graveyard part five

[gamehead]

hunter's game the graveyard You wake up in an unfamiliar cabin. At first, it almost seems like you're in an entirely different place and that everything had been just a dream. The interior of the cabin looks nothing like the run-down, old-timey shacks that you had been living in before. Everything in here is sleek and modern, from the enormous flat-screen TV mounted on the wall to the fridge and mini-bars stocked with all your favorite foods. There aren't any individual rooms in here, just a common area large enough to house everyone comfortably, no matter how many more people join you...and there will be plenty more people joining you before the week is over. Because if you look outside the window, it quickly becomes clear that not only are you still in Prayer's Pass, but that you are no longer among the realm of the living. Judging from the tombstones directly outside, you're now in what had been the abandoned broken-down cabin in the graveyard. The cabin's not all that changed; the world outside has gone completely grey and everything you see appears to be faded and blurry. The only things that remain sharp and in color are what's inside the cabin, including your fellow ghosts. Occasionally, people who are still alive may enter, but it's clear that what they're seeing is completely different from what you're seeing. The door's unlocked; however, a mysterious force prevents you from stepping beyond the threshold, no matter how hard you may try. After all, this cabin is a cage for the dead - a gilded one, perhaps, but a cage nonetheless. On the flat-screen TV plays everything that is currently happening in the town. It will shut off once night starts...and something else will appear instead. (The graveyard so far)

Comments

[vytis]

Thank you. [Lithuania is quiet, trying to pull himself back together. He's too old to fall apart like this, he thinks.] Maybe we'll see each other again.

[notyetlost]

We will.

1/2

[vytis]

[Sometimes Lithuania remembers he's really just as selfish as Poland.]

2/2

[vytis]

Pinky promise? [Lithuania holds up his left hand, since Poland doesn't have his right.]

1/2

[notyetlost]

[It's a promise Poland shouldn't make and he knows it.

Lithuania asking him to make it reveals more to Poland than any words ever could.]

2/2

[notyetlost]

[Poland offers his pinky and wraps it around Lithuania's firmly.]

I promise.

[He'll deal with the consequences of making a promise he might not be able to keep, no matter how hard he tries to. Lithuania was worth it.]

[vytis]

And if the promise is broken, I'm subject to the Polish Rule, right?

[His capital becomes Warsaw.






Poland will take care of them, if worst comes to worst.]

[notyetlost]

[It's taking everything within Poland to not burst into tears at that.

If this is the last time he sees him, he doesn't want Lithuania's last memory to be of him crying. It didn't seem right. He was the one getting to go back after all and tears had never suited him. He was Poland. He was cheerful and silly and bright. The optimism in contrast to Lithuania's pessimism.

Poland smiles.]

Right.

[The tears roll down anyways.]

[vytis]

[Their relationship has always been about balance in the end. Lithuania manages a proper smile, in spite of his pessimistic nature and tendency to worry too much about even inconsequential things.]

Si Deus nobiscum quis contra nos.

1/2

[notyetlost]

[Poland chokes back a sob, furiously wiping at his face with the sleeves of his sweater. It takes him a while, but eventually he manages to collect himself, exhaling a shaky breath.

Everything was going to be so hard without him.]

2/2

[notyetlost]

[Quietly and with an insecurity he hasn't felt around Lithuania in centuries, Poland shyly reaches for Lithuania's hand to hold onto until it's time for him to go.]

[vytis]

[Lithuania takes Poland's hand and squeezes it, trying to be reassuring. He won't leave Poland's side until Poland leaves.]

1/2

[notyetlost]

[Poland thinks back to how they held hands together in the rye fields.

Being lovers. Their first kiss. Their first time. The first I love you's.

Being enemies. Their first fight. Their worst fight. All the bitterness in between.

The rise to the top of the world and the fall to the bottom.

Breaking up and their years spent apart. Making up and their years spent together.

Being friends... and maybe becoming something more.]

2/2

[notyetlost]

[Poland leans in, whispering gently in Lithuania's ear.]

Thank you for everything.

[vytis]

[If this is really the end for him--finally, after everything, after the Teutonic Knights and plagues and Russia, if this is it and some abandoned tourist town on a mountain is going to kill him--Lithuania is going to miss so many things. He'll never see Estonia or Latvia again. They must have noticed by now, having been gone two weeks when he'd said it would be three days. He'll miss meetings, too, even if they were always loud and most of the time they got nothing done at all. He'll miss his people more than anything, in the fierce, desperate way a parent would miss their children. He believes in them, though, and has faith that no matter if he makes it out of Preyer's Pass or not, Lithuanians will persist even if Lithuania himself can no longer stay close to them. And he'll miss Poland, too, in a way that doesn't quite fit anything else.

Poland had always been his neighbor. Poland had always persisted--Eastern Europe's own phoenix, Lithuania isn't surprised that Poland has managed to get out of this situation, too--and Lithuania had grown to trust that Poland would always be there. Even when Poland wasn't on the map, even when Lithuania was furious at him, Poland would never be gone, and Poland would always like him. Even if they as nations were arguing, even during the most bitter, furious disagreements, eventually they always found each other again.

Now, in his mind's eye, Lithuania can see Poland walking out of the pass alone.

Lithuania reaches into his pocket and produces the fabric poppy he'd taken with him to the trial on the day he'd died. He slides it into Poland's pocket without saying anything else.

When all of this is over, he'll find Poland again.]