During his time as a dreaming hunter, Balyn had encountered many horrific sights: hideous beasts that had once been human, the products of crazed and degrading arcane experiments, ancient horrors spawned by lost civilizations better left to stay lost, and even truly alien eldritch entities from the depths of the abyssal cosmos on the far side of a nightmare. It was a great relief to him that his memories of that time were shifting and ghostly, the misty remnants of a dream upon waking.

Even so, he was not convinced that anything he had seen during that time was anywhere near as much an unnatural perversion of sanity as what he was presently facing.

"You want me to take part in politics," he said, just to confirm that he wasn't experiencing some kind of insane hallucination.

The pale, blonde clerk of the Yharnam Employment Agency had no relief to offer.

"We do," she said, her hands folded on the desktop. For some reason, Balyn's eyes kept being pulled back to those fingers. They were slim, long, and perfectly formed without mark, scar, or blemish, and that was, in an odd twist, the source of the pervading wrongness he felt in looking at her. It was as if they ought to be different, flawed somehow, even…artificial, with the points of articulation clearly visible.

He didn't know where this insight came from, but it was very disturbing.

"You see, Mr. Balyn, the city administration is in grave need of outsiders." It was not the clerk, but the client who spoke, a haggard-looking man in a black frock-coat and top hat, with a pointed gray beard that reached down to the base of his sternum.

"You explained that before," Balyn said. "What you didn't explain was why."

The man's eyebrows went up.

"I didn't?"

"You did not, Mr. Winston," the clerk said. One thing Balyn had noted was that she was scrupulously fair in bringing to heel those who caused her problems. It just so happened that he himself was on the wrong side of that analysis all too often.

"Oh, dear. Well, it's very simple. Obvious, really. The upcoming Yharnam City Council election is the most vital one to be held in more than a generation. Since the Red Moon, the city administration has been operating on an emergency, crisis-management basis. Now, though, the people of Yharnam will choose their government based upon an analysis of principles and policies, to decide the course we will take to the future!"

"Yes?"

"Well, obviously, it's vital, absolutely essential that the fairness of the election be unquestioned. Why, just imagine what could happen if there were widespread suspicions of impropriety!"

"You folks do tend to take these things seriously." During the night of the Red Moon incident, not all of the torch-and-pitchfork bands of roving huntsmen had been pursuing beasts, and there were good reasons why the havens of the Healing Church had been guarded by Pthumerians draped in Holy Shawl, not by Yharnamites.

The eldritch forces and transformations that ended the Healing Church's rule over Yharnam had just gotten there first.

"Exactly! Why, we've barely managed to clean things up and repair most of the damage from the last night of the Hunt."

"So what does this have to do with outsiders?"

Winston blinked, his face going slack with surprise as if he could not imagine how anyone could ask such a stupid question.

"But it's obvious, young man. We need outsiders to handle the collecting and tallying of ballots because you have no stake in the outcome!"

"That's not really true, you know. From what I've heard, there are meaningful, substantive differences between the various political factions and how they want to approach the immigration question."

"Do you really think so?"

"Of course I do. The Yharnam Firsters think outsiders should be required to reside in a specific quarter of the city so as not to trouble the rest of you. The conservative Reclaim Yharnam's Glory party wants to treat the issue with the traditional tar and feathers, while the liberal Tomorrow Seekers believe in modern methods such as flamesprayers and Gatling guns. The Party for Scientific Development thinks that outsider-ness can be cured through a measured application of old blood, while the League of Confederation believes that it's a matter of purging the body of parasites."

"Do not forget the Old Yharnam Alliance," the clerk pointed out, "who have asserted that no matter where we come from, we all grow the same fur and fangs."

Winston reeled, shocked as if he'd just come face-to-face with an unspeakable insight that had redefined his very sense of how reality functioned, the veil of convenient ignorance torn asunder.

"But…but this is horrible!" He clutched at the sides of his head. "I never realized that there was such a diversity of thought among Yharnamites on the issue! Whatever will we do? Our entire plan of organization is ruined! We have to go back to the drawing board right away!"

With a last, terrified wail, he turned and ran off, calling for his carriage.

"I hope that whomever wins the election they're able to do something to help the pharmaceutical industry's conditions," the clerk remarked. "I don't know what's causing it, but there definitely aren't enough sedatives being produced to meet market demand."

"I like the Neo-Pthumerians, myself," Balyn offered.

"Indeed? I can certainly see the wisdom of appointing a woman of status and education to be the head of state."

"And you have to admit that their slogan is catchy: 'Make Great Ones Great Again.'"

~X X X~

A/N: The title of this story is drawn from Chaosium's "Cthulhu for President" merch, where it serves as the official catchphrase of the Elder Party.