Sean Wicke
Fortuna Survivor
(Meant to post this last week, but missed my cue. Oh well! A happy belated Beat-a-Sean Day everyone!)
The lair of the AffecSeanados was luxuriously appointed, the walls paneled in dark oak that reflected back the firelight in an orange hue. Shadows from the tall-backed armchairs spaced before the roaring fireplace danced over the walls, crossing over bas relief carvings of scenes of battle and carnage. One, depicting an angry mob dressed in ancient tunics rising up with cookware in paw to strike down the wealthy masters, was labeled in slanting letters below, “The Falle of the House of Seanne”. Another showed a furious battle, cookware flying as a figure in armor took a frying pan to the helm. Mounted in a sturdy iron frame, a tile mosaic seemingly recovered from an ancient edifice showed a toga-clad figure on the floor, one paw held up to protect himself, as a dozen others stood about him, pans raised to strike. A stone tablet on a pedestal nearby showed a neolithic cave drawing, a figure in blue striking at a figure in red using a large black circle, a small handle meeting the implied paw at the end of the arm. The whole room was a monument to violence and vendetta.
The centerpiece of this display was the far wall from the fireplace, on which hung uncountable numbers of frying pans, each one uniquely dented and then mounted on a plaque. The designations below seemingly gave the names of targets eliminated: the Seanterhouse Five, Sean of the Dead, the Magnificent Seanven, even the Last Seanmurai. There were three entire rows adding up to twenty-four frying pans, each of which was labeled “Sean Bean'd”. Each trophy, bent and bloody, hung in place of pride, save for one empty spot toward the bottom: a plaque bearing the name of Sean Wicke.
A voice, indolent and bored, drifted through the heavy atmosphere of the room, punctuated by the quiet hiss of ash being tapped from a cigar into a tray. “The reports all seem to confirm that it was him. Matching description, matching methods. He's back in Bully Harbor.”
Another voice, deeper, spoke in dismissal. “He must have moved on by now. He has to know we're looking for him.”
A third voice, higher, reedier. “Why are we even bothering still? I mean, there's got to be easier prey out there. Surely there's some other Sean we haven't gotten to yet.”
The first: “Sadly no. It seems we are victims of our success. Even overseas, the name Sean is being eliminated. Parents do not wish to risk the violence it would bring upon their children.”
A fourth voice, gruff, discontentedly puffing on a cigar. “Maybe we widen the pool a bit then. There's a lot of Seamuses these days; that's sort of like Sean.”
“No.” The second voice was definite in his dismissal. “No, it must be Sean. This is a proud and ancient tradition to which we are heir: we will not sully it with loose consonance.”
“What then?” the third inquired. “Do we chase this one Sean to the ends of the earth?”
“Not necessarily,” the first mused. “We know his name, his face. Beasts in the Imperium may consider it a dead tradition at this point, but they can rediscover their bloodthirst if properly motivated. After all, it matters not why the Sean be panned, only that he be so.”
“Do we have enough in the coffers?” the second inquired.
“A bounty of two million gilders alive, one million dead, should be sufficient incentive,” the fourth declared. “With the pan that struck the blow, of course. After all, once we're done, the Seans will be gone forever, and we can move on to the next phase of our plan.”
There was a dark, malevolent chuckle shared among the group, the shadows from their armchairs seeming to curve in toward the empty plaque on the wall, tendrils of darkness closing in on Sean Wicke.
~~~
Sean sat alone in his apartment, candles unlit, only the moonlight filtering through the blinds to light his face. He sat on the foot of his bed, already dressed in his dark suit, a cast-iron skillet held between his knees. Carefully he rubbed a rough cloth over every inch of it, obsessively cleaning away any grease that might have built up. In the next twenty-four hours, he couldn't afford even a single slip.
The time was upon him, nearly to the hour. He'd even gone to the expense of procuring a clock for his dingy Slups apartment and kept it diligently wound. His yellow eyes glanced up, watching the minute hand drift closer to midnight. He set aside the cloth and reached for a thin leather strap, which he carefully began winding around the skillet handle, then tied off through the loop at the end. He didn't bother to experiment with hefting it; he knew its weight as well as any implement. Then, with a small huff as the ghosts of old blows protested the movement, he stood, moving to stand opposite the apartment door.
The clock chimed once before they burst through the door. The stoat at the front of the pack only had a moment to register the frying pan coming at him before he was knocked clear into Sean's kitchen, the collision with the countertop leaving a bloody mark on his forehead that would likely smart for days. The fox behind him tried to swing with his own pan, but a parry and an arm-break over Sean's knee saw his own pan flying instead into the forehead of the wolverine behind him. A quick blow to the back of the head sent him to the floor, while his compatriot's face took a blow that sent him crashing through the thin wood of the apartment door opposite Sean's.
