Repaying a Debt (Iran/Greece)

[quietthread]

Thank Allah that the meeting was over. Amira didn’t think she could stand one more minute of that, especially with Poland send her and North Korea ‘kissy faces’, and America alternately glaring at her, or blushing when their eyes met. Honestly, those two nations were so immature. It made her glad she had worn her Niqab today, so that all the other nations could see were her eyes. Every so often, her boss insisted on it, and using it was a good way to let her irritation bleed through without revealing her emotions to the other nations, especially to those who would take advantage of it. No, she was thankful that at the moment, only her eyes and hands were visible, and even the latter was mostly covered by her abaya’s sleeves.

Rising, Iran waited patiently as the nations left, chatting among themselves and being rather loud. She dipped her head at her friends as some of them glanced back, waving them onward. During the meeting, the Middle Eastern country had noticed that there was something wrong with Greece, young Heracles. She remembered his mother, of course, though the two had not often gotten along, after all, there were the Greco-Persian wars, but she had been quite saddened when she found out the other had been killed. The nation had immediately gone into a period of mourning for the fallen nation, though her country did not go along with it, as to them, Greece still existed, if under the Ottoman Empire’s rule. No, Ancient Greece had been gone, and she had mourned many a day.

Amira remembered when the younger nation, by around two thousand years, had introduced her son to her, the tiny child he was. It was the first time she had really interacted with such a young nation, and the part of her that loved cute things had prompted her to end up watching the very little Heracles from time to time, whenever Ancient Greece could get over her mistrust of the older nation long enough to let her help out. She didn’t think he remembered it, of course, seeing as he had been so young, but it was a good memory, and so she had kept an eye on the nation once he got out from underneath Turkey’s thumb, or the Ottoman Empire’s, as he had been called at the time. He was slightly confusing to her, but seeing as she did not interact with him often, if at all, it might be a sort of understanding that you gain over time.

So, that is why she stood, waiting as all the nations filed out. Iran knew that he had most likely fallen asleep in the meeting at one point or another, considering that he did that almost every time, but she wasn’t sure if he had awoken, or was still asleep. Either way, he wasn’t the fastest nation, at least when it came to going someplace, because she knew he could be fast on the battle field, so Amira was going stand here, watching for him as all almost 200 of the nations left. She had to see closer if he was alright, and, if not, perhaps repay a debt owed to his mother by seeing if she could help.

And there he was, walking by, and she almost missed him, lost in her thoughts. ”Greece,” Amira spoke, reaching out and grabbing his sleeve gently. ”I wish to speak with you.” She debated speaking Greek with him, as she was quite fluent with the language, but decided against it, opting to go with the traditional Shaykomay. Iran hoped that he would be willing to talk to her, but if he was not, she would send her apologies to his mother that night.

[Greece]

It had been a particularly long week for the Greek nation as things seemed to have been going particularly badly with whatever he did. Two of his cats had died in the beginning of the week which wasn’t really too bad considering how many of them had died over the years. Still, he always hated when he lost one as they were all important to him. He was still bothered with the way his economy was doing—it was better than it had been two years ago but there were still problems and his boss kept bothering him about it. Not to mention his people weren’t happy. They had begun rioting in the streets against the current economic policies, violent protests against banks and the current job market situation. Heracles wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do about all of it and was constantly trying to make his bosses change their policies so that the people would stop their protesting. He was annoyed with the whole ordeal especially since it gave him more work to do and he would much rather sleep his days away. It didn’t help that he had Germany giving him annoyed glances every now and then because of all the bailout money his boss was asking for.

So maybe it had nothing to do with the cats and more to do with his current economic troubles that had Heracles looking particularly upset throughout the meeting. He had fallen asleep towards the end though having missed much of his usual naptimes throughout the past week. It didn’t matter anyway; they hadn’t been talking about anything important. At least, to Greece it was nothing important. Eventually, he was awoken by a passing nation who had the decency to pat him awake as the meeting ended and he rose from his chair with a slight yawn. The brunet looked around for a moment, noting that there were only a few stragglers left other than himself and slowly made his way out the door. He could hear all the loud mouths outside as he made his way towards the door wondering what he would do now that the meeting was over. He supposed he would just end up having to meet with his boss and deal with his financial problems again. The tug on his sleeve surprised him momentarily and he paused to look over at the owner of the hand. He blinked a moment, a little confused as to why Iran was the one speaking to him. He had no problem with the other nation but they didn’t interact very much so it was somewhat of a surprise to be pulled over by the woman.

“Mm…alright.” He said finally, nodding as he came to stand beside her, curious as to what she wanted to speak about. Heracles knew that his mother had had a rocky relationship with the nation for the most part. He didn’t remember much of that himself; it was such a long time ago after all. Heracles had had little interaction with Iran however. This was a very unusual event but it wasn’t as if they were in any conflicts so he supposed there was nothing to be worried about. “What do you want to speak with me about?” He almost wished he could see her face if only to see her expression. It would definitely help him figure out the reason. He could only see her eyes though so that wasn’t possible.

