Clouded Memories von HubertOswell (Remembering you) ================================================================================ Kapitel 1: ----------- Francis kept close watch on the landscape passing by outside the window of the car. He had been uncharacteristically quiet all day. This worried Ludwig, especially since Francis had spent weeks of persuading, begging and generally annoying Ludwig to get him to take him on this trip. Even though he dreaded the answer, Ludwig asked after a while: “Is something the matter? You're awfully silent all day.” “I'm just enjoying the road and the countryside,” Francis murmured. His voice seemed to come from far away. This wasn't the expected answer and Ludwig was glad he didn't have to listen to another tragic love affair of Francis'. “I have a lot of memories about this place,” Francis went on after a while. “Me too,” Ludwig murmured darkly. They were traveling north through his western states. Francis had made him visit the Pfalz and Mainz and then practically forced him to go further north even though they already ought to be heading back, both of them having work waiting for them at home. Francis turned around to watch him with an odd look on his face. “I wonder how much these are alike to mine,” he said. He watched Ludwig so closely it made him feel uncomfortable. “Well,” he started, gripping the steering wheel tighter. “Considering our common history it isn't hard to guess.” His ears turned crimson. He hated this topic. There was no way anyone could make him feel worse than he did make himself feel about everything he had done. But it seemed to him there were a few who thought it was still worth trying. Francis usually wasn't one of them, knowing his own demons of the past well enough. “Go on.” The smile on Francis' lips did reach neither his eyes nor his voice. Ludwig felt like he could only say the wrong thing. So he shrugged. “There's a lot to pick from the last hundred years,” he said, his voice shaking a bit. He dreaded some of the memories. To his surprise, Francis laughed. This startled Ludwig even more than screaming would have. “Sometimes you really are a young fool,” Francis said after some more time. Ludwig had already resumed paying all his attention on the street. He liked driving around places like this. They were about half an hour from Aachen if he had to guess. “Pardon?” Francis waved his hand. “Oh, it's nothing,” he said. “But the memories I had been talking about... well, they were also about traveling this general direction to this particular city. And about a delicate blue-eyed child.” Inside his mind, Ludwig rolled his eyes. There Francis went again. And there he had been glad not to hear another love story. “How could I have the same memories then?” Ludwig asked the question he presumed to be to ask anyway. Francis watched him with another odd look. “I don't know,” he sighed. “I just somehow hoped you had.” “As if I would tell you about any of my previous lovers!” Ludwig huffed. “Lovers?” Francis asked. He seemed to take his time to think about this word. “I doubt you could call that child's relationship to me this.” Ludwig didn't ask any more questions, even though this answer had puzzled him. Francis went back to looking out of the windows. ~*~ After Ludwig had parked his Käfer somewhere near the middle of the town, they wandered through the streets of the old part of Aachen. This city never failed to amaze Ludwig. There were so many old medieval buildings. “Want to go there?” Ludwig asked as they walked up to the Marschiertor. Francis shrugged. “It's not why I wanted to come here, but why not,” he said. Ludwig raised an eyebrow. Again, he didn't dare to ask a question. He somehow didn't want to hear any more stories about that child. He followed Francis up to the gate. In the middle of the gate's inner court, Francis looked up to the sky. He sighed. “This city has changed so much from my memories,” he said, more to himself then to Ludwig. Then he laughed, sadly. “I can't believe I still remember the time I first entered this … town.” Ludwig watched him. He wasn't sure what he felt like now. There was something ringing at the edge of his mind. He knew the feeling, he had had it some times before, like when Feliciano or Roderich or anyone told him about the part of his past he himself had no memory about. “I was part of a king's … no, an emperor's party,” Francis went on. “I can't even remember it properly, I was so young back then.” Young, Ludwig repeated inside his head. Before his inner eye, he could suddenly see men and women and children in simple clothing, knights in leather armor, horses and wagons making their way over bad, muddy streets and over other streets that had been paved in ancient times. He felt a warm, small hand in his own tiny hand. Squeezing Ludwig's hand with his, Francis brought him back to the here and now. “Take me to the local church,” Francis demanded. “I need to see it.” Feeling a bit dizzy, Ludwig nodded. ~*~ The inside of the old stone building was somewhat cold. Every step they took echoed through the high room. Candles and the stained-glass windows failed to chase out all of the darkness and let the inner of the church in twilight. The eery silence inside buildings like this always made Ludwig feel uneasy. He followed Francis around the aisles, trying not to pay too much attention to his surroundings. He felt even more dizzy now. Outside the church's gates, he had thought for a moment that it was snowing. There was no snow in the middle of the summer. “Are you alright?” Francis asked. He was suddenly standing right next to Ludwig and looked at him worriedly. “You suddenly stopped.” Ludwig hadn't even noticed that. He shook his head. “No, it's nothing,” he murmured. For a moment he had thought he had heard the sound of hammers on stone, the shouts of men at work. Most of the vague figures in his mind had looked as if they were giants, more than twice his height tall. For a second, he considered that he might be loosing his mind. “Do you want to go outside for a moment?” Francis asked. The answer he had gotten didn't seem to have satisfied him. Ludwig wondered if he looked as bad as his head