My initial hope, after escaping the feathered-serpent people (Nyzhraga eventually told me they were called the "Yalewi," if only to get me to stop calling them that) who had attacked us, was to just outrun them. Unfortunately, while the Swordfish could fly faster than the local galleys and longboats could manage, we had only limited knowledge of the local terrain - messy maps pieced together from half-accurate cartography by numerous amateurs. Islands that must have been hallucinations by their absence, landmarks far from where they were marked out, and of course, the great blurry fog of the unknown as one made one's way ever southward. Maps from less civilized people might have gone for "here there be monsters"; ours went for "region unknown."
Occasionally, we'd be surprised by the Yalewi; mostly, we just went up to avoid them, since that was easier and safer than engaging normally. Whatever web spell had forcibly grounded us that first time seemed to be rare, at least, sparing us the constant indignity of getting dragged down.
Still, the Yalewi seemed really damned dedicated to bringing us down, and surprisingly good at figuring out exactly where we were. Unless they were constantly swarming across the oceans like ants and then attacking every airship they saw - which I suppose was possible - it seemed like they were using some kind of divination magic or some more conventional information networks to find us. Maybe some of the talking birds shared intel with them?
I saw the familiar shape on the ship's radar, immediately identifiable as one of the Yalewi boats, headed straight for us, and with the exhaustion of somebody being chased for days, I started to ascend. Holding a greater height burns more power from the mana batteries, and of course there's less mana the further you get from the planet's surface, so we could hardly stay that high up forever... but I was getting tired of this. I set us high up enough that I was sure even the best shot couldn't hit just due to gravity, and then cracked open the airlock.
The loud whoosh of air in my ears was momentarily distracting, but I soon found my target - the ship far below. I just pointed at its mast with my cannon arm and fired. I half-expected to simply miss, given the distance, but the light beam raced right through it, puncturing a good sized hole and setting the thing ablaze. Immediately, the Yalewi set about trying to fix it, even as they howled angrily up at the ship, some of them fruitlessly firing arrows up at us. I watched the scene, deciding if I wanted to sink the ship outright - after all, would the other Yalewi even know if I did that? I'd rather they stopped following me, than that they all died - and decided to take another couple shots, punching fresh holes and starting fresh fires. The Yalewi became even more animated, scurrying across the surface of the ship.
And I noticed a young woman clamber out of one of the holes I'd punched in the ship. I couldn't see her that well, but I could tell she was female, and dark-skinned, and probably human - or else one of the races from up north, not one of the animal-headed folks that seemed surprisingly common around these parts.
Given she was choosing to jump overboard and start swimming, rather than trying to help the Yalewi, I was pretty sure she was a would-be sacrificial victim who I had accidentally saved... and who would probably drown without assistance, given how far it was to the nearest island. I hesitated, then fired off a few more shots at the ship, completely distracting the Yalewi as it started to take on water; nobody else seemed to have the chance to escape, and the ship itself turned as much as it could in its damaged condition, trying to get somewhere safe.
At that point, I went back to the helm, using the ship's radar to find the woman's position, and I lowered the vessel down towards the water, wings shifting from their vertical arrangement to a flat one. After a few seconds, I heard her clamber atop one of the wings, then start banging on the outside of the vessel. "Salama? Ampio aho azafady? Nidina hanampy ahy ianao, eny?"
"Master? There is being somebody banging on the vessel. Also it was being very amazing how you were showing those Yalewi to be fearing us!" Jutaana added.
"I'm pretty sure she's a would-be sacrifice," I said. "But be ready for anything." In response, Akamarina reformed in the main room, and I went to the airlock, opening it one way, then the other.
She was pretty, with chocolate-colored skin and messy dark hair. Her eyes were a surprisingly sharp blue, and she stared at me for a long second, her gaze going to the top of my head for a moment, a frown on her lips. She was also wearing almost nothing - as was common in this region - and had some fairly elaborate tattoos on her arms and her left leg, spiraling up the length of them in geometric designs and patterns.
"Don't do anything violent," I said, though I was pretty sure she couldn't understand me. Especially given the dull look she gave me.
Then she stepped forwards towards me, raising her hand and pointing at my lips. Her finger was just an inch or so away, but the movement seemed simultaneously benign and authoritative, not a threat but a well-intentioned demand, like a doctor's. "Sokafy ny vavanao."
