M: "Bye," Mandara shouted after her, "safe travels." Derogan just waved.

They  all stayed until Celtica was out of sight then headed back inside,  Mandoria going back to his duties while everyone else went back to the  dining room with Edel. When they entered the dragon was pawing at  something black on the ground, which was hopping around to keep away  from the dragon's massive paws and claws.

"Silver Streak," Mandara shouted in surprise, he walked up to her, "Silver, where have you been, I haven't seen you in days."

When  he picked her up he saw that she was somehow tangled in metal wire and  some of her feathers were caked in dried blood, she was also very skinny  from her beak being held shut.

"Silver, what happened to you," he said worriedly, "where did all this wire come from?"

N: The English glanced at each other, wondering the same question. "Let me  go and get something from the infirmary for Silver," England said  before leaving the room.

"And I will get some food for her," Johann added and rushed out of the room.

Saxon gave Silver a once over and wondered, "Do you think she was captured?"

M: "I don't think so, there's really no reason anyone would want to catch a  raven," Derogan said, walking up to his brother to take a look at the  bird, "my best guess is some human left it lying around and she got  tangled in it, is that right Silver?"

Silver  nodded her head, Mandara sat down in his original spot and tried to see  if he could get the wire loose. "She must have been like this for a  while, it's really dug into her skin, how did you manage to survive let  alone make it here without flying?"

"How do we get it off, a knife isn't going to cut through metal," Derogan asked.

N: "Is there a local metalsmith nearby," Saxon asked, "perhaps they would have blades that could cut through metal."

Soon  Johann rushed in with a bag of seeds, but noticing that her beak was  still shut, he stood behind the Mandorians and waited. England came afterward with a small medical bag and opened it up next to Mandara.  "You know how to treat her best," he spoke, "so hopefully do as much as  you can now."

M: Mandara nodded and reached in  the bag, luckily there was a small pair of pliers for removing foreign  objects, that would do the trick. The young country proceeded to very  carefully untangle the wire and remove any what was embedded into her  skin, when it was all off he was surprised at how much there was, the  ball had to have been bigger than the bird

Silver  Streak was quiet and calm during all of this, just snuggling into  Mandara's arm as he cleaned and wrapped her injuries, which were fairly  infected from the rusty metal. When she was all fixed the boy set her  down next to the seeds and she immediately started eating, making the  brothers glance at each other.

"Judging from  the rate of infection and how skinny she is, this had to have happened  three days ago at least," Rowen said as he fumbled with the ball of  wire, "people are so careless about what they throw out, who knows what  could have happened if she was unable to make it here."

N: Anglo shook his head, "The only thing that littering can do is destroy  the environment, and with something that cannot biodegrade, such as  metal, it is even worse."

M: Everyone nodded in  agreement, Rowen especially looked disheartened, "I'll have to bring  this up with the king, it might not do much but we could try to figure  out something to keep the people from littering, though in a kingdom  that is as spread out as this one it is hard to keep track of such  things, especially farming waste, there's a good reason why you never  see livestock farms near rivers here, a whole town was wiped out because  the nearby river became contaminated by a farmer's cattle."

"Forget  about the people, think of the animals," Mandara said sternly, "they  can't protect themselves from us, Father was right, why do we exist if  not to destroy this world." Mandara then chucked the pliers at a wall in  an act of anger, the tool actually embodied itself in the wall from how  hard he threw it.

N: Saxon walked over to the pliers, observed how it was stuck in the wall, then pulled it out. Glancing back at Mandara, he walked back and placed the tool on the table. "The Earth cannot be destroyed," the entity said, "nature can be injured but never defeated, the creatures of this world could never defeat Mother Nature."

He made his way to the younger prince, and went down on one knee, "There may be one person who littered, another who used too much pesticide and damaged the soil, but to be in despair or to be in denial will not solve the problem. If you want something to be done, you have to have the initiative to do it."

Standing up, he concluded, "Although we have the ability to destroy, we also have the ability to create, and maybe that's the reason why we have survived until now."

M: Mandara just hummed at Saxon's words, so Derogan added, "cheer up Mandara, when we're in charge we can put a stop to the littering and save the animals."

Mandara chuckled quietly, "so does that mean that you'll finally grow up and become king?"

Derogan gave Mandara a stink face, "no, I'm not worthy of it, you would make a better king than me, everyone knows that after all the screw-ups I've made."

N: The English stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to say, as they knew that Derogan didn't want to be king, and there was nothing that could change his mind.

"So," Johann spoke up and clasped his hands, "what are we going to do now? Today's the last day the English will stay, so maybe let's do something memorable."

"As if the last couple of days were not memorable enough," England muttered, getting a soft wing slap from Anglo.

