CORNWALL AND BLESSING

By Ed Ainsworth

“So, remind me again, exactly why we’re doing this?” Brian asked as he leant on the side of the boat, rocking side-to-side violently in the choppy waters. He thought he could see shimmering green shapes spearing their way underneath the boat, but given the colour of the water, it could just as easily be reflections from the vessel.

“Because,” Morganna Blessing said. “We’re trying an experiment, Brian. You of all people should know that science is based on a fact being repeatable.”

“Yes, I understand one of the basic elements of science, Morganna,” Brian said. “What I want to know is why you’re here.”

She paused, looking over at Captain Cornwall as he stared out into the distance, as if he were trying to find something. Searching the horizon.

“Because I’m a fucking magician, Brian,” she said.

She turned on her heels, quickly walking into the cabin, slamming the door behind her. She sat in the wheelhouse casting scorn down on the pair.

“You did that expertly.” Cornwall said, barely casting a glance over his shoulder.

“I have a way with women,” Brian replied. He walked quietly over to Cornwall and leant on the railing next to him. “I have exactly zero idea what that was about. Why would we do a science experiment if she was a magician?”

“That woman’s mystifying.” Cornwall said.

“Maybe you’ll give me a straight answer. Why did you want to do this?” Brian asked. Cornwall said nothing, focused entirely on the horizon before him.

“You ever have the love of your life, but decide that they’re not?” Cornwall said, finally. Brian nodded silently to himself.

“Had, decided, had again, and then lost. Probably forever.”

“You always were over dramatic, Braddock,” Cornwall said. “Those fae women, the ones that gave me these . . . questionable . . . powers. I think they were the love of my life, ‘Ganna knows it as well.”

Brian looked up at the wheel house, then back to Cornwall.

“You and her?”

“Didn’t mean for it to happen. Neither of us did. She’s not exactly my ideal woman, to be honest with you. I prefer not being bollocked for leaving a cup of tea on the table without a coaster.”

“Don’t we all,” Brian smirked. He looked at Cornwall, who stared up at him from underneath his eyebrows. “That’s kind of romantic, you know?”

“You don’t get to judge, awright?” Cornwall said. His Cornish drawl was slow, but gave a certain sense of deadly gravity to his words. “She’s a nice girl, so you don’t judge.”

“Why do this to yourself? To her? Can’t make for a healthy relationship, can it?” Brian questioned.

“She wanted to do it. I didn’t want none of it, but she was quick to tell me that it was science and it was important that we see if we can get back to Otherworld, or at least a chunk of it, right?”

“Pfft. Right. She wants to check up on your ex’s, mate,” Brian said, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Do a comparison, right?”

“Don’ I bloody know it,” Cornwall said. “Bad enough everyone knows my origin as a hero basically involves famine based contraception.”*

*For more on that see Excalibur v2. #3 here at Marvel Omega! – Ed

“Thought I saw something under the boat,” Brian said after a few minutes of silence.

“Mhm.” Cornwall responded, “More than likely, you did.”

“Any idea what it is? Just looks sort of . . . green down there.”

A few minutes of silence passed between the pair. Cornwall either refused to answer the question, or didn’t know. Rather than ask again, Brain decided to cut his losses. He scratched his temple and walked away from Cornwall. While the other Captains had been less than thrilled to have Brian join them, Cornwall was the guy who brought him into the initiative. Now, it seemed the rest of the Captains were happy with him, accepting of him at least – Ireland even wanted to go on a date with him – and Cornwall was the only odd one out. Maybe it’s because of all the area’s the Captain’s covered, Cornwall was the only Captain who couldn’t deputise down into counties.

Walking into the cabin, he stopped in the doorway. Blessing was sat, her hair hanging over her face to disguise it. On the table next to her she had a glass of wine and a book.

“Morganna?” Brian asked. She looked up at him. He expected her to be crying, but that wasn’t true. She was a fierce looking woman, pushing the curtain of hair from the sides of her face and staring him directly in the eyes.

“Brian,” she said. “Take a seat.”

“Wonderful,” Brian said mockingly.

He sat down quietly, and stared back at her.

“Why do this to yourself?” he finally asked.

“Why do what?”

“This tour of emotional torment.”

Morganna sighed, and leant back in her chair. She sipped the wine gently.

“I was once the lover of both the Strange brothers. You know that, don’t you?”

“Sort of. I didn’t actually know Stephen had a brother.”

“Well, he was dead for a bit, then he came back as a vampire, and then he staked himself . . .”

Brian stared at her for a moment and she cracked a cynical smile.

“Yes, that was my life. Is it any stranger than yours?” her smile faded and her gaze to the floor again. “That sort of thing, Brian . . . it messes with your head. Your perception of love, and all that stands for, goes with it. It shows you that love isn’t real unless it’s unreal.”

Brian leant forwards, leaning his elbows on his knees.

“I can certainly agree with that, Morganna. Isn’t this messing with your love further?”

“Mess with it? It doesn’t exist, Brian. Cornwall and I just do a physical thing.”

Brian leant back in his chair and snorted.

