Maya nods, giving a mild hum at the lady in the window. "Yep. The people of Hizelk turn corpses into works of art, since... the other option is letting them rot, and demon bodies take a long time to start deteriorating, unlike human bodies. It's not strange to see people trading corpses here."
Lukas decides to plow in before Jesse can go from pure white to pure green. "Don't worry; Sky City and the cities bordering Hizelk have made it illegal to just kill someone for their body."
"There are always lawbreakers, though," Maya points out, sort of derailing what Lukas is trying to do.
Jesse's even paler than before, which is honestly more impressive than anything else.
"You, Petra, Lukas and I should be careful here. We might get targeted," Maya says cheerfully, patting Jesse on the back.
They go even paler. They are somehow even whiter than they were before, which is really saying a lot.
Petra gives Maya a perplexed grin. "Me, no way. Have you seen all the tattoos and scars and shit all over me? Any corpse artist would shudder if they got their hands on me."
"Oh, well, in that case, Maya can relax. Nobody would be interested in her."
Jesse starts a bit as Gill and Aiden appear behind Maya, apparently having realized the others have dropped behind and coming back as Gill shoots Maya an evil grin.
"What was that?" Maya's eyes narrow at him in a glare. She doesn't let him repeat what he just said. "I don't want to hear that from you!"
And Maya proceeds to elbow him in the gut, making him grunt slightly as she digs her elbow into what's gotta be a rather sensitive spot.
Gill mock-glares at her, crossing his arms and staring her down with his uncovered eye. "Oh? And what are you trying to imply?"
Aiden rolls his eyes, ignoring the other two as they start bickering. "I'm thinking we should split up to maximize our time. One or two of us should start looking around the market for supplies or see if we can find an inn to stay at for the night, and the rest of us should go greet Stella, since it'd be rude not to."
"As much as I would love to volunteer to go look in the market," Petra mutters, which makes a grin flicker over Aiden's face, "I think she'd find it pretty rude that not all of us are there to greet her. We can just try to hurry afterwards."
The half-demon hums, pondering this for a moment... before apparently deciding she's right, because he sighs and grabs ahold of Maya and Gill, ignoring their bickering, and literally proceeds to start dragging them down the street. "C'mon. Stella holds her office hours in the courtyard."
Jesse pops after him, Petra reluctantly following. Lukas keeps pace with Jesse pretty easily, giving them a bemused sort of smile a moment later.
"You're like one of those really tiny dogs that humans have and then go for a walk with."
Jesse blinks up at him, Petra glancing over at the blonde half-demon as she stays rather stiff, arms crossed in an annoyed fashion. (Her face does soften at Jesse having to crane their neck back to make eye contact with him.) "Really?"
"Yeah, your walk is adorable."
Jesse gives him a rather startled look at that, which makes him chuckle and scoop them up, their legs flailing in a little kick momentarily until he gets them situated. "Also, you have fluffy hair."
"Oh man, yeah." Petra reaches over and ruffles Jesse's hair vigorously, almost flipping it into their face from how much she does it.
Jesse shrinks back in surprise, the two of them breaking down in giggles a moment later as Lukas shakes his head in amusement and uses his hand to rake Jesse's hair back into a somewhat vaguely neat version of their hair.
Aiden opens the door to the courtyard, Gill and Maya hastily cutting their bickering short and straightening their clothing so it doesn't look like Aiden dragged them for thirty feet (even though he really did). Lukas sets Jesse back down, giving their clothing a little swat. "Okay, just, um... be polite to Stella."
"Why wouldn't I be?" Jesse replies, blinking up at him.
He pats them on the head, making them blink again.
The courtyard has more (smaller) white structures in the center, a ring of white material around a small circle of grass with a raised podium area surrounded by the white structures. The moat ripples slightly in the breeze, water remaining blue despite the fact that the sky is... well, red, and the trees that are inside the courtyard are set up in perfectly spaced intervals.
Aiden scans the area, before humming and pointing. "There's Stella."
Jesse peeks through the crowd of people curiously, trying to make out who he's pointing at.
A second later, it becomes clear.
A young-looking woman has her hands folded in front of her as she listens to a citizen, a somehow-pleasant smirk on her face. Most of her blonde hair is on the left side of her face, sleek and shiny, while the other part is tucked behind her tanned ear. Her clothing is as crisp and neat as the rest of Champion City is; a pink shirt under a purple pinstripe suit jacket and suit skirt that hangs to her knees and contrasts very much against the typical black and red clothing. Her high heels aren't tall but still make her appear more slim and elegant than she already looks, red eyes fixated on the citizen she's speaking to as she tilts her head at him almost innocently a second later.
