The dockworkers definitely had no idea what the hell they were looking at, as the Swordfish descended down. They actually scramble away, people at a great distance pointing at the vessel in something like shock. I was surprised by just how surprised they were. Sure, I was pretty sure I was the first person from the northern hemisphere who had ever come here, and thus this was the first airship they'd seen, but at the same time, what I had seen of the southern hemisphere showed there was plenty of weirdness down here. Races up north all mostly looked the same, save for horns or tails or big ears or being tall or short or the like. Down here, I'd already encountered the feathered-serpent looking Yalewi and the weird dog-people of the Siyaki, not to mention, of course, the talking birds.
In other words, I'd assumed they'd be used to weirdness. But apparently the Swordfish was a bit too weird, even for them. As it set down crisply at the dock, the wings rotating ninety degrees to shift from cutting through air to floating on water, a single dockworker approached the ship.
It was Voasary who got off the ship first, being that she was a local and (I hoped) had already picked up enough local languages. She exchanged some words with the dockworker, who sighed in relief and called out to his fellows.
"You're fine to come out," Voasary called back towards the rest of us. "They're just not used to ships like this."
"I guessed," I said, as I stepped out first. Jutaana was the second out, then Eshenesra, and at last I called back and made Azanaga and Pichi follow. "I really should start learning languages."
"And replace me?" Voasary asked, a flirty smile on her lips.
"You're irreplaceable," I told her, giving her a winning smile - and she seemed to be surprised by that particular statement. Maybe it was a bit too forward? "I need a translator, you have a magical talent with it, and since I saved you from the Yalewi, you would have to be a truly awful person to betray me outright."
She let out a small laugh at that. "Ah, so that's what you meant," she said. "I can't disagree. I do owe you, even if you didn't save me on purpose. Yalewi sacrificial rituals... aren't pretty." The one I had heard about from Voasary herself was that they would break bones so they could force the ribs open and remove the lungs via the hole to place on either side of the corpse, as a visceral sort of "wings." It wasn't clear to her at exactly which point in the process the victim would die, and my anatomical knowledge was insufficient to fill in that particular gap.
She turned back to one of the dockworkers, who had asked her some questions, and she answered them with some brisk words, leading the man to start writing. The words I caught were "leporagi," "pekina," "elf" and "demon" - presumably because there was no local word for any of their races. When he gestured to me, she didn't use any recognizable word; after some back-and-forth, she said, "cyborg," and then a bunch of unrecognizable words.
Afterwards, we were escorted away from the docks, and she explained the situation: he was wondering what race I was. Most humans don't have bits of a dead god attached to their torso, so he was understandably confused.
I wound up paying for some food for us, buying it from street vendors - luckily, we'd picked up a few of various local currencies on the way there, and given this was a port, it wasn't too hard to get things changed. The food on offer were exclusively these thin wooden sticks pierced through with a variety of different fruits. As we wandered, I did start to notice something strange: there wasn't any meat on sale.
I asked Voasary about it, and she relayed my questions to one of the sellers, who - after having the question explained, because he didn't get it at first - seemed more baffled and disgusted than anything else. It wasn't in some moral sense, like I'd half-expected (there were vegetarian subcultures up north who disdained meat eating for moral reasons). More like if I'd asked after why there wasn't poop on sale to eat. It did make it pretty clear that nobody here sold any meat.
"Mm, but meat is being good," Jutaana said, with a little pout. "It is helping build strong muscles which are important for any girl."
"Jutaana, that's only true for leporagi," Azanaga said, her voice a bit chilly as she spoke. Jutaana stared at Azanaga for a long second, turned away, her eyes seeming to scan her brow as she thought about it.
"No!" She said at last. "It was being the Siyaki too! They were being muscular women!" She paused. "But you are also being right, maybe... I am not seeing many girls who are muscular. I was just thinking that Master was picking you flabby girls because you are cheap."
"I'm not flabby," Azanaga grit out.
At that point, we were interrupted by a trio of women, who were wearing fairly reasonable military dress - not full armor, but tunics and chain shirts, with a large flower design on the chest in white-and-gold. Each carried a spear at her side, and all the commoners gave them a wide berth. The leader of the trio barked out a command at us, but obviously, I didn't understand a single word.
"Aha!" Jutaana said. "They are being muscular! I am right!"
