The smoke below them began to clear and, as Green Garey looked below, he saw that they were floating above a giant skyrate ship.

“Yaaarg!” gasped Green Garey. “So the larrgends arrr true.”

“What in the cluck are you talking about, Green Garey? The legends that women want to be treated like human beings and not sacrificed for ignorant parrot dragons, you motherclucking chauvinist antelope?!”

“Parrmela look down.”

“Don’t you tell me what the cluck to do Green Garey!”

“Parrmela I—”

“I swear to cock Green Garey if you don’t man up and stop being such a clucking—oh shit one second—” she had dropped her notebook. As Pamela bent over as asexually as possible to clasp her notebook she caught a glance of the ship below them. “Oh what in the unfeathery cluck is that Green Garey.”

“What do ye think aye’ve been trying to—”

“Don’t you clucking talk over me Green Garey.”

“Aye—”

“How are we getting down there?”

“W’weyull, a’ah th’thaynk th’thayut i’yfns w’e j’jawst—”

“Who asked you?!” Pamela and Green Garey shouted to Frinkles in unison.

“A’ah w’wus j’jawssay’n w’we c’cowld e’sly j’awst s’slahtley l’lowuh th’ t’tempr’tyur ’n th’s h’heyr h’awt a’yur b’ballun ’n g’geyuntly d’deyuhseyund t’iyul w’weyuh l’ahnd a’abowurd th’ sh’shiyup. A’seeyin a’ayus w’ur r’raht ‘bovt n’ a’awul.”

They both blinked at Frinkles like he’d sprouted eight mouths and a pari of flippers.

“Green Garey I’ve just had an idea,” Pamela’s eyes glinted with insight.

“Aye, matey?”

“We could easily just slightly lower the temperature in the hot air balloon and gently descend until we land aboard the ship. Seeing as we’re right above it and all.”

“Yaarg! Brilliant idea parrgtner!”

Frinkles blinked in erratic sadness as he watched Pamela and Green Garey talk to eachother as if he were but a shadow, a slice of moldy bread, an incredibly rude gnat whom they only but ignored. Worse. At least incredibly rude gnats got swatted at and squished.

Green Garey latched the air pull aside and watched the ship below them grow as the hot air balloon gracefully drifted down.

“AVAST!” shouted a faraway gargley voice. “Intruders at the skyward bow!”

“Avast!” shouted Green Garey. “Someone just shouted avast at us!”

“Well what are we supposed to do about that Green Garey?”

“Aye’m not sure. Parrmela, does this hot airrrr balloon ‘ave any emergency magic laser cannons on it?”

“Not that I’m aware of Green Garey,” Pamela sighed with relief as she had finally found a moment to start sketching Frinkles naked.

“Parrmela, can ye please focus on the tarrrrsk at hand—”

“Don’t wave your creepy looking hook at me while you say hand like you can guilt me for not getting maimed, Green Garey. I don’t chase imaginary drunks named after French colors when I’m supposed to be investigating witches and skyrates while at the local ostrich races.”

“Why did ye emphasize the word skyrates? What has that to do with arrrr current situation?”

“Are you clucking shitting me Green Garey?!” as Pamela waved her notebook in the air Frinkles caught sight of her very imaginative sketches of him and promptly fainted. “I’ve been saying the culprits who robbed that skytrain were skyrates all this time, been looking for skyrates all throughout our investigation, and here we are! Skyrates!”

“Parrmela we don’t know if those are skyrates under us.”

“What?! Green Garey I never! Look at all their ratty bandanas! And if they aren’t skyrates, why did you say that ‘the legends were true’? What legends could you possibly be talking about other than the legends of skyrates prowling the skies robbing skytrains and—”

“Parrmela! Surely ye have heard tale of the Floating Englishwoman?”

Pamela blinked at Green Garey like his hook hand had morphed back into a human one.

SHHHTK

A large harpoon broke through the bottom of the basket right between Pamela and Green Garey. They heard Frinkles wimper as they noticed that one of his legs had been ripped to bits by the blade.

“Ye truly have not heard of the Floating Englishwoman?”

SHHHTK

PSSSSSSSSSSSS

Another large harpoon shot up from the ship, this time puncturing the skin of the balloon.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

“Well, aye guess aye could tell ye. If we live long enough.”

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

“Aye say that because the barrrglloon is sinking rather quickly.”

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

“Spit it out vitch!” Pamela hissed, stepping back directly on Frinkles elbow, snapping it sharply.

KKKSSSSCKKK

“A’AIEEEEEEEEK!” he screamed.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSPPPLLFPFPPFLLFFFFT

The balloon deflated exponentially into nothing.

PBBTLGLGKBKKFFLLFBBBGBBBBBKKKBBBB

The basket crashed into the deck. Pamela and Green Garey scrambled to their feet and dusted themselves off, looking at the foul smelling skyratey forms circling around them like fleshy bipedal vulchers.

“Aye harrve a bad magicing arrgbout this.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Aye. ‘ow is Sprinkles doing?”

“Unconscious. I’m unsure if he has a pulse.”

“Aye. What a vussy.”

“Arghaharghahargharghath! Avast mehardies, avast!” chuckled the bubbly voice of a plump lady cloaked in thicc leather, wearing two eye patches and a magnificent eight cornered hat. “Welcome aboarrrgd.”

