Surgical crack. Including a promised smiting.
She put her arm around the Evil Ferret Overlord’s waist.
“You know, for an Evil Overlord, you sure are compassionate. Not everyone would have given me a second chance. I’m glad we’re getting a chance to know each other better.”
The Evil Ferret Overlord racked her brain for a moment, trying to think of whether she had actually ever had a conversation with the woman, beyond “If they think you deserve to be out, you’re out.” She had not. She grinned her big ferrety grin. “Bullshit.” And with that, the Evil Ferret Overlord, skated clumsily away to go giggle at the pervy ice skaters some more. Maureen’s mistake had not been in groveling. The Overlord was always happy when she could get someone to grovel. Her mistake had been in making a cloying attempt at feigning an intention to make friends. Also, the Evil Ferret Overlord did not like it when people she had not made up her mind about touched her to begin with, and she was more than a little bit ticklish.
The two figure skaters were whispering in the corner. When they saw their Evil Ferret Overlord watching them, they nodded to each other, and turned back around.
“Ladies, Overlord. Oh, and Royal Keeper, of course, we’ve been working on a new routine for a while now, and if you are so inclined, we could preview it for you.”
“Please do.” Said the Evil Ferret Overlord, motioning everyone to clear the ice.
“Hooray!” said Livilla and Twila. The group went to sit in the audience risers, next to Stoph’s wife and Victoria’s husband. For a minute, even from that distance, they could hear the figure skaters bickering at each other in whispery tones. Stoph (whose first name was Dean, hence everyone calling him Stoph.) was attempting to fix a stray strand of Victoria’s hair, and she was swatting his hand out of the way. Mrs. Stoph whispered to Mr. Victoria, something about their spouses being the real little old married couple, and Maureen laughed. Unfortunately for her, the Evil Ferret Overlord was marking that in her book as mistake number two. Her laughter reminded the Evil Ferret Overlord of the quacking of a duck. The Evil Ferret Overlord was mistrustful of water fowl, as well as anything that bore a resemblance to water fowl. Keeper had once bought an umbrella with a handle in the shape of the head of a duck, and for months the poor Evil Ferret Overlord had nightmares every time it rained.
After a bit more bickering, Victoria turned on a sound board and music began to play. Stoph and Victoria seemed caught up in their own graceful fantasy world, twirling and gliding and bending around each other, limbs so tangled it was a wonder they could stay upright. To top it all off, the small audience could swear they were shooting each other sly looks, and they had not even partaken of the crack yet. The Evil Ferret Overlord was so inspired that she darted up to the control booth, dragging her weapons forgers behind her. Under the Evil Ferret Overlord’s direction, Livilla and Twila began to mess with the lights.
“Red.” Ordered the Evil Ferret Overlord, “Now blue. Turn on the one that makes it look like stars, now! More red. Yellow, oooh, do the yellow lights!” and so on. The pretty lights really added something, the Evil Ferret Overlord thought. Stoph and Victoria twirled and leapt some more, and ended with Victoria’s right leg encircling Stoph’s waist.
“WOOOO! MORE PORN!” everyone cheered. Even the spouses, because they were cool like that. “PORN! PORN! PORN!” They chanted. So being the good sports they were, Stoph bent Victoria backwards and they pretended to dry hump. Everyone cheered more, and the Evil Ferret Overlord passed around more shiny pixie dust. When a sufficient quantity had been consumed, there was more skating about and squealing at the cuteness that was Stoph and Victoria, and the spouses, who had decided to partake not only of the magical pixie dust, but also of the porn on skates. All in all, it was shaping up to be the very best party ever. That is until Maureen made mistake number three, which she made, because it turned out she was one of the ones for whom Pixie Dust is a very bad thing.
“They’re idiots.” She began, “they married the wrong people. I really think they’d be happier if they all got divorced and swapped spouses. Look how they look at each other.” She pointed, right in time to see Mrs. Stoph and Victoria picking up handfuls of the ice, and throwing them at Officer Stoph. All of them were giggling wildly.
“Yeah, I can see the angst.” Twila said, rolling her eyes.
“You saw it when they were skating.”
“And you don’t think it was part of the act?” Livilla said, already suspecting she knew what the answer was.
“I…I hate to say it, but I really don’t think so.” She sounded almost sincere. For a second, the Evil Ferret Overlord considered nominating her for an EFObie. But then she fell down again, and got a better idea.
“Stupid ice. I’ll be right back.” She got up carefully and made her way slowly off the ice. As she left, Livilla made a little motion with her finger, in the general shape of the letter Z, and the Evil Ferret Overlord saw it and nodded. She took off her skating blades, and fetched her warm boots.
Maureen was watching the skaters, making sure to sigh loudly at regular intervals. She was so caught up in her vicarious angst, that she failed to notice that Livilla and Twila had begun making up songs to the meter of her sighing. She also failed to notice the sound of a motor growing louder, and a flashing light growing brighter, and closer. All this was brought to her attention when the Manspouse let out a cry of surprise, and hurled himself over the rink rim, into the seats. The rest soon followed. Poor Maureen only had time to turn around and stare in shock as a grinning ferret, driving a Zamboni loomed ever closer. She managed to take about two steps, before tripping and falling. The Zamboni kept coming, and the ferret kept grinning. Finally, when it looked as though Maureen was about to be steamrollered, the Evil Ferret Overlord slammed on the breaks, and leapt down, landing neatly on the newly polished ice
“Now who’s…oh, SHIT!” There was a pool of blood on the ice, originating at Maureen’s throat. The Evil Ferret Overlord knelt down and put a hand near her mouth. She was still breathing, but it was kind of gurgly. “Someone get me some towels and a stretcher.”