"They asked us to follow them to meet the king," Voasary said, strategically choosing to ignore the argument between Azanaga and Jutaana.
"Well, alright, then," I said.
* * *
The king's name was Marfer, and he was clearly quite old. His face was wrinkled, his body thin, as he sat on the throne and peered imperiously down at the group of us.
At his side was a truly, ludicrously beautiful woman with long ears, milky white skin, and shimmering silver hair, her eyes having an almost luminescent blue hue to them, striking as she peered down at us too. She wore what I was pretty sure were a wizard's robes, and I would probably have assumed she was an elf, if she wasn't impossibly pretty - or if I'd never seen an elf before. As it was, it was impossible for me to imagine that she wasn't some strange southerly counterpart to elves, in much the same way that Siyaki very vaguely resembled caninu. If just having long ears made you an elf, then Jutaana was the most elven woman I'd ever met.
Voasary and King Marfer spoke quite briskly, back and forth, exchanging inquiries and answers. I took the moment to quietly look around the room. There were courtiers, most of whom were clearly here to see the strange foreigners. There were also a good dozen more armed women, all of whom were well-armed, wearing similar clothes to the ones who had approached us in the port. They watched us with care, particularly myself, Eshenesra, and Jutaana.
Eventually, Voasary began acting as a translator for the king properly, speaking to me on his behalf. "Why did you come here to Kitran, foreign stranger?"
"I'm an explorer, employed by Almere to learn about the southern hemisphere. I hoped that by coming so far south that no one else had arrived yet, I could find out things of particular value." And, of course, that I could find out things that were interesting. I wanted to be part of the history of discovery, to see what nobody else in the northern hemisphere (thanks, Pichi) had ever seen before.
"What interest do you have in the politics of Kitran?"
"None," I said, honestly confused by the question. "Or, I suppose it would be good to be able to trade with your kingdom, perhaps, but I have no interest in... I don't know what the question is asking, to be honest."
"Matters of royal succession."
"I have no interest in matters of royal succession," I told him. I did feel a creeping concern, though - if there were succession problems, that meant politics that we might get stuck in the middle of.
For a long moment, he stared at us - then gestured to the long-eared woman at his side, who leaned in as he whispered to her. She whispered back. Even if they weren't whispering, I would not have known what she was saying, at all, as I didn't speak the language, at all. He spoke again after a little bit, and Voasary dutifully translated. "Then I offer you a boon, foreign dignitary." I nodded in response, not sure I quite qualified, but also not interested in arguing with him. "Irendar will make for you a potion that will enhance your ability to learn new languages." He gestured towards the elven woman.
"Can I have some for my companions, as well?" I asked, worried the moment the words left my lips that it would be too much. Certainly, once the translation was done, and Irendar crinkled her nose just so, her face still looking beautiful despite it, I definitely regretted it.
"No. Irendar is doing you a great favor, bringing her powerful alchemy to bear for your benefit; do not treat her like some common laborer who you can greedily take more work from."
"My apologies," I said, immediately, bowing my head deeply to the woman. She seemed satisfied with that, her expression returning to its previous cool mien. Her expression was as if everyone in the room were just a variety of mildly interesting animals kept in a zoo; fascinating, but not concerning to her in any way.
* * *
We were allowed to stay in the guest chambers at the castle; some strategic mistranslations on Voasary's part had led to them believing that Jutaana, Pichi, Azanaga, and Eshenesra were all my wives, and we were given a single, large room to share. "It's better than them thinking they're your slaves," she had explained, her voice almost a hiss. "Kitran does not allow men multiple wives, but some of its neighbors do. None south of the equator practice slavery, save the most wicked sorts. Further, there is no risk of scandal if you should be caught fucking them."
That was not the first thing on my mind, when I entered the guest bedroom. It was quite richly adorned, with a very large mattress, a variety of lovely tapestries on the walls, and even some bottled wine and metal cups for us to drink from. The first thing on my mind was the desire to just plop on the bed and pass out. All the social rules of Kitran were foreign to me, just like the rest of the place. My brain was still trying to figure out what my worst faux pas were, trying to figure out how I could make up for them. Maybe offer Irendar some gift? What did I even have that she wanted? Eshenesra was a sorceress, I suppose, so maybe she could share some knowledge?
