Oswin's Wardrobe Malfunction!

By darkblaziken n snowylavendermist

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING CHAPTER CONTAINS IMAGES WHICH MAY OR MAY NOT DISTURB YOU. PLEASE DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH, BELOW THE AGE OF TWELVE OR HAVE JUST HAD YOUR LUNCH/DINNER.

A week has passed since Serra's utterly failed attempt to gain the title of the Head of the Ostian Spy Network.

Translation: since that disastrous attempt where the pink-haired devil tried and failed to find out more about Bern other than Zephiel's bowel activities (and has thus been conveniently disposed of at the Reglay's doorstep) and his maquillage tendencies, no one else has dared to try for the position of the Head of the Ostian Spy Network.

Hector sighed and glared at the stack of reports on his table. He really needed someone efficient, someone dependable on that position. Now. If he could not manage someone soon, his spy reports on Bern was going to disintegrate into some health report on the one hundred and one ways to get diarrhoea.

He slammed the table in frustration.

Bad idea.

He glared at the newly splintered bits of oak in front of him, as though daring the pieces to grow back into a table. Which, of course, they didn't.

"Oswin!"

Aforementioned knight hurried into Hector's office in his full orange armor, convenient diaper in hand from where he had been practicing what he was best at. "Yes, milord?"

"Are you sure no one has applied for the position since Serra?"

"Absolutely certain, milord. The guards have been sent to patrol all of Ostia and have been ordered to bring back every single person who has shown some form of interest in the contents of the poster."

"And there has been no one? No one at all?"

"Well, there were a few of them, but it turns out that nearly all of them were illiterate and were simply gawking at the gold-trimmed parchment, and the rest were simply passing by or trying to peel the poster off to obtain the parchment."

Hector had really wanted to bang his head on the table repeatedly at that moment, but unfortunately, there was no table. Since when had he told Oswin to use gold-trimmed parchment? Sometimes the sheer stupidity of his advisor amazed him.

"Milord, if I may give a suggestion…"

Hector slumped into his chair and allowed him to continue, too tired to stop the idiot from speaking.

"…would you entrust the position to me temporarily, until we can find a more suitable candidate?"

This caused Hector to promptly leap out of his chair again. It took him another ten seconds to fully appreciate the meaning of this sentence (and this is the person who calls Oswin slow. Oh, the irony.) "What…you mean, make YOU the head of the Ostian Spy Network?"

Oswin nodded, a most sincere expression on his face.

Hector did not know whether this was the cue to laugh or to cry. "Oswin, you know…I know you're a most, um, capable advisor, but, you know, no offence to your abilities, you do seem a little—you know, just that tiny, tiny bit—unsuited for the role."

Even Oswin understood the babbling lord.

"Milord, are you implying that I'm not good enough for the job?" he asked, his voice obviously tinted with hurt and upset.

"N-no! All I meant to say was, uh," Hector paused, uncertain how to put this in the most euphemistic (in Matthew's words, politically correct) way. "…oh, never mind. Alright, but I'll still have to put you on trial first, right? Uh, so let's see, what shall be your task…" Hector racked his brains for something very, very hard. He found nothing. He thought so hard he used the dormant brain cells he had never used in his entire life.

And it clicked.

"Alright, Oswin, I want you to come up with ten disguises for the job. I mean, infiltrating the Bernese castle dressed like a wooden ta—I mean, dressed in that much clanking armour is rather conpiscu-conispi-conpicus-argh, dammit, what's that word again? Oh, right, conspicuous. Right, so trying to get to Bern's top secret war documents in full knight armour is rather conspicuous. So, Oswin, could you present me with ten disguises you can use as a spy?"

He was pretty certain that Oswin would absolutely fail at this task, since he practically wore the same thing 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 52 weeks a year. Yes, he knew for a fact that Oswin even wore his armour in his sleep. Talk about paranoia.

Either ways, he reasoned, he'd have a good reason for failing Oswin, and it would be a bit of a laugh for him as well. After all, anyone could hardly look worse than a beech table, right?

He was about to find out just how wrong he was.

Oswin, as always, took things very seriously. Perhaps a bit too seriously at times. So, when Lord Hector had told him that he would get the job if he managed to come up with ten convincing disguises, he hurriedly went off to prepare them.

However, being someone with rather little dress sense (since he had been wearing that set of orange armour ever since he could fit into them), Oswin really had no idea what "inconspicuous" entailed.

So, after a few tedious hours of trying on, or rather, squeezing into various sets of clothes, Oswin finally managed to find ten sets he were rather pleased with.

