"We found this," Germany flashed the table where the group was eating their lunches, the others pretending to be interested, "it says that America knew that they were coming to get him, he just didn't tell anyone else because he thought they were only after him."
"That jackass," Zaltana said, snarling, "I oughta smack him for that."
"We have to find him first," Canada said, "also, Russia?"
The nation looked up from where he was playing with the syringe in his hands.
"His eyes are blue like the Atlantic," Canada said, and Russia's face went neutral. Zaltana paused for a moment before a smile ripped across her face.
"That fucking dumbass!" he exclaimed, his accent making the words hilarious. Zaltana was clapping and laughing and everyone else was confused.
"Hello dear brother-in-law," she said fondly, patting him on the head. He glanced over to her before looking down at his plate. Everyone else was now even more confused- brother-in-law? What was going on now?
"The needle has two very long lasting sedatives as well as paralysis inducing snake venom," he mumbled, putting the needle down. God, he was going to be sick.
He could remember him now. He thought he forgot everything before the Soviet times but nope! It was Alfred's shitty memory spells. But he also remembered his touch, holding him late at night when it was cold and feeling the electricity in his skin move across him.
He remembered the honey-tasting kiss that was pressed against his lips in the early morning or late at night when he thought he was asleep, walking over to his office to drag him back to bed, his tongue dragging across his chest to lap at the blood after he had been in a fight-
He almost let the scowl become apparent. He pulled his scarf up to mask it- well, that, and his growing blush.
"What?" Lithuania asked. He was confused, and slightly hurt by the addition. Russia knew something too? He thought the three of them were the only ones.
Belarus looked confused as well, and Romano didn't care.
"Hey papa! Welcome home!" Zaltana exclaimed, and that portion of their memories came back- Ivan standing beside Dyami, an arm wrapped protectively around his waist- a wedding, full of gold and silver and flame, and Dyami, holding a baby Alaska in his arms.
"Our memories are fragmented?" Romano asked, rubbing his head.
"Yes, just in case," Zaltana said, scratching the back of her neck,"I don't remember the other three codes though, just the main one and that one. Russia's memories weren't fragmented, because they were done really fast to prevent torture."
"How kind of him," Russia hissed. He was pissed off now, because he knew that Alfred still wore that ring and now he knew why he always chose him instead of any other nation yet wondered why he didn't tell him. He wasn't the Soviet Union anymore. He was just the Russian Federation. The Cold War was over, and it seemed like the United States wasn't willing to act like it.
"Sorry, I know he was putting off telling you 'cause of the whole MAD thing," she yawned, much like she didn't care- and to be honest, she probably didn't, "but you know now?"
"Yes, I suppose I do," Russia sighed.
"Nothing has been explained to us," Mexico raised a hand, "what the fuck is going on?"
"I forgot that Dyami was married!" Zaltana laughed, "Jesus the fucking idiocity is strong now."
"To Russia?" England asked, before he shrugged, "Huh, I always thought you two were really close during the tsar ages."
Russia evaluated punching him. He didn't know why he wanted to, but it was just something that didn't need to be said and it was annoying to think about.
"What's he like in the sheets?" France purred, and Russia definitely got in a hit before Zaltana's stinger went into his neck.
He flopped to the ground, and the two assailants shared a look.
Poland screamed. Italy seemed about to do that too, but Germany wrapped a hand around his mouth, forcing him silent.
"Do you have venom?" Germany asked, and she raised her tail once more- from the tip of her stinger dripped a gold liquid, and he took that as his answer, "Would it kill him?"
"Unfortunately, no," she replied, rolling her eyes, "I know how to be careful. He's just sleeping for however long."
"Okay, so... does anyone have anything else as evidence?" Germany sighed.
"I found a Prussian flag in one of the bedrooms?" Prussia shrugged.
"Pennsylvania's room," Belarus said, and the other two nodded. Zaltana was too busy staring at something on the wall and Russia was going over his memories now that he had them.
"So all we have is the fact people lived here, which we were already told, and that four of our own used to live here, which doesn't help because most of it happened a hundred or so years ago," Germany said, "wonderful."
"And the fact that America has the inability to take anything seriously, even when it's his own kidnapping," Canada added.
"We already knew that," Russia mumbled.
"Why do y'all think I needed your help?" Zaltana said, picking under her claws.
"Have you tried following those tracks?" Japan asked her, and she looked over to him.
"Of course I have-" she spun around to face the wall again, before turning back to them. One ear, however, stayed poised to the wall.
"Is there something in the wall?" Latvia asked, sweetly, "Do you want me to get it?"
