XIII. Belles to the Walls Part I.

For a solid minute, Leonard scrubbed his face with a handkerchief.

Then, he busted into a coughing fit before doubling forward, loudly groaning.

Whenever he looked up, his red, dilated eyes stared at Cain. The skeleton felt unsafe as the doctor gazed upon him, sniffling every few seconds.

"Captain how are you?" he asked, deciding that pauses between words were not as important that everyone made them out to be.

"I be… fine…" the skeleton squeaked as Leonard's head violently twitched to the side. It looked like a loud CRACK! should have accompanied the gesture. The doctor sniffed again.

"Are ye… feelin' aright there, mate?" Cain asked.

"I've never felt stronger Cain!" Leonard both yelled and chuckled. "That new anesthetic? PHENOMENAL! I've got more of the stuff than I know what to do with! Do you want some? I'll give you some! Hold out your hands!"

Cain held his up. "I be go—"

"HOLD OUT YOUR HANDS!" he screamed.

The skeleton obediently snapped his mitts towards Leonard. The doctor reached into his pockets and dug some of the anesthetic out, pouring a little pile of it in the skeleton's cupped palms. Cain looked down at the pile, unsure of what to do now. He definitely wasn't going to ingest it, that was for sure.

The doctor clapped so hard that it seemed like he was trying to scare the captain. "Cain! Cain, Cain, the skeleton with a brain! Are you here for that study I offered? Hm?"

"Well…” the captain began. “Not so much tha study, but the reward that comes from it…"

"Fantastic! First, we're gonna do this one thing where I grab this hammer and then I tap on your knee. Give a lil' kick as soon as you feel it and I'll record the results. Okay? Okay."

Before Cain could agree, Leonard pulled out an anesthetic-coated reflex hammer. He tapped it against the skeleton's knee, producing a hollow thunk. Cain, after needing a second to remember what he was supposed to do, kicked his leg forward.

"Fascinating!" Leonard exclaimed, rushing to a piece of scrap paper and scribbling down something.

"How in the blazes is that 'fascinating' to ye?" Cain asked, his bony brow scowling.

"Because—sniff—you don't have any sort of nerves! Y-you shouldn't have felt that, yet you did somehow!"

Leonard's eyes squinted, and he leaned towards Cain. "You… did feel that, didn't you? You weren't just… kicking your leg because you saw the tap?" he asked, bending the hammer in half.

Cain nodded. 

Leonard leaned back and smiled. "Good! Now, let's continue…"

Three hours later, and the energy of the room had taken a dive. Leonard's pockets had been emptied and the rush was coming down. Sprawled out on his couch, the doctor sipped one of his residual bottles of rum, his prior anesthetic.

"Fiddler's Green, I couldn't remember the name until now. That was a real place to live, not like this shithole…" he slurred as he handed Cain the bottle. The skeleton, sitting on the floor, took a sip. Although rum went right through him, he liked the way it tingled his tongue.

"It was a small little island but some of the biggest people live there—I used to! Duke Peregrine lives there—he was the guy who exiled me—have you ever heard of Duke Peregrine? Revoked my medical license, too. He'd throw these parties all the time…"

Cain handed the bottle back. "Sounds exhaustin’…"

"No! No, they always get people excited," the doctor said as he took it. "They're ridiculously exclusive—hard to get into—have to go all the way to Fiddler's Green to even show up…”

He took a swig. "I've been to a couple. They'd have all this nasty food that you had to pretend to like—eels and snails and stuff—tiny proportions because it’s all anyone can stomach. And everybody would wear their best clothes, even if you couldn't dance in them. The Duke would dress up, too—he'd wear this huge coronet that makes his head crane down—with a collar that—"

Cain perked up. "Coronet…?"

Leonard waved his hand. "It's a crown that dukes and duchesses and barons and uh… it's a crown that isn't a crown crown, since only people like the Queen can wear a crown crown."

He took another swig. "Gold, bejeweled, with purple felt, too. You know if someone is important if they're wearing purple…"

Cain sat there in silent thought. "And… he'll just… wear it among a bunch o’ people? People who could, say… snatch it an' run off?"

There was no reply. The doctor had fallen asleep on the couch, looking rather… deceased. His skin was paler than before, his eyes were more sunken-in, and, when sleeping, Leonard had a stillness now that unsettled the captain. Cain grabbed the bottle out of his limp hands and sighed once he realized it was empty. He tossed it behind him before his eye sockets widened in realization. With the doctor… momentarily incapacitated, the vault was his for the taking!

