Bradford let out a large, shaky sigh as the words thrown between him and Heron replayed in his head on a loop, self-tortuously. He slowly loosened his tie, opened his collar, and threw his jacket on the lounge chair in contempt. He passed in front of his old oak desk, where a picture frame sat with its face lying down, along with a thin, rectangular wooden box. He carefully sat down in his chair and brought the frame closer to himself, carefully flipping it over to face it fully.
It was his younger self with his grandmother, him standing far from her in fear as she pointed towards the horizon in confidence, a map in her hand. His eyes narrowed, then he opened the glass frame. He took out the photos, one hiding behind the one that framed the face of the glass.
The second photo was of his grandmother in the same pose, but with a young vulture by her side, the two of them holding onto her guidebook. The child in this photo wasn't him, but a paid actor posed for the papers, edited into the photo. Bradford was only in the original photo, of him cowering away from her as the picture was taken right before their "adventures" truly began, just before he was dragged along with her half-way across the world.
He was hesitant to go with her, at first. He was young, and his "lost" parents were more of a memory at that point, though he still had called for his mother in his weaker moments. Isabella had taken him in as his next available kin, and he was then heralded by the papers as Isabella Finch's successor - the next great kid adventurer.
He had started school like any other child in his days. He really didn't get along with the other children, as he was often mocked for being gullible or for his frequent crying. He had no idea how to talk to the other children, and he often found himself standing on the sidelines, watching them play, him having no clue how to join in. Instead, he would often play with his favorite thing in the world: his little toy abacus. Counting the little beads made him feel strong and happy, and in control.
He would often come home crying from another terrible day of school, and his grandmother would often berate the children who would bully little Braddie, saying she would come down there herself to beat them up if Bradford wouldn't. The small vulture often had to tell her to calm down, that he could take care of things himself, even though he had no idea how. It took some years but, eventually, little Bradford did learn how to include himself in games, and he even found some friends who loved to play chess and math games as much as he did. The crying spells slowly lessened.
But all that came to a sudden stop for him. His grammy had told him that one day he would go adventuring with him, and that day had come. Summer had ended, and Braddie was told he would no longer be attending school, but instead he would be homeschooled and would go out adventuring with Finch.
It would be fun, she had said. More fun and educational than the "useless" puzzles and math problems he learned in school. He had protested at the time that he liked doing homework, puzzles and math problems, but Finch had waved them off. It was all "boring" in comparison to what she did on a daily basis. She said he'd learn "actual" skills that he may need, such as identifying poisons or how to make a campfire in the middle of a sudden snowstorm.
"This is for your own good," she had said to him. "You're a real Finch, and Finches need to be tough to live in this world. And you, well…you're not tough at all. You'd never survive out in the real world like this."
Just think of it as a special bonding experience, she had said to him. He knew of his grandmother's exploits, of course, he had read her books. But to know that everything in those books was real terrified him to no end.
To go along with her, to see those monsters, to be kidnapped by villains, to survive by the skin of your teeth- he didn't think he could do any of that! He was just another ten-year-old who would miss his friends he'd leave behind in school. He was also an awfully clumsy child who often tripped on his own talons and who couldn't even catch a dodgeball heading straight at his head. He was never trained to swing on vines, to outrun vengeful gods, to avoid booby traps, to tame lions or tigers or bears.
He was only a child. He didn't desire adventure. He wanted to be in school and learn with other kids like him. He wanted to meet other students and do normal things other children did, like…go to a movie? Go shopping in malls? At least, that is what he heard what other children did.
But he had decided to go. It wasn't like he had a choice either way, but he wanted to show to his grammy, who he loved very much at the time, that he could be the adventurer she wanted him to be, to be strong, be a good boy, and to never leave her side. Since he could speak, she had been reading him adventure stories, had him trained on very basic survival tactics, and he helped Finch try out the Woodchuck Guidebook rules and directions on him.
But as much as Bradford tried to apply himself to what she wanted and in following her exact steps, no matter how much he memorized the words with perfect clarity, he was never very good at translating what he read and saw into physical action. He often got overly worried or got the steps confused when he was doing a task to the point of messing entire things up or not being effective enough. Memorizing the rules made it even more difficult for him, as he wasn't sure what rule applied when or sometimes even how to apply them. And whenever he made a mistake or got too clumsy, his grammy wouldn't let him hear the end of it, how much of a disrespectful and bad boy he was. Her disapproval made him even more nervous and anxious, causing things to become worse as time went on, and for him to perform worse and worse.
