No Dawn, No Day [America] [Flashback]
|
|
Post by Belarus - Natalya Arlovskaya on Apr 6, 2015 21:26:07 GMT -5
Fifteen Years Earlier...
She always took the night guard. Wherever they'd camped for the night, whether it be a mostly bombed-out and abandoned city as they were in now or in the middle of the woods, Natalya took the night watch. She would wake up in the arliest hours of the morning when the world was almost silent and look up at the sometimes-hidden stars. It was cloudy and smokey most nights, but some nights she could see them. She often wondered if Ivan still saw them the same way, but she didn't think much longer about it after that. Such thoughts were poisonous. They'd make her wonder what she was doing, and she could hardly afford self-doubt. It would make her wonder why she took the night shift at all. The quiet was perfect for self-doubt, after all.
She had a reasonable answer, though. Almost ritualistically, in the dark night, she'd look for new cuts and bruises that, to the humans who still did not know who she was, had come from nowhere. She'd look for the newest burnt places and the newest bombed ones, and she'd feel a strange sort of anger. In the dark with no one looking, she'd reaffirm that she was still running and fighting and rebelling for some reason rather than none. Natalya Arlovskaya would remind herself that she'd renamed herself Valeriya, and she'd doubt no more. Or at least, she'd doubt less. She wasn't quite certain what she would do if Ivan finally caught her. Part of her wanted to stab him painfully, stab him and ask him if he even understood the pain of a blanket of bombs every day and a war against no one but yourself and your brother every night, if he even knew what he was doing. But she was also afraid. She was afraid she'd break down and hug him instead.
Since she couldn't have that, she never sought him out, and when she felt him coming she hid. Natalya wasn't certain if this made her a coward, but sometimes her head hurt and she preferred her bloody battlefields and bombed-out cities in the middle of the night to anything from that past. Bring her a soldier to stab. That would always be easier.
She scanned herself for wounds. Lifting the leg of her black pant legs, she checked the many torn cuts and sighed. She hadn't been there. Of course she hadn't- Natalya would be much more hurt if she had- but it wasn't as though the news traveled quickly, not as she was. It wasn't as though she had cable or internet. She wasn't exactly certain where it had happened, only that it had. That was enough. This was her brother, well, her brother and herself. How many factions were left? By now, they'd mostlay consolidated. But it wasn't as though they met a common goal very well. It wasn't as though Ivan was the only one who was hurting her. She ran her fingers through her vey short, roughly shorn-off hair, the ribbon tied to her black sleeve. It didn't matter. She'd be here because that's where her people were, she supposed.
Somewhere in the middle of this nightly ritual, something changed.
Natalya wasn't quite certain when she was suddenly standing up straight on the border of the city, only that she suddenly was. She soon realized why. Footsteps and tires hit against the ground. It was only a small brigade, but it was enough. She grabbed her radio. She'd wake up the others. There was clearly some kind of attack, except something stopped her from radioing in. It was only a feeling, but it was a feeling enough. This wasn't Ivan's style, but it felt like it could be him. If it was, then she should radio in immediately, but Ivan was typically either on his own or with an entire army. Not like this. Not at two in the morning, rolling slowly, almost as if they were lost.
Lost?
Slowly, Natalya put the radio back into her belt. Not lost, she guessed, but moving slowly, probably a little unsure of where they were. In other words, no enemy. Natalya stood and watched as they approached, a feeling in the pit of her stomach increasing, her finger still sitting on the alarm on the radio. If they did prove to be a threat, she'd hit the alarm and shoot, kill them all. It wouldn't be the first time she'd stop such a "sneak attack" in its tracks in a similar manner. But as the tiny group grew closer, she realized just how unlikely it was to be an attack, along with exactly why she'd initially wondered if the feeling was Ivan. She wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not. Nothing from the time that wasn't "now" was a good thing, but she doubted this man meant any harm.
She stepped forwards. There was no reason to hide. She'd tell him to turn around shortly. There was no need for him to be here. "Амерыка," she said. "What reasoning would you have to be in this place?"
|
|
Deleted
(Deleted User)
I was deleted!