"Wha-" was as far as I got before she stuck two fingers in my mouth. They tasted, as you might expect, like the saltwater they'd just been bathed in, and they ran along my tongue, my teeth, my gums, in a way that felt intimate but was obviously actually aiming to accomplish something. My blade arm had snapped out, just in case it was some sort of attack,
"Oh, yuck," she said, as she pulled her fingers out, looking somewhat disgusted. "What a terrible language. Tastes northern. Almerese?" She toyed with the word for a second.
"You know Almerese?" I was, in fact, surprised.
"Now I do," she said, wiping her spit-soaked fingers off on my shirt. "I assume you didn't actually mean to rescue me?"
I shook my head. "The Yalewi have been hounding me around for a while now," I told her. "I decided to try scaring them off."
"Thanks anyway. Any enemy of theirs is a friend of mine," she said, though the smile she wore didn't quite reach her eyes. "Where are you headed?"
"I was planning to try to find Kitran."
"Master? Is everything being okay, Master?" Jutaana called out from the other side of the airlock.
"I can help with that," the young woman said. "Name's Voasary, by the way," she said.
The external airlock door closed, and there was Jutaana, sword still at her side. Voasary approached her, pointing two fingers at the girl's mouth. "Eh, Master, why is she-mmf!" I was surprised she waited that long, honestly.
"It's fine," I said, as Jutaana raised her sword a few inches, Voasary herself shifting slightly to the side. "Some magic to help learn the language."
Jutaana's leg kicked strangely at the ground, in a way most familiar to me from when we were actually having sex. Eventually, Voasary popped her fingers out, and spoke a few words in Jutaana's native language.
"Ah!?!" Jutaana sounded genuinely excited as she spoke back, but I unfortunately didn't know much more about it beyond them saying 'Ahng' instead of 'Ow!'
Azanaga gave a few quick claps, attracting my attention to her, and reminding me that she and Eshenesra and Pichi were also all in the main room. "Good job." She intercepted Voasary's fingers as the girl approached. "Eshenesra speaks Nyzhraga and I only speak that and Almerese." She jerked her head over towards Eshenesra, who just flushed as Voasary approached.
"Only thing I like rooting around in my mouth is dick," Pichi said, as Voasary started rooting around in Eshenesra's mouth. Voasary gave her a very unimpressed look. "I'm Pichi, by the way."
"Voasary," was the succinct reply. She took quite a bit longer inside of Eshenesra's mouth than she had in mine or Jutaana's, the elf just quietly trembling, glancing over at me for reassurance. Eventually, though, she popped her fingers out of Eshenesra's mouth. "You northerners sure wear a lot," she noted, as she wiped her fingers off on Eshenesra's clothes.
"Right. Now that that's done, do you want us to take you home?" I asked her. "If it isn't too far out of our way, we could."
"My home's gone," Voasary said. "I'm from a small, ah, there's not a word you have for it. Temple village, I think is something like it? Medicine village? Less than a hundred permanent residents. I was the person who would use my magic to help people. The others were minders and fishers and the like."
"You could still be helping people!" Jutaana said.
"I don't want to." Voasary cracked her neck. "I'm from Fiandohana."
"I think I've heard of that one," I said, "but only pretty wild stories."
"They're true in spirit, even if I don't know what you've heard. Rule by the dead. Ghosts of ancestors, cut off from the cycle of reincarnation, enacting a tyranny of their values and traditions into the present. I didn't want to be a... fetish? Totem?" She hummed. "So many missing words in your language, makes it kinda useless." She gestured to her arm. "The tattoos contain spirits which are bound into my body. I was a child and it hurt. Take me with you," she said, focusing her blue eyes on me. "I don't want to go back home, and I can translate for you. If you're headed south, then you won't be able to find people that speak Nyzhraga for much longer."
I thought about it for a long few seconds. We had things set up for a crew of five - not a crew of six. Further, I didn't know how much I could trust her. Pichi, Azanaga, Eshenesra, Jutaana - they were all carrying a slave crest that completely bound them to my will. They couldn't betray me in any way, even if they wanted to. I tried to never give them cause to want to, but you can never know if somebody is nursing some secret grudge and planning to betray you.
On the other hand, if not her, I'd have to find other translators, or multiple translators, and wind up in just the same situation. And unlike those other translators, I had just saved her from being a human sacrifice. "Alright," I said. "You can join us. There's not a spare bed, so you'll have to figure that out," I told her.
"Is that a bed?" She asked, pointing to a sofa in the main room.
"No. It's a sofa."
