Unholiness (GO/PotC); King's Ransom (LOTR/PotC); Craving (Sandman/PotC)
As you may or may not know, circe_tigana is running a challenge: The Heathen Gods Project. Her goal--882 stories, drabbles, poems, etc., each related to the cursed Aztec gold coins from PotC, written by noon on January 1st.
As of December 22, 2003, 4:15 a.m. EST, 418 stories, drabbles and poems have been written.
I thought I might post some of the stories I've written for this to my LJ. Here are three of them.
***
UNHOLINESS
Fandom: Good Omens/PotC crossover
Rating: G
"Hey, what's this?" said Pepper, jumping from her milk crate seat to the quarry floor where something glittered. "It looks really old."
Wensleydale climbed down from his own rocky perch, squatted down and scrutinized the glittering object with care. "It's a coin," he said finally. "Inca or Mayan or something. Must have been part of someone's collection."
Brian had joined Pepper and Wensleydale by now. "Cool!" he said, a broad smile spreading all over his grimy face. "It's got a death's head on it. Wonder what it looks like on the other side?" He stretched out his right hand to pick it up.
"Don't touch it," said Adam, the leader of the Them. "It's bad."
"Bad as in bad, or bad as in cool?" asked Brian.
Adam ignored this. He continued staring at the coin with something approaching hatred. He didn't like people or things that hurt his friends, and if any of them touched it, they'd be beyond even his powers.
"What I think," he said in a strangely echoing voice, "is that the coin should go back where it belongs. No one else seein' it or tryin' to pick it up or keepin' it. Just go, right now."
The coin glowed red under Adam's steady gaze, then white-hot. Finally, it vanished from the quarry, materializing moments later in a locked treasure chest on the Isle of the Dead.
Adam glanced at his friends. The Them looked as if they were just waking up from a deep sleep.
"Wh-what were we talking about?" said Pepper, yawning widely.
Adam was eleven and could afford to be patient. "We were talking about playing Alien Empires."
"Oh," said Wensleydale. "Weren't pirates in there someplace?"
Adam shook his head. "No. To tell you the truth, I've gone off of pirates a bit lately. They don't seem to be as much fun as they used to."
So the Them played Alien Empires for the rest of that hot August afternoon. And no one asked any more questions about the coin that would have killed or damned them.
Good job I'm the Antichrist, Adam thought. Sometimes, anyway.
***
If I got the history of Middle-Earth wrong, I humbly beg pardon of those who love Tolkien. I did genuinely try to get it right.
KING'S RANSOM
Fandom: Silmarillion/Return of the King/PotC Crossover (and yes, I am insane for doing this)
Rating: G
How the gold coin came to Eregion, or into the hands of the Mirdain, the jewel-smiths of the land, no one ever knew, but--at the time--all of them agreed that it was a blessing. It was hard to forge rings without gold...and, though fifteen had been forged already, there was still one more ring to be made. Every bit of gold helped. Especially since Annatar, the teacher of the Mirdain, was so determined that these sixteen rings be crafted.
The sixteenth ring was eventually given to a mortal king from the North. At first, he wore it with pride--few mortal men indeed possessed magic rings as gifts. Later, he wore it while attacking other kingdoms of men, and it seemed to him that it throve on battle-rage and blood-lust.
Ultimately, as his body faded and he became no more than an undead wraith, he wore it in slavery, hate and pain. His title--the Witch-King of Angmar--became a by-word for death, and he and the other wraith-slaves of Annatar (or Sauron, as he was now called) became known as "Nazgul."
For more than an age, the Witch-King of Angmar wore his ring of cursed Aztec gold as he led his fellow Ringwraiths in forays against the West, and none, it seemed, could stop him.
Then came the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
The blood of a king and his own flying reptile splashed his black robes. A hobbit's short sword stabbed him in the back. A shieldmaiden's longsword thrust through the mouth of his helm.
He shrieked in agony one last time, before collapsing into a pile of dried bone and empty rags.
