ORIGINS

Part IV: Wales

By Ed Ainsworth

“Awight Brian?”

Brian Braddock stooped into the little shack that Captain Wales inhabited, a duffle bag hanging from his shoulder. He looked around at the tiny building. It wasn’t terribly wide, but its length was what gave it a house look, or at least what could be considered a ‘house’ in the loosest possible terms.

“Sorry about the porch being a bit narrow,” Wales said. His eyes looked down at the ground. Brian was shocked to see his clothes. It wasn’t that he wasn’t in costume. So far, the Captains spent more time out of their costume than they did in them. It was more the fact that Captain Wales, a man of incredible power by all accounts, was wearing a moth-eaten wife-beater that hung around his hunched shoulders and what appeared to be several layers of corduroy.

“That’s…an interesting look you have there, Robert.”

The Welshman said nothing, gesturing for Brian to follow him towards the stairwell.

“It’s a bit roomier downstairs,” Wales said.

“I’ll bet,” Brian replied. He rolled his eyes as they descended down into candlelit darkness.

“W-Why did you accept my offer, Brian?” Wales asked. The rooms below weren’t that much bigger, but it felt cosier. It felt like an actual home.

“I like meeting you all,” Brian said with a shrug, “Plus, I want to get to know you, don’t I?”

“Is it?” Wales asked. Brian gave him a half confused look before looking down the hallway.

Through the dark hallways, Robert led Brian to the front room. High-ceilinged and full of books, there was a roaring fire in the centre of the room. Three chairs sat before it and only one of them populated.

She offered him a smile through slightly cracked blue lips and flicked her hair forwards with a curt nod.

“You know Jack, don’t you?”

“Yeah, how could I forget,” Brian said, setting his bag down. He noticed something glittering in the background of the room. Squinting to focus in the dark, Brian noticed that the walls weren’t actually walls at all. They are solidified moving portals that wandered, seemingly aimlessly through the woodlands around the dugout.

“Oh. You’ve noticed the watching walls.” Robert said. He had a slight grin on his face, as he asked.

“That what they are then?”

“It’s fun, actually. I can connect to nature and let it show me what it wants to. Sometimes you get to see all sorts of interesting things, don’t you, Jack?”

“Mhm,” she replied. She didn’t look up from her book. Robert walked passed her and she gently brushed his hand with her knuckles. He looked down and smiled.

“How long you staying with us?” Robert asked, looking at the singular bag, “I’m afraid we’re not all that well supplied for visitors.”

“Robert went shopping yesterday, for you,” Jack said quietly, looking up from her books, “Got beer and meat in. For a change.”

“Yes, for a change,” Robert said with a smile, “Let me go and fix you something? Sandwich is it?”

“Uh, sure?”

Brian stood for a moment, before sitting down in one of the unoccupied seats by the fire. He watched the walls for a moment, as they ambled through woodlands and out into the scrub lands, before transferring their gaze to an aerial view of the land below.

“He’s a good man, you know,” Jack said quietly, closing her book over her thumb.

“I know,” Brian agreed.

“No, I don’t think you do. Robert gives everything he is to everyone around him. There isn’t much of him left in there, that’s why I am here.”

“Hm,” Brian said. “Is it?’

“It is. I know you view me as some sort of…folklorish nightmare that needs to be contained. You all do, but I’m here SOLELY for Robert. He needs an island who cares for HIM as much as he cares for this island.”

“I don’t doubt that.”

“I think you do. I think you don’t understand anything outside of your own sphere of experiences and opinions, Brian. I’ve seen the way you look at our home.”

“Just wait a minute…” Brian said, holding his hand up, “This is a nice place to live.”

“Just not somewhere you’d ever live, right?”

“It’s not wrong to have different opinions, Jack,” Brian said. He stared at her while Robert came back into the room with the biggest sandwich Brian had ever seen. “Whoa.”

Robert sat it down on a tiny hand-made wooden table and sat himself down in front of her fire. It gave him the appearance of an eager and slightly naïve child. Brian imagined that there would be no greater analogy for Robert if he searched his entire life. He smiled at the man and maintained it, with a little more force behind it to Jack.

“Thank you,” he said, taking a bite he could barely get his mouth over, “So, what can you tell me?”

Robert sat up on his knees, and Jack returned to her book quietly.

“Well, you know how we have this folklore running around? Wales wasn’t hit terribly hard with it, and honestly, most of the folklore round here is kind of…quaint, isn’t it?”

“I guess? God, this is good.”