"Sofa..." She rolled the word on her tongue. "Hm. Sofa. Got it." She sat down on it, wiggled her butt into it, getting ready to lie down.
"Wait, wait, wait," Pichi said, making Voasary pause. "Dry off first," she said.
* * *
Voasary knew a lot about the local region, given that people would come from far and wide to get magical assistance from her. She didn't know exactly where Kitran was, but she knew places which were near it, which in turn helped us get there much more quickly than we would have without her. Whenever there was a need to pick up another language, she'd shove two fingers into somebody's mouth, which seemed to be considered a bit of an honor by the locals who recognized the magic.
Not so much the ones who didn't, of course.
Overall, Voasary had a rough but genial manner. She didn't care much about niceties - or maybe she didn't know them, or was following some other set of niceties I couldn't recognize - but she would be helpful if asked to help with something. She was a voracious reader of what books from the North we had, though she was annoyed by how many of them were about the South. "I already know about the South, why didn't you bring books about the North?" I remember her asking, and not being satisfied with the obvious answer - I already knew about the North.
She mostly treated the food we had like an exotic treat. "mmm, sho good," I remember her saying, at one of Pichi's home cooked meals - and after she ate her first chocolate bar, I was only able to stop her from eating all of them by saying that a) I would kick her off the boat if she ate all the bars, and b) she wouldn't be able to eat bars in the future if she just gorged herself on them.
Her opinion of slavery was - to say the least - poor. Once she worked out that the girls didn't call me Master like you might call somebody Sir, but instead had a slave crest that forced them to obey me, her opinion sharply soured. Jutaana saying I was a great master didn't seem to do much of anything to persuade her. "Only evil countries practice slavery. Even Fiandohana doesn't. The Yalewi do. The Jiraki don't. The Alashkor do." She went on to list like twenty different countries, the vast majority of which I did not recognize, but apparently all the 'good people' countries didn't practice slavery, while all the 'evil people' countries did.
"It's different up North."
"Apparently you are evil up north, then," she said, her gaze sharp.
"I couldn't release them even if I wanted to," was the only thing that actually ended that particular discussion. It required equipment that only existed up North.
Voasary's opinion of me did improve when she saw Pichi, Jutaana, and Azanaga all pretty much beg (in their own ways) for sex - and Eshenesra revealed that I wasn't fucking her at all. The fact that a slave would actually ask for sex with their master was a very foreign concept to her, and she seemed to conclude that 'slavery' must mean something different up North. (I don't think it did, other than us having slave crests - I was just quite lax with them, relative to a lot of others - but I didn't correct her.) Either way, I ordered the girls to avoid mentioning their status as slaves in the future - if slavery was that much of a taboo down South, I didn't want to piss off everybody I met right out the gate.
* * *
Sex with Azanaga was genuinely strange to me. Not that it had changed since I first fucked her - but that it hadn't. She would verbally degrade herself, get me to come, and then consider the sex done and her libido satisfied. I could facefuck her and she would just move on after I came, even though she rarely orgasmed during our sex. (She did sometimes - but that just made it weirder. If she never orgasmed I'd just assume she biologically couldn't, not that she didn't care about them.) She'd explain it as just how demons were, but it was still fucking weird to me. In the end, though, I was fucking her because she wanted me to, so I didn't put much priority on "fixing" her sexual preferences to be more "normal" or whatever.
Still, that day, I'd decided to do her from behind, bending her over my bed and gripping one of her horns as I fucked her, holding her in place as I pounded away. "I'm a Nyzhraga bitch, I was born to get fucked by fat human cocks, the only reason the Nyzhraga Empire existed in the first place was to make it sexier when bitches like me were dominated by human cocks," she explained, her voice a little breathless as I just rammed away. "I deserve to get fucked and put in my place by you, Master. All demon bitches need human cocks to put them in their places as women. Demon men are just a pointless necessity to produce more succubi whores like me."
Her dirty talk was starting to work its magic on me, I have to admit. I was just railing her hard, my cock throbbing inside her, and I let go of her horns to grab her breasts, squeezing one in either hand. "That's right," I grunted out, and I felt her pussy tighten suddenly on my cock. "I only bought you so I could fuck you and put you in your place. You weren't being sold as a civil engineer, why would you think I bought you as one? Demon bitches like you are only good for one thing, and it's what I bought you for." I was just bullshitting - but she actually came, moaning and thrashing on my cock wildly, her pussy going absolutely crazy. She'd come here and there before, but it was the most intense orgasm I'd ever seen from her, and I just bottomed out and came with a long groan as her pussy milked me dry.
