"Speaking of which," she switched tracks only slightly, flipping her hand over and feeling her wrist with her other hand nervously, "Mandi's been a little fussy, Rosa; I think she might've missed her mother being around more than she liked spending time with an old woman like me."  And then, gently, as a grieved look flitted quickly like a dying sunset over the sharp, pretty features of Rosa's face, "Where were you all day?"

        With precise timing the front door smashed open eloquently, crashing in a resonate boom as it swung completely around, hinges protesting the sudden, straining movement and wooden planks shuddering with the blow's force, hitting the wall beside the door swiftly before lazily springing back.  Sarah had let out a short, unseemly shriek and launched quickly up from her seat, fingers instinctively fumbling along the table for anything sharp or blunt – hell, anything not tied or bolted down – that could be improvised as a weapon. 

        Calcutta was recovering from his own startled bark, a paw clapped over his stubby white muzzle in an embarrassed manner she might have teased him about in a slightly less threatening situation; tens of male aliens had poured through the door, all dressed in impeccable, though very worn and patched presently here and there, clothing of breeches, vests, and other pieces of attire best suited to the common spacer.

        Sarah's hand scrabbled along the table, her weight leaning back as she stretched her arm anxiously toward the center, flitting blue eyes gauging the symphony of hard-faced men, some nearly too large to fit ably through the doors and others barely tall enough to sweep their heads along the underside of a table.  "God in heaven," she recited under her breath and strained every joint of her fingers out, "of whom I seek to ask in favor." 

        Rosa tapped an unlit, detached burner, for candles and warming food, toward the innkeeper and her hand closed around it in innate response, grateful for the heavy metal smooth in her grasp.  Were this situation to prove necessary for using it – how she did not know; would she best do to throw it? – she doubted, rightly so, that the burner would be of any particular help, but Sarah found feeling at least marginally defensible was of temporary, bolstering comfort.

        "The inn is closed," she forced out to the large crowd shifting eerily on the far wall.  "If you want lodging for tonight," she made a hesitant motion with her hand, "the Admiral Inn on the Main Square should still be open for the night."  She could not so much see as feel through her dependence on leaning against the table when Calcutta stood, of average height but a stocky-built shaggy menace, and heard the thick heel of Rosa's arched shoes scraping the floorboards.

        "I said," she began anew in a clearer voice, a shadow of annoyance twisting her features as the men ignored her and milled about, a few sitting on her freshly cleaned tables whilst the majority tore chairs heedlessly out to seat themselves on, "the Benbow Inn is closed.  If you still need lodging for the night, the Admiral Inn," she was cut off by a scruffy, thin Feline with scarred leopard features slinking toward her.  Oh God, she thought faintly and tested the weight of the burner at her back, trying to be open-minded and not jump to any foolish conclusions based on the large bite mark fringing his ear where, quite simply, a goodly chunk of the body part was no longer present.

        "We require bed and food," said the Feline in a quiet hiss, earning a sterling look of frustration from the brunette at his easy dismissal of her words.  "There are precisely twenty-one of us who desire board as well as nourishment," he continued, glowing dark ember eyes swiftly gauging her position along with those of her waiting companions, breathing for the three made shallow and near bated.  "We hear tale that you run a concise, fair establishment with a fair hand and soft eye, which is of great interest and most rare."  His blunt, dry voice sapped the words of any value that may have been construed from what seemed to be a compliment, and he followed the statement with a tactless inquiry, "How effective is your establishment, truly, Missus Hawkins?"

        Before he had finished his last double-edged demand, Sarah had found his speech to be surprisingly cultured, his wording rather refined for a spacer whose very appearance seemed to beget an air of hostility; once he had finished the brusque questions, she stiffened indignantly and asked in a calm – God knew how she managed that – voice, "What makes you think the Benbow Inn isn't up to par?"  She noticed, then, as her fingers rubbed nervously along the burnished metal of her claimed object, that his slitted eyes had settled in a disparaging manner on Rosa, causing the small woman to edge closer to her unexpected source of unwitting protection.  "I've been running this inn for twenty years," added Sarah stoutly, almost waspishly, "and I've never been told it's below standard."

