Arriving Unannounced [Piter/Private]

((Prepare for many liberties to be taken--))

The house was quite empty, and had been for some time. He sat in the breakfast room, legs crossed, leaning against the chair, relaxed, one arm slung over the armrest, the other extended towards the table, hand sitting upon the glossy surface, fingers tapping a gentle Ave, looking away, seemingly deep in thought.

He could hear the intruders breaking in, their footsteps echoing around the one-thousand, five-hundred rooms. The clocked ticked on. They must have gotten lost--he nearly laughed at their foolishness, to think they could so easily storm the Winter Palace.

When they finally arrived, they burst in on the scene like great heroes, as though they had not just been running around like mice in a maze. The former autocrat glanced over, black eyes falling on the man at the forefront of the group. The man who embodied all that he'd learned to despise in his relatively short lifetime.

"My, my, Moskva, you certainly take your time."

"The game's up, Pyotr. I'm taking over."

The head of the provisional government's expression remained unchanging, though he stood up, the scraping of the chair's legs against the floor a dramatic sound in the cavernous room.

"And do you really think you know more about running this country than I do? Let me join your side, you know you can't do this without me--"

"I suppose you think you're some sort of Talleyrand."

A pause. "Suppose I do."

The Soviet marched up to the table, and slapped down a pen and paper, hissing, "The problem is, that only works once, you goddamned snake." Jutting a finger imperiously at the paper, he declared, "Here's the warrant for your arrest."

"It's blank, you illiterate cretin."

The new capital's lips curled upward into a smile, and the fallen was overcome with the savage urge to ram a gun into that smug expression. "I'm not as eloquent as you. I thought you might like to write it."

"I believe the expression is 'fuck you'."

A handgun was drawn and put to his temple, and the usurper chambered a bullet. The sound was much more dramatic than the chair.

"I know you're not willing to die--not at my hands." He picked up the pen with his free hand and shoved it at the Romanov. "Write, or we'll see just how blue your blood really is."

"Hey, we're here..."

"Take him to the fortress."

"Sir?"

He was being dragged away...away to where he'd first been born...away to be with his father's grave...away while his empire fell to the hands of--

"Sir! Wake up, we're here!"

The large, tired eyes flew open, blinking for a moment, but otherwise unindicative of the visions they'd just seen as he'd fallen asleep in the car. The patched and shabby tents of the ragtags loomed before them--the car having been parked in front of the shabbiest and most unstable-looking of them all. Stepping out, with a wooden box in hand, he said to the driver before closing the door, "This will take a while. Please don't feel free to leave until I come back."

The protests fell on deaf ears as he approached the place, already bustling with the morning work. Stopping a man passing by, he said, "'I'm looking for a brown-haired woman, ungodly thin, and most likely despised by everyone here."

A thumb was jabbed towards the main tent, accompanied by an expression that suggested that his description was accurate.

Entering, it took a moment to realize which one she was--good god, reduced to a seamstress. He'd imagined it would be bad, but seeing it himself made it all the more poignant. He made a mental note to give her a hard time about it later.

Approaching, he announced his presence with a deadpan salutation. "Greetings, serf." He set the chessboard on the sewing table, "Stop working, Franze; I'm so terribly bored."

She never stopped to wonder how things went at Mystique without her-- just that they were going worse than before. She hadn't had any real connection with anyone else besides Auguste. She did talk to the other women alot, but they were probably off better without her. ...And of course, there was Piter. She wondered if he even knew she was gone. She supposed they were friends, though they never really talked the way friends did.

So maybe all would go well if she just stayed to herself like she had there. No one would have reason to hate her because they would never see her. People only arrived to drop off clothes, only Itakshir came and stayed, so she was a little more than surprised when someone else just sat with hardly a greeting. She very nearly caught her finger in the automatic needle.

"Greetings, serf."

It took her a while of blinking and stuttering to realize that the voice was connected to the figure, who was actually there and actually tangible and actually the last person she thought she would see.

"Piter...?"

The heavy thump of the chess set sounded on the table. It was undoubtedly him-- and she wasn't sure how to feel. Her first instinct was to burst into tears and hold onto him, after all, he was her last semblance of her former life. But she had the feeling there would be no comfort in that.

