Four Ways That Aziraphale and Crowley Meddled
In the Plot of The Princess Bride
by vifetoile
A/N: This is just a silly idea - could hardly be sillier if I tried - inspired by the notion that, hey, what with their plot development, the worlds they inhabit, and the narrative tone, Good Omens and The Princess Bride could really inhabit the same universe. And hence, this came into being. Stay tuned for the next chapters!
Part One: The Book of the Blade
Inigo Montoya, looking back on his boyhood with the sharpness and sadness of his adult years, never could clearly recall the doctor that Yeste had hired to take care of him after the six-fingered man had destroyed Inigo's face and ravaged his world. All that Inigo could remember of the doctor was that he was light in color, that his voice was soothing and kind, and that his hands were always so cool, and brought such relief when laid against Inigo's cuts.
The day that Inigo was declared fit, and the doctor left the house of Yeste for the last time, he left a small book, bound in leather, on Inigo's bedside. Inigo wasn't one for books (learning letters took second place to finding food in Arabella), but this one intrigued him. The cover was well-worn leather – leather that should have served as the scabbard for a mighty weapon. Inigo could just make out the gold-embossed (but faded) letters on the spine:
The Book of the Blade, it read.
Inigo learned how to read very quickly. The book, he found, contained sixteen poems and short essays on the sword, its beauty and power, the art of mastering it, its wondrous and fearful capacity for bloodshed. The book gave him the names of some of the masters he would later seek out, from every corner of Europe and a few of the more westernly corners of Asia.
When he ran away to study fencing, he left the book behind him. He already had its contents written in his heart, and he knew already the Kipling adage, "He travels fastest who travels alone." (But this was long, long before Kipling).
ooo
Inigo would never know about a certain conversation between his onetime doctor, and that same doctor's longtime associate:
"What ever happened to my copy of 'The Book of the Blade'? Crowley, do you know?"
"Oh, that? I gave it away."
"What? When?"
"Oh, about five years back. That kid that you were nursing? The one with the face?" Crowley made two slicing gestures with his hand. "You left a book behind for him when you left… I swapped it out. I figured he'd like to read about swords more than whatever you had in mind."
"What – that – that was supposed to be a book of Psalms! He was supposed to learn forgiveness and inner peace! You've set him on a quest for revenge and death!"
"He's a Spaniard, cielo. Believe me, learning the sword will grant him a lot more inner peace than thinking he's a sheep to be shepherded."
And Aziraphale had to admit that Crowley had a point.