Young Female - American Accent, sarcastic
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Teen (13-17)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
This is Nicole Dolan reading Red Queen by Victoria of Yard I Hate First Friday. It makes the village crowded, and now, in the heat of high summer, that's the last thing anyone wants from my place in the shade. It isn't so bad, but the stink of body is all sweating with the morning. Work is enough to make milk curdle. The air shimmers with heat and humidity, and even the puddles from yesterday's storm or hot, swirling with rainbow streaks of oil and grease. The market deflates with everyone closing up their stalls for the day. The merchants are distracted, careless, and it's easy for me to take whatever I want from their wares. By the time I'm done, my pockets bold with trinkets and I've got an apple for the road. Not bad for a few minutes work. As a throng of people moves, I let myself be taken away by the human current. My hands start in and out, always in fleeting touches. Some paper bills from a man's pocket, a bracelet from a woman's rest, nothing too big. Villagers are too busy shuffling long to notice a pickpocket in their midst. The high still buildings for which the village is named. The stilts, very original, rise all around us, 10 feet above the muddy ground in the spring. The lower bank is underwater, but right now it's August, when dehydration and sun sickness stock the village, almost everyone looks forward to the first Friday of each month when work and school and early. But not me. No, I'd rather be in school learning nothing in a classroom full of Children. Not that I'll be in school much longer. My 18th birthday is coming, and with it, conscription. I'm not apprenticed. I don't have a job, so I'm going to be sent to the war. Like all the other Idol ones. It's no wonder there's no work left, what with every man, woman and child trying to stay out of the army. My brothers went to war when they turned 18 all three of them sent to fight Lake Landers. Onley Shade can write worth a lick, and he sends me letters when he can. I haven't heard from my other brothers, Bree and Tram me in over a year, but no news is good news. Families can go years without hearing a thing on Lee to find their sons and daughters waiting on the front doorstep home on Lee were sometimes blissfully discharged, but usually you receive a letter made of heavy paper stamped with the king's crown seal below a short thank you for your child's life. Maybe you even get a few buttons from there. Thorne obliterated uniforms. I was 13 when Bree left. He kissed me on the cheek and gave me a single pair of earrings for my little sister, Giza, and meet a split. They were dangling last beads, the hazy pink color of sunset. We pierced our years ourselves that night, trampy and shade kept up the tradition when they went. Now Giza and I have one year each set with three tiny stones to remind us of our brothers fighting somewhere. I didn't really believe they'd have to go. Not until the Legionnaire and his polished armors showed up and took them away one after another. And this fall he'll come for me. I've already started saving and stealing to buy Giza. Some earrings. When I go, don't think about it. That's what Mom always says about the army, about my brother's about everything. Great advice, Mom