Xilonen's day off

The group reached the Children of the Echoes by early evening, still carrying the faint, humbled aftertaste of Alice’s visit. Residual heat lingered under Dehya’s skin. Rosaria’s ears still burned. Shenhe kept glancing at Aether as if half-expecting every face around her to shift into his again. Even Yelan’s usual composure had a crack in it.

The small village of forges and stonework should have been their first real stop in Natlan if they hadn’t gotten so thoroughly lost on the way in. Instead they arrived late, dusty, and collectively off-balance.

Xilonen was exactly where Mualani had said she would be — lounging on a low bench in front of her open-air forge, a cold drink sweating in one hand, long legs stretched out. The moment she saw the group her expression flattened into pure, bone-deep refusal.

“Nope. Absolute nope.” She took a long sip without sitting up. “Today and tomorrow are my weekend. I already told Mavuika the last three times she sent someone that I’m not forging another emergency nameplate until I’ve had two full days of zero Archon demands. You can turn right back around.”

She looked like a mature gyaru who had spent too many nights on the wrong side of a busy street and was done with the entire concept of customers. Her outfit was still shameless by any ordinary standard — short, tight, strategically cut — but for the first time since entering Natlan the group encountered a woman whose body was fully covered and whose eyes held not even the smallest glint of sexual interest. Zero heat. Zero invitation. Just tired irritation and the clear desire to be left alone with her drink.

Mualani tried a bright explanation. Aether tried the “Flame of Passion answered to me” angle. Xilonen listened with the patience of someone who had heard every possible variation of urgent request and had decided none of them overrode her weekend.

In the end they had no leverage and nowhere else to go before dark.

Xilonen exhaled through her nose, finished her drink, and jerked her chin toward the wide, covered space beside the forge.

“Fine. You can camp in the workshop for the night. Don’t touch the tools, don’t touch the materials, and don’t wake me before noon unless the Abyss itself is at the gate. I’m serious.”

She stood, stretched with a low groan that had nothing to do with desire, and disappeared into the private rooms at the back of the forge, already done with them.

Rosaria liked her immediately.

The flat refusal, the clear boundaries, the complete lack of performance — it reminded the nun of her own old work ethic back in Mondstadt, the days when she had treated everything outside her actual duties as optional noise. She shot Xilonen a small, respectful nod the woman didn’t see, already deciding the Name Bearer was solid.

The group settled into the workshop as best they could. To Xilonen’s credit she was a good host when she wasn’t actively rejecting Archon orders. Clean water appeared. Extra blankets were pointed out with a curt gesture. The forge stones still held enough residual heat that the night would not turn cold.

Casual lovemaking started the way it always did when the pride had walls and time.

They kept it deliberately quiet and restrained — no loud cries, no rough impacts against the anvils, nothing that would travel through the back rooms and earn them an eviction. Hands still wandered. Mouths still found skin. Bodies still pressed together in slow, familiar rhythms. Aether moved between them in the low light, giving each woman the soft attention she wanted without pushing any of them toward the kind of volume that might wake their host.

Shortly before she turned in, Xilonen came out with a tray of drinks.

She stepped into the workshop just as Aether had Cloud Retainer on her back atop a folded bedroll, one of the adeptus’s legs hooked over his shoulder, hips rolling in deep, precise strokes that had the older woman biting her own wrist to stay silent. At this point even Cloud Retainer — ancient, powerful, once untouchable — could be taken apart by him alone with almost casual skill. Her usual elegance had softened into open, controlled pleasure; soft, helpless sounds still escaped around her wrist with every grind of his cock against the places he had long since mapped.

Xilonen stopped.

She did not look away. She did not flush. She simply watched with a critical, measuring expression, the same look she probably used when a newly forged piece came off the anvil and needed inspection for flaws. Her eyes tracked the angle of Aether’s hips, the exact way he adjusted depth when Cloud Retainer’s breath hitched, the timing of his thrusts against the subtle signs of her approaching peak.

After a long minute she set the drinks down on a nearby workbench.

Then, in the same flat, perfectionist tone she might use to correct a junior smith, she spoke.

“You’re leaving too much tension in your lower back. Shift your weight half a step forward — you’ll hit the front wall more consistently without wasting motion. And when she starts that shallow flutter, slow down another half-beat instead of speeding up. She’ll last longer and the peak will land harder.”

Aether blinked, still buried inside Cloud Retainer.

Xilonen gave a small, clinical nod, as if she had just pointed out an inefficient hammer grip, and turned toward her private rooms.

“Noon,” she reminded them over her shoulder. “Not a minute before.”

The door closed.

Cloud Retainer let out a long, shaking breath against Aether’s neck, half laugh and half moan, while the rest of the pride stared at the closed door in mild disbelief.

Even on strike and completely without lust, the Name Bearer had not been able to stop herself from offering expert corrections.