felt. “But you wanted to come here so bad,” he mumbled. “Just give me a moment to sit down. I'll feel better soon.” Francis nodded. He went to wandering around and let Ludwig sit on the church bench and recover. Ludwig stared up at the ceiling. If he really was remembering things from the past – and he didn't really doubt that anymore, it was the only thing that made sense – then the question was which time and what he was remembering. He couldn't be old enough to remember the construction of the cathedral, could he? He knew the stories as one could know things that he had been told by others. It had been more than 1200 years ago. That was a time when Francis had still been a little kid. Ludwig wasn't sure he had been too. The earliest clear memories he had were of later times. He could only really remember the past 120 years on his own. From former days he only knew the tales of others. There also always had been scents, noises, little pieces of memories that he never understood. But it had never before been like this. Others – Feliciano, Roderich, his brother – had stopped when they noticed that he was feeling unwell with the things they told him. Francis hadn't. Maybe he hadn't even noticed what was wrong with him. It seemed like he was busy with memories of his own. Ludwig tried to focus on the memories. But the more he concentrated, the foggier everything became again, like there weren't any memories left but only their echos and shadows. The only thing he was certain of now was that he had been here before, once in summer and in winter for a long time. Maybe he had even been here every year for decades. He couldn't tell, he just had the indistinct feeling that he remembered different years. There was one memory of a smile that felt like it had been important to him once. He had no idea how the person that the smile had belonged to had looked like. When Francis returned to him, Ludwig was still lost in his own thoughts. He wished he could remember that person. It was worse than not being able to recall Feliciano in his childhood, which was something that seemed to be very important to the little Italian. They walked around some more and eventually went up some stairs. Francis had carefully directed Ludwig there. Ludwig had noticed that this was a place where he had wanted to go but choose to ignore it. He was getting more and more the feeling that Francis was trying to make him remember something from their past. He only tried a different method than most of the others. Francis chuckled as they stood in front of the throne. “I remember playing around one of these,” he said. Before his inner eye, Ludwig saw light blue flaps disappearing behind a throne similar to this. “Is something the matter?” Francis asked. Ludwig hadn't even noticed that he had started smiling. He shook his head. “I was just wondering if that was something you liked to do with that blue-eyed child you mentioned,” Ludwig answered. “It was indeed,” Francis cheered. “He always liked to follow me around after all.” He patted Ludwig on the shoulder but didn't say any more. “He,” Ludwig repeated. “Sounded like you used to be very close. What happened?” He knew what happened. He had read a few history books to fill the basic gaps of his memory after all. But he wanted to hear Francis answer nonetheless. They slowly walked to the exit again. “Politics happened,” Francis said. “The usual, you know? There was a new boss and the new boss had a new agenda. And then more things happened and I simply lost sight. It's not like we didn't get used to this kind of thing happening.” Something, maybe the sound of Francis' voice saying this, maybe the sound of a child crying in his memories, told Ludwig that back then he hadn't been used to that. Ludwig gulped. He didn't like the things he was now vaguely remembering at all. “But you sure have some happy memories with that child, haven't you?” He had the feeling his voice was close to croaking right now. He wanted to hear something, anything to be able to figure out what to make of a smile. The only thing he was sure of now was that the smile had been a very happy one. And that that day as well had been a cold one. “Of course I have,” Francis said as they stepped into the bright sunlight outside. “I have a lot of precious good memories with that child.” He winked. “And I'm still making more.” Ludwig smiled. “Because both of … you have grown up now,” he mused. “And it's easier to forget the bad times together.” Francis nodded. But the look with which he looked at Ludwig now was a bit uncertain. The Frenchman bit his lips. Ludwig raised his hand to push a stray strand of hair out of Francis face. “Your hair has really gotten longer,” he said. As they walked back to his car, he ignored the questions about how he had meant that. ~*~ Some months later, Ludwig had a dream. He was running towards a stone building, pressing something small with his little hands against his thin chest as if not to loose it. His small feet in simple boots splashed through snow and mudd. Heavy whoolen and fur garmets protected him against most of the cold. When he had finally reached the building, he checked the things in his hands. There were only three nuts and one wrinkled apple. He felt nervous. She wouldn't like it, he was convinced. But he wanted to give them to her anyway. It was Christmas after all. He found her in one of the rooms, where most of the people had gathered near a big fireplace. Even inside, it was too cold to take off the thick winter clothes. His heart pounding, he walked up to her. His hands shook as he offered her his presents. He was so nervous he almost dropped them. The smile in her small round face framed by golden curles was the happiest he had ever seen. When he woke up, he was wondering how an angelic girl like the one in his dream could grow up to the person he knew nowadays. ~*~ On Christmas, Francis rechieved a small parcel. Inside of it, there were three nuts, a apple and a note with one word on it. Francis was smiling as he saw that. He had been wondering if his plan had gone as intended. Now he knew. The note read: Benigne! (Thank you!) Hosted by Animexx e.V. (http://www.animexx.de)