After seeing this post, I had the crazy idea to narrate the Santa Sarita series. I love audiobooks, and seriously wish there were more audio narrations of fanfic. And like the nerdy girl I am, decided to take matters into my own hands, after some serious encouragement from you all.
So, here we go, all the way back to the beginning. Welcome back to The Fall of Santa Sarita.
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I sincerely hope you enjoy this narration. If you do, please let me know so I can continue to record the chapters. Iāll post them on a weekly basis.
Thank you all so much for your kind words and encouragement through all the crazy stages of Santa Sarita!
Rather than work on my Camp NaNo project, Iāve apparently decided to do literally anything else.
Hereās the first page or so of my long-in-progress chapter of my Hollow Knight fanficĀ Epilogue, or, Beyond the Pale,Ā because Iāve been wanting to do something for #writeraudio for a while but am a notorious procrastinator. Please enjoy, while I find something else to do instead of write. Transcript/original text below the cut.
Their paths met in the Crossroads. Quirrel, rising from the large, vertical chamber of suspended platforms, caught sight of a flash of red emerging from the tunnel to Greenpath and zipping out of sight. He called out to her, relieved when Hornet paused on a platform some ways above him, and hurried to catch up to her. As they continued together, up to the doorway near the roomās ceiling and towards the well, Quirrel told her of his encounters in the Soul Sanctum, and Hornet explained her meetings with the Mantis Lords and the Midwifeāthough the more personal details she did not recount. Quirrel didnāt need to know everything. Some memories, happy or otherwise, were hers and hers alone.
āSo the Mantis Village has agreed to spare those who may stumble into it,ā Quirrel summarized, ābut neither they nor the village of Deepnest wish anything to do with Hallownest. The spiders have rejected any help we may offer in return.ā He stopped walking just outside of the field of light cast from the well above, and Hornet turned back to look at him once she stood beneath it. āHornet...ā he said slowly, ā...are we certain theyāre not right to?ā
The Queenās only reply was a slight tilt to her head.
āWell, I mean,ā he amended. āWhat I just saw in that laboratory...the horrors committed by those who would have kept the kingdom standing. Would it...condone their actions to revive it? Were they here today, would they approve of what we aim to do? I would rather let their attempt at a legacy die.ā
Hornet stared at him a few seconds more, wondering how much he knew about Ghostās origins. What would he do, she wondered, were he to know what the Pale King had done in his own efforts to preserve his dominion? She chose not to find out. āWe cannot care about such things,ā she said instead. āLet the opinions of the dead rest with them; what right have they over those who still live? And as for the scientists you mentioned who still roam that Sanctum...ā she raised her needle. āI will deal with them. Our conversation would be better continued on the surface.ā Quirrel nodded, but Hornet had already hurled her needle towards the top of the well and zipped out of sight.
A few seconds later he had joined her, and was surprised to find that she had stopped short immediately after climbing out. She hadnāt been waiting for him; she didnāt even glance his way as he vaulted over the short bricks lining the well and joined her in looking at the little hamlet. Instead, her gaze was fixed on the bench in the center of town, and the elderly bug who stood across from it. Around him stood three other bugs with whom he was conversing, and though he remained visibly gloomy a kind of almost joyful satisfaction seemed to shine from him. The way he had lifted a hand out of the folds of his cloak and was gesturing with it as he spoke to his audience told of a far greater enthusiasm than she had seen from him before, only spurred on by the rapt attention the other three bugs paid his words.
He might have been cheerful, but the presence of a small gathering of bugs had caused Hornet to hesitate. She was their Queen, yes, and more than that she was one who would shortly need to address a group far larger than this. What she had believed upon entering Dirtmouth before--that she would never be able to make the ruins rise again without joining with and walking among whatever bugs they found--still held true, perhaps even more so. Between practicality and pride, she had every reason to join the small crowd and begin to address her subjects.
Why, then, she wondered, did she pause? To call her reservations fear seemed false. Her heart had been torn at by her experiences below; her rage and tears had been unbefitting of a Queen, and as she considered them now they embarrassed her. Hornet stood under the black, invisible sky, an uncomfortable breeze brushing her cloak and her eyes fixed on the town and its new residents, and felt exposed, as vulnerable as an open wound. She found herself reluctant to take another step closer to Dirtmouth; turning halfway, then fully around, she instead set her gaze on her siblingās grave. A large figure was hunched there, head bowed out of sight, and pleased with the chance to delay a minute more, she murmured to Quirrel, āWait here.ā
No one has made any requests for what I should read next!Ā :OĀ If you want me to read anything, send me an ask soon!!
Hereās a reading of statera, one of my favorite KH fanfics (that Iāve written).Ā ALSO check out the beautiful accompanying fanart by @princess-wasabiart !
The room where Ven slept remained undiscovered, and the world met its fate, even as he waited. And waited. And still, neither Aqua nor Terra came to wake him, and really, without his friends, he had no reason to wake. So he slumbered on.
No matter how well protected a place, or a person, there was always one thing that would find a way, past wards, and locked doors.
Who wanted more podfic?Ā No one?Ā OH WELL.Ā I really wanted to read this one because I donāt think text quite relays the energy I imagined as I wrote this.Ā So hereās my AkuRoku fic, the rock show, as read by yours truly.Ā The pace is fast, so I stuttered a bit more, but I really wanted to make it feel as breathless as Iād imagined it.
The thing about summer was:
It was short. Ā It was hot and sticky and sometimes miserable, but mostly it was bright and wild and you couldnāt squander it because there was always something happening all the time (unless you worked nights and weekends, and then you were just SOL). Ā There was beer and pott and back yard barbeques, trendy pop-up gardens that made Axel feel both old and young at the same time, tiny grungy too-hot clubs, sweet sea salt ice cream that he couldnāt get over any more than he could get over Saix (but Roxas liked them, too), and the clatter of skateboards on concrete.
