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Iceland would kill for a drink of water right now. Even in sleep he cannot escape the heat simmering under his ashen skin and the painful rumbling in his bones. He tosses and turns beneath sweat-soaked sheets, vainly trying to find comfort. Sometimes he folds his hands, chipped yellow fingernails meeting bony knuckles, and tries to pray, but he can’t make it past the first three words of the Our Father. His mind is too sluggish with fever.
How many days has it been? How many nights, how many weeks, how many months? He no longer has any sense of time. Even if he were more lucid, the thick ash blanketing the sky has long since obscured the positions of the sun and moon.
In a rare moment of childish terror, he wonders if he’s dying.
Bergen is a fragmented city on the water whose ports are frequented by ships that have sailed across the world and back, bringing wealth with them. The city has reemerged from the troubles of the last century with remarkable vitality. But Norway and Denmark don’t talk about it much. Copenhagen is typically the subject of their conversations. They need to focus on making it prosper, Denmark is always telling him, because a strong capital makes a strong country. Every time he says this, he gets that look in his eyes—that look that both frustrates Norway and keeps him from pushing back, from pointing out that Bergen now has as many people and as much wealth as Copenhagen.
Some mornings, like this one, he just needs to get away from Denmark for a while. He wanders down to the harbor to watch the merchants unloading their wares from recent trading expeditions, but this summer has been unusually warm, and droplets of sweat quickly begin to form on his forehead and beneath his collar. Norway hates the feeling of sweat. It brings back too many bad memories.
So he heads back home, pushing away the painful images that arise in his mind, and hopes to God Denmark is still asleep.
The cloud covers the city overnight. When Norway returns to the harbor the next morning, he finds all the tall, proud merchant ships anchored and abandoned. The sun casts a faint rusty glow through the haze on the undisturbed surface of the sea. Neither the cheerful chatter of the fishmongers setting up their stalls in the market nor the rough shouting of sailors remains.
Instead, Norway hears deep guttural coughs in the streets and confused gasps from second-story windows.
The air is heavy, hot, and dry. Norway can hardly stand to breathe it in. He places a hand over his mouth and nose, but he can't keep himself from coughing every few moments.
He squints. He can see only a few meters into the distance, but his imagination has overtaken his sight all in a rush.
He doesn't often run, but he sets off away from the harbor and back home at a quick pace, hand still over his mouth and lungs beginning to burn.
Iceland’s tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth. Everything tastes like ash and sulfur and bile. Iceland tries to suck on his fingers to generate saliva, but to no avail.
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 quilt. The dark red squares look like the lava flows he feels oozing across his land, threatening his people. He can only imagine the effects the eruption must be having on the other nations. He can practically hear them storming toward him now, shouting about the burning in their lungs and the smell of death in their fields; about the famines, the overcrowded cemeteries, and the poisonous frost. He can imagine Sweden demanding that Denmark and Norway take responsibility for the eruption—Iceland is their charge, after all, and they've got to do something now that half of Europe is starving because of poison smoke from thousands of kilometers away and the peasants are trying to revolt and do they want a war—
Iceland pulls his fingers out of his mouth.
Blood drips down both of his knuckles.
"How do you know it's Iceland?" Denmark asks.
"I can sense him,” Norway says. “Besides, you tell me what else it could be."
Denmark plucks at the hem of his sleeve. He’s developed a lot of nervous tics since the first fires in Copenhagen.
It isn't like him to be so on edge. They aren't at war. The last time they boarded their warships was in Scania a hundred years ago, and that hadn't even been a major conflict. No, they hadn't gotten the Scanian territories back. No, Sweden's ego hadn't been quite as devastated as Denmark had hoped. Still, Norway barely feels anything when he remembers the war now.
"If you're going,” Denmark says, “I'm coming along."
"No."
"Why?"
Norway says nothing, just crosses his arms and frowns. Even inside, the air is worryingly warm and smothering.
"C'mon, Norway. You gotta talk to me. You don't talk to me anymore."
He doesn't have to talk to anyone.
"Please, Nor."
Especially someone who keeps him down on purpose.
"I care about him too, you know."
Still Norway doesn’t respond.
"Look, if it's this bad here—he'll be in pretty rough shape." Norway stares at Denmark, who coughs once, twice, before continuing, "He'll need a lot of looking after, and I don't want you to have to take care of him alone there. It'll be dangerous and you're—well, you're—"
"Weak?"
"That’s not what I was gonna say, Norway—"
"You're not in the best shape yourself, you know."
"We've done a lot in Copenhagen. You should come see for yourself how much work I've put in just in the last month. Y'know. Since it's our capital. It’s even better than it was before the fires!"
Norway scratches the side of his neck. He's not sure if he wants an "our" anymore. Hell, he's not even sure he wanted an "our" in the first place.
All the same, he knows every moment he spends fighting with Denmark is a moment with Iceland wasted. He needs to hurry. Sharp pains shoot up his fingers and his stomach turns a little at the thought of the small country, the child, on the other side of the sea. Norway can feel his agony.
He's about to grumble at Denmark to go away and let him take care of Iceland alone—someone has to stay back and govern, and it might as well be him, since he's guarded his strength and superiority throughout the union as carefully as a bird watching its nest—when he sees that look in his eyes again. The look that usually drives him away but now makes him pause and stand still in the silence.
Denmark still hasn't forgotten those long months.
Denmark may never forget those days of holding sweaty hands and singing away fever dreams.
Norway can still hear his partner's lullabies in his ears.
He sighs. If he doesn't do something, Denmark's going to dissolve into a puddle of tears and make a mess of himself and the whole matter, and he's got bigger things to worry about, like his baby brother and volcanoes, and fine, Denmark can come if he wants, but he'd better not make a big mess of everything as he always does.
