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scots-gallivanter · 6 months ago

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FOUR

The moon shone broad and bright upon the placid face of the Solway Firth, and showed a slight ripple upon the stakes, the tops of which were just visible above the waves.

SIR WALTER SCOTT, Redgauntlet (1824)

THE CLOCKS WENT forward today but there’d hardly be enough blue in the world to darn a sailor’s hanky. My ears, exposed after an out-of-season haircut, are red as hen’s heads as Nikki and I take in the windswept mudflats which Robert Burns called ‘this wild place of the world’. A heron pecks patina into flotsam; tuxedoed oystercatchers hurtle along the mud with their lame men’s gaits and then moan into a monochrome sky. To hoodwink their prey, plovers tap-dance on the beach pretending to be raindrops.

Three boys in shell suits stand around an observation viewer. ‘Quality’, offers the tallest of the trio, after discovering it isn’t coin-operated. He squints through it to England. ‘What the Butler saw’, I joke, ‘That’s where Edward the First cursed us before breathing his last.’ The three boys dander off, perplexed about butlers; an oyster-catcher pipes past, and a flock of timid redshanks retreats past the Altar Stane, more often than not under water, which has bounded the burgh of Annan since 1539.

Before they moved to Lochmaben Robert the Bruce’s ancestors had a castle at Annan, and a running track and park now sit beneath its tree-colonised motte. A stone from the castle, with an inscription related to the Bruces, was somehow acquired by an Annan antiquarian, who took it with him when he moved to Devon. It was returned in 1927 and is now incorporated within the town hall. There is a story that Archbishop, later Saint, Malachy put a curse on Annan. When he had dined with Bruce at the castle, Bruce had promised to spare the life of a condemned man. However, he reneged on the deal – with the result that a vampire allegedly ran loose in the town in which Thomas Carlyle later went to school.

Chop all the wood from boats that sailed in the Solway Firth, and Bonfire Night could be celebrated the length and breadth of Scotland until they launch the first zebra into space. Horn-helmeted raiders, Roman warriors, English incursors, pirates, kings, folk heroes, brigands, smugglers, and lovers. They all came and went with swords, fire, trade, romance or murder. Hadrian put his ‘Roman wall’ up at Bowness-on-Solway on the shoulder of England, a mile from where we stand – across a wath that was used by interlopers for centuries. That wath or ford can be walked when the tide is out, but you’d better know the currents intimately or you’ll be struggling in quicksand before your brain can contemplate the meaning of M’ Aidez.

From Cumberland’s tussocks – an official Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty since 1964 –trains used to smoke their way across the sea on the longest bridge in Europe. We gaze at England from a lichened mound of concrete and mudstone with mini-ferns curling out of Scotland like croziers. Behind us the trains passed through a cutting that has doubled for decades as a way for dog walkers undeterred by the pipeline running bang down the middle, through which Chapelcross Nuclear Power Station discharged its shit into the sea.

It’s March 2023. The first sod for the Solway Viaduct from Bowness-on-Solway to Annan was cut here 158 years ago today in a ceremony that featured ‘four navvies in smock frocks, red neckcloths, and white nightcaps ...... a mahogany barrow with the silver spade on their shoulders’. A cannon was fired, prayers were said, and big wigs sat in a decorated pavilion for their déjeuner à la forchette, and much speechifying and backslapping.

The idea for a viaduct had originated in 1830 in an anonymous pamphlet but The Cumberland Pacquet and Ware’s Advertiser called it ‘sublime, utopian, stupendous and bordering on certain of the Munchausen achievements’.

It took three years to build, but in 1881 ice floes wrecked it. It was repaired but it never quite recovered and was shut down in 1921. Notices went up to keep people off the bridge; however, thirsty Scots made their way across on Sundays to take advantage of more liberal English licensing laws, and there were cross-border romances for which the viaduct wasn’t a bridge too far. It was dismantled in 1935, and the scrap was recycled for armaments in Japan for its war with China. A signal box allegedly ended up being used as a garden shed.

What remains of a rusty tanker sits deck-deep in silt now behind an old warehouse that once rung with the sound of shipbuilders’ mallets. A local group pulled it out of view in 2020 with cash collected from flogging scrap bikes and shopping trolleys. Thousands of people once thronged the pier at Annan, an important shipbuilding port, whence steamers took folk to new worlds. A wooden lighthouse stood at Barnkirk point but it burned to the shore in 1975. Today a scarfed pensioner wheezes along the quay with smoky breath; and a subdued mongrel, oblivious of history, looks just as disconsolate.