“Don’t shit the bull, Morganna. I’ve seen the way you look at him and the way he looks at you. You’re hardly Romeo and Juliet, but most people don’t ostracise entire downs to ensure they’re bumping uglies. You’re both being as stubborn as you can be in ignoring this.”

“I do not need a lecture in love from you, Brian Braddock,” Morganna asserted. She topped her drink up, glaring at him.  “When Victor died, again, I was alone. I left Strange and I went and found my own magic. The magic of my home and the magic of England. I built this initiative because you never had the balls to do something original.”

Brian grunted and looked away.

“It’s hardly original to copy someone who was old before Camelot fell, Morganna. You just changed the names and the places.”

“Look at how many heroes England has. Now look at America! Canada! For Godsakes, look at Russia! We’re defenseless. We used to hold the entire world in our hands. The sun never set on the British Empire.”

Brian cocked his head and narrowed an eye.

“I never figured you for a Maggie*, Morganna.”

* English slang, meaning something along the lines of an imperialist or someone in support of imperialism – such as the extended British Empire which is considered to have ended with the handover of Hong Kong in 1997 – Gavin

“I’m not,” she shot back. “I’m illustrating a point. We owned the world and now we have to beg America for help when someone who is a bit strong comes here to steal from us.”

“I don’t really feel that’s the same thing.”

“Yes, well, as I understand it the only way you’re capable of feeling, Braddock is by downing the contents of a pub.”

“That’s hardly fair,” he said, leaning forwards, “I came on this trip to get to know you and Cornwall better. So far, you’ve avoided us both, and he’s staring over the prow wondering why his current girlfriend is so intent of finding the women who gave him powers because he couldn’t sleep with them. Seems a bit bloody incongruous if you ask me.”

“Nobody bloody well did, Brian,” Morganna got to her feet. “Nobody asked you to come along and nobody bloody asks you anything, you drunken arse. You’re one job, one job, was to protect Britain and Otherworld, and what happened? The source of all mystical powers for the British bleedin’ Isles is destroyed, folklore has been cannibalised by this fair country, and you’re sitting on a boat talking to me about love? Where’s your wife, Brian?”

Brian shot up immediately.

“Morganna.”

“No? Where is she? She’s dead, Brian. The one you love so much you left her and hit her, the one you decided was less important than a pint of mild is dead. Good job.”

“I think you should consider your words carefully, Morganna,” Brian said, stepping forwards. She flew at him, fists bouncing off his jaw. He stumbled backwards, arms snapping into place and grabbing her wrists.

“You let her die, Brian. Why couldn’t it be you? Why did you have to come and ruin everything, and all of this?”

“Morganna, that’s enough!” Cornwall shouted. He stood in the doorway of the cabin. She pulled her arms away from Brian, who stood, shell shocked “You need some air. We all do.”

Morganna stormed out of the room, leaving Cornwall in the doorway.

“So, she hates me,” Brian said quietly.

“Yes,” Cornwall replied. “I think that was pretty obvious.”

“Why?” he asked.

“You’re supposed to be Britain’s protector, Brian,” Cornwall said, walking into the room. “You’re supposed to save her from the danger that falls her way, and, this time . . . you didn’t manage it.”

Brian looked away.

“So, why is . . . why bring up Meggan?”

“You protect your own, first, Brian, and you didn’t manage that either.”

Cornwall moved over to where Morganna had previous sat, and dropped himself down. He sat low in the chair, his head at right angles to his body, half way up the back of the chair, arms lolling over the arm rests.

“She hates you for putting the responsibility of saving Britain on her.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, I know. I keep telling her it isn’t on her, it’s on all of us, but she won’t have it. She formed this Shadow Captains Initiative, and now, here comes Captain Failure to remind her how to do it . . . wrong.”

Brian looked up at Cornwall.

“You’re not exactly helping me feel better, here.”

“The hell should I, Brian?” he asked. “You broke Britain worse than the benefit system and NHS privatisation.”

“Great.”

“Well, people have failed before, Brian, and you’re probably going to fail again.”

“What?” Brian looked up at Cornwall. He grinned.

“You failed, and you will do again. Sort yourself out, and get yourself out there. We’ve got Otherworld to find, and possibly, some horny faerie women.”

Brian nodded, and pushed himself to his feet. “Right,” he said, “And I’ll tell Morganna that she doesn’t need to stress over this responsibility thing.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Cornwall said, “You leave that to me. What’s worse than someone who you don’t respect telling you that you don’t need to worry?”

“I’m going over the edge, but there’s something I just want to make clear to you,” Brian said, pausing by the doorway.

“Yeah, you don’t like Morganna, and you don’t like me. I’ve heard it all before, Brian,” Cornwall said. “I wasn’t liked very well before I got given the powers to protect Cornwall, and I’m even less liked now than I was then. Cry me a bloody river.”

“This isn’t over,” Brian said.

“No, mate, nothing ever is.”

Brian charged out of the room, headed towards Morganna. She paused, eyeing him up. Her hands dropped to her sides, as though she were preparing to cast a spell. Brian held up his hand, a signal to stop.

