The chicken charged forward, drawing closer to the small amount of the audience that remained and flattening the semi-royal Gourd members that had been surrounding it with grappling hooks that Biscuit Pisser and Krumbumbum had attempted to make Broderica aware of.

THUM THUM THUM THUM THUM THUM

“Stop staring at them!” Biscuit Pisser covered her tits as she screamed down to the people the chicken was flattening.

With a gusting wind enough to chill even Lady Krumbumbum who had quickly cast three or so anti-chill spells, the chicken lurched into the air.

BUKAAAAAAWWWFFFFFFFFFFFFSHHH

It spread its majestic wings while spraying a barrage of flame all over the ostrich racing field, the two and a half ostriches that had somehow not already been killed, Broderica’s flask that she had tossed and killed a bird with, and finally at the false sky that enclosed them in the humongous balloon. This disintigrated so quickly that if one was not looking closely it would scarcely be noticeable from the actual Caldonian sky, which the balloon had naturally been mimicking by way of magic.

WFFF WFFF WFF WFF

The chicken flapped its mighty wings as it ascended higher and higher, writhing like a feathery serpent. Broderica, Lady Krumbumbum and Biscuit Pisser watched in awe as the world below them grew smaller and smaller as the sky grew wider and wider, all the while listening in annoyance as their ears popped harder and harder.

Soon, all they could easily see was the faint outline of the world below them and the swirling, turbulent clouds in the air among them. The chicken’s wings ceased their fast flapping and remained outstretched as it slowly glided around.

“So this is a chicken,” Biscuit Pisser wondered.

“No, it’s actually a feathered sardine, you buffoon!” chided Broderica.

“Really?”

“Not no really Biscuit Pisser. Broderica’s just being a bit of a vitch Biscuit Pisser don’t listen to her. She’s just annoyed because her huge boobs are making her back sore.”

“Accurate,” Broderica agreed with a belch, finishing off the whiskey bottle and tossing it through the air behind her.

“Anyways Biscuit Pisser anyways let me ask you a question Biscuit Pisser.” Krumbumbum’s eyes dilated like a puppy’s and she put on her most patronizing voice. “Can you read?”

Biscuit Pisser vibrated with insulted ferocity and could barely stop herself from pushing Krumbumbum right off the chicken. “Are you clucking serious?”

“Yea Krumbumbum shut up you’re just mad you lost all your books in that house fire.”

Krumbumbum almost jerked around and smacked Broderica right off the chicken. In fact she did jerk, but this sent her top tumbling off her shoulders, exposing her embarassingly hard nipples which she then rushed to cover. “Bass turd,” she hissed.

“I was just saying Krumbumbum that this chicken you know it used to be a small brown gremlin.”

“Thank you for reminding me Biscuit Pisser I was only the one who tickled it back into a chicken.”

“And so chickens are this big nebulous thing that a lot of people worship. I mean, all of us swear against the chickens all the time.”

“And?”

“Well it’s just really making me think about my worldview and whether it’s all it’s stalked up to be. And it’s making me kind of anxious. Do you ever get like that?”

Broderica spat near her patch of chicken back, smirking. “No.”

***

Werthers gasped for air, opening his eyes. He was laying on the ground, in what appeared to be a tent, in darkness, his last memory being submerged in a thick wave of sewage. He smelled similarly. His stomache grumbled. But he was dry.

Werthers pulled himself to his feet and retched, shuttering. He heard a match strike behind him. He turned around to see the cigarette in its obnoxiously long holder slowly inching forward through a part in the tent cloths.

“How’re youfe doing, Wormy? Ready for the nefft phafe of our pthan? Oh whof am I kidding youf know efthactly what to do like alwaythf. Anywaythf I’m glad ya made it out of there Wormy I waf worried that fit funami might really cluff youfe up! Youfe really are the befft. Anywhatfit, here’f Ronaldo wif your cofftume.”

Ronaldo walked in from the other side of the tent wearing a safari outfit and holding a mess of bright purple rubber.

“Here you are, Worms!” Ronaldo dropped the rubber mess at Werthers’ feet.

“An ostrich costume?”

“But of course, my hood worm man! Just like we agreed on! Now go ahead, suit up, chup!”

Werthers sighed and stretched the ostrich suit over his feet, struggling to pull it around his legs and up his torso. Then, Ronaldo picked up the large ostrich head and shlunked it on top of Werthers’ head. He felt sticky, sweaty, and awkward. Not birdlike at all.

“Excellent my worm excellent!” Ronaldo patted Werthers on the back, nearly breaking it, and then fastened a collar around Werthers’ false ostrich neck. “Now, come on then boy, let’s go show those pieces of shupperware what for, tut tut!”

Ronaldo pulled out a small extendable whip and lashed Werthers in the ass thrice.

“Ow!”

