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So, what is the blood of nations, then? This life-giving ichor born of these nation’s soils?
It is river water, of course.
So long as a Nation’s blood remains within its veins, and for some minutes after it has spilled of them, it appears to be perfectly normal. It seems to contain all the things blood should contain, seems to perform all of the functions blood should perform.
However, once the blood has left the Nation’s body, this seeming fades, and the blood turns to water. Specifically the water of that Nation’s largest or most significant river.
It is almost always a river, the life-blood of a nation, though there are a few exceptions. Venice, for instance, contains the sea within his veins.
It is always very specific, this once-blood river water, the ph, the chemical composition, even the microorganisms of the Nation’s blood match the water at a specific point of their most important river exactly. If the Nation’s blood is held in some sort of container the microorganisms will neither die nor multiply, and if there is some sort of change in the composition of the river itself (due to changing seasons for instance) the water within th container will mirror that change, tied to the waterways of the physical land until it is returned to the earth which birthed it.
As mentioned before, the blood transforms minutes after leaving the body, sometimes only one or two, sometimes close to an hour. The reasons for this variation remains mysterious (aka I haven’t thought of them…) except that if the blood touches the Nation’s native soil it it turns to water instantly. Nothing done to the blood can preserve it in blood form, not freezing it, not seperating out the plasma, not drying it (Nation blood can be dried, but it then becomes liquid water).
On a slightly different note: blood types, Nations have them. A Nation can recieve blood from any human according to blood type, as though they were an ordinary human. They can also recieve blood from any human that belongs to them regardless of bloodtype.
Between Nations, any Nation can donate blood to any other Nation, so long as the blood is given willingly and with intent to heal. The efficacy of such blood transfusions depends on the relationship between the two Nations, and can sometimes unnaturally beneficial, basically like transfering a bit of one Nation’s life force to another.
No one has ever tried transfering blood from a Nation to a Human for obvious reasons. (Actually a Nation could donate to any of their own people regardless of bloodtype, if they tried to give blood to anyone else though, the results would be predictably catastrophic.)