Orange and Navy (The Many Colours of Life and Death AU)

Chapter Forty-One

The League of Lezhe spun through the air, disoriented, confused, hurt, spinning through the air, where is the ground?

Calm down, breathe, he told himself, spreading his burnt wings. He could do this. Thunder crackled. The world sped up. His thoughts got clearer. There. He was back.

He finally saw the ground. Much closer than he wanted it to be. He was gliding, but still descending far too quickly. He wasn't going to make it.

His luck had run out.

It felt surreal. Impossible. But luck is just that. Luck. Not certainty. He could still die. No matter how much he liked to pretend he couldn't.

I wish I did more with my life, he found himself thinking. He wished he could eat more blueberry pierogies. He wished he could go on more long walks through forests, alone, just him and his thoughts. He wished he could see flying fish. He wished he could discover more countries' powers. He wished he had asked Denmark-Norway more questions. He wished he could learn sign language. He wished he could try painting, writing, reading, running, flying, swimming, knitting, sewing, all the wonderful hobbies he had yet to try. He wished he could see his kids more, and their kids, and their kids, and so on. He wished he could live forever.

But he wasn't that lucky.

Yugoslavia watched the battle between Britain and the two evil ghosts—the Swedish Empire and Kalmar Union. She waited. Waited for the right moment. Waited as Britain dodged and weaved as they shot waves and walls of ice towards him.

"Yugoslavia, can you please, for fucks sake, help me?" Britain hissed.

"Yeah, yeah in a moment..." she knew that their powers wouldn't be much use if they wanted the... non-lethal route. She could cancel powers. Britain could spit water at people. Not the most defensive powers in terms of keeping them alive.

But SWE and KU had physical powers. They could trap themselves. With the right conditions, of course. So Yugoslavia held off. Waited.

Until... now!

She cancelled their powers just as they closed themselves in ten metre tall walls of ice. They didn't realise it at first. But they tried to attack Britain again, and finally, came to the conclusion that Yugoslavia had finally intervened.

"Britain, get out of there!" Yugoslavia warned as they drew their swords.

"Already ahead of you!" he said, hastily flying upwards with columns of water shooting towards the ground. He wobbled his way to the ground, miraculously landing on his feet.

"Good job," Yugoslavia remarked.

"Are they... trapped?" Britain asked.

"What do you think?"

"Yes?"

"No, they will climb out and kill us all."

"Really?!"

"No. The ice is slippery enough that they shouldn't be able to climb it."

"Phew."

Yugoslavia stepped closer to the ghosts, waving at them with a smirk. They were quite far from other fighting countries, and she didn't want to risk letting these two out.

The ghosts glared through the thick ice.

"What do we do now?" Britain came up behind her.

"Fight."

That wasn't her. But it came from her mouth. Her body.

For fucks sake, ROE.