“Wouldn’t work anyway,” he said to her, “You draw your magic from England itself. That means it goes through me. Remember that next time we have a little chat.”

Brian narrowed his eyes at her and vaulted over the edge of the boat. He hit the cloudy water with barely a splash, his powers propelling him down through the first sixth metres of the water column where the light penetrated. A dark shape swam past him, slow and bulky. A basking shark, or something similar. Nothing for Brian to worry about.

The filaments of reality that made up the veil between the real world and Otherworld began to manifest, for the first time since Otherworld fell and Roma became nothing more than a wandering spirit.

Brian continued to swim. Water like night, growing darker, deeper, and heavier, until he exploded through the other side.

He was greeted, in the space which Otherworld had previously existed, with nothing. Pure whiteness.

“This . . .” he said to himself. Fragments of green floated around him, remnants of the home of British mythology. A sword swam past slowly, spinning as though it had been thrown. A single blade of grass grazed against his cheek.

“Braddock!”

A voice came from behind him. He turned quickly. A tiny form, no bigger than a wasp hurtled towards him.

“Braddock, you absolute shite!”

“Uhm,” he said.

The form collided with him, sending him reeling end over end. The wasp, quickly grew into a human sized woman. Doc Marten boots hid her feet, while her legs, clad in string tights were covered in holes and tears.

“You complete and utter bastard,” she said, grabbing him by his neck. Brian flicked his arm across, breaking her grip, and threw an open palm into her chest. She shifted back a few feet, and dropped an elbow on his temple.

He hurtled through the whiteness, somewhat unsure about how physics were operation.

“We trusted you!”

“Yes, I’m hearing that a lot,” he said. Her fist glanced off his right forearm, while his left hand clapped across the woman’s cheek, knocking her sunglasses off. Her wings beat a few times, preventing her from spinning into the distance, and it was only then that Brian got a good look at her.

“You’re a faerie,” he said.

“Well, I can see Merlyn wasted none of his fabled powers on your attention to detail,” she replied. “Otherworld is dead because of you.”

“Yes,” he said carefully. “I have been made more than aware of this, fae.”

“Tink,” she said. “Daughter of Oberon, Lord of the Slight People, Master of None now. My people are dead, or scattered into the council estates of Britain.”

“Well, not wanting to rock the boat here, Tink,” Brian said, blocking a good, square kick to his chest with his hands. “But your people are hardly blameless. You messed around in human affairs far more than you should do.”

“Say that again, wife-killer.”

“Everyone is just throwing that in my face today,” Brian said, twisting to avoid Tink’s fist. “Meggan died a hero, and there’s not a damn day that goes by that I don’t think about my taking her place.”

Brian’s backhand caught Tink in the square of her back, sending her hurtling. Twisting his hips, Brian shot after her, his fist clattering into the back of her head.

“I didn’t kill her, and I didn’t fail Britain. Otherworld was destroyed, but if I was here, would I have saved it?”

Brian blocked the dazed fae’s counterattack with his forearm again, his knee landing in her stomach.

“Probably not, I’d be dead as well, and Britain really would be without her champion, but you know what all this taught me, Tink?”

Brian grabbed her wrists and pulled her in to his chest.

“That I can’t do it alone and that Britain isn’t one place for one type of person. I can defend it but I don’t understand it, not all of it. I’m just a middle-class white guy in a country that has more people in it than Australia.”

“Don’t give me–”

“Shut up. I’m giving Britain back what it needs, and I will fix it, I will fix Otherworld and I will bring folklore, mythology and magic back to where it lives, where it died, and where it will be reborn. My story is the same as every other story of heroics, sacrifice and violence. It’s cyclical. Everything goes back to how it was in the end. Now hold your bloody breathe.”

Brian clamped his hand over Tink’s mouth and shot back towards his entry point, still leaking drips of water into nothingness. He blasted through the veil, once again into the ocean and, along with his passenger, exploded through the brown waters of the sea and onto the side of the boat. He dropped Tink at the feet of Morganna and Cornwall.

“There,” he said, “Otherworld is dead. The magic is gone and there is nothing more there than debris and white. I found her and she wasn’t overly happy.”

He turned to Morganna, a finger launched in her direction.

“This woman here, this girl, was Princess of the Fae and now she’s a drowning refugee. I know my responsibilities and my role, and I’ll fix whatever I can, but if you ever, ever, throw the death of my wife in my face again, I’ll take you to that spot of nothing and leave you to rot. See if you can regrow England from nothing.”

“Now hang on . . .” Cornwall said. Brian held up his fist.

“I am Captain England, and you are Captain Cornwall. My powers came from the magic of Merlyn, advisor to the king of Camelot, man without a mother, and demon spawn. Yours came from being impotent.”

Cornwall’s mouth fell.

“Here’s something to remind you of that time. Cornwall, maybe now you can decide if you want the witch bitch, or the fae harlot. Enjoy.”

Without another word, or another look, Brian shot into the air as fast as his powers could carry him, away from Morganna, Cornwall and the constant reminders of his failure.