RVA: In Her Lair, Part One (Mature)

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“Night” was an abstract concept at best aboard Darktail Station, as it floated in the void near a convenient nexus of hyperspace navigation points. The docks ran non-stop of course, but all of the Six Races generally were most comfortable with a defined cycle of rest and labor. Which is why everyone outside of the docks tended to follow a ten-twenty pattern, ten hours of work, twenty hours of rest, based on an average of the day-night cycles of the Prime homeworlds.

Given the services that Habebti’s Sophistications offered, it tended to work closer to a twenty-ten pattern, with enough shifts that none of Habebti’s boys and girls had to labor more than ten hours at a time. The nature of their work demanded that they be enthusiastic, not weary. As was her habit, Madame Habebti herself made her usual appearance in the early “evening,” after the doors had been open long enough for a nice grouping of customers to gather.

And there were so many customers these days. The shift from pirate outpost to legitimate shipping port had been rather eventful, but Sophistications had weathered it with patience. Not only had the number of customers increased, their attitudes had mellowed considerably compared to the older, rougher crowd.

So Habebti, dressed in her usual flowing white dress and heavy gold and emerald jewelry, accented by a pair of golden rope belts at her waist, had stepped into Sophistications’ public lounge. She was a striking figure, a Wazagan, with that draconic race’s height of nearly two and a half meters, her toned muscles flexing under a skin composed of thousands of tiny blue scales. Her thick curly hair was dyed green, to match her eyes and the emerald earrings she wore.

The boys and girls working the room all stood, even the ones attending to patrons, to give her a respectful bow as she lay herself on the lounge set on a raised dais at the back of the room. Habebti’s kingdom was small, but she was mistress of all she surveyed, and under her eyes it prospered.

( Discontent in the Kingdom )