Eighteenth century Celia sketches.
A darkly symbolic depiction of the First Partition of Poland. From left to right, we have Roderich (Austria), Ivan (Russia) and Gilbert (Prussia), with the representation of Poland, Feliks, on the table. I've seen different representations of this, from the three hacking away at Feliks with knives to things with a sexual bent, but I wanted something with more of a feigned civility to it. Hence, an oddly dinner party-esque scene.
I do have a drabble for this event that's probably internet-worthy for the characterization at least, so here.
Feliks is brought in in chains, soaked and shuddering in blood.
The room before him is dim and wavering in candlelight, enough to make the map look like glowing embers as he is forced into a chair before it. Across from him, Ivan is smiling a small, pleasant smile, barely illuminated and wholly out of place, his wide hands folded and furred cuffs like motionless rodents on the table.
“May we begin?” he rumbles in slurred French, his voice echoing like distant thunder among the sounds of Feliks’ ragged breathing and the ticking of the clock.
To Ivan’s right, Roderich dons his spectacles, the lenses shimmering briefly as they catch the glow. Feliks’ eyes dart to him, meeting his violet gaze as it settles on him, and Feliks is struck with the strange sensation of being studied as an object, intently and unabashedly.
“Why is he still chained?” Roderich inquires, elocution clear and impassive, speaking as though Feliks is not in the room at all.
“Why not?” another voice responds, a leisurely, familiar drawl from the shadows. “We don’t want to have to deal with him trying anything.”
“I had assumed our victory was complete enough to allow us to negotiate without having to restrain one of the pertinent parties.”
“I don’t see the harm in it,” Gilbert says, resting his elbow on the table and head in his hand, red irises gleaming, flicking languidly from Feliks to Roderich.
Roderich’s lips tighten slightly. The result is an expression something like frustration or disapproval, and as the night drags on it will be the most emotion he will show. Feliks, struck silent through terror and growing increasingly hazy-headed from his wounds, will mentally label him the voice of reason amidst Gilbert’s deceptively careless hunger and Ivan’s greed, and will note that there is a part of Roderich that surely doesn’t want to be here, that never wanted to be here. He is here out of compulsion, rather than desire—in spite of himself, he has never been able to pass up an opportunity for gain.
“It is unnecessary,” he replies. “I don’t wish to proceed like highwaymen stripping a hostage. Surely we are more civilized than that.”
“You care too much about appearances,” murmurs Gilbert, chuckling quietly. “There’s no crowd here to watch. But hell, we’ll submit to your sensibilities, if it’ll keep you from complaining. Guards!”
Gilbert motions with his free hand. The thud of boots sounds from across the room, approaching Feliks fast and unlocking his shackles. The clatter of the chains, too much like the clatter of sword on sword, reverberates off the plastered walls, making Feliks shiver anew as the weight is lifted from him.
“So,” Ivan says. “Ready now?”
Roderich nods. He adjusts his posture, sitting with his back perfectly erect and chin inclined expectantly. Ivan dips a gray quill into a bottle of ink, scrawling the first few formal sentences onto a sheet of parchment, lavish nothings to make the meeting seem like the ethical actions of principled men. Gilbert, wolfishly alert beneath his outward indolence, looks at Feliks meaningfully and communicates a whole paragraph of victorious obscenities simply by passing his tongue over his front teeth.
Feliks feels like dying and wishes he could.
Oh, crazy Roderich. You're such fun to write. XD This is in my AU, naturally, so on the left from top to bottom are Halvard, Johannes and Henrik, and on the right are Francis, Gilbert and Celia.
Another crazy!Roddy, inked and cleaned up in PSP.
Art of Dr. Roderich Edelstein, the version of him that I play on Hospitalia. He's practically his own unique character at this point--his most defining trait being his utter germophobia. Which is rather understandable, considering that he deals with unusual and dangerous diseases all day, but a lot of it is from stress and angst that makes him need more of a sense of control over his life as well. He's just generally a bit of a nut.
Also, the resident Ivan drew a rather hilarious picture of him that I like very much. XD
Redrawn version of that one doodle. Hardcore infectious disease specialist is hardcore. Might color this one sometime, I dunno.
Proof that I don't just draw Hetalia (though I mostly draw Hetalia.) XD This is Yeager (with Marion and Zagi behind him) from my Aurnionverse, which I've been playing with on and off as of late. I've lately adapted it into less of an AU and more of an original story, complete with gangs and crime and 1920s fashions. Some of the characters were re-named--Yeager, for instance, goes by Adenauer, while Zagi is Roscoe and Marion is still Marion. XD And Yeager's gang is called the Geisslers, after the family of the chick who previously ran it and who, through charm and conniving, he managed to inherit it from.
It's a pretty cool setting, and I do hope to write some scenes from it that I'll get up here.
"Common Time"
(A portrait of Roderich in the latter days of WWI, with an allusion I've been wanting to use for forever. Ludwig, of course, is Germany.)
He taps a rhythm on the table with his fingertip, a slow, steady pulse in 4-4 time.
Across from him, Ludwig is staring. His gaze is unrepentantly intent, the eyes of someone peering through a window off into the distance, searching for some sign of human life. Roderich ought to admonish him for it, but he doesn’t. He sips his tea and taps and looks at nothing, only listens.
They are losing the war. It is becoming clear, bit by bit. He can hear it like the shifting of earth beneath his feet, like the rumbling of thunder in the distance, approaching fast to rip and tear through his resolve. He doesn’t want to acknowledge it because the roar will be so loud—the glissando whistles of bombs, the drum-crashes of dynamite, the trumpet-staccato syncopation of gunfire. There was an age when he would hear none of it, when war was just like this: the tap of fingers and bell-clink of china and the metronome ticking of the grandfather clock, marking hushed time for silent melodies. When war was forgivable ambition more than anything else, conducted on paper by well-dressed men in parlors, a distant play of power to meet the needs of greater minds.
But that age is dead in the trenches now, and he knows he will see no forgiveness for this.
The clock ticks. Ludwig is staring, looking for scraps of sanity in Roderich’s dark eyes. Somewhere, Roderich thinks, Elizaveta is crying in shrill oboe tones and eventually he will have to listen to that too, high above the jarring, discordant blast. He will clutch at his ears and scream and writhe, scream for the quiet of a funeral dirge for a death that should have happened a century before. He will scream because he will not belong in a reality where there is no silence, no subtlety, where corpses upon corpses are the reward he gets for trying to preserve the past.
Oh, how he will scream when they decide to outlaw imperialism, strike his holdings from the map.
He will but not yet. As of yet he can still delude himself into thinking the world is clear and refined, that he may conduct diplomacy from parlors and rule the world over tea, and no matter how hard Ludwig looks he will not find a thing. Roderich is apart from truth, a ghost from the pages of history that will linger until they tear his abode down around him, reveal the rotten timbers of what used to be an empire.
There is an old legend of Nero fiddling as Rome burned and Roderich resolves to be that man, playing sentimental tunes to make the fantasy last just a little bit longer, to fall with the dignity that only denial can offer.
For now, he keeps his worldly affairs in strict 4-4 time, even while the tempo has long ago moved on without him.
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