Crossovers, many different worlds and ideas, including many different parings (even Gen! *le gasp*) though you can expect there to be lots of UKUS, with a smattering of GerIta. Other pairs, well... I need input for that. For people who don't know or aren't familiar with some of the fandoms listed, I will provide Wikipedia (or other, if Wikipedia is uninformative) links that will hopefully be informative enough to get you through the drabble in question. Just remove the spaces.
Sholan Alliance: goodreads. com/ series/ 40746-sholan-alliance
Society for Creative Anachronism: sca. org, http:/ en. wikipedia. org/ wiki/Society_for_Creative_Anachronism
Digital Devil Saga: http:/ en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Digital_Devil_Saga
Halo: http:/ en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Halo_%28series%29
Yes, I am working on Against the Sky! Please, just give me a bit more time! I need to reread Victory of Eagles to make sure I have stuff right, okay? This means epic dragon!England versus dragon!France, some War of 1812, and Laurence meeting Arthur. It'll be up soon, I promise! (please don't kill me for the lateness)
Ah yes, and of course, as usual, I own nothing – all is disclaimed. Enjoy.
Sholan Alliance
Alfred yawned and stretched as the early morning light of Shola's sun danced through the window, motes of dust sprinkled through the sunbeams drifting leisurely. The curtains blew with a light morning breeze. Still sleepy, Alfred rolled over, blinking away the uncomfortable crusts that accumulated in the corners of his eyes overnight, and threw an arm around his companion, fully intent on staying in bed for a good while yet as he buried his nose in thick golden fur.
Warm-sleepy-contentbrushed through his mind, prompting the Human to give a lazy smile. Not for the first and certainly not for the last time, he was grateful that they were both Empaths. He sent back feelings of the same, reveling in the way the emotions twisted and curled around each other like affectionate cats. Speaking of… "Morning, hon."
Arzur opened one eye, the pupil immediately contracting to a slit as the light hit his face. He flicked an ear in annoyance. "Must you always be so damned cheerful upon awakening?"
"It's a quirk." Ignoring the irritated grumble of 'Vartra preserve us' from his bedmate, Alfred snuggled closer, drawing tight the arm he had lain across the other's waist and tucking himself under Arzur's chin. Shorter than average for one of his race, the tawny Sholan was still tall enough that Alfred only came up to his nose.
"Now that we're both awake, we should probably get out of bed, yes?" Alfred groaned and poked Arzur's mind with a spark of miffed.
"But it's warm in here, and I'm all aching and sore from hauling dirt around at the dig site yesterday, and you're here and it's comfy…"
Arzur snorted, a pure feline exhale of amusement. "Well, you'll have to do it again today. That iswhy you are here with the rest of the archaeologists, are you not?"
"Damn straight!" Alfred rolled out and away from Arzur, grabbing a pillow in the process and squishing it happily to his chest. "The Aldatan dig site is a dream come true. Not only am I digging up artifacts of an ancient civilization, I'm digging up ancient alien artifacts. How awesome is that?" He paused for a second. "Not that, y'know, I consider you guys aliensany more, I was just sayin'…"
The Sholan rolled over, pinning his Human with one arm on either side as he gave Alfred's forehead a light nuzzle. "Nor I your kind." He leaned back and raised a furred brow. "But that doesn't change the fact that we should leave the bed and get ready for the day."
Alfred pouted, "Spoilsport," and promptly reached up to snag an ear.
Arzur yowled. "Bloody…! Vartra's bones – ow! – would you stop that?"
Relinquishing the dark-tufted ear, Alfred laughed and rolled off the bed, giving the end of Arzur's unguarded tail a playful tug as he slipped on his pants before meandering off to the kitchenette. "I'm gonna make c'shar. You want some, or are you still insisting on that ridiculous imported tea?"
"I can make my own tea, thank you very much."
Alfred rolled his eyes but put the kettle on to boil anyway. It was done before Arzur arrived in the kitchen, buckling over his simple uniform the belt from which hung his pistol and Brotherhood dagger. He accepted the hot water and a tea bag with a small but grateful smile, emotion brushing over the fringes of Alfred's mind.
Love you.
Love you too.
.o.O.o.
Society for Creative Anachronism
After the era of exploration and of Empires, the world's personifications thought that they had finally found them all – all of their kind, and that none would come into existence for a good long while, if at all anymore. When space flight first became more than a dream, all the Nations thought that if there were any more of their kind to come, it would be from space colonies, or even beyond.
