A/N :Well hello everybody! I really shouldn't be starting this when I have two other fics going on...but, meh. Too late now. Anywho, this little ficlet got started because I really wanted a well written RussiaxOC fic and I couldn't find one (if any of you know some feel free to PM!) so I figured, why not write it yourself? Now, to circumvent any possible flames let me state that this is a Self-Insert, the girl in this fic is representative of me. That being said nations are conglomerations of their people.

So here's what we're gonna do; we're going to assume that every characteristic that we don't like in the OC is part of my character, and does not reflect the nation as a whole (excluding obvious stereotypes) and everything else can be attributed to her nation status. So feel free to point out her flaws, but don't get offended. It's not fun dealing with easily offended people.

Well, ttfn, ta ta for now!

Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia, if I did I'd own the world, and my world domination plans are still in the testing stage...but you didn't hear that...shh...

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"When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity."

~ John F. Kennedy ~

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People always say to be careful of what you wish for. As if wanting something, or worse admitting said want, was just asking for the world to screw you. On the same vein people also warn against admitting the one thing you don't want aloud. As that too was just asking for the "laws of irony" to smite you.

And if, for whatever reason, you ignore the first two laws and find yourself in a less than favourable position, don't, under any circumstances, utter the phrase, "well, it can't get worse."

Because, it will, without a doubt, and nearly instantly, get worse.

Trust me.

I speak from experience.

Looking back on it I can't quite explain how I went from home to here its sort of a blur, much like how I still don't quite grasp how things went from bad to worse, it just sort of rolled into it as if that was the intended destination the whole time.

All I know is one moment I was staring at a stack of paperwork, trying to make a decision that would affect the rest of my life when a crippling migraine erupted, and my eyes closed in response. My whole body curling in on itself in pain.

Luckily it passed as quickly as it had come on, unluckily when I opened my eyes I found myself in a completely new location.

Before I get into my...story-And "story" really is the only way to explain it, as it is nothing but one fantastical event after another-I should probably explain a few things about myself, give you some background if you will.

First, my name...that one is a little complicated.

Which "name" would you prefer? The one given to me at birth? The one tossed at me when I woke up here? Or how about the one complete strangers associate with me, the name I associate with myself...but you know...not as myself?

Eh, why not all three?

My "name" was Marie Jones. That is the name that was written on my birth-certificate, the name I've associated with for the past 20 years. The name that defines me, and encompasses my identity. However, "my identity" has greatly changed since that moment, however long ago, when I closed my eyes on the citizenship paperwork and opened them to find myself surrounded by a bunch of strangely familiar strangers.

At first I thought I must have been hallucinating, after all I had been under a lot of stress. I was in between semesters for my chem-degree, working a job coaching the local girls gymnastics team, and facing the rather critical question of whether I should file for citizenship or not.

It was the last one that had been giving me the biggest headache.

My mother couldn't understand what there was to think about. She'd become an American Citizen the second it was an option, my siblings too. But my situation was slightly different than theirs.

I wasn't like my Mother who had chosen to leave her home, hopes of a family-friendly (but mainly safe and secure) country spurring her on, nor was I like my younger sister who only knew her home from stories, pictures, and memories of visits.

I loved my country, everything about it. It was far from perfect, I knew that much-and when I say "far from perfect" I really mean "pretty darn bad." In fact it's history was gritty and too recent to have faded from the minds of the populace, but it was still home.

The food, the music, heck even the ridiculous need to add "sorry" to the end of every sentence despite the fact that we were the furthest thing from "sorry," all of it, every quirk and phrase, it was all a part of who I was. Of who I am.

I couldn't explain it to my mother.

America's always been a fair nation, and they allowed for duel-citizenship. It's not like I'd have to renounce my heritage, not really. But every-time I glanced at the paperwork something would settle in my stomach. Something bitter, and heavy, that I couldn't quite define but seemed to contest the idea of ever, so much as considering, turning my back on my nation.

I've always believed strongly in listening to one's instincts, and everyone of my instincts were screaming at me not to sign the paperwork. But when I couldn't think of a logical reason not to, I decided to veto my instincts...and then the migraine hit.

Now when I say 'migraine' I mean 'migraine.' This boys and girls, was no headache. No this tore, and ripped, and shredded. This attackattackattacked me, until I couldn't see. Couldn't hear. Couldn't anything. I was lost to sensations and painpainpain...and then it stopped.

It was over.

The pain was gone, and I could think again. Could hear again. Opening my eyes, I could even see again...

