Character(s) or Pairing(s): HRE/Chibitalia, some GerIta if you squint, but it's really focused on the Italian family and friends
Warnings: human names used, dark themes
Summary: 100 mosaic pieces of North Italy's life, spanning from Ancient times to the modern era.
Notes: This is the result of me realizing I hadn't written my favorite character yet and being too intimidated by my WIPs to start yet another multi-chapter story. I hope the mix of lengths and tenses works, I've never done a themes fic before, so I experimented a lot.

Mosaic

1. Introduction
He hopped onto his new boss' desk, gave him his brightest smile, all shining eyes and bouncing curl. "I'm North Italy! I'm the personification of your country." By the door, Lovino snorted. "Alright, I'm half the personification of your country, but it's not as confusing as it sounds!" Feliciano Vargas loved meeting new people.

2. Love
After the Holy Roman Empire left, Feliciano cried himself to sleep many nights. It was then that he learned the first lesson of love: it hurts.

3. Light
As his country's sins mounted, Feliciano watched the light fade from Ludwig's eyes. So he hugged him tighter and laughed louder and became his light.

4. Dark
The child stumbled through the dark forest, heart pounding so hard it felt like it would burst out of his chest any moment now. He snuffled noisily and wiped a dirty hand over his eyes. "I'm never going to run away again!" A bird screeched, Feliciano stifled a yell of fright.

Holy Roman Empire found him the next morning, a sobbing bundle of grimy frills and tears. "I just wanted to go home!"

5. Rot
Whenever a historian says that the Roman Empire rotted from within, Feliciano wants to scream there was nothing rotten about Grandpa Rome.

6. Break
When the Axis broke, Feliciano was hurt but not surprised. He had seen many nations try and fail to make the world revolve around them. The world always moved on regardless, it was merciless like that. He just prayed they would all get out of it without too many new scars.

7. Heaven
He once asked Lovino if dead nations go to heaven. Lovino snorted and called him an idiot. He still doesn't know if that means yes or no.

8. Away
He tried hard not to be useless while Ludwig fought at the Eastern Front, but without his best friend to tease and hug, he couldn't pretend anymore that the war was just a game at the end of which all the dead people would stand up again and walk away.

9. Cut
Feliciano yelped as he cut himself. Austria, never Roderich to him, always Austria, because he was tall and scary and very strict, rolled his eyes behind his glasses and wondered aloud how anyone could be so clumsy as to give himself paper cuts stacking sheets of music.

10. Breathe
"Breathe, Lovino, breathe! Breathe in deeply and exhale through your mouth! Just like a panting dog!"

"Damn it, fratello! I'm injured, not in labor!"

11. Memory
Grandpa Rome who had conquered proud kingdoms and crushed yet prouder nations into the dust beneath his sandals used to have infinite patience with Feliciano as he taught him how to hold a paintbrush in his chubby little fingers. He would hold his hand in his own much larger one and dip the tip of the brush into the paint, murmuring, "Just like that, not too much." Then he would guide their hands to the canvas and sweep the colorful tip of the paintbrush over the white background. "Let's draw a circle, little Feli. See. There is earth."

12. Insanity
When he began to liken the staccato of gunfire to music, Feliciano wondered if he had lost his mind.

13. Misfortune
He plopped right into the dirt – again. "Ve~ victory is supposed to be a slave of Rome!"

14. Smile
The first time Ludwig smiled at him and it wasn't a pained or forced smile, he hugged him with a yell of delight and decided they would be best friends forever and ever.

15. Silence
For all that he was loud, he treasured the silence they shared the most.

16. Spit
"What was it like?" Elizaveta asked him much later, when his tears had dried and he would blush with delight as he told her of his first kiss.

Feliciano's face scrunched up as he recalled every moment of the kiss with Holy Roman Empire. His cheeks burned. "Ve~ it tasted of spit!"

17. Blood
Feliciano wore his blackshirt with such pride. Then he realized you couldn't see the blood stains on it.

18. Under
Under Austrian rule, he learned to be patient. Under French rule, he learned to accept what he couldn't change. Under Italian rule, he learned not to strangle his bosses for sheer frustration.

19. Gray
People see Feliciano's light and Lovino's dark, but Feliciano is envious of Seborga's gray.

20. Fortitude
"I bend, but I never break!"

21. War
Once upon a time, Feliciano was a painter. Mankind knows no sadder words than 'once upon a time.'

22. Mother
He buried his teary face in Elizaveta's skirts and hiccupped softly. She knelt, enfolded him in a loving embrace and whispered soothing nothings in Hungarian until his tears ceased.

23. Distasteful
His stomach recoiled at the mere smell of the liverwurst sandwich. Ludwig looked so proud and expectant that he asked for seconds.

24. Want
Nations always want more; more land, more wealth, more power. If not wanting any of that made him useless, so be it, he decided and broke their hearts by rejecting the Holy Roman Empire's offer to become Rome rebuilt.

25. Lurking
Feliciano knew he shouldn't be watching big brother Francis do decidedly grown-up things, but he had always been too curious for his own good.

26. Europe
Feliciano looked up to the blue flag with the golden stars and felt tears flood his eyes. "We'll make it work this time," he vowed.

27. Foreign
The first time he visited his beloved's country, he felt like he was a foreign object that had no place being there and everyone knew it. The eyes struck him as cold and judging, the speech harsh. Now, it feels like coming home.

28. Sorrow
When big brother France turned on him, he cried. Francis scoffed. He didn't realize that Feliciano was crying for him rather than because of him.

