Murrina's throat hurt. It had been hurting ever since she was awoken in her new body. The experiment had been a success hence why. Her nanites weren't active in her body yet, they were on a timer and that timer still had a day or so to go before it kicked on. Then again they had decided to open her up off and on for... Murrina wasn't sure how long now.

Honestly, she didn't care. After every body transfer Murrina felt very much like she was in some kind of apathetic stupor that made her almost incapable of getting out of bed. Ruth finally came in, “Murrina... up.. I'm getting you out of here and back down home before you become part of that chair. Your tests are done and you're getting out of here.” Ruth was one of the few people who bothered getting close to Murrina then again she was the only one that saw Murrina during these times.

Nodding Murrina stood up. “Alright,” she rasped, sounding about as good as her throat looked. Her neck was covered in red and purple bruises and blotches. The device had to be put in a place where some internal hemorrhaging was unavoidable, thus giving her the look that she was on the receiving end of a hangman's noose and survived it.

She dressed and put on her normal equipment. It felt strange. Her body was lighter now. She had been weighed after she awoke. One hundred and forty pounds, she looked just as she had before! It was the fact her skeleton was now hollow titanium and carbon graphite on the inside. It made her awkward.

Ruth bid her a fond farewell and waved her off as she ported down to Fryja's surface again. She found herself standing where she had been when she shot herself in the head during the experiment. Bits of her brain and some other pieces she didn't really feel like examining were still there. Murrina grimaced and went inside the inn.

"And remember not to touch anything."

"Yes, Mr. Deforge!"

Merric was feeling only a little better since the hemorrhagic attack in his office, even though he had to gulp down a disgusting amount of medicine to make any difference. There was still some soreness in his chest and stomach, but it was better than debilitating pain any day.

No, the nasty look on his face was because of Phedre. She was a nice girl, probably...oh, twenty or so, and had been smiling since they'd gotten on the Sonnechien to come to Fryja at all. One might think that living with Marlow would have made him immune to the effects of undefeatably cheerful people, but no, he still found her rather annoying.

"Oh! This is the Irony Inn that you were talking about, right?" Phedre grinned when they walked inside, looking around excitedly. "Oh, it's adorable! So quaint! Nice fireplace!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, just be quiet okay? And don't get too comfortable! No one actually said you could stay here yet!"

"It's an Inn, right? As long as I can pay, I can stay!"

"Just sit down," Merric pointed to the bar stools with a sharp gesture.

Phedre smiled at him some more, no matter how mean he was to her, she just wouldn't stop being sticky-sweet! She was enjoying this, he guessed, because she'd just saved his life and she knew the thought was making him mad...

There was a click from the back door as Murrina came plodding in. Funny because she made so little noise on the floor despite the fact that she had to catch herself on almost every footstep. At least she wasn't quite like the walking dead, though she felt like it. The sounds of voices drew her attention as she made it a little further into the room. “Merric?” she rasped. Her voice was so soft for the moment thanks to the sutures in her throat that he might not hear her. Why was he with another woman? She'd only been gone for a couple of days right? The idea that perhaps her company had been replaced made her pause. Murrina felt like all the happiness had been sucked out of her since the operation. It happened every time, but the thought of that made her feel a little ill. Maybe she should just go back outside and head back to the Empire and have them port her back to her cabin instead so she didn't walk in on anything....

She shook her head at that thought, battling the predisposed despair that came with having one's soul forcibly mucked with and furrowed her brow. No... that thought was stupid! He didn't sound all that happy to be dealing with the woman anyway! Besides they weren't officially a real pair anyway. Or at least Merric had never called her anything more than his date. Stop it Murrina get your ass in there and have some tea.

She shuffled with her head down down the rest of the hallway. Lifting her head up hurt her throat, pulling on the sutures. She hoped the nanomachines kicked in soon. Maybe tonight or tomorrow? If it didn't do better for her mind and her mood it would do better for her body and then maybe she wouldn't look as pathetic as she was feeling.

When she finally did reach the edge of the bar she looked up and leaned against it. Her eyes slid from the woman to Merric and then to the woman again, who looked strangely familiar, thanks to all the transfers she'd just undergone the things she wasn't making a point of remembering clearly had become slightly hazy...

Merric left Phedre sitting at the bar for a moment, taking a moment to himself, which he spent by the fireplace, facing the wall with a hand leaning against it for support, the other one rubbing his chin with his face lowered.

