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oneandahalfwolf · 5 years

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happy birthday to @tigresswraith, the mun behind @hellishtrickster.

Winter had arrived once more. The wind had an icy bite and snow was starting to fall, lightly for now but eventually would cover the region in a thick blanket.

Also once more, Benkai'l and Orianna were heading to Neverwinter to rent a cabin for the season. They had met up earlier to go on one last adventure before settling down for a long and much needed rest. An adventure together.

They'd taken a freelance job from the town noticeboard, a kobold nest in the local mines. The siblings had taken care of the infestation and headed back to collect their extra coin before moving on to the inn for a drink to celebrate a job well done. They still had a day before their cabin was ready, what better way to spend it than getting blind drunk.

They entered the inn and Ben directed Ori over to a booth with their things while they headed over to the bar. Arden greeted them warmly and instructed his assistant, a young man very new to the job, to fetch two large tankards of his finest ale - on the house of course - while he asked the wolf-kin about their exploits with ‘that blasted nest’. Ben happily told a short, but still impressive sounding, tale to the barkeep as he poured them a shot of Lycan Whiskey. While it wasn’t the only ‘werewolf proof’ (as in alcohol that could beat a werewolf’s fast metabolism and get them drunk rather than alcohol that a werewolf was immune to - which was most other alcohol really) beverage available, Arden could tell Ben wanted to start slow today, wanted to last well into the night. But that didn’t mean the kid didn't deserve a good buzz to begin the afternoon.

Ben accepted the shot and knocked it back with no trouble, hissing slightly at the pleasant burn the drink left behind as it travelled down their throat. They inhaled and opened their eyes, irises flashing yellow as warmth pooled in their belly. They gave Arden a big grin and the man laughed heartily, clapping them on the shoulder. His new hire finally returned with the tankards and the wolf-kin took them with a nod before heading back over to their sister. They placed her drink in front of her before sitting in the seat across and taking a swig of their own.

They made a face as the set the tankard back down, brows furrowing. The drink had a slight bitter taste they didn't remember this ale having. But it was gone as quickly as it came, washed away by a sweetness that made their tongue tingle. Orianna gave them a quizzical look but they just smiled and shrugged. The tiefling accepted it and the siblings soon devolved into quiet conversation, intermittently drinking from their tankards.

About halfway through their drink Ben started to feel lightheaded , something that shouldn't be happening after such a small amount of a drink that wouldn't so much as get them tipsy after ten let alone half a tankard. The wolf-kin made a soft groan and scrunched up their face, one hand going to their head as the other went to their stomach when a dull pain shot through both. Ori made a teasing remark but they didn't hear it. They were starting to feel sick, sweat beading on their skin as a hot and feverish sensation started to make itself known, body beginning to ache and hands shaking much worse than usual. It all felt somewhat familiar, reminding them of when they were much younger, when they had wandered off from their Mama in wolf form while on a walk in the forest and eaten a flower they shouldn't have. One that had made them very ill.

Their eyes widened and their blood ran cold as realisation hit them. They stood suddenly, almost knocking the table over and stumbling slightly as they tried to get out of the booth, but immediately froze as their body locked up. All the colour drained from their face as they swayed on the spot, mouth agape as all words caught in their throat. They could hear blood rushing in their ears as their gaze flicked to Ori, eyes filled with fear.

“Alchemist,” was the only word the managed to croak out before their eyes rolled back in their head and the wolf-kin keeled over, hitting the wooden floor with a loud thud.

“Kai!”

Orianna rushed over to her brother’s limp form, worry and concern now full blown panic. Golden eyes were wide as she shook them, trying desperately to rouse them. But her attempts did nothing and she could only watch in horror as a trickle of black liquid escaped from the corner of their mouth. Arden joined her, face drained of colour as his own fear at the situation showed.

“What’s wrong?”

“I… I’m not sure.” The tiefling’s voice was quiet, eyes trained solely on the wolf-kin on the floor. She had an inkling but she didn't want to voice it. In case it was wrong, or perhaps because admitting it made it real and meant things could be dire - she wasn't sure. “But they said ‘alchemist’ before they fell.”

“Then you better get them there then,” Arden said softly, clapping the tiefling on the shoulder and giving it a squeeze. “And don’t worry, I’ll look after your things lass. You just take care of the wee pup.”

Orianna nodded robotically before scooping up Ben to carry them bridal style and then hurrying out the door. She sprinted as fast as she could with the, thankfully light, werewolf in her arms, down the road towards the alchemist - not giving the other denizens another thought as they were forced to leap out of her way. She ignored their indignant shouts and reached the door she seeked. The tiefling kicked the door hard repeatedly, since her hands were busy, and hoped the alchemist was in. The gods were on her side when she heard an exasperated shout from the other side, though she didn’t let up her incessant banging.