...and I was suddenly surrounded by a bunch of strangers. That were all men. Militaristic men. Militaristic men that were staring at me as if I would attack them at any moment.

So I did what any sensible girl would do in my situation.

I screamed.

Looking back on it, it was probably the worst impression I could have made. What I must have looked like...its embarrassing, honestly. But in my defense I didn't expect to have to spend time with these men, nor did I expect that they would hold my reaction against me for years.

(I still get cracks about how I looked like a startled antelope, a literal "deer in headlights." Which, admittedly, would be funnier if you knew...)

Anyway, I was shocked, I screamed yada yada. Eventually one of the men managed to calm me down. It helped that he spoke English-I nearly fainted when one of them started yelling German at me (all I knew was "Welcome" (Vel-kom) and "Danke" (Da-n-kay))-although his British accent both put me on edge and relaxed one hand, British accents are actually pretty relaxing, on the other hand where the heck was I!?

He must've repeated his question ten times before I finally understood he was asking for my name. I responded instantly, and perhaps naively, with the truth;

"Marie Jones."

Apparently this was not the right answer, I would learn later that they already had a "Jones" and for some reason "we" weren't allowed to share names, which was why they all stared at me as if I was an alien. Of course I didn't know this at the time and so was suitably lost when they started talking about "re-naming me."

Unfortunately, for me, very few of them spoke English competently, thus it fell to the British guy to give me a new name. I was a little pissed by this to be honest. After all what right did he have to mess with my identity like that? I couldn't be "Jones" fine, but at least let me chose my new label.

Perhaps it was pure vindictiveness, but when he suggested I be called "Elizabeth Marie John" (because "John" was close enough to "Jones" that I'd remember it, and "Elizabeth" to 'remind me of my roots' or something) I countered with "Elize Marie Johannes," arguing that it was close enough to his own choice and besides if I had to choose a new name (when I asked why I couldn't keep "Marie" he went off on some rant about some guy named Francis and how Elizabeth was the better sister, anyway) then I was damn-well going to chose a name that I liked.

This apparently was the right thing to say as something sparked in the eye of the German man who started yelling at the Brit, in English.

"Elize, ist a...guter name. Britain. Südaf-ak, I mean she is now Elize."

...or well, something resembling English.

I had no idea (at the time) why the German guy referred to the Brit as "Britain" and thought that perhaps it was some kind of nickname? But eventually brushed it off as unimportant, more interested in the escalating argument that took place.

"Now, listen here Ger-Ludwig," the Brit started (I pitied the poor guy for having a name like Jerluhdvig) "she is far too young to be deciding such things for herself, it might have been agreed that I hand the reigns over-so to speak-but I'm hardly going to abandon ship now, am I? I'm much too invested, you see?"

"Nein," the German responded, voice tempered, "I do not 'see', Elize is Elize," he continued with a sort of finality, "and Arthur is Arthur. Now I must go, there is trouble at the borders." And with that the German man left.

Leaving me with the recently dubbed "Arthur" and some guy who'd been too busy staring off into space to introduce himself.

I stared.

Arthur stared.

Random guy daydreamed.

And so on.

This continued for a ridiculous amount of time before "Arthur" snapped (apparently silence was insulting to him) and started yelling at the poor, quiet guy.

"What the bloody hell are you doing, staring in to space like that?" 'Arthur' yelled, "you were the one who kicked up such a big fuss about not being included!"

The guy just slowly turned from the window to face the Brit, before opening his mouth, "ah, but...Zuid...sorry Elize," here he sent a smirk at the Brit, as if my new name was a personal favour to him, "she likes you...no...your English. Yes. She likes your English. So you talk. Explain." The guy then turned his back on the Brit, looking back out the window.

"Arthur" then turned away from the odd man-the dude was decked out in chain mail-and gave me a searching look before launching into one of the craziest stories I'd ever heard of, and I'd heard of a lot.

What I got out of it was, basically, the guy to my right, 'Abel' had a child, a girl, with some far-off African beauty. The mother raised the child in the Savannahs of Africa but allowed Abel to teach her all about his culture, his food, his language, you name it.

Abel and the girls' mother would always argue about what was best for her until one day, after a particularly mean argument the woman ran in to Arthur, and instantly fell in love. Arthur, who had the "noblest of intentions" he assured me, promised to tell Abel off for the woman, and after seeing her beautiful baby girl even offered to adopt her.

In the end he did, and everything was great, except not long after Arthur finalized the adoption paperwork did his little girl disappear. She wasn't stolen, she had simply...faded.

