Beethoven continues to walk, stubbornly forcing each step to come as his snowy hair is plastered to his forehead and neck by the pouring rain. It's the worst kind - it comes with a wind that feels as though it could sweep him into oblivion, battering his legs - which are trembling, but he'd never admit it - and laying waste to his hair and face.
By now he isn't sure what it is that's running down his face - raindrops, or bitter tears? (Bitter like the coffee he had taken this afternoon - even his paradise, one only he could enter through the perfect coffee, had turned its back on him today.) Whichever it is, neither one will get him home faster, therefore it is useless to contemplate which.
By the time he can see the gates of the mansion in the distance, the wind has calmed, leaving the rain to simply fall rather than lash. This is almost worse - it has become slow and gloomy rather than a crushing tempest, only the frequent plops the drops make piercing the maelstrom in his head. He has no howling gale to think about getting through now, leaving his thoughts at a destination he has tried to escape from for the entirety of this lifetime...
Vienna. He is transported back to a day when the clouds hung, low and foreboding, over a small building on a street corner. The rain had hammered against the window panes - one of the few sights he could recall with rapidly dimming eyes. There had been flickering candlelight as face after face had appeared, and just for a moment there was one he recognised from this life. Even though it had changed in appearance, it was the eyes that he saw into - supportive and comforting, friendly and soft - and yet telling of some constantly-lingering melancholy. They carried a spark of something else - a divine spark, Beethoven believes he had said.
The owner of those eyes had brought him music in his final hours, kept his lifeblood flowing that little while longer as he relived the one thing that this had all been for - music.
Schubert had allowed him to die basking in the thing he loved, and thus had his eternal gratitude for it.
Beethoven keeps going at this thought - it is one of the few things in the memory that does not make him want to sit down in the gutter and stay there. He's too loud, too rude, impulsive, rambling, wild, perhaps even insane, to be worthy of coming home. To call it home. At least, that's what he thinks. What Franz had done for him makes him think that perhaps there is at least one person who thinks him worthy of a place in his house - something he had once implied he doubted Schubert deserved. (He's ashamed of it, repelled at his own blatant dismissal of one of his perhaps most loyal friends. If Franz isn't too upset with him to be regarded as such, that is.)
The memory continues playing in his head, a depressing expanse of background noise that refuses to end. (But at the same time he's terrified of it ending, because he knows that when it ends, his old self has taken his last breath. When it ends, Schubert and Karl and countless others are left behind to grieve, to uphold the passing of the torch.)
He tries to make it stop early as he approaches the front door, praying to whatever fickle and cruel gods there are that the others don't see him like this.
He takes a deep breath, removing the key from the lock as he opens the door and steps back into the light. Normally there is a warmth to returning home, after a day of fishing in the sea air or playing dodgeball with the children from the park. But today he's just too cold to feel it.
The others are in the sitting room, laughing and chatting quietly as Schubert hands out tea, whBeethoven continues to walk, stubbornly forcing each step to come as his snowy hair is plastered to his forehead and neck by the pouring rain. It's the worst kind - it comes with a wind that feels as though it could sweep him into oblivion, battering his legs - which are trembling, but he'd never admit it - and laying waste to his hair and face.
By now he isn't sure what it is that's running down his face - raindrops, or bitter tears? (Bitter like the coffee he had taken this afternoon - even his paradise, one only he could enter through the perfect coffee, had turned its back on him today.) Whichever it is, neither one will get him home faster, therefore it is useless to contemplate which.
By the time he can see the gates of the mansion in the distance, the wind has calmed, leaving the rain to simply fall rather than lash. This is almost worse - it has become slow and gloomy rather than a crushing tempest, only the frequent plops the drops make piercing the maelstrom in his head. He has no howling gale to think about getting through now, leaving his thoughts at a destination he has tried to escape from for the entirety of this lifetime...
Vienna. He is transported back to a day when the clouds hung, low and foreboding, over a small building on a street corner. The rain had hammered against the window panes - one of the few sights he could recall with rapidly dimming eyes. There had been flickering candlelight as face after face had appeared, and just for a moment there was one he recognised from this life. Even though it had changed in appearance, it was the eyes that he saw into - supportive and comforting, friendly and soft - and yet telling of some constantly-lingering melancholy. They carried a spark of something else - a divine spark, Beethoven believes he had said.
