The best laid plans of mice and men (part two)

Back at the castle, Bert returns the clothes he's been wearing to the girl sleeping off her alcoholic excesses down in the dungeon. As he lays the skirt down beside her naked slumbering body, he seeks to cop a crafty feel of one of her breasts. Since he is still in female form, he could have just as easily copped a crafty feel of his own tits but the thought never occurs to him. As he sees it, it's gentle rise and fall along with the rest of the girl's chest as she breathes seems to be simply begging for his attention. 'Maybe I have lesbian tendencies' he thinks. However, his thoughts are painfully interrupted when, in changing his position to better able him to reach a bobbing boob, Bert carelessly gets his fingers caught in one of the of the many mousetraps he himself set to deal with the castle's rodent infestation. As a passing mouse is heard to remark in obvious mock-sympathy, "It's a right bugger when your best laid schemes gang aft agley like that isn't it; ye great towering beastie," before scuttling off sniggering.

Of course, it goes without saying that talking mice are something of a rarity, even in Gagaland. They used to be quite prolific once upon a time; that is, until the giant butterflies turned up. It wasn’t so much that the cat got their tongues, it was more to do with the carnivorous butterflies getting the rest of them.

The following morning, Bert awakens to find that he's his old teenage masculine self again, apart from feeling a tad nauseous. The Lord High Scroll Master (Willy to his mates) is back on duty, so Bert is not a free agent today. He has dragon keepers to meet since it's his job to provide them with details of all legitimate births expected over the coming week, thus ensuring they DON'T get fed to dragons. It's The Lord High Scroll Master's job to provide the dragon keepers with details of all impending illegitimate births, thus ensuring the dragons won't go hungry.

I suppose it must appear strange to an outsider, but it never occurs to anyone in Gagaland to question the barbaric practice of feeding babies to dragons; it's just the way things things are! Nobody involved in the process actually enjoys it; not even the dragons. They'd be far happier tucking into one of those tasty giant butterfly things currently terrorising Gagaland. What's more, nobody actually thinks keeping magic out of sex is a particularly good idea, but it's the law and the whole point about laws is that they're meant to be obeyed; they don't necessarily have to be good.

By mid day, the nausea Bert had experienced earlier has passed and so he grabs a couple of minutes to visit the dungeon to make sure the girl has got away okay. He deliberately left the place unlocked so she could leave anytime she wished. It therefore surprises him immensely to discover that the girl's not only still there but that she and her entire family have now moved in and set up home there. Once Bert's sufficiently recovered from the shock of this human infestation of his work place (suggesting an urgent need for him to set some considerably larger traps), he asks the tribe of trespassers why they're illegally squatting in a government building's dungeon? The entire family answer in unison, "Giant carnivorous butterflies!" It's a good answer. Good enough anyway. Bert leaves them to it and besides, he's going to need that girl again the next time he wants to change sex, or even just wants sex come to that. Okay, they're braking the law by being there but since it's not a particularly good law, who gives a fuck?

Hopefully, the girl will give a fuck, to Bert, tonight. He needs to be a girl again for his first midwifery lesson. But herein lies a further problem. Being able to magically look like a girl is as easy as falling on a woman. Speaking and behaving like one however is a very different matter and though well practiced in pulling himself off, he has serious doubts about his ability to pull off this particular stunt.

As the family's three generations busy themselves with the task of settling in, making the dark, dank dungeon seem homely and detaching sprung mouse-traps from their shoes, Bert notices the attention the girl he screwed last night's mother is giving to her. She notices him noticing and explains, "She was a bit nauseous earlier but she's alright now. It must have either been something she ate OR SOMEONE SHE SLEPT WITH."

With that very loud pronouncement, the mother gave him such a look that would have caused a mighty oak tree to shrivel up to the size of an acorn, had there been a mighty oak tree present. "I know everything" she continued, only much more quietly this time which Bert found even more unnerving than the shouting. "I have the gift, I know the craft for I am the mistress of the greatest magic of all: I'm a midwife and you, my lusty lad, are in BIG trouble."