“That’s a hood ostrich noise, chup! Now, tut tut, boy, tut tut!” Ronaldo lashed Werthers’ ass again, and this time Werthers’ jutted his ass into the air and trotted around as ostrich-y as possible. Which in the thick rubber suit looked more like a wax sculpture of an ostrich having an intentional siezure.

Werther’s false ostrich head bobbed atop his true head as his eyes peered through the jagged eye holes in his false ostrich neck, watching as Ronaldo pulled him by leash through the tent and into the blinding light of the day.

Or, false day.

They were inside the stables of the ostrich races. The tall, lanky dwarves with their perfectly smooth faces, none of which ever grew facial hair and the thick, baggy clothing with very understated coloring they were clad in made that more than abundantly clear.

Clucking ostrich jockeys. They were nothing but loof northern loons. Whether anyone, even the cheapest and whoreiest of prostitution entities brought into existence by mystical sluttiness spells would sleep with them was a question that Wethers was glad he would never know the answer to.

“‘ey ‘ey Geral’ine you ‘ee that ‘ady over ‘ere?” drawled a stinky, sticklike jockey, clothes billowing around like a miniature forest caught in a hurricane as he pointed at a stinky woman jockey.

“Oh ah see that laday ovah theyah ah see huh ah see huh Jan’rew ah see huh! Ah wuhk with huh awn toos-days an she ain’t do shit! Lazeh vitch.”

“We’l ‘ou awta knowuh ah been ‘eep in ‘at ‘it ‘ike ah tell you ’s damp as cluck in dere when ahm in da room.”

“Buwallsheeit yow don’ gawt nuthin’ wit dat wommin!”

“Yea yea yea yew ask huh nest tahm yew wuhk with huh see wut see ses!”

“Shut yow stoopid jawkey mowth yew stoopid ol jawkey.”

“Girl yew as stoopid and jawkey ish as ah ever beyn!”

“Hamn wud yew look ayt thayt awstrik! Hamn thang looks lahk ’s gawt thuh jawdice!”

“Hamn Geral’ine yew raht! Look aht that shit thang looks lahk ah hamn rubbah tumah!”

“And that’s all you need to keep in mind going forward, my hood chup,” whispered Ronaldo’s grease tainted breath in Werthers’ ear.

Werthers then realized that Ronaldo had been whispering in his rubber-covered ear the details of what was surely some absurd, dangerous plan.

“Just let me know if you need any of that repeated,” replied Ronaldo warmly as he lashed Werthers in the feathery ass four times and tugged tightly on his leash, leading him in a trot around the stables. Werthers stared up at the false sky and sighed.

“‘ey, who’s ‘at theyuh?” asked a rather flushed and prespiring jockey.

“Why my hood sirrah this is That One!”

“Oh Oh, ‘at one, ay? ’s layt.”

“We had to get his feathers in order. Make sure they were preened and cleaned and blow dried and sprinkled with sparkles and all that what what for.”

The jockey glanced over Werthers skeptically.

“Feathus in awduh? Hamn thang is thuh uwgliest muthucluckin awstrich ah’ve evuh seen! Aw’d uf rathuh yuh plucked thuh feathuhs then gawt um in awduh, iyf this is thuh awduh!”

Werthers could not help but magic a little hurt at hearing this crude dwarf insult his appearance, even if it was most likely due to his ill fitting and iller equipped ostrich suit. Werthers considered he ought to be content with the fact that the jockey accepted him as an ostrich. That was, until Werthers heard the next thing the jockey said.

“Hen, mistah, ah’d uv hayd them Tahtans taws ‘im awf uh cliff ayt burth ‘f ah had thuh uhthawutay.”

This reference to the warmongering Tartans, an ancient Caldonian society that would slaughter their unwanted offspring with the casuality of swatting an incredibly rude gnat, filled Werthers with the fire of rage that would have forced him to at the least attempt to peck the jockey to a bloody pulp with his false beak had he had even a semblance of a backbone. As Werthers did not have a semblance of a backbone due to a rare Caldonian medical condition the situation instead gave him a troubling bout of flatulence.

“Hamn! Yew feedin’ ‘at thang maygik beans aw sumthin’? Muthucluckuh bout tuh sprowt uh beenstawlk owtuh ’s ass!”

“No, kind sirrah,” chuckled Ronaldo, attempting to pat the Jockey on the shoulder before realizing how staggeringly tall they were and instead slapping his knee awkwardly, “He’s just raring to race, the tiger! That One is the fiercest ostrich I’ve ever met!”

“Fiyuce is wun way tuh put it,” muttered the jockey, attempting to stare at the ground but being so tall that the best they could do was stare at their own shins.

WSHHHH

A butcher’s knife flung through the air, whirring past Werther’s face by his left ear and gliding through a tiny gap in the two thick curtains behind them.

“Hands up, cluckers!” ejaculated the belligerently brash voice of Officer seargeant Seargeant Officer Jarmish. Also know undercover as ‘Herbert.’ “Hamn! I spent months honing my knife throwing how could I miss that?”