So if he wanted to play chess she would play chess. It was familiar, after all. But she couldn't help but get a little misty-eyed. "How did you find me...?" Why did he go out of his way to find her? It would take a little while for her usual defenses against him to come back, but they were on their way. With a shaky laugh, she added, "You'd really do anything to get on my nerves, wouldn't you?"

Ah, yes, this was what was missing now in his life. A Franze to bother. There was no doubt in his mind, now; already, he was feeling the unbearable need to be entertained beginning to fade.

He began setting up the pieces, placing the whites on her side (he always made her go first--better to plan under the assumption that the enemy's already made their move), "Interestingly enough, I coaxed the information on your whereabouts from a very large, gray-haired man. I should like to meet him sober; he was somewhat amusing." He talked as if they'd not been estranged at all, like this was just like any other day.

"But of course, my life has little meaning left to it if I have no one to annoy," he stated flatly, putting the last pawn in place and gesturing for her to make a move. "I'm sure it's nice to think that I came here for your sake, but in actuality, I'm here because the boredom was intolerable." He sat with his elbow on the table, chin resting in the palm of his hand, with his eyes trained on the board. "The remaining people at Mistique do not interest me. It's become rather lonely."

A part of him had truly never grown up--and though in his mind, 'friends' were really just playthings, that didn't change the fact that having no playthings left was distressing to him (in his own way). It was like an only child that had all of their toys taken away.

...But of course, he had an ulterior motive for being there, as well. He had a hunch that it was her who broke Auguste's fingers (of course he couldn't ask the man himself), but he wanted to know for sure. He'd have to wait for the opportune moment to bring it up, though.

He didn't ask her if she wanted to play chess with him-- but then again he never did... although she didn't know why, she was horrible at the game. She just tried to hold her side as long as she could. And she supposed somehow that made him happy. So she wiped the tears out of her eyes before they could fall, and made sure the smile on her face became more what he was used to. She did, she supposed, care about him, or worry, the latter being more accurate. Maybe he needed something so simple to just feel like life was normal, and that he still had control. He hadn't said anything to her about his nightmares since that midnight piano duet too long ago.

But there was no more time to dwell on doting thought she wasn't sure were right to have for such an emotionless man-- it wasn't like he was a child (was it?)-- as he mentioned who happened to tell him she was there. Making a disgusted face, she muttered, "He's not a man, he's a creature," She hadn't expounded the opinion for a while-- Itakshir didn't appreciate it-- so her scowl was especially pronounced. "He has that girl, you know. And he's like a mass murderer or something." As if she was telling a secret and as if Piter really cared.

Moving a pawn (might as well seem unassuming-- she knew he was judging her by the first move) one space up, she laughed a little and replied, "Nice to know that if I'm ever in grave danger, you get bored quickly." And of course, she knew that just by her appearance he probably had alot to say. Hopefully he wouldn't come back to see what other parts of her life he could poke into.

There could have been any number of reasons why he always insisted on playing chess with her, whether she wanted to or not, and despite the fact that it wasn't her forte. Perhaps because it was nice to just play a casual game sometimes (not that he came across many seasoned players, in this backwards country). Perhaps because he did, indeed, need to feel some sort of control--over what, however, would be the question. Perhaps because it was one of the few activities he loved that required another person. It was his own, peculiar way of showing that he wanted to share his interests with someone--rather than pulling out a book and silently challenging them to be more interesting than it.

Or maybe because he just liked to pester her. All were valid possibilities.

Noting her displeased expression with his...unexpression, he commented with seeming blankness, "'That girl'? I'm sure I don't know what you mean." (He was pretty sure that he did.) "But a mass-murderer, you say? Well, I suppose that could still be useful." No, he didn't care. But not about what she might have thought he wouldn't.

"Let's not be dramatic, now. If I suspected you were in actual grave danger, it would be the furthest thing from boring," he raised an eyebrow, though his tone remained as unenthused as ever, "And dear lord, you'd think you never played a decent game in your life. Clearly, I've let you go without practicing for too long." He moved one of his own pawns up two spaces, as if to show what she should have done. Really, it didn't matter. But he couldn't let her make her first move in ages without having something to say about it.