Eventually, after what seemed like an age though it was probably only a few seconds, the door flew open and a rather grumpy looking elf in green robes glared at her from inside. His expression changed when he saw the sight before him - the stricken tiefling panting hard and the pale figure cradled in her arms.

“Help,” Orianna said desperately, “Please.”

The alchemist paused for a brief moment before nodding and ushering the red woman in quickly. Ori moved through the doorway and the elf shut the door behind her before urging her to place his new patient on the table in the next room. The tiefling did so and tried to settle Ben comfortably, needing to do something that could be helpful given she felt so helpless. However the elf soon pushed her out of the way - Orianna having to resist hissing at him for it - so he could examine the skinny person now on his table.

“Tell me about my patient.” The elf was blunt but when it came to trying to urgently save lives sometimes tact took a backseat.

“Their name’s Benkai’l. They’re a wolf-kin, and a werewolf. We were drinking at the inn. They only had half a tankard when they started to act funny. They stood up, asked for an alchemist, and then fell over.”

The elf nodded along with her as he moved around the table. He placed a hand to the wolf-kin's forehead and felt the heat from the fever they were clearly under immediately, also noting their pale complexion yet oddly shiny and rosy cheeks. He saw the trickle of black liquid on their chin and peeled back their lips, seeing elongated fangs that were stained with the same blackness. Unconscious transformation and onyx ichor already was a bad sign. He opened their eyelids and thankfully saw grey irises, as well as pupils that responded to the change in light. Some good news at least. He gave a firm nod to himself before scampering over to his work station.

“It's as I feared,” he said as he pulled various vials off the shelves and placed them onto the desk in front of him. “Your friend -”

“Brother.” The man raised a brow but didn't say anything. He'd seen many a strange family in his time, so this was nothing new.

“Your brother has been poisoned. With wolfsbane.”

Orianna felt her heart sink as her suspicions were confirmed. While she'd only ever witnessed Ben be hit by non-lethal or knockout wolfsbane, she knew the horror stories of the flower and its effect on werewolves. Her brother had told her some of their own, and now she had to witness it first hand.

“Can you fix this?”

“Perhaps,” said the alchemist as he placed ingredients into a mortar before crushing them with a pestle, adding splashes of liquid from three different vials and finally stirring. “First I need to purge the poison, get whatever hasn’t been absorbed into their bloodstream out of their body. Do that and it will give them more time, a better chance. It will also allow me to get a better idea of how much of a toll the poison has already taken on their body.”

The elf placed the pestle down and picked up the mortar, before bringing it over to his patient. He propped up the werewolf’s head and then carefully poured the mixture down their throat. Orianna moved closer, protective instincts kicking in, her eyes trained on the alchemist’s every move before they flicked to Ben as he moved back and placed the mortar down.

It was lucky she had moved forward as suddenly Ben's eyes snapped open, their irises now glowing bright yellow, and they twisted their body so the could lean over the side of the table, the only thing saving them from pitching right off it was Orianna's hand now grasping the back of their shirt. The air was filled with the horrible sound of retching as Ben vomited up thick black liquid onto the floor before, eventually, they collapsed back onto the table, unconscious once more. Ori gently pulled the wolf-kin onto their back again and wiped their chin free of residue with her shirt, not caring that it was getting stained. The alchemist checked their eyes again, pleased to see they'd gone back to grey, before looking at the splattered mess on the floor. His jaw clenched and his face hardened when he saw blood mixed in with the expelled ichor. He licked his lips and turned to Orianna with a grim expression, placing his hands on the table as he leant against it.

“You have a choice to make,” the elf said gravely. The tiefling tilted her head in confusion.

“A choice?” The alchemist nodded.

“I can give them a basic antidote made of the Nine Herbs, but there’s no guarantee it would cure them. This particular wolfsbane may be too powerful for such a simple antidote. The only way to be certain would be to find the exact strain of wolfsbane that was used to poison them. If you find that, then they I can synthesise a specific cure with no problems. However if you failed to find it, then we’d be forced to use the basic antidote and the longer we leave it, the less effective it will be.”

“Can’t we just give them the basic one now, and then the specific one later when I find it.” The elf shook his head.

“Unfortunately not. The two potions cannot both be administered as some of the ingredients do not mix well together, while others are in both and would lead to an overdose of said ingredient. They would end up dying anyway.” The alchemist sighed and glanced at his patient before turning back to the tiefling with a grim expression. “That’s your choice. Either I give them the basic antidote now and hope it’s enough, or you find the wolfsbane they were poisoned with and get it to me as soon as possible so I can make the cure. You have to make the decision.”

Orianna had to fight to keep her breathing steady at this grave revelation. She looked down at her brother - their face paler than usual, dark circles around their eyes even darker and shinier, their blue tinged lips now stained with blackness - and clenched her jaw. There was no way she was going to let them die. She had refused before when they were a self-destructive mess, she wasn’t about to let it happen when they weren’t to blame. She looked back up at the elf, golden eyes hard with resolve.