Moments later, the entire party burst into the galley, which was just the sort of place that could be turned into an Emergency Room, should the need arise. The need had very much arisen. The Evil Ferret Overlord threw on an apron, which had the words “CAREFUL, OR I’LL FUCK WITH YOUR FOOD” emblazoned on it. She took another look at the wound.
“Ew. Are those vocal cords?”
“I’m afraid so. The voice box is damaged. She’ll need reconstructive surgery.” Keeper winced.
“No time! She’ll choke to death. Stop the bleeding, first.” Keeper looked around, found the troublesome artery, and through various feats of medicinal magic, such as tying off and cauterizing with hot tongs (he did both for good measure.), he managed to stop the bleeding.
“We have to do something about the rest of her throat.”
“Must we.” Sighed keeper.
“Do you want the political fiasco if we don’t?”
“Damn fiascos. Okay. Ummm…any corpses handy?” she looked around.
“Well, there is a fowl of some sort in here.” Twila held up a frozen duck.
The Evil Ferret Overlord shook her head. “That’s what Philippe was going to fix for dinner tomorrow, I think.”
“Surely you’re not suggesting…” Keeper protested
“It’s the best we’ve got. Is the head intact.”
Twila brushed some frost off of the bird. “Seems to be. Neck is fine too.”
“Then it’s transplant time. Sorry, Roy, you’re in for a long night.”
“Me? You’re so keen on doing the woman in, you fix her.”
“You’re one to talk about wanting to do things to her, in or out, or combinations of the two. Bites for the mental image, by the way. And in case you haven’t noticed--” The Evil Ferret Overlord awkwardly gripped a sharp knife in one of her fists, and attempted to slice down the belly of the duck. She wound up cutting off a bit of the wing, and narrowly missed taking a bit of Twila’s arm with it.
“Oi, watch it, you!” Twila yelped. The Evil Ferret Overlord recoiled in horror, and set the knife down.
“See. Think of it this way, Roy, her laughter already sounds like this fellow’s native tongue, and you always say it’s shameful to waste.”
“I also say it’s shameful to kill people for getting on your nerves.”
“I saved her didn’t I? And odds are, if she can make human noises again, she’ll give us that big fiasco you just got done warning me about.”
“She can still go to the presses. Her ability to write will most likely remain intact.”
“I thought of that, silly. The duck has a frontal lobe, too. It’s responsible for a lot of higher reasoning. The thought that she’s a duck, and a free meal of drug-laced cornmeal every day will keep her with us for a long time to come, in a far more manageable form. Everyone wins. Now hurry before this thing begins to thaw and smell funny.”
Keeper sighed and put on an apron of his own (The Evil Ferret Overlord found it odd that it was stained with purple frosting. Roy never seemed to have much of a sweet tooth), and grabbed some gloves from Philippe’s workbench. On he went, as the hours ticked by. Most of the business of pulling things out and putting things in fell to the Keeper himself, but the others stayed by, to offer moral support, and help with anesthesia and tool-fetching. They also stayed because they’d never seen anybody receive duck organs before, and the crack was far from gone, and the more they imbibed, the more they thought this was all pretty cool. The Evil Ferret Overlord in particular was feeling rather pleased with herself, and at one point was dancing a jig, until her Royal Keeper threw a pair of forceps at her.
“No need for that!” the Overlord cried out. “I was just excited, thinking how incredible it is that she’s going to be part duck now! I didn’t even know we could really do that.”
“Don’t be passé, EFO. Animal Transplants are annoyingly common. Maybe in some other universe, it’s nearly impossible to do, but here it’s not harder than you eating a steak in less than thirty seconds. And hold still, I’m about to close the throat and open the brain.” The Evil Ferret Overlord did, and Keeper did, and the rest looked on, as the Royal Keeper of the Evil Ferret Overlord looked over his shoulder. “By the way, just how were you planning to fit the duck’s brain onto hers?”
“With this!” the Evil Ferret Overlord said, producing a jar of grape jam from a pocket. The Royal Keeper of the Evil Ferret Overlord shook his head.
“We can make it sticky with this.” Livilla offered, pointing to a box of corn starch in Twila’s hands. Twila tossed it to the Evil Ferret Overlord, who caught it in her jaws, carefully as to avoid puncturing the box. She handed it to her keeper.
The Keeper sighed. “Have you got any pectin in there.”
“Hmmm…yup!” Livilla tossed that box over too. Keeper ordered the Evil Ferret Overlord to make up a paste with the jam and pectin. Meanwhile he set to work making incisions and cauterizations to ensure a snug fit. At last, the avian brain matter was in place, and barring any weird infections, it looked like Maureen was going to pull through. Or waddle through, if the surgery had the results they had predicted.