She was never sure what she should feel-- proud? Happy? Annoyed?-- at the attention he seemed to give her that he usually reserved for his books. Well... Maybe a little less, but more than any other human being there. "I have work to do, you know." How many times had she said so over the years. Yet she still advanced a knight, to appease him.

"You know--" She rummaged around her workstation for a moment to find a cigarette (how could such a deadpan man cause so much stress--) "Goldfish." Goldfish. Blonde. Large eyes, bumped into the sides of her 'tank'. She had barely missed calling her the very same here.

She laughed, smoke settling on the board like a fog. "So you're entertained-- but something bad happens, and I'm gone, and you'll never be able to amuse yourself at my expense ever again. Imagine that world." There seemed to be a deeper meaning to her hypothetical scenario, but like all of their conversations, it never got deeper than thinly veiled pleasantries and outright insults.

"That's inconsequential," he replied bluntly, matching her knight for one of his. How many times had he said that ever since he'd first learned the word? Probably too many. And he'd say it as many times more as need be. Because it truly wasn't consequential for him, so he didn't particularly give a damn. He was a special kind of selfish and uncaring.

Snorting lightly--Franze really did have a gift for nicknaming--he commented, "So...he was one of our mysterious intruders, after all. Funny, he didn't seem particularly stealthy." After a pause, he added as an afterthought, "I wonder who was working with him? I hardly assume he went there alone." Not that he really needed to know, but one never knew when such information could come in handy. He'd have no problem backstabbing the gray-haired man and his cohorts if it ever happened to become beneficial for him.

Waving the smoke aside lazily with one hand, he replied calmly, "I imagine I would have to do something terrible to whoever caused the bad thing to happen." Something far more terrible than whatever happened to her. He didn't believe in the 'eye for an eye' policy, and he couldn't very well let people get away with thinking that they could interfere with his playthings.

She smiled lightly at the board. It really was nice to be able to do something normal, even if it was slightly insulting. So now she just threw out all her plans for the game and just did as she used to. Move anything anywhere it could land just so it felt like the closest thing to home again.

Knowing Piter too well, she shook her head at his musings. "I don't know, I don't think we should talk about it. It happened ages ago, why is it important?" Even though they were, in the loosest meaning of the word, 'friends', there was no way she would let him know her Ainu friend even existed. Most of what she knew about Piter was what most people wouldn't care to find out.

"Hmm-- and you'd do that because you care?" Certainly not. But it was fun to bring it up-- he always had something to say about it. "So why isn't Auguste dead in a lake with cement on his feet?" It had come out harsher than she'd planned. If there was one good thing about all she had gone through with him it was that she wasn't afraid to tear a man like that apart if she had the chance.

Oh dear, she wasn't even trying now. Sighing heavily and pointedly, he claimed her knight with a bishop exaggeratedly, emphasizing his disappointment in her strategy--or lack thereof. Not that it surprised or truly upset him. They'd been playing chess for long enough that he knew the route their games usually ended up taking at some point or another.

He glanced up at her from under lids that always seemed too heavy for his age, black eyes as unreadable as ever, but undoubtedly indicative that his interests had been piqued. 'Shouldn't talk about it' meant the opposite to him. "It's extremely important...for my future plans." Holding the white knight he'd just taken from her, pinched between a thumb and forefinger, he inspected it absently as he spoke, chin resting on the fist of his other hand indifferently. "I see no reason why you shouldn't trust me." A lie. "We're friends, after all." The word 'friend' sounded foreign, coming from him, though it was essentially, true.

And then, contrary to what he'd just said-- "Certainly not. Revenge is not a thing plotted by the benevolent--and it is, in fact, a dish best served cold," he put the knight back down, "So you'll have to wait to return to Mistique, I'm afraid." It was a point he'd already planned on making: that he did intend for her to return, because that, too, was part of the plan.

"Oh shut up..." She muttered through her cigarette to his sigh. He could be such a child sometimes. Well... All the time. All of the time he could be like an ill-behaved child. Luckily (or unluckily) for her, she knew how to handle that better than most.

She scoffed. "'Future plans'...? Trust me-- nothing you want to know would ever come as useful in a scheme." That was what she liked about Itakshir-- he didn't have the brains nor the heart (but mostly the brains) to think up any ill will for anyone (or so she thought). Ill will was the first thing Piter thought for someone even before learning their name. "I'd like to think that we are friends-- which is why for your sake I wont let you go to all that trouble for nothing." A lie as well.

