#wellson

Good morning wellson fans

“This… this ain’t—” Wellson spat. “This ain’t it.”

This scenario continues to be different, he thought.

“‘Ain’t’ wot, Mister Wellson?” asked the younger Dark Iron, exchanging a long, pensive look with his partner.

“Donnae gots ta entertain this ‘un, do ya,” said the lead investigator. “He’s jus’ spenn’in’ woteva ‘is life is now in ‘is own version of th’ Netha.” He clicked his tongue. “Wot this loon ‘ain’t’ is worth our time, ‘specially durin’ pub time.”

Wellson grimaced. He always hated this part, the blood. He bit his inner cheek. Burnt pennies… huh… He flinched. Brilliant crimson speckles dropped to the table. Oh… that’s different…

The Dark Irons recoiled —according to the file, this fucker wasn’t actually supposed to actually bleed, let alone bleed red.

“Little help,” Wellson said, voice quiet.

The junior investigator glanced toward the senior. He didn’t know what to do: Lt was out of the office.

Good.

After a moment —

“Oi, ya fookin’ wanker,” shouted the senior, banging on the interrogation table. The door opened. The senior and junior pushed away to confer with the newly appeared human guard, eyeing the bloody droplets expanding across the tabletop.

Remarkably different than before…

Wellson watched the chaos around him as a ballet in slow motion. He’d seen it countless times before: two Dark Irons unable to communicate, the guard unwilling to touch the sullied table, and the immutable one-way mirror from behind which he could only assume one person could have been watching —

“Dusky,” called Wellson. He looked between the two Dark Irons and the human guard, the lattermost of which looked away. The senior Dark Iron walked over to the one-way mirror. Without a word or even moving his eyes off the man on custody, the dwarf knocked on it. Seconds passed. A minute. Two terse knocks on the interrogation room door. The human guard opened it:

The fifth player — a short, elderly Kul’Tiran man entered the room.

“Doctor Wellson,” said the coroner. “I conducted your autopsy.”

“Mister Wellson,” corrected the very confused, disturbingly nonplussed assassin. He went to unbutton his shirt, stopped by the Light-infused belly shackles binding him to the desk. “…nice job,” he said, just as he always had, gesturing toward the Y-incision.

“How to execute one who has died?” asked Dusky.

Wellson winced. Ugh: just like every other iteration. “You were the scholar of the team … I expected better than retribution.”

Dusky’s eyes blazed. “Shall I offer you a vengeance quote?”

“Is the writing that bad?”

The agèd coroner scoffed. “Interesting choice of words — ‘the writing’.”

A variation! Wellson seized on it: “You’ve Alanna’s instin—”

Dusky’s backhand’s sharp bite pierced the ambient silence.

“And you,” countered the 70+ year old man, “will never speak her name again.”

Wellson demurred, staring at the table. Quite different. The room fell silent. The Dark Irons said nothing … they had never seen the Director lose his shit before — but they’d heard about the Unit, the legends who had doggèdly searched for the arrogant motherfucker shackled before them for years.

“Yessir,” said Wellson.

Dusky smoothed his tweed vest. “Now, Doctor Wellson, you have interrupted my perfectly fine day. I’ve a pint waiting.” He turned away from Wellson and toward the human guard: “Johnson. Most secure cell. Protocol Echo-Zulu-”

“-Bravo-Charlie,” mouthed Wellson, locking eyes with the senior Dark Iron, continuing: “Triple shifts through Monday.”

“-Bravo-Roger,” said Dusky. “Triple shifts until Monday.”

The senior Dark Iron, who had been watching the entire exchange, made a note of Wellson’s verbal predictions — both accurate and errant.

Wellson, too, had made a mental note of the error:

…this has never yet happened. The aberration?

Dusky hesitated at the doorframe. “Why now?” he asked without turning.

“It’s the first time we got this right,” said Wellson.

Silence once again blanketed the interrogation room. Wellson slumped back in his chair. Johnson, the guard, left his hand on his side arm. Dusky snapped his fingers before leaving the room without turning around. The senior Dark Iron followed him out the door. Johnson closed it.

“Ya ruint me fookin’ weeken’ ya righ’ bastard!” growled the junior under his breath. “Had me a time booked wit’ these two bonnies I don met on OnlyElves, an’ I swear ta th’ Light if’fn I donnae get me gold back, it be commin’ from yer coffers, ya prig.”

Wellson chuckled. “This … this definitely … this ain’t it.”

— — • — —

((Obligatory OoC things:

(( Yes. Mister Brian Wellson has returned.