My arm was laying across my face, blocking out most of the light, my eyes closed in contemplation, when I felt Pichi hit the bed. She just grabbed my waistband and tugged it down. I wasn't erect, what with the stress, but that was hardly enough to stop Pichi. "Since I'm your wife," she declared, with a certain jocular note to her voice, "it's only natural that I would suck your cock when you're stressed."
She leaned down at that point, softly wrapping her warm lips around my flaccid cock. I'm a grower, not a shower, so my cock was maybe the size of a thumb at that point; Pichi seemed to like that particular size a lot, given the way she hummed and noisily slurped on it.
"Eh..." Jutaana said, thinking about what Pichi had just said. "Yes~! Wife, wife," she declared, seeming obviously excited by it, bouncing in place at the idea. "Wife means breeding," she proclaimed, then hurriedly clambered onto the bed, pulling my arm away and fiercely kissing me on the lips, her tongue invading my mouth before I could argue with her. She hummed and panted into my mouth, her kiss seeming exceedingly eager.
My cock, by that point, was fully erect in Pichi's mouth, and she was sucking on the upper half of it, leaving the lower to throb in open air, still slick with her earlier spit. Azanaga huffed at the show from one side, while Eshenesra watched in quiet silence, her cheeks pink as one bent finger trailed across her lips, a phalange finding itself buried past her lips. She definitely had a voyeur streak, and I had no real problem indulging it.
One of my hands found its way to Jutaana's breast, groping it softly, and she hummed into my mouth at the feeling, almost shoving her tit into my palm. My other hand was placed on the back of Pichi's head, gingerly pressing downward in a quiet request, and Pichi responded by doing exactly what was asked of her, slowly but surely descending down my length, her throat bulging with my cock as she moved to deepthroat me. I just groaned at the feeling, while Pichi herself slurped wetly on my length, tongue dashing along the underside, her breasts jiggling softly from her enthusiastic movements and rubbing against my thighs in the process.
I just groaned under the attention, and when Jutaana at last pulled off, I took the chance to suck in some breaths. "I'm still not going to knock you up," I told her, and she bit her lip in the cutest way possible, my cock twitching inside Pichi's throat again. The pekina woman let out a gurgled noise to attract my attention, giving me a sharp look as our eyes met - a silent chastisement for my treatment of Jutaana.
"Ah... my husba~and," Jutaana said, almost singing the word out, "is so mean," she explained. "It is not being normal for a husband to refuse to give his wife baby, right? Right?" She asked Eshenesra and Azanaga.
"Maybe if he's a jerk with a tiny cock," Azanaga said, clearly wanting to tick me off.
"O-oh," Eshenesra said, her cheeks brightening as she made eye contact with Jutaana. "No... no, I don't think it's normal... I mean... ah, maybe, if it would be dangerous?"
"I'm not going to knock you up even if you all gang up on me," I told Jutaana. I gently stroked her cheek for a moment, then slid my hand up to her ear, massaging it near the base, provoking a sharp response from the leporagi, a hot breath escaping her throat as she trembled at the touch. "One day, alright? You're only twenty-four, you've got plenty of fertile years ahead of you, and you'll be with me for all of them."
Jutaana let out a truly sonorous moan at that, clearly loving the idea that she'd be with me for all of them. She pushed against my grip on her ear, and I released it, letting her once more lean down to meet my lips. Her tongue forced its way into my mouth hungrily.
Through all this, of course, Pichi hadn't been doing nothing - but she'd actually shown a bit of self-control, merely softly suckling and licking at my cock. More the gentle, tasting sort of blowjob, than the more intense cocksucking that she could put into it when she was particularly eager for it. Now that Jutaana and I had had a little moment, she clearly wanted the attention back on her cocksucking, and started just pounding her mouth up and down, slurping wetly, twisting her head around and around, her tits jiggling, smacking against my thighs as she moved around. There was an intensity to every motion, and the sounds coming out of her mouth left no doubt she was enjoying herself, soft moans and hums of delight, like she was having the tastiest treat she'd ever been fed at the moment.
For my part, I just groaned from the work, while Jutaana kept making out with me fervently, tongue dancing around the inside of my mouth. She actually took hold of my arms, directing them up towards her breasts, giving them to me to squeeze, and so, naturally, I did so, panting into her mouth as I relished the feeling of her large, full breasts in either hand. She undid her top, leaving her breasts free a moment later, and I could feel her perky nipples pressing into my palms as she made out with me.
