At least, that's what Jess probably would have said if he were there.  The rat-bastard droned on like her goddamn accountant during tax season about sociological theory when he had the thankfully rare inclunation to.  If he was right then Madeleine Rousseau was rather unique in that respect.  She'd never really possessed that natural aptitude for pretense which characterized the particular character type, and sure as hell knew it.  But then, she wasn't as ambitious as Jess.  Nobody was as ambitious as Jess.  The guy was bloody scary about his little obsessions, once you saw behind that mask of his.

Okay, so that was one thing that she was good at.

It was a very pretty mask, although not in the physical way.  Even if she went in for that type of thing it was obvious that Jess wouldn't even rate average in the Mathida Knight Corps aesthetically speaking.  Maddy did have to admit that he was freakishly good at hiding his intentions though; and annoy her as he did she could not help but mourn her lack of such skills. Jess the sympathetic; Jess the concerned; Jess the freakin' man of the people - he should have been in the goddamn theatre.  A theatre where her skills would have gotten her washing tacky costumes for minimum wage.

Such deficiency was, unfortunatly, the reason that the clerk was sitting alone that night.

Alone.  Big surprise.  Like her ... 'foreward disposition' ever made her any friends. Oh well; Maddy didn't need them anyway.  Leave the disloyal bastards back home to their idiotic holier-than-thou bullshit.  As if those goddamn idiots hadn't been inviting her to their fricking cocktail parties right up until the end.  Ass-kissing morons...

Damn.  She was starting to sound like Jess. Could that make her any more of a walking advertisment for pathetic?

More than enough reason to indulge, if she did think so herself.  Depression has a way of doing that - take a simple resolution and twist it all around.  Maddy's been a good girl, mommy... can she come out to play tonight?

As if she talked to her mother either.

It wasn't as if she had no self-control, though, with the whole tact thing.  Not at all.  Maddy just chose to apply what little restraint she had a few months too late.

She wasn't a goddamn moron, you see.  It wasn't like she was going to be making passes at a certain auburn beauty - or even that chick chatting up the bartender, for that matter.  Like she would be stupid enough to invoke the wrath of lynch mob the second.  But then it really wasn't that hard, not when nobody really looked for it.  Maddy wished that someone would look for it. It would be a hell of a lot better than nursing a drink that was hopefully only her second in some uninspiring middle-class pub.

Six months... it had been six months  Perhaps too long, but more likely not long enough.  Funny: she'd never been to a bar with anyone despit the fact that she'd spent about three months practically nailed to the floor of one.   It hadn't seemed right, somehow, to get all friendly with the natives after Rockaxe and...well... her Greenhill friends had left for employment unknow long before they were of legal age.  Not that issues of majority ever really stopped anybody, but they were rather vigilant about that sort of thing in Greenhill.  Can't have General Mark's precious  Mark Junior get drunk and feel up some poor little freshman, now can we?

Pausing to contemplate the goldenrod highlights in what actually was her second glass, she could see the reflection of typical brass furnishings in it's depths.  This was familiar, for a place that she had never ventured into.  The discreet smell of tobacco was mixed with more base nutmeg scents - the places that she could afford to drink at were hardly pigstys, but certainly not classy enough to be serving the latest Scarlet Moon ambrosia.  Shit, she shouldn't be drinking here at all, full coffers or not...how long had it taken her to drag her ass out of the cesspool she'd sworn herself off of.

But the low hanging oak roof was not filled to the rafters with the sounds of a friend's laughter.  Nor did the seat beside her carry the residual heat of one just recently left to purlion another round of vodka shots.  What the hell, it wasn't like she had anything better to do.  The books which permeted her apartment had lost their appeal long ago, and with her disposition... well, it would be accurate to say that she didn't make friends well.

The beer tasted like horsepiss - like hell it was imported from Forest Village.  Leather cushions were making that godawful squaking noise.  Maddy had heard than once one built up a tolerace to alcohol it was hard to shake.

This was going to take a while.

