5 Sanctuary Drabbles
Name: sarbear12456
Title: Shortcomings of a Brilliant Mind
Rating: PG
He’d always had a wonderful mind. Mathematical problems were deconstructed in seconds, the subtleties and layers of the art laid bare before his eyes. As he was appreciated more, he needed their praise and worship more until it was like a drug. He spent so long, too long, riding the high before he realized his mistake. He was now so entangled in impossible puzzles and mazes and the beauty of a simple solution was lost to him. He’d taken a drug as substitute for sunlight, and now he was deprived of both, left with only a cold and cloudy day.
Title:New Year's Resolution
Rating:Teen
It was a tradition Helen Magnus had long ago learnt to adore. Each of her numerous personal journals, cataloguing one year of her life, began with a single simple entry. A New Year’s resolution. They ranged from serious to absurd, simple to complex designs on how to live her life. Some such entries had been ‘Learn Japanese’ (which she was now able to speak fluently), ‘Finish the construction of the Mumbai Sanctuary’ (completed well before the end of the year) or ‘Teach Ashley piano’ (one of the few that had not been a success).
Earlier in her life, when she had first started the tradition, her entries were, repeatedly, based on convincing others of her intended lifestyle as a spinster, or Doctor. She also remembered that, the year that John disappeared, she impulsively wrote ‘Forget John Druitt’, which was hastily crossed out because it seemed to be an insurmountable task. This year, her New Year’s resolution was rather unimaginative, being the same as the year previously. Despite its deceptive simplicity, the words on the page before her carried a world of unseen meaning.
‘Don’t die.’
She found writing her goals down was the first step to achieving them.
Title:Latet Veitas
Rating: K+
James leaned against the cold stone pillar, unable to support his form, no matter how frail it had suddenly become. He well and truly looked, and felt, his age. Nonetheless, the people gathered around him, shocked at his sudden degeneration into old age. It was, for him, something he had expected for some time.
He looked at Nikola. He was not unsurprised by his concern, but unsettled by it. Because the part vampire had put on the persona of arrogance and heartlessness so well, James sometimes forgot he was part human also.
John was harder to look at. He truly had cared, just as James knew he did, and that made it hurt more. Despite this, Jack the Ripper had torn the Five apart, and John was at fault.
He could look at Helen. She was painfully beautiful, even with tears streaming down her cheeks, and sadness of decades etched onto her face. She had no doubt expected them all to return triumphant. She was the one person he would miss.
When he had imagined his death, many years ago, he had thought of himself, curled on a bed that no longer had Helen in it, because he would never dare pain her by dying whilst she was still alive to live with the pain of losing such a close friend-and-nothing-more.
But breathing his final breaths, white streaks in his vision from air deprivation, he wouldn’t have changed a thing.
Prompt:Rebelliousness
Rating: K
Yes, teenagers went through a rebellious stage. Or at least, now teenagers went through a rebellious stage. Helen Magnus recalled no such time in her life where she defied her father simply for the thrill of defying her father, nor was it commonly acknowledged that teenagers were capable of independent thought let alone independent action. She supposed it was the difference in the time periods, what was once discipline was now child abuse (though neither she nor her father subscribed to such a vulgar way of thinking). But not until now had she truly understood the consensus amongst long suffering parents of the twentieth century.
Teenagers went through a rebellious stage.
Ashley was going through a rebellious stage.
It had started with the occasional skipping of a classes, which Helen dealt with properly. Or so she had thought. It had continued, with much more secrecy and finesse. It was followed by sneaking off the grounds to go to parties she had been forbidden to attend (the fact that had her succumb to Henry’s proposed security measures) and, of all things, going off solo to track abnormals in the middle of the night.
Helen stitched the long gash in Ashley’s forehead as the young woman sulked.
Helen hated rebellious stages.
Title: Remembering
Rating: PG
She’d walk the halls of her Sanctuary and remember, even though she wasn’t supposed to. She’d get a rush of euphoria, remembering all the good times, the breakthrough, the friends she had made, the people she had saved. And then she remembered the rest. The funerals, the smothering black, the betrayal, the pain. Each moment had its reciprocal, she could remember learning to fly, with Amelia, her thoughts flowed to the newspaper article that told her she was gone. Helen suspected where she went, but could never follow. She’d remember that carriage ride away from Twelfth Night, scandalously close, giggling on a different kind of high. Then she’d remember the awful manner in which their engagement had ended.
It was like her own drug, up and down and up. It was like the stash that James swore he didn’t have. But he took them to forget. Helen remembered.