Lord Hector will be so pleased, he thought happily as he gathered up the bits and pieces of cloth.

"Milord!"

Hector looked up just in time to see a lumbering block of orange hurl itself into his dining room. With an inward groan he recognized it to be Oswin. He had managed to find the disguises so soon? He had expected to have to endure his presence again by next week, at least. "Yes, Oswin?"

"I have managed to find the disguises already," said Oswin eagerly. Right. Like I didn't know. "Would you like to see them now?"

Hector stifled a satiated burp and nodded. Well, at least he was going to get some after-dinner entertainment.

Oswin dashed out again at a speed Hector had never thought he was capable of. The things elation could do to people were amazing. Moments later, he returned, but it took Hector a moment to recognize that it was, in fact, Oswin.

That was not because the disguise had worked, by the way.

It was because said Knight had returned dressed in a red slightly tattered cloak which looked ridiculously small on him, a faded green sleeveless shirt which was under so much strain it looked as though it threatened to rip apart any moment, complete with awkwardly skinny white pants, an elaborate belt which was supposed to hang loosely from the hip but was now being stretched to its maximum capacity and a pair of boots four sizes too small.

In short, Oswin had returned dressed in Matthew's old clothes.

Or rather, he looked like a bloated prune pretending to disguise itself as a human Matthew.

Hector wished that he had eaten less of the twelve-course meal he had just had. Was that the wyvern leg that he felt sliding up his gullet?

"Uh, very well, Oswin, I know your rationale for dressing like this is because Matthew looked inconspicuous in this, but, um, it doesn't really work on you. Uh, so," Hector continued hastily as the corners of Oswin's mouth drooped to a hurt expression, "Never mind about that. Could you show me the next disguise, then?"

Oswin nodded dejectedly and went out to change into the next disguise.

Please…he looked like a ball in Mattew's clothes…I'm sure huge oversized balls are not noticeable in the middle of Bern…Heck…he'll probably get poked by zillions of wyverns even before he got to the castle.

The next one was much better, though as ineffective as the previous one. Well, at least he had not tried to squeeze himself into something tight again. Oswin had somehow managed to procure a set of Wyvern Knight armour, but there was something about him which made him look completely out of place in them.

Black armour…shoe polish in hair…charcoal on face…He'll probably only be inconspicuous if he somehow sneaked into the palace by the rubbish chute…That is if he didn't get stuck in the pipes halfway there first…

Hector dismissed this too in the politest way he could think of, almost regretting what he had said as Oswin dragged himself out of the room with slumped shoulders.

The next one was bad.

Not only did it look bad. It smelt bad too.

Struggling to keep the roasted pigeon in his stomach, Hector coughed. "Oswin…please explain this…ehh…disguise?"

The dripping brown and murky slimeball nodded. "You see, Lord Zephiel has a well-known bowel problem, and thus, if I travel looking like one of his bowel products, no one would recognize me!"

Hector very nearly burst into tears. They could probably smell him all the way from Etruria and he calls that inconspicuous? Waving his hand, he dismissed Oswin to change out before the servants had to clean a very disgusting pile of regurgitated stomach matter.

The next one was worse.

Hector saw a blond head with two pigtails tied with bright pink ribbons, before a humongous body heaved itself into the room, bucket in arm.

"Haiyah...I am a dairymaid today..." Oswin batted his eyelashes (in mimicry of Serra) and twirled a false pigtail, speaking in a falsetto voice.

Hector tried his best to not vomit at that place, at that instant, in that situation. "Oswin...please...change out now!"

It was not the time to be polite. If Oswin continued to stay in this disguise, Hector was sure that he would have a heart attack and die on the floor.

Oswin nearly cried as he left the room, pulling the blond wig from his head.

Subsequently, Oswin entered the room dressed as a bard (halfway through, he accidentally burst Nil's old shorts and ripped the Nil's old shirt), a fortune-teller (somehow he had managed to find a set of Hannah's shapeless things, except that on him, he looked like more like a rubber ball), a scholar (He even got a mop of bright purple looks from somewhere), a priest (he conpletely tore the hem in Lucius' old clothes all the way up to reveal legs coated with orange hair) and even as a cook. While these were certainly not as disturbing as the first one, they weren't very effective either: it seemed that no matter what Oswin wore, he would just remain as conspicuous as a huge block of orange. Or perhaps even more conspicuous than a huge block of orange.

Hector, by then, almost hated himself for dismissing every single set of disguise; for every time he did not appear to show approval of what Oswin had worn, the corners of his mouth drooped that little bit more, and his shoulders sagged that little bit more. If Oswin had been accused by Hector of looking like a dog in the past, he was now looking like a very, very old dog.

