"Who actually is responsible for peace?"
Ciel finally spoke. The haters toned down as fan support grew.
"Who pays for undisturbed peace?" She leaned back in her chair, straightening her tense posture as she stared dazzlingly into the camera.
"Now, let me say this to get something clear." She sighed. "I am a being that's just as alive as you are. I get stressed just like you." A really long pause, closing her eyes before she spoke again. "I really wanted to start with a joke. I don't have one. I'm sorry."
Some people in the crowds of Fierfam-D started talking amongst themselves.
"There are eight big galaxies listening to me today." The crowds tensed. "Some really care for me and my views; some didn't even know who I was before the announcement of the top front-runners. Being No. 8 means something."
Another pause came from her mouth.
"I could spend this time telling you what you want to hear. I'm not gonna promise you peace and prosperity. Everyone does. And it never works. You've heard it before in many previous speeches of the supposed 'great' Delacroix who we voted for. What. Tsk. What do we do when we don't know enough to make the right decision?"
She put her hands to her mouth like she was praying. And visibly strained, deep in thought or anguish.
Oswald: "Uh." He was in a deep state of thought while he looked up at the billboards that showed Ciel speaking politely. He was squashed and had not a lot of room to move around in. Still enough to pay attention.
"We live in an empire that praises the top people who talk on podcasts and leaves the hard work of the bottom people to build the set of that same podcast room. Unfair governments establish unpopular rules, defend old running traditions like they were necessary and assure their populations that the systems surrounding them are working exactly as intended. It's an unhappy system. I will say that right here, right now."
"O-o-ooo-uh." Oswald turned his head for a split second. The mother next to him opened her mouth with an audible sound of realisation. He put his attention back onto Ciel.
{W-what is Ciel Aurentine saying out there? Jesus, the crowd went silent. I'd never expect that. Uh. Let me turn around, and there's nothing I can see. Fucking hell, man. The billboards of the main watch area where Oswald is are freaking gone, gone. Surely there's another close by?}
Stanley: "Uh, driver?"
"Yes, kind sir?"
"Turn the radio to whatever the speech is on."
Sheng-Ri: "Yeah, good idea," she said while moving her head slightly off the window.
The taxi driver flipped the circular switch only once, and the Ciel Aurentine broadcast was the first thing playing on [Gemin-1324 Radio].
Sheng-Ri: "Huh?"
Stanley: "Oo."
"Now, I am not speaking to all of you because I have the right answers, nor the morally right ones." People's mouths began to move again. "I'm here because I have the responsibility to make decisions when being right is not an option."
She leaned forward and pointed at the camera.
"Listen." Oswald gulped without knowing. "Most here, there, everywhere won't agree with my words. I'm a lot different from any 'genius war bringer' or 'talent that comes once a millennium'. Me, Ciel, I'm a poor child born in the northeast of Sector 3067, Paradisia. My parents' parents were poor world builders. The end of the inter-space age that started in 2029 was moving on to something brilliant. Gosh. They worked as much as possible to give their children room."
She tapped her left foot in a synchronised pattern.
"Now."
"When I was a younger woman, I worked roughly with a stone masonry team that's gone now, but there was a kid whom I still keep in touch with for his realism that pointed me the right way. See, I was seventeen, and he was sixteen. Let's call him John. John's parents were well off. Wealth that wouldn't need their son to be working tirelessly here."
Another pause.
"One day, while I was laying mortar and he was handing me bricks, during our friendly chats I finally asked him, 'Why? Why are you here?' I was disappointed that he was there at the time, but my point of view shifted with his answer."
"What is it?"
"Hmm?"
"Oouuughh."
"This never happened. It's all another lie."
"What's the kid's answer?"
"Haha."
The crowd around Oswald mumbled their own comments out loud for everyone to hear.
"Now, listen closely. This may not seem like much, but it directed me onto the correct path." "He turned to me and said, 'Well. I dunno, really. My parents weren't telling me to do anything, so I came into this job to see if I could be a human.' He went back to handing me bricks while I looked at him with curiosity."
She pinched her thumb and index finger and looked back at the camera.
"Now. I was disappointed before. Why? Because I thought he made some bad decisions and got himself there as a last resort. It was the complete opposite, which surprised me. John became the start of the reason I ran for anything at all. Because he wasn't a sloth, nor spoiled rotten. He was unasked. No one gave him an idea of what to do. A problem no one talks enough about. And there were millions just like him, somewhere. I'm speaking out there to you, you know? Man or woman, bug or human, Nullari or Auroran."
Stanley: "Hmm."
Sheng-Ri: "…"
They both listened as focused as possible. Stanley leaned forward from his seat, putting his arms against the driver's seat, and Sheng-Ri was leaning backwards into the seat, mushing herself in there while she put her left leg on top of her right.
Stanley listened, but Ciel's speech went over his head. She didn't stand out at all to him; he was never in the trade industry, yet the story she talked about shared parts of his if he thought hard about it.
Sheng-Ri could recognise the meaning behind her short story, as she had once been lost, not knowing what job she could go do as a young adult. It didn't resonate; it only bonded with her slightly.
He turned his head. Sheng-Ri's posture had changed from when he last looked. Seeming more focused. He saw her face staring at something perfectly straight, but her eyes moved around. Was she daydreaming?
"So, in return for what I learned some time ago, I started asking people what they wanted."
"I got civilians in Paradisia to get a working-class job rather than sitting at home with loneliness consuming them. My company, C and Co, worked with SOLARR to rebuild the workforce. Sector by sector. And when that civil war broke out in Helios's Spiral, my team and the SOLARR nearby were the ones to help rebuild some of that mess. I saw it all. I'm not saying that to boast; I literally did during the horrible aftermath of Stage Three anomaly 'FINALE' and the chaos in Nigel Delacroix's dictatorship."
"Fuck Nigel!"
"I hated him since he started."
"Uh?"
"So, Mum, when can I go home?"
"Delacroix deserves to burn in hell."
"Life is nothing without the Delacroix to help."
"F-finale?"
"So here is my promise: the first thing I will do if you choose me as Supreme Galactic Chancellor. Every citizen of the empire, in every one of the eight galaxies (Deltora, Aether Expanse, Andromeda, Milky Way, Sapphire Reach, Helios's Spiral, Crown Galaxy and Kaelor Subspace Galaxy), will be offered a place in the work: in trade, in building, in defence, exploration, leadership, design, creation. All of it. It is not forced. Just offered. An ask. Some of you will be waiting for someone to lead you along; others would prefer not. I'd rather it be discussed than forgotten."
"You didn't know me before tonight. Now you know one thing about me."
"Who pays for our peace?"
"Remember that now."
Click.