Ludwig’s head was stinging. His eyes hurt in the light of the sun; so much so, he tries to shut out the light with a blanket over his head. Laying on his bed, he listens carefully to the ringing in his ears that morphed a choir of monks and nuns singing mass to an arrangement of strings. Violins to double-bass’s pray together for the same things: returning home, peace, hope of a better future, that God was listening in a faraway world, just to name a few.
What Beethoven didn’t notice was that his door opened and his Landlady entered in. Lyra looked over the large room at the disorganized mess. “Huh? Are all humans so messy?” she wondered aloud. She noticed that the bathroom door was open and emptied, yet it too had sketches of musical notes lying on the floor. “Did the maid come today? Where is… oh, never mind,” she walked up to the lump on the bed.
Pulling on the blanket, Ludwig jerked up, “Huh! What?” He looked down at the pony near the bed. “Oh, the Landlady with the human fetish,” he rubbed his eyes. “What time is it?”
“I don’t have a fetish,” Lyra protested. “But anyway, it’s almost se-”
“Ach, too many words,” he interrupted. “Where’s that scroll?”
“Here, I’ll write it down,” the unicorn said as she snatched a quill and paper.
“What? Did you say something?”
The mint green pony wrote down her response.
I don’t have a fetish, it’s an interest, there's a difference. Also, it’s almost seven.
“Already?” Beethoven looked out the window. “Huh, I must have lost track of time.” He got up, “I’ll be going to be eating out at the Harvest Tavern for dinner.” He looked down at himself, “Gott, ich bin ein Chaos.” Standing up, he reached for his waist and overcoat, “I apologize for the mess, my maid told me through a letter that she’s too ill to work but hopefully will be better within a day or two.”
“That explains it,” Lyra nodded in acknowledgment before turning to the paper.
Since you’ve stopped dumping water in the middle of the room, I was wondering if it’ll be possible for me and Bon Bon to have dinner with you, just to get to know you better, and to congratulate you on your success.
Ludwig raised an eyebrow, “What success? What are you talking about? Where’s that magic scroll?” He went over to the only standing piano in the room in which he brushed aside some loose notes until he found it. “Ah, here it is,” he unrolled it, “As you were saying.”
Lyra looked confused, “You mean that you don’t know? The orchestra you were with has released a record of your third symphony, and copies of it are selling like crazy! I think right now that the record album is on the top ten bestselling lists. I’ve read the reviews from critics, and most of them liked it.”
“Records?” Beethoven asked, “Are you talking about those funny black discs that have groves in them like tree rings?”
“Eh… close enough. The point being is that the recording of your symphony is getting in a crazy amount of bits in the past few weeks. In fact, Derpy has heavy packages for you that are full of bits. She said something that it’s from the orchestra in giving your share of the sales.”
“So in other words, I’m a very rich man?” She nodded. Ludwig laughed, “This is Wunderbar! Looks like I don’t have to ask that purple princess for money anymore!” he smiled, “This calls a feast! I’ll take on your invitation for dinner, and we’ll go out to someplace that has a good standing.”
“Really?” Lyra blinked, “You would do that?”
“Good fortune is not a lengthy visitor,” he put on his waistcoat. “One should take advantage of it when such luck and wealth presents itself.”
“Okay then. I was hoping to ask you some questions for a book I’m writing. Since you’re the only human around, I thought I just wanted to ask you what your home was like.”
“If I get my hands on a couple pints of ale, I’ll tell you all about it,” he said. “Why not you go fetch the coins? I’ll be down there in a minute.”
While Lyra trotted down the stairs, Ludwig was putting on his overcoat, stuffing it with some scrap paper and pencils before turning to his shoes. As he was putting them on, however, he noticed in peripheral vision that the room was getting darker. Looking up, the light from the windows was being swallowed up, looking behind him, he saw the glass outside of the windows was being covered by something thick and black that poured over like oil.
When the room became completely dark, Ludwig fumbled over to the standing piano to take out a box of matches in order to lit some candles to get some light. Once this was done, he took the candelabra over to the window in which he found to be locked. “What is going-” his answer came as he saw it.
Like the first time he saw it, the shadow was pressed up against the door, its head lowered to the ceiling. An arm stretched across the floor and over onto the standing piano to where the magic scroll was and picked it up. This time, the scroll didn’t show its clear black ink but formed into gray words upon the parchment.
Quickly overcoming the shock, Beethoven scowled, "You again? What are you doing here for? It's not even June."
I’ve come to check up on you. My employer wishes to know how you are progressing.
“I'm not finished in case you haven't noticed.”
Quite true. No, you still have plenty of time. I wanted to see how far you’ve come with your work.
More hands stretched over the walls and the floor, grabbing up the pieces of paper off the ground.
Ah good… You haven’t neglected the request. Ah! What are these?
The shadow brought dozens of particular pages to its flat face.
A string quartet? Oh please don’t tell me that you’re getting distracted Herr Beethoven?
“Let those go!” Ludwig said as he started snatching the paper from the many arms of the shadow. “These are not for you! I have other ideas that I would like to work on the side too. I'll have you know that I have not been lazy with my symphony.”
The scroll came up to his face.
Oh I already know that. I've seen you write whenever you're not teaching ponies to play your music getting homesick. At least my Employer would be pleased that you are, indeed, working on his request.
“I am not your plaything!” Ludwig yelled as he threw an ink bottle at the shadow which shattered and splashed ink upon the wall. But to his bewilderment, the dark ink was somehow sucked into the creature like a sponge.
Frankly Herr Beethoven, that was quite rude. I'm only here because my job demands it, and all you're able to do is to cry about how you're forced to work on a piece of music? Well, if this keeps up, then I'm afraid that I have to go and tell my Employer that you're not interested in the symphony, nor going home.