Shawhill railway station, built on the verge of Annan for the viaduct traffic, is now a scrapyard. Back on the foreshore cinder path a decapitated man stands on a plinth – a bone of contention between his maker (who welds together bits of scrap and exhibits them) and others in the community, whom he regularly lambasts on his social media page. Metal Man began life in 2009 on a roundabout at the Tesco store in town, but he was beheaded in 2019. Since then, he has had a traffic cone for a head, then a football, a parrot’s head and a pig’s head. A month ago, a prankster sawed the statue’s haaf-net and fish off. Goodness knows how he ended up on the shore here where for generations real haaf-netters have battled the currents and tides.

Old Annanites speak of haaf-netting in reverential tones: it has been pursued since Viking times and is enshrined in royal charters. A haaf-net resembles a portable football goalmouth with a rectangular frame and three legs. The top beam of the frame is 18 feet long, the length of the oar of a longboat; when a fish swims into the net the frame’s legs float to the surface and the fish is netted and clobbered on the head with a nep, a priest or a killer. Well, that is what used to happen, but legislation introduced in 2016 bans the killing of salmon, and fewer and fewer men feel like paying the near £40 annual licence fee when they cannot take a single fish home. The tradition is certain to die out.

Leistering was another unusual form of fishing practised by the men of the Solway. A leister was a four-pronged, twenty-foot-long javelin, which killed fish in huge quantities. Richard Franck, a Cromwellian trooper, was the first person to report on Scotland’s salmon-fishing. The Cambridge-educated sea captain travelled through Carlisle, Dumfries, Glasgow, Stirling, Perth, Forfar, Loch Ness; Sutherland, Caithness, Cromarty, Aberdeen, Dundee, St. Andrews, Edinburgh, and Berwick.

Franck saw the mounted men of the firth galloping along the shallows spearing salmon (Northern Memoirs, 1694). Sir Walter Scott also gave leistering a mention. In Redgauntlet, Darsie Latimer wrote to Alan Fairford, of the day he was rescued from straying into the Solway quicksands: ‘...they chased the fish at full gallop, and struck them with their barbed spears, as you see hunters spearing boars in the old tapestry. The salmon, to be sure, take the thing more quietly than the boars; but they are so swift in their own element, that to pursue and strike them is the task of a good horseman, with a quick eye, a determined hand, and full command both of his horse and weapon.’ Latimer lingered on the sands and looked to the English shore that was ‘still gilded by the sun’s last rays, and, as it seemed, scarce distant a mile from me’.

For nearly half a century Chapelcross nuclear power station was a familiar landmark outside Annan. I was one of thousands of people who watched its four chimneys being demolished in 2007. Some souls were sentimental to the point of weeping. It was, indeed, the end of an era for a business that had employed three generations and had brought prosperity to a town which, in 1727, Daniel Defoe had found to be in ‘irrevocable decay’. It was hooray for me when the towers fell, though. Goodbye, plutonium. Goodbye, tritium. There have been proposals for a wood-burning power station there, using sustainable coppiced willows, and an adjacent solar farm has been approved. It remains mothballed.

In the 1960s there had been plans for an atomic metropolis that would have spanned the firth. There would have been a circuit-linear Solway City for 50,000 people, and a new airport. Forty years later there is another proposal – to route an ‘electric bridge’ from Annan to Bowness-on-Solway using energy from the world’s third greatest tidal bore. It would create a pedestrian and cycle route between England and Scotland with the usual razzmatazz for tourists and have enough in its locker to power 60,000 homes. The decommissioning of Chapelcross won’t be complete for some 80 years. Meanwhile, Annan’s dreams of a transformed harbour, a tourist hub, were thwarted in 2023 when an application for £8 million from Michael Gove, who had the Tory government’s portfolio for the Orwellian concept of ‘levelling up’, failed.

#solway #haaf netting #annan #solway viaduct #leistering #fishing #chapelcross

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criminallyyoursvn · 1 month ago

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Oh this was such a fun read to wake up to! Hehe had me giggling and kicking my feet gosh so so funn! The dialogue was spot on! I’m like floored rn

First Ray and now Nik, I am once again under attack by a hot blonde yandere with superpowers. I was inspired by all the asks about people shipping Oracle and Chronos and I had to write something @criminallyyoursvn CW for Nik being a horny flirt, the internet being horny in general, and also guns.

"I don't know why you're so mad, Oracle," Chronos said, tilting his head to avoid the roundhouse kick you had aimed at his face. Your leg sailed gracefully through the air, dipping into a sweeping kick that he avoided with just as much ease. "If anything I did this city a service."

"You blew up a person's car! What kind of service is that?!"

