Chapter 138: Post-Coital Prep
The next morning, the Hidden Village practically glowed under the lavender-gold light of the twin suns.
Outside the house-turned-impromptu-pleasure-palace, Sera stands guard at the door, shoulders squared, arms crossed like the world’s most muscular bouncer at the world’s most scandalous establishment.
A modest line has already formed down the flowered-crested path, beast-kin women of every shape and size, fidgeting, whispering, craning to catch a glimpse of the fabled Pleasure Prince through a tiny, porthole window.
Veena sits at a little desk beside the entrance, boots propped up, a wide-brimmed hat shading her eyes like she’s off fishing somewhere instead of running a brothel out of a treehouse. A small stack of coin and gifts already growing beside her ledger.
Furniture crashes somewhere inside before a woman shrieks, "too deep, tooooooo DEEP!" followed by a long, guttural groan of pure, unfiltered satisfaction.
Sera arches a brow at Veena. "You get that?"
Veena tips her hat back just far enough to hold up her notebook, already dense with fresh scribbles, and yawns. "Never miss a detail, darling."
The door creaks open and Pip peeks out, giving a small, worried beep.
Sera leans in, glances past him, sighs, and whistles sharply over her shoulder. "Meeeedic! We got another fainter!"
Raikya and Lula come barreling in with a stretcher, nearly crashing into a wall as they tear around a turn.
"Watch her head!" Lula snaps.
"I’m watching it!" Raikya barks in return.
"You almost banged it against the bedframe!"
"That’s the bedframe’s fault, not mine!"
They load their quivering client onto the stretcher with the brisk efficiency of two women who have clearly done this more times today than either had expected they would, and haul her straight out to the ’post coital treatment tent’, where Penelo waits with a table of herbal oils and refreshments for exactly this purpose.
They set the dazed woman down where Penelo waits. Her hair, and ears, are tied back, paws gloves and her usually bare body covered in a healer’s coat.
The bunny checks the client’s pulse, tilts her head back, and presses a glass of sugary liquid to her lips.
"Where does it hurt?" she whispers gently into the woman’s ear.
The raccon-kin struggles to lift an arm and points weakly at her own tail.
"Muscle relaxant! And the peppermint oil!" Penelo yells out.
"Which one is the muscle relaxant again?" Zora asks, squinting at a row after row of bottles and vials.
"Blue label!" Penelo snaps back.
"There’s at least a dozen blue labels, Penelo, I’ve told you this is a labeling crisis waiting to..."
"The light blue! Green stropper! Hurry!"
"That is not a helpful distinction under pressure!"
He finds the right two anyway and passes them into Penelo’s paws.
"Towel!" Penelo adds, already kneading the ointment into the client’s lower back while Zora dabs sweat from her brow with all the solemn focus of a man assisting with surgery, muttering under his breath about proper inventory management the entire time.
Back at the pleasure palace, Veena escorts in the next appointment, a pair of twin bunny-kin, both wringing their paws.
"Can we... go together?" one asks.
"Of course! He can absolutely handle you both," Veena assures them. "He enjoys the challenge."
"Can you ask him to do the water thing?" the shorter of the two asks, ears perking straight up.
"It would be my pleasure." Veena replies, already noting down their request. "I’ll tell him to add in the vinewrap and aquatic massage packages... no charge."
The two share a wicked grin and slip inside, where Pip waits patiently at the foot of the bed.
Vuvi and Sha’Rona round the corner just as the first delighted shrieks of twin bunnies start spilling out through the windows.
"How’s it going?" Vuvi asks.
"Nineteenth and twentieth customers," Veena reports without looking up. "Nothing but compliments so far. Same as always."
Vuvi nods, unsurprised, but nonetheless satisfied.
Sha’Rona drifts closer to a window, peering in, ears shooting straight up the instant she spots Pip in his element, folding one bunny-kin into an increasingly complex, gravity defying shape, while the other clings to his shoulders, bouncing on his lap, shrieking with delight.
"What in the... what is that?" Sha’Rona breathes, eyes transfixed on Pip’s performance.
Sera pokes her head in beside her, "Ah, that’s the Tuscan Tushy Tickler." She says, beaming with pride, "Taught him that one myself."
She tilts her head, watching a moment longer, then winces as another ground-rattling groan rolls through the walls. "Ooooh myyyy...Didn’t teach him that part, though."
"Then who did?" Sha’Rona asks, wincing beside Sera before her eyebrows shoot up as Pip effortlessly switches between his two partners, the bunny-kin barely noticing the change in position.
Vuvi scoffs. "He’s improvising. He always does his best work when he freestyles."
A cat-kin scout materializes among them without warning, clearing her throat. Nobody in the team even noticing her arrival.
Sha’Rona’s expression sharpens instantly. "Report."
"Dwarves spotted two clicks from the village," the scout reports. "Requesting permission to intercept."
Sha’Rona sighs. "Granted. I’ll join you."
Veena rises from behind the desk and Sera cracks her neck as she steps forward, already reaching for her greatsword.
Vuvi shakes her head.
"No. You two stay, keep the house running." She falls in beside Sha’Rona instead. "I’ll go along."
Sha’Rona blinks at her. "What?!"
"The whole reason we’re hear I. the first place , was to help the dwarves... not fight them," Vuvi says before she flicks her head to the moans melting through the walls beside them, "Same way we’re helping them. Can’t do that with an arrow through someone’s throat."
"They are cutting down our entire forest." Sha’Rona retorts, twisting her jaw as twin sighs of satisfaction shudder out from the window.
"And I’d like to know why, before anyone starts shooting anything at anyone." Vivi replies, "Call it professional courtesy."
"So what exactly are you planning to do?" Veena asks.
Vuvi, already walking, red curls bouncing with every determined step, like a woman marching toward a problem she has absolutely no plan for and every intention of solving anyway. ... to find out exactly what they’re up to."
"That’s not a plan." Sera says.
"It’s one step one of a very complex, very well thought out plan." Vuvi scoffs, beckoning for Sha’Rona to follow.a
Sha’Rona sighs, falling into step beside her, muttering something in Green Tongue that doesn’t sound like a compliment at all.