"—who, me?" he asks, blinking in confusion at first then breaking out in a delighted grin. "That's incredibly flattering and tempting."

"Madam Pomona does treat her girls and boys well and it is an easy way to make money."

Esdras has since acquired the information on Oran and starts inquiring about his brother, to which the woman mentions that she has work to do. Esdras gives her some coin for her trouble, then turns to Rafa and the other woman.

"We can go after Oran right now and settle in, see what he makes of you. Or we can eat something here, while I past-watch and you mind our stuff?"

"Mind my stuff?" he asks, still looking at the girl, tempted. He asks her, "And how much money are we talking, here? What are the work conditions, do I get a percentage of each customer..."

"You meant that as a suggestion or that you don't have stuff to mind?" Esdras asks.

The woman gives him a sales pitch on the working conditions and how much money you can make and it just sounds wonderful! A real seller's pitch. She hints that this establishment's workers (the place is called The Purple Rock) might get to skip ahead on the line to get new forms in exchange of favors. Esdras gives her suspicious looks without her noticing.

"I don't have stuff to mind," he answers distractedly, but inquires further about these favours and skipping ahead.

Esdras gives Rafa disbelieving looks. The woman simply explains "Well, we hardly could tell you the details, but you can guess the general area. I must say that none of the priests are into boys."

"That should not in fact be a problem. But it's—rather unethical to do it, people have been waiting a long time."

She rolls her eyes at "unethical" and then asks. "Not a problem?"

"I can shift into a girl."

That perks her interest. "Wow, could you show us that?"

"Well, would anyone mind if you took the two of us somewhere secluded so he can show his dance?"

"I don't exactly mind stripping naked here but it might give your customers the wrong impression."

"Well, it wouldn't exactly be out of place on the purple floor. But... follow me."

She leads the way to a small room, dimly lit. It doesn't look like one of "the accommodations," just a storage room.

"Show us?"

He unceremoniously drops the robe (quite fit, isn't he?), then closes his eyes and, showing no reaction to the pain—

—molts.

The whole process takes about a minute, and the shape underneath is another Ventari, very similar to the previous one he'd been using. Just, female.

Esdras looks away politely, it's not like molting is pleasant to look at.

"Wow," says the woman. "I... I am going to get someone."

And when she goes away: "Are you seriously considering this?" Esdras asks concerned.

"Sure, why not?" he asks, not going back to the gender du jour but not bothering to cover up either.

Esdras will not look in that direction. He might be blushing just a tad. "It's not a safe job, even less so in a town like this. More so if they think you are prized asset and thus something to keep around."

"I have my ways to not be kept around," he says, smirking. "But do sex workers not have a union, here? And would you prefer if I covered up?"

"This isn't the kind of place with unions. And yes please."

He puts the robes back on, shrugging his wings into the appropriate opening. "That makes me think I should stay here and create a union, to be honest."

"That would be a good social project, but I can't tell you how it can accomplished."

"Well, become a sex worker, lobby for rights, convince other sex workers that it'd be a good idea, make it a booming industry that will make this place be a touristic destination and perhaps stimulate the economy, creating incentives for more research into inhabiting downside and figuring out how to properly survive here."

"Presumably at least one of those steps would happen before the other... If it will help you can mention that you know a post-cog as a subtle way of implying that you are under protection."

"Well aren't you the white knight."

Before Esdras can answer that, a tall woman in a Petram with long purple hair and golden rings around her deep black horns comes in with the the sex worker from before. "I am Madame Pomona, deary, I was told there was an interesting and interested shift-dancer here?"