Gilded Squalor [1759/Saint Petersburg/Public]

Under Empress Elizabeth, life in the Russian court is francophilic and decadent beyond belief. The Empress has several thousand gowns and pairs of shoes, and forbids anyone to have the same hairstyle as her. And yet, the Seven Years' War is currently ongoing, and the capital has things other than ridiculously extravagant balls on his mind.

There was something a bit unsettling about the young Tsarevich. Perhaps it was that he spoke and thought like an adult, despite not having even reached the age of ten yet. Perhaps it was that he took no joy in childhood activities (not even those that were ascribed to royalty) or any activities that most people would consider 'fun', really. Or perhaps it was that he was more intelligent than the vast majority of insipid partying adults in the room, and he knew it.

Situated on his throne (smaller than the one next to it, which belonged to the Empress), his short legs dangled over the edge as he sat with his fist propping up one side of his round face, elbow on the armrest. His expression was one of sheer boredom. This whole thing was stupid, he'd rather be anywhere else than at another one of these (in his opinion) meaningless celebrations (Celebrating what? Extravagance?). His court was supposedly one of the most splendid in Europe, but he himself didn't see what was so great about it. And oh, he voiced his opinion on the matter. Regularly. No one had bothered to teach him any real manners yet.

In the meantime, he thought. Piter did a lot of thinking, for such a small child. He was considering a new military strategy...a battle that could potentially crush the Prussians. In addition, he had some plans concerning his ties with both of his allies. It didn't register as detrimental to him that the two other capitals were much older and more experienced than him--he wanted to play them like a deck of cards. In his childish impatience, he wanted to tell his Empress all about his ideas, but she was busy chatting it up with some foreign royalty. Tch. She didn't always appreciate his plans quite like his father had.

Bored out of his wits, he decided to go looking for some food, uncoordinatedly sliding out of his chair and making his way around the dancers, wary of being swept away amongst the skirts of the women. From the perspective of a little boy that wasn't even half their heights, the large dresses looked almost frightening.

(The 'military strategy' he is talking about here is referring to the Battle of Kunersdorf, in which the Russian and Austrian forces (lead by a Russian general) dealt a heavy blow to the Prussians. As for the plans concerning his allies... Russia made deals with both Versailles and Austria behind the others' backs. XD Piter, you sly child, you. btw, this is before he's had culture and 'manners' hammered into him by Catherine the Great.)

((Fffuuuuuu-- this is 20 years before I can use Versailles Vienna. :/ I had something all written and then I checked the times XDD))

((fffffffffffffffuuuuuu--like I would have ever known XD /SHOT))

((fffuuuu--- I would have. I WOULD :I XD and the time before that she was just sad and serious because it's been like a nonstop stream of wars. XD no fun, then lol))

((lmao, I appreciate your honesty. XDDD I have a feeling Piter would just make her days even worse. Even as a kid. /shot))

What the hell was this?

Stepan had decided to leave his island for the first time in months to see his brother and there were all these people here. He hadn't been told that this sort of thing would be happening, and thus was a little annoyed. And why were there so many women here? He'd hardly seen any women back on his island, much more men, especially ship builders and sailors.

And what's more why did they have such huge dresses?! Well-- There could only be on explanation.

They all had fat legs.

Why else would they were dresses like that? He thought to himself, but then this was a child who had very little idea about fashion, other than that clothes kept you warm. He had to find out if that was true. He shifted to be behind one of the women that seemed quite deep in conversation with a man. He got onto all fours which took longer than it would have for someone his age, considering that he was quite tall for his age and lifted up the back of the dress.

Hey, her legs weren't fat at all--

Stepan's thoughts were cut off by a loud, very shrill scream from the woman in question, making him jump. Well this was definately a good time to run. He quickly scampered to his feet, running between a couple of other people that were equally as shocked by the scream. He used the confusion to dive under a table where snacks were going to be served.

Well, now it looked like he'd just have to stay under here. Great.

((LMAOOOOO fat legs. Stepka = genius. XD))

Suddenly, there was a loud shriek from nearby, and Piter turned just in time to see his younger brother (What was he doing here?) escaping from the scene of...whatever crime had been committed. Servants rushed to consult the woman, and he spotted the Empress standing up from where she was seated in conversation to see what all the commotion was about. Realizing that they would probably call on him to accompany Elizabeth in apologizing to their guest, he decided to follow Stepka's example and made a dash for it.

Darting under the tablecloth, he frowned when he saw that the hiding place was already occupied.

"Move over, Stepka," he complained, even though there was plenty of room for two. He was used to being the only, and therefore incredibly spoiled, royal child running around the palace (except on the occasion when the ruling family had children, but even then, he didn't like to play with them). Huddling under the table, he listened carefully to the aftermath of the disrupted ball. It seemed like things were calming down, though he thought he could hear someone calling for him. Secretly, he was a little disappointed; he'd been hoping the party would somehow be called off.

"What are you doing here?" He turned to his younger brother, squinting to make him out in the dim light. It wasn't that he disliked Kronstadt--on the contrary, he liked him much more than most of the rest of Russia (whether he really showed it or not)--but this wasn't exactly the greatest time to be visiting. "And what did you do? These people are my guests, you know." Even though he'd been wishing they'd go away the second they walked in. "They're high-class foreigners; they're supposed to be getting a good impression of Russia right now."

Now all Stepanhad to do was be quiet. He could do that. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut. He could do--

He cursed quite loudly at the sudden appearance of his elder brother beside him, having almsot fallen out of the other end of the table and probably would have had he not grabbed ahold of the table leg. And why the hell was he telling him to move over there was plenty of room. "Fatass," He huffed as he shifted over a bit.

