Snippets

Chatterbox

Everyone has a power. Wether it's classified as a 'superpower' or just the 'garden-type'  ability to never twist your ankle while running, everyone has one.

Some people say that there's a difference in what you've got and what others have received. That's where the classifications came from; they range from 'garden variety' through 'interesting quirk' all the way up to and honest-to-goodness 'superpower' classification.

Everyone wants to be a 'superpowered' person, because they get special treatment. When one is found, they make the news. The poor 12 year old, for that's when the powers usually start to emerge, is brought up onto a stage and he or she is left into the capable hands of the league of supers, and their stories are left in the not so capable hands of the press.

When Julia Roberts dreamed of her 12th birthday, she like many others hoped to be brought onto that blue and yellow stage and trained to be a defender of the earth. What she didn't count on was getting a power that was not only classified as 'garden' but was also rather annoying and probably useless

She was a chatterbox.

Julia could talk about any little thing for hours on end without stopping for breath. It was annoying for her friends, and didn't help anything. Unlike her older sister, who could make plants grow with only a bit of soil, water and a word of encouragement, or even like her older brother, who could make speeches and the world would listen, even if they weren't particularly good or understandable. That at least could be used or for something like being a politician, unlike the ability to talk forever.

So Julia learned to be quiet. When she first got her power, she had talked for a full day and a half, scaring her siblings because she talked in her sleep. Over time Julia became quieter and quieter, until she rarely spoke a word.

That changed when she was 29. Julia was walking home from her dance class, where she taught, when she encountered a mugger trying to take a lady's purse. Julia, having the self-preservation skills of a drunk rat, tried to intervene. She ended up knocked out, waking up when the would-be mugger was dispatched by the lady. The lady's name was Cora.

Julia wasn't sure how, but she went from introducing herself to an epic lady who she tried to help, to having said epic lady being her roommate. Although if you asked Cora, she would probably just say that someone had to look after her.

After all, what's the worst that could happen?