Things had become regular around the house as the new year came closer. Even though father and grandpa were acting very strange around each other, it was much welcomed as opposed to them throwing artichokes at each other...like last year. We made a little path to and from the forest by walking down it every day. I mostly did it to get out of the house and Germany accompanied me most of the time. I've decided that I trust him with my fears and we would constantly share them with each other. Some snow would fall and the clouds remained ever present in the sky. The low air pressure made us all sleepy, even in the morning. Father would regularly go to sleep in the middle of the day. I showed Germany our chickens and told him all their names. He liked our silkie chickens the most.
"They look like alpacas," he giggled as one chirped.
"They've been called a lot of things," I mused. "But never alpacas."
"Aren't they all cold?"
"They have feathers. Except our silkies, which have now a permanent home in Kazakhstan's room. We just let them out to walk for a little bit." I took one and pet it. "Aren't you special?" I cooed to it. It peeped happily in response, nuzzling me.
"You don't have a dog?"
"No. We used to. But then father gave it away...chickens are much better though. They're birds, but don't fly. They don't require much maintenance and they're cheap. On top of that, they bring eggs! If you play with them a lot they can snuggle with you as well."
"Wow," Germany picked up the other chicken we named Masha and we let them back in the house, into their box in Kazakhstan's room. The afternoon was when things came to a standstill in our household. Father was sleeping on the living room couch, Belarus was taking a bath upstairs, Ukraine was playing with his cat and grandfather was reading the newspaper, occasionally writing down his opinion in the margins. Me and Germany sat down at the kitchen table and I started to teach him a card game. In a round he won.
"Yay," he said, placing down the winning card. I groaned and placed my own cards on the table. Behind the newspaper, grandfather let out a small laugh. He lowered the paper and started to write down his commentary on the paper. He's been nicer lately, but still looks at me and Germany with this knowing look. So does father. Ukraine also kept smirking when me and Germany ever were together, it didn't matter what we did. It sort of ruffled me, but I tried not to pay attention. A loud thump signified that father had fallen off the couch and was going to wake in a few seconds.
"Three...two...one," I counted off before I heard the swear out of my father's mouth.
"USSR, stop swearing in front of children," grandfather chided.
"They've heard all of them at school," father came in and poured himself a glass of water. "I'm sure the know worse words." He looked at me with a glint of laughter in his eyes.
"Never," I lied unconvincingly. Germany shook his head and sighed in an animated matter.
"Ah, Russia." Father looked outside. "Like I haven't heard you talk with your friends. Any way, can you take Kazakhstan outside? He really wants to, and he needs to be supervised."
"Of course," I stood up and took Germany with me. It wasn't like I was going to stay outside alone. That would be boring. "Kazakhstan! Let's go outside!"
"YAY!" Out of nowhere, he flew down and hugged me warmly before going upstairs again and getting his stuff. I helped him put on his coat and boots and then he waddled outside, falling into the snow with a delighted squeal. Me and Germany took our own things and steeped outside, watching Kazakhstan start to build a wall out of snow.
"Your family isn't bad," Germany said out of the blue. "I mean, you keep apologising for them, but I think they're great. Maybe you'll have a fight or a bad experience, but you stay together. I wish I had siblings. And a father that doesn't coddle you around." He smiled when Kazakhstan threw a snowball and it landed about ten centimetres away from us.
"I know," I said, watching my breath rise up like smoke. "I shouldn't complain. You probably had it worse."
"Not exactly. I would say just amplified."
"How so?" I questioned. Then a snowball hit me in the face. "KAZAKHSTAN!"
"Yes?" He peeped over his wall of snow. He was trying not to laugh.
"Don't throw snow in my face! Anywhere but my face!"
"That's exactly where he'll try to hit you." Germany laughed. "But on our conversation, my father would always be either edgy, angry or too loving. The whole day he would be gone, and he would come late at night. Sometimes, he'd yell at me for staying up so long, but then he would go to sleep with me. In the morning, he would be gone already, and the cycle goes like that. Kind of boring."
"Did you travel a lot?"