Another day's work finished.  It was almost disappounting, really.  Arctic breeze at midnight was more chilling that refreshing, and the long walk home didn't hold much charm.  The streets were too dimly lit, even with the poetically overrated illumination of moonlight and obligatory kerosene lamps.  Or maybe it was bright enough, if the purpose of such disruption to the night was to create a shining path home.  Expectancy can play tricks on your mind, after all.

Expectancy was not a problem for Jess.

The chamberlain  knew that there was a joke circulating the office that Jess' lived there.  Interesting, that - did they know how right they were, or were their simple little minds just blindly stumbling on to what should be termed an obvious observation.  What was there at home, after all, but facade?

There were dried leaves blowing in the young politicaian's face, shrivelled corpses pricking the skin of a facade most accurately described as average.    Nobody ever really thinks of the leaves collecting in the gutter as dead, do they?  They just forget and look to the stars...

What the hell? This was pointless.  Jess had to get home and give his mind some well deserved rest before he descended further into unproductive, moronically angst-filled ramblings.

The brisk walk continued, traveller secure in the knowlege that this was a Good Neighborhood and Hauser didn't let things happen in Good Neighborhoods.  One of the highly deserved benifits of government employment...  Well, at least he deserved it.  And so the regular landmarks passed him by.  That oh-so artificially quaint bakery that never seemed to be open when he was about, the boarded-up community eyesore, and a local pub that he had never been stupid enough to enter. The usual suspects.

"JESSE!"

Okay, not so usual.

"Who the... Rousseau?" the chamberlain puzzled out, squinting into the dim light of a nearby building.

"Yup!  C'mere, ye rat bastard!"

She was leaning out the door and seemed rather... exhuberant.  Too exhuberant.  That was when it hit Jess despite his extreme inexperience when it came to such matters- at his assistant was dead drunk.  Now would be a good time to leave as quickly as possible...

Unfotunately, Rousseau was stumbling towrds him at an alarming rate.

"G'dammit Jesse!  You're the least boring person I know here....." she grinned, grabbing his arm.  It was a distrubing grin,on that he'd never seen before and was almost positive indicated some kind of mental imbalance. Definately drunk.

Obviously uncomfortable, Jess made an attempt to extricate himself, "That's nice.  Now if you'll excuse me..."

"Nonononononononooooo!  Y'wanna knew why you're the least boring person I know here?"

"Enlighten me."  Hopefully this would be able to satisfy her limited faculties.  Idiot.  The politician himself would rather die than have that little control over faculties.

"'Cause we're the only two people on the street!"

She seemed to be finding this extremely amusing, moronic slacker that she was.  His life inevitable had to be more exciting than her pathetic excuse for an existance!  And where did she get off saying that...

"What!?!  .... It doesn't matter.  Now why don't you just let me walk you home so that you can...."

"Yer a funny basterd, Jesse. I thought that you were acting like a bloody stickn'themud fer one of yer psycho reasons.... but ye really aren't the life of the party, are ya....?"

He was not going to get angry in public.  He was not going to let some slacker woman get him angry in public.  He was going to answer calmly and rationally because that was what Chamberlain Jess of Muse did.  And he most certainly was not going to admit that he had never been to a party that was not a diplomatic function.  Useless wastes of time were for people stupid enough to have that kind of time to be unproductive on their hands.

"I think that you should..."

"Ooooooo!  I'm Jesssssseeeeeee, an' I like to clean my office for fuuuuun," Madeleine had crossed her eyes and was stumbling around the streets like a madwoman.

"At least I clean my office!  And I'll have you know that..."

"Shut up, Jesse."

"That was unproffesional.  Stop it."

"Sure thing..... Jesse," she giggled.

Sighing, the politicain once more began to head down the street, hoping against all hope that he would be able to make his escape.  It didn't seem to be working.

"Why are you following me?"

"Cause I'm boooooored."

"You're drunk," Jess accused, turning back to his persuer.

"No m'not," the slacker grinned.

"Of course not," Jess drawled, rolling his eyes for effect.

"NOT, GODDAMN IT!"