Ludwig froze at what he read.
I was told that you can get rather cold, but I couldn't imagine you be this way in returning to go home to Vienna where you left behind an offended friend like Schiller to think that you're still angry at him. Or to leave your poor Karl into thinking that you've hated him for not becoming what you wanted to be. And how will you're "Angle," your "Immortal Beloved" would take the news that you've disappeared forever, leaving her all alone to mend a shattered heart?
With his head nearly bursting into flames, Beethoven marched over to the wall where the shadow stood, "You leave them out of this!" he demanded.
For what reason? Because I told you a truth that you don't want to hear? You and I know that the only way things can ever go back to normal and for me to leave you forever alone is if you finish the tenth. After all, you have your job and I have mine to make sure that you're still willing to write it. Given the fact that your mind has wandered off to writing a string quartet, I'd say that you don't want to go home to redeem yourself from your guilt.
“I haven’t neglected it," Ludwig said as he started to snatch his sketches back, "if that’s what you’re trying to say. I have been working on it day and night to make it sound perfect.” He grabbed another page from the shadow’s hands. “I don’t get it at all. Out of all the composers you could have kidnapped and force them to compose music for you, why me? You might get something out of Schubert or Sedlatzek. Or even Cherubini for crying out loud! Now there's the kind of man you want to kidnap and force to write music. Cherubini alone surpasses me in quality. S out of all the composers in Vienna your demon of an employer could have chosen to kidnap and write against their will, why go for the one that could not hear a thing? There are better composers then I am!”
My Employer disagrees. He’s a fanatic of your work. As I said, I’m only doing my job, Herr Beethoven. If my Employer wanted something from, say... An artist or a politician, I carry out his instructions. This isn’t anything personal. I only carry out what I’m told. No questions asked. For at least I do take pride in my work.
Narrowing his eyes, the composer folded his arms, “While I don’t know why I’m being placed in a world dominated by ponies that most of them don’t come up to my knee, I still work. For I do happen to like to juggle several themes in my head at once. I have to so that I wouldn't go insane on top of not being able to hear anything. Besides, if these ponies are taking an interest in my music, the least I could do is to show them how to play it right."
Understandable. Since you seem comfortable and hard at work, I think it’s about time I make my leave. I’ll be back to see how you’re progressing. Auf Wiedersehen, Herr Beethoven.
The shadow shrunk away, dropping all the other manuscripts onto the floor as he shrunk behind the door. From the windows, light returned, revealing that he hadn’t moved at all. So Ludwig quickly opened the door to the stairs, only to find nothing there.
Thinking that he might be able to catch it, he crawled backward as fast as he could down the narrow stairs to the outside. But no matter where he looked, it seemed that the shadow was long gone.
"Verdammt!" he screamed, to which, caught the attention of his Landlady.
"Mr. Beethoven?" she called out, but he didn't look down. After pulling on his sleeve did he take notice. "What's going on?" she asked slowly.
Ludwig, however, sharply turned back to the open door of his apartment. Cursing up a storm under his breath.
_*_
Two sets of hooves slammed on the baby grand piano, its ugly cords rang throughout the house. Horseshoepin glared at the piano part of Beethoven’s concerto. “This is impossible!” he vented, resting his elbows onto the piano, pulling his mane with his hooves.
Frederic had been practicing the concerto ever since he lost his bet in proving the giant wasn’t deaf. In that bet, he promised that if he lost, then he would have to perform both two of his piano concertos. Normally he wouldn’t mind doing so, even with the most difficult pieces from Buch and Moztrot, he was able to learn each piece within a few weeks.
But this, however, he found that this Fourth Piano Concerto to be a real frustrating challenge since it broken nearly every rule in the book. For one, instead of the orchestra introducing the piano, it’s the solo instrument that’s taking the lead. It was also very detailed about how loud and soft each and every moment is supposed to be. And to top it all off, there were cords that demanded his hooves had to stretch in order to play them.
“Celestia, I really hate that giant,” he moaned as rubbed his eyes. “I need a break from this.”
Getting off the bench, he went over to a bookshelf in the music room where a portfolio was kept. He flipped open his manuscripts to an unfinished piano work. These were not the publish works that he released to the public, but rather, these were his more personal pieces. They were the ones about the nostalgia of his home country. Before he returned to his instrument, he also took out a jar of earth to be carried on his back.
Taking a quill with him and sitting at the piano, he put the Beethoven music sheets aside for his own work. He looked at his unfinished nocturne, the one that was in the key of C-sharp minor, and meditated for a moment, looking at the jar that was sitting beside the music. When he was ready, he pressed on the keys, remembering his homeland.
He played through what was written on the scratched paper for a bit, reminiscing about a rainy day that he left his country in an uprising. Back on the day he was given the jar of earth of his native homeland, so that no matter where he goes, he will always have a piece of something familiar with him. However, when he got to the part of the music where he left off, his hooves went still.
“Now what?” he asked himself as he stared at the page. While the music was okay by his standings, he felt that something was missing. Only, he couldn’t for the life of him put his hoof on what exactly it was. “What exactly am I overlooking?”
Pausing, his eyes drifted back to the piano concerto lying across the jar. Picking it up, he flipped to the second movement. Looking over at the notes that he has to play after the orchestra makes its brooding entry, he found it odd that he plays in a quiet, slow way. The long notes, while not too difficult to play, he noted a section that caught his interest. Near the middle of the second movement, there was a simplistic, if not tragic note that bled through the paper. As if the giant who wrote this was too missing something personal.
In a way, whatever he may have thought of him, Horseshoepin thought that in those bars, there was something they might have in common. This got him to thinking if such emotion like that was the key to this difficult piece. But to make sure, he would probably go down to meet the giant himself.