fandoms 33-36
33:
Title: I Fought the Angels
Fandom: Contact
Characters/Pairings: Terry
Rating: pg-13/gen
Tags: spoilers, angst
Word count: 158
Summary: To fight them will require a miracle.
note: randomly selected fandom and theme ('Zero no Kiseki')
To fight them will require a miracle. To even be able to affect them, to exist in the same tier of dimensions, will require something bridging his own world and theirs. He shouldn't even be aware of it, he knows, let alone know where to look for it. He's already had something happen to him - maybe the Professor did something to him? - that gave him the ability to look in that direction that was sideways to every normally conceivable spatial dimension. Hell, even time, cause and effect, worked differently there, in a way that gave them a weird puppeteer-like control over him, like he was one of the Professor's remote drones.
He had to fight someone like that. Because if he didn't, he wouldn't get his life back, his own name. He wouldn't see that girl again.
But miracles didn't happen to you when you fought the Gods, so he would have to make his own.
34:
Title: Valhalla of the Forsaken
Fandom: Gynoug
Characters/Pairings: Wor
Rating: 15/gen
Tags: mild horror, angst
Word count: 238
Summary: They were tricked onto the pedestals with promises of heroism and immortality.
note: randomly selected fandom and theme ('Tock's Taunt - Loke's Treachery')
Of the statues that weren't broken, smashed into barely recognisable fragments by monsters who might have known what murders they committed or might just have wanted to cause random destruction, or profane an idol for the hell of it like the trails of green slime they had left everywhere in the sacred vaults, many more were gone altogether from their plinth, already taken off into the stormy skies.
Most of them would fall tonight. Those brave youths who hadn't had a clue what they were signing up for. Just like himself. Snatched from their lives, from their own timelines. Maybe promised a new life, immortality filled with nothing but heroic deeds. A promise as horribly twisted as the leering, half-mechanical visages of these demonic mutant... things who cared not that they were half formed, often leaking blood and oil alike where their bodies hadn't been completed.
While he still could not permit a single one to live, he now at least understood that they were as displaced and betrayed by fate as he himself was from everything he had known. Wherever they had been before this - whatever dimension they were native to - they had been right, when they were there, about to be completed and released into a system where they made sense.
Birds hatched wrongly from their eggs. One too early, one too late. He shuddered and hoped it could end for them both tonight.
35:
Title: No Paladin
Fandom: The Witcher
Characters/Pairings: Geralt, OC
Rating: 15/gen
Tags: mild sexual references, religious discussion, AU
Word count: 727
Summary: He's happy to work for her, angel or not, but he's not signing up his soul to any divine crusade.
note: randomly selected fandom and theme ('Merkabah Battle')
"Have you ever seen anything of the divine?"
"I've met a surprising number of nuns up close and personal, if that's what you mean," amusement flashed in his eyes.
"You know what I meant ," her voice sounded neither exasperated nor particularly amused, as mechanically neutral but somehow still pleasant as ever. There was an ethereal quality about it that matched her appearance. Bathed in a golden white glow, slender in a way that made her seem as though she would disappear if he looked away, her facial features too flawless to be human or even Elven.
"Regarding the kind of intense personal religious experience you claim to be... no, never," he shook his head, the gaze of his golden feline eyes tracking her every movement as if questioning her existence, "And I'm not all convinced. I've been with wraiths, succubi, vampiresses... many women who were as beautiful as you and who offered me something, pretending to be something they weren't."
"And is this how you spoke to them as well?" an edge of warning crept into her tone that actually made him step back reflexively through the sheer power put into it. Was this what was meant by divine wrath, he wondered.
"Listen, Holy One, if you're really an angel... I'm not a good choice. I might have happened to do more good than harm in the world but it's been of my own will. My soul is in nobody's domain except that of really terrible luck."
"Acts of good without any awareness of the divine or expectation of its reward are the most sincere."
"Oh, I'm just fine with material reward, often of the carnal variety," he told her, face perfectly straight, "Lady, do you even understand what a witcher is? If anyone isn't a divine creation any more, it's me. We have little to do with the laws of nature any more."
