a new plate touches the anvil

Rosaria was waiting with freshly baked bread the moment the bindings came off.

She handed one piece to Aether and the other directly to Xilonen, expression pure smug satisfaction. The look that accompanied it needed no translation: My man is awesome, right?

Xilonen accepted the bread without comment, still flushed, still breathing a little unevenly. They agreed the formal lesson was over for now. The rest of the pride drifted back toward the main living space of the forge, giving the Name Bearer the room she clearly needed.

She stood alone in the quiet workshop afterward.

Thick, pearly cum continued to drip from her used folds in slow, heavy strands, running down the inside of one thigh and leaving a faint trail on the stone floor whenever she shifted her weight. The targeted creampie Aether had poured against her cervix was still warm inside her. The yellow-gold remnants of the Flame flickered low around her shoulders and then faded.

Xilonen walked over to her material racks almost without deciding to.

Her fingers moved through billets and plates of different metals with the automatic precision of long habit, testing weight, grain, and potential resonance until she selected a dense, dark base that felt right in her hand. She set it on the anvil and stared at it for a long moment.

The decision had already settled into place, quiet and absolute.

She was going to join them.

Not as a temporary guide or a one-off instructor. She was going to stay with the procession, keep this man under her hands, and methodically mold him into the worst nightmare and greatest dream any woman could ever want. Every remaining gap in his technique, every unexplored fetish and response, every refinement still left unfinished — she would work through all of it. The creative void that had sat empty in her chest for years was simply gone, as if it had never existed. In its place burned the same clean, focused fire she used to feel when a truly difficult commission landed on her bench.

By noon Xilonen left the forge with the dark, polished obsidian feather base tucked safely in her pocket.

She found the group exactly where she expected: in the shaded open space beside the workshop. Mualani was bouncing enthusiastically on Aether’s cock, blue bows swaying, another soft corona of the Flame of Passion already flickering around her body as it restored her endurance mid-ride. The rest of the pride lounged nearby in various states of undress and post-morning satisfaction.

Xilonen approached at an easy, skating glide, still carrying the residual heat of the morning’s work and the heavier knowledge of what she had decided. For a moment she felt almost like a homewrecker — the same woman who had slammed the door on them the day before, flatly refused every request, and treated their presence as an annoyance. Stepping into their easy, intimate circle now felt abrupt.

What met her instead was open admiration.

Rosaria lifted her chin in a small nod of respect. Lisa’s eyes sharpened with genuine scholarly interest. Questions came quickly and without hostility:

“Do those techniques have names?”

“How did you isolate the exact angle that consistently makes someone squirt?”

“Was the breathing control something you developed yourself or refined from older methods?”

Cloud Retainer, sitting with her usual elegant posture, regarded Xilonen for a long moment before speaking with quiet honesty.

“this one has lived many centuries and sampled a great many partners and practices. Volume of experience is not the same as the depth of systematic refinement you demonstrated this morning. That level of diligence and focused dissection is not simply the product of time. It is far rarer.”

The ancient adeptus inclined her head in acknowledgment.

Xilonen stood among them, the obsidian base a quiet weight in her pocket, and felt the last of her earlier awkwardness ease. Their acceptance was straightforward. Her knowledge had always been that of a lone genius — someone who lived by her own exacting rules, chasing perfection in isolation because no one else matched the standard she demanded of herself. For the first time in years, that same knowledge was being received with open appreciation rather than indifference or impatience.

Xilonen faced the entire group without preamble.

“I can’t inscribe a name for him just like that,” she said, voice flat and practical. “A true name has to fit the actual person, not the reputation or the stories. I don’t hand out titles that already exist, and I won’t forge one until I understand what I’m working with. That means time. Observation. Continued instruction.”

She glanced at Mualani, still seated comfortably on Aether.

“My own ancient name is Perfected Slit. Hers is Endless Crest. Neither of those was chosen lightly. His won’t be either.”

Then she asked the question directly, without shame or softening.

“I want to join your group. I’ll keep teaching him — properly — and along the way I’ll figure out what name actually belongs on the plate. Yes, it’s still my weekend. Yes, I told you all to come back later. This is different. He’s different.”

Silence settled for a moment.

Every pair of eyes in the pride turned, almost in unison, toward Rosaria.

The nun's expression was unreadable at first. Then a slow, deeply satisfied smile spread across her face. She understood Xilonen completely. She had been the same once — locked into her own rigid role as a nun in Mondstadt, convinced nothing and no one would shift the way she moved through the world. This man changes people. He had changed her. He had changed every woman currently sitting in this forge yard. Watching another sharp, self-contained woman recognize the same pull and choose to follow it was intensely, privately pleasing.

Rosaria gave a single, decisive nod.

“She’s in.”

No further debate was needed.

Xilonen’s mouth twitched in the smallest acknowledgment. The obsidian feather base stayed heavy in her pocket, still blank, waiting for a name that had not yet been earned.

The pride had just grown by one more permanent member — a master craftswoman who had stepped off her own weekend to chase the only project that had rekindled her fire in years.