Requesting Aid the proper way

Aether opened his eyes the rest of the way and greeted her like a man who had decided not to pretend his body was being subtle.

“Afternoon.”

His cock stood in front of him anyway, high and accusing, still fed by the memories he had only just shoved off the table.

Ineffa did not hide her interest.

She did not blush. She did not look away. Her gaze dropped and stayed, silent, precise, the stillness of her powered-down joints making the attention feel like measurement. She catalogued length, thickness, the wet shine still left from a hundred and eight hours he had not fully washed off. A tilt of her head. A faint internal click he only imagined. Analysis, not flirtation. Or flirtation done in the language she had been built with.

He let her look until the quiet got stupid.

“You can stare after you tell me why you’re on my porch,”
he said.
“I’m Aether. You already knew that.”

Ineffa’s eyes lifted at last. The face was humanoid enough to be unfair — synthetic, voluptuous, arranged into courtesy — and the grey mechanical limbs stayed exactly where she had parked them.

“Ineffa from Nod-Krai.”
Her voice was even, lightly formal..
“I was sent to find you. I have a request.”

“From who.”

“A witch. Nicole. She said you would be here, and that you would be… occupied. She also said you would listen if I did not waste the window.”

Aether huffed once. Fair.
“What’s the request.”

“The moon goddess weakens by the day.”
Ineffa did not offer a name. She did not need to; the title sat heavy enough.
“Her influence over the islands and the people is thinning. Tides go wrong. Temples go quiet. The faithful feel her like a radio losing a station. We have tried what we have. Priests. Machines. Offerings. Other guests who thought they were solutions. It is not enough.”

Her gaze flicked, traitorously, back to his cock, then returned to his face with the same courtesy.

“Your record is. The freeing of the Dendro Archon. The reforming of Inazuma. The banishing of the Abyss from Natlan. Nicole believes the pattern is not accident. She believes you are the best option left for this predicament. I was told to bring you to Nod-Krai. I know symptoms. I do not know the wound. Nicole will speak to the wound when we arrive.”

Aether sat with that.

Lumine’s letter was still in the part of his head he had not managed to meditate out. Help the nations. Weaken Celestia’s grip. Do not come find her until they could breed in peace. A moon goddess losing her hold on a cluster of islands was not a vacation problem. It was the next tile on the same floor.

He had not believed the illusion anyway. Easybreeze was a pretty name for a pause. Ningguang in a sling bikini, a dancer on his cock, a letter in a cat’s fist — that was rest the way a feast was fasting. The island had been a bed, not a life.

“I’ll go,”
he said.

Ineffa’s shoulders did not sag with relief. They simply completed a checkbox.

“Good. Nicole said you would. She also said not to flatter you about it.”

“I’m not doing it for Nicole.”
He tipped his chin toward the water, toward the ships, toward the whole stupid map.
“My sister asked me to keep moving the pieces. This moves a piece. That’s enough.”

“Understood.”
Ineffa nodded once.
“I will join your group until we reach her. I can carry, navigate, keep watch, and not require sleep in the way your other companions do. I will stay out of the way unless I am useful. If your pride objects to a machine in the line, you may put me at the back. I will still arrive.”

“They’ll object to the quiet, not to what you are”
Aether said.
“Rosaria hates surprises. Yelan hates people she didn’t count. Shenhe hates threats. You stand still like that again in a dark room and someone will draw on you. Make a little noise around them until they know the sound.”

“I can do that.”

The questions thinned. Destination, sender, limit of her knowledge, the fact that she was coming as far as Nicole and not claiming to be the cure. Aether rolled his neck. The meditation was dead. The vacation was dead. His cock had not received either memo.

Ineffa noticed. Of course she noticed. She had never stopped.

“The request is finished,”
she said. Then, with the same even courtesy, as if the next sentence were also logistics:
“May I help you with that.”

He followed her gaze downward. The accusation was still there, flushed, obvious.

“Help how.”

“I was originally designed as a cocksleeve rating droid.”
No shame. No wink. A specification.
“A fucktoy with a scoring protocol. A man used me as an onahole. I recorded endurance, shape, control, volume, the way he moved, the way he finished. At the end I produced a point score. It was my original function.”

She took one step closer. The mechanical limbs made no sound. The humanoid torso did: a faint, warm shift of synthetic skin.

“You are already at attention. I can take you. I can tell you what the number is. I can also simply be used until your head is empty again. You do not have to accept the score.”

She leaned forward so that she could direct her holes towards him. He was impressed as her ass and pussy opened and closed on their own as she presented them dutifully.

(https://im.ge/i/QQlJu9a)
(artist: gitaniai)

Aether looked at the voluptuous manufactured body, at the grey joints, at the patient face that had analyzed him like a specimen and then offered the specimen a sleeve.

The vacation was over. The next nation was a witch and a weakening goddess and a letter from a sister who would not see him yet.

He had not said no to a single honest offer in five days.

“Come here,” he said. “We’ll see what your first job still remembers.”