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Drabble #171: Lost
...we had a nice response to the drabble prompt of Drabble 170, with entries by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
apachefirecat, jalenstrix and redwolf and comments by apachefirecat, jalenstrix and redwolf
For this prompt, we continue with our one-word/phrase drabble roots:
Lost
Tell us all about it. Labyfic-style, of course.
Given our entries from recent months, let's continue with the suggested limit 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
$your_beautiful_drabble
I'll be running weekly challenges in the space aroundjalenstrix's monthly challenges.
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. Authors generally write for love.)
apachefirecat, jalenstrix and redwolf and comments by apachefirecat, jalenstrix and redwolfFor this prompt, we continue with our one-word/phrase drabble roots:
Lost
Tell us all about it. Labyfic-style, of course.
Given our entries from recent months, let's continue with the suggested limit 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
$your_beautiful_drabble
I'll be running weekly challenges in the space around
jalenstrix's monthly challenges. 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. Authors generally write for love.)
Reaping
The small community near the border of the Goblin Kingdom was a picturesque, agrarian idyll of neat stone cottages surrounded by a patchwork of fields. It was a threat to those crops that had drawn the monarchs, most of their domestic guardians and a large contingent of warm bodies eager to assist.
Sarah shaded her eyes with a hand and looked out at the field of a yet to mature grain crop. It was a sea of green, with plants around chest height and she was tall enough to make out the winding trails of the guardians as they hunted in their animal forms.
The now familiar rustle, snap and squeak preceded the corpse of a small animal arcing out of the field to be caught by one of the spectators, where the carcass was handed off to be field dressed.
While she did find the small creatures to be adorably appealing, Sarah did understand the necessity of the task. If the over population was left unchecked it threatened the food supply of the kingdom.
A murmur of appreciation went up from the gathered onlookers as a large wolf leapt high in a pounce. From the brief flash of coat colour, Sarah guessed it was Bishop that sent the next kill arcing up. His aim was a little off and a barn owl swooped down to snatch the animal out of the air, dropping it into the waiting hands of a spectator.
The owl circled the field once before landing on Sarah’s shoulder. “Show off.” She smiled fondly as he nuzzled into her cheek.
Jareth had told her that the culling was an infrequent event which had been brought about by the indiscriminate killing of the predators that crept the voracious herbivores in check. Frustratingly, this unsanctioned hunting was being done by a neighbouring kingdom, and while the neighbours had been informed of the issue, Jareth had been disgusted that it was a cycle that needlessly repeated itself every decade or so.
A pair of wolves emerged from the field. The small, gangly wolf would be George, as his sister Ada was sitting astride a much larger wolf. Ada looked like a feral child, complete with splashes of blood starkly visible on her arms and two fistfuls of small animals dangling by their tails. “Look how many we caught, Papa.” A volunteer relieved the girl of the catch before she threw herself into her father’s waiting arms. The wolf she was riding morphed into Rook, who accepted a waterskin and offered it to George before taking a drink herself.
As a hyena and thylacine stepped out of the field, the comforting weight on Sarah’s shoulder disappeared and Jareth stood at her side. He quietly addressed those gathered to thank them for their efforts throughout the day. The Goblin Kingdom could look forward to another successful harvest. Their neighbours, on the other hand, were about to be more than a little inconvenienced by a sudden crop failure of their own making.
Re: Reaping
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Re: Reaping
Never Heard
She sleeps fitfully, crying out his name. Tears run down her face as her cruel mind replays her own cruelty time after time. She should never have said those words! She should never have sent him away! And to just what had she condemned him? He had looked, so frail, there in those last moments, standing before her, pleading with her, begging her to do nothing more than to love him...
And she had already fallen in love with him! There are times Sarah thinks that she may have loved him since before she had ever set eyes on him. She had thought, as a child, first reading Labyrinth that it was only a fairy tale, but the moment Jareth had entered her life, to take away the baby she herself had so foolishly offered up as a sacrifice to beings she had not known existed, Sarah had known her favorite fantasy was actually truth.
How much of it was true? Sarah has wondered constantly ever since. The book included every single thing she herself had experienced in the Labyrinth, except it had all happened to another girl. Had there been others beside herself? Was everything that had happened, everything she'd thought she'd felt, merely hallucination, part of the Goblin King's ploy to procure a heir and, assumedly, free himself?
She should have been able to move forward. She shouldn't love a man so Hellbent on cruelty and power. But she couldn't forget him. She couldn't move on without him. Toby doesn't even remember the events, but Sarah still dreams them every single night of her life. She still dreams of him. She still calls out to him. She still -- she shamefully, unconsciously admits -- cries for him.
And she is so lost, so terrified, without him! She'd had no choice! She'd wanted to tell him then; she still aches to tell him now. She should have asked his subjects, demanded of them how to re-enter the Labyrinth, how to reach back out to him, that one time they had visited. They had sworn they would be here, but they have never returned to her either. Why? Has he done something to them?
There are so many unanswered questions, but all she wants is to feel his touch again. All she wants is to be able to apologize, to earn his forgiveness, to be told he still loves her, that he will still make her his -- She is his, Sarah knows, heart and soul! Even if Jareth never returns to reclaim her, to take her home. She screams aloud, her world turning topsy turvy as she falls again. She'll awaken back home, she already knows, or in the place that passes for her home but has never felt like it.
She awakes to a soft, white pillow filled with feathers. She awakes in a world she does not want. Thunder blasts outside, drowning out the sounds of frantically beating wings just beyond her window. She never hears him.
Re: Never Heard