We Careened Through the Hallways of the Airship
screamed out loud the name of a specific fruit- a spectacularly alarming painting
- dipped in poison
- taste just like cotton candy at first
- working that oddly lumpy, peculiar body
Tune in next time part 853 Click Here for Earlier Installments
We careened through the hallways of the airship, and each time we reached a corner, Titania screamed out loud the name of a specific fruit so that we would know which way to turn: mango for left, papaya for right. It was the old Fruitmonger’s Cipher, but with a tropical twist that had me wondering which organization she was working for.
“Lychee!” Titania cried, and we came to an abrupt stop. “That,” she continued as she dismounted, “is a spectacularly alarming painting.”
I knew which one she must mean: the coronation portrait of Fleur’s grandmother looked like it had been painted with a brush that was dipped in poison instead of paint. And that’s because, per Contrarian custom, it was. As a country they are overly concerned about enemies ingesting the Artwork of State, and so all coronation portraits are painted with poisons of various hues. To be sure of killing the rogue art-devourers, the poisons all taste just like cotton candy at first. Fleur’s grandmother’s portrait was especially ominous because of the toothmarks in the upper right corner.
While Titania contemplated the gruesome likeness of the equally gruesome warlord’s consort, I shimmied my rump in hopes of dislodging Big Dennis from my back. I was working that oddly lumpy, peculiar body of a horse costume like my life depended on it when I finally felt Big Dennis’s weight shift. I squatted halfway, hoping to drop him on his head hard enough to keep him unconscious, but not hard enough to draw the attention of the Crystal Clown.
bonus points for using them in order