It seemed like she'd heard that revenge speech a million times over already. Only half-listening, she played another piece absently, wondering when it would be over. Until she heard she'd have to wait to go back. Then was as good a time as ever to tell him she didn't want to go back. "Piter... I don't think I-- well, I don't...need to go back." He probably only wanted her to go back because of something else he was planning but... If she didn't break the news to him then, maybe she never would have. How much would she really see him in the future, anyways?

He sighed even more heavily and pronouncedly, just to see how far he could push it. If he was like an ill-behaved child (and he was), then Franze had come to be like his unfortunate older sister, in a family with no mother and no father to discipline him. ...Actually, that went beyond metaphor; if he were to think about it, he'd conclude that he'd never been properly disciplined in his life. He grew up rich and spoiled, and intelligent. A dangerous combination for a child. But of course, he didn't think about this, he only thought about how funny it would be to get on her nerves.

"Oh Frachenka, any information can be useful, you know. You're so perpetually uncreative." He dismissed, letting the subject drop at last. For the time being, anyways. Already, he was thinking about how he could get the truth--if not from her, then perhaps from someone else. He couldn't imagine why she would insist on not giving up the information (for he assumed that she had it), unless she was hiding something. And if there was something to be hidden, he wanted to find it, and decide whether or not to exploit it. It might be interesting to see what those men who broke in were after (besides kidnapping freaks, apparently), and to see if they'd be willing to go back. It could possibly aid to shaking up Bourbon--

His thoughts came to a halt. No need to go back? After a moment's pause, he replied, "I believe I heard you wrong--of course, you need to go back." It would ruin everything, if she didn't. "If Bourbon is gone, you have to take his place. So that things will return to the way they were." If she didn't, then he might be too tempted to take over, and if that was the case, he would drop his plans now, before it got to that point. He wanted power--he always did--but he wouldn't let himself take charge over a carnival. It was beneath him, and his intellect. No, the only way to handle this situation was to take a reactionary stance.

She, on the other hand, had been blessed with too much discipline-- not of the working class, but the superfluous rules of old money. They surrounded her and crushed her and built her skeleton back up and became her. But she'd like to think now, that she was getting herself back. Hearing him sigh again (how could she not?) She lightly swatted his arm. "No elbows on tables." Maybe she should just go back to make sure he was minding his manners.

"If you keep collecting all this useless information, your head's not going to be able to hold anything important." Just like how if he kept making faces his face would stay that way. And he did have a forever apathetic expression. So maybe it wasn't all false stories to tell ornery children. "But there was one other one-- An Iranian. Won't do you any good."

She was surprised at his sudden denial of her opinion. She would have told him that that job was beneath her now, too. But it was more than that. "Find someone else to run the place." She muttered and moved another pawn. "it makes me sick, I don't want to be there." Now she had two people telling her to leave. If not for Itakshir she would have been out and back to Austria before Piter could even become bored. "I'm sure there's someone else more qualified. Things are meant to change, Piter." She was one to talk.

He took away the offending arm and propped up his other elbow, instead. In this sense, he was truly his father's son; neither cared about observing the rules of 'polite' society. Piter may have seemed well-bred to people who only knew him at a glance...but once one really spoke to him or observed his habits, they'd know that he made up his own rules, that only vaguely (and sometimes mockingly) imitated the social strata into which he was born.

"'Important' is subjective," he corrected, "And I have near-limitless mental capacity, as it is." He didn't make any observations on the tidbit of information she finally allotted him, though. Later, he would find out who this person was and whether or not knowing about him would truly not do him any good.

...And perhaps it wouldn't, if what he was hearing was true. Well now, this rather threw a wrench into his entire idea of the future. He stared hard at the chessboard, suddenly at an impasse, and vaguely overcome with the urge to knock all of the pieces away because of it. To throw a fit, because she wasn't playing along.
If Franze didn't come back, then he didn't have much of a reason to stay there, any longer. The people and that place had long since worn out their value, for him. And if he didn't stay there, then he honestly didn't care about Mistique's future state of affairs. And if he didn't care about it's future, then there was no reason to proverbially dethrone Auguste. If anything...it would be better to leave him with a mess to clean up. With a spark of new inspiration, he picked up his bishop and moved it across the board, diagonally to her king, "Check."