What the hell am I supposed to do now?! he thought loudly, and immediately wondered if there were nasty looks coming at him from where ever in Fryja Bell was at that moment - whoops. If I get caught harboring a fugitive, I'll probably be executed - and that's if they feel like being nice. Then again...no worse than getting Murrina to make weapons for me...This is a terrible idea! I'm putting way too many people in danger by bringing this idiot woman here-

All the while, Merric didn't even notice Murrina come in. Phedre, however, smiled at her as soon as she came in and sat down at the bar.

"Hi!" she said, smiling. "I haven't seen you for a while! How've you been?"

Bellindaianna was already in the midst of coming down the stairs in her little black dress. Not so loud you overstuffed penguin, Bell thought, only it wasn't quite to herself. I'll take care of it, she finally sent to him, using the a real psionic channel this time. Though there was a question if somebody had heard her thoughts when she didn't intend to make them public.

The little nine year old girl's shoes clunked against the floor as she reached the landing. “Murrina can't answer right now, they just did a lot of stuff to her and it hurts for her to talk right Murrina?” Bell looked up at the woman from next to the staircase. Her eyes slid over the synthetic womans body and then finally settled on the bruising under her jaw and along the front of her throat. “You look like shit Murrina.” The little girl kind of waved at Phedre and then plodded over to Murrina. “I'll get you some tea though if you wanna sit.”

Bell shuffled from behind the counter. “It's okay 'cause I know everything. Phedre can stay here since I can tell she doesn't man any harm, and if she did then well... I could always pull her arms and her legs off and that would solve that problem. The upstairs is full though, but there's plenty of room downstairs though since nobody's smart enough to find it and Aiia can't remember. She probably won't remember any time soon though since she was almost murdered... Murrina did you want some honey with this it will help the inflammation from the stitches on the back of your throat.”

Shocking to find Bell in such a good mood today!

The whole scene had been sort of surreal, and Merric watched the whole thing as soon as he'd heard the message. And after Bell's data dump was over, he stood there with his mouth slightly open, blinking at her and at Murrina, and then at Phedre.

"Who're you callin' an overstuffed penguin?" was all he could come up with afterward. But once he was done blurting stupid things out loud, he hurried over to the bar and stopped right next to Murrina, propping his elbow against the bar top and staring at her with a bit of a strange look. Particularly at the bruises around her neck and jaw.

"This is...?!" he furrowed his brow a bit, and his mouth drew into a thin frown. "So this is from those experiments, I take it?"

Murrina nodded and opened her mouth like she might try to say something but was interrupted by Bellin coming in with a mug of tea. “You should have seen it when they made her kill herself! BOOM! I wish you'd let me have done it though I might have been able to let out some of my frustration on something I knew was coming back after I killed it.”

“You hush,” she finally managed at Bell. It was a rather loud whisper but nothing more as she put her hand up to her throat in a poor attempt to hide it. “I'm here aren't I?” She wrinkled up her nose at Bell and tried to think of something better to answer with but was failing miserably.

Bell just stuck her tongue out at Murrina. “That's not nice. Besides! You got the new body you wanted! Didn't Doc Ruth say that you weigh only a hundred and thirty pounds now? Wow I still can't believe it you actually put a gun in your mouth and pulled the trigger!” The morbid little girl had seen the whole thing of course. Was that what her excitement was about?

With a frown Murrina made a lunging motion at Bell like she was going to throttle her. “Okay! Okay!” The little girl squeaked as she furrowed her brow. “I'll get out of your head just next time you have to do that let me!”

Murrina ignored Bellin from then on and picked up her cup of tea to have a sip. “The nanites will turn on sometime tonight and I won't have to worry about talking like this anymore,” Murrina explained at a whisper to Merric. “Is everything okay?” She asked, quirking an eyebrow at the look he had on his face.

Something wrong. The fact that she had to ask made him laugh a bit. "Oh, no! Of course not, besides, it must have really took some mettel, I mean, when I put a gun in my mouth I didn't even have the nerve to pull the trigger. But, I suppose, occupational hazard, and all, one has to expect these sorts of things. Come on, Murrina!" He threw his hand around in the air as he said the last part, and some of his hair came out from it's usual position of being slicked back flawlessly behind his ears and away from his face. "You do look terrible! And you just have to let these people do this sort of thing to you whenever the say so?! There's no way that you deserve this much! No one does!"

"Oh! Mr. Deforge - " Phedre piped up with a frown, holding her hand up - "You really shouldn't get so worked up, you're not - "

"Nanites or not, whether or not you come back from it all, there are worse things you can do to people than death! This is sick, experimenting on humans like this! And all the favors and the privilege they offer you is supposed to make it worth it or something? Or make it 'okay?!' What sort of things did they do to you, Murrina?!"