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2015 12:28:20 GMT -5
Of all of the former Soviet nations to hold out against Russia, Alfred wasn't expecting to hear that Belarus still fought against Russian control. Knowing how...attached Natalya was to Ivan at one point, he'd expected her to join Ivan just as soon as he started collecting his former charges like play toys once more. He would have been disappointed, knowing that Natalya could do better than that, yet it was what he expected.
Now he felt a bit disgusted with himself. He should have given Natalya more credit. She'd shown herself to be a fierce woman, and to think that she would go slinking back to her brother's side like a lost puppy was to do a great disservice to Natalya - especially as it became clearer with each passing month that Natalya was holding out with all of her might.
Alfred wasn't sure what his next course of action would be. Obviously, the best result for his side was a win for the Belarussian rebels, but this wasn't just a political matter to Alfred. He was actually worried for Natalya herself just as much as he was worried as a nation for one of the last remaining strongholds against Russia in the former Soviet territories. This had to be hell for her, and he doubted that she was getting much outside support for what she was doing - Either militarily or otherwise.
Russia was bad for Belarus as a nation, but Ivan was even worse for Natalya as a person. Of that Alfred was convinced.
It was for this reason that Alfred was with a small group trying to search for the nation in question. He knew his work was cut out for himself, but Alfred was known for his stubborn perseverance when he had his mind set on something. It was a long search, one that could have probably been spent doing something more beneficial to the war effort, but this was something that was more of a personal matter than a national matter - and though the two sides of Alfred more often than not interconnected, they didn't always. Alfred was a nation, but he was also a human nation.
Instead of finding her, she actually found him first. Alfred almost didn't recognize the female nation at first, though he supposed that was intentional. Natalya was deliberately hiding out from Russia, after all, and she could hardly do that if she looked exactly the same as she did when she was under her brother's control. That voice, though, and that face. He'd recognize it from anywhere.
As well as that attitude that brought a grin to Alfred's face. The tone was by no means friendly, and yet Alfred took that as a good sign. Natalya still had her fire, this war hadn't beaten it out of her yet. That meant that there was still hope yet.
"What do you think I'm doing here? I'm gathering intelligence, trying to see how the rebels' fight against enemy forces is going." I also wanted to see how you were doing, Alfred thought, yet didn't say out loud.
|
|
|
|
Post by Belarus - Natalya Arlovskaya on Apr 18, 2015 19:38:28 GMT -5
Natalya was already sighing when she saw Alfred, well aware that it was going to be a long night. He was already grinning rather than at least looking the slightest bit like a rational human being, grinning with that horribly irritating, terribly Alfred grin of his. To some small part of Natalya, this was a good thing. An Alfred with a different expression was one with serious problems, one that wasn't quite Alfred enough. Small comfort. That grin was still one of the most irritating facial expressions Natalya had ever seen (and would never admit she was fond of). And here the man was, in all of his ridiculous glory, wearing that irritating expression and looking for her in the middle of a dangerous war zone in the middle of the night. Hmph. Alfred was such an idiot.
Though, his words were quite interesting. Hm. So he knew there was a rebellion. Natalya wondered if he knew the extent (if he knew the bombs and the deaths and, well, everything). Belarus's governmental communication lines had been seized the same night the Russians had taken Misnk, and remained seized even after the second, longer phase of the war started. When they'd started bombing, the Russians had aimed for communications towers and facilities first, along with utilities and high-population cities. Their goal, of course, had been to finish crushing something she imagined Ivan hated to admit had ever started in the first place. So she had no idea what the outside world knew of her fight. She suspected they knew very little. But perhaps a war on this scale was hard to hide.
(Later, when Natalya would be in a hospital bed looking at the ceiling, she would wonder if Ivan hadn't hidden her disaster too. She suspected he tried. He didn't like admitting his mistakes. She didn't either. She also suspected that, like a rebellion in Belarus, a nuclear disaster in Belarus was harder to hide than anyone could manage, even if it would be a long time yet before anyone knew the extent.)
