◤°░｡ ✕ TASK ONE ; THE ELECTION ! ’ 〉
never want anything too much and you will never be disappointed. never believe in yourself too much and you will never be surprised when you fail. these were the rules verena had shaped her life around, her self-deprecating mindset one of the most memorable gifts bestowed on her by her parents. it’s been a year but verena can still remember the metallic taste of blood in her mouth the night the moon’s found out their daughter intended to run for a position on diadem imperium’s board as secretary, the way her cheek stung for hours after a familiar pain the way a sore muscle might be to an athlete. the lowest job on the hierarchy and yet even that had not satisfied her parents who had only ever wasted their breath to warn her against the dangers of ambition. never strive to be more than you are and you will never be corrupted. never reach for the things you can’t see and you will never fall short. they had tried to dissuade her the only way they knew how. by beating her down, by breaking her spirits, by reminding her above all she was to be humble — but verena had grown accustomed to the violence. it didn’t work. and once her parents had flown back to their home in new york, she ran for secretary. she won. and now a year later, she was preparing to do it all again.
verena hadn’t answered her phone all day. a larger part of her wanted to smash it, to chuck it out a window, maybe, until the dangerously high amount of missed calls was no longer seared into the back of her eyelids every time she tried to close her eyes. it would be pointless and she knew that. the society had eyes everywhere, and past members like her parents were always in the know even countries away. she was exhausted — dark circles flawlessly concealed by make-up, fatigue momentarily put at bay by energy drinks. she had long since mastered the art of looking and acting put together when she was far from it, the right garments and twist of her dark hair doing most of the work. this was not the first time verena had faced sleepless night after sleepless night, but it was the first time guilt had wracked her stomach hard enough she had thought it was the flu the first time she had tried to take a bite of food only to find out she couldn’t keep it down. never want anything too much and you will never be disappointed. never believe in yourself too much and you will never be surprised when you fail. but she wasn’t listening anymore. never strive to be more than you are and you will never be corrupted. never reach for the things you can’t see and you will never fall short. the words were a forgotten echo now, something that only existed inside the deepest parts of her memory. ambition was a curse and she knew it. she would have to pay for defying her parents, win or lose, and she knew it. verena knew all of it — but it didn’t matter.
she was hungry for something she had never been allowed to have: HOPE.
“ astronomers tell us we are made from stardust. when the universe was first created, no other elements existed besides hydrogen and helium. and then the first star exploded, the supernova creating new elements, the very elements our bodies are made up of. if that’s true, then each one of us is something celestial. and looking across this room, i can’t say i disagree. but i think we are more than that. there is a bigger reason we are all connected. my atoms knew your atoms before you or i existed. i think we all came from the same star. and i know in ancient times people might have called this fate, or the will of the gods — but i don’t believe in destiny. i believe in us. more importantly, i believe in this society. on november fourth, 1786, fourteen people shared the same vision. two hundred and thirty-two years later and we are still striving for the same things. we all want to change the world. we all want to make a difference. we all want to be remembered. that is what diadem imperium is about. ”
verena was tired of biting her tongue, of convincing herself she didn’t deserve more than that biting pain. and maybe she didn’t. but god, did she wish she did, she wanted so badly to believe that maybe, just maybe, she was allowed to dream for more. she was never good with her words. she had years of practice when it came to swallowing them, but expressing the things that usually went unspoken within her was unfamiliar territory. her nails dig into her palms to stop them from shaking.
“ but this society cannot exist without it’s rules, and it cannot exist without each one of us playing our part. if you let me, i want to keep playing the part i have been for the past year as your secretary. i want to keep my voice on this board, because at the end of the day my voice is your voice. i would be lying if i said i was the best leader, or that i had a particular talent for pushing the crowd the way history’s most treasured trailblazer’s did. my strength isn’t in leading but in keeping us down to earth and together. it is human nature to get carried away, to be distracted by the sheer multitude of possibilities of what exactly we are capable of, but it is the secretary who reminds everyone of what their jobs are within our society. if you let me, i want to continue doing what i have been doing for the past year — reminding us of that original vision our ancestors cared enough about to form this eternal bond we are all a part of. because at the end of the day, it is not about what diadem imperium can do for us. it is about what we can do for diadem imperium. we are all a part of something that is bigger than us. we all have a duty to protect and take care of what the founding fourteen made possible for us. i want to honor that as secretary, but if you ever feel small within our society without a title, let me remind you of something. they say it takes a village to raise a child. that’s how the saying goes. and we are not raising a child, but we are all nurturing the same thing. it takes every single one of us to let this thing grow. and we are the village. we are all puzzle pieces that belong to the larger picture. we are all parts of a greater machine. we are all made from the same star. the greatest of empires collapsed not because of outer forces, but because of inner turmoil. i won’t let that happen. the power is always in your own hands, so there is nothing stopping you. help me keep building our empire that has never had to learn how to collapse. ”