He stopped his rant to cover his mouth, backing away from her a little and giving her an apologetic look. His face turned a little paler and he coughed once, throatily.

"Oh...you're going to make things hard on yourself again, Mr. Deforge," Phedre tilted her head. "It's always worse when you really get your blood going, after all."

He turned his head toward her sharply, a rather terrifying look on his face. "Will - you - please - be - quiet??" he hissed at her. She blinked, slinking back a little, and said nothing.

Murrina didn't whiten, she turned a little gray. “I'm the source of all the biotechnology they have that's successful. From helping people free themselves of genetic deformity and diseases to killing and keeping away new viruses. Do you know how many people could die if I didn't do this?” She was already responsible for a lot of death, and she was making up for it in spades.

The little girl replaced another cup of tea for her when she'd completed the first quietly. Murrina knew she was in her mind though, there was that itch that usually wasn't there. She narrowed her eyes but kept quiet when she saw Bell pop up from behind the counter again. She turned her head back toward Merric and smiled as warmly as she could though it was tinged with the look of a child who was in the middle of receiving, or about to receive a lecture that she didn't want to hear. “Westeria has done terrible things to you, and yet you still love it. Why can't it be the same for me?”

She would have said more but her throat was starting to burn, so she doused it with some of that tea. Bell popped out from behind the kitchen door again. “Oh for shit sake Murrina just say it even though it's cheesy and unoriginal!” She glared at Murrina. “I'm tired of all this drama crap. Lone's half expecting Aiia to up and die as soon as he turns his back on her for half a second, Kei doesn't know what Asuka wants and to hell with what's going on with Asaiadeena! At least some of you should save your dignity by not being swept up in it too! Maybe I'm just too young to understand all you people ugh!”

“Shut up Bell!” Murrina nearly hurled her cup as she actually put a little volume in her voice, sounding like a little boy going through puberty, complete with squeaking noises.

Merric shook his head, blinking at Murrina. And for that moment, all he could think about was the lab, the kind of things they were keeping in there. Even though he only made weapons, he knew there was human experimentation going on in the military as well. He'd seen it. It wasn't pretty. And it wasn't even being done for medicine, on willing targets...it was being done for war. And he hadn't told anyone this!

But then again, he thought about it so loudly now he might as well have said it. He'd forgotten the little psychic kid was still running around! He glanced at her with a dry expression, and somehow he doubted she would do something like respect his privacy and not have paid attention to all the interesting little secrets he was keeping on the tip of his thoughts right now.

"My country gives me more than I ever deserved for what I've done in the past, Murrina," he says finally. "But the same thing goes for you and your Empire. The only difference is, I get the best of it, while you get the worst. I mean," he stops, his eyes falling on her battered neck again, and his expression softens sympathetically for a moment. "That has to hurt..."

“I've had worse,” she garbled resisting the urge to clear her throat and taking another sip of tea. She really had! Merric didn't need to know the gruesome details. Bell had already told him way more than he needed to know about the experimentation, if she thought too hard on it Bell might start saying things about her past again! He didn't need to know some of that stuff! Nor did she ever want him to.

“Like the time they were experimenting with the nanites?” Bell popped back out with the teapot and refreshed Murrina's cup. Bell grinned knowing she was stirring up trouble and in fact, making a point to do so.

There was a bit of a pause before she looked into the girls eyes. “If you tell him that-- I'll be forced to kill you little girl.” Murrina said blandly at Bell, knowing full well that she couldn't but knowing she could make Bell wish she would with a few well placed words or better yet... a tune.

She reached out with a hand that was actually warm for once, her new skeletal structure didn't cool down like the stainless steel had, and placed it on Merric's gloved hand. She patted it gently and then withdrew it again to put it on the counter. “It'll go away as soon as the timer on the nanomachines kicks off and they activate within me again, then it will go away. The pain's only temporary.”

He just frowned at her, and lowered his eyes. "Yeah, but..."

But what? He had an irrational urge to beat the life out of anyone who would do something as terrible as this on Murrina. He would have felt the same if someone had given her a paper cut, though. It was no different with Marlow, after all, and he'd always gotten a lot of grief from Cassie, and from his mother (before she died) about being overprotective to a fault. But where was the fault in wanting to protect his loved ones?! Especially from fates as horrible as this!

"...You don't deserve it," he repeated himself. "It doesn't seem right, someone like you having to go through something like that...I mean, not saying you can't handle it, it's just, er...well..."

