Quote:
I'm calling it a dribble, becuase it's too long to be a drabble :P
Title is a play on "My Boy Builds Coffins" by Florence+Machines. I am fully aware Bayern already has a character in Hetalia. :( It just makes so much more sense that it's male, but this isn't anything serious. Just a quick little writing exercise to get it out of my system. I don't expect anyone to like it :P
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My Boy Fills Coffins
War had come to the European landscape in a flurry of darkness and hushed gunfire. The planes now flew nearly constantly over Bayern’s proud head, and she was the one putting them up there. She was the manufacturer for Germany, and she was making them as quickly as she could.
Though a darkened looking glass she observed with shielded eyes the wages of war. Blinded completely, she was, to the toll the economic progress it had on she and Ludwig’s shared land.
But beneath the rattle of engines, the shelling, the bombings, beneath the hard carapace's of the machine's she built, there lay a flicker of fear.
Fear that Ludwig would fall again. That she would find him bleeding, once again, on the battlefield, but find that her own standing was far to weak to rescue him this time. If he collapsed, she would die with him.
The music of her tiny phonograph rattled through the wide hangar, she the only soul within. Like Ludwig, her alone time was her happy time; she was content covered in grease, her callused fingers bleeding and bending as she twisted and pried the engine parts into running condition.
She remembered the first thing she built for Ludwig; how his blue eyes lit with happiness as it sprang to life. Bayern enjoyed pleasing him, to pry some expression out of his stoic features; to bring him a well-deserved smile.
But he didn’t smile anymore. He came in late at night, sometimes covered in dirt, with hollow eyes and no words or pleasantries for her like int he old days, only more work orders to fill.
She sat astride the nose of her latest bomber, staring down at the metal hull with a sort of reserved disdain.
The record on the record player reached an end and the hangar fell into a heavy, sickening sort of silence.
Bayern stood, balancing on the top of the plane with the ease of an experienced mechanic and strode over one massive wing, her tool belt swinging with each step.
She pried open the small hatch that covered the engine, an oil can in her free hand, and greased up the moving parts with care. Nothing she built ever fell apart on it's own.
The door opened on the far end and the Free State shuddered slightly as the sound of jackboots echoed through the hangar.
Bayern was torn between looking at the visitor and continuing with her tedious work. She frowned as a sharp piece of sheared metal nicked her palm, btu she never broke her concentration.
She didn’t want to look up, she didn’t want to see Ludwig, his eyes filled with that hollowness that tugged at her insides.
“Nixie.” Ludwig was standing below the wing, looking sternly up at her. The mechanic sighed, withdrawing her hands, gray eyes falling to anything but him.
“Ludwig.” She pressed her fingers against her palms, the cut singing with renewed pain as she wiped her tools off with an oily rag. “What brings you here?”
“Just checking on your progress.” He paused and Bayern could no longer avoid his gaze. “And I came to ask if you could increase production.”
Nixie sighed, running oil-clad fingers through her dark hair, pulling it away from her face with a sigh.
“Ludwig, I’m already stretched as thin as I can get…”
“It’s crucial.” the uniformed man below her insisted. “If you don’t, we may lose the war. I’ll give you anything you need…”
Nixie sat back on her heels looking down at the man fully. His uniform was far more pristine than it had been of late, and that’s when Nixie smelled it; the blood.
Not fresh like her own recent, petty wound, but the distinct coppery scent of old blood, of diseased blood. Bayern felt her insides twist, and she stood, crossing the wing and descending the ladder to the hangar floor.
It had been going on for a while; first the Stamlagger’s were built, and hell, she’d even helped build some, but she had turned a blind eye to the madness of their Boss‘s fanaticism. It was war, there needed to be a place to keep the POW’s.
But there weren’t just POW’s there, were there?
So this is what had been haunting Ludwig of late.
Somewhere deep down, Nixie knew it’s what was haunting her too.
