It did not take Sakura long at all to make friends in this new environment, indeed she had come to revel in the new and different individuals that waltzed in and out of the doors of the Inn. There was Viki, the strange yet fascinating mystic, Icer the ever-present benevolent dragon and her many children, Wyheree the lovely ice sorceress with the achingly sad smile, and so many more.

But what truly intrigued Sakura were the endless possibilities for patrons here?no longer was she confined to the tea house regulars and high-society, powerful males that dominated her time in her homeland. Here she could pick and choose at will who to bestow her patron-tokens upon and invite to share with her that secret world of beauty and artistry she wove so deftly.

It was a mark of great esteem, to be chosen by the diminutive geisha now, and those whom she had presented with her patron favor, the delicate pink rice paper origami of a cherry blossom, had been surprised, some puzzled, but overall seemed curious and delighted at the gift. Sakura herself had found her own choices mildly surprising, but she let her instincts guide her, and trusted them with every fiber of her being.

Drawn she was to the obviously genteel?those with fine manners and elegant airs about them. The wealthy and powerful still proved a great draw for the young woman, as it were, they seemed the most capable of appreciating the delicate nuances and effortless grace that she could bring to their worlds for an evening?s entertainment ? and they could afford her company as much as they desired. An artist though she may be, the girl also had needs.

But it was not only the wealthy sophisticates she bestowed her favors upon, but also those with much gentler, easier ways about them?the sweet Wyheree earned a pretty blossom, her kindness and offered friendship such a balm to Sakura?s initial nervousness that the pretty geisha would have stood the world on its side to make the woman laugh or smile for an evening?s entertainment.

Perhaps most oddly of all Sakura found herself drawn toward the Inn?s darker inhabitants, men and women with intoxicating smiles and dagger-sharp tongues. She found inexplicably drawn to the pull of their hungry gazes, eager, hard souls that would consume and consume but never be satiated. There was the Lord Von Locke, a gentleman of refined manners with a voice like satin stroking flesh, yet something so preternatural clinging to the air about him that made the fine hairs rise up on Sakura?s skin just to be near him. And then there was Alma?

The lady Alma, as Sakura called her, though she demurred each time, ordering the respectful title done away with a flip of her gloved hand, and yet Sakura could not bring herself to address her mundanely any more than she could have bid the moon to stay its course. In her presence, under the watchful gaze of those piercing grey eyes that seemed to see everything and lay all naked before her, Sakura felt as she never had before. Something inside her drew her to the woman like a compass needle northwards, and she felt both tested and appreciated at once fulfilling even the smallest task. And yet?a nameless fear clung to her heart even as it throbbed in love, no, lust for the blonde creature. A soft, crying darkness in the back of her mind that pleaded with her to be careful?be watchful? But then that siren would smile, so approving, and the voice would go silent, deadened in the rush of heady pleasure.

She had been the first Sakura had offered her patron-favor to, with trembling fingers, only to have it handed back, one side of the flawless blossom stained red with blood from Alma?s pierced lip. She had accepted it with wide eyes, along with the woman?s promise to consider the offer as well as a given offer of her own. The soiled bloom now lay beside Sakura?s bed at the Inn, on her nightstand, and not an evening had gone by that she had not lain in bed and held the trinket, fingering its blood-stiffened petals delicately, fancying that she could still smell the faint juniper note of gin clinging to the air around it.

It was a strange urging hunger that woke her that evening and drove her down into the inn to pursue the Lord Von Locke once more. Silent steps carried the diminutive woman down the steps and into the tavern, dark hair streaming silkily behind her like a mane. A small, secretive smile curled full lips as a careful sweep of a gaze took in the room and all its occupants. A half a moment before bare feet hit the floorboards her hand caught the railing and halted her hurried progress, long locks swinging to a stop shortly thereafter, slipping about her shoulders and over her cheeks. Breath caught in her throat and those deep, dark eyes scanned the room once more, slower this time, hesitating upon each face...searching.

Finding the lord part of a trio locked into a strange conversation, Sakura had sought out another aquatic and fetched up against Viki as she watched the odd conversation dwindle to an end before excusing herself from Viki's presence. Slipping through the heavy crowd of the evening, she made her way slowly, elegantly and yet with motions strained slightly, like one moving with a hunger pain. Delicate feet brought her before her patron. Dark eyes look famine-starved for a moment before she dipped a low bow, silky hair slinking over her shoulders and falling down before her.

