Disclaimer {I know, real original}: I don't own Hetalia. If I did, there would be 2Ps, fanservice, States and you would be especially sick of Oliver (2P England). Happy (not really anymore) Halloween!

Once there was a man named Arthur who didn't have a care in the world, not that he was a loosey-goosey lad of leisure either. He just didn't care about anything. Anything. At. All. That might explain how he had ended up in his granny's old beat-up hovel, hateful of the entire world around him and distrusting of others. His brothers, all well known and respected sorcerers, worried that he wouldn't be able to perform magic as he wasn't showing any of the signs they had acquired before partaking in their rites to obtain wiccan status.

But when he finally received his powers, it was like a switch had went off in the others' heads. They began to taunt and jeer at their inexperienced sibling, making fun of how he could summon his gift from his hands instead of with a staff or cane like them or how he always made an effeminate noise after he spoke a particularly tough incantation or how weak he was compared to them. It's not like I can help that, he would often tell himself, so often it was basically his mantra, I did just get them.

Either way, they never let up on the blonde. Striving to push the boy further up a wall than the last brother as if it was some type of contest and Arthur had been fed up with it for the longest time. So one day before his brothers came back from hunting down the river, he gathered up his spell book, a map with instructions to his grandmother's abandonded dwelling, as many stray gold coins as he could find and amscrayed out of there so fast, he almost forgot where he was going and ended up running past his means of escape transportation twice.

A roll of thunder scared him witless as he released his wine bottle at the sudden sound, sparkling vino and glass shards decorating the wood floors with a deep scarlet hue. Arthur grunted in frustration, he had wanted that wine for a fortnight and now it was all gone! It would probably attract ants if he didn't clean it up, and he'd be damned before a colony settled in. He unwrapped a holey blanket from his shoulders, felt around for his broom between the flashing intervals of light outside and cursed when he stepped down. He hobbled around until he reached his makeshift cot, sitting down once he could and peering apprehensively at the glass stuck in the bottom of his foot. Cursing again, his life sucked.

He had no money, barely any food left since the famine up north had spread there and no way to entertain himself other than books, but he finished his last one eight weeks ago. The only reason he knew that was because of the eight columns of tally marks, each with seven tallies sitting on peeling wallpaper, mocking him with their curly script. He wanted to bend them with his teeth, even if that was impossible.

He had been eleven when he had left his brothers seeking greener pastures, he had still wore his chubby cheeks with mischief and combed through his hair with his fingers to present himself as a gentleman then. Now he was gaunt due to malnourishment, wore a frown habitually from years of hardship and ignored everyone - especially his too-happy neighbors. He remembered a bright bloke from around the corner who used to stop by, the young man would continuously rap on Arthur's door and ask if he was fine or did he need something from the market or was he breathing. A brisk autumn day on the eve of Harvest last year, he had wanted to tell Arthur of the impending pestilence heading to their very village before it was too late to stock up on produce. Little did he know that a sleep deprived Arthur is the worst Arthur to try and reason with. Let us just say that somebody's hand was dislocated and none of Arthur's other neighbors dare linger on his yard after that.

"It ought to be October right now.." he spoke aloud whilst worrying his lower lip, prominent brows furrowed in concentration. The vendors might be out of it soon since the farmers' crops aren't doing so well this season. Carefully removing the glass from his injury in the becoming, Arthur took a cloth from off the floor and tied the fabric around his foot, sighing at the tight reassurance building up in his bloodstream from restriction. He still had all his limbs. For now.

"Tomorrow..." he whispered as his vision began to darken, body slumping against the straw of his bed. Tomorrow, I am going to the Grove to get some wine. He fell asleep, eyes of emerald twitching from dreams of a world where he ruled, a corner of his mouth twitching upwards. And no one is going to try and stop me.

Uh, if you saw what I posted about C'est Trop à la Mode de Mentir and you actually read the story (which is unlikely), then you're probably looking at me like I'm mad or something for trying again. Which I am. But after reading and re-reading and re-re-re-re-re-reading it, I knew that I was jumping between POVs and everything and it just started getting hard for me to write. Plus, the plot was going nowhere... I'm not going to delete it though; not with all of the crap I've done for it! No, I'm just going to leave it and see if I can rewrite it when I have more experience with writing later. And if not, too bad. :/ I thank you all who read, followed and even looked at it, too.

Ignoring all that junk up there, this AU is set in a knockoff 1800s type time frame I'm making up from the top of my head, so you should definitely expect historical inaccuracies from this. Though I see some of what I have thought up goes with it... Sorry for all of this anyway. :I