"First of all, I thought we all agreed that billionaires aren't people," he caught the punch coming for his face, and then the next one, and all the ones after that. It was infuriating how easily he seemed to read you and respond in turn. "Second, it's not like anyone got hurt. Well, anyone important. Don't I deserve a reward for my hard work?"

"You deserve to be locked up in chains!"

"Oooh, kinky," Chronos's modulated voice purred, and you could almost hear the feral grin under the mask. "I'd let you lock me up any time baby, just say when. I'll even bring my own handcuffs."

"For fuck's sake!" Does this man have an off switch?! Your mother was right, you should have known better than to continue quipping with the villain, but you couldn't help it. The smugness rolling off his broad shoulders was aggravating. It needled you, made you want to have him on his knees begging for mercy.

Suddenly his head twitched, gaze slipping to something behind you. Not missing a second, you took advantage of his distraction and lunged.

"Get down!" To your surprise, the villain grabbed your hand and pulled you into his arms, dipping you smoothly into a ballroom-worthy move.

Compounding your surprise was the sound of gunshots colliding with the tarmac. Your neck dropped backwards and you caught sight of a police officer clutching a gun that was still pointed at the two of you.

"What are you doing?!" You weren't sure who you were talking to at that moment, especially when Chronos twirled you up and out of the way until his body was squarely between you and the pistol. One arm wrapped around your waist while the hand of the other flung something at the panicked officer who began to scream and convulse as heavy volts of electricity shot through him.

"Looks like the party's over Oracle." His voice sounded forced, something gritty and dark bubbling beneath the usual grandiosity. "Until next time honey."

"Don't you dare-!" Before you could grab him, Chronos released you into a spin and vanished over the edge of the building. By the time you'd sprinted to the edge the villain had vanished into thin air.

Damn it.

You woke to the warmth of sunlight on your cheeks and flashes of your office space in your mind. You squeezed your eyes shut tighter, focusing on the vision forming behind tired eyelids. It used to be such a disorienting experience, "seeing" in what should be abject darkness, but you'd gotten used to it.

The day's vision seemed rather innocuous: you presumably seated at your cubicle while several members of the office stood gathered around someone's else's a few feet away. Without sound you couldn't tell what they were talking about but you could see smiles and laughter. A birthday perhaps? Party planning?

Nik's not there. Instantly your cheeks heated at the realization that you'd been hoping to catch a peek of the gorgeous blonde in the vision. Your hands flew to your face with a groan before you finally rolled out of bed and forced your mind to turn to more important things. No vision of your arch-nemesis, so hopefully today would be perfectly normal.

A frustrated groan left your lips. You were still smarting from last night's failure, especially after almost getting shot by the same people who were supposed to be on your side! The Oracle suit was bulletproof to an extent, but not getting shot was preferable.

Breakfast with your mother, a lecture that turned into fussing and rant about police incompetence, and then you were out the door. At work, you were surprised to hear music coming from somewhere in the room. A look around quickly revealed the source.

A tiny vintage radio sat on one of the desk tables, the dulcet lyrics of Smooth Operator pouring from silver speaker flanked by spinning knobs and dials all set in a smooth wooden body. Save for a few signs of modern flare it looked like something your mom would have owned.

Curiosity drove you closer, fingertips itching to play with something new and unexpected.

"You like it?"

"Nik!" You spun around, belatedly realizing that this was his desk.

"Good morning," he grinned down at you, that heart-stopping smile that never failed to send the butterflies in your stomach into a veritable frenzy. "So?"

"Huh? Oh," you glanced back at the radio. "I do! It's cool. I didn't know they still sold things like this."

"They don't. Not really," Nik smirked at you conspiratorially. "Got it at an auction for a steal and fixed it myself. Modified it too, these older models can't pick up new FM signals above 88MHz. Ah, sorry. Am I boring you?"

"No!" Truthfully you could have listened to him read out the list of ingredients at a grocery store for hours. God, how was he so perfect? Perfect face, perfect body, perfect memory, smart, and good with his hands too? Nikolaos was so out of your league it was criminal. "Uh, so why'd you bring it in? I feel like Dick is gonna make a stink about 'workplace distractions'."

"Well, I wasn't planning to use it all day," Nik fingered the dial, tuning through static until he found what sounded like a talk show. "I figured it looked nice. It's a little embarrassing to admit, but I kinda wanted to show it off a little."

You shook your head, utterly endeared. "It's not embarrassing! Like I said, it's really cool. You deserve to feel proud. I can't even fix my own plumbing, let alone a 70 year old radio."

"Yeah?" Nik smiled at you, the corners of those mismatched eyes creasing sweetly and revealing those charming dimples that you wanted to kiss so badly. "Well, if you ever have trouble, feel free to give me a call. I'll be happy to clean out the pipes for you."

