--- Holding Down the Fort -- 366 -- Teen Titans ---
Raven yawned and raised her arms to the sky, lifting herself a little off the sofa.
Much as she loved Robert Frost's Fire and Ice, she simply could not read another line of poetry.
Robin yawned as well, thumbing to a new page in the slim text. She noted the author: Machiavelli.
"Batman has you reading Machiavelli?" She queried, setting the book of poetry on the coffee table.
He nodded and shifted, stretching his legs and curling his toes in a gesture that would have been cute, if his feet didn't smell like he had been wearing the same socks for a month.
"Does it disturb you?" She asked.
Men obey better when they fear their masters than when they love them... Men are sheep, ruled by fear, but love disguises so many impurities so well that the theory is unsound.
He shrugged and continued reading. "It's interesting, in a sociopathic sort of way."
"Sociopathic?" That was a new one. She'd never heard Machiavelli described as a sociopath before.
The label did fit, though.
"Use any means necessary to gain power for oneself? Use any means necessary to cement that power, once you've got it? Sounds like a classical sociopath. Anything was justifiable if it benefitted him."
"Including terrorizing all the peasants, so that they would know you meant business. I doubt he would have wanted his manor razed, and yet he could do it to others." Yes, sociopath was definitely a good word for him.
"Of course, it might just have been an attempt at fortifying himself so that he could enact his theory. After all, he was lame, wasn't he? And relatively powerless."
It sounded like something Batman would have said, and suddenly, she wished that the others would come back from their pizza run.
Except that would mean not being alone with Robin anymore, and she enjoyed their time alone. They had the most interesting conversations.
"Do you read Tennyson?" She asked.
He shrugged. "I didn't much like The Lady of Shallot, but In Memoriam was good. I'm more of a Wordsworth kind of guy."
"We are home!" Starfire's voice called, and Raven hid her sigh.
Another conversation that would have to wait.