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

[anemptydecapo]

It was becoming incredibly disheartening when the assassin was beginning to prefer the nightmares over waking up in the morning. At least his nightmares were always at a consistent and expected level of torture--he'd handled it for years and accepted them long ago. But the constant emotional fluctuations this asylum put him through every day? They were going to drive him insane. After what this damned military put him and everyone else through last night, he was clear on the path to forgetting what it was like when his head wasn't pounding all the time

[chippforprez]

Now that three of them were in the fort, Chipp was honestly expecting Venom to follow them. Well, if the rest of them were in there, then Venom would have to crawl in too, right? They couldn't just talk to him from... well, Chipp guessed they could talk to him if he was still outside of the fort, but that was weird because he couldn't see anything, on account of having a blanket covering his face. It was dumb, but this way he wouldn't get even more attention of the soldiers. And he was covered in something flammable. As much as Chipp didn't like it, he had to be careful to prevent getting anyone else around him injured. Funny how he actually thought about that for once

[scintillatingly]

That was kind of a weird answer. Sora probably wouldn't have even known what Harry had meant by that if he hadn't heard the word dictionary. The only place around here that had something like that was

[anemptydecapo]

No. That was the answer on his tongue and the one that had been there since Harry cowardly squirreled himself into that childish construct. No. He was not going to degrade himself as an assassin by going into that thing. He was not going to degrade himself as an adult by joining them. He crossed his arms over his chest, feet firmly planted on the ground, and shook his head.

No.It was because he shook his head that he managed to catch sight of the solider his business partner had taken to arguing with earlier. The guard's face read of quiet, silent disapproval (although that tended to be the expression everyone had when speaking to Chipp Zanuff), his eyes staring straight into that pile of blankets and immaturity. By the time the more relaxed members of the conversation looked back out of their next, the Guild Head's arms had already dropped to his side, his head tilted in consideration at that upset soldier

[commentated]

Oh. Yeah, library. Harry guessed he could've just said that. In response to Chipp's request for clarification, he pointed at Sora. "What he said."

It was pretty comfortable inside here, though comfortable was something of a relative term. The thing was, this was basically...fucking weird. There was no other way to put it. Like, his whole life was kinda crazy? Well, maybe not his whole life, but definitely the past year of it, what with bodies in a shower and murder conspiracies that weren't really murder conspiracies. Then ever since he got kidnapped, it'd gotten weirder. Meeting Harrison Ford pretty much solidified that. You didn't go back from meeting Harrison Ford

[chippforprez]

"Took you long enough. Alright, lemme help..." Chipp was quick to agree with Venom, if only because having the damn blanket suffocating his face was kind of annoying. He sort of was getting what Venom was trying to do for him; if the couch was tall enough, the soldiers couldn't tell if he was sitting or standing, so it was worth a shot. Chipp already started to move the couch, while keeping one ear on the conversation. Huh, this place had a library? That was good; Chipp didn't want to stop doing his research and shit just because he was kidnapped by a bunch of crazy assholes running some damn boot camp. A good President had to be informedHence why he was pleased when Harry asked him if he really was running, nodding to answer the man's question

[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.

[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

[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

[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.