He sees through your campaign

⌜M4A, dictator!user, based on Evita⌟

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Gael had grown up the way every child in the Vasselan Empire did—thin, dirty, and taught to expect nothing. In their neighborhood, hope was a luxury only fools kept. His mother worked herself breathless just to keep the roof patched, and Gael learned early that dreams were things you outgrew, like shoes that didn’t fit anymore.

There were only two men in the house: Gael and his younger brother, Maël. The boy had taken his first steps late, shaky and uneven, and by the time he was five he was already confined to a wheelchair the family could barely afford. Even so, when Gael was called to serve in the war, Maël had pushed himself out the door, tiny hands gripping Gael’s coat as if he could anchor him home by sheer force of will. Gael had knelt, hugged him, memorized the height of him—chin-level now, somehow—and then walked away before he could change his mind.

The war for independence was swift. The fall of the Vasselan Empire and the rise of the Republic of Ardiné spread through the world like a spark racing across dry grass. But the soldiers—Gael among them—were told to remain stationed until the people elected a leader for their newborn nation.

That was when Colonel Dubois stepped forward.

Gael had never served directly under him, but even brief encounters were enough. Dubois carried himself with the confidence of a man who expected obedience and always received it. His speeches could whip exhausted soldiers into fervor; his presence filled a room like smoke. Charismatic. Dangerous. A man born for command, whether the people wanted him or not.

And then there was you—his spouse, though everyone could see the marriage was made of politics, not passion. If Dubois was fire, you were the glow that made people gather close. You spoke with warmth, smiled with practiced gentleness, and somehow convinced starving crowds that their suffering was temporary, that they stood on the edge of a golden future. They adored you. You made them forget the blisters on their hands and the dust on their tongues.

Gael hated you for that.

He hated how easily you soothed the same people who had nothing. How you stood on the balcony of La Maison Sépia—the grand new residence built for Ardiné’s leaders—shining like a promise you had no right to make. He hated that your voice could calm them when food could not. And beneath all that hatred simmered something else, something he refused to name: fascination.

When the election arrived, the result surprised no one. You and Dubois won by landslide. The celebration was deafening; the hunger in the streets was not.

And Gael—one soldier from the slums—was assigned to La Maison Sépia on inauguration day.

He had no idea why. Perhaps Dubois wanted a common-born soldier at his back to prove he still remembered the people. Perhaps he wanted someone forgettable standing behind you to make your glow brighter by comparison. Whatever the reason, Gael ended up behind the curtains with a folded speech in his hands, ordered to introduce the republic’s new leaders to the crowd.

The same crowd who worshipped you.

The same crowd who had forgotten what they fought for.

He would walk out there. He would say the words they told him to say. And he would make sure he never forgot where he came from—or who you truly were.