The infamous wildcat stalked out of his apartment, suit-jacket shifting with each step, and got three steps down the hall toward the stairway before he turned and ran for the stairs opposite, a small gang of mustelids wielding cutlery and cookware chasing after him. He feigned left toward the stairs down, then bounded off the railing to instead pull himself through a gap in the bars that closed off the roof access stairway just as another group came up the stairs from below. The wildcat clambered over a dresser that had been wedged in the staircase, then kicked hard, forcing the furniture down another few steps to obstruct his pursuers. Then he burst out through the roof access onto the flat, tarred surface above.
Sean raced toward the edge, then slowed as he saw the white flurry engulfing the Harbor, pages glowing in the moonlight and in lanterns which they must have paid to stay lit tonight, fires for the festival of blood declared at his expense. There must have been thousands, maybe millions of pages; they blanketed the streets and buildings like snow. One of the pages blew close, and Sean snatched it from the air, holding it before him against the tension of the breeze.
Sean crumpled the page and tossed it aside, looking out at a city papered with a call for his blood. Already there were groups forming, local gangs repurposing themselves for the hunt of a lifetime - or at least of the year. Sean looked around him, trying to assess where he could go; then he heard the pounding against the chains binding shut the other roof access door.
Sean swore under his breath, then, heaving, he flung the frying pan across the street. It clattered loudly as it landed on the opposite rooftop. Then he backed up, preparing himself for a running leap.
The door burst open behind him, and an entirely unnecessary call of "There he is!" went up. Sean bolted, his legs pumping to build up momentum as he raced for the twenty-foot gap. His final footstep landed on the edge and he pushed with all his might, arms outstretched as he reached for the building across from him.
The wind was knocked from his lungs as he collided with the edge, and only his claws digging into the thick tar of the roof kept him from falling the three stories to the papered streets below. Heaving, he pulled himself onto the roof, doubling over for a moment to recover his breath, before he picked up his frying pan and started to run again. There would be no sleep for him, not that night, nor until the next midnight. No Sean could sleep safe on Beat-a-Sean Day.
The lair of the AffecSeanados was luxuriously appointed, the walls paneled in dark oak that reflected back the firelight in an orange hue. Shadows from the tall-backed armchairs spaced before the roaring fireplace danced over the walls, crossing over bas relief carvings of scenes of battle and carnage. One, depicting an angry mob dressed in ancient tunics rising up with cookware in paw to strike down the wealthy masters, was labeled in slanting letters below, “The Falle of the House of Seanne”. Another showed a furious battle, cookware flying as a figure in armor took a frying pan to the helm. Mounted in a sturdy iron frame, a tile mosaic seemingly recovered from an ancient edifice showed a toga-clad figure on the floor, one paw held up to protect himself, as a dozen others stood about him, pans raised to strike. A stone tablet on a pedestal nearby showed a neolithic cave drawing, a figure in blue striking at a figure in red using a large black circle, a small handle meeting the implied paw at the end of the arm. The whole room was a monument to violence and vendetta.
The centerpiece of this display was the far wall from the fireplace, on which hung uncountable numbers of frying pans, each one uniquely dented and then mounted on a plaque. The designations below seemingly gave the names of targets eliminated: the Seanterhouse Five, Sean of the Dead, the Magnificent Seanven, even the Last Seanmurai. There were three entire rows adding up to twenty-four frying pans, each of which was labeled “Sean Bean'd”. Each trophy, bent and bloody, hung in place of pride, save for one empty spot toward the bottom: a plaque bearing the name of Sean Wicke.
A voice, indolent and bored, drifted through the heavy atmosphere of the room, punctuated by the quiet hiss of ash being tapped from a cigar into a tray. “The reports all seem to confirm that it was him. Matching description, matching methods. He's back in Bully Harbor.”
Another voice, deeper, spoke in dismissal. “He must have moved on by now. He has to know we're looking for him.”
A third voice, higher, reedier. “Why are we even bothering still? I mean, there's got to be easier prey out there. Surely there's some other Sean we haven't gotten to yet.”
The first: “Sadly no. It seems we are victims of our success. Even overseas, the name Sean is being eliminated. Parents do not wish to risk the violence it would bring upon their children.”
A fourth voice, gruff, discontentedly puffing on a cigar. “Maybe we widen the pool a bit then. There's a lot of Seamuses these days; that's sort of like Sean.”
“No.” The second voice was definite in his dismissal. “No, it must be Sean. This is a proud and ancient tradition to which we are heir: we will not sully it with loose consonance.”
