"What made you think of that," he asked casually. downing a choke bowl of saké with one of his claws. Nova noticed a very subtle tinge of pink on his cheeks, just above the edges of his beak.
"The smartest people have the most teachers. It provides better variety and less biased thinking."
"You believe that you will think biasedly if you only have me," he asked with overly raised eyebrows. Nova tried not to smile at his dramatics, was he already tipsy? She decided to go with a logical response.
"In a sense, I would be left behind. I've only known three people in this world, and not for much more than a day or two, besides you, Beil. It's only been you, your Nana, and the Cave Troll. I need more eyes and ears."
He nodded and set his choke down softly before stepping down from the stool. Nova looked over, seeing the saké bottle empty, and her heart sunk. "Did I upset you?"
"No, of course not, it only makes sense that you want as much knowledge as you can learn, it is a necessity to become greater." He looked bothered somehow and she felt the need to correct him.
Nova shook her head with her eyes closed. "No, it's more a survival tactic and my own curiosity, not a desire for more power."
Beil's face softened as Nova leaned her long neck down to the ground before the rest of her body flopped after, almost comically if she hadn't promptly straightened up and bowed deeply at the faceless waitress.
"Thank you for the food, I really enjoyed it."
"Come back soon, then," she said sweetly. Niva nodded. She definitely wanted to eat here again.
"Agatha! Absolutely no verbal contracts, what have we talked about," a deep voice resonated from the back of the food stall and a very tall, broad figure ducked halfway through the curtain. When he stood there he was slightly bent over and his horns still barely missed the ceilings. He was drying a recently washed bowl with a towel with thickly clawed hands, though they were rounded off instead of sharp like her Wyvern's form.
Verbal contracts? Oh, because it sounded mildly like an order? Nova was used to that in the human world, nothing sounded odd about it to her.
"Sorry, papa," she broadcasted and her demeanor shifted from playfully coy with a touch of pride to embarrassed and reserved. Nova's tongue slipped out to taste the change in the air, or maybe to try and sense what kind of man her papa was, she couldn't tell which. What she could sense, however, was both of them were still relaxed, with regular heartbeats and breathing. That was a good sign.
"I would have agreed anyway," Nova claimed resolutely and her father pulled his face from the curtain and looked over at the pair, giving her a chance to look at him. He appeared canine, but also a little like a lion? Wait, oh.
Nova smiled without realizing and the result of her mouth cracking just a little as she looked up at his big frame looked more like surprise or admiration, but really she felt pure amusement. He looked almost exactly like a guardian statue, or a Komainu, horns and all, and to top it off he had grey skin like stone and was wearing a key on a chain around his neck, though she could tell it was for the lockbox where they stored coin from their restaurant business.
What she didn't know was that her expression had won him over almost instantly, well that and her response to his precious daughter's mischief.
"That is a dangerous game, little snake, verbal contracts hold truer here than most places, other than the land of the Life Tree, where your soul could be stolen by someone if you give them your name."
Nova gulped and her expression relaxed back into a normal looking snake. "Well I plan to come back in the future, your food is exceptionally energy rich," she said and blinked, and at that moment his jaw dropped. He cleared his throat and his horns grazed some of the paint off as he wished that he could stand up straight without breaking through the ceiling. From then on his face changed, holding a bit more seriousness. Nova wished she could cock and eyebrow.
"Did I say something wrong?"
"No, my lady, of course not. I am glad that I could provide a filling meal for you."
The faceless girl, Agatha, 'looked' up at her papa, then at Nova and Beil who looked just as confused as she felt. It was like the Komainu man knew something the other three did not, and wasn't disclosing it either. A little awkwardly, Nova bowed and shifted her way down the road, Beil quietly on her tail.
"My lady?" She looked back at him way over there, still watching her, and Beil also looked baffled, and even a bit amused.
"Maybe he was charmed by your gracious compliment to his cooking, or your promise to come back. Pay it no extra thought, we have other matters on the agenda."
Nova looked at him and back at the stall before nudging his side. "Could you go give them a really nice tip?"
He nodded and walked back to them where a brief chat took place before he placed a few coins on the counter and turned to come back. Before he could the Komainu man said something else and Beil's head swiveled to catch a glimpse of him as he ducked back into the kitchen while Agatha's head looked back and forth between the two men before tilting back to face in her direction. Nova simply curled her coils, other than enough to extend her head, and sat patiently as Beil spoke with her for a moment.
When he came back Nova saw his eyes and swallowed her questions, unraveling to follow him as he took the lead this time. She looked back at the food stall one more time before looking at the road. Whatever all that was about, he'd share it at an appropriate time, or she'd stay out of it, whichever it was was okay.
The market was bustling with a variety of creatures, some she recognized the name of, but most she did not. The ones she did were a cyclops family, several ogres, an umbrella man called a Kasa-obake, a few Tesso like Alex, a couple of Tanuki, various sized Ōgama with some of their little ones riding on their heads, two Kitsuné, and a Bakeneko. There was also one sharply dressed Medusa looking woman with the classic snakes for hair and a fetching pair of blood orange wrap-around shades, no doubt protecting everyone from her stone cold gaze.
