played the piece several more times for Brandenburg, though his reactions were a little bit more muted after the very first time. Prussia asked himself, as he approached the only section he had written in forte, whether Brandenburg had realised Prussia would die before Prussia himself had realised it. And, if he had, did Brandenburg accept it?

If Prussia knew the other man in any way ( Oh, Lord, how I have failed this person, my love. But, oh, my Lord, how I know him still. ), then he had to assume this was not the case. He had not seen Brandenburg’s fight against the revelation, against the decision and their discussions about it.

But he had heard of them, from Berlin, Königsberg, from his grandchildren, from journalists and the news. Perhaps it was this, that had made Prussia come here in the first place. Because he had fought the world for Brandenburg, but Brandenburg was not the first man Prussia had fought for.

And Brandenburg was not the first man Prussia had lost for.

The piece picked up tempo near the end, even as he played quieter and quieter. A call in agony ( Save him, Lord, be swift! ) that was drowned out by nature.

Raban belonged to nature now, as they all did once they returned to the earth they had grown from. It was a surprisingly reassuring thought for Prussia, even if he hated having to go without a fight.

Finally, the piece ended, one lingering note travelling through the air, wavering and then breaking when Prussia didn’t have any air left in his lungs to sustain the tone. He put the flute down, rubbing his eye where his vision had blurred. “I wrote it for you,” he started. When he had first set out to say goodbye to his loved ones – there were more dead than living ones but this was not for them, not truly – Prussia had wanted to write them down.

Now, as he spoke from his heart instead of a piece of paper, he was glad he had decided against it.

‘Where does it hurt, my child?’ I do not know, my Lord, there is only ache where You laid Your peaceful hand over mine and dragged me forward. I hope Your love is as pure as I always believed it to be. O bone Iesu, exaudi me. O good Jesus, hear me.

Prussia stood in front of the grave, twirling a cornflower in between his fingers. It had nearly fully withered away, the blue not nearly as vibrant as it was a long time ago. The name on the stone was gilded, the letters staring at him as though to mock him.

“I thought I’d have come here earlier,” he murmured, speaking Latin so the Soviet soldiers standing only a few metres behind him could not understand his words.

He glanced back at them. They were both holding heavy weaponry, although their posture was laissez-faire, clearly not perceiving him as a threat at the current moment. They had eyed his wings with wariness earlier but now, they seemed more interested in getting out of the cold. Prussia would not provoke them either. He was dying anyway; there was no need to speed it up.

Prussia dropped to the ground. It had rained earlier that day and his knees sunk a little deeper than they would have otherwise. “I somehow thought— no, that’s not true.” He exhaled, closed his eyes. “I hoped until the very last moment you were alive, that we could have... made up. Or at least smiled at each other one last time.”

“It is cruel what was done to you. Not just in those last years but in your entire life. If I had been there...” He bit his lip, stilling the tremble of his hands by balling them into fists around the flower’s stem. “I don’t think I could have changed much but I should have tried, offered some solace where all you had were hurdles.”

He shook his head, dropping his gaze. The grave was dreadfully bare. No adornments, no flowers beside the one Prussia had brought. This was a place not of remembrance but of shame. No one would be encouraged to come here and pay their respects. No one was supposed to mourn the tsar, especially not the man kneeling in front of the stone.

Russian Empire
Beware of those who fly so high they lose sight of the ground
Died blessedly and peacefully 1917

“Blessedly and peacefully.” A hysteric laugh crossed the threshold into reality. Prussia stifled it just as fast as it had escaped, shifting uncomfortably when he realised that the soldiers were now paying more attention to him.

“My angel, was it not enough for us to part with such distaste? Did we need to run everything good into the ground between us until all that was left was the rubble of a once so majestic building?”

“Oh, look at me, philosophising again. Even in death, I keep you from your peace with my theoretical questions. And once more, I can find no answer to them either. Were you here with me, not the version which despises me but the friend and lover I came to know, you would indulge me.”

“No matter how inane my questions became, you treated them with the same respect you gave to me. Sometimes, I saw that person shimmering through the anger and hatred I earned from you.”

“I think it was before the revolutions in 1848 – oh, how Europe had burned – when we met. I don’t know what enticed me to strike a conversation near you, but I remember how engaged I was. Asking one question after the other. The poor crowd of nobles I was talking to looked faint before I was even halfway done. And then, you joined the group, stood in front of me in a lovely suit – tell me, angel, was it green or red? I cannot recall anymore – your hair combed back. You do not understand how I wanted to kiss you, just then, in that moment, but your eyes were cold when you met mine and the urge passed.”

I begged for Your protection when I was younger. I remember it now, so clear before my fatigued eyes. I should not have begged for myself, I know this now. I should have begged for all of those I have loved, and even more for those I didn’t. Intra tua vulnera absconde me. Hide me within your wounds.

