Freedom Of Choice

by Closer-To-The-Sun

Chapter 1: Elected

Ocellus was hurrying through the halls with a stack of papers held tightly to her body. It was lunch and she needed to get to the mess hall while all the students were present. If there was a time for her to put her plan into action, it was now.

The changeling opened up the doors to the cafeteria, revealing the student body taking part of their midday meal. She started passing them out the papers she had to all the different students in the mess hall. They were flyers, persuading them to vote for Ocellus to be class president.

“Ocellus for class president! Ocellus for class president!” she would say to the various different students as she passed out the papers. Her face had a genuine friendly smile to each and every creature, even if they seemed to lack any interest. She continued making her way throughout the mess hall, offering the flier to any student that would take it. After keeping this up for a while and making her way through the room, she reached a familiar table with some friendly faces that she stopped to take a rest at.

“Hey, Ocellus,” Sandbar, the green earth pony greeted, raising his hoof up as he peered over the comic book he was reading.

“Hi!” the changeling responded as she placed the stack of fliers on the table. She seemed out of breath from both passing them out and talking so much. She looked around the table to see that all five of her friends were present.

The pink hippogriff, Silverstream, was the first to notice her stack of papers, “Ooo! What do you have here?” She picked up one of the papers to examine it. It had a picture of Ocellus on a podium of sorts with red and blue font proclaiming ‘A vote for Ocellus is a vote for friendship’. Even the paper itself seemed to be of quality material.

“I’m running for class president,” Ocellus answered, “I could have sworn I told all of you about this.” Ocellus seemed bewildered that her friends were clueless.

“Yona not remember Ocellus say that,” the yak thought for a moment, “however, Yona remember friend Ocellus say she was going to run and Yona wanted to race against friend.”

“No, it’s not that kind of race. It’s an election for president of the student body,” Ocellus explained.

The griffon, Gallus, asked, “Wait, we have a student president? I thought we had an autocracy.”

“Nah, we have a president,” the dragon Smolder answered. “Rumor has it that the pressure of being class president got to them so bad that they dropped out and now they’re at the cemetery.”

Yona gasped, “They died?!”

Smolder shook her head, “No, they work there as a security guard.”

Ocellus looked as if she wanted to correct her friends about a number of things but held her tongue. Instead, she brought the subject back, “I could use some help passing out these flyers to students. Do you all mind helping me out?”

“Hard pass,” Gallus answered as he took a bite from his plate.

The response didn’t seem to visibly bother Ocellus. She turned to look at her other friends, “How about you, Sandbar?”

“Busy,” he answered, turning the page of his comic.

“Silverstream?”

The hippogriff in question had taken her paper and folded into a paper hat that she placed on her head, “Hey, look at what I did!”

Ocellus’ hope was starting to be diminished, “What about you, Smolder?”

“I don’t know why you’re so stressed about this, Ocellus,” Smolder looked at her friend, “it’s not like you have any competition. No other creature wants to be class president. You basically already won. These things are kinda dumb.”

“And aren’t these elections basically glorified popularity contests?” Gallus asked.

Without raising his eyes from his comic, Sandbar added, “It certainly was at my old school.”

“But the students still have to know why they should vote for me!” Ocellus insisted. “I can help change this school for the better!”

Yona spoke up, “Yona think school is fine way it is. Especially on nacho day!”

“I hear that,” Gallus agreed, offering a rolled talon for Yona to hit with her hoof, to which she did.

“There is more to school than just lunches,” Ocellus sighed.

Silverstream adjusted her new paper hat slightly before speaking, “But it’s my favorite subject! And I think it’s the only subject I have a good grade in.”

“Think about it, we can help make the school better for not only us and the rest of our classmates, but future students at this school, and maybe even other schools! And then we can take our programs across Equestria and even beyond! And as class president, I would be able to make those dreams a reality!” Ocellus seemed to be getting animated as she explained her hopes as class president.

“Wow, you really are an overachiever, Ocellus,” Smolder commented.

The changeling replied, “I don’t see the problem.”

As the friends continued chatting, a lilac unicorn entered the mess hall and headed toward the table they were at. Leavitated next to her with magic was a rolled piece of parchment.

“Oh, Ocellus, I’m happy I found you,” she spoke.

“Oh, hello there, Headmare Starlight Glimmer,” the changeling greeted, “what can I help you with?”

The Headmare looked troubled, as if she couldn’t figure out what words she would use, “It’s about the election for class president.”

“Is it about how she already won?” Gallus joked.

