Flowers and Stones
by Ashe Thurman
A young noblewoman, little more than a girl really, takes up a peculiar hobby with an employee of one of the local brothels.When the gates first opened on Latolan some eight hundred years ago, the only thing the first explorers found were the drunken ruins of a civilization at least a thousand years dead. Since then, The District has taken advantage of the relative neutrality to make the world the home of its headquarters and most of its government funded projects. The only major settlement is Tomar, a single, 80 mile wide city-state. The kaleidoscopic native population is joined by the seasonal residents of Starlight Vale, off-world wealth and nobility with the disposable income and inclination to keep a second estate in the lush hills and meadow-lands set aside on one edge of the city proper just for that purpose. Such a varied and sometimes elite population has attracted a number of different service sector industries whose focus is on attending to both they mental and physical needs of an extremely diverse clientele.A young noblewoman, little more than a girl really, takes up a peculiar hobby with an employee of one of the local brothels.