Solo Woman to Woman

[Caela Dorin]

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Sunberth JobThis thread is written to complete the following job for the citizens: Need stolen miza retrieved from female escort

15th Summer 516AV

The dancer walked quickly, head down as she headed for the centre of town. She headed to the south side of the bridge searching for a tavern that she knew by reputation. Obviously, Caela had seen it before because she'd lived in Sunberth all her life but she had never entered it before. It wasn't a gang that had kept her away from it; no one had laid claim to this area. The tavern was aptly named "No Man's Land" for that was exactly where it was situated. It was one of the few places in the Berth where you could go, regardless of your affiliations, and get some work done. If you needed something done, anything done, then it was the only place you could advertise it without having to worry. If you wanted to make a name for yourself and have a chance of making connections in the city then you had to go into that tavern.

The blonde stepped into the dim interior of the tavern and was met with a peculiar sight: there was hardly anyone inside. There was a table occupied by a few men who were well bundled up, heads held close together. As she entered they glanced up briefly, the young woman blinking rapidly to adjust to the new lighting but they looked away when she proved to be harmless to look at. Caela ignored them, assuming that they were taking advantage of the neutral location to carry out some sort of deal. In other words, it was none of her business. However, over beside the bar was the board that she was looking for covered with various papers. She approached it, examining the various examples of scrawled writing. She looked at one, brow furrowing in concentration as she sounded out the individual letters; Caela wasn't very good at reading. Her life was made even more difficult by the fact that for the most part, the people who had written the notices hadn't been very good at writing. The squiggles that made letters were not only difficult but indecipherable in places. After spending five minutes peering in confusion at one piece of paper, the bartender leaned over the counter beside her and startled her when he spoke.

"Need a hand, missus?" he asked, grinning a little when she jumped. "Sorry 'bout that. Dint mean to make ye jump, just thought you was having a hard time there."

The dancer shrugged, her voice low as she spoke to him as if she was frightened of being overheard. "I'm all right. Just the writing's bad and I'm having a little trouble, that's all," she explained, immersing herself in the notice once more.

"I'm a good reader if you wanna bit of help. Or I can help you find summat ye might like. I know that board like the back of me hand. Nothing new goes up there without me knowing about it soon enough. You don't look like yer made for rough work so..."

"I can handle myself just fine thanks. Don''t let my looks deceive you," Caela snapped out.

The man chuckled a little, holding his hands out in a placating gesture. "No need to bite my head off, love. I just thought you'd want something that needs a... delicate touch. There's one here that might do you. Now, where is it? Ah! Here!" He indicated a small scrap of paper, lifting up other pieces to point to it. She carefully unpinned it and read the neatly printed writing. Her eyebrows rose as the meaning of the words sank in and she nodded thoughtfully to herself.

"Yes, I think this'll suit me just fine. Thanks," she murmured before walking out with the scrap of paper. So some man had been cheated out of some coin by one of Ruby's girls, an escort as opposed to a straight out whore. All she had to do was talk with this woman and make her part with a gold miza. Fat chance of that. Who in their right mind was going to part with money just because a stranger asked them to? If she was in this woman's position then she certainly wouldn't want to give up money that she probably thought she'd earned. Well, all she could do was try and if it didn't work out then she could always return the notice to No Man's Land. The notion of returning it was unsavoury to her so she had to make sure not to take no for an answer.

She headed off towards Ruby's Scarlet Sanctum.
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[Caela Dorin]

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Caela hesitated outside of Ruby's, not yet ready to face the interior with girls done up to the nines and men slobbering over them, eager to dig their hands into soft flesh. The atmosphere was sure to be awful and a few men were likely to mistake her for one of the whores despite the fact that she wasn't dressed properly to be on the job; she wasn't wearing anything fancy and her skin was well covered as well. Worse than the customers and the girls prancing around the place and showing off their wares and their talents, the dancer was dreading the idea of seeing Ruby herself. The proprietor of the Scarlet Sanctum plied the trade as well as any one of her girls but it was far harder to get an appointment--such a grandiose title for such a low service--with Ruby herself as she only worked for a very exclusive clientele. Chances were that the moment she stepped in the door, she'd find herself face to face with the woman and it was a notion that she dreaded.

