Poker Face

Chapter 54 - A History Lesson

Less than forty five minutes later, the living room was canopied wall-to-wall with blankets, save for a few feet of free floor space at the door. Even the open window was part of the fort, the blankets clipped around its frame.

Negan had pulled out all the bedsheets and blankets he had around the room and ran downstairs to get some more. When he came back, he found one section of the room already tented and Aven splayed out on the couch breathing heavily, having exerted herself too much. She helped little by little with the rest of the room, but mostly she directed while Negan built.

"This is ridiculous," Aven giggled as they crawled into the surprisingly spacious area under the blankets. Negan only chuckled and pulled her back towards a large pile of pillows, wrapping her in his arms as they stretched out and got comfortable.

"Tell me something about history," he said after they'd had a moment to settle in. He still wanted to get to know her and he knew getting her started on historical topics meant he could just sit and listen to her talk. The two times he could read her best, the times when she was most carefree and honestly expressive, were when she was talking about something passionately or during sex. And they couldn't currently have sex, so he settled on education.

"Something about history?" she giggled. "There's kind of a lot that happened."

"Well, I don't know," he said with a chuckle. "What was your favorite era to study? Was there a time or place you were really interested in?"

"A lot of times and a lot of places," she said, her eyes rolling back slightly as she tried to figure out what to talk about. "I was thinking of going back to school to study east Asian history or ancient studies, I was really interested in Mesopotamia. My degree wasn't actually in history but I was thinking of going in that direction. I never really zeroed in on anything...didn't get the chance, you know?"

"Come on, give me something," he said. "A historical figure you like?"

"Catherine the Great," she said without hesitation.

"Which one was she?"

"She was awesome," Aven gushed, taking a deep breath to collect her thoughts before continuing. "Empress of Russia in the 1700s, basically set Russia up to be what it is today...or was, I guess. Her army conquered a lot of territory, like hundreds of thousands of miles, and the Hermitage, y'know, the huge art museum in Russia that's basically just a palace, it started as her personal art collection. I always wanted to go there...but I always wanted to go everywhere." She stopped and looked to him, expecting a turn in the conversation. She didn't want to bore him with a history lecture.

"Go on," he said almost impatiently, having expected her to continue and eager to see her more consistently in an upbeat mood.

"Oh...okay," she said. Usually when she started talking about history it was to tell him that something he was doing historically didn't work, and she figured he didn't want to hear it. But then she realized he did ask, and lucky for him, Catherine the Great's life story had a lot to appeal to Negan. "Well, she had a ridiculous sex life. She ruled for over thirty years and when she was old she was still fucking young guys and they basically all fell in love with her."

"My kind of leader," Negan sneered.

"And she came to power because she basically got her husband's army to turn on him and support her." Negan scoffed and peered down at her, whispering in her ear playfully.

"I hope you don't like her because she's inspiring you to do the same."

"I'd be lucky to be like her," Aven sighed. "Wouldn't want to go out the way she did though."