Not Like The Others

Anuva looked at Jien with a truly baffled expression, as if she thought that he may either have had brain damage from her attempt to kill him or that he didn't have brains to start with. "What about me makes you think that I am anything like those worms hanging around those other children?" she asked this in an almost mocking tone to accentuate her point. "Those things are less than the dirt beneath my feet and you are asking me to behave like they do? They are willing to give up the meaning of their names to get chummy with their summoners. They are nothing but a disgrace to the image of demon kind."Her conviction in these words was so firm that it was clear she believed them from the very bottom of her soul. "To give up the meaning in your name is to give up on vast amounts of your power, to give up on your form to please others is to give up on your very dignity. You are asking me to give up my dignity to serve you. I may be bound to serve and protect you, but I have a bottom line and I won't let you go below it."Jien listened to her response seriously, ignoring her mocking of both him and the demons summoned by the other children while drawing some simple conclusions from her response. First, it appeared that there was some sort of hierarchy in whatever land that Anuva came from and that she was higher up in it than most other summoned demons. Second, though most summoned demons, according to what he learned, were willing to give up their name for any name given and accept an animalistic form this was viewed as disgrace by those higher in their societal hierarchy.She had answered his question which made it easier to at least negotiate to some degree. They had found her a name she was willing to accept, now they just needed to figure out how she would complete her side of the contract without grabbing too much attention. The other demon's beast forms and the fact that they were willing to hide as accessories or armor made for ease of convenience in hiding their appearance.Anuva may have a human appearance but no humans from any known region had gray skin, nor did they have horns atop their heads. The closest one may get to a similar appearance would be from the beastkin race. They were humanoids with animal traits that in some cases could have different skin colors that would be out of the ordinary or horns. However, this comparison couldn't help at all, in fact it could make things very difficult very quickly.Humans were at war with the other races and each person found harboring a member of the other races, even as a slave or servant would find themselves at the very least in prison or quite possibly executed. The beastkin themselves were not a particularly warlike race, often setting for a neutral and highly tourist driven society. Despite that the rules in the human empire of Elitrix was firm in that anyone harboring other races, willingly or not would be punished.Demon summoning was viewed as a branch of summoning magic and thus summons were permitted but nobody had ever seen a demon with such humanoid features. This could cause a lot of misunderstandings that Jien didn't want to deal with. Either he and his family would be persecuted for harboring an unknown variant of beastkin or even worse perhaps it would be seen as him having committed inhuman experiments to create a chimera. Even if he was to say that he had bought an already created chimera this too was looked down on fiercely and her human appearance would cause him more trouble. All of this was causing him a headache.Jien took a deep breath to steady himself and get his train of thoughts back on track. "Even if you weren't to take a beast form you wouldn't be able to stay in your current form without putting me in danger. If you look anything even slightly different than a human, you would be sentencing me and my family to potential execution by the royals." He paused for a moment before explaining the basic rulings regarding humans and the other races as best he could, hoping that Anuva would be understanding enough to come forward with a possible solution.To his relief her answer was indeed a solution. "If it is just looking human, I can do that, but I refuse to lower myself to the same standards as those dregs." As she said this her grey skin tone seemed to slowly brighten until rather than looking like polished gray stone her skin looked like well-oiled bronze, her horns warping and stretching until it looked like nothing, but an intricate headband formed of the same smooth obsidian material as her horns. The pattern was that of vast number of interwoven knots, looking almost like a crown."Does this work?" she asked casually only to notice that not only Jien but everyone present was looking at her with interest. Her appearance was still just as regal as when she first stepped through the summoning gate, but she held an appearance closer to someone that lived on the beaches of the southern port towns than their more central location. This was definitely a step in the correct direction, the question was how they would work together with her keeping such a form. For now, it would be fine, but he was only allowed two people to follow him to the academy and both spots were accounted for.Still, these were problems for the future. For now, Jien still had guests to attend to and a party to host. Since they had achieved at least this level of compromise he felt that he should be able to make it through this celebration before having to work out more specifics.