Holy Rome doesn't remember much from his stay in Paris. It had been a hazy, strange mess of shapes and colours, the soft vowels of French and the feeling of something dying, a little bit, inside his chest. There are words about freedom and empires, and a bright new future that France likes to call progress. Holy Rome doesn't dare saying anything in protest. France is elegant and refined, has always been, and maybe that's the reason why he smiles amiably as he tells Holy Rome about the new Charlemagne his Emperor aspires to be.
There's never room for two of those in Europe, Holy Rome knows, and he also knows that he's getting sicker every day, feeling his insides twist into painful knots as they're dying to be reborn into what he fears.
He'd spent the latter wars in a hazed confusion, prisoner of his own bed, his head heavy and France telling him about things he didn't really understand, things that would have made Austria and Prussia mad with fury. He remembers seeing Spain and not quite recognising him, with a new type of anger in his eyes, anger that tasted like bitterness and despair. Time had flown by, between the two of them, between dynasties and shattered dreams of world domination. It's been a harsh century for Spain too.
All of it disappears when Austria has him brought back to Vienna. There are talks about restoration and monarchy and talks about the future of his brothers and sister too, but Holy Rome doesn't get to catch any of it. He's too busy vomiting blood in his room as Bohemia makes sure to make him drink fresh water and wash his sickly, thin body. He knows what is happening to him but he doesn't have the power to fight against it anymore, conscience slowly slipping away.
"It's going to be alright," Hungary tells him with a peck on the forehead. "Don't worry, it's going to be alright."
Then, one day, he wakes up to an empty room that feels fresh and clear, and a quick look to the both of his hands makes him realise that something has changed. Surprisingly enough, he doesn't cry, doesn't feel anything other that mute relief in his chest. The agony is over, at last.
.
Holy Rome looks out the window next to his bed, and outside, the sun shines over the busy streets of a city that doesn't quite feel like a beating heart inside him.
Regensburg.
Relief washes all over him, and he lets himself fall back into the cushions. He's not ready to wake up just yet, maybe. Downstairs, there's Austria and there's the rest of the world, with most probably a new life for him to wither and die in. It doesn't scare him nearly as much as it should. His body is still young, but he's been growing so weary, because of Prussia and Austria and Bavaria and the rest of them. Religion and politics had torn his brothers apart centuries before France came and destroyed him with his own very special brand of diplomacy. Now it's all gone, forever, and he feels better than he has done in centuries.
It takes him a few more minutes to finally get out of bed. The floor is cold under his naked feet, and he takes a moment to wash his face in the basin of water. He looks at his face in the mirrors, blue eyes, blond hair that falls into messy bangs over his forehead. He knows, now, that his face is going to age, slowly, just like the Old Man's face had aged, all those years ago, in that monastery Austria had found for him to quietly end up his remaining century. The clock has started ticking for Holy Rome too, and he wonders if he'll grown tall, now that he isn't held down by politics or wars. He can't know, not yet.
Austria is sipping coffee downstairs, dressed in the hussar uniform that still feels out of place on his wiry figure even though he's been wearing it for the decades of war that had come after France's temporary descent into madness. Had Holy Rome not known him so well, he would have said Austria looked preoccupied, but he knew that the subtle frown on his forehead was one of restrained glee. Victory makes Austria scheme, more extravagant political weddings and more deals to be stricken behind closed doors.
"How do you feel?" Austria asks him, his eyes looking out the window. Holy Rome knows exactly what the question means, and answers accordingly.
"Fine. I… I feel great."
Austria sighs, and he's still not looking at him as silently invites him to sit down with a subtle move of the hand and serves him coffee in a porcelain cup. In Vienna, he would wait for Hungary to do it for him, but Hungary isn't with them here, Holy Rome knows it from the way his collar doesn't sit as well as it should be on his shoulders.
Holy Rome sits down, doesn't touch the coffee right away.
"I thought about finding you a monastery, as we did before with Germa- Hermann." Austria's voice wavers at his own mistake, and he stops speaking for a moment, as if the word had burned his tongue. Holy Rome knows how Austria feels about it, in a way, and he remembers the distant look on the Old Man's face, the way he spoke Latin with a slight accent that reminded Holy Rome of things he wasn't even sure had happened.
