From the diary of Griselda Vargas-Beilschmidt

40

Uncle Prussia is still gone, so Mr Austria and Ms Hungary visited, because they don't usually get along with Uncle Prussia very well for more than, say, ten minutes. I got a lot of information for the research, but I'm skipping.

Ms Hungary is really nice to me, she's the one to do "girly things" with, as Vati calls it. But the truth is, she teaches me how to properly wield a frying pan more than how to make interesting types of braids. But she did dress me up a few times and then took like a thousand pictures. Overall, she's nice.

Mr Austria is nice too, but he keeps his distance from us children. He probably had enough in the days of the empire, you know. The few times he was basically forced to spend some time with us it usually ended up like the Christmas market. Us scattered and him depressed. There was a time about six years ago when my dads wanted me to learn some instrument and I picked the flute, because it looked way simpler than the piano, or saxophone, and Gabe already had the guitar. Uncle Prussia was very proud at my choice, despite it being a normal wooden one.

I can't say I didn't learn absolutely anything, but Mr Austria isn't a very good teacher.

Kept yelling about the keys or something. I honestly don't know. What I did discover was: music is not for me, at least not in the professional way. I enjoy it, sure, but Mr Austria didn't appreciate that very much.

Though it would be nice to learn the drums that I found not long ago. I don't think Austria can play them, that's a plus. And - what can you mess up with them? The rythm? Probably the rythm, but I could learn that. It's worth a shot, no?

I mean, all of the squad plays something - Gabe has his guitar, which he can play like a god when he wants to, Fred his flute, George says he's sometimes practicing the electric guitar when England's not at home, Faroe has this weird old viking-era styled flute made out of a real horn!, Lars is a violinist, Ingrid's a conductor, Ashleigh sings, Anni has the tube and Greenland is accompanying us on the wooden sticks.

Yeah, the one time we brought all our instruments together, it was... chaos, and a loud one. Mr Austria's ears almost bled - that's what he says. So we decided to stop before someone loses their hearing. Maybe I'll tell you the whole story next time.

I like singing, too. It's easy, you don't need any notes or anything and can do it anytime you want. But when we all tried to sing together, it completely crashed and burned right in stage one: deciding what to sing. Ashleigh wanted some musical, maybe Disney, Anni ABBA, Faroe some old viking song, George suggested Queen, Fred a march, I wanted a simple song about flowers and Gabe and Ingrid didn't want to sing at all.

So that's about it. We argued until it was time to go back to the hotel for dinner, sleep, and then back home. We never repeated that. Too bad I can't take the drums with me on a meeting now. Oh, did I not tell you? Another meeting is soon! In like... what? Two weeks? I think?

Back to Ms Hungary and Mr Austria, though. Here comes the interesting part: I asked them about the Holy Roman empire guy they mentioned once. They looked at each other, suddenly saddened.

"Well, Grissie, you see, he's.."

"Dead?" I went straight to the point. She nodded. "I expected that much." I scribbled in my notebook the affirmation.

"But Gris!" she spoke loudly. "Don't tell your Papa!"

"Huh?" I looked up at her, "tell him what?"

"That he's... you know..." she seemed uncomfortable with this topic.

"Dead?" I repeated. She nodded again. I frowned but didn't ask for further explaining. "Okay," I shrugged, because it seemed really important. I don't get it, but I'll trust her. Ah, the secrets nations have.

"You two knew him well?"

"We were taking care of him," she replied with sad, broken almost, voice.

"Oh! What was he like?" I asked, not lifting my head from the notebook page.

"Shy, sweet..." she continued. And I wrote and wrote and wrote it down until I had everything. "Blonde hair, blue eyes..." I repeated after her. "Sounds kinda like little Vati, doesen't it?" I smiled. She looked away and coughed. "I- I suppose so..."

"Ms Hungary?" I asked to relieve the stress, "could you please show me how to braid that curly braid again?"

She smiled, delighted. "Of course!"

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Oh, I have my own plans for HRE, but that'll be slow burn. 

Next chapter we'll skip right to the meeting, because I have planned finally some D R A M A.

'Til next time! :)