Laura

**Laura** is a minor character in the manga series, *Hetalia*, and the *Tea Leaves* series. She is the personification of Belgium.

## Apperance and Personality

### Appearance

Laura is a tall woman who has short, slightly curly, "pretty," blonde hair, held back with a ribbon (alternatively green or red, but also sometimes seen as being black) and green, almond-shaped eyes. Her lips are often curled in the shape of a cat's mouth. Belgium is a very busty woman whose features are said to stand out, however she dresses simply and her clothes aren't very conspicuous.

In her profile sketch by Hidekaz Himaruya, she is shown wearing a military uniform like most of the other characters, but it has varied in appearances in the various illustrations that exist of it: In an early-full body picture, she was shown to wear gloves, her boots were high-heeled with visible laces, and her tie had an elaborate black design. In a super-deformed character sketch, her boots were simplified (with the heels and laces removed), and her tie was changed to a neckbow. However, in a later chibi design, the neckbow was changed back to a tie (with a somewhat different design than before) and her pants became breeches. The uniform's color remained unknown for some time as well, until an illustration in Comic Birz revealed it to be khaki. Himaruya has recently (since volume 4) depicted her in a somewhat different uniform, consisting of black breeches and suspenders worn over a khaki military shirt.

In the "Meeting Of The World" segment of both the published manga and anime, she wears an aqua dress and lavender bolero (with a matching lavender headband).

In earlier-drawn sketches, Laura was shown in a traditional European dress and wore a slightly different headband (with longer ribbon tails). Though her official hair color is blonde, several chibi headshots depicted her with a shade of brown hair. As a result, a fan asked for confirmation of her hair color, to which Himaruya referred to the color chart.

In a Christmas 2011 strip it was shown that, as a child, Laura wore her bow on the back of her head and a long-sleeved dress with frilled collar and a ribbon tie on it.

### Personality

Laura is Tim's and Luxembourg's sister, though it's said that they often push her around. She's cheerful and mature, but she doesn't stand out much due to the people around her. She, herself, admitted that the stronger countries surrounding her make her look plain, but she tries her best nonetheless.

Earlier notes describe her as a *tsukkomi* ("straight man") type. According to the character chart, she speaks in a *Shiga* dialect. Volume 3 stated that she was cheerful and good-natured, but a bit nosy. However, when angered, she's scary. The profile page cited her as "*a diligent, kind, meddlesome and friendly older sister!*" She also "*loves gourmet and tasty snacks!*" Her home is famous for its waffles, and her gourmet tastes may be part of the reason that she finds foreign waffles to taste unpleasant. Another thing her house was noted to be famous for was the Manneken Pis.

For Halloween Laura dressed as Little Red Riding Hood. She used it as an opportunity to briefly advertise a real-life Belgian horror game, The Path, based on the story of Little Red Riding Hood. It was said that, as a child, she was even better at business than her brother, so it's possible she's simply retained some of those business skills.

During the Christmas invasion of the Parallel nations, Laura ran into one of the shadows at her house. Ignoring or not noticing the strange aura that they seem to radiate, she instead felt concern that he was naked in the middle of the winter, worried something horrible must have happened to him. Even though he was about to attack her, she showed him compassion and showed her sisterly traits in removing and giving him her scarf, startling him out of attacking her. She said that, even though his heart may have been cold because of whatever happened, he had to warm his body. She said that he could keep the scarf as a Christmas present and told him to go home, warm up, and get some rest, before taking her leave.

A picture of Laura had been requested on Christmas as the requester was a saxophone player and wanted a picture of the country who created them. Laura complied, however she said that she had been holding a saxophone but it had been very frustrating, so she couldn't hold it for the picture.

## Back Story

Laura is shown in a brief non-speaking cameo in the "Meeting Of The World" segment of Episode 01. In this appearance she has a broader face shape with smaller eyes, longer hair and more detailed hair with a light purple hair band, and a light purple blouse. Laura also appeared in a special unaired episode The Diary of the Awesome Me, Part 2, where she had a non-speaking cameo when Elizabeta explains the history of Laura's cat festival.

