Blackness. It was surrounding him entirely, and through that backness sluggishly crept consciousness, and with consciousness came a great deal of pain. Seth opened his eyes, immediately snapping them back shut, the brightness of the light assaulting his waking vision. What had happened, last night? He had a headache, and the room around him seemed to swim. He was experiencing a hangover. This brought back the memory of the drinking game he had had with Murmur. There was a throbbing pain in his right foot which, instinctually, he knew would expload through his leg when he ventured to put weight on it. This brought back the memory of this tussle with Beefman. There was no pain in his mouth, just a dry, uncomfortable feeling, so he had lost no teeth. But what were these other bruises? The money- where the clock was the money? That was what had started the brawl in the first place. He remembred, now, his deathgrip on the purse. Nothing- not eveb being knocked unconscious- could have made him drop that purse and all its riches. Unless someone had pried it from his tightly balled hands... someone like Murmur...

Not opening his eyes- not yet, at any rate- Seth pushed himself up off the ground into a sitting position- too fast, even though he had attempted to move slowly. His stomach churned, and next thing he knew he was leaned over to the side, wretching until he'd emptied all the contents of his stomach. Well that was just lovely. He cracked open his eyes, slowly, letting them adjust to the brightness of the room- wherever that may be- and searched for Murmur until he finally found her not far from him. He grunted. "Oiy, Murmur..." There was a number of things he wanted to ask her, little explantions, but something caught his eye that made him stumble in his thought process. "What's with the chicken?" He shook his head, what the clock? That didn't matter, "And where's my money? And what the clock happened?! It feels like I've been dragged up ten flights of stairs!" He winced, having to calm down and lower his voice due to the booming ache in his head that was very sensitive to noise.

Murmur picked up the chicken and tucked it under her arm, giving it a pat on the head, "Decided to join the land of the livin', have ye princess?" she asked gleefully, "Want some breakfast? My friend laid an egg...good girl!"

Murmur looked at Seth, who looked like the dead walking and assumed not, still, as long as he was well enough to fulfill his side of the bargain.

"After ye got knocked out I took ye here," she gestured around the rooms of the home which she was squatting in- the furniture indicative of this fact, more likely to be seen in the habitat of some old man, the smell slightly musty, heavy with decay and neglect.



"Money?" said Murmur innocently, "I don't recall...oh alright," upon seeing Seth's expression, she rolled her eyes and threw him the purse "Here ye are...but I'm 'avin' a percentage of that...it's not easy luggin' yer stupid body up a flight of stairs, I kept avin' te go back an' get ye, ye must 'ave slipped out of me grip about ten times!"

She laughed at Seth's expression before clutching her stomach and sniffing the air, something in the room smelt a little unfamiliar."'ave ye...oh clockin' hell 'ave ye been sick in my corner?" Murmur howled with laughter, and wished she hadn't as her head began to sting...she wasn't angry of course that Seth had been sick, you couldn't ever accuse the girl of anything like being house proud.

"Well as long as you ent sick on my dress...I 'aven't forgot our bargain."

Seth was about to respond when another wave of nausea hit him and he was sent into a bout of dry heaves. When he finally gained some small amount of control over his body, he turned to the woman, taking the money from her, then it clicked. "Bargain?" Oh, he remembered the bet they had made, it was too horrific to forget, even as drunk as he had been last night. "I think I recall such only applying to whoever was.." unconscious first? No, no, no, it had been... "Intoxicated first. To the point of unconsciouss...nessss..." Oh dear. "I wasn't-" He winced, again having to lower his voice, "I was knocked out in the brawl!" He hissed, "There was outside interferance! It... it shouldn't count..." He knew in his gut he was fighitng a losing battle. But he was desperate not to wear that dress. Was it not enough that he had been beaten up quite badly- by stairs no less?

"I clearly remember sayin' it was the person still standin' at the end o' the night who was the winner...an' I most definitely was the one still standin..." okay, Murmur couldn't clearly remember anything that had happened the night before, but if it meant she didn't have to take a bath Murmur had just quoted herself word for word.

"Ye gave yer word," she said seriously, "we shook on it, an' ye can wear that dress or I can put ye in it. Yes?"

Seth scowled at her, forehead creasing, then gave Rita a look, "Oh, it's not that funny." He huffed, closing his eyes and pressing his palm against them, trying to both clear the headache which was growing steadily worse, and to recall furthur back... in the end, he knew the woman was very adamant about not having her bath... and he certainly didn't want her to forcibly strip him- he had little strength in his current condition to fight back. "Alright, then," he said defeatedly. "Where is this clockin' dress? An' do you have a place I can change in more... privately?" Oh, gods he was going to hate this... Damn his over-confident competitiveness. It had often lead him to some trouble, but this humiliation was far worse than any beating he had ever sustained in the past. This was downright brutal- wrong in every sense of the word.

