Chapter Text
The word "promise," in the Austro-Hungarian Empire's dictionary, always came in quotation marks.
Some promises were written on parchment, sealed with wax. More were spoken offhand, over clinking glasses at a banquet. And every single one of them, without exception, ended as ashes in the fireplace. So he himself rarely made promises. The German Empire was different. That taciturn man never promised anything lightly, but if he did, a word was a word. That kind of character was as scarce in their line of work as edelweiss on the peaks of the Alps. Austria-Hungary knew how precious it was, so he never asked for it. He was afraid that if he did, it would no longer be quite so pure.
In late autumn, for once, they traveled together to East Prussia for reasons that had nothing to do with state affairs. German Empire had said there was an estate where the apples were ripe. He was taking Austria-Hungary away from that suffocating Vienna. The winds from the Balkans had been shifting in the wrong direction lately. The rumblings from Serbia grew louder by the day, and every new intelligence dispatch only worsened the persistent headaches that plagued Austria-Hungary. Perhaps this trip would give him a chance to breathe, to escape, even for a little while, from those endless reports and maps.
The estate was much more modest than he had imagined. No ornate fountains, no manicured gardens just an endless stretch of apple trees and a grayish-white stone house, clean-lined, angular, unmistakably Germanic in temperament. The staff barely existed: an old gardener and a woman who did the cooking. Neither showed much reaction when their master arrived. They simply bowed quietly and went back to their work. No diplomatic pleasantries, no hidden daggers behind compliments , only the sound of wind moving through the leaves and the sweet, overripe smell of fermenting apples drifting over the grass. For a moment, Austria-Hungary felt like he had stepped into some unreal world.
They spent the entire afternoon in the orchard. The German Empire walked ahead, stopping now and then to pick a decent-looking apple, giving it a quick wipe against his sleeve, and handing it over. Austria-Hungary studied the first one he received. He narrowed his eyes, hesitated. A brief impulse to reach for his handkerchief, but then he saw the other man had already bitten into his own, so he let it go. He slipped off his silk glove and took a careful, cautious bite. The juice was much sweeter than he had expected. It ran down his fingers, sticky and irritating. He frowned, about to say how terribly undignified this was, but just as the words reached his lips, his brow relaxed, and instead, a quiet, muffled laugh escaped him. Because there, at the corner of that ever-serious, almost cold Germanic personification's mouth, was a bit of apple pulp. Obviously, Austria-Hungary chose not to mention it.
By evening, they sat beneath the eaves of the stone house. The sky burned a deep, vivid orange, casting a warm glow over the entire orchard. Austria-Hungary leaned against a pillar, turning a half-eaten apple restlessly in his hand, gazing at the darkening horizon.
"Have you ever thought about the future?" he asked suddenly, not looking at the other man, his tone still lazily airy — but his fingers were clutching the apple tightly.
For a moment, German Empire was caught off guard. The man sitting beside him was Austria-Hungary — a man whose every "future" had been built out of countless reports, treaties, and borderlines. Not an inch of it had ever belonged to himself. But now, here, in this apple orchard, those words came out of that unadorned personification's mouth not as a question of territory or terms, but something far less conspicuous. Himself.
Simply as Austria-Hungary.
German Empire did not answer immediately. He sat in a wooden chair nearby, one arm resting on the armrest, his gaze fixed on the same horizon. The silence stretched on for a long time, so long that the sky dimmed another shade, so long that Austria-Hungary had already begun to regret asking. Just as he was about to toss out some light excuse to take it all back, the German Empire moved. He rose from his chair, walked over, and — before Austria-Hungary could even process what was happening, he knelt on one knee in front of him.
This posture brought him lower than the seated Austria-Hungary. His pale blue eyes, softened by the dusk's orange glow, revealed something that lay beneath their usual surface, something usually buried so deep. Austria-Hungary's breath stopped for a moment. He did not understand what this personification was doing. But his body understood something his mind had not yet grasped as some instinct urging him to pull back, but he was pinned in place by a surging, unfamiliar warmth in his chest.
"The future," German Empire said, his voice low, almost a whisper. "I will be there, with you. "
Five utterly un-Germanic words. Austria-Hungary froze. Not a single word about logic or numbers. Not a single word about other nations. Not a single word about the growing storm in the Balkans. Instead, there was something else,
something rarely allowed to show. Tenderness.
No matter what you face. No matter how dark the road ahead. When you look back, I will be there.
They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. But Austria-Hungary's eyes were hidden behind a patch. Had German Empire not been so close, he might have missed the subtle, quickening rhythm of his breath. Austria-Hungary wanted to say something clever in return for this earnest, almost clumsy promise— something like, "Since when did you stiff-necked Germans learn such nauseating lines from the French?" But not a single word came out.
So he did something he had never done with anyone, anywhere. He reached out. His bare fingertips touched the other man's cheek. Beneath his hand was skin colder than the Alpine winds, yet somehow warmer than a Viennese spring. After a few seconds, he gently guided that sharply defined face toward his own.
Foreheads touched. Two eyepatches lay between them — Austria's fiery red, Hungary's spring-green, they blurred together into something soft and ambiguous in the twilight.
"Remember what you said," came Austria-Hungary's hoarse voice, from very, very close, his lips almost brushing the other's skin. "If you forget, I won't remind you."
German Empire closed his eyes. He lifted his hand and covered Austria-Hungary's hand, still pressed against his cheek, clasped it firmly, then threaded his fingers through the other's and held tight.
The last sliver of orange sank below the horizon. The apple orchard fell into deep blue silence. The rest of the world kept turning. Soldiers changed shifts at border posts. Someone folded a corner of a map over a conference table somewhere. A report on Serbia lay on a desk, waiting to be opened. None of it would stop just because two men were touching foreheads. Empires did not become safe because of a promise. History did not change course because someone fell in love.
But in that deepening autumn dusk, in that one second, before the full weight of empires came crashing down again, they had this small sliver of time. No impossible tomorrows waiting. Only two hands clasping, loosening, clasping again. Only a single seed buried in frozen ground, no one knowing whether it would survive the winter. But at least — at least — it had been planted.
The scent of apples drifted up from the grass, mingling with the dry coolness of late autumn, spreading through the eaves of the house. The wind blew their hair together, then apart, then together again. At last, Austria-Hungary's hand slipped from the other man's face, but he did not pull it away. It fell beside their interlaced hands, fingertip touching fingertip.
German Empire stayed where he was, still kneeling. His knees had probably gone numb, but he did not move, did not stand. He simply remained there, on one knee, watching over the man who had slowly closed his eyes, still leaning against the pillar.
Promises come in many forms. And this one — this one was like an edelweiss pressed deep in a coat pocket. Flattened. Forgotten. Discovered again in an unguarded moment — still there. More intact than anything ever framed or gilded.