And, as the hobbit lay all but unconscious, felled by the Witch-King's Black Breath, and as the shieldmaiden mourned her dying uncle and king, neither noticed another wraithlike form bending low to retrieve something from the dead Nazgul's remains.
So of course, no one noticed when the pirate--and the ring of the Nazgul--abruptly disappeared.
And--after Sauron's Ring was destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom--no one even thought to ask what had become of that other ring.
***
I don't know if this one works or not, but the story showed up full blown and insisted on being written. I don't know whether to credit the characters for this, or the Prince of Stories...
CRAVING
Fandom: Sandman/PotC Crossover
Rating: PG
He can feel the coin pulling him toward an elegant London townhouse. Liveried carriages are waiting out front. No sign of the footmen or coachmen, though. Probably having their own party backstairs with beer and chambermaids.
He enters the townhouse swiftly, dispatching the butler swiftly and ruthlessly, slashing open the man's throat before he can scream. The smell of warm blood mingles with other, more domestic smells: rich wine, heated and spiced; plums and currants, boiled almost to bursting, their scent wafting from fresh-made puddings; the sweet tang of hot applesauce; the unmistakable smell of roast pork.
Burnt human flesh smells nothing like roast pork, he thinks. Whatever storytellers say.
He is close to the coin now; he can feel it deep in his soul. Or whatever passes for his soul, these days.
He peers into room after room, but sees no one. At last he opens the door to the drawing room...and walks in on an orgy.
The number and the variety of the couplings staggers him. For a moment, he is awestruck, his memory traveling back to childhood and tales of debauched aristocrats. The memory is followed by rage and bitterness. Here is something else these mortals have that he cannot.
Some portion of his mind notes uneasily that none of the people coupling are pausing, or displaying any awareness that an undead pirate is present.
He scans the room, his glance finally settling on a white-skinned woman of medium height who smells of summer peaches. He is beside her in two strides.
"The coin," he says, in a voice full of more hunger and longing than he would have believed possible. "Give it to me. Now!"
A smile of passion, temptation and desire curves her perfect lips. She toys with a charm bracelet made from coins of all lands.
He raises his cutlass, and brings it down in a swift blow meant to sever her hand and wrist from her body.
And at the last moment, she glances at him with inscrutable eyes as golden as the cursed coin.
He lowers his arm. He kneels before her. It seems right, somehow.
"That's enough, sibling," says a voice he has not heard before. It is a grey and weary voice, a voice has not forgotten the meaning of the word "hope" but who knows that hope is not hers, and never will be. The tone is soft, but soft like quicksand, dragging him into depths he hadn't know existed.
He struggles to glance around and find the speaker. It's a woman--a fat, squat, grey-skinned, snaggletoothed, naked hag. "Let him go," she says to the golden-eyed woman. "He's mine as well as yours, so let him go."
The golden-eyed woman fingers her bracelet and pouts. It only makes her look more desirable. She addresses the hag in a husky tone. "I don't want to."
One bitter, empty word echoes from the fat hag's lips. "So?"
The two exchange a long, long look. Then the golden-eyed woman shrugs elegantly, slips the bracelet from her arm and tosses it to him.
He squeezes the bracelet tightly, as if to reassure himself that it is real. He sheathes his cutlass and staggers to his feet...
...and the woman's eyes meet his. Not a glance. An endless, unbroken gaze.
Desire fills him, a hunger and longing more unquenchable than any he has ever known. Compared to this, his need for the coin was a mere shadow. He has the coin now, little as he esteems it. But he will never have her. He will burn for her forever, whether in undeath or death or even if he should be restored to life...but she will never be his.
This damnation will never end.
He staggers from the room, straining to keep the woman in sight as he does so. Only the fact that he has lost so much to gain the coin compels him to grip the bracelet with all the strength he possesses.
"That was cheating," says the hag in the vinegary tones of one who has been tricked and deceived too often to be surprised by it now.
