Muffled

"Duchess? Duchess Kryze?"

To everyone else, the voice rather loud. Firm, but kind. The room was quiet, save for some murmurs.

To her, it was rather muffled. Unfocused and not wavering in tone.

She glanced upwards from the flimsi spread around her to the person whom had spoken - or, the general direction she thought she heard the voice.

"Hmm?"

A little to the left, one of her cousins stood towards the back of the large council chamber. He caught her attention, making rapid hand signs while indicating who had spoken.

Her gaze flicked from her cousin to the person whom had spoken - Prime Minister Almec, of all people. It was impossible not to notice a few people roll their eyes. To have a pacifist leader they barely tolerated was one thing. To have a profoundly deaf, pacifist leader was different.

Satine tucked her hands beneath her chin, cocking an eyebrow. "You're suggesting we use pirates to supply our system during this recession?"

Prime Minister Almec scoffed. "Our people are starving, Your Grace - "

She read his lips, then rolled her eyes.

One of her advisors raised their hand to indicate to Satine who was speaking. "Didn't some of the clans on the edge of the system agree to send supplies? Why do we not wait for them?"

Satine flicked her gaze to the translator briefly before looking at her Prime Minister. "Five clans, in fact...are you perhaps suggesting they used the black market or pirates to obtain the goods Almec?"

It was a low blow, to refer to him by his first name - and everyone knew it.

Satine rolled her eyes when he tried to speak, holding up her hand. "Please. Even without my hearing aids you're giving me a headache - we'll wait for the supplies to come in. I don't like it either, but we can wait a week or two."

Author's note: I tossed this on Tumblr a few weeks at its-captain-sir (formally jedi-master-megan) request

I really loved this prompt and I'm slowly considering making it a short series of Satine (and maybe others) being disabled in some way.

As always, your fellow disabled writer :D

ii Digestive Reader ii