<strong>Nellens Daga</strong><br/><br/>Flame rippled down the length of Tepin Arisu's cigar, charring it from end to end, casting shadows on her face that gave her a hard, angular look.<br/>“You're a cute one, Magistrate, but so is my dog, and I'd rather lie with it than a Nellens.” She flicked the cigar onto the table, its smoldering length shattering into an arc of embers across the table, reaching all the way to Nellens Daga's glass. She rose, armor creaking, her chair skidding across the marble floor, and left, the great heavy doors slamming shut behind her. The air cooled dramatically in her absence, and the smoke cleared.<br/>“Does His Radiance still desire my services?” the courtesan murmured softly after a long silence.<br/><br/><br/><strong>Crimson Dove</strong><br/><br/>The sorceror was as skilled with a whip as with a brush, and surprisingly strong; the first strike laid a line from just below and inside Dove's knee all the way to the curve of her bottom. He paused to examine it, as a sculptor might examine the clay he is beginning to shape. His thumb brushed gently over the outline of the rising welt, compressing the bruised flesh. He ran his hand down the length of it,  his fingers tilting toward the courtesan's sex – but then he pulled away, a brief, enigmatic smile on his face, and lifted the whip again, bringing it down sharply on her opposite leg.<br/>No touch – however painful – followed that strike, only more cruelty, laid in zig-zags across Dove's calves, capped with a final, stinging blow across the sole of her foot.