Notes for this part: I forgot to mention in the first part that Iceland is not really little here, but he's still a kid. I imagine he went through a growth spurt during the rise of Icelandic nationalism in the 19th century, and then again in the 20th century when he was granted independence.
Also, the effects of the eruption in England were particularly nasty.
His tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth. Everything tastes like ash and sulfur and bile. Iceland tries to suck on his fingers, but he has no saliva left in his mouth.
Maybe he should try to get that glass of water. Maybe walking won't be so bad.
He should be used to this. He's lived his whole life with volcanoes. An eruption shouldn't be enough to keep him down.
Iceland stares at his checkered red quilt. The crimson squares look like the lava flows he feels oozing across his land, swallowing up the livestock and starving his people. He can only imagine the effects the eruption must be having on the other nations. He can hear them storming toward him now, screaming about the burning in their mouths and the smell of death in their fields, about the famines, the fears, about the full cemeteries and the poisonous frost. He can see Sweden demanding Denmark and Norway take responsibility for the eruption—Iceland is their colony, after all, and they've got to do something now that half of Europe is starving and the peasants are trying to revolt and do they want a war because who knows what the hell England is going to do now that America's revolution has succeeded and his people are dying because of poison smoke from thousands of kilometers away—
Laki [4/7]
Also, the effects of the eruption in England were particularly nasty.
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His tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth. Everything tastes like ash and sulfur and bile. Iceland tries to suck on his fingers, but he has no saliva left in his mouth.
Maybe he should try to get that glass of water. Maybe walking won't be so bad.
He should be used to this. He's lived his whole life with volcanoes. An eruption shouldn't be enough to keep him down.
Iceland stares at his checkered red quilt. The crimson squares look like the lava flows he feels oozing across his land, swallowing up the livestock and starving his people. He can only imagine the effects the eruption must be having on the other nations. He can hear them storming toward him now, screaming about the burning in their mouths and the smell of death in their fields, about the famines, the fears, about the full cemeteries and the poisonous frost. He can see Sweden demanding Denmark and Norway take responsibility for the eruption—Iceland is their colony, after all, and they've got to do something now that half of Europe is starving and the peasants are trying to revolt and do they want a war because who knows what the hell England is going to do now that America's revolution has succeeded and his people are dying because of poison smoke from thousands of kilometers away—
He pulls his fingers out of his mouth.
Twin red teeth marks mar both of his knuckles.