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Days, months, years can go by without General Winter appearing to Russia. The man (if he is a man at all) is a secretive one, and only shows himself when he is needed or when he has demands to make or when their pacts need to be renewed.

But even when he’s nowhere to be seen, he’s there. He’s in every breath Russia takes that freezes in his lungs, in the way snow settles on Russia without melting, in the way Lithuania flinches and shivers when Russia touches him with chilled hands. He’s the reason that no matter how warm the day, no matter where he is, there is something that stays frozen inside him.

General Winter does not have to let himself be seen to make his presence felt.

And so Russia pulls his scarf a little tighter around his neck every year, and wears more and more layers, even though he knows that it won’t fight out the cold, and he closes his eyes and hopes.

---

Russia forgets his past again and again.

Running through the snow, heavy collar cutting into his neck until it bleeds, chains rattling around his ankle

Every new leader wipes out the leaders before, burying them under layers of pristine, fresh, empty snow.

Arms around his shoulders suddenly, but it doesn’t warm him at all, he shivers, and there is a laugh that is not human behind him

It’s safer that way. If he remembered, he would have to think about what had come before, face it straight on.

Making requests, knowing what he wants and not caring what the cost is, and a pale face regarding him with something that could be interest and could be amusement

So he forgets everything that is not constant, everything that changes, everything that fades.

A pale hand reaching toward him, reaching into him, and he screams as frost surrounds his heart, fills his blood, tears freezing before they even leave his eyes

All that is left is him and General Winter, for surely Winter has always been with him. He can remember no time without him, after all.

Stumbling back to the Mongol camp, shivering all over with a cold that will not come out, but smiling because now he has won

Anything else is unimportant.

---

One winter, the furnace breaks down, leaving Russia’s house entirely without heating, without any way to combat the chill outside.

They do what they can to fix the damage. Latvia and Estonia tend the fireplace while Lithuania fetches endless scarves, blankets, and coats, surrounding his brothers with them in increasingly thick layers. But it’s visibly not enough—they shiver and tremble and huddle together in a small cluster.

Russia, though, simply walks through the house in his normal scarf and coat. He doesn’t shiver at all, seeming exactly as he normally does. Maybe he drinks a bit more vodka, but that’s hard to gauge.

Lithuania (always the bravest, and perhaps the least sensible for it) finally is the one to speak, his teeth chattering, his lips slightly blue. “S-sir, aren’t you c-cold?”

Russia pauses to think this over for a moment, but then he smiles, and the temperature drops a few degrees more. “Oh, yes. Very. But there is a point where the body simply gives up on fighting. Reach it and you will not have to shiver again!”

Lithuania just stares in blank silence as Russia wanders away again through the frosty corridors, swaying on his feet as he takes another gulp off the vodka.

---

Napoleon’s armies are starving and dying and freezing in the cold. Russia watches one soldier as he staggers through the snow a few steps before collapsing. He looks almost peaceful as he dies, Russia notes, and before he dies he smiles, just a little.

“They say if you freeze to death you feel warm at the end,” Russia comments aloud, his gaze fixed on the dead soldier’s smile. “Warmer than anything else.”

“Do you think that’s true?” comes the reply, in a voice like a rushing gale.

Russia hesitates, then finally replies. “I don’t know. I hope so.” He pauses again. “I wonder if there are sunflowers, if you die that way.”

His only reply is a brief chuckle, or maybe it’s just the wind rattling the tree behind him. Whatever it is, Russia is left alone. Only, of course, he never is, not really.

He tugs on his scarf and starts the trek home through the snow. The General will finish Napoleon for him. He doesn’t have to worry any more.

He is safe, just like that soldier is safe, preserved and entombed forever in the snow and ice.

---

One day (he doesn’t know what day, he’s lost track) he finally decides that he has to do it.

He arrives in Siberia, staring out across the ice-covered wastelands, the blizzard beating into his face and nearly blinding him. For a moment he hesitates, then finally he loosens the scarf, letting it fall onto the ground in a loose pile.

Next he takes off the coat, letting it slide off as well. The wind is like knives now, digging into his under-protected skin, hitting the sensitive areas around the scars on his neck, but he ignores it and presses on. The shirt and undershirt are the next off, and then his boots and pants and underwear.

He is completely vulnerable to the cold now. He is offering himself to it. Hoping. Praying. Remembering (brokenly, but remembering nonetheless) the smile of a soldier.

And so he lays in the snow and lets the blizzard beat down on him, burying him slowly under layers of white. “I’m ready,” he whispers, and he waits for his response.

And maybe there’s a chuckle in that wind or maybe there’s nothing, but the blizzard continues to beat down.

When Lithuania finds him, days later, he is nearly entirely buried, eyes frozen shut with tears, lips and fingers and toes purple with frostbite, and he is cold.

He is ready, but the General is not.

And so he forces a smile against the cold as Lithuania carefully warms him, and he accepts Winter’s help the next time it is needed, and inside he hopes time and time again that soon maybe the General will let him feel the warmth that is at the center of cold.