America started with two cans of paint, Republican red and Democrat blue, and swirled them together for an uneven purple. He dropped to his knees on the massive map on the floor (still only white paper and black lines marking one country from the next) and started to paint, blobbing the color on inside his shape on the map. The color didn't mix all the way; some places were darker red, others dominated by blue. It took a long time to fill in all his land, and he sloppily ran along his line with Canada (but was very clear about the one with Mexico, a crisp cut between them.) Work finished, he sat back and watched the other countries paint.

~*~*~*~

China spent a long time mulling over his choices of colors, letting his hand linger over red for a moment before taking green and mixing it with other colors until it turned jade. He traced the perimeter of his country, one long smooth brushstroke, and then filling in the land, back and forth, back and forth. He paused for just a moment, dripping brush hovering over the paper, before covering Tibet in jade as well.

~*~*~*~

France chose a red, darker than roses and blood. It was almost purple, a kind of deep maroon. Part of him wanted to think it was a color of passion and the kind of love that romance novels can't even get close to, but his inner cynic said it was the color of rotting fruit, warm and stinking. The thought spoiled his mood, and he cheered himself up by painting obscene pictures on England's back while the later was too distracted with making his land yellow (the color of the sun that was never meant to set on his empire.)

~*~*~*~

Russia thought about just using red, like he would in the past, but it didn't quite seem right anymore. Instead he took the can of red paint and poured in white (like snow, which was a part of him whether he liked it or not) until it turned a dark pink. He chose the largest paint brush and spread the color around, paying little attention to the lines on the map. No one even noticed until he painted right over the Baltics and into Poland, who retaliated by flicking his own color (pink, but lighter than Russia's, more of a bubblegum) at the larger country. Lithuania tried to ignore them both and picked a nice golden color (like rye fields at sunset) but it just mixed with Russia's pink and made a kind of sickly orange. He might have tried to cake on the gold to cover it up, but a glob of pink paint landed in his hair (he wasn't sure whose pink it was) and he decided it wasn't worth it.

~*~*~*~

America noticed the building paint war on the other side of the map, a decided to join in by flinging purple over at Russia. It was remarkable how fast the larger country changed his target; he paid no attention to Poland (who had snuck off with Hungary) and threw a blob of pink across that distance to America with surprising accuracy. Paint flew back and forth across the map, and the complaints of the countries in between were ignored.

~*~*~*~

Belarus took advantage of the distraction and dipped her paintbrush into Russia's pink. Brother had somehow forgotten to paint her while he was busy going over Lithuania, so she corrected his mistake and painted herself into him.

~*~*~*~

Canada's land stayed white; no one remembered to invite him. The only colors are the paint splatters from other countries, who either couldn't respect their boundaries or had no talent for painting.

~*~*~*~

Italy was making a masterpiece. He had no less than six different sized paintbrushes lined up next to him, and balanced a paint pallet on his knee. The perimeter of his country was dark blue, almost black, and faded gradually into pale blue in the center. He started with only the top, saving the bottom from Romano, but his brother just waved the gesture off and lay on his stomach while he watched the younger work.

~*~*~*~

The Paint Cold War was progressing; America and Russia stopped flinging paint at each other from a distance (much to the relief of the countries between the two of them) and had moved on to close quarters combat. This mostly meant painting on each others skin and smearing handfuls of paint into clothes, until America grabbed the end of Russia's scarf and dunked a good two feet of it into his large can of purple paint. There was a long, terrible pause. Russia just stood there with his dripping scarf, looking as though he was either going to punch America or burst into tears, before grabbing a can of red paint and upending it over America's head.

~*~*~*~

Germany had started on the west side of his country, painting it a very calm, reasonable green. He was almost halfway done before he realized that Prussia was making the east an eye-watering chartreuse. They met in the middle, sensible mixing with absurd. Prussia just grinned across the map at him before running off to vandalize Austria.

~*~*~*~

"Well!" said Spain, who had made his country tomato red. "I think it looks pretty good."

"It's a bit...chaotic," Japan countered (who was slate, like stormy skies and metal.)

"But that's part of the fun!" Hungary insisted. She had made herself a warm, earthy red before running off with Poland to plot his revenge against Russia. At some point their scheming derailed, and they ended up painting pictures of ponies and boys making out across the Pacific Ocean. The only sign of any grudge towards Russia was a single unflattering (and immensely obese) portrait of him, getting stepped on by one of the ponies.

"It does look rather nice," Austria put in, who felt it would have been a lot nicer if he didn't have to repaint his navy blue country after Prussia painted 'I SUCK COCKS' in the middle of it.

"I wouldn't know how it looks," America grumbled. "I can't see a damn thing since some asshole who will not be named dropped my glasses in a paint can."

"You fully deserved that. You ruined my scarf," Russia said, in the kind of tone people normally used to say things like, 'you killed my puppy.'

"I'll make you a new scarf, brother," Ukraine insisted. Her green country turned brown after Russia ran over it with pink, but she reasoned that it was like the color of earth, and that suited her just fine.

"I invented scarves," South Korea said, more out of habit than anything else. He had made himself a bright, cheerful orange and felt strangely sad when his northern sister chose blue instead, the color opposite him on the spectrum.

"That's it for another year, I suppose," said Finland (icy blue.)

"At least it was better than the year when we ripped the whole map right in half. Remember that one?" asked Australia (sandy yellow.)

"That was one of the first years we started doing this," Greece (mahogany) reminded him. "I think we've gotten the hang of it now."

"With a few exceptions," Switzerland (olive green) growled, casting a glare at America and Russia, who paid him no attention.

"But it was fun anyway, wasn't it?" Liechtenstein (lavender) pipped up. "Isn't it nice to make a map of our own? The mapmakers always chose the colors for us...it's fun to do it ourselves." Switzerland seemed to lose his voice (or at least his momentum) and just nodded awkwardly at her, trying to look somewhere else.

"If we're done now, we may as well get going," said Cuba (bright red.) "We've all got other stuff to do, right?"

The others seemed to be in agreement for once and filled slowly for the door, leaving behind their map and multicolored footprints.

Notes:

This was inspired by a poem by Elizabeth Bishop called "The Map." The last four lines in particular:

"Are they assigned, or can the countries pick their colors?
-What suits the character or the native waters best.
Topography displays no favorites; North's as near as West.
More delicate than the historians' are the map-makers' colors."