"My Lord...are you engaged this evening?"

He sipped, patient in his silent island solitude in the midst of a sea of patrons. He had chosen a table at the middle of the room, his surveil on all and none. It was sudden, however, those hard icy eyes assailed the form of Sakura like an arctic breeze.
"Sakura... "A faint slip of a smile, and a nod, "Do 'ave a seat, if it pleases ye."

He gestured to one of the chairs. His gaze shifting about.

"I've chosen to retire to this position for a time. Revelations this night bring dark tidings, indeed."

She rose slowly from her bow, eyes seeking his gaze with an unspoken torrent of questions. She graciously accepted the seat he offered, sinking down beside him slowly. She had glanced out at the room he spoke so darkly of before turning back to him.

"Trouble this evening, my lord?"

"A trifle, nothing that I need to be concerned about. Though, new elements are a cause for reviewing and a change in tactic." He added cryptically. He then cast the Asian woman a wink. His gaze shifting about thereafter.

"... is also something to be considered at length..."Trailing off again. He seemed to be juggling many thoughts at the moment.

"'ow do ye fare this eve?"

She canted her head to one side in question, lost in the cryptic train of consciousness drivel he muttered. Her heart constricted, and for a second she couldn't catch her breath as he glanced at her, but it is gone in a half a second and he is back to prowling the room with his eyes, seemingly fuming. She shook her head quietly, unwilling or unable to give voice to her need. Delicately fingered hands gathered masses of dark hair and pulled them away over her shoulder.

"I...I am fine, my lord..." The words are a whisper.

His nostrils flared slightly and he lowered his wine to the table. Something lurked at the edges of his mind -- something his keep perceptions alerted him to. His gaze shifted back to a woman named Arts seated nearby, then sudden as it happened, back to Sakura.

"Ye donnae sound convincing, my dear." His head canting. His brow arched, "Perhaps ye can tell me a secret..."

Tucking a strand of black hair behind his right ear, exposing it to her.
Onyx eyes watched his long finger tuck the dark lock back behind his ears and she caught herself softly sucking her lower lip as she leans towards him, small, soft hand resting with a warm weight upon his chest as her cheek brushed his. Petal lips touched sensitive earlobe as she whispered to him, breath a tickle.

"My lord...I miss...I want..."

She could not bring to mind what that nameless pleasure was, that small, aching hunger of an addiction planted within. He turned his gaze fully upon Sakura then. Dark eyes turned to his cold ones, searching...Did he understand?

"In time, little blossom. In time. Patience is key."

His smile was so brief, though sly. His head tilting away as he turned his head to her. Very close; extremely close. She felt a cold drop in the pit of her stomach, and for a moment, for the briefest second it's as if the bottom has dropped out of the world, but in the next second the sensation was gone, replaced with a new one a burning...something entirely new to the young woman...anger. White teeth sank into the fullness of her pale lower lip as she sits back slowly, black brows lowering slowly.

"My lord?"

He watched as her body tensed. He heard the roaring rush of liquid hasten. His features remained stoic, regal. His chin lifting slightly at the subtle shift in her lines.

"Good things come to those that wait... dear 'eart."

His gloved hand moved to press lightly upon her forearm. His look grew sharp, stern ... then suddenly.. started to fade into a soothing softness. The nimbus of regal magnetism starting to flow and grow wider, encompassing like the smooth rolling waters of a brook over eroded stone.

She inhaled deeply as he chided her quietly but with infinite firmness, his grip on her upper arm making her recoil within away from the heat of the anger, spirit retreating into the cool darkness of many years trained obedience. She exhaled slowly and drank in the stern glare before dropping her gaze, silent as the snow. Her voice was merely breath, soft as breeze.

"My lord..."

His fingers trailed lightly over her arm. Scintillating were the sensations through silken sleeve. They were soft and soothing as the tendrils of subconscious power rippled outward from his being like the waters of a pond when a stone is cast.

"Aye, Sakura?"

She barely repressed a shudder, trailing fingers light as feather through the silk, sensation gripping her belly in a tender, squeezing fist. Black lashes fluttered against honey cheeks as she ran the pink tip of a soft tongue over her lower lip, tasting the ridges of her bite there.

