drabbles.

[mllememe]

DRABBLE! (From Wiki) A short work of fiction of one hundred words in length. The purpose of the drabble is brevity, testing the author's ability to express interesting and meaningful ideas in a confined space.


How to play -

1. Top-level with your character. Include prefs and info as you like.
2. Others respond to your top level with a tag of exactly 100 words in length, inspired by one of 100 prompt words below. Take it from there.
3. Optional hard mode! Every tag in your thread has to be drabble-length - or you can stick to it being just the starter, I'm not the cops.
4. Happy writing!




TABLE A

01	Biology	02	Pain	03	Wine	04	Sand
05	Queen	06	History	07	Electricity	08	Illness/Disease
09	Horizon	10	Comedy	11	Stranger	12	Tree
13	Cotton	14	Smoke	15	Faith	16	Gold
17	Assumption	18	Coffee	19	Talent	20	Run
21	Thirty	22	Tentacles	23	Walk	24	Purple
25	Heat	26	Wolf	27	Spirit	28	Era
29	Vibration	30	Toy	31	Surrender	32	Deep
33	Pages	34	Fortune	35	Rain	36	Weapon
37	Judge	38	High	39	Bound	40	Space
41	Icon	42	Trail	43	Tight	44	Tantalize
45	Space	46	Safe	47	Minute	48	Race
49	Reunion	50	Moon

TABLE B

01	Pleasure	02	Restraint	03	Wings	04	Rainbow
05	Focus	06	Road	07	Sixteen	08	Poison
09	Endure	10	Motion	11	Monster	12	Wall
13	Lace	14	Disturb	15	Period	16	Regret
17	Legs	18	Pearls	19	Ink	20	Tourist
21	Supernova	22	Culture	23	Laundry	24	Pacify
25	Hostile	26	Smooth	27	Model	28	Crawl
29	Kink	30	Claw	31	Sink	32	Dark
33	Street	34	Detonate	35	Treasure	36	Blanket
37	Rebirth	38	Wilderness	39	Passion	40	Shock
41	Follow	42	Fantasy	43	Sweet	44	Luck
45	Alchemy	46	Pressure	47	View	48	Jury
49	Joy	50	Jazz

Comments

B22?

[annarr]

Humanity had always been particular about what ‘art’ was. Loki had flitted his way through all manners of debate on the term, from the technical flapping of responses to responses to articles down to the barroom brawls that ended in bloodied noses and gasping sobs. The word seemed at once terribly personal and utterly universal, some pulse the species all felt but kept giving different names.

“Is this part of it?”

Peering up at the Louvre Pyramid, crisp and clean, defiant in its rise amid the masonry, Loki’s certain the sensation in his skull is ‘art’ beyond whatever waits inside.

perfect!

[singlemalts]

”The tip of the iceberg.”

He stands, slightly hunched for a man with his good posture, looking up at the glass pyramid, though he’s watching the younger (should he truly be saying that?) man (and should he be saying that as well?) more closely than any part of the Louvre that he has visited, uncountable times before.

It’s always more interesting seeing it through someone else’s eyes. How would it have looked to Elio? How would sharing it with Elio have felt? Who knows!

Michel turns to Loki, “But of course it's the tip of the iceberg that dooms ships.”

we'll see how long before I break on hard mode :')

[annarr]

That’s an interesting thought. It’s a bit of a literal thought, but those can be interesting, now and again. Certainly it’s worth tilting his head over in consideration, the weight of the gesture taking Loki a step forward toward the glass structure.

“Icebergs don’t doom ships.” The light catches the structure differently with each step. It sends Loki drifting slightly, chasing the glint of a sunbeam moving just so along the panes. “Men do that.”

They both know it. That’s a piece of humanity; of art; of scrambling to exist in this world. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t bear saying.

no judging from my side of the table. xD

[singlemalts]

Of course Loki would speak this way! It reminds him of someone else, like so much does about the other man (again, this unapt term). Michel clasps hands behind his back, placing himself next to his companion, studying the pyramid, too.

Is that a generational thing, this unproportionate wisdom? Did it simply skip his? And is that a shame or a blessing in disguise, you’d have to wonder.

“Yet, without icebergs there to sink us, we’d all sail on forever,” he replies, shaking his head once, “or should we give the Louvre some credit for stopping us in our tracks?”

( ˘ ³˘)❤

[annarr]

“Forever?”

