Returning to No Applause, Only More of the Same

Days passed in quiet silence.

It was quaint, really. Somehow, Kreig found that he was really enjoying the whole matter of being tutored, despite his primary misgivings. It was mainly because of Erica. Her academic skills aside, she seemed to truly understand how to talk to him. How to gently coax him in the right direction.

Even stranger, at times, when she asked for his opinion regarding events and historic people and scientific theories, Kreig found himself with an answer.

If she were to ask what he thought about the existence of colonialism or what his opinion on it was, or how it came to be, he would answer what he thought and what he believed. The weak were conquered and the strong ruled, as it should be. Kings rose to power by the measure of their privileged birth, churches held influence beyond the measures of individual men. When looking at history from the perspective of a scholar reading the text of the winners, everything seemed to have gone very smoothly.

Kingdoms rose, gaining power and territory only to lose it again. The ebb and flow of the world.

It all made a lot of sense, but when Kreig told Erica, she looked at him kind of strangely. Or he was imagining things. Probably.

But the next time she asked about it, her curiosity shone strongly. They should have gone past the middle ages by that point, but she lingered if only to ask Kreig about the movements and decisions of specific kings and empires. Should he have done this? Would there have been a better choice? Was going into war a last-ditch effort or the first thought measured?

Kreig, being a man who had learnt that being honest was one of the greatest virtues, explained his thoughts, albeit a little reluctantly. It felt a bit out of line to talk about it all, but as a man practically raised in war, he answered. The last time his opinions on war had been this intently considered was during his time with the Empire. It almost felt nice, if the subject hadn’t been a bit weird.

To Erica, Kreig just became an even greater conundrum. At first, she’d thought his mostly positive opinions on monarchy and dictatorships and historical atrocities had meant he was some sort of fascist, but as she continued inquiring on the subject, more information came out. Specifically that he was actually a real history buff. In terms of predicting the cause and effect of war, at least. He couldn’t name a single European king or an Asian dynasty, but when presented with a few facts, he could reasonably predict what their role in history had been and how nearby countries had reacted.

It was fascinating. Kind of like finding a fishing genius who had never visited any body of water before.

Only one little thought stopped her from fully believing him to be a military genius who had spent his years after leaving high school as a secret military advisor for the US government. This was the fact that it all seemed to come from experience. And not the kind of experience that she imagined sitting in a room with a dozen other old guys discussing where to strike next, but more so from in-person battles.

He didn’t just predict the actions of a King, after all, but so too the actions and lives of ordinary people. Which prices would sink or balloon, what cause this would have in specific regions, and all with the cold analytical prowess of a man who has seen it all before.

At some point, Erica figured that the time period in which he could analyze things the clearest was between 1500-1700, though earlier than that was fine, too. With later ages than that, he could only barely understand, much less analyze it.

The only obvious mistake he made through it all was his estimate of just how many wars were conducted at any point in time. To him, there should always be a war going on - somewhere, sometime. Always another atrocity, always a genocide taking place, never-ending starvation and plague.

In the end, even Erica had to admit that she had no idea what any of it meant. All she could imagine was that Kreig might be a secret ultra-professional in some sort of war strategy game about those ages, but even then, that didn’t really explain what seemed like first-hand experience. The way he looked wistfully out of the window as he spoke softly of what the victors had to do to remain victorious, or how he bitterly recounted how quickly victory could turn to loss.

There was a poetry in it, but she couldn’t read it.

If she had asked Kreig about it straight out, he might have answered her honestly. Might. More than anything, he would have been too stunned by the question to say anything.

His visits to Darius were peaceful as well. For the most part, at least.

The man seemed to have an eerie quality when it came to lulling Kreig to a sense of security. And then, while he was at his most talkative, when he’d been gently taken out of his shell, Darius would ask him little mundane questions, and Kreig would answer. Someone who listened to him even when he had little to nothing to say. Someone who heard his worries and woes and asked him to speak more.

It was… Interesting, that was for sure.

His siblings took things easy as well.

They came home from work at slightly separate times, but by the time George was home, dinner was ready and served. Then, after dinner, they would all do their own things. George usually read or wrote last-second reports on this or that, Sam played video games or watched some sort of moving image, and Kreig… Well, he did a bit of it all.

Sometimes he quietly painted, sometimes he sat down beside George to read a novel, and sometimes he got Sam’s permission to read one of her comic books (that was the name) or to even play one of her so-called video games. It was all awfully quaint.

Punctuated only by his occasional frustration.

The Saturday after procuring the blood of oath, they’d gone to check out the small storage they had. Most of the things were their parents, but some of the various paraphernalia had once belonged to Kreig. He didn’t recognize a single thing. Trophies and CDs and barbells.

The only thing he actually - somehow - recognized was a little stuffed animal.

As George told him, he’d actually been quite the collector at one point. Most of them were from carnival games that he’d won, with his intention being to one day gift all of them to some girl he might one day pick up. But the only one George and Sam had kept - on account of the limited storage place - had been his very first win.

A little stuffed fish that he’d won at a ring-toss game at the ripe age of 5. The fish was rather large, almost the size of Kreig’s oversized fist. As a child, he’d apparently brought it everywhere - until the other kids at football practise told him it was childish. But he’d kept it, even though the fish was almost the size of his own body.

And here it was. Green and blue, with big, bulbous eyes and a wide mouth. The outside had clearly once been fluffy and fair, but after years of handling and hugging, it had all been matted down into compressed strands.

Kreig decided to bring it home.

But George insisted on bringing one other thing, namely: Kreig’s old computer. It had been up-to-model when Kreig die-, erm, disappeared, so it was still relevant enough. They brought it home, put it on Kreig’s desk, and there it was. Kreig’s last excuse not to go job-hunting.

At least he had little Lennard, the fishy.

And so began a couple of weeks of what Kreig could only describe as pure bliss punctuated by deep hell.

First, George helped him make a CV. It was far from impressive, and George went so far as to tell him that the ten-year gap alongside his lack of High-School diploma might just make this quite hard. Kreig had thought it would be fine. During his years, he’d had plenty of experience in various subjects. Mostly as a soldier, but he’d had his assignments. Chop wood, help in sermons, eat fifteen helpings of half-rotten rations…

Getting a job would have been easy if George didn’t bar him from writing down his 130 years of additional experience. “IOCRO would throw an understandable fit,” he’d said. Kreig couldn’t disagree, but he still felt that his CV might not look quite as full as it could be.

So it began.

Despite seeking every half-time job possible, be it cooking or Botanics or serving, he didn’t get a single reply.

At one point he at least got to attend an interview.

It did not go well.