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“Hey! Give it back to me!” An excitable, piercing voice blared across the frozen lake and, carried by the chilly gusts of wind, rang throughout the snow-covered meadow. It was not uneasy to spot out its owner, whose braided mane was wild as his temper and fiery as the thick cape, fluttering in the wake of his jaunty chase for the emerald figure triumphantly gloating miles in front of him. “Give me back my butter ya thievin’ bastard!”
“Never!” The other voice huffed, just as childish and even higher in pitch, mingled with laughter. Skilfully evading his pursuer’s gloved hands, the taller child ducked and swerved on the frosted ground with extraordinary agility, tightly clutching the reward to his chest. As his steps quickened he, as if to challenge the other, tossed his own golden locks against the wind and cocked his head playfully, his mismatching turquoise glare throwing his younger companion a little off track. “Not wh’n ya do gross things to it, potato mouth! Ya wait ‘til I tell Nor ‘bout how ya waste all that good stuff ‘n ya stupid hair!”
They were by then just a few paces from their shared household, and, sensing the proximity, both picked up their speed and began racing across the snow, gliding so briskly that they were but ghostly impressions to the untrained human eye.
“It’s not a waste, Sve! I need it to keep my hair straight and presentable, tho’ it’s probably beyond yer understandin’. We all know yer neither, ya gangly moose,” the smaller boy chided, his flushed face growing more of a ruby shade by the minute as his breath began to labour. As if to make a point he grabbed a fistful of his nest of auburn hair and attempted to comb and untangle it with his coarse, scarred fingers. “See? Look what ye’ve done now!”
Almost to avert any too-intense gaze, his brother turned back and let out an indignant snort, but not before commenting that instead of such distasteful rituals, Denmark should use lye.
“... Like ev’ry vaguely sensible person, but of cuz yer not one of ’em. Ya got no horses after all,” he chuckled, setting down the bucket of butter at his feet. Knowing it would be quite a while before his brother caught up, the Swede carelessly leaned against the exterior of their destination, indulging in the gleeful sight of the young Dane staggering towards him, wide-eyed and panting, definitely not accepting his defeat. Denmark was almost breathless by then, in spite of his seemingly endless energy, but both his physical and geographical mass was indeed much smaller than the butter thief/saviour floating by their house, and he had the unfortunate disadvantage of being born in the flattest possible region ever, making slopes practically hell. A rush of envious anger rose within the smaller nation, and, having stopped for his tired legs to recover, he threw a nasty grimace at Sweden, who gladly returned the affection. As they were exchanging snarls of boyish animosity, Sweden’s face brightened all of a sudden, and he raised the bar.
“I’m countin’ ten. If ya can’t get up ‘ere by zero fer th’ rest of th’ week yer ‘n idiot lasagna.”
Denmark blinked in confusion, wondering what ‘lasagna’ could mean, but by the time he recalled it being that noodle thing Far’s frenemy’s baby grandsons loved eating his bror had already counted to three.
“Ya stallin’, Dan? Givin’ up so eas’ly?” The larger nation taunted in a light sing-song treble, his usually reserved grin widening with an uncharacteristic ferocity. “FYRA!”
“In yer dreams, Sverige!” Pulling himself out of his thoughts, Denmark leapt to his feet and charged through the snow with renewed vigour, determined to get the last laugh.
“FEM~” Sweden sang in mockery, picking up the wooden bucket and flaunting it.
“SEX~”
Cursing the Swede beneath his breath, Denmark sped up and was (very quickly) barely a few feet away from the other nation, his butter at eye level and soon to be within reach.
“SJU~ ”
“ÅTTA~”
Just a little more! Just a little more! In less than a millisecond he could tackle Sweden now. Nearly there! Nearly there!
“NI— ”
Denmark was on the verge of snatching the bucket and pushing Sweden onto the ground and maybe rubbing the snow and some victory on his face, but the inhuman bleat that just came out of the Swede’s mouth froze him in his tracks. It was nothing like anything he had heard in his short few centuries alive, even less so anything he had heard from Sweden, whom he, along with Norway and eventually Finland, grew up teasing for his delicate treble singing, and for having the highest voice among them.
“Wha… What was that?” He stuttered, unsure of what to make of whatever just happened. Darting an uncomfortable glance at an even more discomforted Sweden, he couldn’t help shudder at the intense turquoise stare, now radiating formidable terror and screaming dread. The stoic face was drained of all the earlier cheerfulness, mortified and beet red.
