Ryk E. Spoor
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All-Patron Reward: Little Gundam on the Prairie
🕑 Added 2021-07-07 00:35:04 +0000 UTCYeah, you read that right.
I have been a part of many fandoms over the years, with some of the most enduring being general SF and anime fandom. This has of course led to various works of fan fiction, ranging from the million-plus words of Saint Seiya/Samurai Troopers/Dragonball fanfic written with my wife to little drabbles like _Doc Smith Fashion_, a few ancient Star Trek and Marvel fics, and others.
In this case, I was on an anime discussion group in which the series Gundam Wing was being discussed, and someone mentioned they'd like to see a fic about the Wing Boys in the Old West. I remarked that the real Old West wasn't much like the movies, but more like Little House on the Prairie (specifying that I meant the books, not the TV series).
To which someone responded that this was all true, but that no one could possibly write a functional crossover between Gundam Wing and Little House on the Prairie.
At that point, I didn't have a choice, did I?
Now, admittedly, I DIDN'T write the entire story; just enough to prove that yes, it could be done. And to make it harder on myself, I wrote the story, as best I could, in the voice of Laura Ingalls Wilder, including as near as I could the archaisms of her phrasing.
And here is the result.
LITTLE GUNDAM ON THE PRAIRIE
"Pa! Pa! Oh, Pa, come see!" Laura came running across the floor towards her father.
"Whoa, whoa, slow down, Laura." Pa Ingalls put down the adze he had been using to smooth out another small log in preparation for repairing the fireplace.
"Really, Laura." Ma said in a tone of mild reproof. "A proper lady doesn't come thundering across a floor like a herd of wild horses."
"I'm sorry, Ma." Laura restrained herself for a moment, then burst out, "But Pa! You have to come see!"
"All right, little half-pint." He followed Laura, who was practically dancing with impatience but managed to keep from running back across the log floor.
Standing on the prairie, near the place where the hidden river flowed through its small canyon, were five huge figures. Pa stopped dead in his tracks and just stared for a moment. "Jehosephat! I ... will... be... dipped!"
Laura did not have any way of telling size; all she knew was that the shapes were taller than any people she had ever seen. Pa, knowing how far away the banks were, knew they were taller than just about any building he had seen, even far away in the East where the big cities were.
"Charles!" came Ma's voice. "Don't use such langu... oh my!" Ma stared across at the angular shapes that weren't ... yet were very like... people.
"Caroline, go inside." Pa was very serious now, and there would be no arguing with him, not even by Laura. "You too, Laura. Mary," he said, as Laura's older sister came up to see what the fuss was about, "you and Laura help your mother with Carrie. And don't open the door until I come back."
"Charles, you're not going over there!"
"Caroline, we're the only people for twenty miles or more. Like as not no one else will see these... whatever they are's... unless they move again. Someone has to take a look, and I'll be careful." Pa took his gun off the rack, made sure he had patches, powder, and shot. "Not that something that size will care about this little thing, but I admit I feel a lot better with it."
The door closed behind Pa. Laura felt very small, thinking of Pa going out all alone towards those shapes that must be like the giants in the fairy tales. "Oh, Ma, couldn't we have stopped him?"
Ma shook her head. "Laura, your father has always wanted to know everything, and not fear nor hardship would stop him. Give him a mystery and he's bound to try to solve it. All we can do is pray and hope he comes back safe."
An hour passed. Then two. Laura and Mary tried to do the chores, but even the simplest tasks seemed impossible today. Surely Pa had reached the mysterious figures by now!
A rumbling roar, like continuous thunder, suddenly echoed across the wind-swept prairie. They ran to the windows to see the five figures -- Laura rubbed her eyes in disbelief -- the five figures were *flying!*
The ground shook as they came to rest a few hundred yards away. At this distance, Laura could see the glint of metal and glass, and other materials that she couldn't recognize. "Machines, Ma!" she exclaimed. "They're machines!"
"Bless me..." Ma said faintly.
One of them knelt down, then the others. One, a glittering silvery machine with elaborate facelike markings and hints of wings behind it, lowered a mighty hand to the ground and opened it. Out from the metal fist stepped Pa.
"Pa!"
Charles Ingalls came walking towards the house, a bit paler than usual but obviously unharmed. Behind him came five young men.
Laura found herself staring again, even though she knew it wasn't polite. She guessed that they were fifteen or so -- young men or very old boys. But how different they were!
The first had dark, wild hair, and a face whose gray eyes folded up at the corners. His features were sharp, yet subtly flattened in a way Laura had never seen before. He had no real expression on his face; Laura found him frightening, even more dangerous-looking than the Indians who had come by that one day and taken all their supplies. His clothing drew a gasp of disapproval and disbelief from Ma; a shirt of loose green with no sleeves, showing part of his chest, and black pants of some material Laura had never seen -- cloth that clung to his body as though it were soaked through, yet obviously as dry as the prairie grass.
The second was a smiling boy with a braid of dark honey-blond hair so long that Laura realized it was longer even than Ma's hair, and eyes of startling violet. He was dressed, to Laura's amazement, in the clothes of a priest, white collar neatly fastened about his neck, but with the sleeves rolled up, and an odd black cap over his face; he removed the cap politely as he entered the house, and gave a quick bow towards Laura, Mary, and Ma.
The third boy was more exotic-looking than the first; his eyes, black as coal, were strongly slanted, his features tinged with a yellow hue, with jet-black hair pulled back in a tiny disciplined pigtail. His clothing was just as odd, appearing to Laura to be a single piece of cloth sewn into something that was a cross between a nightshirt and a dress, but with exactingly sharp lines that made it more a uniform than anything else, and a diagonal line of long buttons held it closed.
The fourth boy, by contrast, was dressed in fancy clothes of delicate hues, with pink predominating, looking like one of the great French Aristocrats Laura had sometimes seen in books. His face was open and friendly, as pretty as a girl's, with golden hair framing bright blue eyes. He bowed deeply and waited for introductions.
The last boy had a shock of hair that fell so far forward that it nearly concealed his face; odd as it seemed, Laura guessed that it actually grew that way. The brown hair contrasted sharply with the one bright green eye she could see above the long, calm face that reminded Laura of the picture of a sad Harlequin she had seen in one of Ma's magazines. His clothes were plain, pants of a smooth weave and a shirt whose collar was rolled over like a turtle's neck.
"Caroline, I know they look strange, but these boys are in need of help. They're more than a little out of their way."