"So news has made it beyond Ivan's guarding against it," she said. "Tell me, how many of your spy planes did it take to figure it out?" There was this slight derisive touch to her words, but it wasn't aimed directly at the American Idiot. Instead it was aimed at The fact Natalya knew, just knew, that Ivan would have never told the world that his attempt to take back Belarus was taking longer than the original two-year push, and at the fact that they all should all have known just hard it was to hide that sort of thing. "Tell me, what has leaked past- ah, what did you call it?- that iron curtain of his? I am quite curious to hear how my war is supposedly going," she added.
She sighed. "As for how our fight is going, the answer is: worse every day." She doubted Alfred would appreciate the brutal honestly, but it was the truth. "I suspect it will not end until everyone fighting on one side or the other is dead, and he has more than I do." She shrugged, though it was a refined, almost mocking little motion. "Neither of us like to give in, you see." It was going to take some kind of disaster to really end the fighting. But she wasn't going to give in. Perhaps Ivan would figure out what was going on and stop his fighting. Perhaps she would be found. Perhaps she would win. She doubted the last one was possible, but you never really knew, did you?
Natalya sides before looking at the Nation that has taken her in after everything with Ivan had first fallen apart. "Since you are here, I recall a war before my communications went dark. I would like my own intelligence."
What she didn't say was this: No, I'm not doing well, but I'm doing well enough. Are you alright as well? It simply wouldn't be Natalya if she admitted she was worried for those in a world she had barely heard a word from.
|
|
Deleted
(Deleted User)
I was deleted!
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2015 12:28:39 GMT -5
Alfred had some information on the rebellion, but not much. He knew enough to know that there was still a rebellion waging on, but he had little other information. His spy planes could not bring him back the information that he wanted the most - To know how Natalya was faring, to know if she wanted any assistance. He had his doubts as to whether she'd accept any assistance offered, but he planned on offering it nevertheless. At the very least, it would show that someone out there wanted to support what she was doing, that she wasn't completely alone.
"Yep, though it was bound to eventually. He may try but he can't hide what he's doing from the world forever. There are always telltale signs." He thought of what happened with Chernobyl, and Ivan's attempts to hide what happened to his other sister. It was too bad for Ivan that not only did Alfred had the technology to see past the iron curtain, but Sweden detected far higher levels of radiation reaching his own borders. Otherwise, who knew how long Ivan would have tried to hide what happened to poor Iryna?
"Enough to know that this conquest isn't going anywhere near as well as he hoped it would. I'm glad to see it personally, but you know I'm more than a bit biased." There was no use in pretending that he wasn't, but there was also no denying the quick flash of concern that came across his face. As a nation, he wanted Belarus to win as a strategic victory against his biggest enemy, but as Alfred himself, he wanted Natalya to win for her own safety.
Who knew how badly he would punish her if he succeeded in taking her back. It was the same feeling of foreboding he had when Russia came to take back Lithuania.
Alfred didn't much enjoy hearing the truth, but he appreciated it nevertheless. He'd rather know the struggles that Natalya was facing than be surprised when and if Ivan made a final push that resulted in Natalya's loss. "Well, if you ever need assistance, let me know. I might be able to spare a few extra soldiers to help out." He knew that she'd turn him down before he even asked. He had to offer nevertheless, on the off chance that she actually took him up on his offer.
That would be the day, wouldn't it?
"The end's not in sight any time soon, I can tell you that much." Like Natalya, he could easily lie and say things were going better than they were, but he knew that she would see right through it. "Both the Allegiance and the Pact are pretty evenly matched, and if one side makes any sort of gain the other side's usually pretty quick to match it." And he doubted, correctly, that this situation would change any time in the foreseeable future.
|
|
|
|
Post by Belarus - Natalya Arlovskaya on Apr 21, 2015 13:59:36 GMT -5
Natalya frowned, or nearly did so. "Of course he cannot hide it forever," she murmured to herself, "he never can." She should have known that. Of course she should have known that. Or maybe she didn't- a lot of people found her older brother confusing. Even she did, sometimes. He could give mixed signals like no one else, smiling brightly while planning a murder. So perhaps it would have been easier to say he could never hid things from Natalya, and that Ivan had never been good at hiding things, really. Only pretending things were not. And this, this he was not pretending wasn't happening, so he wasn't hiding it. He only ever managed to hide the things, she thought, that he hid from himself (and wasn't she the same way?).
