Category: Spring Awakening
Characters: Ilse, Georg
Summary: Ilse and Georg have very different ways of dealing with their issues.
Notes: For Alexa (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
pheep). Yay, I'm getting started on my fic requests :D
When Ilse was six, she played pirates down by the river. Dew-dampened grass tickled the soles of her dainty bare feet as she chased wispy imagination-fuelled clouds down the avenue of childhood escapism – anything her pretty little head could conjure up, waltzing through swashbuckling adventures, sailing over meadows of flowers, skipping over the walking bridge, splashing through the shallow creek. Daytimes were special and wonderful and she never wanted them to end, never wanted the sun to set. Because as the sun set, the butterfly closed its wings; everything fell silent, and the chasm deep within her bubbled up with loneliness.
When Georg was six, he played the piano. His little hands strained to span an octave as he practiced under the watchful eye of teachers and parents. He played hard, flushing with satisfaction upon completing an étude perfectly, cringing when the wooden ruler crashed down upon his knuckles for mangling a piece. Praise and rebuke came in turn; meanwhile, he kept on playing, just to reach that high C. People were too temperamental, he decided. People saw you as a sum total of your faults and achievements placed up on a tallying score-board. So he retreated. Slowly, note by note, as his peers became familiar with each other, Georg became very well acquainted with Chopin and Bach.
***
When Ilse turned twelve, the pirates gave way to plundering bandits in the night-time scuttling through the dark brush. The dew-coated green blades of grass had, through summers and winters, dried up and been trampled underfoot, much like the once-lush imaginations of her former playmates. Some eschewed freedom for bookish confines, but Ilse continued to run. As they learned Latin and trigonometry, Ilse learned how to lose herself in that little provincial town where walls seemed too high and sunset seemed to come too early. And calluses began to crisscross the soles of her feet, feet that lashed out in the dark and carried her far, far away.
When Georg turned twelve, he’d tackled pieces beyond his teachers’ expectations. He was talented, they said, but he needed something respectable to see him through life. School provided a brief interlude between pieces; homework a hassle to speed through before music lessons. As students straggled in twos or threes after class, chatting, satchels flapping loosely by their sides, Georg muttered music as an excuse to extricate himself from the inane chatter of expectations and tests and how it all didn’t matter anyway. Oh, how he hated this hypocrisy, oh, how he longed to be part of it! Looking out of the window only intensified the hunger, so he drew the blinds shut, turned on the oil-lamp, and paid homage to alternating flats and sharps in the tinkling stream of chromatics and arpeggios.
***
When Ilse turns fifteen, she has gone far from the glades and pirates and bandits. Day and night meld into one; they are not so far different when one’s stumbling through forests intoxicated on the heady rush of power and wine. It is freeing and she is happy, or something like that; she twirls through the trees kicking up clouds of dust and jumping through autumn’s fallen leaves, feeling the breeze wash through her hair and fingers. “Easy there, Ilse,” Johan says, wrapping his hands around her soft, pliable waist and she giggles, taking a swipe at the blue-daubed paintbrush tangled in her wispy curls. “Paint me,” Ilse laughs, “paint me out on the open seas,” and then, almost like an afterthought, “free.” And he agrees, but when he turns back, she is gone, slipped right through his fingers; all around him, he can hear her frothy laugh.
Meanwhile, Georg turns fifteen, and struggles through sheafs and sheafs of Shostakovich while trying to keep his eyes on the notes and key signatures. He wants to reach out to Fraulein Grossebustenhalter the way he’s never wanted to before; instead, he keeps his hands to himself, pouring out unrestrained, unfiltered emotion into his music, alternately stroking and slamming down upon those well-used ivory keys, coaxing out every subtle hint of feeling from each piece – and she praises him for his technique, good job, she says, patting him on the cheek lightly, and that is that. He sits hollowly back upon the wooden bench, watching her leave – did he say thank you? goodbye? – and then places his tapered fingers back on the keys; starved, he plays like he’s never played before, devouring the music with every trembling fibre of his being, drowning.
