Warnings: Kind of graphic wounds, but I didn't really go into too much detail as far as I can tell

Pairings mentioned/brought up: Rome x Germania

-Part 1: A Really, Really Long Time Ago-

-1.1-

They say the first human to bond with a spirit animal was a king. He was a strong, proud leader that reigned undefeated until dying in old age. His name was Romulus Vargas, and all witness accounts detailed vibrant, amber eyes, an untidy mess of curly, oak-brown hair, attractively tanned skin, and a smile so charming you could never stay mad at him. He was kind, powerful, intelligent, and came to rule almost all lands, from where the sun rose in the east, to where it set in the west. However, he was very materialistic.

King Romulus, despite all of his compassion and wit, was a shallow man. For those that had the pleasure of interacting with him, it was all fine and dandy until the king opened his mouth, in which the entire conversation on his part would consist of fighting, food, and pretty women. Well, that is to say unless they were a pretty woman themself, in which the king would constantly flirt with them and that would be it. Outside of the battle field, all the king cared for were three things: attractive women, delicious food, and fueling his own ego.

On top of that, the king was a bachelor. Now, this wouldn't ordinarily be a problem; after all, it wasn't as if marriage was the top priority of any ruler. However, at the time of our story, King Romulus was in his mid-thirties, with all the land, power, and wealth he could ever want, and yet he still didn't seem the least bit interested in commitment. Sure, he regularly bedded with beautiful maidens from balls, but not once did the king mention marriage. Whenever his advisors even thought to bring up the m-word, King Romulus would quickly interrupt them, changing the topic to something more light-hearted. With no current heir, and the king growing older each day, the royal court was not happy.

And so, King Romulus found himself here, casually riding on a gray clydesdale in the middle of the forest. He sighed deeply as the horse continued its clop, clop, clop, thinking about the future. Lately, this was all his court talked about: making sure the king got married and produced an heir to secure the Vargas family's place in the empire. Don't get me wrong, Romulus loved kids. He just melted whenever he saw one, a cute, pudgy little thing looking up at him with the most adorable doe-eyes. Romulus would've loved to be a parent, raising his own precious gem to adulthood.

However, there was one thing that made him tense up and his face pale, that one little drawback: marriage. Anyone with common sense knew the king loved gorgeous women. Anyone with half a brain knew sex was one of his favorite things. Hell, even he knew that. But the thing is, the royal court didn't want their king to just adopt some kid off the street; they wanted Romulus to get married. Sure, it was irrational, fearing a simple word, but to Romulus, it was not just that. Marriage meant commitment. Marriage meant a strong lack of freedom. Marriage meant he couldn't just fuck whoever he wanted anymore.

Romulus hated marriage.

And so here he was, running away from his problems like any classic bachelor. Romulus looked up from the reigns controlling his horse, gazing at the pale-blue, autumn sky. A juggernaut of leaves fell around him, framing his peripheral vision with dazzling streams of redwood, pumpkin, and sunshine-yellow. The king gave a small grin, allowing his worries to simply drift away. When he returned to the castle, Romulus knew he would have to confront his advisor's wrath at leaving his duties, but just for now, he would let himself forget about that. He deserved it, always having to deal with the pressures of being a fair and just king. After all, even royalty needed a break every once in awhile, right?

Romulus started at the sound of a loud thump, followed by the shrieking neigh of his horse. The clydesdale rose on two hooves, backing herself up as her owner attempted to soothe her.

"Hey, shh, shhh, hey, Bella, it's okay." Romulus gently said, "Hey, it's alright now, ita?"

Once the horse had been pacified, lowering back to the ground, Romulus looked to see what it was that had scared her. Laid limply upon the bed of leaves and twigs, gashes littering his face and back, had collapsed a large, grey wolf. Romulus held in his gasp of surprise, jumping down from his perch. He rushed over to inspect the damage, worry clawing at his insides. It wasn't normal for wild animals to crash right in front of humans, much less in this condition.

"Salve? Are you with me?" He knelt before the animal, stroking some stray fur from a particularly grotesque wound below its eye. The creature blinked awake, causing the king to tense. Gazing upon Romulus, in all his silken robes and to-die-for looks, was a pair of intelligent, almost human, grass green eyes. Wolves didn't normally have green eyes, much less in this specific species. This was when Romulus realized that only two things could have that certain spark of wisdom and comprehension: humans and spirits.

The king immediately stood, ushering the clydesdale over and having her sit, then lifting the unusually grand wolf, not even caring if his clothes were forever ruined with blood stains, and placing him upon Bella's back. That afternoon, instead of the lazy pace he'd kept for the ride there, Romulus kicked his horse into a full-on gallop for the entire way back.

"KING ROMULUS, WHERE ON EARTH HAVE YOU BEEN?!" The king cringed at his advisor's harsh tone, but recovered quickly, straightening himself. "HONESTLY, JUST BECAUSE YOU DON'T WANT TO GET MARRIED DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN JUST RUN OFF WHENEVER YOU'D LIKE. HOW ARE YOU SO INCONSIDE-"

"If you don't mind, I'm kind of busy right now."

"BUSY?! BUSY?! HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY BE BUS-" This time, the royal advisor cut himself off as Bella moved to reveal her cargo. "IS THAT A WOLF?!" He immediately went back to yelling, "OH DEAR LORD, HOW MANY TIMES MUST I TELL YOU: JUST BECAUSE IT LOOKS CUTE AND CUDDLY DOESN'T MEAN IT IS. I THOUGHT YOU WOULD KNOW THIS BY NOW-"

"OI! Shut up and listen!" Romulus demanded, his advisor falling quiet. "This isn't like other wolves, okay? There's something different about him, and for now he's under my care."