"Sometimes," he thought for a moment. "Yes. We did. My dad did his campaigns all over and he would take me and my tutor along. Sometimes not and I would stay with my really old great grandfather. He's actually still alive, but doesn't talk to us much."
"Oh, that's kind of sad."
"Don't be sad, Russia," he turned to me, his amber coloured eyes sympathetic. "I love your family. With its quirks and strangeness. It feels like a real one. Mine felt artificial and fragile. Yours is much like an iron chain. You may rust over, but it can always be removed. Just my opinion."
I took his hands in mine. "Thank you. I never really saw it that way." Our moment was spectacularly ruined by two snowballs that flew into our faces.
"KAZAKHSTAN!" We both yelled in shock and laughter.
"Kazakhstan won!" He came out of his snow wall and came up to us. "Can we go walk?"
"Sure," I said, wiping the snow off of my face. Germany tucked his glasses into his pocket, since there was no effective way to dry them off. We walked along the path with Kazakhstan flying above the treetops.
"Wouldn't it be great to fly?" Germany wished aloud watching Kazakhstan in-flight.
"No. Not really." I responded. "The time involving preening, washing and trimming would drive me mad. And also I would have to cut holes in the clothing for them. Let's not forget when Kazakhstan had some sort of wing infection and he had to have four injections. That must've been fun."
"Mm, never mind. That does sound like much." He nodded in agreement.
"It's a lot of responsibility. He has to do it all by himself. Sometimes I help him with preening, but mostly it's like a one man show."
"Russia..." Germany was about to say the words I've heard many times.
"Yes, yes. I know," I sighed. "I'm bad at comparing." He laughed and we both got smothered in a blanket of snow from a pine tree.
"KAZAKHSTAN!" I yelled again, frustrated from the amount of snow that went under my hood and onto my skin. Up above, my little brother was giggling from happiness and way out of reach.
"How do we got him down?" Germany asked. "See, that's a plus he has."
"Don't worry. We'll use the old fashioned method." I whistled. "Kazakhstan! Guess what?" I tried to make my voice high pitched and scared. It got his attention, and he flew nearer.
"What?"
"I think I saw бабай!" I looked over to see Germany trying to suppress an involuntary smile. "Over there." The effect was magical. Kazakhstan zoomed down and wrapped his arms around mine, his eyes wide and scared.
"No!" He whispered frightened. "Where?"
"He was about to fly up and grab you! But I saw him and I told you before he could come." Beside me, Germany was smiling stupidly and trying not to laugh.
"I'll walk then," Kazakhstan took my hand and we walked till the edge of the forest. Occasionally, we could see a deer running by, or a bird fluttering off with a warning call, but the snow had smothered the rest of the sounds in a blanket of silence. Once we reached the edge, where we could see the twisted apple tree, eternally looking over the grassy small hills to the little village that stood just beyond our land. I let Kazakhstan flutter around a bit on the winds.
"I kind of wanted to ask...do you have a grandmother?" Germany said awkwardly next to me. After my silence, he quickly added. "You don't have to answer."
"She died...a long time ago." I watched Kazakhstan loop around. "Protecting my father when he was a baby. She was kind of ill after she gave birth...and then..."
"Oh,"
"My grandfather kind of has a mutual hate of my dad...as you may have noticed. Not all the time, but he does behave like he's on top of the world. Especially when he inherited more money from our great grandmother. After that, he became intolerable. I don't know what this weird neutral thing going on is about...but I'm not complaining."
"Well, at least your grandfather stayed with you...and didn't just run off to grow cacti." His words can out bitter.
"True. You are right. My grandfather substitutes cacti. He is one." He cracked an involuntary smile. "Ah, but your grandfather does stuff. Mine just complains and tries to make himself into gemstone statue."
"Did he actually set a stone into his skin?"
"Yes. The one that you saw on his chest is an older one. The first one he did actually."
"He has more?" Germany looked sick at the fact.
"Unfortunately, yes. He has three. Two more on his upper arms near his shoulders. Why does he do it? No idea. It's painful and they get infected sometimes. You won't find me doing that."