“I will find the person responsible,” the tiefling growled, “and I will make them give me the flower they used to poison my little brother.” The elf couldn’t help but smile and nodded sagely, accepting her choice.

“Very well, I’ll begin making the cure while you go and find the most important ingredient. Just remember, be quick. It’s hard to say how much time they have. But I don’t see it being more than a few hours.”

Orianna nodded before turning back to Ben. She bent down and, after sweeping sweat soaked hair away, placed a kiss to their forehead, stomach dropping when she felt the skin beneath her lips blazing hot instead of the usual freezing cold.

“I’ll be back soon Kai. Just hold on okay.”

She gave their hand a squeeze before finally taking the courage to leave them in the alchemists care, letting go and heading towards the door. She marched quickly and purposefully back towards the inn. That’s where Ben had gotten sick, she would bet all the coin she had that’s where the person who poisoned them was too. She had a suspicion based on the events that had transpired, and again she’d bet on herself being right.

When she reached the door she kicked it open and stepped inside. All talk ceased, the air palpable, tension thick. Heat wafted off Oriannas body, the immediate area around her form hazy. She turned to Arden, gaze steely. She knew it wouldn’t have been him, but he would know who.

“Who poured our drinks?” Her tone was hard and left no room for arguments.

Arden frowned and looked over to his new barkeep, who was standing at the other end of the bar, leaning against it next to a couple of young men around a similar age - likely his friends. The tiefling set her jaw and stalked over to him, placing her hands on the bar and leaning in close. His friends seemed to scoot back, and while the man himself tried to remain nonchalant, Ori could see the sweat breaking out on his forehead and the fear in his eyes.

“Why did you do it?”

“What?” the man said with a shrug and a smirk that Orianna wanted to punch off his face. “It was just a prank. He’s only a stupid wolf-kin. He’ll get sick and then be fine.”

Orianna growled, barely restraining the urge to roar in his face, and reached out, grabbing the lapels of his shirt and pulling him clean over the bar. The man giving a loud yelp that quickly turned into a grunt and a thud as the tiefling slammed him into the ground. The fabric of his shirt started to smoulder, golden eyes boring into his as she yanked him back up towards her a little, face inches from his.

“They’re a werewolf too you imbecile! You poisoned them!” The man at least had the sense to pale. “Where is it!? Where’s the wolfsbane you used!?”

“It’s behind the bar,” he said pointing in said direction, “Under the ale, behind the jerky jars.” Arden immediately moved to said location, unnoticed by the man who simply gave the tiefling a sneer. “If you ask me, it’s better off dead. It’s kind don’t belong here. Besides you’re the only one who cares if that mutt dies hell spawn.”

“You're wrong there,” came Arden's gruff voice, no longer kind and soft but harsh and full of underlying rage. The man looked over at him, swallowing at the hard look on his face, before craning his head back to see pretty much the entirety of the tavern patrons - bar his friends - standing tall and staring down at him with equally hateful and angry expressions. The barkeep held the small vial with half of a dark purple flower inside it to Ori. “We'll take care of this pathetic weasel lass. You go take this to the pup.”

Orianna looked back over to the group of patrons, who had moved closer with a few cracking their knuckles and glaring down at the spineless man who had hurt one of their own, and couldn't help but smile a little. She let go of the man's shirt, letting him crumple to the ground, and grabbed the vial from Arden before rushing back out the door without looking back, the desperate attempts. of the man to beg his way out of whatever was to come music to her ears.

She hurried back to the alchemist, wasting no time in knocking as she burst through the door and headed back to where she'd left the elf and Ben. Her breathing hitched and she stopped in her tracks when she laid eyes on her brother, looking so much worse for wear already. Their claws had come out, though only on their left hand, and the black ichor had started to trickle from one of their nostrils as they struggled for breath, rattling and shallow gasps barely escaping their stained lips.

“Over here child,” the alchemist said, breaking her stupor as he urged her over to his work station. “Hurry.”

Orianna rushed over and handed him the vial. The elf quickly uncorked it and tipped the contents into the mortar before grinding what was left of the flower down into a fine powder. He added that to the large beaker that held the rest of the ingredients and finally stirring everything together. The potion turned from a pale green to the same dark purple that the flower had been. Happy the alchemist took the beaker and walked back to Ben, tilting their head and pouring the specialised antidote down their throat before gently placing their head back onto the pillow.

The tiefling cautiously moved closer, eyes trained intently on Ben as she held her breath. She could see their claws slowly start to retract and their fangs follow suit, but still their eyes remained closed. Her heart was beginning to sink when finally she was met with the sight of grey pupils as the wolf-kin woke with a deep inhale. Orianna couldn't help but laugh with relief, crouching down beside the table and taking hold of Ben's hand in both her own. She watched their gaze dart about the room before finally settling on her as she provided a point of focus. They looked at her with bleary confusion before they seemed to realise they were somewhere different, that things had changed since they were last conscious.