She wondered if he was okay, but she almost immediately scolded herself because wouldn't it be a bit better at the moment if he wasn't quite?
Shaking the thought away, she continued. "It wouldn't be going as well as he expected, considering that even I expected to only put up a token fight," she admitted. But- well, she didn't need to finish that. Clearly this was not the token fight she'd originally intended, yes? Even someone who could be as much of an idiot as Alfred sometimes was could see that. Perhaps Alfred would understand, even. Maybe she should ask. Maybe he'd be able to explain what she hadn't yet, the burning feeling she'd felt when she jumped out the back of a van and turned her back on everything she was supposed to do and intended to do. Hadn't Alfred always been the impulsive one? But she didn't say anything in the end.
It was a little funny, how things had turned out. Natalya was not certain how she'd held out as long as she had, but her only guess was that it was because she'd just kept on going. Nations and the countries they are bound to are symbolically linked, and things that happen to one tend to correlate to the other. Natalya suspected that the day she was found would be the same day the revolution was lost, but that she could not be found until the revolution was lost. Or perhaps she was remembering wrong. She'd once had it explained to her, had it explained to her by someone with an oddly patient voice and a strange way of speaking. But she couldn't quite remember who it was, really, who first explained that she wasn't quite human. She suspected he had been a ghost, because for Natalya, well, wouldn't that have been just perfect? She'd never managed to find him again, at any rate.
She almost laughed, then, at Alfred's offer of troops. Natalya supposed they both knew how she'd answer. "Of course not," she snapped, though it wasn't really with much venom. "This is my own problem with my own people. It is between me, myself, and Ivan. A- a family matter, I think you would call it." Alfred's interference would not be welcome within her various factions and, thanks to the constant changing and paranoia that had for so long duped the Russians, she suspected those foreign troops would not last a week. She would not tell Alfred that part, though. She suspected he would insist otherwise.
Natalya listened to Alfred's assessment of the war and nodded quietly. "And you do not like to give in either," she said. Not that she was implying that was the correct course of action, but she suspected that this would be the major problem. Two powerful forces who did not like to give in and who did not like to lose could prolong things for a very, very long time.
And it suddenly hit her what she'd really wanted to know.
"Have you heard much of my sister?" she asked quietly, "Or of the Baltics? I know- I suspect, at least, that Iryna was not going to fight much, but- but is she okay?" she asked, her voice getting even a little quieter. "I haven't heard- well, I haven't heard anything," she admitted, and as much as she seemed to be running from her siblings, she still needed to know. She wanted to know where Ivan had been going but she also wanted to hear if they were okay.
(She'd thought, when it all started, that Ivan was going to try to bring it all back, that Ivan was going to try to take back the old house, but more and more that had started to seem worse and worse until she'd wanted to scream and she couldn't quite understand why. Family. Family would be the death of her, wouldn't it?)
|
|
Deleted
(Deleted User)
I was deleted!
|
Post by Deleted on May 10, 2015 16:39:23 GMT -5
Alfred chuckled as Natalya explained that she planned to only put up a 'token fight'. "A token fight? You? Why do I find that hard to believe?" He did not see Natalya as one to only put up a 'token fight', though he supposed that his suspicions were proven by what actually occurred thus far.
He shook his head when Natalya denied his help, as expected. He still smiled, however, making it clear that he didn't take it as an affront. She was right, in a way - it was a family matter, but Alfred did have an established habit of inserting himself into issues that did not initially involve him.
The corners of Alfred's mouth twitched upward at Natalya's assessment. "Nope." He knew full well how this war would go - no matter what side won, they'd have to plow through much of the globe to reach their goal. Anyone who was in this was in it for the long haul.
Especially if they were in a position of power like Alfred's.
Alfred's eyes widened when Natalya asked him - with clear concern - how her friends and family were doing. It forced him to realize just how much strength it took to do what Natalya was doing, to stand up for what she thought she needed to do despite knowing where the majority of her friends and family lay.
