“So, ye finally be awake, aye?” chuckled a wrinkly old voice.

Sir Broderick blinked as his eyes failed to focus in the faint, stinky lighting of wherever the fresh hen he was.

“Where in the fresh hen am I?” he blubbered, looking up at the sky as if cock himself would answer him.

“Down hearrrgh, chuppy,” chuckled the voice.

Sir Broderick looked down to see a crusty old coot with two wooden pegs for legs, two silver hooks for hands, three eyepatches covering their eyes and forehead, and a ten corner hat with a skull embroidered on the front.

“I must say, sirrah,” Sir Broderick stopped as he burped up old alcohol, “Your accent is strange. Where in Caldonia are you from again, if I may ask?”

“Aye’m not from Caldonia. Ye could saye aye’m from the sixty skayes, if ye will.”

“You smug bass turd,” sighed Sir Broderick with a disgruntled eye roll,

“You’re a clucking skyrate. I’m in the choakie, aren’t I?” He looked around, eyes finally focused enough to indeed see the cold stone walls surrounding them, the steel barred window twenty feet in above them letting in but a brush of light and the steel barred door blocking their only exit.

“Aye, matey.”

“My cock, why have you forsaken me?” Sir Broderick tried to put his hands together in prayer to realize that they were cuffed behind his back, “Oh cockhammit are you kidding me?”

“No, we really be in the choakaye, as ye call it.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, you clucking idiot. I was talking to cock.”

“Pffft,” cackled the skyrate, “Religious fool. Cock can’t save ye now. Ye should have hearrrd what the gaurrrrds be charrrrging ye foarrrr. Got a whole list, they do.”

“Clucking hens above! Do you have to talk with that unbearable drawl? I swear to cock I can hardly understand what you’re saying!”

“Ye carrrrnnot teach an old skaye dog new skaye tricks, ye foolhardy scallopwagon.”

“I’m not a scallopwagon!”

“Yes ye arrrrrrrr!”

“And don’t talk to me about dogs, sky or otherwise!”

“Whaye? It just be a figyarrrrrg of speech!”

The clanging of steel boots echoed through the halls of the choakie and stopped by their cell. A scroll unfurled. A gruff voice swore to cock as a bit of it tore apart.

“Turqouise Terry?”

The skyrate perked up, “Aye, matey?”

“You’re off the hook.”

“Aye, but which hook?” he cackled, waving around his two hook hands.

“The one that has you imprisoned. We recieved magickaphone correspondence from your grandson.”

“Avast ye! The lawyarrrg?”

“…Yes, the lawyer. He’s paid off your bail. And then somehow it ended up that we owe both him and you three times that amount due to an oversight of which I have no understanding” sighed the voice as they unlocked the bar door and pushed it aside, “Come on, let me escort you out.”

Sir Broderick’s nostrils engorged as the sweet scent of whiskey tickled them. This guard, whoever they were, had alcohol with them. Sir Broderick suddenly realized the absence of the many flasks he often had hidden on his person. They must’ve been confiscated.

As the guard lumbered in and over to Turqouise Terry, Sir Broderick sprung to his feet, nearly stumbling back to the floor.

“Hello, hood misirrah!”

“Excrete me?” grumbled the guard.

“Ehrm, hello hood sirrah. I’m all ready to head out!”

“H-head out?” puzzled the man, scratching his helmet feathers, “You’re not Tourqouise Terry? A-are you?”

“Oh of course I am—” Sir Broderick kicked dust in Turqouise Terry’s face, causing him to wheeze and hack before he could object, “—Of course I am. Why, I’m so terribly old that I had a witch cast a youngification curse on me.”

“Th-that makes sense,” the guard nodded, walking Sir Broderick out of the cell and down the musty hallway, “I m-mean, with all that lawyer money your grandson can throw around I’d believe you could buy just about anything. I’m impressed we were able to hold you as long as we did.”

“You and me both, my hood piece of chupperware,” Sir Broderick smiled, eyeing the flask swishing to and fro from the guard’s hip, “Say, since we’re such hood pals, where again do you guards keep all the confiscated hoods anywhatnowhow?”

“I-in a big metal chest that says ‘confiscated hoods.’ You laugh but it’s true. We keep it locked because guards used to nick things out of it but don’t worry I-I’m gonna take you by there. S-sorry, by the way.”

“Sorry for what, sirrah?”

“Sorry we p-put that absolute n-nutjob in the cell with you.”

“Oh, it’s no problem,” smiled Sir Broderick, remembering the crusty old skyrate.