Murmur punched the air in triumph, "ye can change in here, I'm goin' into the kitchen fer me egg anyway." She reached into a pack a little way from her and pulled out what looked like a large, dirty tea-towel, she considered subjecting Seth to the flannel corset that went with it, but decided that you could be too cruel in a situation.

"Please keep yer own underwear on, an' if ye need anythin' ye just give me a shout okay, Kitten?" she laughed, retreating into the tiny kitchen, which was separated from the rest of the room by a gingham curtain which she pulled tight shut. The sound of sizzling filled the room, as Murmur fried up her egg.

Seth held the dress at arms length, disgusted by the overwhelming stench that rose from it. Yup, it was even stronger than Murmur's own signature smell, ten-year-old fishguts smeared over fresh kitten poop and chrove vomit... it had quite a few suspicious stains smattered here and there, and as if to accentuate it's repulsiveness, one of the flies that was buzzing around it landed on one of the sleeves and immediately fell to the ground, dead, its legs curled in the air. This all together was enoug to send Seth gagging back into dry heaves. He was, perhaps, glad he wasn't going to eat breakfast.

Slowly, reluctantly stripping off his clothes, Seth was regretting his decision to take Murmur up on her deal, but he also refused to back out on such a deal, such was the small amount of pride buried in him, somewhere- the part of him that was a constant reminder of his manhood. Wincing as he got to his feet, attempting to keep his weight off his right foot, Seth began to stiffly put on the dress. It was rather tight around his waist, though in the terms of men he was very thin, Murmur was also thin in the terms of women, and it made breathing difficult and pressed uncomfortably against some of the bruises made by the stairs. Around the chest and hips, the dress was a bit loose and bunched up in weird places. He could barely fit his arms into the sleeves, made for slender women with slender shoulders and slender arms with very little to show for muscle. The skirt came short on him and where it would have reached past Murmur's ankles, it barely reached the middle of Seth's calves. He grated his teeth. So what, he would be both humiliated, and exceedingly uncomfortable?

"You don't honestly expect me to walk around in this thing, do ye?" He jerked back the curtain that separated kitchen and living room, eyes blazing, cheeks flushed a deep shade of red. He was obviously not pleased.

"Ye..." Murmur looked up at Seth and clutched her sides, a little bit of egg slipping out of her mouth into a golden mess on the floor. She struggled to keep a straight face as the boy almost twitched uncomfortably in her dress as it stretched and strained across his shoulders and he held himself in an odd manner, "ye make a stunning woman," was all Murmur could manage before the tears of laughter formed.

It almost physically hurt, how funny she was finding this, "Now all we need te do is find a wig for ye an' we'd earn ye enough money to get ye back to Vienda, no problem," she joked. "Oh vita, yer goin' te get ripped apart in Old Rosie...a little lady like you, they won't be able to resist."

Seth's face, if possible, grew to a much deeper shade of red at her laughter, especially at her last comment. "That's not funny," No, perhaps not- not to him- but it was very likely very true. He didn't want to walk around anywhere dressed like this, espeially not Old Rose. It didn't help his case that he had pretty long hair- who needed a wig? "This thing is really uncomfortable... how can you breathe in it?" Perhaps women were relieved by the breeze between their knees. This only made Seth more self-conscious- dresses provided easy access to those cruel enough to have their way with women. But Seth was not a woman, though now he was dressed like one. "Can you stop laughing?" His hands were shaking at his side, clenching and unclenching. This was so humiliating. "Can I take this thing off, now?" Oh, but he knew the answer to that- the deal was to walk around Old Rose in it. She would very likely make him stick to the deal.

"Oh don't take yerself so seriously," dismissed Murmur with a wave of her hand, "ye look fine...well not fine, yer a wreck-" she giggled. Murmur had no idea why she didn't do stuff like this more often. And she was glad that Seth was uncomfortable, women's clothing was not designed and never had been for comfort and it was good to make a man realize that. If only Murmur could get Seth to wear her shoes, but he looked about double her size.



"Can ye, heck," grinned Murmur, "C'mon, we're goin' out you an' me. Figure we'll take a stroll aroun' the market, a lady like ye needs some jewelry te go wi that dress an then," her eyes narrowed, "down by the docks...see some of the sailors."

She nudged Seth a little to turn him round, and started laughing again, "from behind ye really do look just like a beefy woman." Murmur finished the rest of her egg quickly and slipped out of the kitchen.

"Ye comin?" she asked happily.

