"Who's Headless?" the Wight asked. She was able to somehow convey confusion despite having one eye sewn shut and the other sewn open.

I hunkered down so that I was close to her face as I generously explained, "You of course."

"My name isn't Headless!" Headless asserted. She was oddly confident for someone that was imitating an pinned insect on paper.

"Don't bother." Bozo advised sagely as he walked past us, he had the helmet tucked upside down (with the nesting hen within) under one arm. One rooster proudly sat atop his bare head of golden locks, the other avian male was on the knight's shoulder glaring up at the proud rooster with murder in his eyes. Bozo finished by saying, "You're Headless now."

Ursula watched Bozo moving about the bodies of Warren, the blonde haired youth making sure all the birds were really dead. She didn't shift her gaze as she asked, "Why did Bozo say it like that?"

"Who knows." I said quickly, Ursula might not be a big fan of my forced naming of Bozo. "Now back to our conversation Headless..."

"Me?" Headless froze, she had been rolling over to have the broadsword blade cut through her side, allowing her to escape. She only a few inches more of her rotation to release her.

I gave the Wight a less than pleased expression "You legitimately can't stop yourself? You are always trying to escape!"

Ursula had finished combing her hair out and was going through the coats of the fallen Warrens for possible items of value. "Can you blame her? Most captives do want to escape. That is the whole point of being a captive. If they wanted to hang around they would just be called guests."

"You are not helping here!" I informed the Plain One.

Headless had taken advantage of my distraction and rolled the rest of the way through the blade and her side was reknitting herself together before she got herself on her hands and knees. She was fully healed as she leapt at me. I caught Headless in the chest with my pitchfork and slammed her to the ground with a bone shattering thud. I followed up the action by removing her head again. I picked her up by the strings of her mouth lobbed her at Bozo "Heads up!"

He instinctively deflected the swearing head with his shield, Headless's string of profanity were interrupted as face met metal, she bounced away wonderfully. Bozo looked at me incredulous "Are you freaking serious!? You just threw a head at me!"

"Glad to know you are able to observe something and then communicate that observation" I said dryly. "There may be hope for you yet."

The roosters made their warbling sounds as they launched from the knight's shoulder. A whole flurry of feathers and cackles from the two males as they chased after their new toy. The Wight's shouting about my general lineage as well as my fetish about cactuses was interrupted as the two birds slammed into her full force.

Ursula didn't take her eyes off the bouncing head. "Wights are pretty much impossible to keep, she'll just make herself explode and then reform back in her Arboreum Archive. Why are we dragging this out?"

"Cause she attacked me." I offered back. I grabbed Ursula's big broadsword and attempted to pull it from the ground. It did not budge. I was not willing to admit defeat. I planted my feet, straightened my back and lifted with my knees. Three of my ribs popped from off my body. Both hands remained gripping the hilt but the arms themselves were no longer attached to my shoulders. The abrupt removal of my arms sent me staggering back, I tripped over a Warren and...well there is no need for further explanation of what happened next.

I lay there for a good bit of time before Ursula stepped into view. She had her broadsword slung over her shoulder. "What are you doing, Farmer?" Her fingers casually covering my hands still gripping the hilt. My bones fingers were still flexing and twitching in effort to maintain a grip. My arms were still moving back and forth, thinking they were still part of the lift-the-sword-out-of-the-ground project. She yanked my hands off the sword and jammed my arms back into their sockets. "You are not even close to being strong enough to move my blade around."

"Someone isn't an optimist." I said cheekily. I got up and pointed at the sewn together body of the Wight "Okay big dumb muscle, chop body into smaller parts."

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

The Plain One started dismembering Headless's body while the Wight's head still rolled around like a ball between the two chickens. Her blade cut through the grey blue flesh, corpse string and bone. Broadswords were designed to slash, not stab, a perfect tool for this type of butchery. She stopped to look at me. "It's clear you have a plan."

"You could say that." I hedged as I started cutting the Warren trench coats into strips.

Ursula of the Bone Order was still swinging away, her voice patient "Care to share with the rest of the class?"

I brought over an armful of my fabric and started binding the body parts together, I caught the look my companion was giving me and explained "We bind her body all together, it heals but everything fuses together. She will trap herself." I beamed a little. It was a clever plan. One that I had made up on the spot.

