Drabble #72: Teacher
Friday, 7 September 2018 00:01![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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labyfic...we had a stronger response to the drabble prompt of Drabble 71, with entries by the tremendous
3iggy and me (your intrepid drabble proposer jalenstrix). 3iggy and I also represented the labyfic collective with commenting love — huzzah!Mwah to my labyfic collective!
For this prompt, we continue with our one-word drabble roots, with a word inspired by school times:
Teacher
Who is our teacher, who are they teaching, and what are they teaching? So many things to learn, so many delightful people to learn from in glorious, glorious detail...
Given our entries from recent months, let's continue with the 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 (Oct 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
2018-09-14 17:31 (UTC)Drabble:
~~~
I blinked hard at the regal figure standing at my threshold, the sunlight outlining the oh-so-perfect patrician contours of his face. “You want me to teach you?”
Raw need glittered in Jareth’s eyes. “Do you want me to beg you, Sarah?”
I crossed my arms. “The thought occurred. But maybe you’d start by just saying plainly what you want.”
His jaw tightened with outraged pride.
I snorted. I didn’t have time for this Fae nonsense. “Or I could just shut this door. Your call.”
He managed to open his mouth enough to grit out a reply. “You are a cruel, cruel woman.”
Ha! “Learned from the best.” I made a gimme motion with my hands. “Out with it.”
After a long moment, he mutely extended his palm faceup. In it lay a shiny new smartphone glistening like a gem. It had a very slight crack on the edge.
I whistled. “Fancy.”
He growled. “Might as well be a rock for all the use I can get out of it.” He sneered at the crack. “A slippery rock.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You know these things are designed to be intuitive, right? Like, they literally employ tons of people to make the user interface easy to use.”
His face could have given a category 5 hurricane a run for its money. “And yet.”
“Right. So, what will you give me if I teach how to use your lovely new smartphone?”
And now his face was a match for an apocalyptic cataclysm. “So you want to bargain. After all I’ve given you.”
I shrugged. I’d seen the Stare of Doom before. “Learned from the best, O Generous One. You’d be disappointed if I didn’t press my advantage. And you’d tell me so later. At length.”
A half-smile burst like a ray of sunlight from him. “True.”
“How about if I show you how to work your smartphone, you actually respond to my texts?”
He tilted his head. “That’s it?”
“Don’t tempt me. And don’t you dare lecture me later about weak proposals. You’re getting a deal because we’re friends.”
“And because you don’t like using crystals in public for instantaneous communication.”
“That too.” I moved out of the doorway. “So, are you coming in for your lesson?”
He gave me a jaunty little half-bow and walked in.
I let my eyes drift over the lines of his perfectly tailored pants as he made a beeline for the kitchen. A girl might as well enjoy the aesthetic Fae bounty offered to her if she was going to suffer through a Smartphones for N00bs crash course. “Put the tea kettle on, would you? I’ve got a great new mint that I think you’ll like.”
“As you wish.”
no subject
2018-10-03 11:54 (UTC)no subject
2018-10-05 04:16 (UTC)no subject
2023-05-30 07:56 (UTC)Drabble
2018-10-03 12:39 (UTC)The hazy autumn sun slants through the apartment window and I can’t breathe. The light seems to worship him, sitting on the sofa near the window. It sets his cornsilk hair on fire and warms the coolness of his face. Evening certainly looks good on him. As do the unexpected jeans, expensive looking black boots and sweater.
His eyes are intent upon the instrument in his nimble hands, but I feel his awareness as I go through my comfortable rituals. Light the candles in the fireplace, plug in the lights strung over the window, turn down the dimmer switch, make the tea. Things I do every night by myself. It is so strange to have him here, in this tiny room.
He strums his fingertips along the strings of the guitar and it sends shivers up my spine.
“Stop stalling,” his voice is a caress although I shouldn’t think of it that way. He is here for one reason and one reason only.
“You can’t learn to play if you stand there overanalyzing everything. How tedious that must be,” there’s a hint of an eye-roll in his voice, but my back is to him as I pour the water out of the kettle and fill the tea pot. Chamomile. I feel some tension flee just from the smell of it.
Grabbing two mugs from the counter, I carry everything to the coffee table.