"I apologize..."

"There is nae a need for such.. Sakura." His tones were as comforting as his presence at the moment.

It was then that the woman named Artsblood turned her attention now to Erich and his companion, she positively strobes, white skin against worn black cotton shorts and t-shirt. She is too pale, too thin, too long of limb and digit, she perches atop Occam's razor between the lovely and the grotesque.

"Forgive my, Von Locke, business, of course..." Long fingers flick at the air.

"Business seems to tangle like many spider's webs."

His gaze alighted on Arts and he gestured to the table at which they sat. "
Please, do join us."
He turned his gaze to Sakura then.

"This is my colleague.. Lady Arts Shusberg. ...." He indicated the wan, pale woman with a sweep of his arm.

"Madame Shusberg.. this is Sakura..." Hand following the path of previous swipe, though reversed.

Sakura's black eyes flicked up at Erich's face, gaze hard as onyx crystals and glittering just as brightly...were there tears rimming those dark lashes? It was hard to tell, especially with the dip of her head in a slow bow, yet the line of her body seemed to tremble like an out of focus picture.

Artsblood flowed over to the couple, the too-intimate attention of her huge eyes licking over the dark haired beat. For an instant Sakura's gaze flicked to Artsblood, her voice a murmur.

"I'll leave..."

The other woman's laugh was velvet and warm honey.

"Ah, business and politesse can take all the pleasure out of life, lovely Sakura. You are pleasure, I, at the moment at least, business, pray stay?"
Erich patted the quaking limb of the girl at his side, conscious of her turmoil. He still continued to send out those soothing waves, though hushed, in a radius of perhaps three feet -- focus muting the sensations slightly.

Artsblood's patent cant of head, insectile, precise.

"You have news for me, Von Locke? I am ever greedy for it, news is the body of a new lover, the taste of a new wine"

Lord Erich Von Locke's gaze shifted to Sakura. "Your presence is soothing to me. I do beseech ye, bide a while longer."

Were it not for the presence of the spidery, ethereal Artsblood standing before them Sakura's upper lip may have curled tight against pearl teeth at being patted like an animal, but she kept her flawless composure and offered the woman a brief smile, deferring to her wish.

"Ah.. Sakura is a dear, dear friend to me. A new friend, though dear and sweet as the breath of life is sweet. I felt moved to save 'er from the subject of ye business... The wilted rose..."

Artsblood, a fingertip to her lip, she examined the girl now, the full knuckle-stroke attention of those outsized eyes.

" You are indeed the kind of beauty that the ships of may hearts might sunder upon, and whom is it that this noble saves you from, pretty Sakura?"

Erich's gaze shifted to Sakura then, curious to see if the seeds sewn had birthed the blossom of fruit. Did she even know?

Sakura could have gotten lost in those oversized eyes, and drown, wrecked upon the stony shore behind the siren's sweet song. She flushed despite herself and stroked her lower lip with soft fingertips, grasping lamely for an answer to the curious question.
"Oh...from myself..I suppose..."
The pale woman's attention pulls from the girl with a small, physical release, and turns to Erich.

"Ah, no, you are not in the business of saving women from themselves, old ally, nor are you in the habit of telling me of such if you do."

"In a way.. aye." He turned toward Arts then. His expression casual, "I 'ave come across the woman, Alma Stuart."

He quipped simply, the only explanation given. He continued down another path.

"She is not as charming as ye make 'er out to be. I was rather disappointed."
A slow blink of Arts' eyes accepts the compliment hidden in the barely implied comparison.

"Many find her so, whose tastes are as refined as my own."

Sakura could not help but repress a small smile at this, dark eyes suddenly fascinated with drinking in the gossamer, breathless beauty of the woman before her, so slight and yet sharp as a knife's edge. Almondine eyes raked the angles and edges of this work of minimalist art, shyly. Another lick of eyes over Sakura, this one embarrassingly intimate.

"And tell me, precious one, did you find the Stuart woman lacking in charm, and are you well and truly severed from her spell?"

Something like laughter danced in the great eyes; something akin to a challenge, as well. Erich turned his gaze to Sakura, her ease noted, her humility as well. A sly grin offered to Arts.