"And where do you think all the grasses and herbs come from? Thin air? What laws do you think dictate that your swords turn when you swing them, or that you land again if you jump? Even magic has rules that were embedded in the Universe when time began. You could ask a sorceress who tried it about the consequences of truly breaking those laws but they're all worse than dead," she smiled and held out a slim, graceful, porcelain white hand, "And luck, too, or rather fate, has its own divine law."
"Are you offering to pull some strings for me?" His eyes flashed with amusement.
"Where I can. Which is barely at all. I am a low ranking angel, with barely any authority, hence why I am still close enough in essence to a human to be understood by you at all..."
"Now I know you're lying. Claiming to be an angel, but accidentally calling a Witcher a human and offering the truly impossible- to make any difference to my bizarre luck? Dandelion makes better jokes than you."
"You're not as interesting in the grand scale of the Universe as you think," she told him.
"So people tell me, but then, I do have Ciri to compete with," he smiled, "Now, I'd believe you if you claimed she'd attracted divine attention..."
"So, your answer is no?"
He shook his head, suddenly serious, "Religion has tried to burn me- quite literally - once too often, I'm afraid. Had you used anything else..."
Her own face darkened, "Do not mistake divinity for mortal organised religion. Do not ever. I will let you in on a secret. My first request of you as a Paladin would be to bring me Hierarch Hemmelfart's head."
"Sounds like politics. I hate politics," he growled, then drained his drink, an entire tankard of Kaedweni Stout, in one, "Could be fun, though. How about I do it anyway and you don't have to make me an official Paladin? You can save your important Paladin... things for someone actually virtuous and reward me with things I actually like."
She sighed, "If you insist. I'd ask you to explain this to my Mother yourself, but..."
"Not going to the right afterlife. It's okay. I agree."
"No, I was going to say..."
"You just checked and I'm lacking a soul among other things? Figures."
"You're really not that interesting," she repeated as she walked out of the tavern through the wall.
36:
Title: Aerie
Fandom: The Witcher/Dark Savior
Characters/Pairings: Ciri, Kurtliegen
Rating: PG-13/gen
Tags: spoilers, AU, fusion, dimension hopping
Word count: 404
Summary: He's happy to work for her, angel or not, but he's not signing up his soul to any divine crusade.
note: randomly selected crossover
"What have you been imprisoned for? Because you've trespassed on this place. Because it's highly suspicious that you could even get here through the wards, or know where this is," the man who claimed to govern the prison, despite his ridiculous foppish cloak and the metal crab claw thing that didn't fit him and made him sway to one side, glared at her, "Furthermore, our security systems saw you make a number of interdimensional jumps to several places that are supposed to be highky restricted. "
"Well, your security's a pile of shit," Ciri told him bluntly, "Because I'm just randomly making jumps. I have no idea how to use this power."
"A dangerous power to use at random. You do know the next plane over is made entirely of fire, right?"
She shrugged, "I know how to get out again. Besides, destiny guides me. I have an important role to fulfil in stopping the White Frost. I'm afraid we'll come to blows if you try and stop me."
He laughed, a nasty laugh without humour, "Lady, I'm not the one who'll stop you. I couldn't really care less about destiny. I'd enjoy seeing you try, actually, I need to know how much damage the teleportation shields do right now when a fly splats into them. And don't think getting out will work just because you can get in. This place is the perfect prison for a reason."
"It's just stupid to have a prison you can just walk into by accident."
"You're not supposed to be able to..." he sighed, "Look, what is this Great Frost and how might it get me off this stupid island and back to my rightful heritage if I help you?"
"It won't. It'll destroy this entire world with another ice age," she told him, "Every world, in fact. I'll happily trade you something for my release..."
"Information, then," he said, "About the method you use to travel the dimensions. And don't just say it's random or blind fate. You clearly know at least something!"
She rolled her eyes. There were already worse people around who knew about her gift. What harm could it possibly do to invent something for this idiot, compared to the danger of being delayed here?
Especially with the emerald aura, glowing the same primeval malevolence as a dimeritium deposit but much, much worse, lurking in the dark depths of this allegedly inescapable hell.