“Freshly grown from the garden, it is. Well, not the meat.”

“Well, it’s great. It’s…like nothing I’ve ever tasted. What is it?”

“Ham salad,” Robert said, a wide grinning fixed to his face.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Well, folklore in Wales is kind of a big deal, in a way. The people have been making a big thing of it and frankly, we couldn’t be more glad of it.”

Brian cocked his head to the side, eyeing Jack with suspicion. She quietly and gently extended her middle finger against the cover of the book, seemingly to steady it.

“I guess what I’m trying to say, Brian,” Robert said, “is that we don’t want to get rid of our heritage.”

Brian paused in the middle of his sandwich, looking at Robert.

“But I thought we agreed?”

“We do agree, when the folklore becomes too dangerous or threatening to people, it needs to be reined in. Just like the green-teeth that lived in Yorkshire, but as it is, most of the Welsh folklore, bar a few, doesn’t really need to be reined in.”

Brian put the plate down quietly.

“I understand, obviously, but…Robert, you need to realise. If we’re seen to be taking a soft approach to this problem in Wales, people might doubt us. People might wonder why we’re not doing it in Scotland, or Ireland?”

“Yes, we all saw how soft you were in Ireland,” Jack added quickly. Robert winced and shot Brian an apologetic look.

“I’m not saying that we need to make a song and dance of it, am I?” Robert said quietly. “I just think that we need to treat each country as exactly what it is.”

“What exactly is it?”

Robert swallowed loudly and Jack’s foot touched the small of his back, circling. He looked back at her with quiet affection.

“It’s different.”

“No, I realise that but…”

“No, I mean. Wales is different. It’s always been different. Scotland embraced the English properly; Ireland hates the English, mostly. Cornwall hates everyone, but Wales…we’re outsiders. We don’t hate anyone; we just want to do what we want to do.”

“Robert…I’m not stopping you from doing that, I just want…”

“Everything neat and tidy,” Jack said, closing the book again, “Rob’s made himself clear here, Brian. We wouldn’t dream of coming to England to tell you how to run things, so why should you do it here?”

“Fair play,” Brain replied.

“Isn’t it? Wales is different. It needs a different sort of protector to that drunkard, or that overly-sentimental woman. It needs someone who is softer than you. You’ve been around violence for too long, Brian. You don’t understand how it all works, in Wales.” Jack spat.

“What and you do?” Brian asked.

Robert bristled to the comment and got to his feet.

“That’s enough.”

Brian let his head drop.

“Sorry, Robert, it just…took me by surprise, you know? I’ve been to Scotland and Ireland and they embraced the idea of the extended Corps and everything that goes with it. It’s just strange to have you of all people question me.”

“Because I’m shy?” Robert asked.

“No, well, Yes. I thought we understood each other.”

“I understand you perfectly, Brian. I don’t doubt the corps and I don’t doubt you, but I don’t want my country being told how to work by someone who doesn’t even live here. Jack has every right to be here. She was around before this big Otherworld crash you know. She’s not just appeared in the last eight months.”

The pair stood and stared at each other for a moment, before Robert noticed something behind him on the seeing walls.

“Oh. Dear.”

“Oh dear?” Brian asked, turning around to the seeing wall. The scene had changed, flicked to a bird’s eye view of the Newport Bridge. Something had knocked out one of the support structures and the integrity of the entire structure was starting to move in ways a solid block of concrete shouldn’t.

“We’d never make it in time,” Brian said quietly. Robert was already throwing off his house clothes, while Brian finally noticed the people that would buy them time.

Two people were swooping down low, gliding on huge bat like crimson-wings. Smiles held their faces fixed, as the man and woman dove and weaved through the cars and people, fire breath searing and melting the concrete to set it in place, however briefly that might be.

“Who are they?”

“Red Dragons. Gareth and Mfanwye, they’re national heroes, Brian.”

“Never heard of them,” he admitted, as Robert charged up the stairs, quickly followed by Brian, baring the costume of Captain England underneath.

“No, I imagine you haven’t,” Robert threw open the doors to his home and quickly took to the sky. He shot forwards with a blaze of intensity and confidence that Brian hadn’t seen from him before.

“Robert?”

Captain Wales turned around and slowed down to allow Brian to catch up slightly, before forging on ahead.

“We need to get there quickly. If this is what I think it is then the Red Dragons aren’t going to hold it off for long. We’ve got to save them.”

“You know them well?” Brian asked, trying to match Roberts increasing pace. Brian was used to setting the pace, not following.

