It’s not often that you see a gleaming, stainless steel ship heading towards you across the Severed Seas, but that was the silver nightmare Miss Blimey was currently facing. The ship was so shiny it was almost chrome. It caught the sun in the distance like a twinkle in a beetle’s eye. Lifting the spyglass to her eye, Miss Blimey squinted at the approaching vessel. Every second hurt her sea-green peepers. Looking past this gleaming affront to pirates everywhere, she could just make out the brightly coloured shields, which hung down from the sides of the ship. Each had their own maniacal smiley face motif.

‘That, is just obscene!’ observed Miss Blimey loudly, turning to her First Mate as Betty hates Veronica joined her on deck.

‘What is it?’ asked Betty hates Veronica, shielding her eyes from the sparkling glare heading towards them.

‘A Knight’s ship, they should be harmless, but we’d be wise to be wary, you never know with these guys,’ warned Miss Blimey who had, in her experience, met all types of mish-mash crews on the sea.

Travelling at a fair pace in the even breeze of day, the Knight’s ship approached them quickly, and pulling alongside them hailed Miss Blimey with a not-so-loud speaker. Several Knights crowded around the sides of the ship, all seeming in various states of inebriation, and keen to see who was before them.

‘Lo fair lady, do come aboard a sup with us,’ requested their Captain, Sir Jollyweare, bowing formally and swinging a large wine-filled goblet in his hand.

‘What do we do?’ asked Betty hates Veronica dubiously, looking to her Captain for their next move.

‘What can we do, we go aboard,’ conceded Miss Blimey with a shrug, fully aware that the rules of piratical conduct demanded she accept this friendly invitation.

‘You’re in charge,’ said Betty Hates Veronica simply, and reaching down grabbed a fresh bottle of wine to take with them.

‘Good thinking,’ acknowledged Miss Blimey, climbing up the rigging of the main mast, and grabbing onto a boarding rope, prepared to swing aboard the Knight’s ship.

Betty hates Veronica followed her, and on the count of three together they deftly swung across to the lurid vessel, which still gleamed brightly in the afternoon sun.

Several hours passed, and soon the day had turned to evening as the two pirate lasses spoke with the Knights on subjects varied and familiar. It wasn’t long before they also discovered that these men were the famed Knights of Gregarious, feared on the Severed Seas for their non-stop drinking and droning verbal onslaughts, which often led to sudden death for the listener as their brains departed for conversations more interesting. Finally, as it was getting on to midnight, Betty hates Veronica turned to Miss Blimey with a terrified look.

‘I think we’re trapped,’ she whispered, starting to panic.

‘Don’t worry, I have a plan,’ replied Miss Blimey quietly out the corner of her mouth, before slowly getting to her feet and announcing it was time they were going.

‘You cannot leave yet …’ the Knight’s Captain started to say, but he was unable to continue with his threat. Miss Blimey drew her sword and swinging it wildly separated him from his head in less than a second.

Within moments all were dead.

‘Oh, so that was the plan? Kill everyone? Very original,’ observed Betty hates Veronica sarcastically, placing a hand on her hip and looking up at her Captain with one eyebrow raised.

‘Well… they just talk too much, they’re far too friendly, its disconcerting,’ justified Miss Blimey as she calmly finished wiping her sword clean on a tea towel.

The End

The Knights of Gregarious