An Agreeable Disguise

Jason took the steep slope at a sprint. His new body made avoiding rocks and trees and even keeping his footing on loose gravel easy. It was a testament to the pandemonium going on below that he managed to frighten a small family as he descended into the pass.

A young woman carrying a baby in one arm and holding an older girl's hand in the other jumped as he appeared in front of her.

"Mommy, who is that man?" the girl asked. She couldn't have been much older than four or five.

"Don't worry about it darling, we shouldn't bother the nice man," the mother responded in an overly calm tone. Her expression made it clear she was on the verge of panic, but she still managed to sound confident for the girl.

"Actually," Jason interjected, "I was hoping you could tell me what's happening up ahead." He pointed towards the billowing smoke as if there was something else that he could be talking about.

The woman glanced down at her daughter and then back up at Jason. "Riots in the city," she said, careful to keep her voice steady. "I don't think anyone knows how the fire's started."

"Why do you flee into the mountains?" He pushed a little harder. He didn't want to inconvenience her too much, but he needed information. "Wouldn't it be better to head the other way?"

She gave him a frustrated expression, but leaned towards him and spoke quietly so the girl couldn't hear. "If you need to know more you should find someone else, but there are refugees coming from the interior as well. People are saying that it's no better there."

Her daughter was pushing her way between her and Jason trying to hear what they were talking about, but the woman pulled her and started walking away from Jason without looking back.

He tried a few more people, but with little more luck. Nobody was in much of a mood to take the time to talk to him, and few seemed to know much more anyway. He tried asking a few more general questions like what city was up ahead and how far it was to the capital from here, but he got only bewildered stares as they pushed past.

Assuming he wasn't going to get much more out of these people, Jason pushed back out of the crowd and began making his way back up the side of the mountain. He got plenty of confused glances, but he didn't bother trying to hide himself. These people were unlikely to worry about a strange man heading into the wilderness given their own situation.

He still kept a wary eye looking back behind him until he passed into thicker tree cover and broke into a sprint.

It wasn't difficult to find Vanya and Nora back where he had left them. He had been growing more and more accustomed to traveling through the mountains and it was much easier to focus on remembering his path when he was able to hike up without breaking a sweat.

"There were riots in the town up ahead and it seems like a fire broke out. There are hundreds of people fleeing down below and I imagine there will be even more heading in the opposite direction."

Vanya's head perked up. "Riots in the city?"

Jason was suddenly worried that he might be giving her exactly what she needed to begin the great war between demons and humans right now. What better time could there be than when your enemy is already fighting themselves?

It couldn't be helped though. She would find out for herself soon anyway. "Once we get to that city, we're likely going to have to take the roads and they will be filled with people," Jason said. "I know you hate it, but we are either going to have to find some way to keep you disguised or we'll have to go on alone."

The look Nora gave him made it clear that she had no intention of going with him. Jason couldn't help wondering if it wouldn't be better for him anyway if he was able to extract himself from Vanya's company.

No, regardless of everything that had happened, or perhaps because of it, he found himself wanting to stay with her. He couldn't figure out why. Maybe he wanted to gain her approval. Maybe he appreciated that she had believed in him, even if it had been mostly against her will. Maybe despite what he had seen her do, it was because she was one of very few people who had treated him decently.

"If she has treated you decently then you have an incredibly low bar for decent," the sparrow said, interrupting his thoughts.

That was true enough he couldn't deny, but still…

Vanya looked out towards the smoke again, and back at him. Her skin, he now knew, was soft, warm, and leathery, but reflected in the sunlight, it reminded him of a dragon's scales. How durable was it? None of the demons he had seen before had worn much armor.

That was it! "Vanya, what if I just make it look like you are wearing a huge set of armor or something?"

"Nobody would believe that," Nora interjected. "She is way too big and what about her tail?"

That was a fair point, but Jason wasn't willing to give up quite yet. "She'll turn heads for sure, but I don't think it likely that anyone would push the issue. She's bound to intimidate everyone she walks by anyway."

Vanya seemed to actually be considering it so Jason continued. "Even if someone does point her out, nobody is going to think that a demon would just casually walk through a human city."

"No demon in their right mind would walk through a human city without killing as many that she could take with her," Vanya said.

"Exactly," Jason said, realizing too late that she probably wasn't joking. She wouldn't actually start going on a rampage in the middle of a city would she? "She can just keep her tail tucked up behind her beside her bag. If it's still too obvious then I can just add to the illusion."

Jason knew that he had her before she accepted. She may be completely opposed to being made to look like a human and prone to falling into the occasional berserker rage, but she was also far more intelligent and thoughtful than Jason would have imagined. One way or the other, they had to come up with some way to disguise her.

The party that began descending the mountain probably only looked marginally less strange than it had before, but at least nobody would run off screaming demon at the first sight of them.

Vanya was eight feet tall with the bulk to match it, but Jason had designed the helm that he had placed over her head to make the height seem a little bit less pronounced. He had gotten the idea from a helmet that he had seen in a video game.

It had the look of a Viking helm with her actual horns showing through at the top. He had to hide them anyway, and if anyone asked then he could just say it was from a demon that she killed.

Nobody would have any trouble believing that considering how formidable she looked. He just hoped that she wouldn't have a problem with people thinking that she killed another demon.

Then again, back when he had first met her, she had seemed plenty willing to kill that other demon that kept talking over her. It would have to be fine.

Nora needed no disguise fortunately, but Jason himself didn't have that luxury. He had decided to continue using the mason's face, and had even pulled out the cloak that he had "received" from the man himself.

It was a little bit inconvenient in some ways, as this body wasn't nearly as strong as his real body. The sparrow had mentioned something about there being a way to preserve physical strength through shapeshifting, but she hadn't been able to help him actually do it and his attempts hadn't gotten him anywhere.

Still, he was getting used to this body, and, for some reason, it felt right to him.

The crowd had grown considerably smaller by the time they made it back down onto the path, and though Vanya got just as many alarmed looks as he had expected, nobody was stupid enough to get in her way.

They made incredible time now that they were on an actual road and within twenty minutes they had passed through far enough that they could finally see past the mountains. The land in front of them was far more hilly and rugged than the plain that they had been on before.

Just as he had expected, he could see numerous towns and even what looked like a city or two far in the distance. Farms were more numerous and much greater in scale than they had been out on the plains.

However, it was hard to focus on anything other than the city that lay just below them, completely blocking off the path into the mountains. It didn't appear to be particularly huge, but it had high gray walls with impressive fortifications.

It was clear that this city existed primarily for military purposes, but Jason still couldn't help admiring the architecture. The walls looked like they had been built straight out of the surrounding mountains, making the city look like it was a part of the mountainside.

Unfortunately, the walls hadn't been able to protect the city from whatever had happened inside, and if the massive cloud of smoke rising up wasn't enough, flickering shadows proved that the fires were still burning inside.