“I was going over our school’s charter, and I found a clause that needs to be addressed.” The unicorn used her magic to unravel the parchment, revealing the school’s charter. “Right now, you are running unopposed, but according to the charter, a president must be elected in a race against at least two individuals running for the same office,” Headmare Starlight explained as she looked over the charter.

Ocellus grew concerned, “Huh? What does that mean?”

“It seems that unless you have another student compete against you for the office, we might just have to postpone the election,” Starlight explained with a shrug.

“Hey, may I see that?” Gallus asked, pointing at the charter.

The Headmare used her magic to levitate the to the griffon as she continued, “I know this might not be what you want to hear after all the work you put into your campaign, but it’s in the charter.”

The changeling didn’t speak for a moment. Instead, the gears in her head seemed to be working overtime to think of some sort of solution. “So, it could be any student who runs against me? It doesn’t matter who?”

“I guess? As long as they are currently enrolled and want to hold the office. But they must hurry and sign up, tomorrow is when we are supposed to have the debate,” Starlight explained.

“I’d offer to run, but I really shouldn’t after last time I participated in an election,” Silverstream spoke.

Yona turned to the hippogriff, “What happened last time?”

“There was some….unpleasantness….” Silverstream explained with a guilty look, “now I can never go back to Cloudsdale….”

Before anycreature could ask Silverstream to elaborate, Ocellus slammed her hooves down on the table, “I got it!” She turned to her dragon friend, “Smolder, you can run against me!”

The entire table was silent as it tried to process exactly what Ocellus just suggested. The first to make any noise was Sandbar, who tried his best to hide his snickering at the thought.

“Are you crazy? I don’t want any part of that!” Smolder was taken back by the suggestion.

“It’s for the school! If you help me win, I will be able to help this school with all sorts of plans I have lined out!” Ocellus excitedly spoke.

Smolder raised an eyebrow, “You already have plans for when you win?”

“Of course! I have binders filled with plans to help the entire student body!” the changeling explained before returning to begging, “But I can’t do any of them if you don’t help me run for the student body! Besides, don’t you want to improve the lives of your fellow students at the school?”

The dragon shrugged, “No, not really. In fact, I think most of the students think my name is Cinder. But I have to ask you a question; why me?”

“I second asking this question,” Sandbar asked.

Gallus also spoke up, “I third.”

“I Silverstream!”

“Because you already stated how you feel about school elections, and how they are simply pointless popularity contests.”

Smolder groaned as she looked away, “You’re not wrong.”

“And you probably would resign right away if you were to somehow win,” Ocellus added.

“Hey, you don’t know me!” Smolder got a bit defensive, “But yeah, that’s true too.”

Ocellus smiled, “So it would be perfect if you run against me!”

“Politics aren’t really my passion,” Smolder said, “My passion involves lighting things on fire. With or without my fire breath.”

Headmare Starlight interrupted to scold the dragon, “I told you to stop doing that on school grounds.”

“I don’t do it on school grounds….anymore….” Smolder crossed her limbs in annoyance.

Placing her hoof on Smolder, Ocellus asked again, “Please, Smolder? Can you do this for me?”

With a defeated sigh, Smolder agreed, “Fine, I’ll run against you for class president. But you better win and thank me when you do.”

Sandbar looked over to Headmare Starlight, “Are you okay with them talking like this about the school election? This has to be against some sort of rule.”

“Honestly, whoever wins the election is going to make my job easier, so I don’t care who wins,” Headmare Starlight admitted with a sigh.

“That can’t be ethical,” Yona commented.

“Huh, this is interesting,” Gallus spoke up. He was still reading through the school’s charter, “It says here that if the counselor believes that both the Headmare and the Vice-Headmare are unable to fulfill the duties of their office with integrity, the counselor can dispose of and succeed them.”

Quickly, Headmare Starlight snatched the school charter from Gallus’ talons as she cried out in a panic, “Give me that!” Her sudden outburst left the entire table staring at her in confusion. With a nervous glance at the students, she spoke again, “Trixie must never know….” The Headmare then took the charter and hurried off.

Comments

[Ri2]

Who would put that in the charter?!

[spoonlol]

Please, Ocellus? Can you do this for me?”

I think you mean smolder at this bit.
I’m surprised Silverstream doesn’t try run. Being related to the ruler of her kingdom you’d think she’d know a thing or two about politics

[Closer-To-The-Sun]

10288971
Oh geez, I feel so dumb! Fixed, thank you!

[Yoshifan30]

Why do I have a feeling that this is not gonna end well when it comes to class election things get ugly really quickly I seen that happen a couple time

“There was some….unpleasantness….” Silverstream explained with a guilty look, “now I can never go back to Cloudsdale….”

And what did silverstream do so badly To get her band from Cloudsdale??