No one was expecting what actually happened.
Perhaps it was instinct, or an urge, or perhaps just dumb luck, but Alfred just so happened to be in California sometime during 1966 (he couldn't even really remember what for, if one asked him) when he spotted a small boy that stood out from amongst the crowd. He blinked and looked closer for a second. There wasn't really anything specialabout the kid, at least as far as he could tell, but there was just something that drew him closer and closer until he found himself standing in front of the child, hands stuffed in the pockets of his bomber jacket as he looked down at the boy, trying to figure out what made him so interesting.
The kid fiddled with the hem of his long shirt with one hand. Alfred stared as the boy looked up at him with a pair of big brown eyes that he just couldn't seem to pull away from. His one hand continued to fiddle with his shirt, but in the other he held something, held it tightly as if to never let it go. Alfred's curiosity was piqued.
"Whatcha got there, short stuff?"
The boy stilled in his fidgeting. "It is mine," he declared, voice strong and sure despite his youth, "and no-one can ever take it from me." His eyes bored into America's, and the Nation was struck with a very odd feeling.
"Sure, but what is it? Will you show me?" Alfred knelt down to the boy's eye level, suddenly as serious about this situation as he had ever been in any before.
The boy stared at him for a moment longer, as if to determine his worth, before dropping the hem of his shirt and spread a little piece of fabric, no bigger than a handkerchief, before America. On it was painstakingly embroidered a shield, like a coat of arms. "Or, a crown dancetty of three voided within a laurel wreath vert," the boy solemnly proclaimed.
America touched the fabric – the flag, his flag!– gently, feeling the work and time those little hands had given to put it there so perfectly. He looked up at the boy. "What is your name?"
"The Kingdom of the West."
Two years later he nearly tripped over a black-haired, blue-eyed little boy drawing a tiger with chalk on the streets of New York City.
The year after that was a blonde girl in Ohio that clutched to her chest a handmade stuffed dragon that matched the green of her eyes.
And so it went on, and on, until there were so many of them that he eventually ended up on a surprised England's doorstep apologizing for all the hell he had ever raised as a child.
At least he could foist all the little ones off on West, East, and Midrealm by now.
.o.O.o.
Digital Devil Saga
"Ludwig," Feliciano whispered. "Do you really think we can reach Nirvana?"
Ludwig drew the slighter man into his arms, offering comfort in the solidity and warmth of his embrace. Comfort… they would never cease to be odd to him, these 'feelings'. Some, such as the leader of their small Tribe, safely ensconced in his arms, took to the mental change well, accepting these 'emotions' wholeheartedly. Others - himself mostly, but Kiku as well - were having difficulties with them. Emotions were constant, fluid and ever-changing, and they caused unusual reactions that one could not always control.
Sadness - such as that felt when another Tribe attacked them and they lost good men and women to yet another battle in the never-ceasing war, or the gut-wrenching pain of worry-sad whenever Feliciano was hit in battle. Love - upwelling, warm love for the strong-fragile little angel in his arms that had led them all alive through the Junkyard, love-friendship for all his comrades, his closest Tribemates. Fury - rage and anger that made one's sight turn red and brought thoughts of violence to the fore, that brought the demon within to the surface almost as fast as the irresistible pangs of hunger. Ludwig's gaze slid to the side, resting on Ivan. He and Arthur had the hardest time controlling that rage, he had noted - perhaps they just have more of it than the rest of us? Just as Feliciano had more love, a heart bigger than all the rest of theirs combined. It must be, Ludwig reasoned, "for he can love us all despite ourselves.
Despite... ourselves...
Despite Francis' initial loss of control, teeth bloody from having had devoured one of their own, despite Alfred's calling a storm down on top of their heads. Despite Ivan's gleeful, homicidal rampages, despite Arthur's barely-restrained violence. They all had a 'Despite', and yet... and yet he still loved them. If that bespoke not of that emotion to rule them all, what did? Ludwig raised his head to the rainclouds above, the constant drizzle beating on his face as he tightened his embrace about his leader, his... love.
"Yes. Of course we will."
.o.O.o.
Halo
(As there is no Spartan-050, or 018for that matter, listed in the Halo Wiki, I took the liberty of using the numbers.)
Alfred-050. That was his designation. His name, they told him. His whole life, that was who he had been told he was, and he had thought nothing of it. He was taken sometime around age six, like the rest of the trainees, and was treated no differently than the rest of the kids in the SPARTAN-II program. He knew little about his background, only that he was from Earth - the motherworld - and from the North American continent somewhere.
