80th Candidate - Accolade Stormward [d13]

"When we spoke about freedom,
It was with shackles we broke from our wrists,
A breath of air that was always supposed to be ours.

And when the bombs stopped falling,
When survival was not ensured, but not impossible,
When refugees like myself, fought their way through the woodwork,

We rejoiced.

We renewed.

We rendered our own world, under the grit and under the dirt, the downtrodden churning, living where the Capitol couldn't reach.

Even now,

The Capitol.

Many of you here, you have lived under their feet but you have not lived under their feet. You've heard stories, whispered by us refugees, murmured by the elders of our community. It is a nightmare, a world of death, a cruel game with loaded die.

And yet, so many out there do, barely scraping by.

Why aren't we helping them? We stand here, safe. We hack into their feeds, we watch from the shadows, we shake our heads. But we do nothing, nothing, to rescue those trapped under the Capitol's foot. We let them lie there, and say that it's such a tragedy, that our thoughts are with them, that our prayers are with them.

Enough is enough. The time for groveling is over.

We must move to fix the horrors a nation has wrought on its own people, we must raise up the voices that have been vanquished, stymied, martyred. Because we are the only ones who can.

When I first came to Thirteen, I saw kindness in your eyes. I felt, for the first time in so many years, hope. Let us not fall back on our security, our stability, let us use our abilities to their end.

Stand with us, and we will see this through."

Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]