“What happened? Are you okay?”

Ori couldn't help laugh again. That was Ben all over. Literally on their deathbed and asking if someone else was okay. She leaned forward and gave them a kiss to the forehead.

“I'm fine Kai, you just get some rest okay.”

The werewolf didn't seem to have the energy to question or argue, so despite still looking confused they just nodded their head before letting it fall back onto the pillow. Orianna gave another kiss to the back of their hand, not once letting go as she took vigil by their bedside, eventually sitting in a chair the alchemist provided but other than that remaining there, right beside her little brother.

#//i hope you have/had a lovely day!#//and that you enjoy this little drabble of our babs.#scruffy werewolf (self)#devilish rogue (orianna)#swords and shield (main canon)#scattered papers everywhere (drabble)#myths and legend (headcanon)#sit and tinker (self made)

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finalproblem · 6 years

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🦈 Shark Repellent

Time for a bit of a rehash. But at least it’s been nearly a year? (Yes, I am absolutely framing my slow posting speed as a positive. Thanks for noticing.)

See, I need a post (for reasons) I can link to that explains how I think Mary faked her death in The Six Thatchers. But last time I wrote this up, The Lying Detective hadn’t even aired yet. It seems needlessly confusing to link back to that old version with all of its didn’t-know-what-would-happen-next baggage.

Plus I wanted a version that focused more on the basic mechanics of the hoax. So I’m leaving out some chunks of explanation about how I reached certain conclusions and about canon parallels. You can dig back a year if you care about that.

Here goes. (Again.)

The little bit of canon background you do need:

Since after Series 3, I have argued that Mary is an adapted version of Birdy Edwards, a character from Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Valley of Fear.

When bad folks from Birdy’s past finally caught up with him after years, Birdy faked his own death by gunshot.

Birdy’s wife and friend both helped with the fake death / cover-up.

I could talk a lot more about The Valley of Fear if I let myself, but I’ve done that already. So this time, let’s just cut to the working premise that: Mary is a version of Birdy, she faked her death by gunshot because she needed to get away from baddies from her past, and she was assisted in this endeavor by her spouse and a friend. (You can decide if I’m being too generous with the word “friend” when I tell you it was Mycroft, but whatever.)

Sherlock wasn’t in on the fake death plan.

Even Vivian Norbury (the woman who shot Mary) wasn’t in on the plan.

How does that work?

The mechanics:

Sherlock was on Vauxhall Bridge when he figured out Vivian Norbury was the one behind the Tbilisi incident. He immediately ran off toward the MI6 Building.

Sherlock must’ve spoken to someone in Vivian’s office soon after, because he later explained that was who told him Vivian would be at the aquarium.

Sherlock sent texts to Mary and John (still daylight outside their window) to tell them to meet him at the London Aquarium.

The Watsons had a discussion about who would watch Rosie, and then it was implied that Mary would go ahead and John would catch up after finding a sitter.

Implied but not shown.

This is significant because without changing anything we were shown, it leaves a gap for Mycroft to have called the Watsons before Mary made it out the door. It would’ve been easy enough for Mycroft to have heard what was about to go down directly from Sherlock or from someone Sherlock had talked to at MI6.

So here we’ll assume an intentionally missing scene where Mycroft told the Watsons, “You know how we’ve been working on that secret plan to fake Mary’s death because something-something-bad-people-from-the-past-who-were-out-to-get-her? Here’s our chance to get out there and make this fake death happen, kids!” (I mean, I’m probably paraphrasing a little.)

And the idea that Mycroft and the Watsons had at least a little time to put a fake death plan in place offscreen there works, because it was dark out by the time Sherlock arrived at the aquarium.

Mary was the next to arrive, explaining John was on his way. (This was, of course, part of the plan.)

Vivian asked Sherlock and Mary to let her go, while not-so-subtly reaching into her handbag.

Mary responded angrily, prompting Vivian to pull a gun from her handbag. As soon as she goaded Vivian into getting the gun out, Mary softened and backed away. («I want to make sure you’re ready to shoot me and that you think it was your own idea, but I don’t want it to happen yet.»)

In a cab elsewhere in London, John was apparently calling someone to let them know they needed to go to the aquarium right away. The audience never found out who specifically he called.

There are a few different options here that work with the fake death, but the simplest is to say John called Lestrade—who was also not in on the plan. So that’s what I’ll go with for this post. («Hey, Greg, if you and a couple officers wouldn’t mind coming round to the aquarium so you can be witnesses to a totally real tragedy that isn’t fake at all, that’d be super-helpful. Thanks.»)