You giggled, cheeks heating up as your mind went sailing into the gutter before you immediately dragged it back out. You retreated back to your cubicle, berating yourself all the way. Get a grip you pervert! He obviously didn't mean it like that!

Clearing your mind, you flew through your tasks for the day before deciding to take a break. In the distance you heard other employees moving through the office, many stopping by Nik's desk to admire the radio and ask questions. His low laughter settled your mind as you casually navigated to another screen to check the most recent hero news for the day.

Then nearly choked on your saliva when the headlines flashed before your eyes.

Caught in the Crossfire...or His Arms? Tension Heats Up Between Oracle and Chronos! Does Oracle Have a Type? Sources Say It's "Tall, Blonde, and Criminal!" City's Favorite Hero Playing Both Sides? Caught Red-Handed (And Red-Faced!) If Loving Him is a Crime, Arrest Us Too: Why the Internet Can't Get Enough of This Forbidden Duo!

What the actual fuck?! You stared at the trashy, sensationalist, borderline fanfiction-esque titles with mounting dread, and the pictures only made your stomach sink further. You, Oracle, wrapped in Chronos's arms like the leading lady of some 90s romantic drama. Whoever had taken the picture had cropped out the police and neatly edited out most of the debris, leaving the two of you alone in the shot; bodies pressed together chest to thighs, gazing into each others eyes with your figures framed by the night sky.

It was damning, so damning that - had you not been right there - you would have been left wondering as well. Sheer willpower kept you from digging your hands into your hair and tearing the strands out.

"Oracle and Chronos, huh?" You shot up straight, taken aback for the second time in the day by Nik. The man leaned over the back of your chair, lips quirked as he scanned the headlines. "Now there's a pairing I wasn't expecting the press to go for."

"It's ridiculous, right?" You scoffed, heart beating quick from a combination of nerves and annoyance. "I mean, a man died last night and all these reporters care about is shipping clickbait? Like, he's a villain!"

"Well, you know what they say. Sex sells," Nik chuckled. "Don't pay too much attention to the gossip rags, they'll say anything to get views."

"Well it must be working because its all over my front page!" You pulled up your social media and grimaced at the flood of edits, fanart, and heart emojis between eyes and triangles that was all over your page.

Nik whistled lowly. "Oh wow. People really love this."

"Can't imagine why," you scoffed, balking at a detailed piece depicting Oracle bound in rope while Chronos loomed behind behind, a hand tilting their chin up. Lava bubbled under your skin as you nearly broke the button turning it off. "For fuck's sake, this is unhinged! As if Oracle would ever let themself be tied up by a villain. If anything, they would be the one tying him up!"

"Uh huh," Nik was still staring at your phone with a dazed expression. It disappeared in a blink, replaced by a wry smile and shrug. "Don't worry so much. It'll blow over soon enough once the internet finds some other scandal to froth over."

Not soon enough, you thought darkly. "I hope so," you said aloud, just as a burst of static cut through the air. You turned to see a sight that was only familiar because you had seen it that morning: a small crowd gathered around the radio on Nik's desk. Even Dick was among them, equally susceptible to the allure of retro electronics.

"Up next we've got something for all you brand new TimeGazers out there! From Definitely Not Chronos - what a name! - this one's 'Like You Mean It'."

TimeGazers? You mouthed the name bemusedly just as the rough, Latin twang of a man's voice began to drip from the speakers. One of your coworkers gasped, clearly recognizing the lyrics. You swayed to the piano and horns, sharing a glance with Nik who met it with a shrug and his own grin.

Yours quickly dropped from your face when the chorus roared through the office.

"Fuck me like you mean it (like you mean it)! Make me believe it (me believe it)! Walk the wire, it's alright!"

Several hands lunged for the radio, scrabbling to turn it off or turn it down. One of the dials popped clean off, but in the end the room was blessedly silent.

No one spoke for a long second, only the sound of shuffling feet and the clicking of keyboards. Finally Dick coughed and handed Nik the broken dial with a brusque nod and a clap on the shoulder before power-walking back to his own closed office.

Nik glanced down at the broken piece with a wry smile. "Well, there goes that. At least it's not too serious."

"I, uh," you fiddled with your phone. "You were telling me about how you fixed it earlier. I'd like to hear more about that, if that's okay. Only if you want to!"

"Yeah, I do." The butterflies resurrected, fanning themselves into a tornado when he sat down by your desk, knees touching yours under the table. "I'd love to."

#criminallyyoursfanfic #criminallyyours #criminallyyoursvn #criminally yours vn #yanjam #yandere vn #Annan #Nik #Chronos #otome #indie otome #english otome #otome game

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