Title: I Fought the Angels
Fandom: Contact
Characters/Pairings: Terry
Rating: pg-13/gen
Tags: spoilers, angst
Word count: 158
Summary: To fight them will require a miracle.
note: randomly selected fandom and theme ('Zero no Kiseki')
To fight them will require a miracle. To even be able to affect them, to exist in the same tier of dimensions, will require something bridging his own world and theirs. He shouldn't even be aware of it, he knows, let alone know where to look for it. He's already had something happen to him - maybe the Professor did something to him? - that gave him the ability to look in that direction that was sideways to every normally conceivable spatial dimension. Hell, even time, cause and effect, worked differently there, in a way that gave them a weird puppeteer-like control over him, like he was one of the Professor's remote drones.
He had to fight someone like that. Because if he didn't, he wouldn't get his life back, his own name. He wouldn't see that girl again.
But miracles didn't happen to you when you fought the Gods, so he would have to make his own.
34:
Title: Valhalla of the Forsaken
Fandom: Gynoug
Characters/Pairings: Wor
Rating: 15/gen
Tags: mild horror, angst
Word count: 238
Summary: They were tricked onto the pedestals with promises of heroism and immortality.
note: randomly selected fandom and theme ('Tock's Taunt - Loke's Treachery')
Of the statues that weren't broken, smashed into barely recognisable fragments by monsters who might have known what murders they committed or might just have wanted to cause random destruction, or profane an idol for the hell of it like the trails of green slime they had left everywhere in the sacred vaults, many more were gone altogether from their plinth, already taken off into the stormy skies.
Most of them would fall tonight. Those brave youths who hadn't had a clue what they were signing up for. Just like himself. Snatched from their lives, from their own timelines. Maybe promised a new life, immortality filled with nothing but heroic deeds. A promise as horribly twisted as the leering, half-mechanical visages of these demonic mutant... things who cared not that they were half formed, often leaking blood and oil alike where their bodies hadn't been completed.
While he still could not permit a single one to live, he now at least understood that they were as displaced and betrayed by fate as he himself was from everything he had known. Wherever they had been before this - whatever dimension they were native to - they had been right, when they were there, about to be completed and released into a system where they made sense.
Birds hatched wrongly from their eggs. One too early, one too late. He shuddered and hoped it could end for them both tonight.
35:
Title: No Paladin
Fandom: The Witcher
Characters/Pairings: Geralt, OC
Rating: 15/gen
Tags: mild sexual references, religious discussion, AU
Word count: 727
Summary: He's happy to work for her, angel or not, but he's not signing up his soul to any divine crusade.
note: randomly selected fandom and theme ('Merkabah Battle')
"Have you ever seen anything of the divine?"
"I've met a surprising number of nuns up close and personal, if that's what you mean," amusement flashed in his eyes.
"You know what I meant ," her voice sounded neither exasperated nor particularly amused, as mechanically neutral but somehow still pleasant as ever. There was an ethereal quality about it that matched her appearance. Bathed in a golden white glow, slender in a way that made her seem as though she would disappear if he looked away, her facial features too flawless to be human or even Elven.
"Regarding the kind of intense personal religious experience you claim to be... no, never," he shook his head, the gaze of his golden feline eyes tracking her every movement as if questioning her existence, "And I'm not all convinced. I've been with wraiths, succubi, vampiresses... many women who were as beautiful as you and who offered me something, pretending to be something they weren't."
"And is this how you spoke to them as well?" an edge of warning crept into her tone that actually made him step back reflexively through the sheer power put into it. Was this what was meant by divine wrath, he wondered.
"Listen, Holy One, if you're really an angel... I'm not a good choice. I might have happened to do more good than harm in the world but it's been of my own will. My soul is in nobody's domain except that of really terrible luck."
"Acts of good without any awareness of the divine or expectation of its reward are the most sincere."
"Oh, I'm just fine with material reward, often of the carnal variety," he told her, face perfectly straight, "Lady, do you even understand what a witcher is? If anyone isn't a divine creation any more, it's me. We have little to do with the laws of nature any more."