…had it not been locked, with its key nowhere to be found. 

So, after an hour of hammering things against the vault's handle, the skeleton left—cursing under his breath and goldless. However, with the plan that was forming in his head, he wouldn't be goldless for long…

“No, no, no! Absolutely not!” Majel yelled. “How would we even sell a Duke’s crown?” 

“Technically, it be a Duke’s coronet,” Cain corrected.

“Shut up! Oh my gods, shut up!” the cat screamed. “Do you ever think? Like, for a second, can all the blood stop rushing into your gold-obsessed hard-on and flow into your brain instead?”

Cain scowled and crossed his arms. “Yer not bein’ very helpful right now, ye know that?” 

Majel’s eye twitched. “Fine! I can be helpful! Here, here’s me being helpful: you know why I think it’s a stupid, stupid plan?”

“Besides the fact that I came up with it…?” Cain pouted as he leaned against the Festering Wound’s mast. 

“First off,” Majel began, choosing to ignore him, “you’re talking about sneaking into Duke Peregrine's castle. You know—the one on a remote island?”

She picked up a mug, placed it underneath a barrel’s nozzle, and lifted the valve. “There’ll be more guards there than guests—guards who’ll spot the Wound immediately, even when she’s just a little speck on the horizon!”

She paused to slurp on her grog. “Secondly, all of us are pirates, Cain! You expect us to just… blend in? I look like shit and I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a proper bath. You’re a walking, talking skeleton, and I don’t even remember you bathing when you were alive. And D’anna here practically melts at the first sign of pressure!” 

The cat turned to her. “D’anna! What do you think of the plan?” 

“Uh…” the elf winced. 

Majel looked back. “See?” 

“Aye, it be true that ye’ve gotten ugly and surly and bloated and mangled and—”

“Sawyer!” 

“But don’t give me that ‘Woe is me, I be a monster now’ malarkey! Ye were that type at one point—the top of yer class at the Academy, remember?”

“I try not to, considering that I threw it all away to be with you, for some reason.” 

“So, then how hard would it be fer ye ta just slip back into Majel, Tha Admiral’s Daughter instead of Majel, The Washed-Up, Has-Been Pirate?”

The cat stared daggers at him, huffing through her nostrils like a bull blinded by a shepherd’s delight. It was an empty stare, but “empty” as in “there was a lack of anything else but rage.”

“Fine!” the skeleton yelled, growing uncomfortable with the lack of expletives hurled his way. “After takin’ yer words into consideration, here’s what I be thinkin’: Me and D’anna won’t go, but ye will. We’ll get someone who can accompany ya and help ye get back inta tha high-brow life—what ta wear, what ta say, which fork ta use with salad and which ta use fer soup, all that crap…”

“I ruined my life twenty-five years ago, Sawyer, I didn’t get amnesia…” Majel growled.

“Still, I think it be fer tha best that we get some outside help fer this plunder…” 

“I don’t know about this…” D’anna whimpered. “I mean, who do we know that’s all fancy and proper and stuff like that?”

Winn strutted down the gangplank of the Belle of the Ball, a rose-red slab of wood that was bejeweled on both sides. “Bonjour, Capitaine!”

Cain nodded. “Winn! I heard ye’ve overcame quite tha figure.” 

She smirked and stroked her figure. “Hardtack and crunches! Well, zat and a slight lipo from Doctor Picardo…” 

Cain groaned. That would explain the jars of yellowish gunk on Leonard’s shelf. The skeleton was thankful he didn’t have the organs necessary to vomit.  

“Look, Winn,” he began, “I’m meetin’ ya here because I be callin’ in my favor.” 

“Ahh! And what favor, exactly?” 

“Simply put, I need ye and Ma—”

“Non!” She said, holding her finger up to him. “I mean ‘what favor’ as in, ‘Since when did I owe you a favor?’” 

“Since I let ye have that treasure back on Masaka Isle!” 

“Oh you ‘let me’ have that treasure?” She asked as she put her hands on her hips. “And I should be thankful that you ‘let me’ have a pair of cursed idols that ruined mon figure?” 

Cain shrugged. “Well, I can’t say ‘ruined,’ since I didn’t actually se—”

Winn turned back on one foot. “Non! With zat, I’m going back to ze Belle…”

“How’d ye like a cut of the profit, then?” Cain yelled, crossing his arms.

Winn stopped in her tracks. She looked over her shoulder. “A profit of what?” 

Cain smiled. “Do ye know tha word fer a Duke’s crown?”