“Yea, th-that Sir Broderick the Shitfaced guy is super cl-clucked up. D-didn’t think he was so old and s-skyratey looking but what do I know. A-actually, what I do know is he’s got f-fifty counts of annoying public drunkenness. Th-that’s ten over the l-limit for decapitation, not to m-mention recently commiting a-arson. Two m-more counts of arson and h-he’d of been e-eligible for a d-double exceution. And to th-think, we nabbed him f-for smashing a couple of badly sculpted ceramic pots with a f-flask.”

“Ah, yes,” Sir Broderick swallowed his fartburn nervously, “The Royal Gourd truly is amazing. I’m just glad that I’m on you guys’ hood side again.”

“Oh, me too, me too. Aaand here we are, the confiscated hoods chest!”

It was indeed a big metal chest that said ‘confiscated hoods,’ though confiscated was misspelled and Sir Broderick with a squint noticed it was actually wood painted halffartedly to look like metal. The guard popped open the chest and beckoned Sir Broderick to peer inside, to disappointedly see but a thong, a belt, a saucepan, and a couple of cute little dust bunnies.

“You know, sirrah, if you don’t erradicate those dust bunnies they’ll breed so fast the whole choakie will be teeming with them in a week.”

“They’re both m-men, we checked.”

“Fair enough. Say, old chup, I believe I might have had a flask or two upon my personage whence I was captured, yet I do not see any in here. What, may I say, gives?”

“O-oh, well, we don’t hold on to our prisoners’ confiscated alcohol. Even if they have as much money as you. I’m sure you can buy as much as you want now that you’re free, though. Here, let me just unlock your c-cuffs,” the guard leaned over and then stopped, “Shit, oo-oops, where are th-those keys now…h-hmmm…oh h-here they a-are…”

KLI KK

The second the cuffs fell to the floor Sir Broderick kneed the guard in the helmet, recoiling in pain immediately.

“OWOWOWOWWWWW! MOTHERCLUCKER!!” Sir Broderick cried, “MY CLUCKING KNEE!”

“W-why’d you do that?” whined the Guard, “N-now my eye hole placement is a-all messed up.”

Sir Broderick in a frenzied panic groped through the chest of confiscated hoods, clutched the handle of the saucepan and whacked the guard in the head with it.

“O-wWWWwwww! Th-hat hurt!”

Sir Broderick growled and whacked the guard thrice more in the head.

“S-s-stop it! Don’t be a m-meanie!”

Sir Broderick bristled, dropped the saucepan and grabbed the belt from the chest, swooping behind the guard and wrapping it around his neck.

“U-ugh p-please stop y-you’re making it hard for me to b-breathe!”

“That’s the point, you clucking idiot!”

Sir Broderick froze as he heard the steps of another guard echoe behind them. His eyes looked up to see the figure of a lady built like three boats, clad in much nicer armor than his current guard.

“Heh heh,” chuckled the lady in a voice deeper than a string bass as she looked at the two of them, “I didn’t know you were that kinky, Werthers. Carry on.”

The scary lady sauntered off, continuing to laugh all the while.

“Y-you know, T-Turqouiose Terry, I never planned on being a gaurd. I always wanted t-to be a skytrain c-conductor. E-ever since I was l-little.”

“Oh my cock!” groaned Sir Broderick, “How in the cluck are you still conscious?!”

“I-I ask myself th-that every day.”

“Ugh!” Sir Broderick let loose the belt, gripped the edges of the guard’s helmet with his furry gloves, popped it off and slammed the guard’s head against the side of the confiscated hoods chest three times.

“I-I would really app-appreciate it if you s-stopped.”

“This is ridiculous!”

“I-I know I keep a-asking you to stop and you w-won’t!”

Sir Broderick wailed in frustration and let go of the guard, who promptly staggered to his feet only to trip over them, fall facefirst on the ground and knock himself out.

“Clucking finally,” sighed Sir Broderick as he kicked the guard to ensure lack of consciousness before searching his body for flasks, of which he found three, and money, of which he found none.

“At least this guy had priorities,” mused Sir Broderick as he emptied two of the flasks into his waiting throat.

Sir Broderick breathed deeply in relief, immediately inhaling a glob of liquor which promptly shot out of his nostrils in a torrent. As he settled himself he remembered the clobbering his own head recently endured, and at the hands of the Royal Gourd no less. It was clear he needed more head protection than the flimsy hood of his discount chainmail bodysuit, which he was beginning to suspect did not have the strength of normal chainmail. He looked to the cobblestone floor for inspiration.

He saw the guard helmetless and, frankly, pitiful. He saw the saucepan. He saw the belt. And he saw the helmet. The helmet that had apparently withstood multiple whacks with a saucepan and the strangulation of a belt around the neck. And Sir Broderick the Shitfaced had a brilliant idea.