2022 GISH, item #4
Crossover fanfiction
He dreamed about the forest.
The doors were still there.
Silent. Waiting. Tempting.
Once more. Surely once more couldn't hurt.
The first time had been so magical. Everything was so new and exciting.
There had been the odd hiccup of course, but everything had turned out all right in the end.
He had felt so ALIVE.
Life had been so good.
Life was still good, but not as… exciting.
Maybe he just needed another burst of inspiration. Another taste of something completely unexpected.
And inspiration was just a short journey away.
The doors were still there.
At least, he assumed they were still there.
He hadn't been back to the forest for ages.
He dreamed about them. What might be out there. What he hadn't had a chance to experience the first time.
It couldn't be tomorrow: too much to do. Too many people to see. It couldn't be the next day, or the day after that. But the day after that… yes, that would work.
His decision made, he rolled over in bed and pressed his face against the pillow with a smile. Tension seemed to seep out of him, and he fell asleep with a happy sigh.
-break-
He rolled to his feet and pulled his pack to his side. He dug in the pockets and sighed in relief. His emergency supply of turnips was safe. He rummaged inside the pack and reassured himself that his backup emergency supply of turnips had likewise survived intact.
Munching thoughtfully on an emergency turnip, he looked around. He and his companions had been battling a lich lord and barely winning, as best he could recall. A spell had blown his backward through some sort of portal and he had landed… here. Someplace white and shiny.
And quiet. Very quiet.
"Well," he said, his voice startlingly loud in the white, shiny silence, "If my old uncle Uriah Twin-Hammers could get himself out of a ticklish situation involving two beholders and a mind flayer, no lich king's prison portal is going to keep Jan Jansen away from his treasure."
Weapon at the ready and any number of helpful gadgets and gizmos within easy reach, he moved slowly down the shiny white expanse.
-break-
It had been three long, exhausting days. It had been so hard to get away.
But now, finally, the forest. The trees. The doors.
But which one?
That one looked new. It was slick and shiny.
He moved closer and saw a figure on the other side of the door move toward him. No, not a door. A mirror.
Strange. Interesting.
He watched the reflection of his white hand grasp the door and pull it open.
-break-
Jan Jansen was looking – with a rising sense of urgency – for a way home. He met creatures that looked like people, but they didn't act like anyone or anything he had ever met before. They wore some of the strangest armor he had ever seen, and he had an Aunt Petunia who – as he told anyone who cared to ask (and even those that didn't) – wore fruit armor. Every creature he met seemed to be consulting spell books and talking with invisible familiars. They scarcely glanced at him before moving on. He couldn't interest any of them in purchasing his inventions. He couldn't even steal anything worthwhile: most of them didn't even have any pockets to pick. What strange and frustrating place for a thief and inventor.
But there! There was one creature that wasn't reading a spell book or mumbling to himself. He was tall and thin, dressed all in black, with huge black eyes that were round with the same alarm Jan felt roiling in the pit of his stomach.
"Hello, there!" Jan called to the tall stranger. "Might I interest you in purchasing one of my fine turnips?"
-break-
A voice! A voice calling to him! He had been about to despair; there was no life in this place. No bustling industry, no sense of purpose, no sense of fun! It was horrible! What strange trick had the forest played?
But there! There was a little man waving something round and white in the air. He looked interesting.
"Hello!" he called. "What's that you're holding?"
"What's this?" the strange little man asked, "Why only the finest, most versatile vegetable you will ever come across."
He then began to recite an incredibly detailed list of the uses of turnips, their many amazing properties, his name – which was Jan Jansen, by the way – his turnip farm, his turnip booth back home, his gadgets and tinkering to create a better turnip harvesting machine, his quest with his companions to defeat the lich king and plunder his treasury to finance the fleet of turnip carts that would soon spread throughout the cities back home… the stories went on for a remarkable length of time.
He listened to the animated little man, enchanted. So much passion, so many stories, so many pranks. And turnips! Had he ever used turnips before? He couldn't recall. He didn't think he had. To listen to the person before him, the possibilities seemed endless. How novel, how exciting, how fun!
"Come with me, Jan!" he cried, exuberantly. "I have an entire world in need of your knowledge and turnip expertise. We will set up mobile turnip stalls everywhere! This will be the best Halloween yet!" He smiled a happy smile of eager anticipation. There was so much to learn, so much to do.
The forest had not let him down.
This strange world was blank and suffocating, but he had found a new and interesting friend.
Life was good for a pumpkin king.
Story notes:
The prompt: write a special crossover fanfic of a character from a 1990s show, book, or video game and a character from a 2000s show, book, or game meeting in a different 2010s universe.
The first characters that came to mind who wouldn't think it odd to go through a portal and wind up in a different universe were Jack Skellington (movie: Nightmare Before Christmas, 1993) and Jan Jansen (game: Baldur's Gate: Shadows of Amn, 2000). The alternate 2010s universe is our universe if technology / the internet / reality TV had been taken to the natural conclusion where everyone is starring in and watching their own reality TV show, and no one is interacting in real life.
Jan Jansen is a companion character in the game Baldur's Gate: Shadows of Amn (one of my favorite games). He is a thief and inventor and is obsessed with turnips.