Seth glared at Murmur's back. Why was she doing this to him? Had he done anything so horrible to her? Did she just hate men in general? He groaned and picked up Rita, who seemed not so pleased with his new stench, and reluctantly followed Murmur outside. "If I get molested, you're paying for it." He growled to Murmur, though the weight of the threat was drowned out by his embarrassment, the deep humility in his voice. When he crossed the threshold into the outside, Seth looked around nervously, as if expecting someone to jump him at any moment.

((might soon need a mod for Old Rose citizen's reactions... >< Unless Old Rose PCs care to join us?))

Astonishingly, for several minutes, no one seemed to notice.

Then, in true Old Rose fashion, a bedraggled drunkard waddled up to Seth. When he opened his mouth, the stench of alcohol made the boy's eyes burn, and tiny flecks of spittle punctuated every syllable.

"Heyyy, purdy lady," crooned the man, sidling up and putting his arm around Seth's shoulders. Ignoring Murmur, he eyed Seth's completely flat chest, his beer googles telling him in no uncertain terms that anything in a dress was appropriate to mate with. "Y'busy later? Or now...tshhh....s'later somewhere..."

He grinned lasciviously, displaying a dwindling collection of yellow teeth.

Seth visibly tensed as the man approached him, standing completely rigid when the man touched him, his cheeks burning in rage as he glared- first at Murmur, then at the drunkard. I'm being molested, imbeingmolestedimbeingmolestedimbeingmolested.... He caughed, then, in the deepest voice he could muster- if only to get his point across- he said, "Sorry, sir, I'm not interested." If that didn't get the point across, perhaps one of his tightly balled, white-knuckled, violently shaking fists could reason with this man. Honestly, he was amazed the stench of the dress he wore didn't deter the man, but the again, he was likely too intoicated to smell anything but the alcohol on his breath.

Murmur hovered a little way behind the scene, giving Seth the thumbs up sign as the tramp approached, mouthing 'go for it!' when the tramp made his slurred proposition.

However, Seth looked beyond uncomfortable, about two stages from either hyperventilating in the middle of Old Rosie or punching the tramp in the face. In an act of charity, Murmur tugged at the drunk's sleeve.

"I'm afraid my sister is taken already," she grinned at Seth, "by a pirate, if he saw ye...well...it wouldn't be pretty, brother. An' Between you and me," she said in a stage whisper to the old man but so Seth could hear her properly "ye don't want te touch her; hers is a path many a man 'as trodden, an' now she's infected with all kinds of diseases."

Seth glared daggers at Murmur, but decided- grudgingly- to play along, "Oh, yes, I have so many diseases!" He said earnestly, "Tons and tons of diseases, so many you couldn't count if you wanted to, an' I have this mysterious rash that itches somethin' aweful. I don't think ye'd want te touch it- or any part of me, for that matter..." If this plan didn't work, he would happily punch the man out... and for that matter he contemplated doing the same to Murmur- shame she was a woman.

The pirate cocked an eyebrow, eyeing Seth up and down. The mention of diseases, curiously, did not seem to dissuade him, but the deep voice triggered some sort of evolutionary self-preservation deep within his drunken mind.

"Er," he said, stumbling backwards. "What are ye, some sort o' ponce? Sonny, ye got problems, an' I tells ya..."

Meandering off, backwards, he continued to berate Seth, mentally assuring himself that he couldn't have possibly known.

Seth glared after the man as he backed away, fists still shaking- part of him was, perhaps, a little upset the man left- this was one of those days he wanted to let fists fly. He felt the strong need to punch something- or someone. Letting it out in a slow, shallow sigh he turned his glare back on Murmur. There were a number of things he wanted to say, but instead said, grumpily, "Well let's go on, then. I want to get this all over with as quickly as possible." It was obvious his mood hd seen better days, as had he.

"Well that were downright rude," said Murmur with a small smile, "he wants te talk about problems?" she said to Seth, "'e should get 'is face sorted out, scarin' away children that is. No wonder 'e had te try it on wi' a bloke in a dress an-"

Murmur's eyes slid upwards to Seth who looked like he wanted to punch her in the neck and couldn't help but feel a little bit of pity, "Relax," she said attempting soothing, "there are worse things I could 'ave made ye do, ye know. Come on, I need te go to the market, I still have a spoon full of busts...err, bust full of spoons that wants floggin'" Murmur shook her head, evidently the hangover was still bothering her a little

Worse? Worse than wearing a- literally- stinking dress in Old Rose and being flirted with and touched by other men? Worse? Was she serious? Seth fumed. What could she possibly have made him do that was worse unless it involved self-mutilation? He visibly attempted to relax; at the very leasty he had stopped bristling, and his hands were no longer balled into fists, though they yet shook. He followed Murmur to their next destination in tense silence, sulking. "Er... where are we going, now?" He finally spoke up after a while, still a bit tense, eyes darting left and right at passersby. He couldn't wait for this miserable day to end, and yet it had only just begun.