At last, she broke off the kiss again, sucking in deep breaths. "Ah... husba~and," she whined, rubbing her thighs against each other. "I am wanting a~all your attention but Pichi is sucking your cock so I will be giving you time, okay? Pichi is being good wife," she said, putting extra-special emphasis on the word, like the scenario was the sexiest roleplay ever, "so she is deserving all her husband's attention as she is sucking his cock."
Pichi let out a soft hum around my dick, giving Jutaana an approving look before peeling off my cock for a moment, sucking in breaths as she stroked me. "Yeah," she said, licking her lips. "You're too eager to get your dick wet in fresh holes, Hob. What's the point of having four wives if you go and do that?"
"Yeah," Azanaga said. "You've got four hot girls who have to suck your cock on command-" Eshenesra went scarlet at that, her blue eyes growing wide, "-and you're still fucking randos like Bakwai and Voasary. I feel all hurt, being cheated on all the time like that, but I guess humans are too dumb to control their dicks."
"You two are enjoying this too much," I said, with a roll of my eyes. "I'll fuck who I want to fuck." I placed my hand on the back of Pichi's head, guiding her downwards. "You're not the boss of me."
"Yes," Jutaana agreed. "Husba~and is being the head of household, he is making decisions about who is getting fucked, which is us, and whoever he is feeling like! He is still paying attention to his wives so it is all being okay!" Pichi slurped my cock into her throat all the way, going completely balls deep and just mashing her nose into it, and I groaned and leaned back again for a moment, back arching, Pichi's tits rubbing and getting squished in between my thighs in a particularly exciting way.
"Mm, fuck," I breathed, leaning up on the bed at last, finally leaving my position on my back. I wasn't moving to get more control on Pichi - though she briefly looked like she was worried about it - and instead reached down for Pichi's tits, just fondling the huge, soft things, playing with them in my hands. "God, you have such crazy big tits, Pichi," I told her, thrusting my hips up into her face, making her let out a faint noise of surprise - but she also didn't try to stop me, neither the jerk of my hips nor the flagrant groping and squeezing of her breasts, tugging on them, squeezing them.
"Guess that's why you 'married' her," Azanaga said. "Just into big fat tits. Guess that explains why you aren't fucking Eshenesra. She's too much of a flatty."
"I- wh- there's no reason, to say things like that, it's just... I haven't asked him or anything! Obviously! You're the one who approached him for sex, I honestly thought you wouldn't," Eshenesra said.
"You should be asking then! Since we are all his wives, we should all be getting fucked!"
"A-ah, no, it's fine," Eshenesra said, ducking her head a bit.
At that point, Pichi did something truly insane and obscene with her mouth, just wetly slurping around my cock as her cheeks hollowed and she swallowed rapidly around my length. The repeated, rhythmic sensation, the way her tongue danced around, the feeling of her big tits in my hands, the way that Azanaga and Jutaana were - on purpose or not - both pressuring Eshenesra into sex with me... it pushed me over the edge, and I groaned as I started to come, tightening my grip on Pichi's tits. She peeled back as best she could, wrapping her lips around the tip, jerking me off with a self-satisfied look on her face as I deposited a thick load of cum on her tongue, and I shuddered and collapsed in the afterglow.
"Breeding sex, husba~and?" Jutaana asked, giving me an eager fluttering of the eyelashes.
"I really have had a long day," I told her.
"Okay..." Her ears actually drooped a little, but I wasn't lying. "I will being satisfied with cuddles then," she declared, hopping onto the bed next to me, sliding around my arm and then wrapping me in a hug. The other girls mostly did not choose such affectionate positions, but there was only one bed, so we wound up lying next to one another. Eshenesra crossed her arms over her chest and tried to stay stock still as she laid next to Azanaga, who slept in a lazy crumpled nude pile. Pichi just curled up on the far end of Jutaana from me, resting her head on a pillow she seemed to have decided was suitably comfy, and promptly fell asleep.
Luckily there were multiple blankets, because we wound up fighting over them, over the course of the night.
