Chapter 32: The Melancholy of a (Phony) Saint

Halfway through the election period, Mia sat with her crew in the classroom they’d borrowed for their campaign headquarters.

“Princess Mia, so far, the election is not going in our favor,” said Chloe in a somber tone.

Ah. Well. No surprises there.

The news did not come as a shock to her. In fact, it felt quite reasonable to her. After all, even she couldn’t see herself winning against Rafina. Her campaign promises turned out quite well, thanks in no small part to Abel and Sion, allowing her to present a solid platform that was no less impressive than Rafina’s. No less impressive, but no more, either. And against someone like Rafina, adequacy was simply not good enough.

There were just too many unexpected developments...

Mia, for her part, had actually come into this with a plan of sorts. She’d intended to prepare a solid list of promises and establish an atmosphere in which she was seen as someone who could realistically become the student council president. Meanwhile, she’d be buying up votes from Tearmoon and Sunkland factions behind the scenes to try to eke out a win. Her grand design, however, had ended up stillborn.

Tiona’s loud and unauthorized declaration that Mia would be taking the high road shut down communications with not only Sapphias but everyone related to the Four Dukes. At this point, she was entirely out of options. While one of the Etoilers might be harboring Chaos Serpents, their assistance was still necessary if she wished to rally the Tearmoon nobles to her. Worse yet, if she couldn’t secure all the Tearmoon votes, the Sunkland votes would be a lost cause. After all, who was going to support a candidate who couldn’t even convince her own kinsmen to vote for her? She couldn’t reach out to Sion either, seeing as he’d already made clear his intention to remain a neutral party. In the end, preliminary polling revealed that public opinion was largely in favor of Rafina.

“Currently, support for Miss Rafina versus yourself is about nine to one,” said Chloe.

My! A tenth of the students support me?! Mia lifted her eyebrows in exaggerated surprise. There sure are a lot of people who like to get on sinking ships! Ohoho!

She’d reached the self-deprecation stage of grief.

“We need to turn this around somehow,” said Chloe.

Mia gave her a wry grin.

“Easier said than done, isn’t it?”

There was something in the room — something she knew well. She could smell it in the air, feel it on her skin, and see it on the faces of the students gathered in the room — defeat. As she looked at them each in turn, an old memory resurfaced.

Ahh, these faces... They look just like the faces of the imperial guards during the final days of the revolution.

She remembered how, knowing full well none of them would make it back alive, the soldiers didn’t even try to hide their looks of resignation before making their final charge toward the revolutionary army. The students in the room all wore the same expression as they returned her weary gaze in kind.

I’m starting to think we ought to just assume we’ll lose and start preparing for the aftermath.

The dejected mood in the room proved infectious, and Mia found herself half ready to throw in the towel. The only ones who still seemed to believe they could win were Abel, Tiona... and Chloe, who was leading the discussion. She’d even made the rounds through all the classrooms to gather data for analysis.

“Does anyone have any ideas? The more specific the better,” Chloe said, undeterred by the thick air of defeatism.

After a brief silence, a hand shot up. It belonged to Tiona Rudolvon.

“How about we decide on a color to represent us?”

Her question earned her puzzled stares from everyone in the room.

“Everyone who supports Her Highness will wear something of that color on them,” she continued, “so we all match. It might be sort of hard to do that for all our clothes though...”

“Branding through color, huh. Nice and simple. If we can find a bunch of scarves that are all the same color and wrap them on our arms, I think it’ll be quite effective. Appearances matter, after all,” said Chloe, nodding as she explained that she’d seen a similar strategy employed in some other nation’s election.

“It works on the battlefield too,” added Abel. “I’ve heard that Sunkland has an elite squadron of knights who are clad in black from head to toe. The color scheme also makes it easy for them to identify each other as allies, which promotes solidarity. That does leave us with the crucial question, though, what color do we use?”

One of Mia’s groupies offered an idea.

“I think the color that best represents Miss Rafina is white, so how about we go with a calm color as well? Like some shade of blue?”

Mia winced at the suggestion.

“Blue...”

The color evoked memories of a group of people whose revolutionary venture in Remno ended in failure.

That reminds me of... what were they called again? Right, the Blue Scarves.

It was, she thought, not the best thing to be associated with. In fact, it was downright awful. She’d practically be jinxing herself.

Then again, why am I even worried? I’m immune to jinxes. You can’t jinx someone who never had a chance to begin with.

Mia was still firmly stuck in self-deprecation mode. Meanwhile, her classmates kept suggesting ever more fanciful colors — yellow, green, peach, ocher, and so on — until Chloe doused their enthusiasm with a dose of reality.

“Actually, we’re limited by dyes, so if we want to get this done quickly, there are only a couple of colors that are viable.”

In the end, their choices were whittled down to either a bright yellow Chloe described as ‘flamboyant’ or a deep shade of red.

“If we go with red, we’ll be using a dye made from twilight roses. The name of the color is literally ‘twilight rose red.’ As for yellow, it’s, uh, this color.”

Chloe produced a handkerchief, and even Mia grimaced at just how damn yellow the thing was. It immediately became clear why “flamboyant” was an appropriate adjective.

That... is a little too much. We’re going to look like a bunch of idiots.

The only thing they’d manage to accomplish with a color like that was to label themselves a bunch of flagrant attention-seekers. That was definitely not good for branding. Consequently, their choice of color naturally settled on the other option.

“Red, sure, whatever,” muttered Mia with disinterest, paying little attention to the rest of the discussion, only to regret her indifference a few days later upon seeing the finished product.

“Th-This color is...”

As a matter of fact, the deep, sanguine hue known as twilight rose red had another name — guillotine red. The logic behind the naming was self-explanatory, and it called to mind exactly the kind of imagery Mia would rather never, ever think about.

“Ahh... This has to be a sign. I’m done for... U-Ugh...”

She proceeded to collapse on the spot, sending Anne and the others into a wild panic as the election period neared its home stretch.