“I don’t know if it’s the same in England, or Scotland or wherever, but in Wales, the hero community is small and tight.”

“It’s pretty tight in England actually…” Brian said. Although, Robert knew he was lying.

“You have all your superhero friends over for tea, do you? Have a gathering every month down the pub, do you?”

“How many heroes are there in Wales?” Brian asked, considering for a moment, that this might be something Robert could bring up at one of those meetings.

“Twenty-eight give or take. There are a lot of father-and-son and husband-and-wife duos. Family’s important.”

“Isn’t it.”

“Now you’re getting it,” Robert grinned. The pair began to descend from the height they’d climb to, dropping down towards the huge expanse of water, and crumbling bridge below.

Brian spotted it first. A huge bird with razor sharp feathers tearing through the supports of the bridge and rising in the sky. It immediately turned to face the two dragons, and exploded through Gareth’s wings. The Welsh hero screamed and tumbled through the air towards the turbulent waters below.

“Brian! Get Gareth!” Robert yelled, as he banked violently and gave the razor winged, giant bird chase.

“Because clearly, I am the sidekick on these adventures…”

Brian folded his arms in, and dropped through the air like a stone. He quickly made up the distance between the Red Dragon and himself, grabbing hold of the man’s arm and yanking him away from the surface of the water below.

“Cheers, Brian,” Gareth said.

“Please, call me Captain England when I’m working.”

“Brian it is then,” Gareth said, gingerly folding his wing in, and pressing it flat against his back. “No more flying for me for the time being then, eh?”

“You’re certainly observant, I give you that.”

“You can give me anything you want, Brian. I’m not going to be doing anything but sitting around drinking while my wife has all the fun.”

“What is that thing?”

“That thing?” Gareth said, staring at the creature, trading blows with Captain Wales, “That thing is called Adar Llwch Gwin. Allegedly, it was trained by the warrior Drudwas, to fight King Arthur, ended up killing him instead, didn’t it?”

“Did it now.”

“Yeah. It did. Poor bugger didn’t make his intentions clear did he?”

Brian watched in captured silence as the giant bird bounced off a defensive aura raised around Robert. The Captain parried it’s blows with his forearms, deflecting razor claws and a gnashing beak. All the while he spoke, quietly, in Welsh to the bird.

“What’s he doing?”

“You mean, why isn’t he hitting it in the head?”

“Well, I guess, yeah.”

“That’s not how we do things here. That’s not how Robert does things. He was at this game long before he was Captain Wales, and now that’s just added another layer of duty to him, hasn’t it?”

“Why is everything always a question with you.”

“That was a question, wasn’t it?”

“No, that was a statement of fact.” Brian watched as Robert ducked underneath the bird, which dove to the side of him and banked towards the water below. Moments later, Robert and Mfanwye glide towards Brian, who held Gareth in his arms like a small child.

“We’re finished here,” Robert said with a smile.

“How can we possibly be finished, Robert? That thing nearly killed everything.”

“That ‘thing’ was confused, Brian. It needed some guidance,”

“Something you could do with, I reckon,” Mfanwye said, taking Gareth from his arms.

“Thanks love,” the other Red Dragon said, giving his wife a hug. “See you on the Tuesday, Robert?”

“See you then.” Captain Wales said with a short nod and a smile.

“This might be how you do things when you’re with your mates, Robert…”

“No,” Captain Wales said holding up a hand, “This is how we do things around here. We trick and we talk before we fight and fall, that’s how it is and how it always has been. That bird killed its owner back in the day, because he wasn’t careful enough with his words.”

“Oh, and I suppose you were, were you?”

“You don’t have to be careful with your words when you speak about what it wants, rather than what you want, Brian. You’d do well to mind that, wouldn’t you?”

Robert slid away from Brian. The pair flew back to his residence in complete silence. It was only when they landed that Brian spoke.

“I’m…I’m sorry, Robert. I came here thinking you’d be an easy touch because you’re quiet but…you’ve got your own plans, don’t you?”

“No, Brian. I think you’ve missed the point again, haven’t you? For someone so clever, you can’t see the wood for the trees.”

“I don’t really…”

“I’m Captain Wales, Brian. Not Captain Britain Four. I do things my way because that’s what I’ve always done, and I do things differently because I don’t know what I’m doing until I am doing it. I don’t have orders or a master plan, I just live. Maybe it’s time that you did the same?”

Brian stood in silence for a little while, as Robert opened the door and waited for him.