This One's On The House [ISHTAR-V]

"Rough day at the office, huh?"

Vitruvia smirked. Her glass hung lazily an inch from her face, almost dangling in her grip. "I wouldn't call it 'rough'."

"Whatever ripped the clothes off your body would disagree."

"They're replaceable and the reactor needed servicing."

"That explains the slime." Tight Fit licked her lips. "You are cleaning that off my barstools, though. The drinks are complimentary because you're the only one who knows how to fix this rustbucket. The janitorial service is not."

Vitruvia looked down. She still hadn't taken a sip. "Oh, so you weren't just checking me out?"

"Girl, I see your dick every week."

"Do you wanna see some more of it?"

Tight laughed, and paused a moment. "I'll take a rain check. I'm already getting serviced."

"That's fine, I can fuck you while he stays strapped to your ass. I can be careful."

Tight looked back down Vitruvia's body, scraps of cloth and zipper still hanging from her sides, held only by viscous green fluid. "I can see what your idea of careful looks like. I'm not even sure why you bother replicating new clothes, you can and do EVA naked."

"Mostly for Marble's benefit."

"Ah, so when I see you fully clothed you're about to steal my boytoy for experiments. Got it."

Vitruvia chuckled, setting her glass down for a second. "Oh, piss off."

The bar quietened for a few moments. It was a slow evening, but silence was rare. Even without the ambient mood music, there was the creak of the aging structure twisting under its own weight, the thrum of electrical cables and machinery, the whirr of fans, pumps, and god knows what, somewhere in audible range. Nobody heard Clipped gasping for air.

"Why do you do it?" Tight said, propping her chin with one hand. "Like, why are you still here? You're way overqualified for a shack like Ishtar." She took another glance down. "Aside from the opportunity to get railed by alien tentacle creatures on the clock."

"You'd all die without me in six months." Vitruvia had only barely gotten a sip past her lips.

"Yeah, but why do you care?"

"Well, first of all, that's an extremely skull and crossbones thing of you to say. Second, I guess the old girl's home. Been looking after her for... gotta be thirty years at this point."

Tight frowned, eyes widening. "Thir- how old are you?"

Vitruvia averted her eyes and chuckled. "You don't wanna know. I'm not sure the navy want me anymore, since I stuck around when the pirates moved in, and since the noodle kicked them out, looking after the place is just... so much easier."

"You could go literally anywhere though."

Vitruvia paused, swilling her blue drink in her mouth for a second. "Ain't many places I can just sit at a bar in the buff."

"So it is the fucking, okay."

"That's why we're all here, let's be honest."

Ishtar-V is a... side project? Setting? Image series? Idk what it is. It's a thing I'm starting which depicts my characters in a slightly more defined frame of reference than normal. These are not replacing their default depictions, these are more just versions of the characters in a specific context. I'll be fleshing it out over time, but like with all my stuff, I intend to keep it flexible so I can just import whatever I find hot into it. I'm also considering this an open setting, but not yet - I'm more than happy for people to insert themselves into this world, but let me establish the baseline a little first! Also because I'm me I'm probably not going to be posting any like, lore bibles or anything like that, maybe just a running overview or something if it gets sufficiently complicated that people start asking me "what's Ishtar" and I need a place for them to start.