It may be worth noting that in this scene we got an unusual (for this show) and seemingly gratuitous shot from the windshield of John’s cab. And if you stop to identify the landmarks and buildings from that view, the cab was on Whitehall Street near the Department of International Development. Which happens to be right along the route if one were to, say, drive the single mile from Mycroft’s office at the Diogenes Club to the London Aquarium. Just saying.

Back at the aquarium, it was Sherlock’s turn to needle Vivian. Mary looked concerned and tried to caution him more than once. («Come on, man, be careful. I know you don’t know this, but it’s not time for her to shoot me yet. If this goes wrong you could actually get hurt.»)

Mycroft was the next person to arrive at the aquarium, with Lestrade and some police officers a few of steps behind him.

Obviously in the fake death scenario we’re building, he wasn’t actually surprised to see Vivian there since either Sherlock or someone at MI6 had already let Mycroft know that Sherlock was looking for her.

(And even without the fake death in play, I still think it makes more sense to read Mycroft’s line as “this is unexpected that you’d be the person behind Tbilisi because I would’ve arrested you a long time ago if I’d known” than it does “this is unexpected because I came down this shark tunnel with absolutely no idea who our suspect was” seeing as how the first thing Sherlock did when he thought Lady Smallwood was “Amo” was to let Mycroft know. But that’s all beside the point because this is 1000% a fake death post. SO BACK TO THAT.)

Mycroft cast a look to his hard left—towards Mary.

Cut to a close shot of Sherlock, then to Vivian, then back to a wider shot of Sherlock (as he demanded the gun) with Mary visible in the background.

Mary surreptitiously glanced across the room behind Sherlock—returning Mycroft’s look.

Presumably this is when Mycroft gave Mary a nod or other prearranged signal off-camera to let her know everything was in place to proceed with the fake death plan.

Which is why immediately after looking at Mycroft, Mary did a funny little thing with her mouth.

You’ve probably heard this one in a spy story before...

During World War II, British and American secret services developed the "L-pill" (lethal pill) which was given to agents going behind enemy lines. It was an oval capsule, approximately the size of a pea, consisting of a thin-walled glass ampoule covered in brown rubber to protect against accidental breakage and filled with a concentrated solution of potassium cyanide. It could be carried in the mouth, shaped as a false tooth .... To use, the agent would bite down on the pill, crushing the ampoule to release the fast-acting poison. (x)

The classic “suicide pill” is only a starting point for us, though, since the whole deal here is Mary faking her death.

So rather than cyanide, I think our own former spy Mary had a glass capsule of curare hidden in her mouth. After getting the signal from Mycroft, she chomped down on it. (Curare’s only dangerous if it enters your bloodstream, but the broken glass capsule would take care of that detail.)

We’ll come back to how curare works, but a fun fact first: it is a poison that was namechecked by Holmes in one of the canon stories.

As soon as Mary bit down on the curare capsule, the clock started ticking for her.

She needed to get shot soon.

When Vivian pulled her gun on Sherlock, Lestrade was the only one to try to talk her down. Mary and Mycroft did nothing—they wanted the situation to escalate.

Vivian fired, and the bullet flew toward Sherlock.

Only to have Mary leap in front of Sherlock and take the bullet for him. She was always the one who was going to get shot that night, not Sherlock.

[And here we have to pause to address the fact that, no, in the real world it isn’t physically possible to jump in front of a bullet after it’s fired. But it is a common trope used in TV and movies to up the drama of a situation. They had to choose between accurate physics and the drama of giving the audience that heartstopping moment of seeing a bullet headed straight for the central character. They chose drama. Not unlike when Sherlock spent way too long falling off that hospital roof in TRF.

Some fans see the bullet jump as a sign that nothing about this scene was real. Which, okay. That’s totally your call to make, but then this really isn’t the theory post for you. Because personally, my take is that if the whole thing was going to be revealed as imaginary they wouldn’t have bothered building in all the pieces they needed for a faked death explanation. And I don’t begrudge them a little TV showmanship here, especially since it’s far from the first time it’s happened in this show so I’m used to it by now. There’s also something to be said for needing the flying leap to establish that this was an intentional choice Mary made, and the way that fits the internal story logic even if it doesn’t fit “real” logic. But I’m dangerously close to off topic now. Moving on.]

Knowing that Mary was trying to get shot does explain why she didn’t just shove Sherlock out of the way.

A spray of blood appeared from the middle of Mary’s torso.

This is where the layers really start stacking up, so let’s tackle several of them.

The blood was fake, from a pre-placed blood pack. That’s part of why Mary needed to make the effort to dive in and get hit in the center of her body.

The other reason she needed to get hit in the torso was because she was wearing a low-profile ballistic vest under her shirt. A protective vest won’t do a person any good if they get shot, for example, in the head.