Title: Shortcomings of a Brilliant Mind
Rating: PG
He’d always had a wonderful mind. Mathematical problems were deconstructed in seconds, the subtleties and layers of the art laid bare before his eyes. As he was appreciated more, he needed their praise and worship more until it was like a drug. He spent so long, too long, riding the high before he realized his mistake. He was now so entangled in impossible puzzles and mazes and the beauty of a simple solution was lost to him. He’d taken a drug as substitute for sunlight, and now he was deprived of both, left with only a cold and cloudy day.
Title:New Year's Resolution
Rating:Teen
It was a tradition Helen Magnus had long ago learnt to adore. Each of her numerous personal journals, cataloguing one year of her life, began with a single simple entry. A New Year’s resolution. They ranged from serious to absurd, simple to complex designs on how to live her life. Some such entries had been ‘Learn Japanese’ (which she was now able to speak fluently), ‘Finish the construction of the Mumbai Sanctuary’ (completed well before the end of the year) or ‘Teach Ashley piano’ (one of the few that had not been a success).
Earlier in her life, when she had first started the tradition, her entries were, repeatedly, based on convincing others of her intended lifestyle as a spinster, or Doctor. She also remembered that, the year that John disappeared, she impulsively wrote ‘Forget John Druitt’, which was hastily crossed out because it seemed to be an insurmountable task. This year, her New Year’s resolution was rather unimaginative, being the same as the year previously. Despite its deceptive simplicity, the words on the page before her carried a world of unseen meaning.
‘Don’t die.’
She found writing her goals down was the first step to achieving them.
Title:Latet Veitas
Rating: K+
James leaned against the cold stone pillar, unable to support his form, no matter how frail it had suddenly become. He well and truly looked, and felt, his age. Nonetheless, the people gathered around him, shocked at his sudden degeneration into old age. It was, for him, something he had expected for some time.
He looked at Nikola. He was not unsurprised by his concern, but unsettled by it. Because the part vampire had put on the persona of arrogance and heartlessness so well, James sometimes forgot he was part human also.
John was harder to look at. He truly had cared, just as James knew he did, and that made it hurt more. Despite this, Jack the Ripper had torn the Five apart, and John was at fault.
He could look at Helen. She was painfully beautiful, even with tears streaming down her cheeks, and sadness of decades etched onto her face. She had no doubt expected them all to return triumphant. She was the one person he would miss.
When he had imagined his death, many years ago, he had thought of himself, curled on a bed that no longer had Helen in it, because he would never dare pain her by dying whilst she was still alive to live with the pain of losing such a close friend-and-nothing-more.
But breathing his final breaths, white streaks in his vision from air deprivation, he wouldn’t have changed a thing.
Prompt:Rebelliousness
Rating: K
Yes, teenagers went through a rebellious stage. Or at least, now teenagers went through a rebellious stage. Helen Magnus recalled no such time in her life where she defied her father simply for the thrill of defying her father, nor was it commonly acknowledged that teenagers were capable of independent thought let alone independent action. She supposed it was the difference in the time periods, what was once discipline was now child abuse (though neither she nor her father subscribed to such a vulgar way of thinking). But not until now had she truly understood the consensus amongst long suffering parents of the twentieth century.
Teenagers went through a rebellious stage.
Ashley was going through a rebellious stage.
It had started with the occasional skipping of a classes, which Helen dealt with properly. Or so she had thought. It had continued, with much more secrecy and finesse. It was followed by sneaking off the grounds to go to parties she had been forbidden to attend (the fact that had her succumb to Henry’s proposed security measures) and, of all things, going off solo to track abnormals in the middle of the night.
Helen stitched the long gash in Ashley’s forehead as the young woman sulked.
Helen hated rebellious stages.
Title: Remembering
Rating: PG
She’d walk the halls of her Sanctuary and remember, even though she wasn’t supposed to. She’d get a rush of euphoria, remembering all the good times, the breakthrough, the friends she had made, the people she had saved. And then she remembered the rest. The funerals, the smothering black, the betrayal, the pain. Each moment had its reciprocal, she could remember learning to fly, with Amelia, her thoughts flowed to the newspaper article that told her she was gone. Helen suspected where she went, but could never follow. She’d remember that carriage ride away from Twelfth Night, scandalously close, giggling on a different kind of high. Then she’d remember the awful manner in which their engagement had ended.
It was like her own drug, up and down and up. It was like the stash that James swore he didn’t have. But he took them to forget. Helen remembered.