        "Such may be the case," retorted the Feline blandly, eliminating the sarcastic sting it could very well have taken by his toneless speech, "but that does little to change the fact that a whore," he gestured impatiently to Rosa, "is standing in plain view."  Rosa quivered, her shoulders rising as though to hide herself from further view, and Sarah stared, hard, with the cold expression that had pressed many a soul into obedience, a tight little convulsion rippling at the edge of her jaw.  "With many spacer crews, it is rather foolhardy to have a tart in such close reach.  Perhaps you should rethink your ignorance of imperial law."

        "The inn is closed," Sarah replied tightly, righteous anger clogging her throat painfully.  Then, louder, as the Feline's emotionless gold eyes flattened and stubby ears swiveled at some unknown sound by the door still ridiculously populated with grimy spacers in oddly clean clothing, "You won't be able to stay at the Benbow Inn!"  She noted with satisfaction as, this time, the motley group slowly churned through her words and at least one – a very young alien, mayhap twenty, with four distinct heads crowning individual necks of differing length – looked crushed and mildly panicked. 

        "The Admiral Inn," she finished in a more abiding tone, "is open and will take you all."  She finished without revealing any particular dislike for the cold Feline or the bordering murderous glares some were granting her, though she did spare a pitying expression for the young, frightened lad.

        She might very well have found need to use the burner clutched in her hand were it but for the unmistakable clacking wheeze of gears and gyros spinning laboriously about, and the not easily forgotten instantly sprang to mind as a last figure stooped in out of the windblown sand still driving into the walls.  "I do be trustin' ye aren't givin' this fine lady here any trouble, naow are ye?" asked the deceptively calm voice that was part of John Silver.  He still managed to tower at least in atmosphere over the tallest of his largely odd crew, the cyborg eye of his visible even across the expanse of the room, a pinpoint of yellowed orange shining balefully in the mechanical pupil.

        "Crikey!" said Calcutta lowly, falling only slightly into the mode of speech his parents preferred.  "Wouldn't feel like getting him mad at you in a game of whist, if you know what I mean."  He sounded nonplussed and Sarah, more occupied with these new and exasperating turns of events, deemed it rhetorical and did not answer.

        "Mister Silver," she said in surprise, fingers slackening around the burner with the mild shock, "what in God's name are you and your men thinking by coming so late to the Benbow?"  What had started as innocent unaware startlement changed into a near waspish outlet for the many tiny stresses of her day, and she leveled a displeased look with the Feline until he took a silent pace back, expression dark but wholly schooled.  "I mean, not that I'm upset about actually having some help for now, but," she tried to find an apt explanation and failing to do so, sighed.  "Long day," she muttered and thankfully no one seemed to have heard but Rosa, who leaned forward to gently take the portable burner.

        Somehow she was not entirely surprised to see the hulking Ursine-related figure did not pause to acknowledge her words, or had deigned not to drawn anymore attention to her already embarrassing outburst.  She leveled a ferocious glare at his crew until, in a mix of sullenness and grudging "yae," they slowly moved to their feet.  "Dinnae go 'bout treatin' anyone here in sooch a manner as might be t'ought rude, lads," he said in a voice that carried but preserved quiet malice.  "An' in most particular," his whole hand, a ruddier shade caused by the lamp's vain light than the pale auburn in the bazaar, motioned in the direction of the trio still warily standing, "ye wil'n't be misbehavin' around the proprietor; we're workin' for her, naow, 'til we tidy up our business."

        This said, he straightened fractionally where he stood in the back, his powerful and as of yet undefined presence made even greater though he was thus far from her, an undercurrent of engrained predatory nature faint in the polite gesture of his tricorner hat bending forward.  "Evenin' to ya, Miss Sarah.  I hope my crew t'weren't," he paused, turning his head silently to menacingly view the assorted heads of his crew to allow meaning to be clear to each, "bein' horrible excuses for gents, though I would not put i' past a few.  I do see ye've met my first, Groonge; he's a pleasant enough chap."

        Making a stab at pronouncing the Feline's name and trying to work it out in opposite of Silver's accent, Sarah said thinly as she felt her shoulders slump, tired, "I've met Grounge, yes."  The Feline hesitated fractionally in his step back to the crew dwindling around their pleasantly irritated captain, an unreadable expression on his thin face; she thought perhaps this insultingly, deceptively emotionless exterior of his was permanent in his actions with others, though she had only just met him herself and was probably not the best of judges for him. 