"I haven't heard much from them, just that they're with your brother. And you know what he's like." He didn't mean it as an insult in this case, more of an observance. He was keeping his 'friends' and family close, the same as he had before. There weren't many opportunities to talk.
"He's talked about your sister, though. And the Baltics. So they're as okay as they can be given the circumstances." Meaning that they were alive at the very least, though perhaps not well. He suspected some weren't exactly there by choice, after all.
|
|
|
|
Post by Belarus - Natalya Arlovskaya on May 17, 2015 15:19:36 GMT -5
Alfred was truly infuriating sometimes, especially when he was completely right. A token fight from Natalya? That would have never happened. She'd always had her doubts, even when it was but a quiet little voice whispering in the back of her maddened, clouded head. There had certainly been a large part of her who had found fighting her brother pointless, back when it was a formalized army and a formalized leadership doing the job, back when it had been the short, brutal loss that had been the original advances. There had certainly always been a part of her wanting to go home.
But a token fight?
She rolled her eyes. "Well, of course not," she said, gesturing slightly as if saying 'look at what I'm doing now', as though gesturing to the sheared-short, messy hair and the cuts and bruises she didn't care enough about to stop from happening. "I did try," she added, almost cheekily, or as close to that as Natalya ever came, "but I found it a little bit too difficult to keep up with." Her expression hid the fact that she still had no idea what she was actually doing, as well as the fact that a small part of her always had wanted to just go home.
Then again, she was still here, wasn't she? She wasn't going back to Ivan until everything was over, for better or for worse. She did not like to give in at all, after all, and she suspected her brother never would. But, well, it mattered in a way. She would like to say it didn't matter, but it did. She was, at the very least, making a point. Perhaps he would see it, this time. (She would not be forced to be Russian again.)
Natalya looked at the humor in Alfred's eyes and wondered how he did it. She knew instinctively that he would, like Ivan, have integrated himself right into the middle of everything, even if he didn't fight directly. She could barely keep up her own spirits some days, but Alfred always had that slightly infuriating, slightly irritating, but mostly bright grin dancing behind his blue eyes. It was one of the things she secretly liked about him. Back when she had been a wreck and he'd been trying to prevent her from completely self-destructing upon leaving her brother, he'd also kept that light humor about him the whole time. It had taken her much longer than it should have for her to realize that this wasn't all there was to him. She respected him perhaps a bit more when she realized that it was still a huge part.
Her expression soon fell to a certain gratefulness when he gave her information. Not much, mind you, but anything at all was good. She breathed a sigh out. "...good," she finally said. "My problems have not spread into their borders. Good." Because she really did care. Even if she had to keep on ruthlessly sectioning off the part of her that cared for her brother, she'd never cut off her powerful love for her sister, or the hidden, reserved possessiveness she felt over a certain other nearby Nation. "As for my brother- well, you do know that he at least tries," she mutters.
It's clear by her voice that, at least for this short moment, she recognises that trying is hardly enough. She shakes her head. "Thank you," she says, her voice having slipped back into a certain cool and unreadable tone. She falls silent. She doesn't have much else to say, for the moment. She almost wants to tell Alfred to simply go ahead and leave. She does not. She doesn't actually mind his presence enough to go through with it.
|
|
|
do not forget me
About thirty years ago, Israel's boss was assasinated. By who, well, no one knows, but Israel immediately blamed Iran. Of course, that alone wouldn't have started World War III, even though Israel and Iran's various allies declared war in quick succession.
Nah, the nuclear bomb in the middle of Jerusalem probably did it.
Now? Now the rest is history. The world's been at war for thirty years, thirty years of bloodshed and pain. No one else has reached for the nuclear option quite yet, but no one's happy. So if we all die- well, do not forget me, okay?
updates
10/15/2020 Do Not Forget Me: a dark hetalia RPG is re-opened!
credits
Do Not Forget Me was created by Waffles and Jonathan and amazing layout and coding is thanks to SO-4 . Content is copyrighted to Do Not Forget Me unless otherwise stated. The skin is created by Wolf of Gangnam Style. The board and thread remodel is by Kagney The mini-profile remodel is by Trinity Blair of Adoxography. Thanks!
|