Right next to her is a llama that comes up to Stella's shoulder. She's got creamy white fur and blue eyes as she shuffles her hooves, the blue-and-purple scarf wrapped around her neck sort of matching Stella's scheme a little bit.
It's a very cute llama.
"Well, I'm afraid I can't help you too much at the moment." Stella pulls out a paper and hands it to him, tapping it in a few places.
"C'mon," Aiden mutters, making Jesse look up at him- and then he's walking into the crowd, shoving past people with an occasional gruff excuse me. Petra sighs and also moves into the crowd, all of them fitting into a single-file line and weaving through the crowd, though not very quickly.
This is mainly due to some of the other demons scowling at them and shoving them away or elbowing them back. Gill has to shove Maya down at one point to avoid some guy punching her in the face, glaring the demon down.
"I do see what your problem is, but I don't have much of a hand in that department," Stella's voice is clear as she continues speaking to the demon, although Jesse can no longer see her from the crowd surrounding them, "fill out this form and give it to the department on the top and they'll see what they can do."
Jesse makes it about two feet at about an inch every ten seconds before deciding that there's no way they're actually going to make it to the front before someone else gets her attention, not by shoving through the crowd in a single-file line that the crowd is also apparently trying to shove back.
They can't blame the other demons for doing it; they were there first anyway.
They glance around, almost falling backwards a moment later as Lukas trips backwards and almost body-slams them, before sliding sideways through a narrow gap in the crowd. Being the size they are, it's not very difficult.
There's enough small gaps in the crowd that they are able to gently edge their way through, sidling past a demon that's aggressively giving Aiden a shove, Aiden shoving the demon back and very nearly bowling the demon into Jesse.
In fact, if they didn't dive through another small opening in the nick of time, the demon would've squashed them.
They lose track of what Stella's saying as they duck through the crowd, occasionally having to tap someone on the shoulder and meekly ask them if they can squeeze past. Most shrug and sidle past, although one gets very aggressive for a second until they see Jesse blinking up at them from practically half his height and simply shifting aside.
If Jesse's heart was still in their chest, it'd be beating its way right back out from how many demons keep giving them second glances. Reuben gives a reassuring oink at their feet, making them give him a little smile.
"... I think that should be it. Alright?"
Jesse abruptly squeezes through another narrow gap and finds themself popping out in the very front of the crowd, blinking in surprise as the wave of black and red clothing abruptly fades to reveal Stella still pointing things out on the paper to the other demon, who's nodding frantically at everything.
The citizen nods vigorously, bowing deeply and very hastily before grabbing the paper and running away.
Stella inclines her head, still smirking in a way that looks somewhat polite, and turns back to face the crowd. "Next, please."
Nobody moves to step forward, surprisingly.
Jesse glances around to see several eyes are fixed on them, flickering to Stella and then back to them. Which makes sense, 'cause they're technically at the front of the crowd, but they did push their way there, and also, why are these demons acting more polite than the humans at home do?
The demon behind them nudges them forward a second later, when they just blink back at the other demons in slight confusion.
Which is a nice gesture, in theory, except Reuben happens to actually be by their feet and the nudge causes their foot to hook on Reuben and essentially slingshots them facefirst onto the floor.
... they make a sort of plopping noise upon doing so.
Reuben squeals when they don't even yelp (don't cry don't make a sound don't do it don't) and nudges the side of their head.
There's another snuffle, and Reuben snuffles the back of their head, oinking slightly as Jesse takes inventory of their body. Face? Probably bruised. Rest of their body? Unharmed.
Then there's a little bleat from right above their head.
Jesse starts to push themselves up, the snuffling backing away as they blink a bit. Reuben's in front of them now, oinking and gently poking them with his nose. A hair of high-heeled shoes dashes over, and before Jesse can get all the way up a set of hands is tugging them up to their feet. High heels transfer to suit skirt to the pink shirt under the pinstriped purple jacket.
The white llama, upon seeing that Jesse hasn't broken their nose or various other parts of their face, starts chewing on Jesse's sleeve.
"Lluna, sweetie, I think we've discussed this..." Stella sighs, giving Jesse a somewhat concerned expression. "Ah, are you alright, sweetie? You literally just-" She makes a rather sharp motion like flopping onto the ground with her arm. "And, ooh, you've got a bit of a bruise on your forehead forming."
Jesse proceeds to reach up and poke their forehead to test this.
Yep, that's a bruise.
"Don't... honey, don't poke that." And Stella tugs their hand away, giving them a look that says she's rather concerned about their sanity. Or their health in general. Or both.
"Jesse?! Holy crap, that's a massive bruise-" And Lukas is abruptly next to them both, lifting Jesse's chin up gently and wincing at said bruise. Thankfully, Jesse can't see it. "Damn. Uh, you should probably get a healing potion or a healing spell for that soon, then..."