Well now he just sounded naive. Good people don't always get what they deserve - same thing went for bad people. And just what the hell was a "good" person as opposed to a "bad" person, at that? He was no stranger to these sorts of concepts, and he knew Murrina wasn't either. And yet there was a little boy inside of him all the same, constantly arguing with "But that doesn't make it right!"

Maybe he was naive after all.

His chest hurt, and he was still really tired. How long had he been asleep in his office? How many hours ago had that been? How much sleep had he gotten before that even? Merric remembered his conversation with Professor Horton, about how much of his strain and stress was wearing on him these days. Of course, all of this had gotten worse ever since Marlow left.

"Sorry," he finally said, sitting down on a bar stool and leaning his head against his hand. "You just get back from a horrendous ordeal like that, and all I do is yell at you? I'm something of a brute, aren't I?"

"You're gonna make yourself sick, getting all flustered like that all the time," Phedre finally spoke up, her tone a bit harder than the happy-go-lucky-sing-song quality it had before. She was giving Merric a stern look. "You're not well enough to fight off another attack like that one you just had, remember, not without further means. Don't forget the reason you came to Fryja tonight, after all."

"Hrmph," Merric grumbled, not turning to look at Phedre. She had to go and blurt all that out, did she...?

“Makes me wonder if you like me too much or not enough,” Murrina tried to chuckle even though it came out all dry and raspy sounding. Her first attempt at humor. Actually Merric's controversy was doing her a great deal of good in working her back up to her old self. The apathy and the despair were melting away and she was shedding those foggy layers that made her feel like a robot. Laughter is good for the soul was it?

She looked down as the thought made her a little pink in the cheeks. “That reminds me. I did an analysis on your illness and on the-- um--” She looked at Phedre and suddenly wondered if she should be saying any of this. There was a good chance she just talked herself into a corner. “Um... you know what.. nevermind... it's something that we can discuss later maybe back at the cabin? Or are you going home after this?” She blinked over at Merric in silent apology that she might have just blurted something aloud in front of someone that shouldn't be knowing these things and pursed her lips.

She looked at Bell who was peering over the counter at them. The little girl wouldn't say anything, she was trouble, she wasn't evil. Though definitely an handful, morbid, an occasional pain, intrusive and had no sense of personal boundaries she wouldn't do anything that would put anyone in any real danger. “Why thank you Murrina. That's a good way of putting it.” Creepy little girl.

He looked at Phedre, then again at Murrina. "What...? Illness? Oh, th-that? How did you....?"

Phedre, for her part, just went back to smiling - but it was a different sort of smile, the one that said she knew something and she wasn't telling.

It was because Murrina had called it an "illness," and that just had to make her smile a little bit. It was just funny, was all. "No, you should tell us now! I'm dying to hear what you've come up with without my help, anyway."

Merric turned to Phedre again, looking mad once more. "Okay, so you know something I don't, is that what you're trying to tell me?! I'm getting really sick of your cryptic chidings and snarky opinions! Why don't I just turn you right around and back to Seamosa where I can give you over to the police?! Or to the military?! I could hand you right over to the Regent himself if I wanted to, so don't forget you were the one who came to me for help! So, if you would, if you're going to add to any conversation, make it useful, or don't say a goddamn thing at all!!"

His head swam suddenly and his eyes went dark. All this yelling was making him feel hot...or was that just the blood rushing in him...?

"That'll go and do it," Phedre grumbled as Merric fell right over off the bar stool and onto the floor.

Despite that Murrina had just undergone a series of very horrible experiments and tests, she leaned over and picked Merric up off the floor, and heaved them over to the sofa where she sat down with his head propped in her lap. Since her body was not completely organic she could do that type of thing. It was hard on her, especially now when she felt one of her stitches tear in the back of her throat. Not enough that she would have to go back to the Empire, but enough that she could feel a little bit of blood in the back of her mouth and run down her throat.

She wondered for a little while if she should call Aiia, perhaps that wasn't needed right now. As soon as he was out, at least right now he seemed rather calm. She looked to Phedre as she got a pillow and propped his head up a little more than her thigh could offer.

“From what we could find out it's an organism and it has a consciousness. It reminds me and reminded me of some sort of primordial sludge...” She might have said more than that but she trailed off... “Merric had already told me that it would eat anything, up to a point, but not only that it mutates cells inside the body... I would have to look at the paperwork to be more specific... my mind is always very foggy after they transfer me to a new body, sometimes it's hard for me to think straight...” She trailed off again, swallowing as she felt the salty fluid on her tongue and round the outer edge of her lips.