--
Constructive critique and reviews are very much appreciated!
x-posted to![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif)
safans
Characters: Ilse, Georg
Summary: Ilse and Georg have very different ways of dealing with their issues.
Notes: For Alexa (
pheep). Yay, I'm getting started on my fic requests :DWhen Ilse was six, she played pirates down by the river. Dew-dampened grass tickled the soles of her dainty bare feet as she chased wispy imagination-fuelled clouds down the avenue of childhood escapism – anything her pretty little head could conjure up, waltzing through swashbuckling adventures, sailing over meadows of flowers, skipping over the walking bridge, splashing through the shallow creek. Daytimes were special and wonderful and she never wanted them to end, never wanted the sun to set. Because as the sun set, the butterfly closed its wings; everything fell silent, and the chasm deep within her bubbled up with loneliness.
When Georg was six, he played the piano. His little hands strained to span an octave as he practiced under the watchful eye of teachers and parents. He played hard, flushing with satisfaction upon completing an étude perfectly, cringing when the wooden ruler crashed down upon his knuckles for mangling a piece. Praise and rebuke came in turn; meanwhile, he kept on playing, just to reach that high C. People were too temperamental, he decided. People saw you as a sum total of your faults and achievements placed up on a tallying score-board. So he retreated. Slowly, note by note, as his peers became familiar with each other, Georg became very well acquainted with Chopin and Bach.
***
When Ilse turned twelve, the pirates gave way to plundering bandits in the night-time scuttling through the dark brush. The dew-coated green blades of grass had, through summers and winters, dried up and been trampled underfoot, much like the once-lush imaginations of her former playmates. Some eschewed freedom for bookish confines, but Ilse continued to run. As they learned Latin and trigonometry, Ilse learned how to lose herself in that little provincial town where walls seemed too high and sunset seemed to come too early. And calluses began to crisscross the soles of her feet, feet that lashed out in the dark and carried her far, far away.
When Georg turned twelve, he’d tackled pieces beyond his teachers’ expectations. He was talented, they said, but he needed something respectable to see him through life. School provided a brief interlude between pieces; homework a hassle to speed through before music lessons. As students straggled in twos or threes after class, chatting, satchels flapping loosely by their sides, Georg muttered music as an excuse to extricate himself from the inane chatter of expectations and tests and how it all didn’t matter anyway. Oh, how he hated this hypocrisy, oh, how he longed to be part of it! Looking out of the window only intensified the hunger, so he drew the blinds shut, turned on the oil-lamp, and paid homage to alternating flats and sharps in the tinkling stream of chromatics and arpeggios.
***
When Ilse turns fifteen, she has gone far from the glades and pirates and bandits. Day and night meld into one; they are not so far different when one’s stumbling through forests intoxicated on the heady rush of power and wine. It is freeing and she is happy, or something like that; she twirls through the trees kicking up clouds of dust and jumping through autumn’s fallen leaves, feeling the breeze wash through her hair and fingers. “Easy there, Ilse,” Johan says, wrapping his hands around her soft, pliable waist and she giggles, taking a swipe at the blue-daubed paintbrush tangled in her wispy curls. “Paint me,” Ilse laughs, “paint me out on the open seas,” and then, almost like an afterthought, “free.” And he agrees, but when he turns back, she is gone, slipped right through his fingers; all around him, he can hear her frothy laugh.
Meanwhile, Georg turns fifteen, and struggles through sheafs and sheafs of Shostakovich while trying to keep his eyes on the notes and key signatures. He wants to reach out to Fraulein Grossebustenhalter the way he’s never wanted to before; instead, he keeps his hands to himself, pouring out unrestrained, unfiltered emotion into his music, alternately stroking and slamming down upon those well-used ivory keys, coaxing out every subtle hint of feeling from each piece – and she praises him for his technique, good job, she says, patting him on the cheek lightly, and that is that. He sits hollowly back upon the wooden bench, watching her leave – did he say thank you? goodbye? – and then places his tapered fingers back on the keys; starved, he plays like he’s never played before, devouring the music with every trembling fibre of his being, drowning.
--
Constructive critique and reviews are very much appreciated!
x-posted to
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