        With a softening expression, feeling regretful of her unspoken dislike, she continued, "He wanted to know if my inn was a decent enough place.  Which, I assure you, it is."  The hint of a smile touched Grounge's thin black lips, hidden easily by his bland veneer and the thick, mottled fur of his small muzzle, and she smiled in reply, sweeping aside her tangled locks as she turned to face Calcutta and Rosa.

        "Calcutta, I'm really sorry, but I'll have to get back to you about the bridge building," she started quickly, replacing the burner from near Rosa's motionless hand to the central tableau of the table.  The shaggy Canine opened his mouth, seemed to think better of it at her wryly pained look, and reluctantly snapped shut his jaw with a resigned pat at his worn tweed suit in preparation of rejoining the growing dust squall bustling angrily outside.  "I know I need to finance it soon, and I will," she smiled kindly, if a little exhausted, "but I have to make sure my new workers get settled in.  Rosa, Mandi's upstairs in my room, end of the stairs at the third floor.  She's sleeping, so she shouldn't be any problem for you.

        "Now," Sarah continued in the same apparently undying breath, ducked her head as farewell to both as one began precariously weaving to the door with murmured apologies and the other noiselessly picked her way to and up the stairs, "if you'll be so kind as to follow me." 

        She was uneasily quiet for a second, judging the strangely still yet unconsciously discontent air that hung as a mist over the crew as they eyed her, with Silver smiling charmingly if with a narrowed, warning gaze.  She had the oddest sensation of interrupting a dark, covert conversation spun of whispers and low hisses.  Pushing such thoughts away once the second had sinisterly passed, she said briskly, brightly, "I need to get to the stairs, if you'll move, please."

        Unhelpfully, the crew merely continued to stare disjointedly with slitted eyes and sour expressions until Silver, in a disapproving tone, all but snapped, "Well, get to it!  Or are ye like to forgettin' we be workin' for the Lady Hawkins for now?"  A distinctive orange gleam could be determined in the gated blossom of yellow that was his eyes and grumbling to themselves in vainly disguised efforts to be courteous, they shuffled aside to grant her passage to the stairs; she ignored their baleful glares with a grounded dignity, skirts once more lifted protectively over the knobs of her ankles, and smiled quick, relieved thanks to Silver.  "After ye, ma'am.  Lead the way."

        "Well, of course," Sarah smiled, easily and swiftly ascending the stairs in a practiced gait.  More intent on just finishing the stress of the evening than paying full attention to the gangly, patchwork crew of questionable appearance behind her, she thusly missed the hurried, threatening exchanges as the burly captain paused on the first steps and reeled briefly on his men.

        "Do I need ta once more remind each o' ya t'at ye cannot go about doin' t'ings to make any o' us stand out?" he snarled, cutting his voice down while leaving all the dark promise within.  "So long as we ha' not found that blasted devil Canine, we ain't going to get so much as one little inkeep suspicious 'bout our bonny selves.  And if t'e thought crosses a mind o' ya," there came a blood red hint in the faded orange flooding his mechanized eye, "ye'll be joinin' him the day I finished wot he started ten years gone."  With one final quelling glare to set in place each suddenly chilled black heart, he allowed a humorless smile to twist shortly on his face before gracefully striding in the tiny dust falls of Sarah's footsteps.

        "All of the live-in rooms," she called from above, light voice carrying surprisingly well, "are here on the second floor.  There are two bunks per room and twenty rooms in all on this floor, so there's more than enough."  Sarah stopped, pausing a moment as her skirts settled once again and squeezing her eyes shut, quick and hard, to dissuade her weary headache, and with a resigned toss of her shoulders, turned to patiently await the men climbing to the level floor.  "There's one main hall," she directed, lifting an arm to point appropriately, "and four smaller ones going out to the left," another broad movement partnered her words.  "They're a bit small, though, beds and rooms both, but it shouldn't be bad."

        The youngest of the crew so far as she could tell, the young man with four distinct heads slowly waving like a shy palm's idle fronds in a rocking breeze, shuffled slowly forward, but paused before he might pass his grounded captain.  "Nae ta buh rood, marm," he bobbled two of his heads in an anxious bow, the other two speaking with a soft burr, "but i' wood buh nice ta nae geh a sale'peech an' jus' go ta roomin', marm." 