There’s a flash of teeth as Loki glances, finally, back to Michel. Some might call it a smile, but his attention is somewhere slightly too far away to fully form the expression.

“I doubt that.”

Another moment craning back to study the pyramid before the focus really returns to Loki’s features, present in the moment rather than wandering through the centuries.

“Before the Louvre, it was a fear of falling off the edge of the world, wasn’t it?”

Men would always find something to founder on, even if they had to build it through wild flights of imagination themselves.

❤

[singlemalts]

“The world is going to stop us in our tracks whether we believe it round or flat or a floating rhombus in the universe.” He sounds amused. This whole conversation pleases him, it’s perhaps what you’d call quirky, definitely what you’d call clever. So, Michel smiles as well, nowhere as sharply as Loki, all broad flash of teeth, warmth, welcome. He is not easily intimidated, luckily!

A slight wave of one hand, not at the pyramid, but at the museum beyond it. “What will stop you in your tracks today, Roman sculpture or some nice still lifes? Should I guess?”

[annarr]

Is it really pessimism? Or is it actually the same fascinating impulse he’d seen in Theo—some odd universal trait that came out here and there in humanity as a chipper pluck or a dour sigh? It certainly feels like an echo of the same oddity. A rhyme, perhaps.

“Guess away.” Loki already knows. Perhaps there will be something oddly elegant that turns his head, but he’s almost entirely certain he knows. “I hear everyone falls for the woman without eyebrows.”

Which doesn’t mean the painting’s interesting. It means that watching the people watching the pigment will be absolutely fascinating.

[singlemalts]

A pause.

Michel purses his lips slightly, staring ahead for a moment. He never liked the Mona Lisa. Her mysteries confuse him, ask questions of him that don’t even come from her, but from deep within himself. Da Vinci was cleverer than any of them, evidently.

Well, perhaps not cleverer than Loki.

“It’s interesting to see what catches the interest of everyone else,” he replies, thoughtfully, “like gauging whether we belong or whether we don’t.”

Another pause. He nods in the direction of the entrance.

“Myself, I prefer the Dying Slave and the Rebellious Slave." There's amusement. "Men with eyebrows.”

[annarr]

There, see? Already fascinating.

Loki’s smile is a bit softer at the edges (but he’s never quite managed to avoid sharp entirely) as he chews that thought. It tastes just a bit like his father’s thrown when Thor had reached for a war hammer and Loki had reached for a pair of delicate knives.

Everything, really, is gauging whether or not a body belonged.

“Men with eyebrows,” he repeats as he begins drifting toward the entrance. “Quite bold of you.”

It isn’t quite the same as people gasping at the Mona Lisa, but it’s still wonderful.

“Why these men, then?”

[singlemalts]

“One is capitulating to that moment when death seizes life,” Michel follows the other man’s lead, letting himself be taken where he suggested they go, but deliberately let Loki make the final decision. His hands are in his pockets, and he strides ahead with a certain Frenchness, nonchalance. It isn’t arrogance as such, but an old-aged self-awareness which shines through. “The other is trying to free himself from the ropes that bind him, twisting against his constraints.”

A pause for thought.

“If they, together, do not make the most accurate portrayal of the human condition, I don’t know what does!”

[annarr]

Is it bad form to being the onslaught of questions before they’ve even made it properly into the museum? Possibly. The rules for human interaction had an arcane complexity which was apparently inexplicable even to themselves. Another piece of proper fascination, but not the present focus.

Besides, by now, Michel was surely used to the questions. They hadn’t been exactly hidden before now.

“Is it always duality with man? Do you always have to have more than one piece to make a person?”

Perhaps that’s why they’d made so many gods of a single aspect—and so many with many.

[singlemalts]

Is it always duality with man, Loki asks, Michel pondering it for a moment, not because he doubts the answer, but because it’s rare he meets people who also wonder. Does it always have to be so terribly complex?

He thinks about Elio who loved both Michel and his marriage canard, but the marriage canard tied him to a past he couldn’t let go of, so the marriage canard won.

And Michel let him, without objection. The same way he allows Loki his questions.

“Ah, Loki, it’s not to be lonely.” His tone betrays a certain sense of possible unhappiness.

[annarr]

Wouldn’t that be nice, not to be lonely? Perhaps that was the purpose of building a complex sense of self—to truly never be alone when in the company of oneself.

