Her long hair fluttered lightly in the crisp sea breeze, and she stared down over the side of her ship (her ship, she'd say it a million times and never enough) at the other nation.
"Bom dia." Portugal smiles, and her red hair catches in the sun. Sunlight is so uncommon to England, that he stares at the copper and the yellow and auburn and falls in love giddily. Her green eyes glitter down at him, and suddenly he doesn't mind that his eyes make him think of his mother.
Portugal's gaze settled over the waves.
"Do you need something?" England asked unsurely, and she's smiling at him again like sun, smile as open as sea. But settled under the smile is a depth. A darkness.
Rome who took her under his wing and tried to make her a little lady, lamenting her vulgar latin. The darkness is grief. Is another invasion. Is a desire to drive her brother Spain far from her house.
"I'm Portugal." She volunteered, tossed a strand of hair over her shoulder, blowing her fringe away from her face with a puff of air. Maybe she should just cut her hair.
"I'm England." England's tentative smile is a smirk - a wildcat snarl - friendly-like. Portugal paused, temporary forgetting what she's looking for. An explorer at heart, she is merely curious.
They're young, and it's sweet, and it won't last.
But she pulls away from her ship side and calls over her shoulder. "You wanna be friends, Ingla?"
When they're older, and they're used to leaning on each other, but not so much older that they recognize they're doing it, England tries to kiss her. They're teenagers, or at least, brushing up to it, and they're truly kicking France's ass (crude, vulgar really to say it). The hormones are sharp in their skin.
Portugal shoves him away with a pout. Maybe she called him an erotic ambassador. England rubbed his jaw, and scowled, and embarrassed past compare, she leant forward.
They kissed like gulls touching the waves with their feet. Sea-spit light.
They're still young, and it's still sweet, and it still won't last.
As they age, the world tumbled into chaos, and Portugal stands by her first love, because that's what he is. He is the little child who dared the waves to swallow him up. The ferocity of an island, small and isolated, that she can only match in the number of times people have stood on her soil and said this is nice, I shall call it.
She considers it a great irony that their heights are very similar.
But when the world falls into chaos the second time, she is tired and in denial. She laughs, and sips a drink, claims to know almost nothing of the war. Even when she can feel it. Quietly, though, she hands England her Azores; loved him, believed him, watched him stand out against all of Europe.
The time of Empires has, however, fallen, and they realize, imperfectly, that the time of them has also fallen. England has moved on.
Portugal saw him kiss his former colony bright on the mouth at the end of the war. Dipped back and everything. It makes her feel hot, and funny, and some of that is because she couldn't even imagine being intimate with her own released colonies. They're like her children. But then, England is a kinky fellow. If he's happy, after all, they've been tense since the Angola issue.
Portugal lingers, the waves of her mind, turning the issue over and over again. The bottom of the ocean is a boiled city; a spoilt love story. This is a young girl losing her first love. This is a grown man finding another love. This is nothing she can blame, and nothing he can blame.
They don't talk as much as they used to, even about their favourite topics (ships, and the sea, and water, and the raising of children).
She realizes he is avoiding her when he refuses to kiss America near her.
That he will not inflict his happiness upon her.
Perhaps it is tragic that they are still best friends, even when love has only complicated the matter between them. Because love is not an answer. It is never the answer. Usually it's the problem. It is the love laws, boundaries, territories that complicate this. How far and how much and who and why.
They are the experts of denial; so Portugal doesn't reflect on how England kissed her first and she kissed him first. They aren't that romantic to think that changes things.
Bottom of the sea [oneshot]
"Bom dia." Portugal smiles, and her red hair catches in the sun. Sunlight is so uncommon to England, that he stares at the copper and the yellow and auburn and falls in love giddily. Her green eyes glitter down at him, and suddenly he doesn't mind that his eyes make him think of his mother.
Portugal's gaze settled over the waves.
"Do you need something?" England asked unsurely, and she's smiling at him again like sun, smile as open as sea. But settled under the smile is a depth. A darkness.
Rome who took her under his wing and tried to make her a little lady, lamenting her vulgar latin. The darkness is grief. Is another invasion. Is a desire to drive her brother Spain far from her house.
"I'm Portugal." She volunteered, tossed a strand of hair over her shoulder, blowing her fringe away from her face with a puff of air. Maybe she should just cut her hair.
"I'm England." England's tentative smile is a smirk - a wildcat snarl - friendly-like. Portugal paused, temporary forgetting what she's looking for. An explorer at heart, she is merely curious.
They're young, and it's sweet, and it won't last.
But she pulls away from her ship side and calls over her shoulder. "You wanna be friends, Ingla?"
When they're older, and they're used to leaning on each other, but not so much older that they recognize they're doing it, England tries to kiss her. They're teenagers, or at least, brushing up to it, and they're truly kicking France's ass (crude, vulgar really to say it). The hormones are sharp in their skin.
Portugal shoves him away with a pout. Maybe she called him an erotic ambassador. England rubbed his jaw, and scowled, and embarrassed past compare, she leant forward.
They kissed like gulls touching the waves with their feet. Sea-spit light.
They're still young, and it's still sweet, and it still won't last.
As they age, the world tumbled into chaos, and Portugal stands by her first love, because that's what he is. He is the little child who dared the waves to swallow him up. The ferocity of an island, small and isolated, that she can only match in the number of times people have stood on her soil and said this is nice, I shall call it.
She considers it a great irony that their heights are very similar.
But when the world falls into chaos the second time, she is tired and in denial. She laughs, and sips a drink, claims to know almost nothing of the war. Even when she can feel it. Quietly, though, she hands England her Azores; loved him, believed him, watched him stand out against all of Europe.
The time of Empires has, however, fallen, and they realize, imperfectly, that the time of them has also fallen. England has moved on.
Portugal saw him kiss his former colony bright on the mouth at the end of the war. Dipped back and everything. It makes her feel hot, and funny, and some of that is because she couldn't even imagine being intimate with her own released colonies. They're like her children. But then, England is a kinky fellow. If he's happy, after all, they've been tense since the Angola issue.
Portugal lingers, the waves of her mind, turning the issue over and over again. The bottom of the ocean is a boiled city; a spoilt love story. This is a young girl losing her first love. This is a grown man finding another love. This is nothing she can blame, and nothing he can blame.
They don't talk as much as they used to, even about their favourite topics (ships, and the sea, and water, and the raising of children).
She realizes he is avoiding her when he refuses to kiss America near her.
That he will not inflict his happiness upon her.
Perhaps it is tragic that they are still best friends, even when love has only complicated the matter between them. Because love is not an answer. It is never the answer. Usually it's the problem. It is the love laws, boundaries, territories that complicate this. How far and how much and who and why.
They are the experts of denial; so Portugal doesn't reflect on how England kissed her first and she kissed him first. They aren't that romantic to think that changes things.