Alfred sometimes wondered what it would have been like to grow up there, with a conventional family. A-a Father, and a Mother, maybe even a sibling or two. he would dream at night on occasion about these people. these figments of his imagination. He thought his Father might have a gruff but loving manner, his mother a warm smile. When Alfred tried to imagine a sibling, he couldn't really some up with anything, so he just imagined himself - a him that had been left at home to be loved by the parents he had been taken from. Maybe he would be less energetic, quieter, more eager to please these people that loved him. But then he would wake up, and the life Alfred-050 had known would continue.
He could strip and reassemble a rifle faster than a battle-hardened soldier over twice his age. He could run for miles tirelessly. He could lift a Warthog over his head. His team, along with the rest of the SPARTAN-IIs, could out-maneuver, out-tactic, out-shoot, and simply out-perform almost any UNSC military unit they were pitted against. Trained from an early age - like the Greek Spartans of old - they were to be Humanity's shield against all comers. And now, with the Covenant onslaught, they were.
"Oi, Oh-fifty. Get your head out of the clouds or I'll knock it off before the Covvies have a chance to, hear me?" his helmet intercom buzzed.
"Yeah, yeah." Alfred slunk from cover to cover, continuously moving closer to the target they were currently assigned. An R&R station, for all that intel said - mostly Brutes and Jackals. Their task was to destroy the station and its adjacent landing-and-resupply port. "Oh-eighteen, how's it look from your angle?"
Their sniper, Tino-018, had taken a much longer trail up to a clifftop vantage point. "Much like a sleepy village. Element of surprise should still be effectual. All clear down there, Lead?"
"All clear, but keep an eye open for us, Oh-eighteen."
Alfred shifted through the underbrush, careful not to make a sound, his BR-55 held at the ready. Keeping alert, he shifted some of his attention inward, his consciousness seeking out the artificial intelligence plugged into his neural interface. As team leader, if there was an AI to be assigned to the mission, it would be assigned to him, and there was one AI that he preferred to be paired with over all others.
Arthur.
An ONI experimental smart-AI, the construct had 'lived' long past the rampancy limit that all smart-AIs fell prey to. This one was no exception. A former naval ship AI, 'Arthur' had been removed from his post by the Office of Naval Intelligence when he began to show signs of rampancy. It was first detected in the Melancholia stage, and shortly after ONI retrieved the AI it progressed into Anger. Instead of deleting the AI as procedure dictated, the AI was kept active so that it might be observed through its megalomania into the next and only other known stage, Greed. However, in their observations of this particular AI, ONI discovered a fourth stage to rampancy, Metastability.
And after that, who better to task the AI to than to their prized SPARTANs?
Alfred mentally poked his neural interface, alerting the attached AI who was currently providing and intel uplink to one of the other team members across their frequency. He got a mental image of the construct waving a disinterested hand in his direction. In a minute, Alfred.
Fifty-eight seconds later, Alfred poked him again.
Oh for Godssake, honestly, can't you take anything seriously, boy? Alfred could imagine the AI's hologram saying that out loud, the armor-clad knight that the AI had chosen for its image crossing its arms and huffing in indignant annoyance. He snickered at it and led the AI to his forethoughts, shivering at the pervasive sense of liquid mercury that signaled the other's presence within him. Steadfastly ignoring it, he directed their attention to his team uplink and the HUD.
'Minute and a half to engagement - any advice? Past what you've already given me, of course...'
As if you would take it anyway. Arthur hummed in contemplation. Have 042 move 15 metres nor-northeast, it will give him a greater opening, and he can use the tuff outcrop for cover. 018 and 130 are in proper position, get 059 to stop shifting or he'll blow the whole operation before it's started.
Alfred laughed at it, silently. 'He's fine. You're just paranoid.'
And properly so.
The Spartan grinned behind his visor as he felt adrenalin kick through his veins, the post-Rampancy AI's battle-fervor spreading its mercury-cold tendrils deeper, threatening his control - but I can hold him, I can control this. He opened his comm-channel.
"White Team, go."
If you enjoyed a particular drabble or universe and want to see something, someone, or some other pairing in that crossover, do tell me, please. I can continue well-liked crossovers as long as I know which ones people want to see most. Up next chapter should be crossovers with the Dragonriders of Pern book series, and others that I haven't decided yet. Maybe a continuation of one of these. You tell me, yes?