“What then?” the third inquired. “Do we chase this one Sean to the ends of the earth?”
“Not necessarily,” the first mused. “We know his name, his face. Beasts in the Imperium may consider it a dead tradition at this point, but they can rediscover their bloodthirst if properly motivated. After all, it matters not why the Sean be panned, only that he be so.”
“Do we have enough in the coffers?” the second inquired.
“A bounty of two million gilders alive, one million dead, should be sufficient incentive,” the fourth declared. “With the pan that struck the blow, of course. After all, once we're done, the Seans will be gone forever, and we can move on to the next phase of our plan.”
There was a dark, malevolent chuckle shared among the group, the shadows from their armchairs seeming to curve in toward the empty plaque on the wall, tendrils of darkness closing in on Sean Wicke.
~~~
Sean sat alone in his apartment, candles unlit, only the moonlight filtering through the blinds to light his face. He sat on the foot of his bed, already dressed in his dark suit, a cast-iron skillet held between his knees. Carefully he rubbed a rough cloth over every inch of it, obsessively cleaning away any grease that might have built up. In the next twenty-four hours, he couldn't afford even a single slip.
The time was upon him, nearly to the hour. He'd even gone to the expense of procuring a clock for his dingy Slups apartment and kept it diligently wound. His yellow eyes glanced up, watching the minute hand drift closer to midnight. He set aside the cloth and reached for a thin leather strap, which he carefully began winding around the skillet handle, then tied off through the loop at the end. He didn't bother to experiment with hefting it; he knew its weight as well as any implement. Then, with a small huff as the ghosts of old blows protested the movement, he stood, moving to stand opposite the apartment door.
The clock chimed once before they burst through the door. The stoat at the front of the pack only had a moment to register the frying pan coming at him before he was knocked clear into Sean's kitchen, the collision with the countertop leaving a bloody mark on his forehead that would likely smart for days. The fox behind him tried to swing with his own pan, but a parry and an arm-break over Sean's knee saw his own pan flying instead into the forehead of the wolverine behind him. A quick blow to the back of the head sent him to the floor, while his compatriot's face took a blow that sent him crashing through the thin wood of the apartment door opposite Sean's.
The infamous wildcat stalked out of his apartment, suit-jacket shifting with each step, and got three steps down the hall toward the stairway before he turned and ran for the stairs opposite, a small gang of mustelids wielding cutlery and cookware chasing after him. He feigned left toward the stairs down, then bounded off the railing to instead pull himself through a gap in the bars that closed off the roof access stairway just as another group came up the stairs from below. The wildcat clambered over a dresser that had been wedged in the staircase, then kicked hard, forcing the furniture down another few steps to obstruct his pursuers. Then he burst out through the roof access onto the flat, tarred surface above.
Sean raced toward the edge, then slowed as he saw the white flurry engulfing the Harbor, pages glowing in the moonlight and in lanterns which they must have paid to stay lit tonight, fires for the festival of blood declared at his expense. There must have been thousands, maybe millions of pages; they blanketed the streets and buildings like snow. One of the pages blew close, and Sean snatched it from the air, holding it before him against the tension of the breeze.
SEAN WICKE
WANTED
2 MILLION ALIVE
1 MILLION DEAD
MUST PROVIDE FRYING PAN
THAT STRUCK THE BLOW
WANTED
2 MILLION ALIVE
1 MILLION DEAD
MUST PROVIDE FRYING PAN
THAT STRUCK THE BLOW
Sean crumpled the page and tossed it aside, looking out at a city papered with a call for his blood. Already there were groups forming, local gangs repurposing themselves for the hunt of a lifetime - or at least of the year. Sean looked around him, trying to assess where he could go; then he heard the pounding against the chains binding shut the other roof access door.
Sean swore under his breath, then, heaving, he flung the frying pan across the street. It clattered loudly as it landed on the opposite rooftop. Then he backed up, preparing himself for a running leap.
The door burst open behind him, and an entirely unnecessary call of "There he is!" went up. Sean bolted, his legs pumping to build up momentum as he raced for the twenty-foot gap. His final footstep landed on the edge and he pushed with all his might, arms outstretched as he reached for the building across from him.
The wind was knocked from his lungs as he collided with the edge, and only his claws digging into the thick tar of the roof kept him from falling the three stories to the papered streets below. Heaving, he pulled himself onto the roof, doubling over for a moment to recover his breath, before he picked up his frying pan and started to run again. There would be no sleep for him, not that night, nor until the next midnight. No Sean could sleep safe on Beat-a-Sean Day.
