Nathan's horn lights up with magic, the television remote lifts, and the power button clicks. Across the room the television screen turns from a blank black to news network, as the newsmare begins to speak Nathan steps into the bathroom and looks at himself in the mirror.
"The votes have finally been counted, the new president of Hestain is Duke Flash, for what is now his fourth term as president," the newsmare says, "Duke will, at the end of this term, have been president for a full 16 years."
Nathan stares at his mane in the mirror, his mane is leaning too far to the right. His horn lights up again and he lifts his brush up to his mane, he begins to run it through his hair, trying to straighten it out more. I'll need to make an appointment at the barber today.
"Despite Duke's victory in this years election, his support is actually rather low currently," the newsmare says, "In fact his support has been low for several years now, having peaked during his second term and lowering ever since."
Nathan pulls the brush from his blond mane, it now stands tall rather than askew. He sets the brush down and opens the cabinet behind the mirror, pulling out his toothbrush and toothpaste. He wets the brush, squeezes out some paste, and begins to thoroughly brush.
"This election was surprisingly close with Duke only winning by about four percent of the vote," the newsmare explains.
Nathan spits into the sink, then lifts a small glass of tap water to his mouth. He gargled the water then spat it into the sink. The cabinet opens again and Nathan places his toothbrush back in its place before stepping out of the bathroom.
"In other news, our ongoing war with Grolia continues to worsen," the newsmare says, "the Grolian army continues to make steady progress against us, during the last week they managed to secure-"
The television screen goes black again as the remote clicks. The door to Nathan's apartment carefully opens and he steps out into the hallway, closing the door behind himself. Nathan steadily walks down the bleak grey hallway that he'd seen everyday for the last few years. Uniform and unchanging, as it should be. Down two flights of stairs and out the door he steps into the streets of Kaza, the capital of Hestain.
As Nathan begins his walk down Acorn Street, he takes in the city's sights like he does everyday. The street just beside him was loud with motor vehicles and the sky cluttered with pegasi flying to and fro. The buildings just to his left desolate and boring, they were built as part of Duke's 'Housing for the People' act. His second term as president was definitely the best one, he actually tried to be a pony of the people, not out for his own gain.
Nathan stepped onto Ember Lane, nearly at work now. This street was just the same as the last except that the buildings here started to get taller, now reaching six, seven, or eight stories. This was also the street where he works. Nathan looked up, there was a decent part in the pegasi and the clouds, the sun beamed down onto the sidewalk and street. A rare sign of beauty in Kaza that was gone in an instant as the clouds soon obscured the sun again. Nathan sighed, he hadn't had an opportunity to see the sun like that in a few days.
Nathan stopped in front of a large, grey office building, it stood seven-stories tall. He moved up the stairs to the entrance and stepped inside, the lobby was small and as uniform as everything else was. He soon found himself marching up the stairwell to the third floor, he opens the door to that level and steps in, making his way to his cubicle to begin his work day.
Nathan sits down at his desk and looks at the pile of papers he needs to file, not too many today, just a small stack. He quickly combs through them, mostly government finance reports. He places one in front of himself on the desk and gets to work.
Nathan steps into the breakroom, he trots over to the counter on the opposite side of the small room. He quickly begins to prepare himself a cup of coffee. As he prepares his coffee he overhears two of his coworkers discussing the election behind him.
"I can't believe it, Duke seriously won again," Aiden says, "and the margin that he won by, what bullshit."
"He still won, you can't fight that," Kyra says, "rest assured, he won't win next year, at least as long as he keeps losing support."
Aiden, he was always skeptical of Duke, rightfully, however, he got almost obsessed with hating Duke ever since Duke's support dropped during his second term. Kyra on the other hand preferred an almost neutral standing on Duke, arguing for and against him.
"The last good thing he did was that damn housing act, but that was over 5 years ago," Aiden begins, "and somehow, 5 years later, he's still president!"
"You haven't been this adamant in a while Aiden," Nathan says.
"Well we have to be adamant if we want to get rid of this fraud," Aiden says, "He's ruining this country."
"Well I wouldn't go that far," Kyra says, "He did a lot of good too."
"Did, he did good years ago," Aiden says, "He's been nothing but a self centered asshole since his second term."
"There's nothing we can do now," Nathan says, "he already won the election, we'll have to wait for the next one."
"We can always vote him out, "Aiden says, "if a majority of the population wants him gone then he'll be forced to step down."
"Nopony has ever been impeached Aiden," Kyra adds, "and the process for doing it is long and strenuous. It would be best if we just ride this out."
"There's no time to ride this out!" Aiden says, "We're losing a war because of him, this nation's money is being wasted because of him."
Nathan turns back to the counter, the coffee's done. Nathan pours himself a cup of coffee and sits at the table with Aiden and Kyra. If this is how everyone feels, then this is going to be a long year.