He knew the exact words she would say to him whenever he complained, as if she were a broken record. Toughen up, try again, be better next time. Adventure builds character, always remember to have fun and smile, learn the guidebook better etc. But most of all: grammy always knew best.
But even though his life revolved around her wiles, he had a few ways to escape her control. He enjoyed playing with his abacus and doing logic problems under the cover of his room or blankets. He loved playing with numbers, remembering random dates and years as well as historical facts, reading any type of book he could get his hands on, but most of all he loved solving large puzzles and playing chess with his grammy. He ate up his successes against the great adventurer when he would win over her in a game or two, even at the tender age of five.
But his grandmother would never fail to find something wrong with what he did or enjoyed that didn't involve him either helping him with her escapades, his Woodchuck training, or the act of adventuring itself. He often found himself hiding his number puzzle games under his bed so that he wouldn't hear her give him yet another snide word about it, making him feel even worse about himself for liking what he did.
He felt ashamed of himself often that he wasn't making her happy with what he was doing, no matter how hard he tried. But he wanted to make her proud of him, to not abandon him, to live up to her name as her last heir, so he went with her. Maybe he'd get better at this whole adventure thing if he was out doing the real thing? Maybe he could become the hero he wanted to be, to make her happy in him, to make her stop yelling at him? He would do anything for her approval, to fit in the way she wanted him to. As such, his grammy gave him the task of being the official chronicler for the Junior Woodchucks, and for being the first, official inductee into the organization.
But the moment he looked out towards the horizon of the great chasm of the Grand Canyon, with his grandmother looking regal in all her glory and the professional photographer pointing the lens at his face, tasked to memorialize their exploits in real time and then colorize them for the general public, everything crashed in his mind at the same time, and it hit him what he was going to be set out to do.
And he cowered, frozen in place, unable to move. And the photo was taken before anything could be fixed.
Needless to say, she was not happy with the photo being seen by the public. She soon had the photo doctored with another young vulture to pose as him, then that photo published in the papers. Soon, however, any remnants of this image were also erased from public memory and historical records. Only the rendered photos and portraits of her and her alone were remembered well by the Woodchucks of today.
But Bradford made a point to keep the original and colorized copies of each photo, along with others that she refused to have the public see. He kept them to remind himself that these moments did indeed happen. That they weren't imagined by him- that he really was Isabella Finch's grandson. That what he endured did happen, no matter how much the world denied it.
He stared down at his own frightened, young face with a grim look. How naïve he was to think he would make her proud of him, to have her accept him, to even have her listen to him when he cried for help when he was hurt or poisoned. There was no point in even trying.
When they came home after their disaster of a trip to find the hidden mysteries, with Finch's blessing the world's greatest adventurer canceled her deal for a new set of books to be published that would've featured her grandson as her heir, and then eventually erased him from her history entirely. His only thumbprint on her history would be him helping her to author the official Junior Woodchuck guidebook, but he was never credited. No one knew about him being related to her other than the higher ups at SHUSH, who were close to Finch while she was still living. Such an embarrassment he was for her as a child.
But Finch did attempt a mea culpa with him during the last years of her life by allowing him to privately inherit her treasures, the map to her Lost Journal, as well as owning the original Junior Woodchuck guidebook. But these were jokes to him: the treasures only brought him misery by owning them, the guidebook reminded him of his unsung efforts, and the map itself was just an overblown, self-congratulatory obstacle course for him to run through, to remind him for the thousandth time whose shadow he stood in for the majority of his life.
The "great" Isabella Finch.
He laid the photos on the desk, and carefully opened up the box on the table. He picked up the letter, heavily wrinkled, yellowing, and scrawled with a child's ink-spilled writing, some of it stained from aged tears. He read the letter once again, knowing the old words well.
Dear Older Me,
Hello, it's nice to meet you. It's me, Braddie, from when you were younger. How are you? I hope things are going good for you, and that you can read this whenever you can.
I'm in a cave now, writing to you as Grammy sleeps. It's been scary here a lot, older me. I hear rattlesnakes slithering everywhere, the monkeys growling at night, the wolves howling at the moon. The air is sticky, and the darkness of the cave makes me see things. The fire lantern doesn't have much oil left, so I have to write quick.
I don't like being here, but Grammy never believes me when I tell her I want to go home. There's nothing I can do to make things better, all I can do is run away from danger. Grammy says I need to try harder, that I just need to get used to the danger, but I can't. The bad guys who take me away from her are the worse. They fight with Grammy, but she says she likes to fight them and she says I need to try and save myself when she can't. But the bad guys are so scary. I can't even move when I see them, when they capture me. She says she can't save me every time, that she wants me to save myself and do more on my own, even when I'm in really big trouble.