“I’m a grandparent now. And they look up to me, strangely. One of them, Luise’s son, he inherited wings. You should see him twirl through the air, he’s even giving me a run for my money. Erwin is gentle, soft spoken but doesn't let other people tread on him.”

“And Thea, Wilhelm’s daughter! She comes after you, my dear. So strong-willed and confident. She will make a great leader, once they recognise her potential. You would have adored her. Both of them. I must admit, I do the same. There is so much of us in them, so much of our children that I see reflected time and again.”

He had already met them earlier this week, a final goodbye that they did not deserve. Neither had cried, but Prussia had felt so proud that he feared he would be the one to start.

However, Prussia had cried so often these months, cried for his people, his legacy, his loved ones, himself. There was little left of him to distribute amongst those who would not benefit from the salty drops.

Brandenburg had been there too. Prussia hadn’t asked to be accompanied but Brandenburg must have felt his unease – he always did, now more than ever – and so he hadn’t even asked, just grabbed his coat and left to the train station along with the former nation.

They had sat by the Rhein for hours, talking, sharing stories, his wings wrapped around their upper bodies. Prussia had rarely been so open but he felt like he owed them. Erwin and Thea, barely more than children and yet with the responsibility of centuries on their shoulders, had hung from his lips as he told this tale and that. Exaggerating the good parts and only indulging rarely in the bad ones.

His lover lover lover friend had been quiet for the most part, only adding short anecdotes or commenting on the more obvious exaggerations Prussia included. His hand had lain mere centimetres from Prussia’s, and for the first time in forever, Prussia had allowed himself to take it.

“But I also fear for them. It is not fair that I abandon them so soon, and yet, I know there is no choice on my part. This world is so new. Entirely unlike our own. The destruction that is possible now, the pain that has been inflicted by those who share your blood and my essence, the speed of technology. It scares me all.”

“That is how I know, I need to die. I cannot comprehend the changes any longer, my mind has grown stale. I have never understood old age in our subjects, but now, I think, I can see its lethality. The traditions I upheld for so very long – the ones even you questioned so regularly – are now the foundation of my casket. And I will honour it, to my dying breath, for there is no reason to let go of them now when they are so very ingrained into my being.”

“I left our titles behind only shortly after your death but it is with the words I speak now,” and how truthful Prussia indeed was, “that I can let go of it all. Everything we built, everything we disrupted. Our names will mean so much in the future, I am sure of it.”

“And yet, your name only ever meant safety for me.”

Please, forgive me for all I have done to Your children. For the horrors I have set upon this earth, even as You taught nothing but love. Forgive me not for my sins for they do not define the evil I have done. Ne permittas me separari a te. Keep me close to you.

“Yet you spoke with such beauty, engaging in the debate I started. My Lord, I must have ascended into the heavens right then and there, so overwhelmed was I with joy. I thought to myself, ‘This must be it. The end to our fights. An olive branch held out for me.’ I was wrong, I know that now, but that hope elated me for the entire rest of the evening. You must have been terribly confused. Was I making fun of you? Was I being petty?”

“My love, perhaps you knew me too well to understand me back then. To understand that I could find delight even with the chaos we wrought. Maybe it was the same for me. If I had understood you less – or more, the decision is upon your shoulders – would I have saved you from your fate? Or were we destined to drift apart? Was our love destined to burn with such zeal until it destroyed itself?”

“I like to believe the truth is less simple. We were never simple to begin with, why should our stories be? And I promise you, I will find you, wherever you are. My soul will search for yours, because it cannot live without you knowing what I know. How true my heart speaks of you, and how true my love was until the bitter end.”

Prussia raised his head, tilting it far back. The sky was nearly cloudless now, as though the sky refused to cry for Russian Empire the same way Prussia had a thousand times already. It stung in his chest, a needle pricking at his heart until it burst. The unfairness of it all. Not just of Russia’s end – though this, Prussia despised the most ( Lord, do You resent him? The angel you sent to be by my side if only within my own soul. Was he not allowed to taste the love You share so openly with all the other angels? ) – but of his life as well.

Another regret to add in his mind, Prussia had never fully grasped Russia’s history. The angels he heard sing for him, the possessiveness of his mother, stifling a kindred spirit before its flame could reach out and grasp for its own survival, the God he prayed to but which he cast aside to let Prussia assume His image.

He could have understood it all, Prussia liked to think, could have made it known and assumed the role of saviour without becoming saintly. But, the truth was not similar. It was a knife inside his chest, drawing patterns on his skin. The truth that he could never have helped Russia so long as Russia had denied to need it.

“If I meet you again, in this life or the next, let it be without wrath.”

