Drabbles
If you’re not in the know, a drabble is a piece of writing (usually but not necessarily fannish), that is exactly 100 words long. Opinions differ on whether the title is included in the count. (I usually don’t.) There are also double and tripple drabbles, which are 200 and 300 words long respectively.
I like writing drabbles because while I have an obsessive inner editor, even I can get the crappy first draft out when I need just 100 words of it.
Disciple
Fandom: Mesopotamian Mytholog, yMesopotamian RPF, Nin-me-sara - Enheduanna
Written for: Multifandom Drabble Exchange 2019: Round Two
Length: 200 words
My Queen,
I kneel low before thee. All has been taken from me: the arms that embraced you - charred with sun and covered with road dust; the voice which sung your praises - choked by the dry southern wind.
I no longer dwell by your holy side.
Life-Giving Woman, raise back to her rightful place the most faithful of your disciples!
O Radiant One, your power is boundless. All cower before thee, for you are the judge and the judgement. You devoured the cities of your enemies. You took the strength from their arms, the children from their wombs. None can face your ire.
Yet, Great Queen, who are you without your lowly servant?
The memory of Man is short. Without the one who sings your glory, who will know to bring gifts to your altar? Without the one who scribes your name, who will know to bow before you?
You may punish them, Queen Who Rides the Beasts. But will they know whose wrath they ought to fear? Pull away the sea from their shores, crumble to dust their cities, salt their fields and make them barren.
Queen of Queens, without me, they will not know you.
O Inanna, praise!
Life’s Little Puzzles
Fandom: Discworld
Written for: Multifandom Drabble Exchange 2019: Round One
Length: 2 x 100 words (i.e. a so-called drabble series)
1
It was an unseasonably warm June and the heat was making the city even more unhinged than usual, Susan mused grimly on her way to school.
“Hullo m’am!” Arnold Sideways waved at her from the next street corner. “Papes again? Or wouldja like one of ‘em…,” he attempted to wink at her and failed horrifically, “jeegsahs?”
Susan sighed. “No, thank you.”
She wished that Ankh-Morpork had caught some boring epidemic*, but no - it had to be a suspicious, likely magic-induced puzzle fever. With her luck, she would need to get involved. And just when she almost caught up with grading!
* like novels about a boy having exciting adventures and defeating Evil, or maybe dysentery
2 (Puzzling relatives)
Susan watched rain through the classroom window. It did not match her mood. Falling water condensation wasn’t “irritated” or “justified, yet guilty”.
“SQUEAK!”
“I am not avoiding him. I am busy.” It was perfectly natural for a Grown Woman to want some distance from her relatives, thought Susan. She glared at the rodent skeleton snuffling at Happy Planters*.
“Here,” she handed Rat Death a small box and a hasty note:
You might like this. Love, Susan
Grandfather would not like, or understand, a jigsaw puzzle. The sentiment counted, though - and surely, a Grown Woman was allowed to be petty sometimes.
* The cress was anemically tall and mostly dry after two months. Fortunately, children’s attention span died first.
Sore
Fandom: DC (pre-New52 era)
Written for: femslash100
Length: 200 words
Look, it’s been a long month. Not even the not-insignificant chance of a Bat suddenly dropping by can stop Dinah from kissing her girlfriend silly the moment she gets back to the clocktower. Of course, with Babs, kissing rarely stays just that, and soon Babs’ shirt is gone, Dinah’s corset half-unlaced, and she’s walking backwards towards their bedroom with Babs holding onto Dinah’s shoulders. (Not being carried, never that.)
Then: “Ow. Fuck, ow.” Crash, thud, Dinah’s back hits the floor, Babs landing on top of her.
“Barbara, are you laughing?”
“Mm-mm,” is the muffled reply, but Dinah can feel her body shaking with giggles.
“Shut up, you ungrateful goose,” she whines. “You landed on soft.” But really, who can blame her?
Babs kisses the tip of her nose in apology. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, just a busted knee from a botched landing. It was okay all day and now it cramps up, the asshole.”
Babs humms sympathetically. “So, did we kill the mood, or…”
“Hell no! Just let me - owwww! - how about we just stay here?”
“You know how many people have the access codes, right?” Babs giggles, but she’s already unlacing Dinah’s corset and really, Dinah thinks, they’ll deal.
Queen Merida and the Fish Maiden
Fandom: Disney princesses
Written for: femslash100
Length: 250 words, aka not-quite-a-drabble. One of my favorites, though…
Child, let me tell you a story of queen Merida and the Fish Maiden. Merida wasn’t yet the great queen of all the clans - no, still barely more than a scruffy clan leader was she when she found the waif on the beach, soon after the storm that destroyed the ship of Eirik the Dane and drowned every man.
The old queen mother, the wise lady Elinor, warned against taking the child in - for from the moment she lain eyes on her, she knew witchcraft was in play. But queen Merida cared for the girl, and consoled her when the body of the Danish prince washed ashore, and they became as close as sisters - even though the maiden was as mute as she was beautiful.
But as always, the queen mother was right. Before a month passed, a monstrous sea witch came to claim the girl. And though the queen fought valiantly, it was for naught. Before the witch died, she gave the maiden back her true form - nothing else was she than one of the sea folk, who are half fish and half man. They had to say their good byes, and the Fish Maiden returned to the sea.
Some say that queen Merida never took a man because she had loved the girl so - but that is surely just a fancy. But it is truth, that queen would often sit on the water front in the evenings, and return to the castle long after the sun has set.