It takes a few moments for Austria to speak again. "I thought about finding you a monastery but I thought perhaps you'd like to be consulted first," he manages to say, at last, but there's still something that sounds broken in his voice. Holy Rome would feel bad about it if he still cared about Austria half as much as Austria cares about him.
"Is there anywhere you'd like to go?" Austria asks, and their eyes meet, at last.
Austria does his best to look composed, straight spine and carefully tousled hair, but Holy Rome can see beyond the tight line of his lips and the sharp curve of his eyebrows. He's won, but England and Prussia and Russia won to, even more so than he did, and the reason why Hungary isn't with them today is because Austria fears that France's ideas about grandeur, freedom and democracy will turn her into an enemy. Austria knows what this means, sending him away, and he's far too perceptive not to realise that Waterloo doesn't mean an end to France or to his ideas. Austria is far too perceptive not to realise that the world is about to change in a way he's not sure he'll be able to fight against once more.
"I… I don't know. I like Regensburg, but in a way…"
Holy Rome's words are uneasy in his mouth, but it's only because Austria, the great and magnificent Austria is breaking a little bit and he doesn't know if he should be sad or angry or relieved about that very fact.
"In a way, it feels too familiar, and I've spent too much time here. I'm not sure yet what I'll do, but I'd like to go to Munich, maybe, have a house for myself there..." He toys with his still full coffee cup awkwardly. Austria's eyes are on him, but Holy Rome is not sure what to make out it all. All he knows is that he's never going back to Vienna, not if he can help it. "Do you think Bavaria would mind?"
Austria closes his eyes as he takes another sip of coffee, answers with a measure voice. The storm in his eyes is gone as he looks at Holy Rome with his mask carefully placed back over his face, a soft smile that doesn't mean anything and a graceful little nod.
"I doubt he would. I'll make the arrangements to have your belongings sent to him. When do you wish to leave? I have to go back to Vienna soon, but I can ask Saxony to accompany you there if you wish."
Holy Rome winces involuntarily at the idea of Saxony and Bavaria being in the same room. He doesn't want to deal with this, not anymore than he wants to speak with Prussia or Westphalia, who had taken a boat to America without even saying goodbye after it had been made clear that he was no longer needed among them.
Holy Rome wonders if he'll ever find it in himself to talk to Prussia, or Austria for that matter, about how this century hadn't even gotten past twenty years without them already tearing each other apart. He can't tell, not now.
"Thank you Austria, but I think I'll be alright going there on my own."
There's more to those few simple words than it seems, and Austria understands, elegantly so, with another sip from his cup. The subsequent words they exchange with each other are meaningless babble about things that aren't Hungary, France, Prussia or Italy, which Austria always casually avoids whenever he talks with Holy Rome, because Austria is old and Austria never forgets. It's a grudge of some sort, even though Austria will never admit it out loud, how Holy Rome never got to see Italy again after all these years.
They have breakfast, bread and eggs and meat, and Austria eats as delicately as he was taught, all those years ago, when he still believe imitating France was the proper way to go around things. There's music to listen to now, Austria reminds him, the departed Mozart and the very modern Beethoven that Austria feels is the start of something new, something beautiful. Holy Rome only listens out of politeness, eats and lets his mind wander a bit, out there in the south, in the warm sun of Rome and of an Empire he could never really quite compare to. There's the dissonant echoe of France's sarcastic words in his mind, and the slight ache in his chest that remains, even though he doesn't feel it the same way as he used to yesterday.
Austria leaves after the meal with an elegant salutation and a paternalistic kiss on his forehead that never fails to make Holy Rome unreasonably angry, even though he never openly protests. The thing that does hit him, though, is when Austria gives him one last glance in the doorway, one that isn't sad but isn't indifferent just yet.
"Please take care of yourself, Ludwig."
Ludwig. The name feels weird on Holy Rome's tongue, even hours after Austria has left and he is left to his own devices to prepare for the travel to Munich. Ludwig. It sounds like the name of someone else, someone who isn't old and weary like Holy Rome is, someone who doesn't have his sickly thin body and his penchant for melancholy.
It doesn't feel like it belongs to him, not really.
Holy Rome tries not to think about it too much as the countryside defiles under his eyes and the carriage brings him to his brother's heart in the south. He's embarking on a new adventure, now, without the games and the lies, and he can feel that it might be different, this time around.
Ludwig sounds like the future and it sounds like this new century in front of him, like the sound of Munich in late spring and hopes for change.