After a pause to think--essentially, rewriting his own future--he finally decided, "Yes, I believe I may need to look into a change of residence."

A small smile crept into her condescension over his manners. He wasn't about to get any new friends that way. But he didn't seem to want them. Which begged the question, why her? Could it have been so shallow as having someone to pester? She was still figuring it out and his sudden change in mood didn't help. The fact that she wouldn't be returning visibly shook him for a moment before he seemed completely back to normal.

"Piter..." She asked quietly, carefully, as if she was asking a child. "What bothers you about that...?"

More than likely he wouldn't tell her, or he would lie. But maybe she would get something from it. He was constantly getting information from the seemingly unimportant.

"Where would you go, then?" He didn't have any ties in this country... And he'd often talked about how he disliked what his own country had become. For the first time she was genuinely worried for him. It seemed like he didn't have much of a plan-- like a little boy who runs away from home when things change.

"'Bothered'? That's a strange conclusion to jump to. I would hardly suggest that I'm 'bothered' by such things," he lied as easily as he drew breath. However, the fact that she knew him well enough to guess when he was lying was something he didn't consider. He never did, or else he might have changed tactics.

Truly, he was very much unlike her; it didn't occur to him to care what people thought of him. But, somewhere deep in his mind, perhaps in a place that had been pushed aside because he was always thinking about unimportant things, he reminded himself to always lie and manipulate when deemed necessary. So that people would never really understand his true nature (Maybe he didn't really understand it himself.), and so he could therefore continue to lie and manipulate.

"I've simply discovered that Mistique no longer amuses me, so I have no reason to be there," he revealed. It was strange; he was always complaining about being bored, yet he recognized that he was the one who suddenly decided when things did and didn't become boring. There was probably plenty of entertainment value left in Mistique--even for someone of his odd tastes--but he'd declared on a whim that there wasn't. And now he was fully prepared to pack and move elsewhere because of it.

"Not back home, of course," he mirrored her thoughts, "I will stay in the town inn, maybe--Ditya is back, you know; that's where he's staying." He spoke of the Dutchman (using his own, unappreciated nickname for the man) with some slight, slight hint of eagerness, as he'd been friends with Pyotr Senior. And though he made it clear that the friendliness did not extend to the son, that did not stop Junior from harassing the man with questions about his beloved father. "I fully intend for him to tell me what father's favorite color was, this time. He's thus far been reluctant to give up the information." As if it were a matter of grave seriousness. His tone and expression suggested as much, anyways.

She just stared at those large eyes with her own, as if maybe she could burn holes in his head to take a look at his brain. She had the sneaking suspicion that it would only be gears and some sort of sinister black goo. "Then what would you suggest about it? If you aren't bothered then what would you be?" She knew he was lying. But acusing him of it would only give her more lies to work with. So she skirted around them until she could piece together a truth.

She knew for a fact that wasn't the truth. They usually had the same things to mock, when they weren't mocking each other. There was Auguste, who was a human joke in himself, that drug addict 'entrepeneur' and his idiotic friend who was too tall to be a woman, the freaks that still were alive, stage hands getting hurt, and the mindless sheep that flocked to the carnival on a daily basis. "Why. Tell me why. You never have a reason why." She demanded. Even though all he did was think, she somehow got the impression that he didn't ever think things about himself through all the way. Perhaps he didn't want to.

All he ever talked about was 'Ditya' when 'Ditya' was in town. "He doesn't like you. He won't sign an autograph for you. The place is probably full-up anyways. What then? Would you live on the street?"

"I would suggest that it makes me mildly contemplative," he replied, persisting in being difficult about it, "Move your king, Franze, you're in check."

It was true that he sometimes didn't think at all when it came to his own actions, despite that he was the opposite when it concerned other people. The planning was a learned behavior--it was the impulsiveness that he was born with. 

He remembered, very vaguely, a dream where he was a child, with Franze, both of them dressed in old-fashioned clothes. They were walking outside and he pushed her into a fountain, ruining her fancy dress. And for no real reason; as soon as the idea entered his head, he did it. Not even out of spite--well...maybe a little. The childish kind of spite, that derives enjoyment out of aggravating and hurting the feelings of other people. It was unfortunately something he never learned was wrong.