It’s almost true, Loki knows. It often feels absolutely right, vanishing into himself and letting the realms spin on without him. But what a terrible thing it would be to never feel his brother’s hand slapping too hard against his shoulder and shaking the last pieces of himself into place.

Still.

“Does it work?”

Perhaps it only ever turned into art. Perhaps that, in and of itself, was enough.

[singlemalts]

Loki leads, but when they arrive at the ticket sales, Michel finds his wallet and makes it wordlessly clear that he’s paying. For a long time, he doesn’t reply, simply watching the people lining up behind them, tourists, art snobs, everything in between.

“The only thing that works against loneliness is being with another person. Even your reflection won’t make you less alone,” he says finally, fixing his calm, still – in the face of this – undiscouraged eyes on the other man. He wonders if anyone here thinks they’re father and son.

The thought amuses him. For a variety of reasons.

[annarr]

It's for the best, of course. It’s a reminder that there will need to be paying, and not simply waltzing in with casual imperiousness.

This is, after all, a day for understanding culture.

“Perhaps so.” Loki’s gaze shifts away to follow Michel’s path over the crowd in consideration, snapping back nearly as quickly as it had drifted. “But you can’t make someone else be, can you.”

It isn’t really a question, although one lingers faintly on the back of his tongue. What a lonely thing it had always been, being alone because someone beside you couldn’t be bothered with you.

[singlemalts]

No more than you can make someone else stay, Michel could respond, because that is certainly the truth as he knows it.

Instead, he buys them two tickets to the full gallery of exhibits and grasps Loki gently by the shoulder, leading him through the entrance. On all sides, they’re surrounded by people. They’re very much not alone.

Yet, those people will be gone soon enough, and they’ll be left with each other. Is that a lonely end? Michel pats Loki’s shoulder once and says, “you can make someone else want to try. Beyond that, life comes with no guarantees.”

[annarr]

Is it a bit like having his father’s hand clamped tight to his shoulder; steering, constraining? Not exactly, Loki decides as the sensation lingers. It isn’t a matter of harsh or gentle, of glancing or lingering.

This touch is a question, set neatly into the string of questions Michel allows.

“You can try to make them try.” Still, the thought is a comfort, just like the friendly hand on his shoulder is. Something to keep his face slightly uplifted as they continue drifting along with the crowd. “Do you come here often? Or only to show off for foreign guests?”

[singlemalts]

”I used to have a partner who was an architect, though I called him l’Artiste, because he loved to draw – and he loved buildings, especially this one.” Michel walks next to Loki, talking at a murmur, enjoying how they move in a comfortable sync. Leaning his head back, he looks up. Julien had loved ceilings passionately, the top of things, he’d often say. “He regularly took me here, but after our split, ah, it was one habit I didn’t keep up with. Maybe too many painful memories… Or maybe I’m not truly cultured enough, and he saw right through me.”

[annarr]

Is this scrap of the human condition more lovely than the sloping lines of the pyramid, the women of pigment and men of marble who had been painstakingly wrought into the world? In some ways, certainly.

But then, perhaps that’s all art was. Perhaps each bit and piece here in this entire museum was humanity crying out to itself, offering the scraps of old loves and bruised feelings and blissful joys across the stretch of time.

One hurt, of course, is more important to pin down than the others.

“What’s ‘enough,’ then?”

In culture? In life? In making someone stay?

[singlemalts]

What’s enough, then, Loki of all the questions asks. Michel turns his head to look at him, directly, something gently melancholy etched into his features. This young man, who is not young and who is not a man, reminds him of another who was both. It’s not only affection, it’s stronger yet.

Reminiscence.

“No idea,” he says with a laugh and a small gesture of his hand. There’s a moment of extended silence, after which Michel allows himself to smile, wide, warm, amused, “I figured that's what we were here to find out.”

Here, at the Louvre. Here, on Earth.

[annarr]

Loki knows, of course. Nothing is enough. Nothing yet has ever been, and he’s almost entirely certain that nothing will ever be. Some life isn’t built for enough—only for grasping and searching and yearning and making do with the taste of contentment for moments at a time.

Still, he can mirror that amused smile for a time, eyes sparking bright and attention sweeping away to continue soaking in the museum. Perhaps there was something to pessimistic hope.

“Where are your dying men, then?”

It isn’t enough to learn how this man works, but it isn’t nothing, for a time.