A man moved towards the entrance ahead of her and as she made to follow him, he must have caught a glimpse of movement, as he turned to look at her. His eyes skimmed over her figure, gaze lingering on the points where the fabric stretched before coming to rest on her face. The blonde froze in place and the man stopped in his tracks too as he appraised her. Getting a grip on herself, the young woman went to quickly move around him but he sidestepped into her path, effectively blocking her entry.

"Are you coming to start work, darling? I'll be your first customer, no problem! You're a fine young thing," he commented casually, waggling his eyebrows and flashing her a smile that he probably thought was charming. Her lip curled and she took a step away, looking him up and down in disgust.

"Look at you! You've a belly that looks ready to burst from years of ale and your face looks like someone's been digging holes in it. How dare you talk to me and presume that I work here and that you have the right to talk to me?" she snapped, making a move to go around him once more. He blocked her again with a sour expression on his face.

"Don't talk to me like that, you little tart! I should take you down an alley and show you what a man feels like. You wouldn't be so quick to talk back after that, sweetheart, not after you've been squealing your heart out." He spat on the ground between them before taking a step forward to put his hands on her shoulders. The scent of alcohol wafted from his breath and she recoiled from him, the grip of his hands tightening on her shoulders as he leered down at her, leaning closer as if about to kiss her. She slammed her knee into his crotch once, twice and thumped him in the stomach with her fist. He staggered back a step and keeled over sideways to collapse on the ground as he hissed and wheezed, cursing her as he coughed his guts up. Before he had a chance to recover, she darted around him and hurried into the entrance where she found a whore smoking and watching her through the doorway. The mocha-skinned woman regarded her with interest from beneath hooded eyelids.

"Good job," she murmured as Caela passed by her and the blonde gave a nod of acknowledgement, but continued on her way.

The Scarlet Sanctum was far from a sanctuary for the dancer but she was here regardless of her feelings of insecurity and anxiety. The young woman moved through the familiar building, looking for someone she could talk to about the stolen miza. The perfect candidate presented itself as she spotted the woman herself.

"Well I never! Caela Dorin! Gods, I hardly recognised you, you've become some woman! I haven't seen you in... I don't know how many years now, not since your mother..." she trailed off, having enough tact for that as she sashayed over towards the blonde.

"Hello, Ruby. Yes, it's been a long time. I'm here looking for a woman, a particular woman," Caela explained softly, glancing around to see who might be listening.

"I've got women of course but I didn't think you'd have that sort of interest," the whore chuckled, giving the other a knowing look.

Caela rolled her eyes skyward and closed them as she replied, "It's not like that. This is business. Can I have a quiet word with you about something?"

Ruby nodded and crooked a finger at her, indicating that they should move off to one side and shooed the nearest girls away so they could talk for a moment without being overheard. Knowing Ruby, she'd have someone listening to her somewhere.
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[Caela Dorin]

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Ruby looked expectantly at her, waiting for he to spill her business. Even if there was no one else listening in to the conversation, Caela knew that the madam was someone you had to watch yourself around. The young woman knew that she gathered information about people; Ruby traded in secrets as well as bodies. She had to tell her enough to gain her cooperation, but she had to be careful what she let slip as well. She wondered how many men had bared their souls to whores here and had someone else stab them in the back with the information they passed on. She had no intention of giving Ruby the upper hand here and so she would give her enough information and hope that this 'escort' of hers didn't go to her with the details afterwards. If the woman had indeed stolen a miza then it was unlikely that Ruby would ever hear about it from her; Ruby couldn't take a cut of a whore's wage if she didn't know about the money they made or stole.

"I'm here on a little job for someone. Let's just say that I found a note about one of your girls on a certain board in a certain establishment in the city. I thought I'd come see about it before someone else came sniffing. Someone else might not show you the right... courtesy, if you understand me," the blonde explained coolly, watching a frown threaten on the other woman's face. She watched as the old whore smoothed her forehead and painted a pleasant smile on her features.