Unlike the other, Stepan was glad it was getting quiet. It meant that he could go and wander about the room and check to see if that one lady was the only one with skinny legs. After all, it was logical that she would be wearing it because of peer pressure because everyone else had fat legs-- But given what had just happened, it would probably be best just to wonder.

"I'm bored," he replied, brows furrowing. Even for someone that liked boats and forts as much as he did, his attention span meant that doing it so much would lead in inevitable boredom. Even though he'd meant to be with Novgorod, but he didn't need a stupid babysitter anyway.

"I was only checking to see if her legs were fat!" He objected, making it sound like an entirely logical reason. Although it was to a child, "And then she screamed for some reason. Women are such babies."

A good impression? Oops. Well Stepan wasn't going to be the best person to have around when trying to do that. Maybe it'd be better if he just stayed under here. . .

His thin brows furrowed, "You're bored? Think of how I feel; I have to attend these silly parties all the time. I want to get back to the war." He didn't care or even take into consideration that he was lucky compared to the rest of Russia, that he lived the cushy life and really had nothing to complain about. When he didn't have something to occupy his interest, even for just a moment, he didn't give a thought to other people's problems. He just wanted someone to fix his. Immediately.

"Why would you even think that? And women always scream when you look under their dresses," he shot back disapprovingly, although he himself didn't know why this was the case. He'd found it out the hard way, too. Although, in his instance, he'd been looking for a runaway Tsarevich and found out that he was in Vienna. And those skirts had seemed like a convenient place to be stowing refugees.

Lifting the tablecloth cautiously, he peeked out to see what was going on, before quickly dropping it again. "Wonderful. They're probably going to make me apologize to her on your behalf." Besides the fact that he was a spoiled brat and hated apologizing, no matter what the circumstances were, he also hated talking to noblewomen. They thought he was cute or something, in his miniature military uniform, with large eyes and puffy cheeks. Then he opened his mouth to speak, and they suddenly couldn't stand him. Which was okay with him, but he preferred not to have to go through the cooing and face-pinching before hand. If his father were still around, he'd never be subjected to such effeminate humiliation.

Sitting back, he frowned and tried to think up a plan where they could get away to a different room without being seen.

"Of course I'm bored," He huffed, "they let me on the ships, but they don't let me touch anything! It sucks." When it came down to it, it was extremely logical that they wouldn't let a child near anything potentially dangerous, though he had started to take lessons in sailing the ships. And he thought he was quite good at it.

"Well why else would they be wearing such big dresses?" Stepan scowled and crossed his arms, "They're so stupid."

"I'd swap with you and do it if I could." Of course he thought the other wouldn't actually want to, or he wouldn't have suggested it, he enjoyed being out there, even if he was bored out of his skull a lot of the time. Unlike his brother, Stepan didn't like to take too long with his plans and carefully snuck a hand up to grab whatever was on the table and pulled down some sort of fruit. He lifted the sheet again before throwing it across the room under somene's foot.

The man who had been unfortunate enough to be the boys target yelled as he stumbled back, not actually walling over but being enough of a distrubance that most people in the room looked at him.

"Go," Stapan hissed, diving out from under the table and heading for the door.

"It's because you're not old enough yet," he snorted, "Do you think they let me rule the country when I was your age?" Not that he was a whole lot older, but enough to make a difference...slightly. When he found out they'd let him make his own decisions once he was able to think on their level, he quickly wised up. "Father didn't get to rule at first, either." He never got tired of talking about Peter the Great. "But once he did, everything was ten times better than before." Not that he was around at the time to witness such a change, but that was what he'd been made to believe.

He tried to come up with a reasonable explanation for why the women wore such big skirts, lips pressed into a thin line. "It's the fashion, of course." Not that he felt like that meant anything. 'Fashion' was not something he totally got yet; he assumed it would make sense once he was older. Or maybe it never would. Maybe it was something stupid, like these parties.

Speaking of which, the party was suddenly interrupted by means of a fruit, and he still hadn't pieced his own plan together. God dammit.

Struggling to catch up with his younger brother (Piter never had been very athletically inclined), he grabbed him by the sleeve and ushered him into a different room, guiding him to the entrance of one of the palace's many secret passages. Pulling aside the removable panels in the floor, he urged in a hushed voice, "Jump in, quickly!" ...And more or less pushed him in anyways. Following in after, he replaced the panels above them, cutting off their light source and consequently shrouding both brothers in total darkness.

"Walk forward," his voice cut through the darkness, "There'll be another door that leads outside." Good thing they were both quite young, and there was enough room for them to stand upright. If they'd been adults, they'd likely have to crouch or even crawl their way out.

((I read that there are a bunch of secret passages in the Winter Palace, but I couldn't find any specific instances and am too much of a derp to do deeper research into it, so I am just making all this up. :I /shot))

Stepka would have been more than happy to keep running until they were outside, but he'd been stopped by his brother. Given the already present difference in build and stature, he could have easily just kept pulling him along but since if he knew him at all, he probably had an idea. Well, he could just be putting to much faith in the other's plans, but he didn't have any reason to think so yet.

But it didn't mean that he wouldn't question him, of course.

"Where are we going?" He huffed as he he was lead across the room, less interested about keeping his voice down, "hey! Don't ignore me--" He yelped at the sudden push into the hole, almost losing his footing and turning back to glare at him. He was about to yell at him before blinking as it went dark, almost as if the darkness had calmed him suddenly. Afterall, it was about as dark as some of the underground tunnels in the forts.

He clearly still wanted to get back at him for the push, even if it hadn't been overly malicious, but decided that it could wait until they were outside. He did as instructed and headed forward, hand extended to make sure he'd feel any walls in his way, "You'd better tell me what to do when we get to the door."

[[ This is clearly what Stepka does in his spare time now a days. /SHOT ]]