He sets the guitar aside and slouches back into the minimalist lines of my sofa. There is a smirk on his face, of course.
“After all these years, you call on me to teach you such a mundane thing,” he shakes his head. Does he feel as out of sorts as I do? If so he hides it better.
“Yes,” I say sitting down on the other side of the couch. “I can’t afford lessons with an actual person.”
“Actual person? Darling, you may find that you can’t afford them with me either,” his gaze rakes over my purposely frumpy person. Large gray sweater, old jeans and bare feet. He never named a price. I am not in a hurry to discover what it is.
Jareth smiles as if he can read my thoughts. “Come here.”
I frown in confusion and annoyance. What was I thinking asking him to be my teacher? Giving him permission to order me about? “I am here.”
An eyebrow arches elegantly as he points to the space between his legs.
Heat radiates up my neck and I feel it bloom across my cheeks, but I set my tea-cup down and move to stand. He just has to torture me.
Nervously, I seat myself practically in his lap as he reaches around to pick up the guitar and set it in my hands. His chest rests against my back as he positions my hands on the strings. I am sure my heartbeat will echo through the instrument as I perch on the edge of the seat, rigid with awareness of him.
“First, you will need to learn a few chords,” he says, breath warming my neck.
“I think you are taking some liberties here, couldn’t you have shown me this on the other side of the sofa?” I mumble, while his hands—mercilessly ungloved— continue to position mine. He names the configurations, but I can’t focus. I am never going to learn to play the guitar. But, he already knows how to play me.
Re: Drabble
2018-10-05 04:15 (UTC)“So, I need to learn the guitar.”
“...”
“And I want you to teach me.”
“I...see.”
😆
Re: Drabble
2023-05-30 08:00 (UTC)Emulsion
2023-05-30 08:03 (UTC)Drabble:
Sarah and Bishop had spent days silkscreening a resist pattern onto hundreds of bisque fired terracotta tiles and, as they stepped into their ceramics studio, the work ahead of them looked overwhelming. This was the first time Sarah would be working on a commission. She was pleased with the Spanish style design she’d worked up with Bishop, but the chosen colours didn’t appeal to her tastes, still she was excited to get started on the glazing.
With their equipment and glazes prepared, Sarah settled beside Bishop to start piping the glazes onto the tiles. After the first few, she discovered that it was not unlike colouring inside the lines and was surprisingly meditative.
She decided to take the opportunity to ask a question that had been on her mind for a while. “What will it be like working with a rescue team?” Sarah figured that being Rook’s partner, Bishop would have insight into how everything worked.
Turning to face her, Bishop fiddled with a glaze bottle as he considered Sarah’s question. “Your initial test runs will be a doddle. They’ll run so smoothly that you’ll think Jareth and his team are total drama queens.” Sarah snorted out a laugh, but sobered at Bishop’s sombre expression. “It won’t be until you go through a live exercise when it feels real and then you will all need to deal with the fallout.” He closed his eyes and looked pained at the memory. “Bear in mind that I’ve only seen them in action on a battlefield. They never talk about live rescues, but I’ve heard rumours that dovetailed with episodes where they were particularly withdrawn.”
With a swallow, Sarah redirected her questions, not sure she was ready to face the reality of a time when she would go through the kind of ordeal that could shake Jareth, especially when she recalled how she’d been rattled by her own assassination attempt. “I think I might know who one will be.” Bishop raised an eyebrow. “Grae,” she announced with a grin.
There was a look of confusion as Bishop queried her choice.
“It’s the eyes, obviously.”
Bishop patiently explained that Grae couldn’t be one of her rescue team because he was human. He had been born with brown eyes, but had acquired heterochromia due to an accident and only used coloured contacts when going incognito.
Putting the glaze bottle back on the bench, Bishop leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and looked up at Sarah. “I think I’m one of your team. Rook told me that she had an immediate impulse to protect Jareth when we were first brought in. I feel the same for you.”
She found herself nodding along with Bishop as he explained that while his hearing was good, he could isolate and lock onto Sarah’s voice at a distance far beyond what should have been possible. At any other point in her life, Sarah would have thought this was a come on, but it felt right to her too.