Iceland has long since forgotten his loneliness. Loneliness is a feeling, and his mind and heart are too heavy, too dull, to feel.
He dozes a little, as much as he can. He dreams of winter, of snowflakes sticking, one by one, to his window. He dreams of sitting by the fireplace, only the fire is too warm, and now there is ash, not snow, falling outside. The earth cracks and sinks beneath him, and he wakes up to his bedroom door squeaking on its hinges and someone sitting down on the bed beside him.
Rough, strong hands cup his face and stroke his forehead and cheeks. Someone says his name.
An arm supports his shoulders and helps him sit upright. And then—water. Sweet, cold water. He drinks so fast that he almost chokes. Someone rubs his back as he coughs and hacks up ash and phlegm.
Then he is breathing steadily again. He holds out his arms and whines for more water. Within moments he has a second glass held to his lips, and he gulps down every last drop. Once the glass is empty, someone picks him up.
"Heya, Icey," a voice says. "Shh, just be quiet. Norway's here, too. He's gonna remake your bed and then we're gonna get you settled again. Nothing to worry about!"
Iceland doesn't understand, but he nuzzles against the person holding him and clings to his shirt anyway. He’s starting to doze off when another voice, a softer, smoother one, drifts into his awareness.
"I'll take him now."
It’s Norway, Iceland finally realizes. Norway’s here, and Denmark too.
And now Norway is holding him. He’s carding his fingers through his sweaty curls and smiling reassuringly. Then, he sets him down on the bed. The sheets are different now, far more comfortable. Iceland’s trying to figure out what happened when Norway presses a cold, wet cloth to his face. He gasps.
"Does that hurt?" Norway asks.
Iceland shakes his head. Denmark kneels down beside him, puts a hand on his head.
"Norway's just going to get you cooled off, okay, little guy?"
Iceland nods. Norway gently strokes his burning skin with the soft cloth, and slowly, slowly, Iceland begins to relax. He reaches for Norway’s hand and tries to ask him not to leave. Although he can’t get the words out, Norway understands. He sits down on the bed, pulls the blanket up to Iceland’s chin, and gives him a little kiss on the forehead. Denmark stays too, and Iceland falls asleep holding both their hands.
When Denmark starts crying, Norway sighs and sinks to the floor outside Iceland's bedroom door next to him. He knows what he wants to say—be quiet, you're going to wake him up, he'll be fine—but he can’t seem to speak. He knows, too, why Denmark is crying, and it's not entirely because of Iceland.
The wind howls outside. Rain begins to pelt the window, but Norway knows the insistent pitter-patter against the glass is not water but acid. Each breath fills his lungs with the sulfurous mixture of ash and smoke that has replaced seemingly all the air in the land. If it all seems like a bad dream to him, he can only imagine how his little brother feels. The thought makes him want to hold Iceland close and carry him away to safety—away from his land, to Norway’s home across the sea.
But Norway doesn't know where safety is anymore. Bergen is probably smothered in sulfur and blanketed in ashy frost by now, and Copenhagen can't be better.
Denmark starts coughing, and Norway hands him a glass of water.
"Nor, he just—"
"I know."
The last drop of water rolls down the side of the glass onto Denmark's lower lip, where it hangs for a moment before slipping down his chin and falling to the floor.
"He just looks so much like you back when—"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"You never want to talk about anything." Denmark slams his fist against the floor. “What the hell’ve I done wrong? You're my best friend. I've taken care of you. We've worked together. We've kicked Sweden's ass and gotten super rich. Sure, Copenhagen's had a couple of fires here and there, and the harvest isn't always what we'd like it to be, but it's been good. What do you want, Norway? What more can you want?"
Denmark grits his teeth as another tear falls. Norway draws his knees up to his chest. Denmark, as usual, has gotten his facts wrong: they haven't exactly been kicking ass lately, and they aren't the wealthiest nations in the world. Of course, they aren't poor, either, and most other nations would be happy in his position. Content, at least. Living a life of a status quo that's good enough, and maybe even better than they hoped.
Norway has never taken the time to wonder if he's all that happy.
Denmark is his partner. He's always been there. He was there for the early Viking days, for the Kalmar Union and its dissolution, for all the wars they'd fought and all the famines they'd suffered. And yes, he'd been there in the fourteenth century and again one hundred years ago when the plague had killed half of Norway's people and ravaged his body. He'd been there for every spike of his fever and every clear and cool morning, for every moment they feared the worst and for every one of Norway's shaky first steps after healing.
But the pity has never left his eyes.
And Norway wants to be free from that pity, from that forced weakness and everything it stands for and everything it's done to him.
He just doesn't know how to break free. Especially when doing so would break Denmark's heart every bit as much as watching him almost die during the plague did.
And so he stands up, putting a hand on Denmark's shoulder, and opens the door to Iceland's room to check on him. He's stirring in his sleep, probably about to wake up and definitely ready for more water.
Norway glances down at Denmark.
"I want him to be okay," Norway says.
And so Denmark picks up the glass of water and goes to refill it while Norway kneels down beside Iceland's bed, ready to give him whatever he needs. When the child awakens, Norway and Denmark are both there beside him, Denmark smiling despite the tears still in his eyes and Norway stroking his little bony knuckles with his thumb.
They take care of him. They give him as much water as he needs and feed him when his stomach has settled enough. They sit with him whenever his fever spikes during the night and whenever it breaks in the morning. Denmark holds him when he's in pain, and Norway tucks him in and hums him to sleep. When Iceland is quiet and snug in his bed, Norway and Denmark rest beside each other on the floor.
Denmark snores, splayed out with one arm on Norway's stomach. Norway is too deep in thought to sleep well.
Iceland is all that matters right now.
But right now will pass by faster than he realizes, and soon Norway will have to do something.