"And where do you think all the grasses and herbs come from? Thin air? What laws do you think dictate that your swords turn when you swing them, or that you land again if you jump? Even magic has rules that were embedded in the Universe when time began. You could ask a sorceress who tried it about the consequences of truly breaking those laws but they're all worse than dead," she smiled and held out a slim, graceful, porcelain white hand, "And luck, too, or rather fate, has its own divine law."
"Are you offering to pull some strings for me?" His eyes flashed with amusement.
"Where I can. Which is barely at all. I am a low ranking angel, with barely any authority, hence why I am still close enough in essence to a human to be understood by you at all..."
"Now I know you're lying. Claiming to be an angel, but accidentally calling a Witcher a human and offering the truly impossible- to make any difference to my bizarre luck? Dandelion makes better jokes than you."
"You're not as interesting in the grand scale of the Universe as you think," she told him.
"So people tell me, but then, I do have Ciri to compete with," he smiled, "Now, I'd believe you if you claimed she'd attracted divine attention..."
"So, your answer is no?"
He shook his head, suddenly serious, "Religion has tried to burn me- quite literally - once too often, I'm afraid. Had you used anything else..."
Her own face darkened, "Do not mistake divinity for mortal organised religion. Do not ever. I will let you in on a secret. My first request of you as a Paladin would be to bring me Hierarch Hemmelfart's head."
"Sounds like politics. I hate politics," he growled, then drained his drink, an entire tankard of Kaedweni Stout, in one, "Could be fun, though. How about I do it anyway and you don't have to make me an official Paladin? You can save your important Paladin... things for someone actually virtuous and reward me with things I actually like."
She sighed, "If you insist. I'd ask you to explain this to my Mother yourself, but..."
"Not going to the right afterlife. It's okay. I agree."
"No, I was going to say..."
"You just checked and I'm lacking a soul among other things? Figures."
"You're really not that interesting," she repeated as she walked out of the tavern through the wall.
36:
Title: Aerie
Fandom: The Witcher/Dark Savior
Characters/Pairings: Ciri, Kurtliegen
Rating: PG-13/gen
Tags: spoilers, AU, fusion, dimension hopping
Word count: 404
Summary: He's happy to work for her, angel or not, but he's not signing up his soul to any divine crusade.
note: randomly selected crossover
"What have you been imprisoned for? Because you've trespassed on this place. Because it's highly suspicious that you could even get here through the wards, or know where this is," the man who claimed to govern the prison, despite his ridiculous foppish cloak and the metal crab claw thing that didn't fit him and made him sway to one side, glared at her, "Furthermore, our security systems saw you make a number of interdimensional jumps to several places that are supposed to be highky restricted. "
"Well, your security's a pile of shit," Ciri told him bluntly, "Because I'm just randomly making jumps. I have no idea how to use this power."
"A dangerous power to use at random. You do know the next plane over is made entirely of fire, right?"
She shrugged, "I know how to get out again. Besides, destiny guides me. I have an important role to fulfil in stopping the White Frost. I'm afraid we'll come to blows if you try and stop me."
He laughed, a nasty laugh without humour, "Lady, I'm not the one who'll stop you. I couldn't really care less about destiny. I'd enjoy seeing you try, actually, I need to know how much damage the teleportation shields do right now when a fly splats into them. And don't think getting out will work just because you can get in. This place is the perfect prison for a reason."
"It's just stupid to have a prison you can just walk into by accident."
"You're not supposed to be able to..." he sighed, "Look, what is this Great Frost and how might it get me off this stupid island and back to my rightful heritage if I help you?"
"It won't. It'll destroy this entire world with another ice age," she told him, "Every world, in fact. I'll happily trade you something for my release..."
"Information, then," he said, "About the method you use to travel the dimensions. And don't just say it's random or blind fate. You clearly know at least something!"
She rolled her eyes. There were already worse people around who knew about her gift. What harm could it possibly do to invent something for this idiot, compared to the danger of being delayed here?
Especially with the emerald aura, glowing the same primeval malevolence as a dimeritium deposit but much, much worse, lurking in the dark depths of this allegedly inescapable hell.