Here it’s also worth noting that between the time we saw Mary at home and her arrival at the aquarium, she put on the jacket seen in this later promo picture:

The jacket was large and loose enough on Amanda to buy some plausible cover for any extra side, shoulder, or back lumpiness that could go along with an eventual ballistic-vest-under-the-shirt reveal.

A bullet-resistant vest and a blood pack? Is that all there is to it?

No, for two reasons.

One, while attempting to fake your own death by gunshot isn’t the safest thing to do in the first place, even in that scenario it’s riskier than necessary to jump in front of a standard speeding bullet just because you’ve got a protective vest on.

Two, even if the vest is great at stopping all kinds of bullets, it doesn’t make them disappear. The vest just deforms the bullet on impact, stopping it from penetrating your body. There’s still a chunk of metal left. And if you’re trying to pretend a bullet killed you, you can’t have a squashed bullet stuck in the outer layer of your clothes or falling to the floor with a clink after it hits you.

How did Mary and Mycroft get around this problem? It’s all about the featured vocab word of the episode:

Change the ammo in the gun, and you change the rules.

What kind of ammo could you swap out for standard bullets?

First of all, it wasn’t a blank cartridge in the gun. I’m just getting that out of the way because I know fans like to guess blank cartridges were used any time there’s a suspicious gun death on this show. But the whole point of blank cartridges is that they don’t have a bullet, and we were very clearly shown a bullet in this instance.

There are a number of other possibilities I looked at, but (barring any magic spy bullets from Mycroft’s pals at Q Branch) my favorite real-world option is frangible ammunition.

“Frangible bullets are intended to disintegrate into tiny particles upon target impact to minimize their penetration of other objects.” Generally this means the bullets are made from some form of compressed metallic powder, but they do look like normal solid metal bullets.

(Images above via frangible ammo manufacturer SinterFire.)

To be clear: Frangible ammo still isn’t, like, a toy. Don’t try any of this at home.

But tests have shown that as long as the right conditions are met, frangible bullets don’t penetrate ballistic vests. And since this is a TV show and Mary and Mycroft were controlling the conditions... Sure, that works as a way to get shot but not penetrated by a metallic bullet without leaving an obvious hunk of metal behind as evidence.

Granted, it’s still being hit by a projectile at close range. It probably hurt, and Mary probably had some nasty bruising. Still preferable to actually being murdered, though, if you had the choice? Seems like it.

But surely Vivian Norbury wasn’t conveniently carrying around a gun loaded with practice ammo. If Vivian wasn’t in on the plan, how did her regular bullets get swapped out for frangible ones?

Stop and think back about a couple of things we already know:

Vivian kept her gun in her handbag.

Vivian’s office knew she’d be at the aquarium that evening, per her weekly routine.

The MI6 Building is a short walk (or shorter transit ride) from the London Aquarium. For Vivian to go all the way home to Wigmore Street and get her gun after work, only to return to the aquarium each week would be silly. It’s much more likely she always carried her gun in her handbag, even at work. (Maybe she had permission because she worked in a spy office. Maybe she was just sneaky. I’m not really going to worry about that detail right now.)

Oh and hey...

Earlier in the episode, someone decided it was worthwhile to show people who were paying very close attention that Vivian did carry her handbag around at work.

For whatever it’s worth, they even took a promo picture that establishes Vivian’s I-carry-my-handbag-at-work cred:

So let’s run a theoretical scenario...

1) Sherlock thought the case over on the bridge and realized he was wrong. He called Mycroft and said it wasn’t Lady Smallwood behind Tbilisi—it was Vivian Norbury.

2) Mycroft could see where this was going, realized it was an opportunity to fake Mary’s death like he’d been secretly working up to with the Watsons, and went into action before Sherlock could make his next move.

3) Mycroft told Lady Smallwood she was off the hook. Better yet, he knew who framed her. And now Lady Smallwood had a chance to help bring the real culprit down. (It’s not strictly necessary for Lady Smallwood to be a part of any of this, but I’m including it because I like the idea of her getting a measure of revenge by taking part in an anti-Vivian plan. And we saw by the next episode that Mycroft does trust Lady Smallwood with important secrets.)

4) We know Sherlock spoke to someone in Vivian’s office to get the aquarium tip. Who’s the only other character we know for sure works in Vivian’s office? Her boss, Lady Smallwood. If Lady Smallwood—in person, over the phone, or through a third party—lied and told Sherlock that nope, Vivian wasn’t around now but she’d be at the aquarium that evening, that would’ve bought Team Fake Death some needed time.

5) Sherlock texted the Watsons to let them know to go to the aquarium. Before either of them left home, Mycroft contacted them to say it was time for the fake death plan. Mary and John proceeded to work out the details with Mycroft before any of them arrived at the aquarium.

6) Back at the MI6 Building, Lady Smallwood created a distraction that allowed her to get hold of her secretary’s handbag for a moment. Just long enough to get the gun out of Vivian’s handbag and swap out the regular bullets for frangible ones.