M: The kids all just giggled, "he has a point," Mandara said, "we watched Rowen duel with Saxon and Celtica, we got a pet dragon, and we now have a new big brother." He hugged Johann tightly.

N: Johann returned the hug, "And I have gained two new brothers."

"Speaking of dueling," Saxon smirked, glanced at Anglo, "you are yet to duel Rowen blindfolded."

"Seriously," Anglo spoke, crossing his arms, "blindfolded? I haven't done that for months, and it only works best when I'm versing another winged country."

"But, could you," England asked, "theoretically duel Rowen?"

"Yes, I could-" Anglo began, but was quickly interrupted by Saxon's mini-celebration, so he sighed, "you really wanted something memorable on the last day, didn't you?"

M: "Oh I think I will just accept defeat right now," Rowen chuckled, "I'm still recovering from the one with Celtica, it wouldn't be fair for anyone for me to spar him when not that my best, maybe next time."

When no one was looking, Derogan snuck away and grabbed one of the pillows from last night and smacked Anglo on the back of the head, "PILLOW FIGHT!!!!"

N: Anglo breathed out a sigh of relief but immediately yelled in surprise from the smack on the head. When he turned around, he narrowly dodged another attack at his head. "Not fair," he complained, "that came out of nowhere."

"Well, it's your own fault that you did not pay attention," Saxon laughed, picking up another pillow, and called out, "every man for themselves."

"I would play, but I don't want to risk it, so I think I will stay out of this one," Johann smirked, but quickly ducked when a pillow was chucked in his direction, "I said I wasn't playing!"

England shrugged as he picked up the pillow next to the boy, "Suit yourself", he replied before hurling a pillow at the entity.

M: Silver Streak made a run for Edel to use him as cover while Mandara grabbed a pillow and started fighting England, Rowen was laughing and decided he would duel Anglo after all, but with pillows. Edel dragged Johann over to sit next to him so he could protect him with his wing as they watched the pillow war.

It went back and forth for a while, the brothers obviously teamed up to thwack the adults and they were surprisingly good at it. Mandara was sitting on his pillow that was on England's back so he was squished to the ground like with Edel, and Derogan was going one on three with the other adults and winning somehow.

N: "You know what," the defeated England said, "I might as well become a seat from now on." The country watched as the other adults try to defend themselves from Derogan's attacks, and tutted, "I can't believe you are losing to a kid."

"Says you," Saxon called back before being smacked right in the face with a pillow, dazing him for a second, and in that brief moment of confusion, he was then swiped to the ground.

Anglo's eyes flickered between Derogan and the entity, and when he made eye contact with Saxon, a message passed between them, and the winged country nodded. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and held up his pillow in a defensive position. When Derogan was about to attack again, Anglo was able to dodge it and counter.

Closing his eyes allowed him to concentrate better with his wings, using them as sensors and his 'eyes', and since the Mandorian was also a winged country, he was able to judge from his wing vibrations what the prince was about to do the second before it happened.

M: Derogan didn't understand at first what Anglo was doing or how he was countering his attacks, since Mandoria was the only winged country around and wouldn't teach his son to fight yet, he didn't know about the wing vibrations. The prince was so focused on Anglo that Rowen had Saxon step down to let the two fight one on one, he wanted to see if Derogan could learn a thing or two from this.

Derogan was a lot of things; arrogant, impulsive, disobedient, but he was also observant, he paid attention to the small details and made plans and conclusions quickly and accurately, so it wasn't long before he figured out what Anglo's secret was.

"Oh, so you're using your wings to fight me," he declared, "well then, how about we take this up a notch."

The prince grabbed a cloth napkin from the table and used the confusion he created to tie it over Anglo's eye so he couldn't see even if he wanted to, "there, now you can only use your wings," he said, jumping off the older country and started quietly stalking around him, "I know much more about wings than you would think, you'll find that sometimes vibrations can't be trusted."

Derogan held his wings as still as he could, purposely vibrating them at random times and places to disorient his foe and then attack when he least expects it.

N: Anglo only smiled as he stood where he was, defending his position, as he himself also had some tricks up his sleeve. His mother taught him how to fight his wings from a young age, and with that taught him different techniques too.

Now that he is forced to not use his eyes, his other senses heightened, and although he found it slightly harder to keep track of Derogan, he moved his focus from the prince's wings to his heart. After a couple of attacks, he figured out a pattern in his heart rate; it would be steady for most of the time, but then it would slightly dip and suddenly increase when he started his attack. Using this, the Englishman parried and dodged, and even was able to land some hits too.

M: "Oof," Derogan said as the last hit knocked him off balance and he landed on the floor, "what the heck, how are you doing that, I'm barely moving my wings."