The baroness blinks at him. "Lukas?"
He pauses, before glancing up at her and giving her a sheepish smile. "Uh... hey, Stella. We weren't expecting Jesse to, uh... faceplant." He turns his head at them, and Jesse gets the overwhelming feeling that he's playfully glaring at them. "Or to get to the front without us."
Stella blinks again, before a wry smile comes over her face. "Ahh, where's the rest of you? Didn't realize you got a new member. Been a pretty busy year for recruitment in Narvid?"
The blonde rubs the back of his head as the other four squeeze through the crowd. He almost looks sheepish. "Er, not... not exactly."
Aiden inclines his head politely upon drawing even with her. "Stella."
"Good day, October Children." Petra visibly winces as Stella says this just loud enough that the crowd behind catches this, a rumble of whispering rising into the air. "And hello to you too, Petra. I didn't expect you five to stop in for a visit."
She gives Jesse a small smile that seems a little at odds with the smirk she usually has on her face, voice lowering to a more conspiring tone. "Especially not with a little human like this." She glances back up at the group, arching one perfectly sculpted eyebrow at them, voice rising back to its original volume. "What business do you have here?"
Gill fiddles with his fingers, giving her a faintly awkward smile. (Maya seems to scowl a little at that.) "It's, uh... it's a bit complicated. You wouldn't mind if we explained later? Aiden's a bit impatient to get some supplies for what's ahead."
Stella arches her eyebrow again. "Are you on a mission, then?"
"Again... it's a bit complicated. We, um, we need someplace to stay for the night, since it's not a good idea to go traveling at night." Maya clears the scowl and smiles quite pleasantly at Stella. "Is there an inn or something that we could-"
"Oh, no, with such a cutie?" Stella gives Jesse a pat on the head, making them blink at her as she avoids bumping their forehead. "I sense a story. You have to stay in the manor for the night."
"Oh, that'd be too much trouble-"
Stella cuts Lukas off again, taking his hands and giving them a squeeze, smiling at him with a dazzling grin that actually makes Jesse relax a little bit. "Oh, no, sweetie. I insist."
Aiden gives her a slightly warmer smile. "Well... thank you, Stella. That really saves us a lot of money and time."
"'Course, hon." She releases Lukas's hands and folds them behind her, tilting her head and giving him a pleasant smile. "Would you like to hammer out the details now instead of later?"
"I think that's for the best," Lukas speaks up, making both of them look at him, "we do need to go shopping for more supplies, so getting everything out of the way will probably save more time in the long run."
Stella hums, thumbing the corner of her mouth. "Alright, sweetie, that makes sense..."
Jesse watches the three of them start talking for a minute until they spot the frown on Petra's face as she stares at Stella. They watch her stare at Stella for a minute, before giving their head a tiny tilt. "You don't seem to like Stella much."
"I don't," is Petra's rather short reply.
They hum, glancing back at Stella. The woman is now beaming at Lukas as she speaks, looking for all intents and purposes like a very pleasant person. "Why not?"
"She just- she thrives on physical touch and just... attention. Literally." Petra sends a discreet scowl in Stella's direction, she doesn't really notice since she's still working out the lodging details with Aiden and Lukas.
Jesse blinks. "How do you mean literally?"
The redheaded demon crosses her arms, her red eyes clouding over as her lip peels back in a distasteful expression in Stella's direction. Granted Jesse hasn't known Petra for that long, but they haven't seen the demon this disdainful towards anyone else so far.
"She's a succubus."
A/N: No, Lukas wasn't flirting with Jesse; I just really love the way tiny dogs walk and think Lukas would find that adorable too. xD
Jesse's gonna need something for the bruise, and... yeah, Stella's a succubus. Lovely. xD
Responses to reviews!
Toni42: Of course I do. It's my thing xD / Heeee x3 / Honestly, that's kind of why I decided to keep it being a Mimic Bird rather than some other bird. / Indeed xD / I love you more :3 / It's pretty normal in Cosmos. Primarily Hizelk. / The dolls are actually rather fun xD
TheAmberShadow: Nyee :3 / Well, technically he's a demon lord, haha. / Nah, phoenixes are different. / It's not Cassie's work or Cassie at all; roses are just red. / Hehe, that's true. / Ahhh. They wouldn't do that either; I mean they'd probably bicker but they'd honestly be more interested in sleep. / Ah.
NinaNaranja: Well, yes, but not for that reason xD / Yeah, I got the idea since Toni and I tend to roleplay with Jesse and since I use female and he uses male primarily we just made them nonbinary xD / Nah, I thought you were younger than me too xD / Hehe, that's fair.
Darkbeast Dend: That's fair.
That's all! See ya, so long, and g'bye!
x.X. A.L. X.x