As Hector regretfully waved his hand to dismiss Oswin once more (now dressed in a ridiculously huge chef's hat an oversized apron), expecting the corners of his lips to droop beyond the confines of his face, Oswin, who had looked so dejected since the first costume, suddenly perked up with renewed vigour and a smile on his face.

"Milord," he said excitedly, "Well, even if you had not liked these disguises, surely you would approve of the next one!" With that, he dashed out of the room.

Hector raised an eyebrow and tried to keep track of the number of costumes he had gone through. Nine. So this was the last one. Finally.

Moments later, Oswin returned with his final disguise.

Rather than describing what he was wearing, a description of Hector's response, perhaps, would be more useful at this instant.

Hector's eyes widened. His jaw dropped and nearly dislocated itself. Whatever half-digested remains of his twelve-course meal now threatened to rush out of his gaping mouth. His brain felt as though it had just been converted into a huge block of ice. He tried to make a comment, but he just ended up mouthing wordlessly like a fish.

For Oswin was there, dressed in a shockingly red, silky and completely lacy something which Hector recognized as what used to be Florina's lingerie.

Yes, it was a beautiful piece. Yes, it was really nice to touch. Yes, he loved seeing his wife in it. Yes, it was Farina's present to her little sister. Yes, it was vaguely expensive. And yes, he loved that piece of revealing clothing.

But this was no joke. After seeing your wife look absolutely gorgeous in the same set of clothes, seeing a very flat, very hairy man trying to squeeze himself into the exact same set of lingerie is so highly disturbing that the word "disturbing" is an understatement.

"Oswin…what the heck is this?" Hector, having finally managed to find his voice, spluttered. The effect was a lot less intimidating that he had wanted it to be.

"Well milord…they said that King Desmond loves women…doesn't he? I thought that like father, like son and probably Zephiel loves women too. So I thought that dressing up as one of his harem and seducing Zephiel, which would be the best disguise ever!"

Zephiel would be seduced by him the day the stars shine pink in a yellow sky.

This caused Hector's voice to be lost, gagged and caught in his throat again. What the hell was Oswin thinking of! Grabbing a piece of parchment, he scribbled what he had wanted to say in capital letters and shoved it in Oswin's face.

"Get out of my sight. Now. But, milord!" Oswin protested. "B-b-b-but don't you think that was absolutely sublime and—"

Hector snatched the piece of parchment back, underlined the word "now" ten times and shoved it back in Oswin's face.

Oswin promptly burst into tears and ran out of the room bawling like a little child.

After he had left, Hector retched and spewed out the contents of his twelve-course meal all over the table. He was never, ever going to trust Oswin again. Ever.

In retrospect, Oswin looked much better as a block of orange wood.

Just then, a guard rushed into the room. "Milord! We have a person outside the castle demanding to seek an audience with you regarding the head spy job!"

Hector slumped back into his chair, exhausted. "Let him or her come again tomorrow morning. Tell him that I'm too sick to see him now."

After all, he didn't need another clown dressing up in his wife's lingerie.

snowylavendermist: Woohoooo! Another chapter done! Poor Oswin, sniff...

darkblaziken: Since when does anyone pity Oswin, tsk, so soft Flo!

Matthew: Yeah, why can't anyone pity me instead? *points at four weights hanging from four limbs*

darkblaziken: Awww...*pats Matthew on the head* Anyways, next up we have a mystery person...Is he a man, is she a woman? Is he a hero or sage? Is he paladin or pigeon? Is he man or morph? Is he...Nergal?

snowylavendermist: Nergal? I thought we're not doing Nergal?

Matthew: Nergal? Mwahaha! I get to get revenge again! *Demonstrates newest critical attack* Chad! Cath! Lugh! Ray! Hold on tight! Friple-Critical-Uber-Awesome-MattnCo.-Silencer! * Does a normal silencer with added wieghts hanging from the limbs tightly* *Poor innocent victim is knocked out by four simultaneous blows and an assassin's silencer*

darkblaziken: Very...ehh...impressive? Anyway, wanna know who the next person is? Will he/she/it fail?

snowylavendermist: Let's just hope that he's less fail than Oswin...sigh...you know...maybe he'll be more successful if he wears grey and disguises himself as a wall or one of the pillars in Zephiel's castle or something.

Matthew: Tsk. I don't even need disguises to get the job done.

darblaziken: Stop being egoistic, tsk. Anyways, stay tuned!