And I will forgive those who have given me pain. Who have hurt and disgraced me before myself and before You. They were Yours as well, they were loved as well. And yet I took it upon myself to speak judgement over them for the simple pleasures of the life I led. Ab hoste maligno defende me. Defend me from the evil enemy.

Towards midnight, Prussia joined Brandenburg on the balcony, finding him leaning against the balustrade, looking out on the city street below as he took a slow drag from the cigarette he held between his fingers. The reprimand was on the tip of Prussia’s tongue before he could stop it, “Those smell horrible.”

Brandenburg startled and turned towards Prussia, who couldn’t quite believe Brandenburg had genuinely not heard him. Then again, he lost himself in his own thoughts often enough, it really was no surprise other people might be similar. “I don’t mind,” he responded, finally, after taking a long look at Prussia.

“I do,” Prussia found himself saying, blaming the one glass of mulled wine he had drunk earlier for his loosened tongue. He took another step to stand beside Brandenburg, leaning slightly against him. Their wings knocked against each other. It was a pleasant sensation, something intimate that was unmatched by other forms of physical touch.

The man’s gaze was heavy when it landed on Prussia, heavy in that comforting way Prussia usually only achieved through putting pressure onto his chest to ease the anxiety, which always coiled around his lungs like a snake, sinking its poisonous teeth into his heart until he felt faint.

“Why do you care?”

And for a moment Prussia was not in 1947, standing on a balcony besides Brandenburg, but back in the palace, 1919, hearing those very same words leave his own mouth, not resigned to a life he couldn’t change but angry and filled with even more grief than the one Brandenburg already carried around.

But, unlike Brandenburg in the middle of a fight, fuelled by adrenaline and the anger of seeing his best friend destroy himself ever so slowly, Prussia couldn’t make himself say the words that had shocked him barely over a quarter of a century ago. They were right there, burning a path through his lungs, clogging up his nostrils with their smoke until he suffocated before the document could ever be signed.

“You are important to me,” Prussia said instead, forcing his eye away from where it had drifted to the cigarette hanging out of Brandenburg’s mouth. If only my love for him had burned as it does for You, oh Lord, for I would have recognised it earlier. “And therefore, I shall protect you from the bad decisions you claim to never be making.”

Brandenburg laughed after a second of silence, wrapped his arm around Prussia’s shoulder and pulled him closer. “Whatever would I do without you to save me from smelling badly.”

A week later, Königsberg was dead. And perhaps this was when he had started to die, as well.

My end is so near now. I feel Your grip on my heart, I feel the tug of Your binds fight against this mortal body of mine. In hora mortis meae voca me. Call me at the hour of my death.

“It’s inspired by what you once told me. ‘Every piece tells a story.’ I cannot get it out of my head, even now when I listen to music, over half a millennia after your death. You know, I was married for a time, not to a woman either. He could play the piano as heavenly as you played the flute. Maybe that is why I fell for him so easily.”

Prussia swallowed. “You were always much too kind, do you know that? A human loving a personification; a craftsman and a prince. It never could have worked out.”

“But God, do you understand how much I loved you? How every fibre of my being yearned for you when we were not close? You had to die before me and yet, I never had the time with you that I wished for. You never had the life you deserved.”

“And, it is perhaps irrational, but I blame myself for it. For every breath you wasted teaching me, for every thought I stole from your head. There are years upon years you could have taken advantage of and I threw them away for a dream that was unreachable from the very beginning.”

“I regret so much, Raban. I spend my days wallowing in what could have been for every step I made in this long, long life, and I can never find retribution that will cleanse me of it all. But if there is one thing I regret above all, one death that I would change over and over again until I figure out how to prevent it, then it would be yours.”

Prussia stood slowly, widening his wings slightly so he could recover if his feet slipped on the wet, loose stones beneath him. “My death is approaching, mea vita. My wings are more grey than they are black, my body is growing slower, weaker.”

“My body is fading. Sometimes I feel more like a ghost than a person.” Prussia lifted his hand, staring at the point where his fingertips were, almost see-through. “I wish my death came more swiftly. I am not in pain but...”

“I should be grateful for the weeks I’ve been given. And yet, I am just waiting for the inevitable, praying every day is the last and celebrating when it isn’t.”

The rain picked up, and Prussia’s wings twitched at the increased discomfort. There was so much left to say but he found no more words to say them with.

He shifted on the cliff, nearly losing his balance, and lowered his head. “Do you... do you think you can forgive me?” A soft laugh escaped his lips, tears stinging in his eyes. “Ah, I’m a sentimental old fool. I wouldn’t have forgiven myself either.”

I hope I belong to You. I hope I can be reunited with You. And I hope to leave behind a world more loving than the one I have created. Et iube me venire ad te, ut cum Sanctis tuis laudem te in saecula saeculorum. And bid me to come to you, to praise you with your saints, fovever and ever.

