Title: The Beginning

Characters: Finland, Sweden, other unnamed Finnish and Swedish people

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Summary: The first thing he remembers is an endless, blue sky.

The Beginning

The first thing he remembers is an endless, blue sky.

He wakes up in a forest, alone. He stands, moves, blinks. He does not know who he is. There is no one he could ask – only the forest, but it is silent.

It takes a long time before he meets others. One day, when he is following a bear (it will lead him to berries), he hears voices. Intrigued, he follows them. He sees them, in a small clearing, gathering wood. One looks at him and gasps.

"Child, what do you do there, all alone? Where are you from?"

He answers, "The forest."

Time passes. He is alone again. His family has died, just like the one that came after that, until he was banished – a demon, a changeling they called him, and left him in the woods. He wept for a while, but the forest welcomed him back like a lost son. He is older now, his legs are longer, and he can hunt. The forest is the only family he needs.

Then they come. Men, dressed like he has never seen before, in shiny garments unlike his furs and leaves. He hears them talk to the others. (He hides in the woods, out of sight.) They speak of a god, of religion – what is that to him? His religion is in the forest, his gods in everything around him. He leaves silently, ignoring the tugging feeling in his chest.

After two sunrises, he meets one of the strangers. He comes across him while hunting, this strange man with eyes like ice and hair like straw. They look at each other in silence. He feels compelled to say something.

"Who are you?"

The stranger stares at him. "M' name is Sverige."

"Who am I?" The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them. The man – Sverige, he corrects himself – looks at him in silence.

Finally, he says, "I don't know." He feels disappointed (he was sure that this time, this time—), but Sverige continues: "You must d'cide that f'r y'rself."

He blinks, and thinks of the endless, blue sky.

"Suomi." At this, Sverige smiles at him, his lips quirking slightly upwards, and he feels an answering smile shape his lips. The sensation is unfamiliar – it feels like hope.

FIN

Notes:

- changeling was the offspring of a fairy, troll, elf or other legendary creature that has been secretly left in the place of a human child. People usually either burned them or left them in the woods, in the hopes that their child would get switched back.

- Swedish-speaking settlers arrived in some coastal regions during the medieval time, around 1000-1100, trying to establish Christianity. Finland became a part of the Swedish kingdom in 1249 and was converted to Lutheranism. (Yes, I know the irony in there, accidentally.)

- I'm sure all of you know, but just to be sure: Sverige = Sweden, Suomi = Finland.