#edhei

notes: for it wouldn't be me if there weren't any!

A. "ad astra per" is "to the stars through/by..." but I won't finish it here, for it's a spoiler, as it were.

B. yes, this is a ship 'fic (an AIRship 'fic, ha ha ha--) but it's rather PG. it is also terribly sentimental.

C. I learned SO much about ballooning for this.

image text - story excerpts:

1. “It’s not a kidnapping—you consented,” Alfons answers from behind the map that he’s unfolded and positioned mere centimeters in front of his nose. [...] The sky is only just beginning to lighten in the distance, outlining the very edges of the hills. Whether they’ll reach their mystery destination before the sun climbs over the precipice remains to be seen. It’s an unfair game, however: only one party in this race knows the coordinates of the finish line—well, two, if one counts both Alfons and the sun.

2. “If you’re taking me to see the sunrise,” Edward grumbles, ignoring a paradoxical, somewhat mortifying twinge of pleasure at that previously unanticipated possibility, “then I’m going to tell you there were easier ways to do this. Like—what’s that church off Marienplatz? Not the Frauenkirche; the tower. Old Peter. Might be a thousand goddamn steps, but I swear—”

“It’s not that,” Alfons chuckles, though he winces at the idea of climbing the stairs and reflexively presses a hand to his chest.

[...] Edward needs a moment to parse all of this visual information into something that makes sense—and all the while Alfons is nearly doubled over laughing, shaking with delight as though he’s lost his mind, and rushing to get his words out first:

“Do you see? It’s—”

“A balloon!”

3. [ Edward’s surprised ] at the peculiar feeling of going upward, as though in a lift, but feeling so exposed; at the ground getting smaller and smaller beneath them and the horizon growing wider, spreading out into the vast expanse of sky. At once he feels incredibly human and like some sort of god of his own, at the mercy of a spike of raw, unexpected fear teetering on the edge of wonder. Maybe this is what Alfons feels when he imagines space flight—terror and exhilaration.

4. They fall into silence, Edward and Alfons shoulder to shoulder as they watch the red orb of the sun give them chase and climb higher, its pinks spreading out into the blues and running into oranges. Now that they’ve stabilized, Edward finds it laughable that he was so frightened—what an idiot, letting an unfamiliar sensation get the best of his brain! He loosens his grip on the basket’s edge and even chances a glance downward. Fog swirls around the checkered land, decking the yellow fields, dirt patches waiting for sprouts, and verdant stretches of fledgling crops alike. Alfons nudges him to get his attention, and Edward follows his outstretched hand to the dramatic outline of the Alps in the farthest distance, towering over the humble hills and flatland leading up to them. Edward isn’t often given to such sentimentality, but somehow it strikes him as incredible now: the power of the earth that moves to form these mountains, and—though it’s not possible here—the amazing ingenuity of the brain that can draw from these elements and move nature itself with alchemy.

image description and sources - visuals:

1. A map of Augsburg and the western outskirts (source)

2. A serendipitous ad for the August Riedinger Balloon Factory in Augsburg, found by accident at the back of the English translation of the Pocket Book of Aeronautics (source)

3. Excerpt of the title page of "Eine Ballonfahrt" - 1896 sheet music. I learned that "aeronautical love songs" is an entire genre from the turn of the century. (source)

4. Another map of Augsburg and its southern outskirts (source)