"Oh, I see. Yes, I'd much prefer someone like you coming along then some brute. Some brutes can be swayed with a bit of womanly charm but not all of them; when some of them are on a mission, they don't let up until they see it through. I take it I can't find out what this note says, can I? You aren't going to tell me exactly why you're looking for one of my girls?" Ruby inquired carefully. The dancer shook her head, indicating the negative and was met with a brief, distasteful twist of the other's mouth before the smile returned. There was a sharpness to her eyes that warned of barbs beneath the painted, curving lips.

"Be assured that the girl in question won't come to any harm. I don't have a lot of information about her but I know that she's considered to be an escort and she's called... Ebony." The young woman glanced at the paper to double check the name and found the madam leaning forward to try to read what was on it. Caela crumpled it abruptly before she could see anything.

Ruby chuckled, a nasty edge to the sound that made the young woman feel ill at ease. "Oh, I know perfectly well that no harm will come to a girl like Ebony. Oh no, she's a tough one, but you could probably tell as much when you walked past her. Why, she was just inside the door when you came in. Ebony!" she called loudly over Caela's shoulder, just as the dancer turned to look back towards the entrance. The woman she'd spotted smoking when she came in had already detached herself from her place and had been heading elsewhere when her mistress called to her. Now that the dancer looked at her properly with the knowledge that this was the woman she'd come for, she felt a little worried.

The woman was taller than Caela, only by an inch or two, but it was an intimidating height in a woman. When her height was added to the confidence of her walk and the strength in her exposed dark limbs, she imagined that the woman could indeed look after herself. Her appearance was exotic although it was clear she wasn't merely some dark beauty meant to entice men, but rather a strong, powerful woman who was supposed to bolster the status of men with her. Yes, if she was an escort then she would be an impressive sight on any man's arm. Her manner of dress was racy but there was no reason for one to think that her body was her mode of income. Ebony wore a silky red dress with a plunging neckline and an asymmetrical skirt that hung long on one side and then cut to a scandalous length at the other side so that nearly the entirety of one leg was on display and the other was quite visible from other angles as well. Her hair was shorn so that it clung close to her scalp but the tiny tight curls were stunning. The blonde found herself gaping.

"Now, Caela, this is Ebony. Ebony, this is Caela Dorin, her mother used to work here," Ruby explained sweetly, her smile broadening a little at the flinch of the proud woman when her mother was mentioned. She'd said that out of spite, the bitch. "She has some business with you as I understand it so I'll leave you to it. If you need privacy then I'm sure Ebony can bring you to her room." The madam swept away to deal with her clientele, while Caela and Ebony were left to regard one another.

"What is it you want from me?" Ebony asked bluntly, looking down on Caela with a vaguely curious expression. The dancer decided that the other was taller than she'd originally guessed, probably closer to 5'10" so that she felt dwarfed at 5'6".

"I don't think it's a good idea to discuss it here. Could we go to your room like Ruby suggested?"

The other woman considered it for a moment before nodding and turning sharply to stalk off towards the stairs. The blonde hurried after her, surprised by her speed and the ease with which she slipped around people. They ascended the stairs to the many rooms that lay overhead for the more intimate entertainment of clients. As she followed Ebony past the various doors, the sounds of the occupants within were clearly audible and the blonde wished that she could shut off her ears. The escort led her into a small room some way into the establishment and Caela glanced around at the neat surroundings, noting the rugs that hung on the walls to keep out drafts and an empty grate where a fire would burn during colder weather. The blonde wasn't sure where to put herself as there was nowhere to sit barring the bed so instead, she remained standing by the bed. The other seated herself on the bed with surprising elegance and crossed her legs, hands crossed and left to rest on her knee.

"Now, speak. You may come closer if you don't wish to be overheard but even then, there is no guarantee of complete privacy in this place," Ebony explained.
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