Tsar or reformer? It was a question that haunted his childhood. He knew that one day, he would rule, yes. He knew that there was an unhappy in-between state in the government, once that gave his father headaches and had led to the unfortunate Peacock Square incident that his father still cried about sometimes at night when he thought nobody listened, and he knew that the government that existed under his father wasn't really under his father except when it was, and that the lines and the wiretaps (his history professor had explained why they were called that) made the people unhappy. His history professor probably would have been banned from the palace if anyone else had known what he was teaching the young prince, but then, nobody paid terribly much attention. They didn't know that the prince would rule, after all, because that was a secret between the prince and his older brother, on whom much attention was lavished and much care was taken in his training. It was a pact between brothers and sister. His older sister did not get as much attention as his older brother, but she could have ruled as Tsarina if she wasn't engaged and madly in love with the Despot of Mars.


Inspiration: Googling "reformer" -> a headline "Putin: Tsar or Reformer"
Story Potential: High.
Notes: The answer, of course, is BOTH. I just think this has lots of possibility for fun Machiavellian scheming and long-laid plans coming to fruition, with a dash of the young Alexander the Great and a goodly dollop of Miles. Um. Probably not a short story. Needs another twining plot, too, something bigger-picture that the tsar-to-be can affect. Or something smaller-picture. Or both.