Day 59: Sun Room

[witchdetective]

Erika stood back to survey her work, and she had no idea why no one seemed to care.

By 'no one', she was referring to the soldiers who were on guard, who should be looking particularly anxious due to the atmosphere of this place. It didn't make sense in her mind. Someone who just took up a large chunk of the middle of the Sun Room to build a

Comments

[scintillatingly]

Sora didn't know what had changed Venom's mind, but he also didn't really care. The man had decided to join them under the blankets, and that was all that really mattered to him. He decided to just call it a team effort and leave it at that.

"Hey!" he greeted as Venom ducked inside, waving to the man before glancing over to Chipp. They were going to prop up a couch? Well, that would make it a little easier for everyone to sit in here and actually have some space above their heads. Not that Sora needed it that much, but he wasn't going to dwell on his shortness right now.

Instead, he listened to what Chipp was saying about how he was going to run for president. A president was someone who was in charge of stuff, right? Kind of like the mayor of Halloween Town, but even more important.

"How are you going to do that?" he asked the man once he'd finished with his explanation. Sora thought that it sounded like a great idea -- when was making something better not a good thing? -- but he wanted to know what exactly Chipp had in mind. It didn't sound like it was an easy job; Sora understood that better after running the Arts and Crafts club.

[anemptydecapo]

Truthfully, Venom could have moved the couch by himself, at least in a normal situation. However, in this decidedly uncouth hour, the help was surprisingly necessary. Once the object was mostly vertical, the assassin had taken to pushing against it with only his left shoulder, his right hand gone to fix the material over-top their heads. They needed to be straightened out and readjusted in order to keep the entire structure from collapsing in on them and doing so while also moving the furniture required more hands than he owned.

Once it was finally put into place, the Guild Head slid to the floor. In regards to Zanuff's Presidential aspirations (...had he even decided which country to run in?), Venom stayed silent. He could answer that himself.

[commentated]

Some part of Harry had been expecting No, I meant President of the local country club or something along those lines less extreme ambitions. As it turned out, he didn't get No, I meant President of the local country club. He didn't even get, President of this useless island off the coast of New Zealand containing nothing but emus. He got President of the fucking United States.

(At this stage, Harry had yet to discover dimensions or Second World or any of that shit, so he was still pretty solidly convinced he was in America. Where else would he be? They all spoke English and no one had affected Russian or German accents and he was certain he smelled bacon one morning. This was obviously set in America.)

Harry scratched behind his ear. Possibly, the guy was kidding. Harry wasn't too sure about that, but he decided there was no reason to get down on someone for their chosen life goals. He'd had a lot of assholes tell him he couldn't possibly be the best magician since Houdini got appendicitis, and hey, look how that turned out.

...

...Okay, this required some rethinking. Hang on.

In the meantime, he scratched behind his ear. "Oh, yeah, sure, I'll vote for you."

When he planted his palms on the ground to get more comfortable again, he felt a blunt edge and immediately yanked his hand up again. Oh, hey, was that-

"Hey, look." He held the button up and squinted through the holes that were too small to really see through. He turned to Sora. "Wanna see something cool, kid?"

[chippforprez]

Hearing someone actually agree to vote for him was a plus, but Chipp seemed to be hanging on to see if there were any requirements to earn that vote. Was it as easy as just asking people to vote for him? Chipp hadn't had the time to do research or anything, so all he really had to go on was pure instinct and luck. In this case, both favored him and he was rewarded with his very first constituent promising to vote. Wow. That was easy. So all he really did have to do was ask! Who wouldn't want to vote for a guy who was confident enough to just ask, right? He knew those lazy assholes in A Country were doing it wrong. Politics was easy.

"Yeah! You won't regret it!" It was funny how something so simply cheered Chipp up so much. Yeah, one vote! That was the first of many, a big step forward! Damn, he felt good right now. Since he was in such a good mood, he obviously had to try for more, right? This campaigning thing was easier then he thought. He looked down at Sora, after Harry had offered to show the kid a magic trick. Was Sora old enough to vote? Well, in the meantime....

"Kurae! And what about you, Venom? You're still voting for me, right?"

[scintillatingly]

While Sora had been waiting for some sort of answer or explanation for how Chipp was going to go about all of that, it turned out that the man was distracted by Harry saying that he would vote for him. Sora wondered if it was really that simple to just agree to it, but he realized that he hadn't really voted for anything before. Sure, he and his friends had voted for who would be the leader in their pretend games back on Destiny Islands, but...

That all felt so long ago now. That had just been for fun, while Sora was guessing that Chipp meant it more seriously. He said he wanted to change things for the better, so that sounded like more than just a silly game.

However, Sora was then distracted by the whole subject by Harry asking him a question. He took note of the button in his hand and realized it must have come off of one of the blankets, pillows, or pieces of furniture during all the shuffling around. Still, what exactly did Harry mean? "Huh? Like what?" the boy asked.

[anemptydecapo]

Of all the questions Zanuff could ask...

A huff of air left the assassin's mouth in response, something too exasperated to be a laugh yet too short to be a sigh. Would he vote for him? The short answer was "no." The long answer was hardly that; it was three words at most. Criminals couldn't vote. That was always how it was and unless he found himself pardoned, that was how it was going to stay. Someone with the political aspirations Chipp did should know that by now.

It was also worth mentioning that, criminal or not, campaigning for votes in a place like this was particularly pointless. He could have vocalized that thought. He most likely should have. In the end, Venom only shook his head and turned his attention to whatever Harry was doing.

There was just something about the blaring optimism around him that was keeping his mouth shut. Maybe he didn't feel like ruining it.