ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND EXECUTIONERS HUMILIATED BY THE PIRATE KING
At high noon, a bloodthirsty mob gasps and cheers as hundreds of thousands of executioners parade into the plaza, each followed by a procession of burly assistants and deadly devices: sharpened cannons, poisoned soups, wheeled aquariums swarming with sharks, every imaginable nightmare contraption of terror and death.
In the center of it all, the sumptuous gallows glitters over the audience, a bejeweled stage of gold and beheaded statues, crafted especially for the occasion. Its every surface has been inscribed with sappy poetry about the beauty of death. At its summit is a throne fit for an emperor, and though the admiral had tried to sit in it, the pirate king has appropriated the seat, and now reclines enjoying his last meal, which is to be fed ten thousand grapes by ten thousand lovely hands.
The admiral unrolls the official script for the event, and reads in his grandest tones: "Welcome, one and all, to the execution of the pirate king!"
His voice is drowned out by the roaring of the mob, making his speech impossible to hear. Only the pirate king has the ability to bellow loud enough to be heard over the ruckus.
The admiral has to beg, but eventually the pirate king takes pity on him and agrees to speak for the admiral as well as himself. Accepting the official scroll, he reads it aloud while the admiral stands awkwardly beside him, nodding and shouting, "Yes!" and "That's right!" at key moments.
In his booming voice, the pirate king reads, "This criminal you see beside me has proven himself to be a rogue, a blackguard, a thrice-blasted knave, a barnacled elephant cad and an illiterate buffoon, the very kind of scum-sucking donkey-breath scallywag who would steal the cake at a wedding feast and eat it in front of the bride. Do you deny any of these charges? No! I don't! But I do declare that you, admiral, are a cheese-faced swine! How dare you say so, you filthy outlaw! Well you're a filthy inlaw! Well you're just a cad! You half-pint! You meatball! You puritanical little snot! Barbarian dirtball! Beardless barnacle, my half-grown daughter could trounce you with both hands tied behind her back! You lie! I do not! That's a lie too!"
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The admiral, though at first inclined to interrupt this one-man argument, soon finds himself shouting vehemently, "That's right! Get him!" at every insult against the pirate king.
Meanwhile, Dakiya and Ayavail are eating their luncheon in an apple tree, having completely forgotten about the execution.
All through afternoon classes, the pair are riveted upon the task of being bored, until Ayavail finally agrees to shrink Dakiya to the size of a fingernail so that she can squeeze her way into the classroom clock and force the minute hand faster by strenuous pushing.
"I… I suppose class is over," the instructor says, blinking in confusion at the clock, while Dakiya hides behind the minute hand.
Moments later, Dakiya is outside, hurling herself down a grassy hill and rolling all the way to the bottom, shouting "Great great great! Let's go swimming in the ocean! Let's ride a dolphin to the moon!"
Meanwhile, back at the execution plaza, the pirate king has arisen from his throne, (which he has subsequently crushed in one fist, so that the admiral cannot steal his seat while he is away).
The first three hundred executioners have already been humiliated by the pirate king. Spearpoints have shattered against his individual chest hairs. Crossbow bolts have swerved aside in respect. He has nullified the meteor-strike of an archmage through sheer smugness.
All the weaker contenders had quailed one-by-one before him, shrinking and becoming bakery assistants, never to sharpen an axe blade again.
The most ambitious executioner yet, a swaggering old woman in a blue tricorn cap, had set up a whole battalion of cannons in circles around the pirate king and fired them all at once. But the cannonballs had only tickled the king to laughter, for pirates who cannot endure cannonfire cannot survive and reproduce, and over millions of years of evolution, the entire species has become immune.