"Others might beg to argue the difference between ye.. without saying a word.. Lady Shusberg."

The back of Sakura's mind follows the conversation in a detached manner, soft hand coming to rest lightly on Erich's thigh as her body relaxes, no longer the over-tight harp string of hunger and emotion it was minutes ago. Again Artsblood splayed fingers like a fan and rolled them down in acceptance of the compliment implied.

Sakura considers this new question for a half a moment before answering with a slow, introverted smile.

"No lady Shusburg...charming is not the word for what I found lady Alma to be..."
It was Erich who spoke next.

"The other.. the adversary... it seems she's endearing to some, aye.... and yet... she struck me as quite abrasive and mocking. A faux and plastic beauty. I relish the sweetness of a living flower over those of wax..."

Artsblood gave a soft laugh.

"Not so charming as I, then?"

The gaze sharpens, touching places hidden, her eyes on the girl still.

"Give me a word, then, you who are so good with words, and at keeping things vague..."
Erich cut in.

"Well guarded though, is she." He frowned, a moment taken to collect his thoughts,

"And leaves little opening for exploiting."

Artsblood's eyes darted back to Erich.

"You would tell me so, were you her ally, would you not?" Her laugh ripe and sweet.

"Perhaps that is a path on which I intend.. or to make it seem as if such were true. We, who are masters of the charade. Perhaps she may take notice, perhaps... though..."
Artsblood's eyes went again on the dark beauty.

"Flattery tastes like blueberries from your lips, pretty Sakura, but give me your word for Alma Stuart's appeal."

Lord Von Locke spoke again.

"I 'ave not yet considered..." He turned his gaze once more to Sakura. His features impassive, his gaze hawk-like.

Artsblood gave another brittle laugh for Erich.

"Indeed, and perhaps I intend to steal your pretty here, or trade her to the Stuart woman for peace, or perhaps she and you are red herrings in a struggle invisible to all but me, and perhaps I and mine are such to you. It keeps us awake, at least?"

A soft curve touches Sakura's even softer lips as she inclines her head in obeisance, finally given a chance to reply.

"I have to demure...I haven't yet found the words to describe how I find the lady Alma..."
Artsblood's smile at Sakura sudden and consuming.

"You have not yet, and thus you will."

"We must all tread carefully in the rattler's den." Erich's lips purse into a smile, turning his gaze back to Arts.

Sakura glanced to Erich, all to aware of his curious gaze before looking back to Artsblood.

"I hope so...with all my soul."

Artsblood ghosted to her feet, her smile at Sakura both predatory and strangely sartorial.

"Your soul? if you pledge that, you shall have her I'm sure, but it is a nougat once given that sours in the mouths of others..."

White eyebrows rose as she teased with her huge eyes.

"I, for one, would not wise a candy that the Stuart had already sampled."
Her grin quick, there and gone.

"Unless it served my ends to do so."

"It amuses me Arts. Do ye think I would sacrifice a lamb so carelessly?" Erich's head tilted as he glanced once more to Ms. Shusberg. His hand raking through his hair, the other leaving Sakura's form as he suddenly staunched the flow of soothing emotional radiation streaming forth from his being. A sip taken from his goblet.

Artsblood bowed to Erich.

"A pas de deux continued, a dance of elegance has its own beauty."

Sakura's soft fingers delicately stroked the fabric of the breeches that covered Erich's thigh as she watched Arts rise, all her words of warning making Sakura's head swim. She knew she should ask outright what the other woman knew of Alma, and why Erich spoke so poorly of her when not in her presence, but something stayed her lips, questions caught in her throat until she forces a breath, gasping as she is suddenly set adrift by Erich.

"Mmmm... though shall it be a waltz, or tango... next we meet?"

His brow piqued, his tones cryptic, "Adieu, M'lady Shusberg."

Sakura catches herself and offered Artsblood a deep bow.

"Good Evening, my lady."

Artsblood's voice rich and furred.

"There are partner changes yet before we circumnavigate the room"

A last invasion of huge eyes on the woman, a penetration of attention, sharp as a leer.
Sakura could not hold that gaze, and felt naked, and alone suddenly under it, longing for, and yet unsure of the secrets held fast behind the pale woman's smile.