#speaker az

[risualto]

I’m getting real close to being done with this 50 micro-story thing.  I’m over 50 total fills right now, but I haven’t done one for each yet, so I’m still going!

This one is for a friend on the @speakergame Discord server who requested 10. righteous + Sebastian.  I know my usual stories try to be as generic as possible with the Speaker so that it could be any of yours, but I chose to give the Speaker a personality and pronouns in this one specifically to explore a possible aspect of their dynamic with Sebastian after meeting for the first time.

“I don’t like him,” they said, turning to their sister and Azalea almost as soon as the door of the coffee shop shut behind them all.  Both women were going to refute their impression, they knew that, and maybe there was a point hidden somewhere in that defense, but they were just too indignant to care, especially considering how he’d challenged their information (not that he’d done so, since understanding a Seer was farfetched, sure, but how).

What kind of private detective invited a client to meet him just to prove he was so smart and that they were lying?!

“He’s so smug, so arrogant, so convinced he has to prove he’s good at everything before he’ll give you the time of day, so--”

“So much like you?” said their sister, not unkindly but with a little spark in her eye that lit their cheeks with righteous fire.

Not at all.

[risualto]

One more story for @speakergame tonight, this one 41. comfort food + Azalea.  Writing this made me hungry, so I had to go get my own snack before I could publish it lol.  This story is technically a repeat since I’ve already done 41, but it just grabbed me, so screw it :D

Disclaimer: since Speaker is a new project, I can’t say I’ve had the opportunity to get to know the characters all that well yet, so it’s possible that my characterization for Az may be proven wrong in the coming months, but I’m doing my best because I love her and this game.  It’s probably not canon that she brings a porcelain mug around with her on the Speaker’s adventures.  Shhhhh.

The bracelets made from her tree help, of course.  But there are nights like this one where Azalea feels restless and overwhelmed by the strange earth under her feet, sometimes buried under a layer of asphalt and concrete that stretches for miles and miles and miles in every direction, when the air is too strange and processed by unfamiliar fans and mixed with generic motel detergents.

On nights like this, Azalea is more grateful for her mug and rickety microwaves.  They’re no substitute at all for a real oven, but let it never be said that she isn’t as resourceful as she is clever, because the smell of cinnamon sugar that wafts up from her cookie-cake-in-a-cup when she pulls it into her hands is nothing short of comforting.  It settles in her skin and her soul as she turns to the Speaker with a smile.

“Want some?”

[risualto]

More microstories for @speakergame!  This one is Az + 46. shimmer!

For as long as you had lived in the house next to Azalea’s, the dryad had never made a big deal out of her magic.  It was just present enough that, so long as you did more than glance at her house from the corner of your eye like many passersby did, you were aware there was magic, but it wasn’t...big.  Flashy.  That kind of thing.

Still, there was just something about her garden after the spring rains, a little shimmer on some of the leaves that was just a bit too artful to be left over from the clouds.  You’ve always thought it was beautiful.

[risualto]

Next one is 16. in dreams + Az from @speakergame, requested by @crqstalite!  I have two more after this, as well, plus something that isn’t Speaker-related, but I need to rest my arm for a little bit!

The house next door and the dryad who lives in its yard have always, you realize with a start, felt like a part of your home.  You remember, talking to Li growing up, that when neighbors move away or change, the neighborhood does feel different, apparently.  And you know now that it’s true, since the other houses around yours haven’t been in exactly the same hands your whole life, but those are changes so subtle that they almost don’t seem to matter.  No matter who is around the corner or across the street, your house is home, and you know the sight of it and the smell, the places in the yard where you can’t step without turning your ankle, the chip in the sidewalk three tiles from your driveway, in the same way you know your sister’s face.

It’s the dreams that make you realize that the house next door is different.  In dreams, the only boundary between that house and yours is an invisible property line that the HOA cares more about than you ever will, and when you walk up the driveway, the “Welcome home!” that greets you doesn’t come from the other side of it.  In dreams, there really is no other side that you--any of you--care for.

Home is not just your house, and family is not just your sister.  It is your house and the house next door and the yard around both, and it is you and your sister and Azalea, together.