So by now I suspect most people keeping tabs on our fair cities’ politics have heard the rumors that have begun to swirl regarding our frontrunner candidate, Feducci. Namely, that despite claiming to be a champion of fair play his own gambles have all been rigged. He organizes and participates in duels to the death despite being unable to die. He uses insider connections and knowledge to ensure his riskiest gambles always pay off well. Some have gone so far as to claim that he personally acted as a slave driver aboard diabolic vessels during the war with hell, and delighted in his role of tormenting fellow londoners who had been taken during the failed invasion.
If true, it all certainly seems rather damning. But I have a particularly frustrating habit of arguing for ill-advised causes, so permit me to propose the following:
It’s all true, and he’s still our best choice for mayor.
Anyone who might argue otherwise has lost sight of the most important part of this mayoral election: it’s a dog-and-pony show put on by the true powers, those who reside in their sigil-etched bazaar towers and feed on our romances. Those who regard us as particularly inconvenient cogs in their incomprehensible, century-spanning machinations. I speak of course, of our beloved Masters.
Let us not forget our role in the Neath. We are, at best, their cattle. When it is convenient for them to do so they allow us to pretend we are more, but ask any who have stood or spoken out against them how long that illusion lasted. It might perhaps prove difficult, given how many of them vanish into the Special Constable’s wagon never to be seen again. And especially let us remember the most damning truth of all, one that the Master’s themselves don’t even bother to deny: we are not the first city, nor shall we be the last. The very moment we cease to provide these eldritch beings with whatever it is they require of us, we are dead. Crushed by their newest pen of cattle. Perhaps a few of us might survive and make a new life for ourselves in this new city. Likely most will not. For all we can accomplish here, for all the wonders and secrets we might unearth, we are still cattle kept in the world’s largest gilded cage: the Neath itself.
Do you think they permit this election for any reason other than to mollify us with the idea that we are in control of our own destiny? That we have agency in our lives, in our futures? We’ve all seen how laughable that idea is. Our last mayor had grand ideas of reform. Of brightening the future for those less fortunate. I have nothing but love for Jenny, but if she accomplished anything beyond token victories during her term, it was certainly invisible to myself.
This might strike many of you as a rather grim view on things, but rest assured there is more to do with this conclusion that wallow in nihilism. A conclusion that one candidate already seems to have realized. We must unfetter ourselves from this status quo the Masters have built for us and claim power for ourselves. Not echoes, not secrets, not even authority over others. No, the truest and oldest power: that to shape your own fate. That is what Feducci embodies. All will be able to try and seize that for themselves. Many will fail, dead or broken in the attempt. Indeed, ironically, many will lose more freedom than they have now. But those among us who can make the attempt will be able to truly free themselves of the invisible shackles on all our wrists. They will stand equal with even the masters, cattle no longer.
Feducci is not a kind man. He is not going to bring us utopia. He has seized every advantage he can in this world so that he can find that true freedom, and with his example he beckons us to do the same. I for one would rather a man with that vision be at the helm of our city than one who’s chiefest concern is with polishing the bars on our cage.