The owner of those eyes had brought him music in his final hours, kept his lifeblood flowing that little while longer as he relived the one thing that this had all been for - music.
Schubert had allowed him to die basking in the thing he loved, and thus had his eternal gratitude for it.
Beethoven keeps going at this thought - it is one of the few things in the memory that does not make him want to sit down in the gutter and stay there. He's too loud, too rude, impulsive, rambling, wild, perhaps even insane, to be worthy of coming home. To call it home. At least, that's what he thinks. What Franz had done for him makes him think that perhaps there is at least one person who thinks him worthy of a place in his house - something he had once implied he doubted Schubert deserved. (He's ashamed of it, repelled at his own blatant dismissal of one of his perhaps most loyal friends. If Franz isn't too upset with him to be regarded as such, that is.)
The memory continues playing in his head, a depressing expanse of background noise that refuses to end. (But at the same time he's terrified of it ending, because he knows that when it ends, his old self has taken his last breath. When it ends, Schubert and Karl and countless others are left behind to grieve, to uphold the passing of the torch.)
He tries to make it stop early as he approaches the front door, praying to whatever fickle and cruel gods there are that the others don't see him like this.
He takes a deep breath, removing the key from the lock as he opens the door and steps back into the light. Normally there is a warmth to returning home, after a day of fishing in the sea air or playing dodgeball with the children from the park. But today he's just too cold to feel it.
The others are in the sitting room, laughing and chatting quietly as Schubert hands out tea, while telling them about an apparently very amusing incident from his travels. Everything skids to an abrupt stop as they spot Beethoven in the doorway, and he can't help but feel like this is another thing he's ruined, another joyful moment he can't help but interrupt. They look concerned, and he thinks that Pad-Kun has told them what day it is - until he realises that the look on his face probably says it all anyway. Apparently so, because before he knows it Schubert and Kanae are ushering him onto the sofa with Liszt, where he is then joined by Schubert, as Chopin sits next to Liszt's side of the sofa.
Mozart passes him a cup of tea, and he finds it isn't his usual as he sips it - but it's almost better, Lapsang Souchong with a smoky aftertaste that calms his tingling nerves. It helps to thaw the cold at least a little bit. Schubert rises and leaves momentarily, and as he circles behind Beethoven to return to his seat the composer feels the warm, heavy weight of a quilt over his shoulders. If he leans against Schubert more than is necessary with the sufficient space on the sofa, then nobody says anything about it.
Nobody mentions his sadness either - they accept it, but they don't try to interfere and force him back to his old self. Perhaps it is okay to be sad sometimes - and as Liszt tries to teach them a card game she picked up at the club she plays for, Schubert and Mozart bickering slightly as the pink haired composer tries to change the rules, he wonders if this feeling is like the storm outside - if it will pass with time.
Either way, they're here for him. And either way - it seems that they may even love him.
ile telling them about an apparently very amusing incident from his travels. Everything skids to an abrupt stop as they spot Beethoven in the doorway, and he can't help but feel like this is another thing he's ruined, another joyful moment he can't help but interrupt. They look concerned, and he thinks that Pad-Kun has told them what day it is - until he realises that the look on his face probably says it all anyway. Apparently so, because before he knows it Schubert and Kanae are ushering him onto the sofa with Liszt, where he is then joined by Schubert, as Chopin sits next to Liszt's side of the sofa.
Mozart passes him a cup of tea, and he finds it isn't his usual as he sips it - but it's almost better, Lapsang Souchong with a smoky aftertaste that calms his tingling nerves. It helps to thaw the cold at least a little bit. Schubert rises and leaves momentarily, and as he circles behind Beethoven to return to his seat the composer feels the warm, heavy weight of a quilt over his shoulders. If he leans against Schubert more than is necessary with the sufficient space on the sofa, then nobody says anything about it.
Nobody mentions his sadness either - they accept it, but they don't try to interfere and force him back to his old self. Perhaps it is okay to be sad sometimes - and as Liszt tries to teach them a card game she picked up at the club she plays for, Schubert and Mozart bickering slightly as the pink haired composer tries to change the rules, he wonders if this feeling is like the storm outside - if it will pass with time.
Either way, they're here for him. And either way - it seems that they may even love him.