“Are you sure you don’t know where Vienna is?” Ludwig questioned. He was sitting down at one of the library’s largest desks with the two ponies plus a dragon on the other side with a stack of parchment and a pen ready. The three of them looked at one another with confused looks until the purple one called Twilight picked up the quill and wrote to him her message.
I have studied geography since I was seven, and I have never heard of a place called Vienna before. Could you explain how you got here Mr. Beethoven?
Downing some of the cup of coffee (in which he counted the beans to be grounded up himself) he explained, “I don’t know myself. One day, I was thinking up melodies for a string quartet in the countryside, and the next I’m in a place of a child’s fantasy gone mad.”
“This guy has no filter, doesn’t he?” Rainbow Dash asked her friends.
“Still,” the giant said, refilling his glass, “it was rather odd. The night before, I was caught in a storm that came out of nowhere, so I headed back to my excuse of an apartment. I jotted down some notes as usual when I noticed that suddenly everything went dark. At first, I thought night came already, except when I looked out the window, there was nothing. No light anywhere except for the candle that lit the room. But I turned around; I found a shadow without a body.”
Spike took the pen to write his own message.
That’s creepy.
“It was something like out of a nightmare,” Beethoven commented. “Very thin, very tall, but it had two white eyes that I think never once blinked. Of course, I asked what it wanted and… I don’t know how it knew that I was deaf, but he took up my conversation book and wrote to me. Saying that it came to commissioned me to write a new symphony, that I have a year to complete, which is ridiculous. I mean sure, I could write it up in about a week, but that thing doesn’t know that I demand perfection from it! To make things even worst, he took my room with me and everything in it to… wherever this place is to hold me ransom. Saying that if I don’t have the score in a year’s time, I will never go back home.”
Twilight leaned back, “That… is really curious,” she said.
“Do you know any creatures that are made of shadows Twilight?” her assistant asked.
“Except for Nightmare Moon and Sombra, I don’t think so,” the violet Alicorn scratched her head. “Besides, what he described doesn’t really fit with any other shadow creature that I know. But just to be sure…”
Taking up the pen again, the lilac princess wrote to him:
So was this shadow solid or was it mist like?
“I don’t know what you mean by mist like,” the old man said. “The thing was flat up against the wall, much like our shadows are now. But its arm did become solid when it picked up my book, yet stayed up against the wall.”
Twilight sighed, “Well that throws Nightmare and Sombra out.” Then another thought came to her as she wrote:
So you came alone?
“I didn’t have much of a choice,” Ludwig told her. “As far as I know, I might be the only human for miles away.”
If that is true, then you might be the first human in Equestrian history to see the likes of you. In my opinion, this is very exciting! Plus, you said that you’re a composer?
With a chuckle, Beethoven answered, “Yes, as perplexing as it is to you, I compose music. I’ve been doing this even before I went deaf. Come to think of it, the room I was taken in still has all of my music in the forest over there. From my piano pieces to all nine of my symphonies, even a few books from Bach’s fugues are in this world now.”
Twilight straighten up at the mentioning at this detail.
And how far away is this room?
"It took me most of the morning to get here on foot. Since this is the only town within miles, I would really hate it to walk so far and back every day. I wish that it was nearer."
After telling the old man to wait for them for a second, the three of them went upstairs. Beethoven turned his attention to the paper and quills left behind, now that a new melody was taking a casual stroll through his head.
Once upstairs, Twilight turned to her friend and said, “Rainbow Dash, do you have any idea what this means?”
“That the crazy deaf guy has his music with him?” the pegasus raised an eyebrow.
“No, this means that we have a very rare and unique opportunity!” she squeed. “I mean, think about it, we’re literally standing on top of a goldmine of information – not just in music, but we have an intelligent, sentient creature from a different world, culture, and history that is completely unknown to us!”
“Are you sure about the cultural part?” Spike questioned, and Twilight asked what he meant. “Was it me, or did he mispronounced Buch? He said that he has a couple books on Bach and not Buch. Did you notice that?”
Rainbow thought hard on it, “Wait a sec, yeah he’s right! I think he did mispronounce that guy’s name. If that’s true, then maybe he was just simply teleported from somewhere in the world.”
“But what does that prove?” Twilight questioned. “For all we know, Bach could be completely different from Buch. Just because they have similar sounding names, doesn’t mean they’re the same pony. But we’re getting off topic, the giant has written music with him. Music that’s completely unknown to Equestria.”
“Well yeah,” Rainbow sat down on her haunches. “So the guy writes music, so what? What are we going to do with him? He says that he can’t go anywhere for a full year, what else is he supposed to do other the writing? Not only that, but we don’t know what the guy eats or drinks (other than coffee), where he’s going to sleep, or what he’s gonna be doing while he’s here.”