With the conversation subsequently ended, the royal advisor staring in shock, Romulus led his horse to the front doors of the palace. As he approached, the wooden, intricately decorated entrance opened from the inside by unseen servants. No one batted a single eye when Bella was brought in as well, a beaten wolf on her back; anyone that would be in the palace was well-used to their king's ridiculous antics by now.

The horse trotted up the large staircase, the steps unusually big for when the eccentric ruler decided to bring animals in during the winter. Upstairs, and a few minutes later, the wolf was carefully placed upon Romulus's bed, the aforementioned man running off to snatch some water and a stack of towels from the master bathroom. Bella, meanwhile, sat herself down onto the floor of the bedroom, closing her eyes for a much-needed nap, having sprinted the whole way home with an abnormally large wolf and a full-sized human on her back.

When Romulus returned, he was carrying a large bin of water and balancing roughly ten towels on his head. If the wolf had been conscious, it probably would have made an amused snort at the sight. The king plopped the bin onto the floor next to his bed, a resounding clang of metal echoing in the spacious room. Carefully, he removed the soft linens from his head, setting them down on the mattress.

"Alright, time to fix you up." The king's eyes took on a determined look, his hands picking up a richly colored, orange towel and carefully wetting it.

The next time the wolf awoke, he found himself in an unfamiliar setting. Although his vision was blurry, and at best unfocused, he could make out that he was on a nest of crimson sheets and blankets, in a room of golden walls with weird, valuable-looking, clearly human decorations. His eyes instinctively narrowed, partially in a vain attempt to make the world clearer, partially to focus on any possible threats.

"Ah, I see you're awake!" His head whipped to the right, to see a very charming man smiling cheerfully at him. The wolf had a bad feeling about this. To make it clear that he didn't trust this stranger, the wolf began to growl, his fur standing on edge.

"Wha- hey, don't growl at me! I'm just trying to help!" To the wolf's surprise, this slightly intimidating new person whined loudly, reminding him of a small, human child.

This display unnerved him even more, so the wolf rose from the human-nest and sprinted to the door… or at least tried to. As he stood, about to pounce away, his entire body felt as if shocked by lightning, a stinging, burning pain as old scabs under his fur began to re-open.

"Ah, don't do that! You might hurt yourself!" The unsettling man rushed over to the wolf's side, sitting him down and checking for any serious gashes. "Be careful, okay? You were in really bad shape when I found you."

Reluctantly, the wolf complied, settling down on the plush human-nest once more. He didn't understand why any nest would need to bounce so much. "Ita, see? Isn't that better? Just calm down and relax." The stranger reached somewhere on the floor next to the human-nest, and when his hand returned to the wolf's line of vision, it carried a wet, slightly bloody towel. "I'm going to clean your wounds again, alright?"

The wolf made a disgruntled noise, resting his head on his paws. He closed his eyes, then released a short bark of protest as the cold, wet cloth came in contact with a particularly nasty slice through his side. "Hey, hey, it's alright…" With his free hand, the stranger began petting the wolf, "You're okay now."

As the stranger continued to carefully wash and bandage the wolf's wounds, the canine's bark gradually died down to soft, occasional whimpers. When the stranger lifted his face to dab at the gash under his eye, the wolf didn't protest. A comfortable silence accompanied them as cheerful amber met comprehensive green, and the stranger seemed to linger after carefully wrapping the jagged opening.

A knock on the door pulled both out of the moment. "I'm coming!" The stranger broke the wolf's gaze, turning towards the sound. He quickly put the cloth and leftover bandages on the human-nest, then stood and hurried to the large, double-doors to the wolf's right.

"Your highness? Are you alright in there? That wolf hasn't hurt you or anything has it-"

"No, no, it's fine!" The stranger interrupted another human with a grin, "I just finished bandaging his wounds!"

"Oh." The other human paused, speechless. "Well, in that case, the royal court seeks your presence in the throne room."

The other human then walked off, an air of self-righteous sophistication about him. The stranger sighed deeply, then turned back to the wolf. "Sorry, but I have to go. You just stay here and rest, alright? Vale!" And like that, the stranger was gone.

Hm. So he's a human-king.

A/N:

Hey! So, um, yeah, this is the first story I'm posting on fanfiction! ... And my first serious Hetalia fanfic. Yeah, I'm going to need all the help I can get. XP

Anyways, 'Like Looking Through a Diamond' is mainly just a temporary title I lazily threw together so I could get this chapter up, so if you have any better ideas, I would love to hear them!

Speaking of 'chapters,' I should be saying 'sub-parts,' because I'm not really organizing this fanfic into chapters. Basically, part one was originally going to be the prologue. Then it got too long, so I was going to make it the first chapter. Then, it got too long, so now I'm organizing this fanfic into parts instead of chapters. X3 Basically, this is part 1.1, because the entirety of part 1 is over twenty pages long. Seriously.

Anyways, at the end of each sub-part I plan on making an author's note to sort of discuss the sub-part, respond to reviews, and clarify things! =3 I'll also explicitly state what characters are in this sub-part, their human names, any warnings for the sub-part will be at the beginning, and pairings as well.

Romulus is Rome.

The wolf is Germania.