"You need to be calm and not get too excited, my son," a voice came from the doorway, Derogan turned and saw Mandoria leaning there, who said, "I felt the vibrations and came to investigate, guess someone's been training my sons behind my back."

"No father, it's not his fault," Derogan exclaimed as the king went over to free Anglo from his dark prison, "we were having a pillow fight, it was just a game, he wasn't training me I swear."

"Good," Mandoria said firmly, but then smiled, "because his training style is very poor. You don't blindfold the teacher, you blindfold the student."

Derogan's face painted itself with confusion, more so when Mandoria walked behind him with the blindfold, "Father?" he said as Mandoria tied the cloth around his eyes.

"Just trust your wings, Derogan," his father said, "vibrations don't only come from feathers, let your wings lead you."

Mandoria stepped away from his son and sat in a chair to observe, nodding to Anglo to do something.

N: The Englishman nodded and looked back at the blindfolded prince, "The same way that you use your eyes to follow your opponents, use your wings to track me." Slowly, Anglo circled Derogan, mimicking what the Mandorian was doing before, and made sure that neither his wings nor his footsteps would cause any vibrations. He wanted Derogan to focus on something else.

After vibrating his wings to purposely trick Derogan, he lunged at the prince and attacked.

M: Derogan reacted to the fake-out and tried to dodge it, instead jumping right into Anglo's pillow. It repeated that way for a bit as Derogan was trying to figure out how to use his wings to see, which was something only a very experienced countryhuman could do, not a 14-year-old boy.

The longer he was blindfolded the more Derogan was able to pick up, how Anglo would vibrate his wings then attack from the opposite side and that his footsteps planted harder when he charged, it was a good start but the prince was still getting attacked and falling into Anglo's traps.

"Father, I don't like this," he whined as he started showing signs of overwhelming distress, "this is scary, I can't tell what's happening."

N: Anglo sighed and stopped his attacks, "Alright, so let us slow down, ok?" He threw away his pillow and spoke, "I will stop attacking you, and from now on, just try to find me. If you get too far, I will vibrate my wings to guide you, but other than that, use your wings to guide you."

He walked up to the prince and rested his hand on his shoulder, "Just remember that you are safe, and you will not get hurt." With that, he took a couple of steps back until he was a couple of meters away from Derogan. Once ready, he nodded at Saxon, who told Derogan to find Anglo.

Whenever the prince would wander in the opposite direction, he vibrated his wings faintly to redirect him, then he would remain perfectly still and wait until the Mandorian reached him.

M: It still took Derogan a bit of effort to focus his wings on Anglo's, with the blindfold on it was starting to wake up his avian instinct to be still and calm, it made him want to sit and wait, but he fought against it and tried to find Anglo.

Every time he did, Anglo would move in a different spot, though it wasn't getting much easier, so Derogan took a moment to stand still and ease his rushing mind, focusing on nothing but his wings.

Then he felt it, a faint consistent beating of a heart, the prince was confused about what it was he was feeling but put his trust in his wing, walking towards the vibrations without straying away until he walked into Anglo's arms.

N: "Look at you," Anglo smiled, "you're learning." He let go of Derogan and walked backward until he found another spot, and was happy that the prince was able to find him again with better efficiency. They continued this until the winged country noticed that Derogan's movements became sluggish and slow, so he waited until he would reach him for the last time.

"You are a fast learner," the winged country spoke, then he removed the blindfold from the other's eyes, "although you look like you were about to drop, so maybe we can continue to practice when you've learned how to control your avian instincts."

Folding up the cloth he asked, "Did you guess what you were following?"

M: "I think it was your heartbeat," Derogan muttered, rubbing his eyes as he adjusted to the light, he looked a little tired too, "it was a consistent vibration that would beat twice at a time."

"Very good Derogan," Mandoria praised his son, standing up and walking to him, "it's a very good thing to learn to detect heartbeats for any winged countryhuman, that way we can keep track of wingless ones too."

"And it would even help track normal humans, " Rowen added, "it could save your life if you ever encounter an ambush."

"Way to take it down that path, Rowen," Mandara scolded as he was braiding England's hair, "not everything has to be about violence."

"Sorry," Rowen muttered.

N: "In this day and age, everything is about violence," Saxon commented, getting an angered glance from Anglo.

"Wait," Johann spoke up, realization dawned on him, "so that means that you will be able to find me if we ever do hide and seek in the castle." He folded his arms and pouted, "Not fair."

M: "No, we don't really play hide and seek for that reason," Derogan said, "besides, I'm not an expert yet, it would probably take me some time to learn to do it without a blindfold, right Father?"

"That's right, though I think that is enough training for one day," Mandoria said, "why don't you all do something else, like giving England more beauty tips like Mandara is doing."