* * *
In the morning, we got woken up by a loud rapping at the door. Jutaana awoke first, and her jerk to attention brought me also into consciousness, my eyelashes fluttering open. "Somebody is being at door," Jutaana said to me. "Should I be getting sword?"
"I guess as a safety measure," I told her, stumbling out of the bed, making my way lazily to the door, pulling on my pants as I made the journey. I creaked open the door, finding Irendar standing there.
She was wearing gloves on her hands, which was new from when I'd met her in the throne room. She looked at me with some small note of distaste visible in her gaze - maybe because I was half-naked as I answered the door? - and handed over a bottle about the size of a small salt shaker. She then handed me a letter. "Tye pole't han mana ni eques, mal Voasarime pole sina." Her voice was almost musical as she spoke, stunning me with how pleasant it was to hear.
"Um," I started - but she left without another word.
I think she said Voasary's name, which would make sense. Unfortunately, as Voasary wasn't my 'wife,' but my translator, she wasn't in this bedroom, so I had to get dressed before going out and finding her, handing off the letter.
"It says to drink one thimble's worth per day, and to spend several hours listening to conversations in the language you wish to learn," Voasary said. She hummed as she read it. "It might be possible to use this amount for more than one person? It's not entirely clear on duration, but if you manage to pick up the local language before you drink half the bottle..."
"Right. Where's a thimble, then?" I was most certainly going to head right out to the market and just listen to as many people talking as I possibly could. I considered taking the bottle with me and drinking it there, but I imagined there was the risk of somebody recognizing it and stealing it, or it being broken... so I drank my thimble and headed out.
* * *
One thing I had started to notice about the locals was that they didn't seem to have any fucking horses. I'd expected a lack of personal vehicles like street cars, but even the all-female royal guard (if that was, in fact, what they were) just walked everywhere. Wagons, such as they were, were pulled by people, not animals. It made trips a bit more obnoxious than they otherwise needed to be, but it wasn't like I was going to pay for a palanquin... though I suppose technically my 'wives' could carry me on one.
The experience of listening to conversation in a language I didn't know was quite a surprise. Words didn't flow from one to the other quite right - there was a constant feeling of familiarity, like the meaning of this word or that one was just on the edge of comprehension. I started to recognize the little words and parts of speech - the "the"s and the "a"s and the "-ing"s and the "of"s - and understand their meanings without actually being able to put them into a sentence. It was like hearing "XXX was a XXX XXX to have XXX that," though of course there were words in the middle. Sometimes I could guess at them - that one must have been an adjective by the grammar.
It was honestly bewildering, the way the magic worked, and by the day's end, markets closing up as the sun went down and darkness took over, I was pretty sure I had enough of a vocabulary to manage some shitty, halting conversation. I tried as much with Voasary, since she'd picked up the language more perfectly in her own way, and her conclusion was that I spoke enough to manage something very basic.
Given that, I figured there was probably enough in the bottle Irendar had given me to let one of my 'wives' learn the local language... or to maintain a dose to learn another language myself, if there was occasion.
Either way, I looked forward to the next day. With another dose, my mastery of the language would doubtless be competent enough to manage all manner of conversations, picking up the occasional rarer word where necessary the same way one does in one's native tongue.
My brain was a bit frazzled, though, which disappointed Azanaga supremely as I plopped onto bed. "You're a terrible husband, which I guess is to be expected of a human man," she said, with a long-suffering sigh. I had no idea if her playing the part of 'wife' was just because she thought it was funny or because she was worried about somebody overhearing us speaking Almerese and understanding it. "I'm your wife and you haven't fucked me since we arrived here."
"For fuck's sake, can't you just masturbate?"
"Tch. That's what a rutting dog would say. Isn't orgasm enough? Does there need to be anything more than that? Maybe you can be satisfied with your own right hand-" she actually looked at my right hand and crinkled her nose in disgust. "Actually that's an awful thought and just killed my libido, so good work."
"Me masturbating killed your libido?" I asked as I laid in bed. I was happy she decided to stop being pissy about me fucking her, but the response was still a tad extreme.
"You masturbating with the corpse of my god does, yes," she sneered, looking at me like I was stupid.
Admittedly, it was a pretty good point so I did feel rather stupid. Mostly, though, I felt tired, so I went out like a light once I closed my eyes, Jutaana once more snuggling into me in the night.