She shook her head before standing and walking over. There was scratching, why the hell was there scratching? Well, probably a rat or a mouse. She pulled back a piece of wood that had come down from the ceiling before shoving her tail into the source of the noise. A dead mouse was forked at the end of it, and she flicked it across the room before noticing something.
"Found something!" She said, grabbing the little bottle that was in the mouse's hideout. It was a small note carved into a sheet of metal via electric shocks- she knew that Connecticut could do that easily, and she read it aloud.
"My connection frequency..." she paused, "It's some lines. Someone get a laptop and a satellite!"
"What?" Germany asked, before Lithuania gasped.
"Connecticut! He can get into contact with us through the internet!" Lithuania said, and a few nations' eyes widened.
"Estonia," Zaltana said, reaching out to him with the metal sheet in her hand, "you can match that, can't you?"
He walked over slowly, taking it from her hand like he was afraid to break it before nodding, "This would be easier on a dial radio. Do you have one of those?"
"Vermont has one in his room, I'll be only a moment," she said, before walking out of the room. The nations looked between themselves.
"Much more useful than the Prussian flag," Poland giggled, looking over at the metal sheet even if he didn't understand it. He knew it was the size of a Post-it note, and that one corner was starting to rust, but it was even difficult for him to read the English words.
"So," Italy said, "what do you guys know about Ms. Zaltana?"
Russia seemed to be the first one willing to speak, "Alfred always kept her close. If there was something he needed done that he couldn't do she did it. I'm pretty sure she was one of the ones that mostly raised him."
"Not much," Romano added, "but I do know her venom is extremely dangerous. If it even gets on your skin it keeps its effect."
"She lives further up the mountain than the wendigos," Belarus shrugged, "and she was always in the background somewhere. Oh! And she was really good with all animals, but especially likes borzois."
"I don't know anything about her," Lithuania shrugged, "I just know she lives here and that she likes green tea with a lot of sugar."
She returned with the radio just a second after he finished his sentence, and the group stared at her silently. She raised an eyebrow, an ear twitching before Estonia stood to take the radio.
She stayed towards the back as he started messing with it. It fluttered through radio channels before growing to static.
"That's the signal," he said, "178.54."
"My coordinates are," the radio buzzed back out into static, and Germany got out a sheet of paper, "I repeat," more buzzing, "44.3, 109," it fluttered out, and they looked between themselves.
"I heard an -ix. It's 109.6," Prussia said, and Zaltana looked at him.
"Well, you better be right," she walked over to the wall, stating, "44.3, 109.6."
A portal opened, and everyone stood to go through it. Germany got a call from the Netherlands, and he picked it up just as he walked through. It was winter, so they were immediately blasted with Northern Wyoming weather. Netherlands almost broke up from the sudden shift.
"Hello? Are you alright? You aren't dead, are you?" he didn't sound concerned, although his words seemed to be.
"We're fine Netherlands," he covered his face from the flurry, "but I'm a bit busy now."
"Hm, have fun with the wolf."
"Will do," he replied, hanging up and shoving his phone deep into his pocket. Although Zaltana was not dressed for this- she wasn't even wearing shoes, she still seemed to be the one fairing the best.
Estonia brought the radio with him, continuing to listen to the static. It seemed to be less loud, but then again that could have been because of the storm raging around him.
Zaltana's ears pressed against her head, and she jumped up. The snow seemed to hold her down; she hissed at it like it would listen, before looking over to Ivan.
She was on his shoulders faster than he could say no.
Her eyes seemed to start to glow in the dark as she looked around. Russia just looked annoyed at having a very, very large and quite possibly a very, very heavy lady standing on his shoulders.
"There!" she hissed, jumping off him. He was thrown a few steps back from the force before he pushed himself up to the top of the snow, following behind her casually. Finland seemed prepared to go too, but Canada held him back, pointing at the others. The Nordics seemed to understand where he was going.
Nobody else seemed to know where 'there' was, and with her back turned there were no more yellow eyes to find- it was trying to find a white-haired and a blonde in a snowstorm, and it wasn't easy.
They, instead, hunkered down. Canada seemed very knowledgeable about staying alive in the middle of a snowstorm, so they mostly just listened to him.
Zaltana growled, finding herself at the door of the small building. There was a little glowing yellow light on the outside that was flickering, but otherwise it was just a metal box.
She lashed her tail, trying to break the knob off the door, but it didn't falter. The nations cowered at the gunshot- God, they could be getting hurt!
Ivan stood beside her for a second before kicking the door. It rattled against its hinges, but the lock was good.
