Maybe it was your own uncertainty, even after days to adjust to what Marcus and the rest of the cabinet had just found out. All except for Vega, at least. She'd been right there beside you when your soul had lashed out against the choking wrongness, and as you struggled to find the right words, hers spilled forth.
"There will be grief, Marcus," Vega's words surprised you at first, but you didn't try to stop her. In that moment, you chose to trust, as you'd always tried to. Not always successfully, but enough that it had set Congress spinning when they'd realised the truth. "There will be tears, and rage, and many voices will call to fury. But there is more to humanity than those things." Marcus looked across at her, into a young face lined with a certainty decades beyond its years, and he couldn't meet her gaze.
"We are both of the Third Awakened." She continued gently. "We woke and grew into a world of miracles, untouched by war. We read of the horrors that our elders lived through, but they were only that, read. We believed in the future that the Elder First had promised, that those like Amanda championed," you found yourself flushing despite yourself, but none noticed, "and accepted that one day we would march against the Shiplords. Even if we never understood what it meant, we accepted that, Marcus. Not for vengeance," your eyes widened suddenly, for those were your words, and something in their recital brought Marcus' head around.
"But for peace." His voice joined Vega's, and though the emotion that had been there brief moments ago was still there, it wasn't so raw. "Justice for the lost, and freedom for those who survived."
"We are but one example of humanity, of the generations untouched, but if you and I can remember that truth, so can they." Vega said. "But there's more, too. The world's discovery won't be from dry words on a page, it will come from a voice they trust. A voice they trusted to lead them into this war, and who has proven herself worthy time and again."
"All of us fear the fire and thorns that you spoke of, but some fear them more than others. And there's a reason for that." You stared at the young Harmonial, the entire room enraptured by the words falling freely from her lips, and the power dancing at the edge of them. Did she even know it was there, you wondered.
"Amanda didn't force those things back, Marcus. She didn't snuff out the rage, wash away the thirst for vengeance. Even if she'd been capable of doing so, she didn't have to." Five pairs of eyes snapped towards yours, all asking the same question, and you nodded once. You didn't have to speak, and that was good, because you didn't trust your voice right now.
"You mean," Kazuki got it first, at least you thought he did, and Vega nodded.
"We did it ourselves. Her appearance on the media screens helped, but that only informed humanity's resolution. It didn't create it." She looked down at the report, at the cold words spelling out nightmare, and shook her head. As if she was rejecting something, and maybe she was.
"You're right that telling humanity the truth now will give that fire fresh fuel, and sparks to set it rising again. But we've fought it once, and vanquished it without a single word of aid." A strange feeling overtook you, something very close to déjà vu, as Vega's words pushed back the spectres of horror.
"There will be grief." She said again. "Pain, anger, all things that will conspire to make us stumble. But we've fought those things before, we've been fighting them ever since the Week of Sorrows passed, and humanity was left to piece itself back together." Here it came. You felt the power inside her rush inwards, and if it wasn't perfect, well it had taken you decades to even realise you were doing it
"It might take time, and it will change us, but humanity will find its Harmony." An edge of power you'd never heard in another's voice swept out around Vega's words, Practice woven to a shell of sound in a way that made both far more. Marcus had asked for an answer, but in doing so he'd voiced a need of the entire room, too. And Vega, somehow, had been ready when you hadn't.
The silence stretched for more than a minute, and it was a far more comforting one. Then slowly, eyes turned to you. Vega had given Marcus far more in her answer you'd thought possible, and far more than she'd thought herself capable of. But it had been her answer, and in the end, it was yours that would matter when you stepped onto the stage in front of all humanity.
What would it be?
[] Appeal to the past, to the work of the Elder First before you, and all they gave to rebuild a humanity that was more than just a weapon.
[] You have spent decades of your life putting the world back together, and you trust that work deeply. Not all are part of the Circles, but the bond of humanity itself will be stronger than any rage.
[] Write-ins very much acceptable
This is a ranked vote. Please number by preference.