7) Vivian left work for the day with her gun in her handbag and headed to the aquarium as usual, now an unwitting accomplice in the fake death plan.

(Oh, and the kicker? As of the next episode, handbags became a bit of a running theme.)

So the frangible bullet from the handbag gun hit Mary, broke open her hidden blood pack, and then crumbled to pieces when it hit her ballistic vest.

The police restrained Vivian and escorted her away, clearing the scene of non-recurring characters.

Sherlock put a hand on Mary’s “wound,” but never got as far as properly inspecting it or even taking his glove off.

Sherlock told Mycroft to get an ambulance. What, no mobile phone signal in the shark room? More like he left the room to go stand in the hall for a minute pretending to make the emergency call. Because this was all a plan and any medical assistance they needed was already in on it and standing by.

Speaking of...

John arrived in the room just as Mycroft left.

Now, this was just 12 seconds after the bullet hit Mary.

This was not a tragic coincidence of John arriving mere seconds too late.

This was a dude standing a little ways down the hall waiting to hear a gunshot.

And once he did, he rushed in so he could be the doctor on the scene. That way no one else would have a chance to figure out the trick. (This is so much like the technique Sherlock used to fool John into thinking he was dead after the fall that it’s kind of hilarious to see it get turned around.)

We could also pause here to consider that the alleged reason John was arriving at the aquarium after Mary was because he had to find an available babysitter and wait for them to arrive. Yet he showed up at the aquarium a mere 4.5 minutes after his wife did. Even if we assume there was some time condensing in the editing and double or triple that... Either John had amazing luck getting a babysitter (maybe he grabbed the first person who happened to be walking past his house?) or ultimately it wasn’t about the babysitter at all. For example: Mycroft called, all of the Watsons went to the Diogenes (hence John’s later cab location), Rosie got dumped on Anthea’s desk, Mary popped a ballistic vest on and drove to the aquarium, and John waited five minutes before taking a taxi. Or any variation of that general concept.

John rushed over to Mary and put his bare hand on her “wound.” Presumably this was meant to look like an effort to stop the bleeding. Except of course she wasn’t really bleeding and a blood pack only holds so much fake blood, so the blood stain never really grows for the rest of the scene anyway.

Nevertheless, this faux first aid was enough to get Sherlock to back off and leave the situation to John. Which was the point.

Mary began a big ol’ goodbye speech.

And this—this is where we need to come back to talk about curare as promised.

Curare is a funny kind of poison. It actually works by causing paralysis of “every voluntarily controlled muscle in the body (including the eyes).” The paralysis comes on in stages. “It first affects the muscles of the toes, ears, and eyes, then those of the neck, arms and legs, and finally, those involved in breathing. In fatal doses, death is caused by respiratory paralysis.”

It doesn’t stop your heart, though. That’s super important. Because that means if curare gets in your bloodstream and your lungs shut down, you can still avoid death as long as you get artificial respiration in time. If someone helps your body keep breathing, you’ll be okay. There are also antidotes that help the curare paralysis be reversed more quickly.

So Mary’s giant goodbye speech? That was her running out the clock, waiting for her muscle groups to paralyze one by one. Once it got to her lungs, she’d look very convincingly dead. No more breathing, and she couldn’t blink or twitch a finger even if she wanted to.

The only tell that curare-poisoned Mary was alive would’ve been the fact that her heart was still beating.

But that’s not a problem when your in-on-the-plan doctor husband was the only one who was allowed to check your pulse.

When Sherlock tentatively reached out a hand...

...John lashed out at him, effectively keeping Sherlock away from fake-dead Mary. No observing for you today, detective!

Then we arrived at the Hair Sniff of Death™ (happens at about 1 hour, 19 minutes, and 59 seconds in on my copy).

Crank the sound up, and it definitely sounds like John whispered Mary’s name. Not that it would be very strange to whisper the name of someone who just died, but then he seemed to continue with an inaudible whisper in Mary’s ear.

Curare paralysis mimics locked-in syndrome, meaning Mary would still have been conscious and capable of hearing John even though she couldn’t respond. So this would make sense as a moment for him to whisper some kind of reassurance that everything was going to plan and she’d be okay.

Okay as long as she got some oxygen soon, that is.

By the end of the scene, only Mary, John, Mycroft, Lestrade and Sherlock were left in the room. And by my count, Mary had only been fully passed out for less than a minute and a half. So, granted, there’s not a lot of time to play around. But as long as Mycroft got Lestrade and Sherlock out of there basically right after we cut away from our characters, John would’ve been able to start artificial respiration before the usual window for preventing brain damage due to lack of oxygen closed. (Sherlock was in shock and of course Greg has a tendency to do whatever Mycroft tells him to 😉, so it’s plausible enough that Mycroft could’ve hustled them out quickly.)