Rolling her eyes at her own pun, Nova tried her best not to focus on the numerous creatures too much. It was still so breathtakingly odd to her that the culture shock had yet to really settle in. She was just lucky that they could understand the words she thought out loud because of the spirit energy translating her intent outward and their intent back, and the fact that this also made it a little easier to determine the emotions of those she spoke with, though she knew none of this.
At this point Nova took it for granted that there was no communication gaps. It hadn't occurred to her that, this being an entirely different world and plain of existence, they would have other languages.
A few hours of meandering around the town later, being called to by stall owners asking for a kidney in exchange for a whole lot of nothing, with just a few actually valuable trinkets and products here and there, Beil bought an extra water skin that he hung around his shoulder and that was it.
Sure there were wood statues and shields, clay pots and tea cups, clothing and more food stalls, curtains and rugs, blades that looked too chipped or set haphazardly in their scabbards, farming equipment, kitchen tools like pots and pans, beaded jewelry and simple rings... okay, so there really was a lot to look at, but nothing she found that she could actually use.
Eventually the pair had found a cheap, relatively clean inn to stay and paid for a room. Neither of them cared about the small size of the place, or the crowd, or even the noise seeing as the room was above a bar, the beds themselves made up for everything. They were as soft as a cloud after sleeping in leaf piles, and they smelled like incense. Nova flopped into her pillow without a care.
After a good sleep and a meal of eggs and sausage that the Inn served in the morning, slightly too salty for most people but as a snake she couldn't care less and Beil apparently loved salty things, they headed south and Nova's curiosity got the better of her. She'd given him plenty of time to bring it up at this point.
"What did they say to you?"
"Who?"
"The food stall owners, Agatha and her dad."
"Nothing much, you need not worry."
Deflecting? "If it isn't something to worry about than it shouldn't be a big deal to spill the beans."
"Oh, all right," he sighed. "They said 'the next time you come back to eat, your meal will be on the house, no matter how much you object'. And I would not object in the first place. His food stall had Fae inscription on the flag and they have a custom."
"A custom?"
"'A gift or favor shall not be repaid with money, or it will be deemed as a service and therefore an insult to the friendship'. It is the way of the Fairies and other Fae."
Wha... you know what, never mind. She decided to take his word for it. It made sense, anyway.
"So are we going to the school?"
"No, it just so happens that I remembered a place perfect for shapeshifters who have human forms to aquire morphing garb."
"Morphing?"
"An outfit that you can wear as a human that will vanish if you turn into a snake or Wyvern and come back unharmed once you return to human form."
"You mean it won't be ripped to shreds if I suddenly start growing? That's really cool! How does that work? Is it Spirit Energy powered? Mana? Is it like a ring or something?"
Beil chuckled. "Hold your horses, child. I do not know the specifics. We will have to find that out together. Would you like a ride or do you wish to shift into a Wyvern to travel faster?"
"I don't know how to fly yet, that might delay us a bit," she said evenly and Beil side glanced at her.
"Any reason for you to be in a rush?"
Nova shut her eyes and thought of her father, it had been such a long time since she'd seen him, but each detail of his face easily came to mind.
"If I could get an outfit for my human form I could visit my dad."
Beil's cresented eyes straightened from a lighthearted smile to realization. "Very well, then. Climb up."
Nova complied and they were off to the skies. After a good minute Beil sent a few words: "You miss him considerably." It didn't sound like a question, just an observation.
"I do, yes," she said with a soft tone, and mentally shook herself to keep from feeling the need to cry. Holding on to him a little tighter, something he noticed but chose to pretend that he didn't, she sat quietly as he flew and reflected a bit on her goals.
Find a transforming outfit. Figure out how to go back to her home in the Apparent Realm. Find her dad, even though she had no idea how she was going to introduce her new self to him... Come back to the Hidden Realm. Go to the School for Yokai and Ayakashi and apply as a student. Find a new passion? Did they have a lot of job options in this world? Careers? Maybe she could just explore, it was a whole other plain of existence after all. It's not like she had much to lose, like a mortgage or a car or anything.
Besides like food and maybe a bed every now and then, what did she really need to work a job for anyway? Was there other options to make money besides construction and food stalls and selling a bunch of mediocre wood or clay crafts and what have you? Maybe she could just be a Jane of all Trades and help people with tedious work as she traveled, doing favors in exchange for a hot meal. That sounded like a very peaceful life.
Then again, that kind of vagabond living didn't leave much room for attachments. She couldn't really afford a mortgage if she actually did decide to settle down later in life, like if she ever found love or wanted to get a dog or grow a vegetable garden or raise some cattle or chickens. You know, the simple life.
Nova scoffed internally at herself. That kind of life would feel so mundane compared to what all she had already gone through in such a short time here. She'd bore herself to death. Nova decided right then and there that if she were to die it would be in battle defending those who couldn't fight for themselves, and if she had bested every threat to the people she cared about, or outlived them, then she would accept any challenges and fall in battle.
Taken aback by her own train of thought, Nova snapped back to reality. It was now almost noon. She'd been so caught up in her pondering that she didn't notice just how far they'd flown. The landscape looked quite different, only a few sharply green specs of the trees that she recognized from the mountain were scattered amongst the now yellow canopy.