"I always cheat, sister," answers the woman, her smoky voice filled with amusement. "Always."
ETA: As of 10:38 p.m. EST on December 23, 2003--882! WE DID IT!!!
As of December 22, 2003, 4:15 a.m. EST, 418 stories, drabbles and poems have been written.
I thought I might post some of the stories I've written for this to my LJ. Here are three of them.
***
UNHOLINESS
Fandom: Good Omens/PotC crossover
Rating: G
"Hey, what's this?" said Pepper, jumping from her milk crate seat to the quarry floor where something glittered. "It looks really old."
Wensleydale climbed down from his own rocky perch, squatted down and scrutinized the glittering object with care. "It's a coin," he said finally. "Inca or Mayan or something. Must have been part of someone's collection."
Brian had joined Pepper and Wensleydale by now. "Cool!" he said, a broad smile spreading all over his grimy face. "It's got a death's head on it. Wonder what it looks like on the other side?" He stretched out his right hand to pick it up.
"Don't touch it," said Adam, the leader of the Them. "It's bad."
"Bad as in bad, or bad as in cool?" asked Brian.
Adam ignored this. He continued staring at the coin with something approaching hatred. He didn't like people or things that hurt his friends, and if any of them touched it, they'd be beyond even his powers.
"What I think," he said in a strangely echoing voice, "is that the coin should go back where it belongs. No one else seein' it or tryin' to pick it up or keepin' it. Just go, right now."
The coin glowed red under Adam's steady gaze, then white-hot. Finally, it vanished from the quarry, materializing moments later in a locked treasure chest on the Isle of the Dead.
Adam glanced at his friends. The Them looked as if they were just waking up from a deep sleep.
"Wh-what were we talking about?" said Pepper, yawning widely.
Adam was eleven and could afford to be patient. "We were talking about playing Alien Empires."
"Oh," said Wensleydale. "Weren't pirates in there someplace?"
Adam shook his head. "No. To tell you the truth, I've gone off of pirates a bit lately. They don't seem to be as much fun as they used to."
So the Them played Alien Empires for the rest of that hot August afternoon. And no one asked any more questions about the coin that would have killed or damned them.
Good job I'm the Antichrist, Adam thought. Sometimes, anyway.
***
If I got the history of Middle-Earth wrong, I humbly beg pardon of those who love Tolkien. I did genuinely try to get it right.
KING'S RANSOM
Fandom: Silmarillion/Return of the King/PotC Crossover (and yes, I am insane for doing this)
Rating: G
How the gold coin came to Eregion, or into the hands of the Mirdain, the jewel-smiths of the land, no one ever knew, but--at the time--all of them agreed that it was a blessing. It was hard to forge rings without gold...and, though fifteen had been forged already, there was still one more ring to be made. Every bit of gold helped. Especially since Annatar, the teacher of the Mirdain, was so determined that these sixteen rings be crafted.
The sixteenth ring was eventually given to a mortal king from the North. At first, he wore it with pride--few mortal men indeed possessed magic rings as gifts. Later, he wore it while attacking other kingdoms of men, and it seemed to him that it throve on battle-rage and blood-lust.
Ultimately, as his body faded and he became no more than an undead wraith, he wore it in slavery, hate and pain. His title--the Witch-King of Angmar--became a by-word for death, and he and the other wraith-slaves of Annatar (or Sauron, as he was now called) became known as "Nazgul."
For more than an age, the Witch-King of Angmar wore his ring of cursed Aztec gold as he led his fellow Ringwraiths in forays against the West, and none, it seemed, could stop him.
Then came the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
The blood of a king and his own flying reptile splashed his black robes. A hobbit's short sword stabbed him in the back. A shieldmaiden's longsword thrust through the mouth of his helm.
He shrieked in agony one last time, before collapsing into a pile of dried bone and empty rags.
And, as the hobbit lay all but unconscious, felled by the Witch-King's Black Breath, and as the shieldmaiden mourned her dying uncle and king, neither noticed another wraithlike form bending low to retrieve something from the dead Nazgul's remains.