"I'cn prove it Jesse, "she continued, almost purring. "Y'wanna come have a drink with me?"

"What?" he deadpanned, half in shock at the very notion.

"C'moooooooon.  It'll be fun.  Stop actin' all stodgy.... f'rall I know yer really some closet S&M freak...."

"Rousseau... why don't you just come with me?" the chamberlain stated as soothingly as he was ever likely to.  That remark didn't deserve a real response.

Where exactly they should go he wasn't really sure of.  Anywhere had to be better then this highly visible byway - being seen escorting his drunken assistant would not be the best of career moves.  Moron slacker woman. Of all the times to conduct her foolishness.  At least they were reasonably close to his apartment...

"No," she pouted, crossing her arms.

"That isn't going to get you anywhere.  Now just come with me and we'll get you some nice coffee.  Come on, Rousseau. I'd think that you'd be at least more intelligent than those peices of drunken waste in there..." he motioned back towards the lonely little bar. Buisness wasn't at it's peak on Wednesday night, to say the least, and only the hardcore winos were out to play.  Funny, that the alcohol currently destroying their livers was probably worth more than that human trash.

In an encouraging move, his assistant was stumbling away from that blight upon the city.  She probably thought that she was annoying him.  Madeleine wouild be, as always, right.  The slacker was rather intuitive about these things.

Well, at least things were going more smoothly now. Jess had known that all he'd have to do would be to reason with her. Things were supposed to be solved with reason; it was just the way that things were done.

.

.

"NO!"

Apparently one did not reason with the drunk.  Certainly something to note for future reference.

"Y've never lived, Jesse.... and that's the funniest thing of all.  You've been everybody is the whole goddamn world, but you've never lived. D'ya even care?  'Bout all the things like friends and love and hate and all that fulfilling shit."

This was not what Jess wanted to hear.

"Helllooooooooooo Jesse!?!  Anybody in there? "

"Who ever said that 'living' is worth it?  And who ever said than everyone is given the chance to do so?" Jess murmered quitely, almost whistfully.

"Awwwwww...m'sorry Jesse!  Y'look all sad...."

"Don't be," he returned to his former, staunchly superior self.  "Some people have better things to do."

"Isn't it pretty out tonight?  Kinna like Lady Anabellee...." Rousseau babbled, at least allowing herself to be steered along an alleyway now.  Jess didn't know what had brought the change abrupt change of subject on after several minutes of unabashedly uncomfortable silence.  Quite frankly, the chamberlain also didn't care.

Wait a second... Lady Anabelle?

"What are you talking about?"

Steel eyes sparkled in reply, "C'mooooooooon.... like you don't check her out just as much 's  I do..."

What the hell?  Wait a minute, she couldn't mean that....

Interesting.

 When the moment's shock wore off, Jess decided that it would be best for all concered to ponder this little development later.  As in, after they weren't in danger of waking most of Muse's proffesional classes with one of her drunken outburts.  To think that he thought she was unreasonable and foolish when sober.

"Y'know, like last week when she wore that..."

"The blue thing?  Yeah, yeah..."

Getting Rousseau into his flat took a minor bit of manhandling.  Upon later reflection, Jess might realize that this would be the first time he had manhandled anyone in his entire life.  And so the night was long, and his toilet got very little rest.  Rousseau couldn't hold her liquor forever, although he suspected that she might have come damn close to it once he'd found the bottle of vodka that she'd been nursing behind his back.  Fortunatly for his sanity she passed out on his couch soon after.

His very expensive vintage and  now bile-stained couch.  Idiot moron slacker.  How in the world had he gotten saddled with this?  Strangly indescisive, Jess had plenty of time to consider taking it out of her paycheck as well as other, more surprising issues that the night had unearthed.

He'd drunk all of the coffee himself.

On the other side of town, several incomplete drafts of various letters had been reduced to ashes.

On the other side of town a large map was left to the office's nonexistant dust.

On the other side of town a red Book was waiting, blank pages not yet endowed with what would one day be highly historically significant.