29. Urban
Although he spent many years as a servant in Austria's house, Italy Veneziano knows the story of each stone and plank that makes the city he was named for.

30. Rain
Venice in rain is a depressing sight to tourists. Feliciano loves to wade through the rain-splattered streets. They are empty then and it feels as if he and the grumbling brother he is dragging along are the only people in the entire city, intrepid explorers discovering it all over again.

31. Flower
Little Feliciano blushed as he offered a single slightly wilted rose from Austria's garden to Elizaveta. The flower was already slightly mangled from the tight grip his chubby fist had on it. "Pretty girls should get flowers."

32. Night
When Feliciano hears Lovino twist and turn in the throes of a nightmare, he crawls into his bed and hugs him tightly, no matter how much he grumbles. When Lovino thinks Feliciano has fallen asleep, his arms will tentatively wrap around his waist and pull him closer.

33. Wrath
After the Battles of the Isonzo, it took years before he could look at Austria and Hungary's faces again without feeling helpless burning rage.

34. Moon
"Do you see the rabbit pounding medicine?" China asked.

Feliciano squinted at the moon. "I think it's a hare, not a rabbit!"

China smiled.

35. Walk
They don't walk in synch. Lovino strides forward with angry pounding steps while Feliciano lingers whenever he comes across something interesting. Seborga can't be bothered to move at all unless pretty girls are involved. Feliciano likes it that way – they get the best of all worlds.

36. Precious
Feliciano had a picture of just the three of them, Kiku, Ludwig and himself all looking so magnificent in their uniforms. They had taken it on a sunny day when there had been nothing to do but laugh and talk and the war seemed so far away it might as well have taken place in another lifetime.

He used to display it proudly in his house, though Lovino bitched about having to see the potato bastard's ugly mug even when he wasn't around.

Then alliances shifted as they always do in the long lives of nations. On some days Feliciano's body ached even more than his heart.

He kept the picture in the shelf of his bedside table, next to the Iron Cross, and when the pain became too much to bear, he clung to it and remembered a time when it had been easy to remember that the other side was human, too.

37. See
He knows whenever other nations look at him, they see an useless nation and a coward. He tells himself he was born to be a lover, not a fighter, and then he can pretend it doesn't hurt as much anymore.

38. Abandoned
At first, he wept for Grandpa Rome. He didn't notice when he started weeping for himself instead.

39. Dream
"Ve~ I had the most wonderful dream last night, Germany! The earth was made of pasta with rivers of tomato sauce!"

40. 4:29 PM
Feliciano groaned as the tip of a boot nudged his side and a tirade of angry German assaulted his ears. He turned onto his side and pressed the pillow over his ears. If Germany truly thought he was going to cut short his siesta, he had bigger issues than his disgusting taste in food.

41. Citric Acid
He bit into the piece of orange with a moan of delight. Citric acid spurted and sprayed into his eyes. Feliciano squeaked, his juice-soaked hands flew to his eyes and rubbed before he realized what he was doing.

Lovino snorted indelicately. "You're such an idiot." He heard Lovino's footsteps vanish.

A minute later, he was still frantically trying to rub the juice out of his eyes when Lovino's hands grasped his wrists in an iron grip and wrenched them away from his face, all the while cursing up a storm about Feliciano's stupidity, uselessness and general inability to live. Then a wet washcloth wiped gently at his eyes until they stopped burning.

He beamed at Lovino, smile bright and eyes still a bit teary. "Thank you, Lovi, you're the best!"

"Chigi!" Heat rose to Lovino's cheeks. He turned away, trembling with humiliation and rage. "Fucking useless bastard!"

42. Still
Only corpses are still, so Feliciano makes sure to remain in motion.

43. Die
"Why do they keep dying when we still need them?" Feliciano sobbed as he fell to his knees at Giuseppe Garibaldi's grave; for once, Lovino said nothing and wept with him.

44. Two Roads
Feliciano had never liked that talk of two roads for if there were two, it was guaranteed that Lovino would take one and he the other.

45. Two Guns
The first time Feliciano fired a gun, he was amazed and delighted how easy it was. Suddenly, it didn't matter that he lacked the strength to cock a crossbow or was too clumsy for a bow.

The first time Feliciano killed with a gun, he was amazed and delighted how easy it was. It was so clean, so impersonal; you didn't even need to meet the eyes of your victim.

That was when Feliciano decided he hated guns.

46. Drop
"I'm not going to let go of the rope," Kiku promised for the seventh time.

Feliciano's whole body trembled so hard even his curl bobbed up and down. "But… but… what if it slips out of your hands?"

Kiku met his eyes, black met brown, calm met scared. "Trust me."

Feliciano did.

47. Dirt
He had no canvas and no paints, so he drew pictures into the dirt.

48. Young
Feliciano stared at his eternally youthful face in the mirror and marveled how one who felt so old could look so young.

49. Preservatives
"Big brother Francis, what is a preservative?"

Two hours later, he had his answer, but he could have done without the charts and hand-drawn guide book.

50. Breaking the Rules
Germany liked rules. It was the first thing he learned about him. The second thing he learned was that Germany liked to shout when you broke his rules. Germany looked funny when he was shouting. So of course Feliciano just had to break his rules at every possible opportunity.

Footnotes:
33. The Twelve Battles of the Isonzo in WWI killed 300.000 Italians (half the Italian war casualties) and 200.000 Austro-Hungarians.
43. Giuseppe Garibaldi is an Italian national hero for the struggle for unification.