"I suppose people are like marbles. If you're alone, they're interesting for a while, but eventually they become boring, even if the way you play with them is the same." He tapped a finger on the table, listlessly, "You have to find a new game."

Ignoring the bit about the Dutchman not liking him, he remarked, "That could be interesting. I've always wondered how much street musicians make." He was almost certainly joking, though as always, it was difficult to tell. And he had his violin, but...his piano was on wheels. He'd roll it away himself if he had to.

"Contemplative," She repeated after rolling her eyes and moving the piece. "About what?" Did he never really think about his feelings, just how he felt about the feelings? She had the notion (because he wouldnt ever divulge anything to her) thatnot even he wanted to delve into the depths of his own mind. And who could blame him-- it wasn't a pastime for anyone. Piter perhaps even less so.

If he'd said so, she would say he wouldn't have had to recall something like that-- because it happened constantly, even in the conscious world. She didn't necessarily appreciate it... But it was nice, having someone who didn't treat her like she would shatter if she was pushed the wrong way.

"New game?" She repeated incredulously. He treated all people the same-- sub-human (or, should it be, 'sub-piter') so to get bored of a few people was to be bored of them all. "Are you going to try and be a hermit, then?" She couldn't imagine it-- there was no way he could ever keep his mouth shut for that long-- and she didnt think he was about to enjoy berating himself. Laughing at his suggestion, she muttered, "Street musicians make enough to sleep in an alley."

"About my options, of course," he said simply, "As my future plans had to be cancelled so suddenly." He followed her king with his bishop, trying to coax it closer and closer into a corner. Not unlike what she was doing with him, with being more detailed about his emotions. But it wasn't possible to checkmate him at that game; he didn't understand his 'feelings' any more than she did. Chiefly because he didn't try to, anymore--he found that it was futile, which only made him angry. The one emotion he understood best.

If she'd asked, she might have been surprised just how much faith he put in her constitution. It was, no doubt, mostly due to the fact that he was simply insensitive to other people's resilience. But it was something.

"Don't be ridiculous," he admonished, "I can't think of anything more boring than being a hermit. I'm a people-person." (That term didn't mean what he seemed to think it meant.) "I just need a change of setting." People were like the characters in books: most of them were forgettable, save for a few particularly well-written ones. But for the most part, it was the story and the setting that made the book memorable. The greatest characters couldn't succeed with a boring story, but a brilliant story could get by with bland characters. ...In his opinion, anyways. Clicking his tongue, he feigned a very dry regret, "Oh dear, even Raskolnikov was not that poor. What a pity, I suppose that's not an option, after all."

She played along-- he would want to win anyways. She had never won, but she had seen, in a dream, when he looked quite young, what happened when she won. He was a boy, then, but she'd imagine his tangible reaction would be the same-- a tantrum. "Because... your future plans hinge on me? A bad move on your part, I'm predictable but unreliable. You shouldn't mix up the two."

"There isn't any change of setting." She spat dryly. "Not here, not for miles." She hoped Itakshir appreciated that she was staying in lieu of returning to green hills and cooler weather. "What about that... woman" She inflected it like a question-- she still wasn't sure. "that you'd told me about... then. The one you had the picture of. Go back to her-- then move somewhere else. Move to Antarctica." It was like Russia without the politics.

Her gaze went from the chessboard to him once again, looking not quite so cold. "You can't live your life from what you read in books." It was dangerous. More and more she was seeing the young boy in her dreams and wasn't realizing that maybe she was doting on him perhaps too much. He was smart-- too smart-- his thoughts were far ahead but he could never see what was in front of him. "You can't skip a chapter to see what happens to your life..."

She was probably right to think that he would throw a fit if she managed to beat him--a more controlled one, maybe, a quiet one. But a tantrum, all the same. 'Good sport' was not a concept that had ever been introduced in his spoiled childhood.

"Yes, but what would be the fun in planning if I always knew--rather than guessed--what you or anyone else would do?" He commented coolly, "It would all get very dull, very quickly."