One-by-one others slowly forgot about the existence of the little girl. She was too young to have made any meaningful connections and out of the three people who truly knew of her existence; her mother had other children to contend with, and Abel had already been cut from her life.

But Arthur never forgot, he knew why she'd vanished-it was his fault; she was so new, so young, she didn't even have an identity yet and there he'd been stamping everything with his seal. He knew why but he didn't have to like it.

That was the story he spun.

Now. I'm a pretty liberal thinker, and by liberal I mean I neither coloured in nor out of the lines...I traced them. But even I had to question if this guy was on some of the drugs I'd noticed in the chain-mail guy's pocket.

I mean, really? The girl just "disappeared" because of some weird existential crisis that baby's shouldn't be capable of having?

I thought he was flippin' insane.

When he went on to say that I was that baby, that I'd faded back in to existence now that I "knew who [I] was," well insane doesn't even begin to cover it.

When this...crackpot story took on a whole new twist-apparently Abel was the personification of the Netherlands and Arthur was the same for Great Britain (that guy from before had supposedly been Germany)-I decided I'd had enough and started to look for a way out.

After some swift head turning I located the door that the guy from before had used and made a dash for it. Only to be stopped by four, damning, words, "-and you're South Africa."

Now if any of you were in my shoes you probably wouldn't have hesitated to get as far away from mister crazy as you possibly could. But you see one of my biggest flaws has always been my curiosity. Yes I know, it killed the cat and all that, but at that moment I really didn't care...

...I just wanted to know how this guy knew I was South African. How all of them knew, (I wasn't slow, and could piece together that both "Germany" and "The Netherlands" had stopped themselves from saying "South Africa" while talking to me.) So I asked, without any preamble.

His answer surprised me.

"My leaders were just signing the bloody accord with yours, marking you as a "free" country. Which is ridiculous if you ask me. Its not like you were enslaved. Still, you'll be heavily linked to Great Britain, to me but an identity all your own even so."

Here he paused as if trying to gather his thoughts, trying to find words to explain the unexplainable.

"...well, then I felt it...a heavy magic in the air, the likes of which I'd never seen-although your Mother was famous for her magic-(I didn't bother to correct him, too tired to argue about who was and who she wasn't)-but this didn't feel like hers, it was too...too diverse. Too different. So I followed it, and there you were passed out in the middle of the road, a rainbow light shining behind you."

I couldn't quite keep in the scoff, "ri~ght. And I suppose that light was what told you I was South Africa." At his confused expression I continued, "you know, because South Africa is the rainbow nation, and all of that?"

"Rainbow nation? What the bloody hell are you talking about? I knew who you were instantly because any nation can recognize another nation."

I gave him a weird stare, not quite sure what he meant by 'recognize' but shelved that question for later, "but assuming, for a moment, that I am a 'nation'...what made you think I was South Africa?"

"Well your location, of course, who else could you be?"

"Uh, I don't know? Madagascar? Lesotho? Swaziland? Anyone of those are close enough, I suppose."

Arthur just continued to stare at me as if I had lost my mind, ridiculously large eyebrows scrunched in consternation, at one point he even raised his hand to check if I had a temperature before catching himself and stopping halfway.

"Well," he began, self-consciously lowering his hand, "I'm not really sure what you're on about. Madagascar? Lesotho? What, or perhaps I should say where are those nations? I've never heard of them. As for Swaziland, well I've met him, in fact he stays in my holiday home in East-India, so I know you're not him."

Something about what Arthur said rubbed me the wrong way, I was never good at history growing up preferring literally every other subject; math, language, science, you name it. Just not history. But even I knew enough to suspect something when a person claiming to be "Britain" mentioned "East India."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well," Arthur explained as if to a child, "I'm a big strong nation, and Swaziland is rather small and scared. So I protect him. You know, keep the bullies away."

"You're not trying to tell me," I began, mind furiously flipping through what little I knew of African History, "that Swaziland is a British Protectorate?"

"Since 1902," the man stated with pride, chest puffing out.

"Arthur..." I began, almost scared of his response, "what year is it?"

"Ah, today is a most auspicious day indeed. The 10th of May, year 19 and two of thirty of our Lord."

"1932!?" I all but screamed, before falling to a dead faint.

It was simply too much to take in at once.

A/N: Hopefully you liked the first chapter, if so (or if not) please read and review! I'll be sure to respond at the bottom of the next chapter.

Chapter 2 preview:

"Elize, it's been two bloody years, your people need you."