Yohann Rinken gives professional advice (RPF Smut Crew)

[guardiansverse]

Whatever else he might think of Madam van der Schpitz, Yohann thought, he had to admit that she was a meticulous businesswoman.

"I thought it was time you met some of the people realizing our vision," she was saying as she led him down the stairs to the printing cellar again. They had acquired a coat of paint since he had last been to the Hyemi capital; so, at it happened, had the Madam. "Since our partnership goes so well, it's time you met the family."

Yohann was not sure when he had acquired additional family, but one did not question the lineage of the gilder in one's pocket, so he stood ready to smile as she opened the door. Two men and two women were in the office inside, set up before the machine. All of them were cluching papers with some anxious excitement.

Madam van der Schpitz did the round. "This is Fro Schyler, who runs the machine, and Frowe Schyler who does copy-editing -"

"Copy editing?"

"Oh, anyone can sell a quick treat for the outhouse, but the real profit is in more discerning clientele. Hence Frowe Lina, who is our ear to the ground - a Land's Own's sense for the public taste, she has - " Frowe Lina fluttered sweet golden eyelashes at Yohann - "and the most depraved mind I know. And here is Fro Lublin, our illustrator."

"Wait, illus- "

"Everyone, meet Fro Yohann Rinken of Lansikaa. Give him a Hyemi welcome, won't you?"

The four shuffled their feet and smiled indulgingly. Yohann felt like a fish in a bowl among a roomful of cats. He said, "enchanted."

"Fro Rinken," they murmured, and, "Fro Rinken," Frowe Lina sang sweetly, which was, as it turned out, their cue to pounce.

"Fro Rinken, what do you think of this?"

"Take a look here, Fro Rinken, tell me, this altercation's rhythm..."

"Is the linework as you imagined, Fro Rinken? The sizes - the volume produced - "

"Fro Rinken, as for imagery to describe the effects of the cage mechanism..."

Moon and Sun, I repent, save this sinner. Yohann dared not turn back to where he knew Madam can der Schpitz was on the stairway, smiling benignly over her flock. He raised his hands. "Ah, one thing at the time, fromen, please - please, one thing - "

In despair, he reached out and grabbed the first sheet of paper his fingers brushed. It was the one Lublin held out, still going on about Lansikaan artists' techniques for painting viscous liquid. He squinted more closely at it. Brought it all the way up to his nose, just to make sure.

"Goodness, man, what is this?!"

The group fell silent, glancing at each other, then at him, imploring.

"This is my style," Lublin said fretfully.

"Style? He has - are these barbs?"

"We thought, a man called the Fiend of No Nation..."

"And she - why does she look so horrified? Is she not meant to be holding his - let me see the page this illustrates, this is - until the metal groaned was shattered by the spurting force of his - absolutely not!"

It was one thing to do occasional business with Hyemi and their often baffling ideas. It was quite another to stand as a Lansikaan in their midst and be party to their perversions. Sternly ignoring their looks of dismay, Yohann held out an imperious hand for a pencil.

"Let the man work," the Madam commanded, serene. "I am keen to crack the manors district market."

Clearly dismayed yet curious, one of them - Frowe Lina - at last put a writing implement in Yohann's hand. He put the sheets against a flat side of the printing press and went to work at once. "To begin the angle of her body. With the instrument she is using, her back should arch like so - here, you must imagine the hip movement - and none of that leering. Put a grimness to her. She is doing a difficult duty. And his eyes - larger, perhaps a touch gleaming - parted lips - remember, he only submits out of the drive of some inner pain. Theirs is a complex entanglement - he is a beast, but he lets her in - she takes him in hand - hard, but she is ready for it - for all his straining, his savage might is caged!"

He gave a last decisive tap of pencil on paper and stepped back from the machine, breathing hard, to hand the amended drawing to Lublin and the others to wonder over.

"You've kept the barbs," Frowe Schyler said after a moment.

"The barbs have been selling well," Madam van der Schpitz remarked from her place on the stairs.

Yohann sighed. Some battles had to be picked. "The barbs may stay." There was no accounting for cultural taste.