[So sorry this took so long. @_@]

[quietthread]

Amira waited, mentally sending a prayer to Allah, and then had to restrain herself from letting out a sigh of relief, choosing instead to remain composed as she pulled her hand away. Good, he would speak to her. But how to explain… After all, she didn’t wish to sound odd, randomly approaching another nation that she barely ever spoke to, and asking if he was alright, and even mentioning the fact that she had kept an eye on him for all these years, since before his mother died. No, that would sound quite strange, and not at all the way she wanted to sound to young, well, not as young anymore, Heracles.

”I noticed that you were a bit… off, today,” she finally decided on, hoping that she didn’t sound too odd to the much younger nation. ”Is there something wrong, Greece? Anything I can do to assist you?” Iran resisted the urge to call him ‘Heracles’, as she had not had the right to call him that for many a century, and went with his nation name, instead. Allah, how she wished one of those more eloquent than her, Babylon, perhaps, or maybe Pakistan, were with her. They would be better at this than her. She was good at business matters, or talking to her friends, but this wasn’t that. This was her, Amira, expressing concern over a late… acquaintance’s son, and didn’t quite fall into any categories, especially seeing as she had once been close enough to the child to babysit him.

Hesitating slightly, very glad that her face was covered up, so, unless young Heracles was very, very good at reading people’s emotions through their eyes, her feelings were covered up, Amira continued, hoping that her words would not be taken the wrong way. ”I have been keeping an eye on you, for your mother, and I was concerned…” There, that was fine, correct? She had neither given away the extent of her keeping an eye on him, nor made it seem like her questioning was out of the blue, though she was not a hundred percent positive on the last note. The former, yes, but the latter… Still, she owed it to his mother to at least attempt, as she had not particularly lived up to her debt in the past, most of the time being unable to, so, perhaps she could help this time, hopefully.

Besides, it would be nice to finally have at least one of her debts off of her shoulders. She had quite a few, almost all from nations who are currently deceased, from sparing her, or not enslaving her, or many of the other things that they did not do, that let her still be alive today, one of the oldest nations, if not the oldest. Heracles’s mother had many times when she could’ve killed the other, as did Iran, who was Persia at the time, but, seeing as the former was dead and she did not believe debts could be passed down in that form, her side was clear, but not Amira’s. So, instead, she’d try to pay off her debt to the other via her son, and that would be that. Fairly simplistic.

[Greece]

Had he been that noticeable? His financial situation wasn’t a secret of course but he had kept to himself as he usually did. He had sat down and listened to whatever he had deemed interesting or mildly important before drifting off to sleep towards the end. It was what he usually did. Perhaps he had let his worrisome thoughts show on his face. After all his economic state was all that had been on his mind for a while now. It was tiring and because of that he probably came off a little irritably towards the other nations. Usually his irritability was only towards Turkey but lately he had been snapping at others as well. Heracles doubted anyone was actually upset or annoyed with him because of this—well maybe except Germany, but then again the nation didn’t really care so much. He had to get his problems solved and soon or else he wouldn’t be simply irritable he would be absolutely depressed. At least, that’s what his boss kept telling him. If the financial crisis wasn’t dealt with than he would be in hot water. Absently, the Greek nation patted the white cat sleeping on his shoulder. That made him feel a bit better. “Mm…I’m okay. Just a little…preoccupied with money problems.” He was surprised that it was Iran asking him these questions but his confusion was quickly erased when she spoke again.

A soft smile spread across his face. “Oh…that must have been a very long time to be…watching over.” It was a nice gesture, one that he appreciated. Despite her not having said how long she had been watching over him, Heracles could assume the length of time. After all his mother had been gone for many, many years now and to have been watching him for her that meant she either had told the past nation or had made a silent vow to do so. He found it rather interesting that a nation that his mother had been in many conflicts with was the one to decide to look after him for her. Though his memories of Ancient Greece weren’t many due to all the time between them, he still missed her occasionally. Especially when times were harsh. He wondered what her solution to this problem would be. What would her bosses say and would Athena come to her rescue? Perhaps it was the lack of faith in the gods that had brought this time of hardship on him. Heracles shook that thought out of his head. Surely though, they had something to do with this. They were always meddling in such affairs and though he had not seen them in far too many years, Heracles knew they were toying with him somewhere.

“I don’t believe…there is much you can help with though, Iran.” He shrugged, speaking honestly. Unless her bosses were willing to lend money to him, he doubted she could help. If there was another way in which he wasn’t thinking of then he wouldn’t mind her assistance at all, but for the time being he couldn’t think of any way in which she could help. He was feeling rather down though and wouldn’t mind the company. His cats made him feel happy but they couldn’t exactly carry out a conversation. Not to mention that he wouldn’t be able to sleep or spend time with the animals anyway. He would be forced to speak with his boss about things he no longer wanted to spend time on. Heracles was pretty sure the man was attempting to stop him from being so lazy but he would have nothing of it. Greece liked having his lazy time! Being forced to do all this work should have been illegal. He had enough to do making sure all his mother’s ruins were left intact, so he couldn’t understand why he was being given even more things to do on top of that. He held back a sigh.