He did it again, with even more force, and Zaltana lashed her tail to the knob again. The door flew open, and the two personifications went inside immediately, Ivan closing the door immediately, holding it close with a fold-up chair that was hanging around to the side.
Zaltana panted as she looked around. It was still cold here, and she looked around. There was glass between them and the 'enclosure'. Connecticut sat alone in the back of it, breathing slowly. He was shirtless, wearing only jeans. He looked starved- she could count his ribs, and she did, and all were there. His cheeks were sunken and his eyes were dark. He'd obviously been here a long time without food or water.
The glass probably didn't break from the inside, but it broke easily from the outside.
Ivan stayed by the door until he realized she wouldn't walk over the glass.
"Are you really still afraid of it?" Ivan said, checking to make sure the door would close as she mumbled something. The two Russians made quicker work of grabbing him and getting back to the group than others would have.
They were back in the house as soon as the two of them were back.
Zaltana propped Connecticut up in his bed, her stethoscope around her neck. Canada sat on the end of the bed, looking at her.
"Is there anything you can't do?" he asked, and she didn't know what he meant by that.
"You live for fourteen thousand years and you pick up on a lotta things," she replied, "and some things never change, just evolve."
"What were the woolly mammoths like?"
"Big," she replied, "tasted real gamey- like fatty deer."
He chuckled a little at that, looking down at Connecticut.
"So, he's my brother's son."
"Yep."
"Why didn't... why didn't he tell me?" Matthew looked up to her, and she didn't have an answer.
"He didn't want you to live a double life, like he did. He wanted you to feel safe in your own ignorance," Zaltana replied, sitting down beside Connecticut, starting to prepare the feeding tube.
"What if I didn't want to be ignorant?" his soft voice strained, and she tilted an ear to him as acknowledgement.
"You didn't even know you were."
He paused, looking to the side, "he's my nephew."
"Yes."
"You're my sister."
"Uh-huh."
"Lithuania said that the claw marks on Alfred's bed were caused by him," Matthew looked over to the door. He was paranoid. He wanted to know, "Zaltana, what does my brother look like?"
"Do you see Connecticut's stripes? By his ears, they're a darker shade of orange," she brushed his hair back, "and the three across his chest? Yes, well, Dyami has some of the most brilliant stripes.
"They seem to fade into the back of the mind yet they are there. They're darker than this, cover him like a tiger. His hands are clawed, much like mine, his ears come into a little bit of a point, like Romania. His eyes... his eye-whites are black when he's stressed, and white when he's carefree. But they're the same blue."
"Zaltana," he called, and she looked over, "what do I look like?"
It was a childish question, and her ears pressed against her head.
"It will be too painful to go into your true form now. You are passed the age where you could."
"Please, what did I look like when I was a baby- before France found me in the woods?"
"You had wings," she replied, "they were small, but you had wings. You had no horns. You had some white patterning around your eyes, and you had white claws. But that was a long time ago. Now, you are a human."
"Am I?" he asked, and she glared daggers into Connecticut instead of looking at him.
"No, not technically," she answered, "only physically."
She slowly cut a hole into Connecticut with a scalpel, covering her other hand with corrosive acid and rubbing it along the wound so it wouldn't heal at nations speed. She found the stomach easily, fixing the tube to meet at the end of the esophagus.
Immediately, she tested it. The mixture she had found in the medbay to gain weight was almost out, but she hoped that this would be enough for now.
"Can I... join my family?"
"Do you mean that in the 'be dead' way, the 'transform' way, or the 'join the family' normal way?" Zaltana flushed the pipe, before fixing the feeding tube. She clapped as it worked, before getting an IV for some hydration. She should have probably done that first, but it was fine.
"Both two and three."
"You don't need to change yourself to join the family," she sighed, "but fine, have fun. Sorry there's not a big ceremony, if you haven't noticed everyone's fucking missing."
He gave a small smile at that as Zaltana took off her gloves. She looked over to him slowly, before shaking her head and laughing.
"What?" he said slowly, and she walked over to him, ruffling his hair.
"I know I ain't the fun sibling, but I sure as hell hope you can meet the others. Understand how much of a stick in the mud I am."
"What, you mean they all act like Alfred? Drifty and dumb?"
"Mostly," she giggled, pecking him on the forehead, "get going, the poor boy needs his rest."
"He's unconscious?"
"Yes, and we're loud," she beckoned him out. When she exited the room she noticed that Romania stood at the end of the hallway.
"There's blood bags in the medbay if you need them, vamp!" she called, "try to take one there's a lot of!"