Drabble #194: Ship

[redwolf]

...we had a nice response to the drabble prompt of Drabble 193, with entries by apachefirecat and redwolf
For this prompt, we continue with our one-word/phrase drabble roots:

Ship

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.)

Comments

Context

[redwolf]

Word count: 500

Sarah flopped face down onto the bed with a sigh at the simple joy of being horizontal. She had managed to kick her shoes off, but was too exhausted to deal with her clothes. There was always the option of using magic to undress, but in her current state, she wasn’t certain if the attempt would fizzle out or start a fire and decided that being clothed and unsinged was the safer option.

There had been a recent spate of girls wishing themselves away. Sarah and Jareth had been passing each other like ships in the night as they answered each summons. When your geographical reference was a child’s bedroom, the Labyrinth seamlessly translated the exchange and the wishers were currently in isolation, it had taken them a while to realise that the girls all came from the same community.

Sarah’s initial contact with them gave her the understanding that they were terrified and their current circumstances were so dire that they didn’t care if the price of being taken was to be turned into a goblin.

The deep trauma was obvious, but their healers had given a fuller picture. You didn’t wish yourself away to an unknown outcome unless you were desperate. The bedrooms Sarah had seen were what she would have regarded as belonging to fairly well off families. The girls had sizable rooms that weren’t shared with siblings, rooms that were littered with school books and plush toys and at first glance they all seemed to be healthy.

Reports from the healers changed that narrative. Several of the girls bore evidence of self harm, all bore signs of sexual assault, but more disturbing was the news that two of the wishers were pregnant. Jareth had gone very quiet when he learned that a ten year old was expecting and Sarah didn’t hold out much hope for the rapist to be surviving for long once he was identified, but that would have to wait until they had dealt with their new arrivals.

“You look as exhausted as I feel, my love.”

Sarah startled, not realising that she’d fallen asleep until Jareth had woken her. She rolled over and blinked up at him, noting that while he still looked as impeccably dressed as always, his eyes were heavily shadowed. Sarah reached out and pulled him into bed, wrapping her arms tightly around him.

“The younger girl won’t survive the pregnancy, but I doubt that the older one is emotionally or physically equipped to handle it.”

Jareth nuzzled into Sarah's neck and hummed his agreement. “The healers have been working with the families who will be accepting those girls. The women are getting the magical equivalent of Above fertility hormones and they’ll be able to transfer the embryos across.”

While Sarah wasn’t sure she’d be as excited about a surprise pregnancy, she supposed if you’d been trying to conceive for centuries and had just been gifted with not one, but two children, then you would perhaps have a different perspective.

Re: Context

[apachefirecat]

Wow!! This is so deep, so moving, such a powerful idea in such few words! I LOVE that you have tackled this, and done so so superbly! I love the idea of Jareth as a protector of children and can truly see his character this way. I also like the idea that Sarah is now helping him with those being wished away, or even wishing themselves away, to the Labyrinth. I wonder, what first gave you the idea to have anything and everything, and one, that is wished away come to the Labyrinth, not just the baby brothers of "spoiled" or "selfish" older sisters? Regardless, I absolutely adore the culture you have built here!!!

Re: Context

[redwolf]

There are plenty of stories where children are wished away by an abusive parent and many that have done it out of love to protect a child. I have another character who wished her brother away to protect him, but requested asylum for herself as well.

The rest is a mash up of whatever news I've been reading lately. There are so many church leaders being arrested for paedophilia, and I would assume that they're just scooping up the stupid and arrogant ones who were a little too obvious in their perversions, that I have to wonder why parents would allow their children anywhere near organised religion.

Re: Context

[apachefirecat]

There's SO MUCH I could say on this, but don't want to get on my soapbox... Pretty much, it's a mindset thing. They THINK they know THEIR people. They think they can trust THEIR people. But even the Bible warns us time and again of all the fake Christians, especially in the final days...

Truly more fake Christians, or those who practice false religion as my Preacher calls it, turn people away from God, I firmly believe, not just from my own experiences but from the VAST majority I have known, than anything else...

Another Long Night

[apachefirecat]

Word Count: 500



Sarah kept her head tucked down and her footsteps quick as a group of young women piled out into the street before her. They were emerging from a movie complex, and she found it almost impossible to ignore their shrill, giddy conversations.

"Oh, that last shot was amazing!"

"Tell me about it! I melted all over myself!"

Sarah grimaced as the speaker's high-pitched laughter hurt her ears and irritated her even further. With women like the gaggle before her, it was little wonder that so many men had recently come to think of women as they were -- or at least that's what she constantly overheard from her male coworkers gossiping in the office. She kept to herself, and none of her colleagues seemed to care for that idea. She'd shot down every one of the few advances she'd gotten, as well as the offers to go to the movies or other outings with "girlfriends" as the women before her had clearly done.

"Oh, he was magnificent standing on the bow of that ship!"

"I can't wait until the next one!"

"He can definitely take me away any time!"

Take me away any time. Those words echoed in Sarah's mind long after the women left the sidewalk, getting into various taxies and other vehicles. She found herself alone once again, but those words still buzzed in her mind. Take me away any time.

She could understand how those girls felt, although there certainly wasn't any Pirate or actor for whom she felt such an inclination. There was only one man, only one man for whom she had ever sought in her teenaged daydreams, only one man who had ever really moved the world for her.

And he had moved the world. He had turned the world upside down, and he had done it all for her. Why could she have simply not opened her foolish, juvenile mouth and told him how she'd really felt?! Why couldn't she have just confessed to him her burning desire to stay in the Labyrinth, to stay with him and the actual friends she'd made in her adventure there?! Why couldn't she have admitted to him that she'd give him anything, everything, except her baby brother?! Surely there could have been some way they could have returned Toby and she could have stayed with Jareth, in the Labyrinth, where she had always belonged!

She paused as she thought she heard laughter in an alley, and then again when she could swear she could hear something slithering in the next. She turned round fast when her ears caught a hooting sound. But there was nothing to be seen in any alley, or behind, ahead, or above her. There was never anything to be seen.

Sarah sighed, paused, and took a small, brown canister out of her pocket. She downed the pill and continued on her walk home, even if it wasn't where she wanted to be. The night was going to be long.


The End

Re: Another Long Night

[redwolf]

She's so close to what she wants and can't see it for the background noise of the mundane world Above 🦊🧡