Once the body was trussed up in a nice tight bundle I retrieved Headless and set her squarely on her neck. And just like that all her flesh, muscles and bones knit together around the bindings, binding her into full immobility. Her eyes blazed in triumph as she shouted "You fool! I will--"

I cut off her head again. I held it up to look at her "I'm not anyone's fool, can't do much magic without your head attached." I tossed her over to Bozo. "Here."

"What am I supposed to do with her?" he asked with distaste.

"I don't know, you're the one with the pet menagerie of chickens." I waved my hand to include all of his outfit. "I can carry her body on my back. I designed it to be a sort of morbid backpack. Can carry things around inside." I demonstrated this by putting the chicken in the helmet inside. "Now you don't have to carry your bird around everywhere."

The chicken was not pleased, but after a conversation of clucks with Ursula the hen quieted down. I helped Bozo strap the head to his back. We used some extra string to sew her mouth shut. I was not in the mood to listen to her talk about what she wanted to do with my entrails. And with the last of our work complete we finally turned our attention to the keep of Warren.

"This is very edgelord stuff you are doing to her."

Ursula and I both looked at each other quizzically and asked in unison "Edgelord?"

"You know." The knight said, searching for words. "Where the hero's actions borders on the edge evil..."

I looked at him and finally asked "And?"

"Well you're heroes--"

"-hahahaha!" I laughed so hard that I actually dislocated a shoulder and my arm fell off. Ursula wasn't any better, she had to take a seat to keep her balance from the peals of giggles that threatened to give her hiccups. Yes, hiccups happen to even the undead. I grabbed my arm and smacked it on the ground in my laughter. It felt good to laugh, don't remember the last time I had done that. Really just freaking forgot everything in that moment of hilarity.

Bozo was not amused by our sudden outburst. "What's so funny? I just sai--"

"-please!" I rushed to say around my laughter. "Please stop talking, I am gonna pop a rib loose if I laugh any harder and it is a pain and a half to get those back in place."

Bozo almost spoke again but one of the roosters screeched in his face and he shut up.

It was a wee bit of time before Ursula and I finally calmed enough to catch our breaths.

The blonde haired youth looked between the two of us "I thought you didn't have to breathe."

"We don't." Ursula said suppressing another giggle. "But if we start laughing our bodies go through the motions of inhaling air and exhaling it. We only need to inhale when we wanna say something. Laughter is different, we can't help it." She started to giggle again and I felt the laughter bubbling up inside me as well. I threw a rooster at her in a desperate attempt to avoid any further laughter. Rib bones are the worst thing to try getting back into place.

I saw Bozo was about to ask another question and I headed him off "We're undead... where in the word 'undead' do you hear hero?"

"But you're helping me find this scourge and stop them from whatever nefarious plans they have on us innocent mortals." The knight said, confusion clearly in his voice.

"Kid, we are the bad guys. Ursula has mown down just as many living as she has dead."

"Probably more." Ursula added.

"Me, I am only doing this because someone is messing with my harvest season. Because these epic quests are like freaking bunnies, one gets loose and suddenly you have a whole horde of cannibalistic, nose twitching rodents trying to eat through your Ossis berries."

"I don't know if bunnies are a rodent." Ursula interrupted.

"You are not helping." I shot her a glare. I turned back to him "We are going to find the bad guy that tried to kill you, make them into paste and then say good riddance to the living and head back to my farm. I don't care about saving any mortals, none of you matter!"

Bozo looked crestfallen. "But you saved me."

I swore there was a tear forming in the corner of his eye.

And just like that I realized I had gone too far. This kid wasn't evil or clever. He was just some dumb kid that had gotten caught up in the lies spun by teachers and elders. I'm not gonna pretend I saw myself in him. I was never so handsome, I was never so well built, I was never so innocent. This kid was clueless and sincere like a puppy. I was the guy who took advantage of others. It just was the way I was geared. But that didn't mean I had to kick this kid while he was down. I had a sinking feeling. I caught Ursula's eye and she nodded her head imperceptivly.

I closed my eldritch eyes in mental anguish as I asked through clenched teeth "You really wanna do this epic quest?"

"Yes." Bozo said with hesitation.

I looked up at the sky and cursed every crypt god for saddling me with such a pure hearted moron. "Fine."

"For reals?!" He exclaimed. Then his expression became suspicious. "Are you going to kill the city, or a family of cows or something?"

"No. We are doing this epic quest for 'reals'." I grumbled, I waggled a finger at his excited face and rushed to add "But I have some conditions."