(( Covid did not kill the writer. Abuse did not kill the writer. Assault did not kill the writer. A loft block from 60 feet did not the writer. Poverty and homelessness has not yet killed the writer.

(( … and the writer will be damned if their character dies like a fucking dog. Deadass: Wellson always deserved better than some horrid Victorian ending.

(( Moreover, the people with whom the writer co-created this character and world deserved a better — and consensual — ending. For reasons the writer will disclose at a future date, apologies have always been due, but were unable to be extended. The writer understands a great deal of goodwill has been squandered over the past 3.5 years of dead time … and also states there is no presupposition toward collaboration of any kind.

(( AGAIN: no presupposition toward collaboration of any kind.

(( This is simply a project the writer needs to finish for the sake of finishing.

adult situations and language

Monette saw stars as she was struck hard across the face. She was lashed to the mast of a fishing smack somewhere out in the Northern Currents between the Broken Shore and the Howling Fjords. The little boat flew the snapping Alliance Colors as it coursed over the five-foot swells. Monette turned her head back to the Man in the Dark Coat, who was holding on to a rope to keep his balance in the swell. Monette looked black and blue, but the Man in the Dark Coat looked distinctly green.

The side of her face was numb and the rocking and pitching of the boat had her nauseous. The punches to her guts did not help either. Monette’s eye had swollen shut, and wrists chafed as she worked the rough salt-ropes. The cold sea wind had frost forming on the rails and had Monette shivering; her hair a dark flutter before her.

The Man in the Dark Coat sneered, “I am going to ask again,” he shouted over the winds “Where is Doctor Wellson or Quai Mason now!”

“I don’t know,” she called back.

The Man in the Dark Coat backhanded the other side of Mo’s face.

Mo shook her head and tried to put things together through the maze of pain and the early stages of cold-sickness, the deck was deathly cold. “This man does not know how to interrogate proper,” Mo complained to herself “he doesn’t even know to wait between . . . ;” Mo’s thoughts were derailed as he grabbed the back of her hair and twisted her face to his. Mo had studied his face intimately over the past half-day’s interrogation, and now Mo knew he liked garlic shrimp.

“Answer me woman!” shouted the man, and he gave a superior-sneer as Monette shivered in his grip. He started to speak and Monette cut him off.

“Don’t ask stupid questions!” she shouted back over the winds “Why don’t you ask me a question I can answer? Do I Have to conduct this this interrogation my-“ but her reply ended with Monette getting another punch to her breadbasket. She doubled over as far as she could go, the coarse rope biting against her skin, and a stream of bile and breakfast came from her lips. Mo coughed hoarsely.

The Man in the Dark Coat shook his head in exasperation. Behind him the hatch came open and the Lieutenant came forward unsteadily, his hands reaching for one rail, and then the other. He was still in his fighting leathers of the studied non-descript variety. Behind him an Old Salt kept the tiller true as he studied the skies as the fishing smack crashed through waves. He dressed in a warm woolen coat and puffed a pipe.

“Sir?” The Lieutenant addressed the Man in the Dark Coat, while eyeing the woman lashed to the mast. The Man in the Dark Coat turned and swayed on the rope, it helped neither of their lunches to rest easily. “What do you want!”

“Why is prisoner naked?”

The Man in the Dark Coat was taken aback by what he felt was a stupid question;  and then he leered “This brown bint is going to go to the men if she does not answer my questions.” He looked over his shoulder “Arent’cha?!” Monette was too busy gasping for breath to retort.

The Lieutenant nodded and leaned close. “Sir, according to the file provided, the prisoner avails herself of various treatments and potions for the various venereal diseases . . . like children.” He still had to shout over the wind “. . . many of our commando do not! I would rather that we not have to see to them getting treated!” There was only wind on the deck for long moments. “. . . and, I do not think your prisoner will last long out here. We’ll put the Tanari below decks . . . “

“SHE ESCAPED!” he bellowed, “The real reason she’s naked is she still got out of the fetters! Okay!” The Lieutenant looked to the Man in the Dark Coat and then to the prisoner and then back again “Prisoners do that.” The Man in the Dark Coat glared at him.

The Lieutenant nodded “Let me get the prisoner out of the weather, let her take time to realize her pain, then we can question her properly.” The Man in the Dark Coat shook his head and looked to the horizon and his stomach flipped over, finally he nodded “Your responsibility if she goes over the side, or ruins this mission!!!”

“Sir.”