        He sent a nervous look up to his superior, a blanching paleness crossing each face as though the controlled Ursine had delivered a cruel or threatening expression, which she doubted slightly as his features remained schooled but for a fiery pupil in his slotted cyborg eye; she knew not what that might mean and so paid no mind to it.  The youth bobbled all four of his tight, fearful heads respectfully and slunk back as though to vanish once more in the shifting press of the other men crushing into the narrow hallway.

        "Good idea," she noted with an easy smile, feeling maternal sympathy for the gawky, elegant boy-man.  "I'm sure you're all exhausted, so I'll let your captain split you up into groups of two.  Try to stay quiet; there're several guests above and they wouldn't like any problems."  She put enough finale emphasis in the last few syllables to make it clear she, too, was heading to bed and would not take kindly to any nocturnal disturbances, and with a relatively genteel nod, slipped down the main corridor, escaping to the stairs.

        "Ah, Sarah lass," began the disarming twirl of Silver's voice and the massive warm paw arrested her movement with a firm pressure on her clothed shoulder, "a moment'ry word, if ye will."  Taking a glance at the shady crew slowly beginning to argue in the universal ways of men having spent too much time with one another, she hesitated only briefly and, judging it safe enough, nodded.  "I'll be right quick about it, don't be worryin' none," he negated any lingering doubts and calmly pulled his hand from her shoulder.

        "While me'n my boys were in the gen'ral area," he began, his mechanical hand moving in an unconscious illustration, "I t'ought perhaps I might stop in an' visit an ol' friend o' mine."  He seemed to take a calculated break, his cybernetic eye obscured behind its thick metal lid and the dark natural one scrutinizing her as if to test and gauge her response, his broad face lifting slightly in a quizzical, distant manner.

        "'E's a Canine, large fellow, but not ha' as large as my own self," a self-deprecating chuckled and well-placed, smug sort of grin followed.  "Big with short fur and a dark temper like to cullin' a storm, an' black colorin' all about 'cepting for a little white spot," he obligingly flipped his left paw over and clipped a flat metal fingertip in the soft, calloused tan flesh at the swollen base of his thumb, "right there.  His name, as might be suspected, is Black.  Black Dog, tha' t'is."

        All the while he judged her facial expression, the play of muscles in her careworn, but still young face in supposition that she might take in the mind the thought of lying, but aside from one self-conscious twinge she did not notice.  Sarah, in a nervous gesture bred in her blood and passed to her son, absently reached up to touch a long bang framing her face and push it back around her ear, missing the marginally thoughtful look that touched Silver's easily recognized features, and thought in earnest.

        "I don't think I've heard of a Black Dog," she finally admitted with a congenial wincing smile.  "Do you know anything else, maybe?"

        A clinical gleam took hold of his organic eye, as if he still sought solid proof that she was not lying, and after a few seconds, as some of the men began drifting into lot-chosen rooms before fisticuffs could break out, his muzzle split in an easy, burly grin.  "Aye, I do know summat more.  Wouldn't be right, would it, if I shouldn't know anyt'ing about an ol' pal, now."  He winked and continued, a dark figure in his heavy black coat, his metal fingers clacking up and down in an absent fashion, "He's a right queer cuss, he is, if ye forgive my plain speakin'.  A bit addled in the brains to go by his manner o' speakin' and ruther fond o' the drink, too; if ye knew 'im, ye'd recognize 'im quick."

        "I'll keep that in mind," she said, managing to stifle a yawn before it could grow into a haw-cracking monster.  As it was, the tiniest bit of air, warm from being kept long and stagnant in her lungs, pulled stubbornly free of her lips to brush the air, and she flickered her eyes to the furious silhouettes of at least three indiscriminately large aliens preparing to engage in some form of primitive decision-making; this apparently involved knives and random exposures of gnarled, sharpened teeth.

        Surprised, horrified, and not a little unsettled by this revelation, she cried, eyes widening and a quietly frustrated quality roughening it, "Would you please tell your men to avoid using cutlery?  I'm up to here with blood and bruises, and," struggling with her venting outbursts, she pressed on doggedly, "and, and – flim-flammery!" 

        Saints alive, she noted clinically but not without some amazement, I just sounded like Mom.  And with her hands propped squarely on her hips and her nose wrinkling up in sheer irritation, tangled brown hair wrapped about her firmly set face, she thought she must certainly look the part as well amidst a great deal of dismay and resigned irony.