She followed Murrina over to the couch at a nonchalant pace, kneeling down beside Merric and reaching into his inside coat pocket, pulling out the black flask that anyone who knew Merric well enough would be familiar with by now. "That's all true, but only vaguely. Then, there's not many people left alive that would remember anything about the illness Mr. Deforge has. Yeah, illness..." she shrugged a little, opening the flask and easing some of the medicine down Merric's throat. "Hold his head up a bit...yeah, right there. Okay. Anyway, it's not really an illness, though 3000 years ago, in Seamosa, that's what people thought it was. But it's a seperate living thing with a rather complex consciousness for what it is. And you're right again, it mutates the cells of anything organic that it touches. And flesh, and bone, all of it. It mutates the bodies of living things into itself. In fact," she grins as Merric turns his head and groans, wrenching his brow together. "It doesn't even matter if the cells and tissue it consumes are alive or dead. Once it mutates something, it becomes something...well, something else."

She stands up, straightening her skirts a bit. "So, by that standard, it's got to be some sort of parasite...but what I want to know is how Merric came to carry something that should have been exterminated 3000 years ago when the same thing swept Seamosa in an epidemic of sorts. But I digress...You know, more than anything right now, this guy just needs some good rest and a decent meal. He's been a wreck ever since he sent his daughter abroad. I'll leave him in the very capable hands on his friends."

With that, Phedre wandered out of the tavern, quite interested in getting an idea of the place she would be staying at for now. Merric opened his eyes slowly, coughing a little bit.

"...huh? What happened...?" he says groggily, looking up at Murrina with weary eyes.

Murrina looked down at Merric and smiled softly at him. “You freaked that I knew about your illness and passed out,” she said nonchalantly. She smoothed a little bit of hair back from his brow and then tucked some of the hair back from behind his ear. “You're not going to get all weird on me and start acting funny are you?”

How did she explain that one? If she said she'd known all along she might take his liking him the way she did as sympathy! That wasn't true at all! “I didn't think it was something all that important so I didn't say anything about it.” Yes! That worked out better.

Murrina had a lot of other things to think about, such as the something else. She'd heard of something like that before it sounded a lot like one of those urban myth fairytale type things, but if she could catch a demon in her back yard she could believe this. If something did happen though... would he even remember her? Would he turn on her and try to kill her? She'd probably let him if that happened. There would just be a scramble at Empire to get her up and living again.

Merric just smiled, slight as it was, as she stroked his hair back. "I should have told you, anyway...I just didn't want you to worry, was all...Oh man...I hit my head on the floor pretty hard, didn't I?"

Still, he looked pretty happy, with his head in her lap. Murrina was always good medicine for him, after all. "I'll be okay, I just need to sleep, I think...I guess I should probably get off you if I'm gonna do that, huh? Unless you were thinking about going to bed as well?"

He raises his eyebrows at her with that one, giving her a wily smirk... He must still be a little light-headed or something! Or was this the sort of "weird" she meant?

“I was planning on going back to the cabin and sleeping in my own bed since I have one now. It's pretty neat too, though I haven't slept in it yet. I'm beat... there's something about dying... and then getting resurrected into another body that really makes me tired... but not too tired.” Murrina had actually been in this body a couple of days now, but since she could hardly get out of bed the first day, the second she spent in a wheelchair like an old lady and today? Yea...

She smirked again and winked at him as she helped him sit up. “Care to see how nice my new bed is? The craftsmanship is incredible carved my initials in the side and everything!” She chuckled and helped him to his feet, “As long as you think you can make it there with me of course, or do I have to carry you?”

He grinned at her and bit his lower lip, and even after she'd gotten him to his feet, he was sure not to let their hands fall apart, not that he was expecting any resistence otherwise from her. Well, he wasn't exactly sure why he did what was about to happen, just like the other few times it had happened, but he was sure the reasons were there somewhere, perhaps more obvious to the two of them than either of them had been willing to say, for whatever reason.

But he leaned forward and kissed her, and not just one of those that are over in one swift move - he meant a lot with this one, even if he was catching her off guard, and even if it hardly seemed well timed (weren't there usually romantic rituals that led up to this sort of thing? He was no good at the kind of thing anyway!)

"Never you mind me, I'm fine if you are," he says when he does pull back, looking tired but happy - a good shift from how he had been when he'd gotten to the Irony Inn. "Just...no brandy this time, okay?"