Once I was spent, she panted on the bed for several long seconds. "Thanks," she said. "Nnn, fuck." She sighed loudly. "You're getting better at the dirty talk."
"Thanks," I said, in the most insincere way possible to say thanks. I decided to head to the kitchen to grab some water to drink - and I found Jutaana and Voasary rapidly exchanging words in Padauiran. They both fell silent and turned their gaze up to me when I arrived - Jutaana with her puppy love, Voasary with a gaze that asked What are you looking at?
From the way they looked at me, I could tell they were talking about me, but it wasn't like I could have understood it anyway, so I just went to the kitchen and got my drink. By the time I finished and came back, Azanaga had gotten dressed and left my bedroom; Jutaana and Voasary both shut up the second I entered the room, yet again. Voasary stared at me quietly for a long few seconds. "Are you really that good at sex?"
"How good at sex am I supposed to be?"
"Master is being very good at sex!" Jutaana said, and it let me instantly orient how good at sex I was supposed to be. I just took hold of one of her ears, softly massaging it near the base in a way that made her leg kick a little and also shut her up.
"Jutaana is in love with me, so the sex is better for her," I explained.
"Is Azanaga in love with you too?" Voasary glanced in the direction of Azanaga's room. "She certainly seemed... loudly satisfied."
"If she's in love with me, she's terrible at expressing it," I told Voasary. "But I guess I can't put it past her." She did ping pong back and forth between talking about how Nyzhraga was the greatest thing ever, to how it only existed so it'd be hotter for humans to fuck demon sex slaves like her.
She exchanged some quick words with Jutaana in Padauiran - then turned her attention back to me. "I'd like to try sex. According to Jutaana, it's really good, and I have just about no experience, due to being a mpanasitrana. I figure who better to take my first time - pop my cherry? - than the guy who saved me from the Yalewi, if only by accident?" She paused for a moment. "Why does pop my cherry mean that?"
"It refers to the hymen, which often is torn during a girl's first time, producing some amount of blood," I told her, which made her nose crinkle. "Don't worry, it doesn't happen if the guy is gentle getting started."
"Ah, so you are willing to do it," she said, standing up at that point, heading right for the bedroom.
I followed after her, though not before Jutaana spoke up. "Be fucking her really good, Master! Ah! Since she is human she is being possible to get knocked up!" She sounded absolutely torn by the sudden realization. "She is being very nice but still, please be knocking up Jutaana first, okay?!"
"Did you hear Jutaana?" I asked, as I closed the door behind me.
"Ah... yeah," Voasary said, sitting awkwardly on the bed, now. "Why not knock her up? She seems really enthusiastic about the possibility."
"I'd be happy to knock her up, it's just the situation isn't ideal for it," I explained. "I don't suppose you have some magic in those tattoos that can keep you from getting pregnant?" Voasary shook her head, and I bit my lip, thinking about it. "Let's just do a sixty-nine."
"Yeah. I don't know what that is."
"Take off your clothes," I said, even as I did much the same. Obviously it took me much longer, since she wore virtually nothing and was soon naked on the bed. "Now lie on your back. Don't put your head right up near the headboard," I clarified, and she got into the appropriate position - then I clambered atop her, so that I was looking at her pussy, and she was looking at my cock. "It's not technically 'real' sex, but-" I was going to say feels just as nice, but I was interrupted by loud sniffing noises from Voasary, who reached up to clasp the base of my cock, pointing it towards her face as she leaned into it, sniffing ever louder. "Um. Enjoying yourself?"
"It smells... so good," she breathed out, almost exhaling the words. I would have assumed that she was smelling Azanaga's juices, except I'm pretty sure she also just smelled normal. Her nose sniffed louder and louder. "Mmm... fuck," she breathed out. "Does it taste good?" Her tongue danced along my cock, flicking along the side in a completely random spot - but the way she started to just lavish it with hungry licking movements only made my dick throb all the more. "It does, mm, mph, so good, tasty, mm," she hummed and moaned noisily as she just licked at my cock.
It seemed like she understood her part in the position well enough, at least, so I leaned down towards her, kissing at her clit softly, lips teasing the nub. She shivered at that, but didn't stop her licking, desperately sliding her tongue all over my cock, making hungry moans and gasps. You'd have thought my cock was the tastiest thing ever, by the way she wetly moaned after each long lick, sucking noisily on my cock occasionally. Not in the sense of putting it in her mouth, but just attaching her lips to one side and slurping on it, cheeks audibly hollowing.
