Drabble #92: Relief
Friday, 1 May 2020 09:28![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jalenstrix in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
labyfic...we had a quieter response to the drabble prompt of Drabble 91, with an entry by me (your intrepid drabble proposer
jalenstrix).For this prompt, we continue with our one-word/phrase drabble roots:
Relief
Relief from what? Or who? What kind of relief are we talking about anyway? Tell us all about it labyfic-style!
Given our entries from recent months, let's continue with the suggested limit for this month of 500 words. Though remember that shorter pieces are most definitely welcome!
Your entry should take the following format, posted as a comment on this entry:
Word count: # of words
Drabble: $your_beautiful_drabble
I'll aim to get the next drabble challenge out on the first Friday of next month (June 5).
I'm also very happy to take suggestions if something in particular strikes your fancy -- comment on this post or PM me with your suggestions. You can see our current collected suggestions here.
Remember: Feedback is LOVE. So do reply to your fellow labyficcers' drabbles if so inclined. (Though be careful of concrit unless specifically okayed by the author beforehand.)
no subject
2020-05-25 17:23 (UTC)Drabble:
I opened the nursery door, and the volume of Feanor’s wailing promptly tripled.
Jareth sat hunched over the playmat, rubbing gentle circles on his son’s back. Feanor seemed singularly unfazed, and continued expressing his displeasure, beating his tiny fists against the ground for emphasis.
My eardrums already hurt. Who knew how long this had been going on? “Tough afternoon?”
Jareth’s shoulders twitched in a single, elegant motion that let me admire the sleek lines of his back. Even startled from behind, the man had grace, and that was a fact. His voice rippled across me like velvet, ragged and hollow though it sounded. “I have tried holding him, I have tried feeding him, I have tried changing his diaper. Several times. I have tried putting him down for a nap and rocking him on my knees. But…” He gestured at our still-wailing son.
I knelt down next to Jareth in parental solidarity. “I told you he could be teething, honey.”
He held up a finger. “I have tried every single rubber and gel teether contraption in this accursed place. I have tried rubbing his gums. I have tried baby-safe ungents. For hours, I have tried these things.”
“Have you tried the frozen washcloth?”
His entire body went motionless. “The what?”
I reached a hand into my bag of holding (a nifty bit of magic I had never — not once — regretted sinking months of preparation, wheedling, and a swartalf-owed favor into). After a moment, my fingers slid across the mini-freezer handle and I rummaged inside until I found the necessary object. “The frozen washcloth. One baby washcloth dipped in water till damp, and frozen.”
I placed the washcloth next to Feanor’s mouth. He chomped down on it, paused, then grabbed it with both fists and shoved it in his mouth. Distinctive slurping sounds followed, which could be heard in the sudden silence.
Jareth slumped forward.
I began to massage his back. “I know. It can be rough. But I love you. You’re the best father Feanor has.”
Dry laughter rumbled beneath my fingers. “Silly woman. I’m the only father Feanor has.”
“And definitely the best one.”
Dexterous fingers grabbed mine and slid them around to his mouth. “A massage is very nice, my love,” he whispered. “But I could use relaxation methods that are more...vigorous.” He kissed the sensitive skin between my fingers.
I glanced down at Feanor. “You’re in luck. Our son has just tuckered himself right out. I bet we can sneak out while he’s sleeping.”
“This is an excellent idea.”
“I’m just full of them this afternoon.”
“Oh really? Perhaps you have others?” He nuzzled the back of my hand, sliding heat down the length of it.
I shivered. “Oh yes. Wanna come find out?”
“Oh yes.”
no subject
2020-06-02 02:23 (UTC)no subject
2020-06-02 04:18 (UTC)no subject
2020-06-02 10:46 (UTC)no subject
2020-06-04 19:30 (UTC)no subject
2022-11-08 09:34 (UTC)no subject
2022-11-21 22:06 (UTC)no subject
2020-06-02 02:18 (UTC)Drabble 92
Sorry this is a silly one...
“Koshchei the Deathless had hidden his soul in a needle, in an egg, in a frog, in a duck, in a dog, in a pig...”
“Where ya keep yours?” Asks a dimwitted fellow in the back. Budging eyes, clueless face, the usual.
“It’s locked in a sock drawer, somewhere, I suppose?” Jareth yawns. Eventually, they will fall asleep...
“Where was I?” He asks the throne room at large.
“The pig,” croaks a buggy eyed chap up front.
