Work Text:
“Not that I’m not happy to see you or anything, but why are you here?” Poland asks, opening the window. Arman can see the castle courtyard below them, milling with activity — he can pick out Poland’s charges showing his own around, waving their arms around in an attempt to communicate despite lacking a shared language. Lithuania is trailing after them, keeping them from running into the humans and breaking things.
He’s still sometimes caught off-guard by how similar Nations and humans can be in the right, run-of-the-mill setting.
He turns back towards Poland with quirked-up lips, leaning against the window frame.
“Am I not allowed to visit a friend after a long time?” he asks and Poland snorts, crossing his arms. The sun glints off of the golden threading on his kontush belt and Arman can only smile a bit wider at the similarities between their attire.
“I’d believe that if you were Erzsi, maybe, or if you lived close enough to be able to take a decently quick trip here and back,” Poland says, a brow raised and amusement dancing in his eyes. His nose is scarred and crooked from who-even-knows-how-many breaks and his cheeks are a bit more sunken than Arman would like — he was invaded about three decades back, wasn’t he? It was rather bad, from what he’s heard. It seems it’s still affecting him.
He’ll pull through, though. Arman doesn’t believe an invasion, even one like that, can bring down the Slav.
“You got me,” he says with a shrug before sharpening his grin, clasping his hands together and leaning forward. “I simply thought your incredible show deserved an in-person congratulations.”
Poland blinks before breaking out into a smile nearly as bright as his hair, straightening up and slightly puffing up his chest in pride. One hand finds its place resting on the pommel of his sabre, the other settling on his hip. Arman hides a snort in his hand at the display. It’s not undeserved , certainly, but it still feels like an awfully childish reaction to praise, especially at something like this — Poland truly is rather young, isn’t he?
“It was great, wasn’t it? Our pride and joy, those hussars, y’know?” He does know. A Nation’s strongest soldiers are always a treasure, and Poland and Lithuania’s are especially exceptional, many say.
“Certainly.” He nods in that I’m-ancient-and-know-everything way his kids hate. “Good to show that good-for-nothing Turk his place, even if I couldn’t be there.”
Poland rolls his eyes with a snort, relaxing his stance to cross his arms and raise a brow, amusement dancing in his eyes.
“He’s not so bad, you know,” he says. “Cocky, sure, but not so bad when not fighting, really.”
Arman hums disbelievingly. Even after having to kick the man out of Europe, Poland still doesn’t quite see him as an enemy off the battlefield! Arman understands respecting, even admiring an opponent, but the Ottoman Empire ? Truly, it is a wonder how he remains Poland’s friend himself.
“Talk to me again next time he tries to come onto Christian land,” he says, perhaps a touch too sharply for what is meant to be an amicable conversation. Poland smiles sardonically, and the air becomes cold and brittle around them — but then they breathe again and the tension bleeds out, smoothing out their faces into something much friendlier than a few seconds ago.
“Let’s not start on that,” Poland says, an only somewhat-forced lightness in his tone. “No point in arguing when we see each other so little. Say, I saw a lot of baggage with you. Have you perhaps brought any rugs for sale?”
Arman scans the map for the twelfth time but it still doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense . He knows borders fluctuate all the time, by Allāh he knows , but not like this, not like this –
“Where is Lahestan?” he finally forces out, mouth dry. His voice is rough around the edges, low, but even nonetheless — he’s had more than enough time to learn how to control his tone in even the most distressing of situations.
Still, he never thought he’d have to use it in this situation. He never thought this situation would arise at all, not like this.
He barely hears the words of one of the human men in the room, his ears seemingly stuffed with wax.
Gone , the man says. Finally partitioned by his neighbours after decades of chipping away at him and his husband.
Arman’s hands don’t shake, he’s not a child to allow himself such shows of vulnerability, but. But . He swallows in spite of his suddenly parched throat. His fingers twitch to grab a sword. He wants to tear the map into shreds.
His feet itch to carry him to his horse, to saddle it and ride all the way to Warsaw, to see if it’s true.
He doesn’t even quite realize he speaks until he sees his men react.
“No,” he says, and it’s a bit not-there, a bit floaty and drenched in his disbelief, in his mind still processing that damned map — but it’s firm nonetheless, and his people straighten up in attention. He squares his shoulders and furrows his brows, mouth set in a tight line, and it’s the perfect act of a composed general planning his next conquest.
“No,” he repeats with more weight, meeting the eyes of all the humans gathered around him. “This is unacceptable. Lahestan and Litwāni are not dead. This?” He taps the map in the middle of his friends’ lands. “This is still rightfully theirs. I do not care about what their foes say, they do not have the right to claim the Commonwealth's land for themselves . Not like this. Am I understood?”
There are no protests, only words of affirmation and support. He is not the only one in the room with a deal of affection for his friends.
With a great amount of hesitance, he eventually writes to Turkey about the blow Poland and Lithuania have been dealt, about these mutual friends of theirs they have both kept despite their grievances against each other. He does not like Turkey in any degree significant enough to mention, but he still spells out the threats and insults he wishes he could throw at Russia and Prussia and Austria in this letter, still covers the paper in well-wishes for and belief in his friends’ recoveries and people.
The Ottoman Empire refuses to accept the two as dead, and Arman, regardless of all the bloodshed shared between the both of them, finds a shadow of soft camaraderie, an idea of a wobbly bridge built upon their friends’
deaths
incapacitations.
For once, he supposes truly does not mind agreeing with the brutish Nation. Just this once, though.
He drums his fingers over the map spread out before him, over the names he hasn’t seen on a proper map in far too long, and he smiles weakly. They’re different now, he’s sure of it, he can tell just by looking at the borders ( he doesn’t want to think about the conflicts that have already and will continue erupting among his friends and their neighbours in the next few years as they try to reestablish themselves, he does not–), but. But . Arman has lost many friends over the millennia, has outlived many Nations despite the aches in his body ( it feels like his stomach is being continually carved out with a red-hot dagger as of the past few years ), so he knows grief, he knows moving on.
It was an insistent tug in his gut that kept him from completely moving on from Poland, from accepting his death, and now he’s looking at the Slav’s new borders, at a photo of him embracing Hungary, at a letter of invitation for as soon as he’s capable ( with an assurance that, although he intends to meet with Turkey as well, he will keep them far away from each other, and– well, Arman is more than capable of handling himself, even around someone who fills his gut with roaring fury, but he appreciates it nonetheless ).
He's not entirely sure why , but it feels right, that out of everyone, Poland managed to face the odds and come back from certain death — and of course, where Poland goes, Lithuania follows, because even with the promise of fighting in the near future, those two could never quite stand being apart, not since the first time they came together.
Perhaps, once his people start healing, once his streets are repaired, once the gaping wound in his stomach stitches itself closed — perhaps he should request a new rug to be made for Poland. Allāh knows he's probably in desperate need of one.