So of course, no one noticed when the pirate--and the ring of the Nazgul--abruptly disappeared.
And--after Sauron's Ring was destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom--no one even thought to ask what had become of that other ring.
***
I don't know if this one works or not, but the story showed up full blown and insisted on being written. I don't know whether to credit the characters for this, or the Prince of Stories...
CRAVING
Fandom: Sandman/PotC Crossover
Rating: PG
He can feel the coin pulling him toward an elegant London townhouse. Liveried carriages are waiting out front. No sign of the footmen or coachmen, though. Probably having their own party backstairs with beer and chambermaids.
He enters the townhouse swiftly, dispatching the butler swiftly and ruthlessly, slashing open the man's throat before he can scream. The smell of warm blood mingles with other, more domestic smells: rich wine, heated and spiced; plums and currants, boiled almost to bursting, their scent wafting from fresh-made puddings; the sweet tang of hot applesauce; the unmistakable smell of roast pork.
Burnt human flesh smells nothing like roast pork, he thinks. Whatever storytellers say.
He is close to the coin now; he can feel it deep in his soul. Or whatever passes for his soul, these days.
He peers into room after room, but sees no one. At last he opens the door to the drawing room...and walks in on an orgy.
The number and the variety of the couplings staggers him. For a moment, he is awestruck, his memory traveling back to childhood and tales of debauched aristocrats. The memory is followed by rage and bitterness. Here is something else these mortals have that he cannot.
Some portion of his mind notes uneasily that none of the people coupling are pausing, or displaying any awareness that an undead pirate is present.
He scans the room, his glance finally settling on a white-skinned woman of medium height who smells of summer peaches. He is beside her in two strides.
"The coin," he says, in a voice full of more hunger and longing than he would have believed possible. "Give it to me. Now!"
A smile of passion, temptation and desire curves her perfect lips. She toys with a charm bracelet made from coins of all lands.
He raises his cutlass, and brings it down in a swift blow meant to sever her hand and wrist from her body.
And at the last moment, she glances at him with inscrutable eyes as golden as the cursed coin.
He lowers his arm. He kneels before her. It seems right, somehow.
"That's enough, sibling," says a voice he has not heard before. It is a grey and weary voice, a voice has not forgotten the meaning of the word "hope" but who knows that hope is not hers, and never will be. The tone is soft, but soft like quicksand, dragging him into depths he hadn't know existed.
He struggles to glance around and find the speaker. It's a woman--a fat, squat, grey-skinned, snaggletoothed, naked hag. "Let him go," she says to the golden-eyed woman. "He's mine as well as yours, so let him go."
The golden-eyed woman fingers her bracelet and pouts. It only makes her look more desirable. She addresses the hag in a husky tone. "I don't want to."
One bitter, empty word echoes from the fat hag's lips. "So?"
The two exchange a long, long look. Then the golden-eyed woman shrugs elegantly, slips the bracelet from her arm and tosses it to him.
He squeezes the bracelet tightly, as if to reassure himself that it is real. He sheathes his cutlass and staggers to his feet...
...and the woman's eyes meet his. Not a glance. An endless, unbroken gaze.
Desire fills him, a hunger and longing more unquenchable than any he has ever known. Compared to this, his need for the coin was a mere shadow. He has the coin now, little as he esteems it. But he will never have her. He will burn for her forever, whether in undeath or death or even if he should be restored to life...but she will never be his.
This damnation will never end.
He staggers from the room, straining to keep the woman in sight as he does so. Only the fact that he has lost so much to gain the coin compels him to grip the bracelet with all the strength he possesses.
"That was cheating," says the hag in the vinegary tones of one who has been tricked and deceived too often to be surprised by it now.
"I always cheat, sister," answers the woman, her smoky voice filled with amusement. "Always."
ETA: As of 10:38 p.m. EST on December 23, 2003--882! WE DID IT!!!