"I wonder what he thinks of me."
I shrugged in reply. "Probably not much. What's annoying I'd that he keeps looking at me with this knowing look...how do I know what he's trying to say?"
"Russia!" Kazakhstan interrupted. "I'm cold!"
"Okay! Let's go home then!" Then I added to Germany quietly. "If he gets wet feet, that's the end of us." He shook his head and we left the ground, along with the conversation we had there. I wouldn't hear any more talk about family till only after our winter break. We stepped into the house from the door in the back, where we could take off our wet clothes without tracking it though the house. We came into the main part of our house and saw Belarus, who finished her bath, talking to grandfather on the couch. He was now filing his nails and listening to Belarus chatting on his lap.
"Grandpa, you should be like Mr. Austria-Hungary!" She was in the middle of a conversation. "He talks on the TV and the radio. You should too!" The two men had something in common. Mostly that they lived though a lot and they didn't care about people's feelings. I honestly don't know much about Austria Hungary, so I have to keep an open mind. Grandfather was playing along to Belarus' talk.
"And what would I do?"
"Fashion!" She pointed to his clothing. "You have nice clothes," I saw father shaking from laughter in the kitchen, half listening to the talk in the living room.
"Eh, I don't like cameras,"
"But you'd be good at it!"
"No no Belarus...Fashion isn't my thing."
"Then jewellery," she lightly brushed his amethyst. "I like your purple diamond."
He took her hand away from his neck. "It's an amethyst. Not purple diamond. And I don't like to wear too much of it any way." He finished his filing and shooed her away.
"I would." Belarus jumped down from his lap. "Maybe I'd do it along with being a Bioinformatics scientist." Then she went to talk to Kazakhstan, trying to persuade him to dress up in her jewellery.
"Bioinformatics scientist?" Germany was surprise that she could even say the words.
"She's an ambitious girl," father leaned against the door frame, polishing a glass. "And she knows what she wants." He retreated back into the kitchen and turned on the radio. I could see the annoyance flash on grandfather's face, but he just stood up and left without a word or a scandal. We went to see what father was doing, consequently getting stuck helping him cut vegetables. Germany was trying hard not to cut himself, while making the slices of eggplant really thin. The radio was a mix of music and news broadcasting, and most of it was of the happening outside the borders of father's governance. I was surprised to hear that Mr. UK had made the break three days longer to resolve a family issue. I silently thought of what could've happened.
"Uh oh," Germany whispered to me. "Does he mean 'America issues'?"
"Probably," I said back.
"Hopefully nothing is too bad," he looked outside, then back at his poor cutting. "I'm bad at this."
Father inspected our work. "It's fine. Either they'll eat it or go hungry."
"What about grandpa?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.
"I've given up on pleasing the Tsar." He snickered. "There always has to be a complaint." He let us go, and we left to the room with the glass. I have started to call it that. We sat on the floor and looked out of the window, watching the wind occasionally picking up the snow and sending it across the field in a flurry. It was very beautiful.
"You know...I think you're like snow." Germany said.
"How so?" I didn't turn to him but kept on watching the outside.
"Well...you're really cold on the outside, when untouched." He looked over to me. "But when somebody takes you, the warmth makes you melt. I always thought you were a tough and always serious person, when we first met. Now, I don't."
"You don't find me serious?"
"Well, you are. Around other people." He continued. "But one on one, or with your family, you're not like that. I think that's funny."
"I guess."
"The thing is...I've tried to treat you like a sibling. But it isn't working out. I'm just...I don't know." He looked down at his hands. Then he sighed and buried his hands in his face. For a moment, I thought he was crying because he was shaking. But he was actually laughing. "I can't say it."
"Say what?" I thought that sounded kind of stupid after I said it.
"Oh Russia." He composed himself. "I kind of...like you. Not like a sibling." Silence greeted him. I think I went red, because he started to laugh. I looked away and he laughed louder. I think he was just happy he said it, because I've never heard him laugh like that. When he stopped and wiped the tears from his eyes, I hugged him.
"I think I do too."