The Bright Colours of Misery [COMPLETED]

𝙲𝙷𝙰𝙿𝚃𝙴𝚁 𝙵𝙾𝚁𝚃𝚈 𝚂𝙸𝚇 -condusion, hurt, hope and condoleances-

Heidi had started painting again, her mother and Helga might have been featured in many of them, painted with bright, vibrant and emotional colours. One could almost say they had saved Heidi's inner artist. All that 15 year old Heidi now knew about them gave her hope, and most of her drawings at the time were created purely out of hope that she would have what they did. She often thought of Tilda, more than she ever had, she allowed her feelings for her to grow for the first time in her life, and let's say she had underestimated how consuming this type of love could be once free.

She wasn't obsessed with her, far from it, but certain things and certain conversations started turning around her like a planet around the bright shining sun.

She spent more time at her house than ever before and even went to the library to read books about music and different pianists only to impress her, and to see that small surprised smile of hers when My beloved person would quote a famous composer or compared her own melodies to successful symphonies. Winter slowly turned into summer, and her commitment only grew. Heidi learned how to read musical notes because of how much time she spent at the mayor's house. She developed a rather good relationship with the mayor himself, he had a particular affiliation to art and could talk about it with Heidi for hours. The young lady never had the courage to show him her own work, though, despite the many temptations for her to do so, doubt drove all those ideas away for better or for worse. I'm sure the old man would have been brutally honest with her, which might have done her some good. I believe there is nothing better than some constructive criticism from time to time.

Frau Krause had also grown quite fond of the red haired girl, and invited her over for lunch regularly. However, I must say, it had taken her a while to trust her to do so. After all, the mayor and his wife were arguably the wealthiest couple in town and had a certain reputation to uphold. After seeing the state of my human being's house a year or two back, when Wilma had experienced her first and worst panic attack, Matilda Krause had been rather shocked by the state of it, shocked or disgusted. Fortunately, Heidi had managed to slightly change her view on things and after a while, the older woman realised her reputation could not be damaged by heid's presence alone, or perhaps she even stopped caring for it at all. I truly hope it was the latter, but one can never be sure, I suppose.

One particular Saturday in November, as the summer had recently turned into winter again, Heidi sat with the krause's enjoying a lunch she could still not quite grasp was real. Herr Krause began a conversation about Heidi's brother, asking many questions Heidi barely had the answer to. How is he doing? Which front is he fighting on? Is he lucky enough to come home on leave soon? She answered them all politely, piecing together the small amount of information her brother gave away in his scarce letters at the speed of light. Eventually she had enough of the questions, because she truly didn't know much, and the fact they hadn't received any news for weeks had been troubling her family lately, especially since they had informed him of his father's death in their last letter. Trudy feared he had done something, maybe the news had been too harsh on him, all Heidi could do was pray her mother's worried antics wouldn't prove to be true, for the sake of her family. In short, the last thing she wanted to talk about was her brother's participation in the army.

"Why are you asking about him?" She eventually asked, with more irritation lacing her voice than she had anticipated right as she slammed her glass of water on the table. Frau Krause looked up from her plate, alerted by it. Heidi suddenly felt she had pushed her luck a bit with that tone. The Krause's were very into manners and etiquette, she had learned this the hard way long ago.

Herr Krause shifted in his chair with a deep sigh, exhaling a puff of smoke after inhaling the contents of his pipe.

"I'm sorry," He said calmly, to Heidi's surprise. "I understand it's difficult to talk about it, I shouldn't pry like this."
Heidi exhaled deeply. She wasn't in trouble.