Since Team Fake Death knew about the curare in advance, they could also have had a dose of antidote standing by so the paralysis would wear off faster.

Mary recovered from the curare, Mycroft dealt with the paperwork and covered up anything that would look suspicious, blah, blah, blah. You’ve been watching this show long enough to know the fake death drill.

John opted for cremation for Mary’s body, precisely because there was no body and it’s easier to hide that if there’s nothing left for anyone to dig up.

And thanks to A Scandal in Belgravia, we’ve already established that Mycroft knows how to get his hands on an urn full of substitute human ash.

The last little bit of fake death business in the episode was John walking through a cemetery.

With this shot edited in after all the aquarium stuff, it’s easy to watch and assume John is at the cemetery for reasons related to Mary’s death. Easy to assume that, but... there’s nothing there to actually confirm that assumption.

Let’s try coming at this from a different angle. What’s another reason for someone in this show to go to an old-looking cemetery? Mycroft gave us one a couple of episodes ago in His Last Vow.

Mycroft: Five known bolt holes. There’s the blind greenhouse in Kew Gardens and the leaning tomb in Hampstead Cemetery.

Sherlock had a bolt hole in Hampstead Cemetery, and Mycroft knew about it. If they needed to hide Mary somewhere for a little while after the fake death, a cemetery bolt hole’s a pretty good spot. John could pretend he was visiting his wife’s cremated remains... and then pop over to the leaning tomb to visit his actual wife. (If you watch this part for real, it does look like John may have turned his head to make sure he wasn’t being watched near the end of this shot. Though it’s almost impossible to be sure, since he’s out of focus by then.)

And, y’know, the leaning tomb in Hampstead?

That did come up as the third place on Mycroft’s list of bolt holes to monitor at the end of The Lying Detective.

So it was on the writers’ minds.

“But why would they fake Mary’s death?”

Since His Last Vow, they’ve been setting up the idea that bad people were after Mary, and that’s why she needed to stay hidden in her “normal” life.

And then in The Six Thatchers, bad people did try to kill Mary.

But here’s the catch.

Those people were Ajay—whom Mary previously believed to be dead—and Vivian Norbury—who no one saw as more than a secretary.

Ajay and Vivian weren’t the baddies Mary was hiding from.

There’s still someone else out there who wants her dead. And if that person was getting a little too close...

Mary had a straightforward enough motive for faking her death. Same as Birdy Edwards in the novel. If your enemies think you’re dead, they stop looking for you and you get to stay alive.

Also easy to see why John wouldn’t mind helping his wife and the mother of his child avoid being murdered.

Mycroft... Eh. There might be enough to Mycroft and Mary’s backstory that he actually wants to help her for her own sake. We don’t really have enough details filled in yet, but it’s possible.

Even if Mycroft doesn’t care about Mary as any kind of friend, though, considering she used to do work for the British government, I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to guess some of Mary’s enemies are also Mycroft’s enemies. Maybe faking Mary’s death is a means to an end in luring them out.

There’s also the problem of Sherlock’s obsession with protecting Mary and keeping his vow. How many times did it almost get him killed in this episode alone? Mycroft and the Watsons could’ve all decided it would really be better if Sherlock didn’t get murdered trying to save Mary from a particularly nasty baddie lurking on the horizon.

[I do have thoughts on making this vague baddie more specific, but that’s a discussion for another post.]

“But how could John be in on it?”

I agree that from The Lying Detective on, John was genuinely grieving for his dead wife and not putting on an act. We saw him behaving that way even when there was no one in-show around to observe his behavior. So how does that square with the idea that he helped Mary fake her death?

The short answer: TD 12.

The writers set up a scenario that makes no sense if John remembers what happened... and then introduced a drug that can wipe memories (and corrupt older memories) in the very next episode.

John helped Mary and Mycroft with the fake death, and then they TD-12ed him until he didn’t remember doing it. (Whether that was always the plan or Mary and Mycroft sprung it on John later because they’re both okay with being a little ruthless, who knows.)

There’s a lot more I could say about this, but this post is already very long. Plus I already wrote a bunch of TD 12 posts back when Series 4 was still airing, and I have things I haven’t written any posts about yet that I’d really like to. So maybe I’ll bash through TD 12 again in a future post? Eventually? I dunno.

The point is, there’s a magic memory erasing drug. I don’t think it’s a problem to say John doesn’t remember doing something.

“I don’t buy it.”

Okay.

You don’t have to.

This isn’t really a “talk you into it” post.

It’s more of a “I needed to have this written down in a relatively clean way so I could move on and write about new things” post.

Some of the new things I plan to write about (eventually) will help explain more of how this fits into what happened in The Lying Detective and The Final Problem.

Maybe you’ll feel like the Mary faked her death thing makes sense then.

Or not.

It’s fine either way.

🦈🦈🦈

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