As soon as he recovered from the shock, Denmark tried every way he knew to prompt a response of any kind from the taller nation, all to no avail. It was as if Sweden entrenched himself into a mental retreat to evade from his awkward position, in a vain attempt to comprehend the horror that’s just befallen him.
That was not him. He couldn’t have possibly made such a low, gravelly sound… could he? Yet it was unmistakable that he did. He was just counting, shouting the way he always did, nothing different, but his vocal cords broke loose and escaped his every control. Suddenly he found himself confused and helpless, like a beached whale desperately reaching for the waves that bore it onto stranded land, albeit in vain. As his fingers frantically fidgeted with the pail’s handle, a part of Sweden wanted to scream in anguish, but there was nothing he could muster anymore. A demon of sorts had reached an invisible hand into his throat and stole his precious voice away, like that Fish-Selkie-Thing Princess in one of those strange tales Denmark always went on rambling about. But unlike that girl he knew he was righteous and clean and had never made any pacts with malice or witchcraft… Okay, maybe except those unbreakable vows with Norway, but those don’t count! … Right? Helvete! What if he was cursed? What if Denmark secretly knew magic and used it as revenge? What if both his brothers set him up to take his voice away? What if Finland was in this too? What if…? What if…?
Having been so mired in his own thoughts, it was beyond Sweden’s ability to hear anything Denmark was trying to say, not to mention feeling the gloved hand poking at his sides and noticing the jagged red cape floating in and out of his eyesight. Nor did he notice the very irritated Norwegian storming out of the house in a fit of silent rage over whatever the commotion in the outdoors was, fists curled and more than ready to give the Dane’s ear a sound boxing. He couldn’t hear Denmark hurriedly explaining the whole situation to Norway, deliberately leaving out the part before Sweden rescued the butter from the sacrilegious act about to befall it, or Norway bewilderedly taking it in, before turning to the petrified nation and shaking him back into existence.
“Sverige!” Norway’s voice had always had a mystical quality to it. His airy breath mingled with each vowel and encased every consonant, mellowing it into a silky, calming entity of its own right, even when he’s both visibly and audibly furious, as he was now.
“SVERIGE!” The same cannot be said for Denmark’s.
“… ’m fine, really,” Having collected himself (with much difficulty), Sweden drawled slowly, careful to keep his vocal cords in line. He could still feel the heat in his face, his heart racing at lightning speed, and the ring of that horrid croak still haunting his eardrums. “’s cold out here, let’s just go inSI— ”
Oh no. Not again.
The red hot flush creeped back into his head as he tried all he could to suppress the rising bile quaking with the monstrous voice reverberating inside his skull. This was even worse than the first. Two pairs of eyes, sky blue and dusk indigo, were watching him now, and everyone had heard that… crack. There was no excuse, no denying that the voice was his own. As much as he had loathed the way his fellow nations teased about his voice, the Kingdom of Sweden had always taken pride in having the best-sounding natural voice out of his brothers, especially in the fact that he could sing up to (whatever frequency that would be later known as a high D) at full-throated ease. Now it’s gone. It’s all gone. Perhaps it’s God’s punishment for his secret vanity, perhaps it’s revenge from Norway and Denmark, perhaps Finland decided this was too much and was going to use this as a bargain chip to leave him… A million thoughts swelled in Sweden’s mind, mostly irrational, but nonetheless fuel to the lump forming in the place of the prized voice he once possessed, and to the welled tears of agony quietly trickling down his steaming complexion.
In an instant his flight instincts kicked in, and the young nation discarded the butter, turned on his heels, and rushed into the house. In the spur of the moment he heedlessly slammed the heavy pine door after him, leaving his brother’s out in the cold. The younger of the two found himself chortling with the most obnoxious laughter to ever be recorded in human history, while the other simply stood, an indecipherable expression on his blank, vacant face, deep violet eyes fixated on the pallid, snowy ground.
For a brief moment they remained that way, one having finally found the right reaction to the previous voice cracking incident, and the other in complete taciturnity. With his void stare still fixed on the blanched earth, Norway’s lips uncontrollably twitched in mild aggravation, and broke his own silence.
“Dan, would ya mind explainin’ what my Smør’s s’posed to be doin’ here?”
So goes the story of how Sweden’s voice dropped five octaves one fateful day, and never went back up again.