Mo watched the Lieutenant come up to her. She glared at him, but he raised both his hands to her neck in a peculiar way and squeezed. Mo began to gasp for breath and her eyes went wide. She tried to keep her calm but she could only hear her heartbeat. Mo’s head rolled back as strong hands held her throat tight, and overhead the blurry winter clouds overhead came to blackness.

  Monette came to gasping for breath, “No, No, NO!” she cried. She looked to her arms overhead, twisted, and pulled. She strained like a madwoman in the long moments as her senses found her and the headache filled her mind after the fear had receded. Mo breathed as she left the panic behind her. She was in a tiny cabin, her arms secured over her head as she sat lotus on the floor. The Lieutenant looked up from the stack of parchments he was reading by the shark-oil lamp. The lamp and the pale winter glow around the aft windows were the only light in the room. It wasn’t the oubliette, and it smelled of old fish.

“A bad dream?” The Lieutenant set the yellowed parchment down, and pushed them into the folio on the table next to a long leather wallet, where both promptly slid to the ridge at the edge with the wave.

Monette’s eyes snapped to the Lieutenant, like a frosted cat. “So, you get first whack?” The Lieutenant chuckled shyly “No.” Monette looked down at herself and judged what they might have had done to her while she was out. After realization dawned, she carefully looked at her surroundings in worry; at least they put her in a shirt. Unbuttoned, but a shirt. Monette could tell a man had worn and worked in the shirt since it had last been washed.

The Lieutenant turned on the bench and leaned forward with his elbows on the armored leather of his thighs “But, you know how these things work. Or at least your record hints that you do.” He reached out carefully and put a hand under Monette’s chin. Monette looked to the hand and raised her head a fraction. She ached, it was still cold, and she was hungry and thirsty. Her un-swollen eye bore into his.

“So, tell me, where do you think this Doctor Wellson and Quai Mason might be?”

Monette shook her head in his hand “I don’t know.”

The Lieutenant reached back and opened up a leather wallet. From there his hand slid out a small metal tool the end of which was a small steel hook, the type that gnome dentists used. He turned it easily in his hand and brought the sharp tip up under Monette’s cold-hardened nipple. Mo flinched and raised her chest to escape the drag of the steel bite.

Mo’s face was then twisted in the Lieutenant’s tightening grip. He looked at her teeth appraisingly as he unhooked her nipple and brought the dental instrument up her forced-open lips.

“Think harder.”

That is far too loud, thought Osprey as the hunting knife she had hurled at the man’s back connected. He turned his head round toward her, dark eyes filled with untempered rage. And then he dropped to the ground, holding his abdomen. Kestrel had stuck the man several times with his kris; several times in quick succession. Osprey was already drawing her semi-automatic sidearm, chambering a round, when Swan called out –

“Avalanche!”

Kestrel had stopped short, hesitating over the body of their fallen assailant; the man’s cutlasses, quite bright and well-maintained, had fallen onto the icy path and skittered down the path along the frozen granite. Osprey, however, did not hesitate. She flipped the sidearm in her hand and held it by the barrel. One of the remaining members of the ambush party – tall, thin, blonde, seemingly androgynous – was staring at the wall of snow that had begun to flood down upon them from the sides of the box canyon. Osprey swung as hard as she could at the person’s temple, pistol-whipping them. She caught the assailant as they crumpled to the ground, and started to drag them up the slippery path by their collar.

“You stupid motherfu–” she shouted at the unconscious body she was dragging behind her just as the snow had overtaken them all – her, Kestrel, Swan, and whoever this person was. She could feel herself start toward the ground as the snow closed around her ankles, her calves, her waist. And then she felt nothing at all.

–

When she awoke, the orange, swirling light of their Neverest basecamp made her screw her eyes shut. She could hear Birdhat and the other grummels tending to Wren and Kestrel. She had seen Kestrel gain a nasty, bloody gash to his forearm just before she threw her hunting knife into his assailant’s back, but was not quite sure what was wrong with Wren.

All she could hear were excited voices, panicked shouts of coördination amongst the sherpas. She realized she was cold, but was not shivering. She forced herself to open her eyes. Twilight had long since past; the light from their bonfire cast the steadily falling snow ablaze. Her eyes flit about the camp. At least Lark had dropped that ridiculous horse form and decided to use her hands, rather than her hooves. Baby steps. She was conferring with Albatross about something, more likely than not her missed trip to the Valley.

Osprey sighed heavily; she was extraordinarily drowsy. She started to rub her arms with her hands, desperate to bring some kind of movement to her body, to inspire herself into warmth. All to no avail. Nature, it would seem, was too strong for her. She had no desire to die on this mountain – yet would have not been surprised if she did.