Mandara smiled innocently, "I'm almost done, I just need a cute ribbon to tie up the braid, or maybe a flower."

N: "Yes, definitely," Anglo chuckled, "and maybe add a rose too." Saxon only shook his head and grinned when he saw England. The younger country lay on the ground, squashed by Mandara on his back, and his face was void of any emotion as the prince did his hair.

"Cheer up, England," Saxon smirked, "you needed something to spice up your hair, and besides, you are long overdue for a haircut."

England's eyes darted up at his father, with both fear and anger in them, and raised a hand to protect his hair, "you are NOT touching my hair."

M: "No I like it long," Mandara said, taking a red ribbon that Rowen handed to him, "you can't braid short hair, and it is soft like silk, unlike your wiry bush on your head Saxon."

Mandoria laughed when his son insulted Saxon's hair and took that as his cue to leave, saying bye before leaving to finish his duties. Derogan came over and petted England's hair.

"Oh yeah, it is soft," he agreed with surprise, "at least you aren't bald and have to wear those weird wigs your people wear, and on that note, don't they have braids too?"

N: "Yes, some of them do," England replied, "but most have curls and a small ponytail at the back. They are mainly worn in legal professions, and once before I had to wear one when attending Parliament." He rested his head on his arms, "Luckily I didn't cut my hair, but the wig was so damn itchy. Nowadays, I just have my hair done so it somewhat resembles the wigs, but it still looks weird."

Saxon, when he heard the remark, became subconscious about his hair and brushed it behind him, to which Anglo chuckled, "I mean, Mandara is not wrong. That is the result of not taking care of your hair." He pointed at a nearby chair, "Sit so I will fix that mess of yours." The entity was about to protest, but judging from the winged country's expression, he conceded and sat down.

Anglo stood behind him and cracked his knuckles, to which Saxon tensed a bit, and he asked Rowen, "Do you have any more ribbons, and possibly some scissors?" The entity's eyes widened at the thought of his hair being cut and yelped, "No scissors!"

M: "There are probably some scissors in the medical bag," Rowen said, playing along, "and I do have more ribbon, I use it to tie up my hair if I need to keep it out of the way, I like to have different colors for different occasions."

"Ooh, can I borrow a couple," Derogan asked.

Rowen chuckled and gave him a few, Derogan then halved it with Johann and started tying them to the points on Edel's remaining antler.

N: Johann held his ribbons and tied one to the furthest point on Edel's antler, gradually making his way down whilst alternating colors. He hummed as he worked, and whenever the dragon would move his head, the ribbons would sway like mini flags in the wind. When he was about to tie another one when he heard a squeal from behind him, so he turned around to see what was happening.

"NIEN, ANGLO BITTE," Saxon yelped when he heard Anglo snipping the scissors behind him, "don't cut my hair."

"Well if you keep on moving, then I'll chop it all off," Anglo threatened, although he laughed whenever the entity would squeal when he heard the scissors snip, "I'm just going to trim it, that's all." When Saxon became still, the other held a bit of his hair between his fingers, roughly one inch, and snipped it off. He continued to do this until the ends of Saxon's hair were even.

The entity watched as his hair fell around him, and his heart sank every time one fell, and when Anglo was done, he sighed sadly. "Your hair will grow," the winged country reassured him, but when he attempted to stand up, he pushed him back down, "know where do you think you're going, now your hair is going to be plaited."

M: "I never would have thought our last day together would consist of pillow fights and doing each other's hair," Rowen joked, "too bad Celtica had to miss it, she would be teasing you all for centuries."

"And that is quite literally for us," Mandara said, "assuming she doesn't fall to the 'English curse' and get herself hurt like you guys." Mandara finished tying the ribbon at the base of England's braid and added two of his scarlet red feathers as the finishing touch, "all done, if I had any gemstones I would probably put a few on it but it will do for now.

The kid slid off England's back and grabbed the mirror of the table from yesterday, giving it to England while smiling with pride at his handiwork, "do you like it?" he asked innocently.

N: England sat up and held the mirror in front of him, nodding in approval, "this is pretty good, and I really like it."

"If Celtica were here," Saxon grumbled while Anglo plaited his hair, "she would be merciless with her jokes and teasing, so I think it's a good thing that she left."

"Then I will make sure that she will know," Anglo spoke, getting another grumble from the entity. When he reached the end of one of his braids, the Englishman observed the various colored ribbons and wondered, "which one should I choose?"

"I don't care, choose any one of them," mumbled Saxon, "I already look like a clown."

"No, you don't," Johann said as he finished off the last ribbon of Edel, "but you don't look as good as England." When both Derogan and he finished, he patted the dragon's head, "all done."