Drabble #94: Miracle
Friday, 3 July 2020 11:11![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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labyfic...we again had a bit more lively response to the drabble prompt of Drabble 93, with entries by both
3iggy and me (your intrepid drabble proposer jalenstrix). Commenting love was also provided by both 3iggy and me. For this prompt, we continue with our one-word/phrase drabble roots:
Miracle
Who needs a miracle? What kind of miracle? Is there a Miracle Man involved (like Miracle Max from The Princess Bride)? Or maybe all someone needs is a miracle. 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 (August 7).
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
2020-07-27 19:02 (UTC)Good for one miracle. Tiny crystalline print beneath the beautifully stenciled words noted Only applicable within the Labyrinth’s borders. Glittery fineprint. Of course. Expect no less from your local generous Faerie lord.
Still...I held the card delicately between two fingers, as if it might bite. “You know what I want. Is it possible?”
Jareth twirled a crystal across his fingers, clearly defying known laws of gravity. “Miracles are about the impossible, aren’t they, Sarah?”
My lips twitched in a smile that threatened to morph into something more volatile. “It wouldn’t really be her though, would it?”
He gave me a measured blink. “Not in the way you mean.”
“What way then?”
“It would be your living memory of her. Anything you didn’t know wouldn’t be there.”
“But I could hear her voice.”
“Yes.”
“And she would smile at me and we would laugh and we could sing together.”
“Oh yes.”
“And I could hug her and tell her I love her.”
“Yes.”
Tears stung my eyes at the possibility. “And you would do this for me just because?”
He rolled the crystal from one hand to the other and back again slowly, the glowing sphere clearly rolling upwards of its own accord in blatant disregard of physics. “Because you’re hurting and because I can.”
“That’s...very generous of you. Far too generous.”
His teeth gleamed in the moonlight. “Do you want it?”
My fingers spasmed around the card. There would be consequences, I just knew it. But screw it. I missed her so much I couldn’t breathe right sometimes. Her loss was so fresh, like someone had suckerpunched me. “Yes. I want it.”
He plucked the card from my hand with silky grace and brushed a kiss across my too-empty fingers. “As you wish. She’ll be waiting in the throne room for you.”
“Why the throne room?”
He winked at me. “Best acoustics in the whole kingdom. Fantastic for singing.”
I blinked back a fresh round of tears as I thought of her voice, and the harmonies she would always add to everything we sang. “Will you be there?”
“If you wish.”
I flashed him a watery grin. “You’re the official sponsor of this miracle. You should be there. Besides, there’s this great tenor part in this one piece that we never could get anyone to do with us.”
“As you wish.” The words dropped gently between us.
My heart nearly stopped. “You going full on Princess Bride on me?”
He smiled like a Cheshire Cat as he extended his elbow to me. “One miracle at a time, eh?”
****
In memory of Ellen, z’’l.
****
no subject
2022-09-06 10:18 (UTC)no subject
2022-10-03 18:45 (UTC)Discover
2022-09-06 10:24 (UTC)Drabble:
What Sarah privately thought of as the library was actually a private reading room that was reserved for the personal use of herself and Jareth. The library proper was enormous, as ever changing as the Labyrinth itself and Sarah was quietly certain that it violated more than one law of physics.
The facility was well staffed, freely open to all citizens of the Goblin Kingdom and Sarah suspected she’d met a broader range of the kingdom’s species wandering the stacks than anywhere else. There was even an interlibrary loan arrangement with other Underground kingdoms.
Sarah had become well acquainted with the staff and the sections related to the Underground through her studies, but was embarrassed to admit she did not expect there would be any books from Above. She’d likely still be in the dark if the jewel bright hair of Douglas, Rook’s engineer friend, hadn’t caught her eye one day. He’d been deep in a discussion on the parallels between science and magic with Thadie, a halfling botanist, and Sarah had been drawn into their conversation. She found herself enjoying their company and would seek them out whenever she had a query related to their specialities, each time finding yet more books had been added to her ever increasing reading pile.
While she was excited by her belated discovery of the reference texts, she was truly delighted to find there was also a sizeable fiction collection. As a starting point she thought she’d see if there were any new books written in a series she’d been reading before moving Underground and found several unfamiliar titles. The latest of which was on loan to a dragon, who apparently had a standing request to be the first reader of any dragon related Above literature.
It wasn’t until she found the audiovisual collection that Sarah started to understand how the Above collections were curated. She’d been working her way through the back catalogues of her favourite artists when she noticed that each track had a notation of who had added it. People like the shapeshifters, halflings and changlings who still had a foot in the Above gathered all manner of media in their travels on behalf of the library. While most were specialists who were deeply interested in favoured topics, others like Rook were generalists who had more eclectic tastes. Her contributions would fixate on a single theme before switching genres and languages seemingly at random. It made for some surprising finds when she wasn’t in the mood for something more specific and she didn’t think she would have stumbled over Finnish folk metal, Japanese pop or Mexican punk bands if left to her own devices.
Sarah was pleased to see that the library had soundproofed rooms for viewing and listening. It was a nice touch that allowed for a fully impressive experience, with the added benefit of denying other patrons the pleasure of sharing in the dulcet tones of the listener, a necessity when goblins were trying to master throat singing.
Re: Discover
2022-10-03 18:46 (UTC)Re: Discover
2022-10-03 19:45 (UTC)