“Rainbow does have point Twilight,” Spike commented. “We don’t really know much about this guy, and the fact that he’s huge! He’s nearly as tall as Celestia, and he’s gonna be cramped if he goes inside one of the houses in town. Heck, I don’t think the hotel on the other side of town has a room big enough to fit him in.”
“As much as I don’t want to admit this, but you’re right.” She turned towards a window to look out of. “We’d need to focus on priorities first, as exciting as it is to have an alien creature from a different world that is a composer, how are we going to take care of him?”
The three of them thought for a moment before the baby dragon suggested, “What about Applejack’s barn? I mean, just until we’ve found a proper place for him to sleep in, he could probably crash there until we find something better. Or maybe we should tell Celestia about him and see if she would have any ideas on where to keep him.”
“Or why not do both,” Twilight asked. “That would make the most logical sense; have him reside at Sweet Apple Acres until Celestia could find him a better place. Rainbow, could you go find Applejack and ask her if she could spare the barn to let Mr. Beethoven reside in until we get this sorted out. Oh! While you’re at it, could you also go get Fluttershy to make a checkup with him to make sure that he isn’t sick with anything?”
“Fair enough,” Rainbow got up and headed towards the window. “But should I also tell them that the guy can’t hear?”
“It would give them an expectation,” she said before watching her best friend fly out the window. “Okay Spike, I’m gonna need you to send a letter to Princess Celestia, but after that, I’m gonna need you to run some errands.”
“Sure, but what do you have in mind?”
“Well, since Mr. Beethoven wears clothes, I think we need to get Rarity to come and try to make some more clothing for him to wear for the coming year. Also, I need you to round up some volunteers in moving his things to the barn so I guess you’ll need Pinkie’s help with that.”
“Got it, but would Pinkie throw him a welcoming party for him? You know, him being new and all?”
“You can tell her that she can throw one later after we help move his music to a more suitable location. Once we get him settled down, then we can worry about sharing his music to all of Equestria.”
“Understandable,” Spike went over to a desk and took out a quill and paper. “So what are we going to tell Celestia?”
“Leave that to me,” she began, “Dear Princess Celestia…”
_*_
Downstairs in Ludwig’s head, a bagatelle was playing in his head. His imagination was in the key of F minor as he sketched out his worry. This place, this Equestria really was everything that the shadow had promised him. He was now somewhere where creatures of myth existed, where Vienna, Europe, human and Beethoven are unknown words to them. And given the fact that he may spend a year far away from human contact, including his friends, and his nephew Karl, made him truly alone.
The piano sketch slowly danced between the eighths, sixteenth and half notes in a rhythm that expressed his concern of ever seeing home again. In a way, he felt helpless once again, as if fate was taking him another step in making him more isolated from his fellow men. It’s a feeling that he hates aside from the daily humiliation of his hearing loss.
“Mr. Beethoven?”
In a way, he hadn’t felt this alone since the days he was in Heiligenstadt twenty-three years ago, that he hoped the quiet fresh air would sooth the ringing in his ears. Though the bars and dots of the notes, he could almost hear the stillness of that day in October. Those thoughts when he mentally felt like the last man on earth.
“Mr. Beethoven?”
But here was different, first his hearing isolated him from the voices of his friends, his family, his piano, his city and his army of musicians. Now, however, he was in an alien world where little is familiar to him. The world it seems has been long taken over by equines while man is nowhere to be seen.
“Excuse me,” he was suddenly jerked out of his thoughts when he felt a tug on his coattails.
“What!” he quickly turned around to find the lilac pony there, her wings spread open. She held up a message for him.
I’m sorry to bother you, but I think you should know that I’ve been making arrangements to find you a place to stay. At the moment, we’ve come to an agreement that since you so much taller than a normal pony that you should stay at the barn of one of my friends until we find a more suitable place for you.
“A barn,” Ludwig questioned. “I’m going to be sleeping in a barn?”
Twilight jot down her response:
It’s only temporary sir. I’ve just written to a fellow princess that’s higher up from me to find someplace that accommodates to your size. But in the meantime, we’re organizing some volunteers to help you move whatever was in your apartment to the barn. Also, I’ve just asked a friend of mine that’s a seamstress to take your measurements for clothes you’ll be needing and another friend to make sure that you’re not sick if that’s alright with you.
Beethoven looked between the levitated note and the pony holding it in place, “Why are you doing this? I just arrived out of nowhere for you creatures, and now you’re taking care of me?”
Because I’m curious about you, and that I want to get to know you and your kind better. So if you can come with me and show us where your apartment is, can you tell me about yourself and your music?
Ludwig got up, stuffing the bagatelle into his pocket. “Since I have the only key to the room, I might as well.”