Laura made her first speaking appearance in Episode 94 (adapting elements from the published version of *Boss Spain and Chibiromano*), talking to chibi Lovino, Antonio, and briefly to Tim. Her face shape is more angular and her eyes appear larger with green ribbons styling her hair. Throughout the episode she has a "3" shaped mouth mimicking a cat, an expression that she bore briefly in the original strip.

In *The Beautiful World*, her anime design is updated her hair color is changed to the dirty blond/light brown color that it appears as in some of Himaruya's later illustrations. While her Spanish Empire-era dress was colored aqua in *World Series*, it appears purple in her appearances in this season. She appears with hair decals similar to her previous anime designs and appears in several different outfits despite her handful of appearances. She had a quick cameo in "Romano's Diary" and made her full speaking debut in "At Netherlands'".

In one segment of "At Netherlands'" she appears as the younger version of herself, where she is shown wearing a large red ribbon and a beige dress.

## Storyline History

### Tea Leaves and Silver Rings

Laura stops Natalia Arlovskaya from slapping Lin Yi Ling in the face. She and the other girls talk to her.

### Tea Leaves and Pink Stockings

Laura is in town when she notices that the streets are empty. She asks where everyone is and looks around. Laura sees a black rabbit and ended up following to an old busted carousal. She ends up being drawn into a crowd walking toward a dark giant tent. The Belguian woman ends up watching a disturbing show where the perfomers move like puppets in the ring. One actor dressed like a princess begs her to run. Laura breaks free and runs away. She found the black bunny again and follows it back to the real world. As she walks home, there is a missing person flyer resembling the woman in the circus.

## Relationships

### Tim

Laura is Tim's younger sister, however its said that they don't resemble one another much. When both were under the control of Antonio, Tim fought to become independent and went to war with his sister, as she remained with Antonio. He later attempted to reconcile with her to form the *United Kingdom of the Netherlands*. However, they'd been separated for 200 years and their differences were too great, with Tim working mainly on trade and being protestant, leaning towards Arthur, and Laura being very agricultural and Catholic, influenced by Francis. As a result, Laura declared her independence 15 years later.

In Volume 4, Laura said that her brother was handsome and tall, and that she thought he was cool. However, his stinginess with money was the only thing she saw as a flaw in his personality. When Time bought herring from Toris and Feliks, he used cheap salt to pickle it and sell it at a higher price. Both then and when he sold his own weapons to Antonio, whom he was fighting against, after saying "money makes the world go round" Laura was seen around the corner, crying, telling him not to be mean. According to Laura, Tim reads romantic poems. When they saw Santa, she asked if he thought he would be willing to visit them. He said that he didn't mind asking and promised to bring her Santa. Some time later he gave her a sheet of paper that said "I'll bring you a real Santa today." She was excited that he kept his promise, however both she and Lovino were startled when he showed up, dressed as a reindeer, carrying Antonio dressed as Santa(the joke being that the Tim's and Laura's Santa comes from Spain.) Though she had been happily telling Lovino that her brother wasn't such a miser because he was going to do that for her, it said at the bottom of the page that he had invested 0 euros in it.

Tim's rabbit, in a conversation with Pochi-kun, said that, before Tim left for Kiku, he'd had a fight with Laura. As a result, he felt lonely, and thus was being a busybody, likely to keep his mind off of it.

Laura, Antonio, Tim, and Lovino dressed as a group for Halloween, following the theme of Little Red Riding Hood. When Tim began to attack Antonio for not working hard enough (in response to his comment about Luxembourg being a very busy person,) she was somewhat saddened.

During Christmas, a comic of Laura and Netherlands as children was requested. Tim immediately made an agitated face before the video started. Laura visited Tim who was, at the time, without an influential leader or much of a wealth difference among his people, in contrast to Laura who was richer than he was. She invited him over and, when he came, she told him to take it easy. He was startled and impressed by her luxurious lifestyle, gaping throughout the trip, especially when they were eating, presented with something he considered a high class meal. She then expressed concern at that he wasn't eating. A shot of them both as adults had Laura worrying that she was at fault for her brother's stinginess, however Tim insisted that he'd always been that way.

### Antonio Fernandez Carriedo

*Main Article: Antonio Fernandez Carriedo*