For my part, I slid two fingers into her waiting sex. She jerked at the touch - my hands do have that metallic coldness, for the most part - but didn't complain, just continuing to lick instead. After a few seconds for my fingers to warm up, I started to finger her more seriously and thoroughly, continuing to kiss at her clit, occasionally pausing to just suckle at the nub.
Her fellatio grew more enthusiastic and sloppy as I worked, and I could feel the spit dripping off my dick from where she'd plastered so much that it was now just cascading down. Her moans started to mix this is tasty and this feels good together, the two feelings both being simultaneously expressed as throaty moans of delight. I just worked to figure out what she liked best in terms of touching, and eventually figured it out. It was harder than usual, due to just how horny and aroused she obviously was from tasting my cock, but once I found the right spots, I managed to get her to come quite quickly, her hips pushing up into my face as she moaned wildly next to my dick, giving up on sucking and licking it for a few long seconds.
When she finished coming, she was left breathless, her tongue making lazier trails across my cock, an almost numb sort of licking, like she was too fuckdrunk to do anything else. Hot breaths spilled out as she recovered, brushing along my cock in the process, but when she got herself together to speak, her words were definitely very pleasant to hear. "Fuck, that felt good. Am I doing a good job on the, uh, blowjob? I got a little distracted with how tasty your cock is." My dick twitched in her hand, and she leaned in to kiss it again. "If I can do something to make it better for you, just say so," she added.
"You've been doing great," I reassured her. "All that stuff was great. But there is one thing you haven't done that's pretty common in blowjobs. Just wrap your lips around the very tip, and start moving your mouth down my length."
She planted her lips in the appropriate location, letting out a muffled noise around my cockhead. "Li'e fihsh?" She managed to get out, around my dick, her tongue flashing about.
"Yes. Now stretch your mouth wide, and just move forward." She obeyed dutifully, her mouth opening and starting to suck my cock into her mouth. She hummed as the (apparently, delicious) flavor hit her tongue again, and she rabidly licked and slurped at my dick, twisting her head on automatic instinct in a way that made the feeling even better. I groaned in pleasure as she moved her way down, momentarily forgetting all about reciprocation. When I hit the back of her throat, she gagged wetly on my cock, spittle flecking out and up - but she didn't stop, surprising me. She just pressed against it, moaning the whole time, clearly very much enjoying the whole experience of gagging on my cock.
As much as Pichi may also have been a fellatio addict, Voasary had a completely different vibe to how she sucked cock. Not just in the lack of skill, but Pichi sucked dick to get a reaction - Voasary was in it for the love of the cock. I had no idea what, in particular, caused the woman to treat my dick like the tastiest, best-smelling thing she'd ever encountered in her life, but there was no doubt in my mind in that moment that that was exactly what she felt like. A tongue that danced along my cock even as she pushed her face against her gag reflex, trying to stretch out to taste as much as she could, intermittently sputtering - then I let go in her mouth, groaning against her clit as I unloaded.
She just swallowed wetly. If anything, her noises about how tasty my cock was got louder, humming and slurping wetly around my dick. She did pull back a bit, but that seemed to be mostly to make more room for my cum - and then she came again, starting to sputter a little in the process, twitching in place around my cock as she accidentally choked on my cum.
When I was finished coming, I pulled out of her mouth, sitting down on the bed and catching my breath. Her face was a bit of a mess - tear stained, and with a little bit of cum having somehow come out of her nose. But she looked absolutely ecstatic as she just swilled my cum in her mouth.
"Fuck, that's incredibly tasty," she said, when she finally swallowed, a couple minutes later. She took a breath through her nose and shuddered. "Smells so~o good, too," she added. She twisted her head over to me. "Can I get another?"
She could.
* * *
The ship proceeded on its course to Kitran, taking directions from various islands. "New docks," I called out, and Voasary poked her head into the cockpit.
"Ah. That's Kitran," she said.
"How can you tell?" I asked.
She pointed out the window. "The giant floating pearl over it," she said. It was partly obscured by a mountain, but after she pointed it out, it was unmistakable. The rainbow colors were bright and eye-catching across the surface of the smooth, round, well-polished giant object. It was one of the distinctive features about Kitran we'd heard about, so it left no ambiguity.
"Ah. Yeah. That's Kitran," I said, starting to lower the Swordfish down towards the docks.