KNICKNACKS. SW. LABYRINTH/VARIOUS. [PG]
TITLE: Knickknacks.AUTHOR: Jessi.
FANDOM: Labyrinth/illusions to various.
CHARACTERS: Sarah.
SUMMARY: Sarah adds to her new collection of knickknacks, but does this collection means something like her childhood one did?
RATING: PG.
WORD COUNT: 1,031.
NOTES: I haven't written (at least not more than fragments of) fic or ficlets or drabbles in what feels like forever! However, here's something that poked at my mind tonight about one of my RPG muses, nopower_overme, which I actually finished even though it's present tense, not past. :P It likely only really makes sense if you knew at least some of her plotlines, but I'm hoping a few people will understand. :D
Glowing dim as an ember
Things my heart
Used to know
Things it yearns to remember...
Passing a street vendor on her way home from one of her final exams, Sarah stops with a craving for candy. It has been a long day and something sweet would be just the thing in the wake of it. However, on this cart is also freshly-popped popcorn and the sudden smell of it turns her stomach, just as the snack food has done to her for nearly two months. No longer in the mood for candy, she walks away.
The time frame of two months is significant to Sarah, for it has been two months since the morning she woke up in her bed at home, disoriented because it was not the room she expected. What room she did expect, she never discovered on that day or any day since that one, just woke each morning with the feeling of being in the wrong place. Foolishness, truly, for her to think she was in the wrong place at both school and at home. Where else would she be?
Passing the display window of a tiny shop the next block down, a shop she has never really noticed before, Sarah pauses as the sparkle of crystal catches her eye. Crystal used to make her wary and nervous because of her experiences in the Labyrinth, but that too changed about two months ago. She no longer feels a spark of almost-fear, just a cautious respect for what even innocent-appearing items can really do. Ready to turn away, a flash of color seemingly from within a large crystal holds her attention for a moment, a green she thinks is likely a reflection of her eyes. But this green is emerald, a color too bright to be the softer, darker green of her own. With that flash, a dream-like memory surfaces but despite being strong, it is all too brief and Sarah cannot pick out any details beyond the bright emerald color that sparked the recall.
Shrugging it off, she presses close to the window to crane her neck and examine the crystal, discovering the green she spied is not actually within the crystal, but behind it in the form of a small dragon made of a bright emerald-hued jade. That must have been what caught her attention. A soft smile graces her features for a moment and then she steps back, not continuing on her way but back toward the door of the shop. Only a few minutes later she reemerges with the dragon wrapped carefully and tucked in her jacket pocket. The smile is still on her face and it widens softly as she sticks her hand in her pocket, curling her fingers around the wrapped piece of jade.
What made her buy it? Even now Sarah cannot explain it, just as she cannot explain the various other knickknacks and items that occupy most of the space of her dorm. All she knows is that seeing each item brought a flash of those odd dream-like memories in her mind and, though she is never aware of this part, a soft smile on her face born of some deeper feeling she cannot access.
Sarah is not unfamiliar with collecting items with a strange pull, as her childhood was spent collecting toys and dolls that mimic her friends and other inhabitants of the Labyrinth, even before she had laid eyes on any of them in person. The Labyrinth was not just a figment of her imagination, which would be a suitable excuse for the coincidence, as her friends still visit and are still very real as others have heard them and mistakenly thought Sarah herself to be practicing voices for class. So, she does not balk at once more being motivated to collect. Perhaps another adventure awaits her?
Yet, despite thinking that, something tells Sarah she has already had the adventure... one she no longer remembers.
She goes to her dorm and unwraps the dragon, studying a small castle that is home to several pieces before adding the dragon next to a pendant brightly painted with a gold and red Tiger lily, found just recently when she went book shopping for a final project. The two items seem to fit there together in a place of prominence and seeing that so clearly makes Sarah wonder what it means, if it does mean anything. Her eyes drift to items on other parts of the castle, such as the small box made to resemble a domino though the coloring is far more flashy and a piece from one of the university's student art shows, the item itself an old computer hard drive with a tiny painting of star-filled space on it. Odd items, to be sure, and certainly not as literal as stuffed animals and statues in the direct image of friends and foes, unless she had already met space-centric data, a flashy domino, a lily and a dragon.
She pauses, suddenly certain now that the item names are all combined in her mind, she has heard them before. All except for 'dragon', something about that name is not quite right, as though she is not being given the right name so easily with this one. A name is on her tongue, though, her lips almost forming what could be an 'r' but she is granted no more than that. Suddenly frustrated, she picks up the dragon and goes to her bed, curling up on top of the covers as she places the small jade creature on her pillow. There is no smile now, only a sudden sense of loss, as though her chance to figure out this puzzle has passed.
Yet... this is Sarah, the girl who once defeated a labyrinth full of puzzles and obstacles. This puzzle she will solve as well, eventually, because her nature will not let her do otherwise. Tired from her day and deprived of a rush of sugar from the forgotten candy, she lays her hand on the dragon, closes her eyes and soon falls asleep, teased through her evening nap by dreams of stardust and dancing and spots of emerald so bright it leaves her breathless.