Brandenburg finds him in the church, curled up on a pew, hands clutched together in a prayer that hurts. His hand falls onto Prussia’s shoulder and though Prussia has heard his approach, he still flinches at the sudden and strong physical contact.

“You’ve been here for hours,” Brandenburg murmurs, even though there is no one around them to hear his words anyway. “You said, you’d come back.”

Prussia unfurls from the position, turning to look up at Brandenburg. He tries not to think about how he is kneeling in front of Brandenburg, his hands coming up to clutch at Brandenburg’s as though he is Prussia’s saviour. And maybe that is what he is – what he was for the majority of Prussia’s life. “I lost track of time.”

“I can tell,” Brandenburg says, kneeling down beside Prussia without letting go of his hands. He is trying not to look at the spot where Prussia’s fingertips have begun to fade, though his eyes keep drifting to the spot.

It is odd, Prussia muses, that he’ll leave the world in such a quiet fashion, after having fought so long to be heard. But there is not bitterness that speaks from his heart, just a calm that settles over him now. He has fought to make himself heard when, and this he realised over the last few weeks, he had always been listened to by those he needed it from most.

And the most important from them all is right in front of him. A surge of energy runs through Prussia’s body, and he seizes Brandenburg by the shoulders. He looks surprisingly calm, though there is a hitch in his heart beat when Prussia leans so close their noses almost touch.

“You have to promise me to have a good life.” The words escape him so easily now. Like they’ve reached a boiling point and now instead of stealing Prussia’s voice, they make the transition from thoughts into spoken words as easy as breathing.

Brandenburg doesn’t look nonchalant about this, quite the opposite. His eyes widen and he jerks backwards, as though Prussia’s touch hurts him somehow. “Prus...” His voice is pained, an endless well of grief that finally reaches the surface and bubbles up into his voice. Brandenburg’s heart rate accelerates when Prussia lays his hand on his cheek.

“No, Bran, you have to promise me, or I cannot do this. I cannot move on, knowing you are not alright.”

“That doesn’t... Prussia, do you realise that that makes me want to promise you less?” Brandenburg sounds panicked now. He covers Prussia’s hand on his cheek, tears brimming in his eyes as Prussia’s stay miraculously dry.

But his heart rips too. He could have changed this fate, and Prussia knows this, knows it from the depths of his heart, knows how he has failed Brandenburg again and again. And now he’ll never get the chance to make it up. Prussia grabs Brandenburg’s shirt in a fit of madness and pulls him close, pressing a desperate kiss onto the other man’s lips. “Promise me,” he breathes against Brandenburg's mouth.

Brandenburg flinches back, something like hurt flashing over his features. “That’s not fair,” he breathes, his voice soft with the weight of emotions he cannot keep contained.

“No,” Prussia agrees, shaking himself and placing both of his hands on Brandenburg’s cheeks. His eyes are no longer dry. “No, it is not. This is not fair and it is my fault.” Brandenburg tries to interrupt but Prussia is faster, pressing their foreheads together. “I should have seen you, despite how you hid. I should have—”

And then, Brandenburg kisses him again. It’s impossibly more desperate than the last, centuries of love placed into a single motion so overwhelmingly positive that, for a moment, Prussia forgets why they are here in the first place.

But when they separate, Prussia feels so much weaker than before. He feels unusually lightweight, but it’s Brandenburg’s face, horrified at what he is seeing, that truly wakes him up from the daze the kiss left him in. “You are falling apart,” Brandenburg whispers, and something in his voice and body language tells Prussia he doesn’t mean it metaphorically.

Prussia turns his head, and finds the source of Brandenburg’s shock. His wings are decaying, the stark white his feathers have become changes into a shrivelled up grey. They are less than specks of dust before they even land on the floor beneath them. “It doesn’t hurt.”

Brandenburg’s gaze is so helpless when it lands on him. “I can't do this.”

“You are the bravest and strongest person I’ve ever met.”

“I don’t want to be strong. Prussia, I want one chance with you. I want to fall asleep beside you and wake up knowing that you’re right there. I want to go on walks with you, I want to fly...”

“We will.” Prussia’s voice is determined, so confident that he almost convinces them both, even though he is slowly drifting away, even though their eyes bear witness to each other’s grief. “We will find a world just for us. We will grow old and weary, we will fly and laugh and cry. And you will reach it in your dreams.”

“How will you reach it?”

“I’m already there. I will be there for you until you are ready to let me leave. And then, you will see me in the flocks of birds when they travel to and from the south of this planet, you will hear me when you listen to the wind.”

“I can't let you leave.”

“You have to. Brandenburg, your life is so much more than me. You are so much more than that. Grieve but do not ever forget yourself. Do not ever lie to yourself.”

“I don’t...”

“Promise me, Bran. Promise me to love yourself as you loved me.”

“I promise."

“I love you.”

“I know.”

Amen.