Drabble #114: Squeeze
Friday, 4 March 2022 17:24![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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labyfic...we had a livelier response to the drabble prompt of Drabble 113, with entries by
redwolf and me (your intrepid drabble proposer jalenstrix), and commenting love by us both as well. Hurrah!For this prompt, we continue with our one-word/phrase drabble roots:
Squeeze
Who or what’s being squeezed? By who? Why? How? Is this physical squeezing perhaps or something else? Tell us all about it. Labyfic-style, of course.
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 (April 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.)
Negotiations
2022-03-06 01:11 (UTC)Drabble:
Sarah swept into the room on Jareth’s arm. Both were resplendent in Goblin armour that shimmered in impossible colours that had a tendency to make people feel slightly queasy when looked at for too long.
They sat at the head of the table, which was the signal for the meeting to commence.
While it was a meeting between kingdoms to hammer out a trade deal and it was taking place in a boardroom, it was not a meeting as Sarah would have expected in a business environment, as it had much more in common with a theatrical production.
Jareth had liked the Above concept of a boardroom and redecorated for each meeting. The run of art themed decor had been fun. Sarah had loved the Monet, where Jareth preferred the Pollock, but the Giger had been spectacularly successful in the trade delegation of the day being extremely eager to wrap matters up and depart earlier than planned.
The current design was a glorious Art Deco confection of sleek lines, luscious curves and shining chrome, but with certain perspectives, such as the length of the table, slightly too long or otherwise skewed in a manner that conveyed an undertone of discomfort.
It hadn’t taken Sarah long to understand that any interactions Jareth had with the fae of the Underground were an exercise in performance art. In this case, their performance was to look imperious and terrifying. Occasionally raising an eyebrow or clearing a throat to subtly signal their team, had the added bonus of making the other delegates very nervous. It created an atmosphere which their own advisors were quick to take advantage of in pressing for more advantageous terms.
While the meetings were usually amusing from an observer's perspective and always brought benefit to the kingdom, it was the preparation that Sarah had come to love. The few hours of discussion in the boardroom was preceded by weeks or months of research and exchanged missives as the terms were formed.
The library was one of Sarah’s favourite places and when it was a flurry of activity as she assisted Jareth and his team of trade advisers hunt for precedents and parallels to best present their case, it became her whole world. She may have been long familiar with researching a topic from her studies, but Sarah had never previously considered that being a paralegal would be such fun.
It was one area of her role where she didn’t feel like she was playing catch up. While it was true that she was new to the ways of the Underground, she brought a different set of tools to the table that often gave their team a new direction with a tricky problem.
While their attendance at these boardroom meetings added an air of careful menace to the proceedings, for Sarah it was deeply educational to watch how fae performed under pressure, which helped distract from the effort of maintaining resting bitch face whenever she felt an impending case of the giggles.
Re: Negotiations
2022-03-08 17:35 (UTC)Re: Negotiations
2022-03-08 18:47 (UTC)no subject
2022-04-07 21:50 (UTC)Drabble:
“Your precious cupcake.” Jareth’s words traced frost in their wake, setting the air between us alight with fanciful, bitterly cold curlicues that would frostburn your skin right off if they touched you. “Your main squeeze. Your…sugar woogums.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “What of it?”
He closed his eyes briefly as his jaw clenched. “Can you enlighten me as to why these…descriptors appeared in public?”
“Appeared in public? Whatever do you mean?”
He held up an invitation pinched between his thumb and forefinger as if it were a poisonous snake. The invitation fluttered and shimmered sweetly, doing its best to nuzzle him. He shook it to get it to stop. “This went throughout the realm, did it not?”
My lips twitched ever so slightly.
“Did it not, Sarah?”
“It did.”
“I would consider an invitation sent throughout the realm to be public.”
“Well, when you put it like that—“
“—particularly when said invitation invites all recipients to a celebration at the castle in honor of my birthday.”
“You don’t want a birthday celebration? Tsk, how grumpy of you.”
He put a hand across his eyes. “What did I do to affront you so? Just tell me.”
“You want the truth?”
“If you would be so kind.” His eyes telegraphed dire doom in my general direction.
I shrugged it off. I was immune after so many years of marriage. “You’ve been a dour bastard miring in his own broody thoughts for far too long. My smaller efforts to roust you had no effect. The realm was suffering, and you didn’t care. So I figured I’d give you something concrete to sulk about.”
“Sulk?”
“And bonus points if it cheered up your long-suffering subjects at the same time.”
“I don’t sulk.”
“No, you just do a brilliant job pretending to.”
“Sarah…”
“Consider yourself fortunate that only a few choice pet names were involved. I could have been more creative, you know.”
“You truly do hate me.”
“I truly do love you, you insufferable man. But you have a responsibility to your subjects not to lock them in perpetual gloom, and you apparently needed a bit of help on that front. My wondrous sugar woogums.”
He shook his head slowly. “Who’s insufferable now?”
I shrugged. “Learned from the best.” I held out a hand. “Come on. Is that a drop of sunlight I see piercing the clouds outside? Why don’t we enjoy it, hmmm?”
He stared at my hand for a long moment, and then captured it in his with a graceful, predatory motion. “And how do you propose we enjoy it…cupcake?”
I grinned. “I’m sure we can be….creative. I have such faith in you.”
“You do know just the things to say, don’t you?”
“As I said, learned from the best.”
no subject
2022-05-07 01:46 (UTC)no subject
2022-05-30 22:03 (UTC)