I don't know if I can! The world is so scary, everything is just getting worse here, and I can't do anything to make things better. I feel like a little baby. I can't do anything to save myself, and Grammy blames me for not trying more. I am trying, but it's so hard.
I don't remember how long we've been on this quest for the hidden mysteries. We've tried to find so many, but I've messed up almost every adventure. Searching for these treasures have been so scary. Grammy wrote in her journal any information we could find about the treasures from the local people, and we were able to find and capture some successfully. But, each time I think about them, each time we go to a new treasure, they make me shake more and more. I begged her that I didn't want to do this anymore, but she told me to smile more and to be more brave, more positive. But I can't be brave. I don't want to smile. I don't want to.
I don't like any of this. Grammy always yells at me, says I'm not trying hard enough. That I'm lazy and disrespectful to her, that I should listen to her more. But it's not true! I try so so so hard to make her happy, but nothing works. She's always sad or angry when she sees me. I just want her to be happy. I want to be happy. I wish I can be happy. I try my best to listen to her and make her happy, but it hurts. What she wants me to do is scary, and it hurts to do what she tells me. I don't want to do everything she tells me to do…
I hate adventures, I hate how scary and frightening everything is, I hate how I'm so helpless to everything. Anything that happens could destroy us, anything that pops its head up can hurt us. She says I can never do anything right, and I sometimes think she wants to leave me behind in a pyramid or forest alone, to get rid of me. She says I disappoint her. That I should try more.
I don't want this hurt anymore. I want her to stop taking me on adventures. I can't be brave and strong like her. I don't even know if home is safe anymore. Monsters are everywhere I look. They're out to get me, and I don't know what to do. All I can do is hide in a ball and cry.
I'm almost out of light. Older me… I want to be a hero. I want to help get rid of these monsters. I want to make the world a safe place for me and for everyone, so no one has to be an adventurer again. I want to be able to do something, anything, to make the world make more sense, to have more control, to make it safe for everyone. I see other people getting hurt from our adventures too. I see others hurting like me. I see the people we steal their treasures from hurting. And Grammy doesn't care what happens to others, only when she's happy does it matter.
Older me, please make this stop. Please stop this pain. Please make the world safe for me. I know you'll be stronger than me, smarter, braver. Please do anything to make the monsters go away. I don't have anyone else to turn to.
I hope things are better for me when I get older. I'll be older, and I can do whatever I want and go where I want. I hope things are better for you than they are for me.
Thank you for reading this. Please let things be better than they are now.
Sincerely, Bradford Buzzard, age 11.
The words never left him, especially now. It has been many, many years since he wrote this, and he had kept this letter close to him since then as a constant reminder, a living reminder of the buried, sobbing child inside, the child who deserved better, who deserved to be avenged for his pain.
The pain would never leave. It won't leave until he has what he wants. Complete control of the world. Destruction of what he feared. He couldn't control his own life, couldn't control the pain from leaving him unless he had the things that brought him fear and terror once before under his full subjugation.
What other way was there? Would it not be easier just to eliminate the extra baggage needed that created the need for heroes and villains, for adventurers, in the world? Destroying anything adventurous - treasures, monsters, gods - to bring a sense of normalcy to the world. Taking control: it was simple, effective, and it would save countless amounts of money wasted each year. To destroy what he once feared would eliminate the pain once and for all. Cleanly.
This had nothing to do with villainy or heroics. He knew what villains were, saw and felt them firsthand. Magical villains and highwaymen who would kidnap for selfish ransoms or some petty revenge against Finch.
This was not about villainy. He cared for the world, perhaps even more than most people. This was about efficiency, keeping the world's magic in balance, having an order to things, keeping himself and now April safe, no matter the cost.
And rereading his letter only refueled him with that anger he so needed, reopened that pain, giving him the energy to continue, to prove everyone wrong. A chaotic world, an unpredictable world, made worse by those who cause even more destruction and discord just for personal and selfish enjoyment. Though no danger came to the world now, it will come. And one day, he will rid of the objects that caused him such agony, bring order to a world gone mad, and stop those who are in his way, Scrooge McDuck in particular.
One day, that papyrus will be his. One day, he will avenge for his inner child's pain. One day, no one will be able to stop him from bringing a safer world for everyone, for himself, for…for…
Bradford blinked, and before he knew it, darkness overtook him.