“Nice to aquiesce your acquaintance,” Pamela sketched the woman naked fervently, “I am Pamela, and this is Green Garey. We are members of the Royal Gourd, and you’ve sunk our air balloon.What on Gurth were you thinking?”

“Aye was thinking,” the lady chuckled, “that ye were here to rob us!”

“Say,” Pamela bit on the end of her pen, “that accent sounds familiar, doesn’t it, Green Garey.”

“Aye, it does indeed,” Green Garey agreed, scratching his forehead with his hook hand. “But from whence that familiarrrity springs aye know not!”

Pamela blinked in confusion as she tried to parse Green Garey’s apparent lack of self-awareness.

“Excrete me but before ye two get into a whole mess of tongue in cheek asayedes aye would layke to introduce meself.”

“Green Garey you realized what I was trying to imply with that sentence earlier didn’t you?”

“Avast ye? Did aye?”

“You must have Green Garey! She speaks just like you!”

“Yaaarg! Just like me? Thearrr’s no warrrgy!”

“Excrete me! May aye please introd—”

“Do you really not notice all the weird colloquialisms she keeps spouting just like you’ve been the entirety of your time as my partner? Is there something you’re not telling me, Green Garey?”

“Narrrrthing aparrrrt from my bacne.”

Pamela held back bile rising in her throat as she resketched Green Garey’s naked torso to include bacne.

“Avast ye! Listaaarrn to me! Aye am Danielle Johnson! Cap’n of the Floating Englishwoman!”

TSSHHHHHHH TSSHHHHH

Purple charges of ball lightning crackled through clouds in the distance.

“Told ye so,” tsked a smug Green Garey.

“More like I told you so! Now, miss Danielle—”

“Why do ye assume aye ‘m not married?”

“Now, misses Danielle—”

“Aye’m not married Parrmela.”

“Now, miss Danielle—”

“Starrrp overusarrng me name it’s going to get soaarrr and die.”

“That’s not how names twerk.”

“Aye should know,” piped up Green Garey. “Parrmela would’ve used mayne up long arrrggo otharrwise.”

“Now ma’am—”

“Stop being so formal!”

“Ye know, Parrmela, ye may be happy to be right, but if if were witches here instead of skyrates like aye thought everything would be much easier.”

At the mention of witches Danielle Johnson lowered both her eye patches to show her wide, cataract filled eyes.

“Come with me to the cap’ns quarrrgters.”

Pamela and Green Garey gulped in unison and began prefusely sweating as they followed Danielle Johnson across the wide deck and then down a hidden staircase. In a feverish moment they were sitting inside her candlelit quarters, a wide mahogany desk dividing them from the cap’n.

Danielle Johnson lit a tapered cigar and puffed slowly. Then, jittering as if she had realized it was not at all relaxing her, Danielle Johnson scrambled around the desk in search of something. After what seemed like twenty minutes of painful searching but was most likely less than twenty seconds of it, she found a large stainless steel flask that she promptly opened and guzzled down like water.

“Eherm. Sorry arrbout that. Aye have a fart condition.”

Pamela and Green Garey stared at eachother, trying not to let their eyes pop out of their sockets.

Danielle Johnson, now lightly inhebriated, took calm puffs on the cigar. “So, you two finally figured it out, have ye?”

Pamela stood in silence. Green Garey let loose an embarassingly loud bout of flatulence.

“Well I think your silence speaks for itself,” Danielle Johnson added.

Green Garey farted again. Pamela turned to him in disgrosst.

“Did you eat beans recently, Green Garey?”

“Parrmela not narrrgow this is serious shit.”

“I knew it!” Danielle Johson shrieked, swooning backwards. “I knew someone would figure it out eventually. My only regret…my only regret…is not killing you all before it was too late.”

Another fart, but this time from Pamela.

“Aye didn’t know those were contagious, Parrmela.”

“We’re partners, Green Garey.”

Danielle Johnson tossed her hat asunder, put a hand against her forehead and nearly pulled off her scalp. “Arrrrgh! Aye admit it! Aye admit to everything!”

“Hah! Hah hah haah! I told you Green Garey! I told you it was skyrates!” Pamela cackled, waving her notebook around in triumph.

“Avast! Is tharrt a drawing of meself in the nude?” the woman questioned, looking with her two eyepatch covered eyes at Pamela’s notebook.

Pamela jerked her notebook away and blushed. “Hamn it. Sorry. To think I’d been so hood about hiding it from people!”

Pamela felt Danielle Johnson blinking disapprovingly behind her eyepatches.

“It’s nothing sexual. I promise.”

More hidden blinks.

“Look, I draw everyone I meet in here. It helps me keep a mental record. It’s easier for me than taking actual notes.”

“Is this vitch for real Green Garey?”

“Aye,” he nodded, then coughed anxiously, “As far as aye know.”

“Ah! Green Garey! As far as you know? Some partner you are!”

“Anywhathowsit, aye guess aye got a little sidetracked. As ye two surely have figyarrged out by narrgow, aye argm argctually—” Danielle Johnson tore off her eye patches, removed her false beard, set her eight cornered hat on fire with a nearby candle, and tossed her captain’s garments asunder to reveal a dark black cloak, “a witch.”

“Excrete me?” Pamela and Green Garey gaped in unison.

“E’eyukskur’eeyut m’meyuh?” warbled Frinkles, who had wobbled in the room unnoticed on crutches a couple moments ago.

“I told ye so.”

“Cluck off, Green Garey.”