“Right.” Jareth starts over from the beginning anyway. “Koschei the Deathless had hidden his soul...”
“Why deathless?” A not so bright creature in the pit. It was always the not so bright ones who chose to sleep in the pit.
Jareth sighs, sits up a little straighter, whip thumping against the side of his boot. “Because he was immortal. He hid his soul. That’s the entire point of what I am telling you, now all of you shut up and let me finish.”
“Pig.” Buggy eyed chap reminds him.
Jareth grabs the bridge of his nose and starts all over.
“Koschei the Deathless had hidden his soul in a needle, in an egg, in a frog, in a duck, in a dog, in a pig, in a horse, in a kangaroo, in a hippo”—he is making this up mostly, if he keeps going they will fall asleep—“in an elephant, in a whale, in a bay, in an ocean, on the the earth, in the solar system, in the universe”—snores, some of them are gone already!—“In all of space and time.”
Buggy eyed chap in the front still lingers, gaze intent. Slowly, he blinks up at Jareth.
“Should you really keep yours in a sock drawer?” The chap whispers.
Jareth glances around. Everyone else is asleep. “If I tell you a secret will you go to sleep?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t need to hide my soul. I am deathless already. Deathless despite it. On nights like this one, death might even be a relief.”
“Really?”
Jareth shrugs.
The buggy eyed chap leans toward him. “Where’d you put your heart? Can you hide that?”
“I gave it away.”
“Was that a relief?”
“Go to sleep. You promised. Goblins don’t break promises, do they?”
Buggy eyes blinks a few more times, grabs the napkin he uses for a blanket and immediately begins to snore.
Jareth starts again. “Jareth keeps his heart in a song, in a bubble, in dream, in a wish, in the mind of a girl...
no subject
2020-06-02 04:17 (UTC)no subject
2020-06-02 10:50 (UTC)no subject
2022-11-08 09:36 (UTC)Relief
2022-11-08 09:39 (UTC)Drabble:
Sarah and Bishop were seated on a bench in the training room watching as Jareth put Rook through her paces.
“Looks like she’s back to normal.”
Bishop shook his head and made a hand motion that followed Rook’s steps. “She’s favouring her good leg.”
Rook’s katas looked as smooth as they always did. “I’m not seeing it.” Jareth had her repeat the set, a look of concentration on his face as he walked around the woman, a finger tapping against his lips in thought.
“That slide there,” Bishop whispered. “You can see how she’s changed the following two movements to compensate for her injury.”
Sarah still wasn’t seeing the difference. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“Yes and no. It’s good that she’s not showing weakness, but bad that it’s being hidden.”
As Rook executed a form that circled around Jareth, he pivoted and swept her good leg out from under her. She dropped to the mats with a grunt and Sarah saw that the leg of her injured side was held out stiffly in front of her. Jareth hauled her to her feet and they began again.
“Were the goblins bogged?”
Sarah suppressed a snort. “No, but I think they might have preferred the bogging. They were sent to the market square. Their ill gotten toffee vanished almost faster than they had appeared.”
Bishop’s chuckles sobered as Jareth unbalanced Rook again. With a brief discussion that Sarah parsed as an obscenity laden exchange of growls, he pulled her up, and this time Sarah could see how off balance she was.
“What was that about? I think I heard a pummelling in there. Are they going to spar now?”
With a wave of his hand Jareth materialised a massage table and disappeared Rook’s breeches along with his own shirt. Sarah really should be used to the casual nudity by now. She had no idea if it was an Underground thing, the result of long familiarity or some combination of both.
“Jareth needs to loosen up the muscles that were abused by the dislocation. We heal fast, but with something like a hip dislocation, a bit of an assist is always appreciated to speed things along. As a comparison, this stage in a human would be occurring weeks after the injury.”
Sarah was momentarily distracted with the way Jareth’s muscles flexed and bunched as he worked on Rook. While she had been on the receiving end of many of Jareth’s massages, the aromatic oils and his strong hands always leading to memorable evenings, the pressure he was using on the woman’s quads was going to leave a mark. She looked to Bishop with a raised eyebrow in silent request for a translation.
“Rook asked if Jareth was trying to make her cry and he said that of course he was.” Sarah winced in sympathy. She’d heard horror stories of physiotherapy and with the beginnings of bruising already visible on Rook’s legs, this did not look like the fun kind of massage.
Re: Relief
2022-11-21 22:09 (UTC)Re: Relief
2022-11-21 23:38 (UTC)