Murmur led them eastwards, towards the traders market, almost forgetting her cross dressing companion entirely as they navigated the bodies of sellers and shoppers alike.

The girl did not stop to window shop as she went towards her destination, a bric-a-brac stall that would take her spoons for a small price, ignoring the calls of traders waving fabric in her direction, pausing only to eye a small trout held out by a fishmonger and chuckling at the label 'fresh' that the seller had given it. It that trout was fresh then Murmur was a member of the Seventen.

"I'm selling these off," said Murmur plunging a hand into her bodice and pulling out more cutlery than it was probably logical to keep stored there, "It'll be pittance but It's better than nothin', ye know?"

While Murmur dealt with bartering her bustfull of cutlery, Seth stood at a distance, looking like a disheveled, wilted flower that had been trampled a few times over by a particularly fat chrove. His eyes were rather shifty as he continued in his vigilant watch for potential molesters. In all honesty, he would have rather taken on the Beefman hand-to-hand in a cage match over wearing a dress in a rundown city full of drunken men with no shame. But that had already been established, and he had made a deal- one that just happened to be getting worse and worse as time wore on.

Perhaps he was being just a bit too tense. Perhaps it was for a very good reason that he was so tense, but maybe he should sit back and look at this as a learning experience. Look at things from a woman’s point of view. Sure… he would totally do that if there was no danger of being molested every time a drunk walked by. He winced as he thought of the last man that had passed him by. "I know, Rita..."

“Care to hurry this along, Murmur?” He fidgeted in the dress- much to Rita's discomfort- pulling at it in an attempt to make it at least a little more comfortable. It didn’t work. “If wearing your dress isn’t bad enough, I have a bit of pain in my foot- not to mention all these bruises you gave me last night, and it would be good to get out of…” He trailed off. He was complaining. Perfect. “Erg….” He was not normally one to complain so much, especially over petty little pains… then again he was also not one to put on a dress. Ever. Until this morning, or last night, rather, when he had refused to pass up a challenge. He wondered, briefly, if dress-wearing decreased the size of one’s balls. “Sorry…” He sighed in defeat, “I agreed to this last night and I should take full responsibility for my actions, however… humbling. I’ll stop complaining, now.”

"Oh Diddums," said Murmur distractedly, placing the small amount of change she'd received in return for the silverware into her bust, "We're nearly done, 'ere- just a quick walk to the next stop, I wanna show ye someplace before ye leave Old Rosie- it's the only decent place in the entire town." She paused and shut her bad eye, hand pressed to her face as though thinking of something, "How are ye leavin' Old Rosie? First thing tomorrow, ye said...an' it's now tomorrow. Do ye still even have enough money?"

"Well, fisrt off, I am not leaving in this thing," He said quickly, "But I was thinking I would leave by boat. Maybe moa, if there's a place nearby I can rent one.." He winced internally as he remembered the last time he had ridden one. But then again, the last time had been quite the storm. "And with this?" He touched the purse he'd stolen from Beefman, "I should have more than enough to get there..." He trailed off, biting his lip, "Are you sure you don't want to come along?"

Murmur looked at her hands awkwardly. She did want to go to Vienda very much, but not the Vienda that would be waiting for her if she traveled with Seth. She wanted to go home, but things had changed and home belonged to somebody else now.

"Come on, we're goin' this way," said Murmur turning abruptly on her heels, ignoring the question noticeably "It's on the boarders, a surprise. An' then I'll release ye from yer bet," she forced a chuckle.

"Fer all yer complainin' ye weren't a bad sport. Even if I 'ad lost I doubt I'd 'ave gone in that bath, ye know?"

He had no idea what she was so afraid of. A part of him- the part that was less furious about her putting him in a dress- felt sorry for her. He didn't push things, so he remained quiet.



"Oh, well yeah. That's ok, I mean... wait..." His eye twitched, "You mean this whole time I've been going through with a bet that wasn't even real!?" He glared at Murmur, "And you couldn't have bothered to tell me this earlier?! Like, before getting me to wear this Vita-forsaken thing?!" He fumed, his words trailing into incoherent, frustrated mumbles, though some distinct four-letter words could be heard. He was so tempted to just rip the dress off then and there, but there was the problem that his clothing was still all the way back in Murmur’s house. He realized he probably shouldn’t have left them there. Oh, well. He would just have to take a bath, later, and wash his clothes for good measure. He didn’t see how Murmur could stand it. After all, weren't women technically supposed to be cleaner than men?