And then, with a mock sigh and a repositioning of his knight, "Settle down somewhere peaceful with a spouse? I hope you aren't thinking of living vicariously through me. Honestly, Frachenka, I'm starting to think that you haven't a clue what I want from life." Not that staying here would get him what he really wanted. But despotic power over the masses was not very easy to come by, these days. So he had to settle with being annoyance personified.

He didn't return her gaze, but he could sense it. Quietly, he replied, "Trust me when I say that I'm the only one who knows what's good for me." It may not have been what was good for anyone else. The thought of living a comfortable, complacent life--house, job, wife, children--repulsed him to no end. He would surely lose his mind from boredom. "But then, I imagine you didn't decide to stay here because anyone else would suggest that it was your best option." Really, they were not so different; they had their reasons for being 'unreliable'.

One could argue she was the same way-- but not with everything. There was alot-- like chess, for example-- that she reasoned she was above, and wouldn't devote anything to them, much less tantrums.

"Not dull," She shot back. "Safe. Easy." But of course, that wasn't what he wanted. She should just stop worrying about him-- he didn't value it at all. He really was like a child-- one who was in for a rude awakening if he was out in the world without people who knew him well enough to put up with him. ....Which was what she worried about.

"I'm not telling you to go and get married, I'm just telling you to stay with someone you're happy with." Men didn't have to get married. They had everything given to them in life already. "And it's not your business why I'm here."

"'Safe' and 'easy' are exactly what dull is," he corrected, "And I shouldn't think I would be very happy, staying with her. I do wonder why on earth you would have that impression." Truly, his mind did not function on the same wavelength as the average person. That, and his idea of 'love' was clearly very skewed.

"Not my business? I have to say, I'm a little hurt." The complete lack of sentiment in his tone suggested as much. He didn't appear to be very bothered by it, either. Nevertheless, he went on, "I was under the impression that we were something like friends." Picking up the chessboard carefully, he turned it around--something he did when he felt she was getting too complacent--to try and see how he could salvage her losses. It was as much a method of giving himself a challenge as it was his own, obscure version of an act of kindness. It either didn't occur or didn't matter to him that she didn't care about winning, and that his continuing to try and win negated the gesture.

Eyes sweeping over the board, reworking his strategy, he was too engrossed with the pieces to look up at her. "I suppose you must have guessed by now that I lack the capacity to care about your affairs--and you would be correct," he stated flatly, moving what was previously her queen, "But you would be wrong if you think I've never made the attempt." He just never succeeded. He didn't know how to.

"You've never tried it, how would you know?" She remarked just as casually. "And you told me you over that... Girl-- at least something close to it. You told me before." He was so far removed from living like a normal person. He breathed and ate and slept... But anything else, she wasn't sure-- did be just not favor it... Or did he just not know how?

She rolled her eyes. "Friends actually tell each other things. So until you're a friend to me... I won't tell you anything." if not for not having her simple man in his web of schemes, she just didn't want him to know she was with well... Someone so simple.

Sighing at the board-switching (it usually meant the game would be going into overtime), she didn't catch his admission until she processed it-- and her eyes were full of surprise. It might have been the first admission he'd ever made to her. "What...what does that mean?"

"I really don't see what that has to do with anything," he said, as though Franze were the one being weird, "She would be terrible to live with, I think." Especially alone. ...Although, in fairness, that was probably exactly what she wanted. But he thought she was a little crazy, if he was going to be perfectly honest. It would be an understatement to say that theirs had not been a conventional relationship.

"What does what mean? I'm not sure that I said anything--perhaps I accidentally voiced my thoughts aloud," he lied, "In any case, I was about to say that if I truly cared about your affairs, I'm sure I would be able to find out about them with or without your assistance." Reaching across the board, he moved a piece for her, showing no acknowledgement whatsoever that he'd said anything out of the ordinary just moments ago.

It was impossible for anyone to know, but it was presumable that, on occasion, he manipulated even himself into falling for his own deceptions. He wasn't able to feel pity for anyone, after all...including for Pyotr Petrovich Romanov. When confronted with the disquieting and lonely fact that he seemed to be lacking, and incapable of attaining, some aspect of humanity (the ability to care) that nearly all other humans had--well, what did that leave him with, where others would have felt self-pity?

Sometimes it was better to make his own truths, even if they were technically lies.