"And? What exactly did you want me to sssee?" you asked with a sigh, placing one clawed hand on your cheek as you glanced at your brother.

"It's better to...show than tell, F/N," he said with a slight laugh, gesturing to the manor. "Please, won't you take a look?"

"If it'll shut you up," you grumbled, rolling your eyes and approaching the manor.

"Sis?"

"What?" you asked with a backward glance.

"Tail." You sighed.

"Oh right, humans don't like tails," you grumbled, shifting to your human form. "Lordsss, legsss are sssuch a pain." Your brother disappeared as you knocked on the door, staring impatiently. Admittedly, you hadn't really been doing anything when he came by to tell you he'd "discovered" something, but it still annoyed you.

When the doors were finally opened, two people immediately greeted your sights, the first of which was a girl with dark pink hair in what you recalled was a maid uniform, a piece of clothing given to a human to denote servitude to another human. Her glasses were thick and round, and you briefly considered referring her to the Reaper's office for a better pair, as it was obvious they weren't helping her sight very much.

The second was what caught your attention, and you could tell that you had caught his. Faintly menacing, silently warning you not to do anything uncalled for. It was another demon; that couldn't have been what your brother had wanted to show you, could it?

"E-Excuse me, miss, wh-what seems to be the pr-problem?" the maid stuttered out, and your attention shifted back to her.

"I've been told there is sssomething I musst ssssee here," you replied shortly, walking past the maid and taking a deep inhale in the room, flicking out your serpentine tongue out of habit. There were a hundred things swimming past your senses... cooking grain, beef, vegetables of several varieties, herbs, five humans and the distinctive scent of demon being primary among them.

"Mey-rin, are you finished with the laundry?" the demon asked the maid, and she quickly gained an expression of terror before she rushed off as the male approached. "You get one warning," he said lowly. "Don't touch my dinner."

"I'm not interesssted in your meal, boy," you replied, raising your head imperiously at him. "I sssaid I'm here to sssee sssomething."

"Well then, feel free to look around," Sebastian said, still quiet. "I can even arrange a room for you if you'd like. Don't disturb our work, and you may travel around the estate as you please. But pleassse do keep your acssssent under control; we don't want anyone to find out what you are, now do we?"

You showed your fangs threateningly as you smiled and said, "No, I suppose not. Why don't you return to that precious master of yours like the good, loyal pup you are?"

The demon's lip curled.

"Sebastian."

"F/N."

"Dinner is at 5:45 P.M. Don't eat the corpses in the garden."

With that, Sebastian left you be to wander the manor. Upstairs, you heard a child shouting, possibly at him, and you decided to navigate away from that, electing to see the servants instead.

Just as you were about to enter the kitchen however, a man in a uniform having white hair and bright yellow eyes bumped into you. A snake hissed.

"My apologies, miss."

"My apologies, miss...said Keats," the man said, surprising you heavily, and you paused, tilting your head at him. You drew one hand up to his face. Scales. How could a human have those?

"W-What are you doing? Stop it! ...said Keats!" The man batted your hand away.

"Now I see what my brother wanted me to see," you said. "Boy, come with me for a few moments..."

"Wh-Why? ...said Keats." The man struggled against you, but you dragged him further away nonetheless.

"You can understand me, yes?" you asked the male in your own tongue, and he nodded, looking confused. Another snake hissed a reply, and I realized at least six snakes had been concealed on the man's person. Very odd indeed. "I wasn't talking to you; I'd like to talk to the human."

"You are talking to me... said Wordsworth."

"Are you insulting me, or can you truly not speak for yourself?" you hissed, pulling your nails around his collar. "Have you one name that I might refer to you?"

"My name is... Snake," he said finally, not changing his voice this time to mimic the intonations of his serpents. "I didn't know there was someone else...like me."

"You're lucky! You don't have any scales!" Keats—the white snake—hissed, and I stopped Snake before he could repeat him.

"You need not translate for me. And my scales are... lower." you replied, trying not to give too much away. Getting into a fight with that demon over the exposure of your identity seemed like a hassle.

"Lower?" Snake asked, his gaze diverting from your face down your body.

"My eyes are up here, Snake."

"Uh-No, it's not what you think!" he said, snapping his focus back up, a dark blush quickly gathering on his pale cheeks. And you couldn't help yourself from smirking a little at that expression. It was a common occurrence, since you did have an alluring top half—it was how you got your dinner—but Snake's seemed a bit more satisfying. You wondered if his mother or perhaps his father carried demon blood, but it seemed unlikely, since you couldn't smell it on him.

"Hm, I kind of like you, Snake... My name is F/N," you hissed by his ear as you heard plates being set out. "I hope you will meet me later."

<><><>

Dinner came and went, despite all that pesky child's questioning. One of the snakes, it seemed, had taken a liking to you and chosen to coil around your wrist like a bracelet and talked to you on occasion, particularly when you had left the ears of the child and the demon.

"Hey, what color are your scales?" I glanced at the red-striped snake.

"S/C."

"Where are they, when you say 'lower'? Do you mean your feet? Your legs? Your waist, maybe?"

"Do you know what a Lamia is?"

"Nope!" If a snake didn't know what it was, then that boy most certainly didn't either. I should probably leave him be.

"It means that my entire lower half is that of a serpent's."

"No way, really? Can I see? Pleeeease?"

"Emily? That's where you were? I was getting worried! ...said Bronte." You glanced up to see Snake, and Emily hissed a response.

"What did I say about the translating?" you asked with a sigh, shifting to the human tongue as you watched that butler walk by and he you.

"I-I wanted to...ask you something, actually..." Snake began, seeming to be struggling with not saying what his companions were chatting about, obviously accustomed to speaking in place of the snakes, and you were starting to wonder how much of a personality the man himself possessed.

"Ask, then; I am here to see you after all, and frankly I haven't been disappointed so far."

"I... would you like to... talk? A bit more?" Snake's face was rapidly flushing pink, and you couldn't help softly chuckling.

"Lead the way, Snake," you replied with a grin, and his blush grew darker as he stiffly lead you onwards. You nearly laughed when you heard his snakes teasing him, particularly Emily.

He lead you to what you assumed were the servants' quarters and seemed to consider for several long moments what exactly he wanted to talk to you about. Finally:

"Do...Do people laugh at you too?"

"No, but they are terribly afraid of me."

"Why? You don't look that frightening to me..."

"I don't think even you would say that if you saw what I really look like." Snake looked you up and down, seeming confused for a number of reasons. "I don't just have scales. I have a tail. I am more like a snake than you realize. And worse."

"But... I like snakes..."

"You are ashamed of your own scales, darling," you replied, placing your hand against his face again, although he didn't stop you this time, making you smile softly as you played with his hair, watching his expression. Truly, such a cute human; you might take him off that demon's hands. "If you are not afraid of me..." You showed him your serpentine fangs, flicking your tongue at him as you let your pupils contract.

"Are those real? ...said Wordsworth," Snake said, and you sighed at his slip of habit. You would need to break him of that if you took him for yourself.

"Why don't you see for yourself? Maybe I'll even dislocate my jaw and eat you." And then, to your surprise, Snake tried to feel your fangs, and you stopped him short. "That was a joke."

"F/N...can I... see your tail?" For several, long moments, you were silent, hesitating before you finally decided it was getting uncomfortable walking.

"Just the end; I'm afraid taking off this dress will be a bit of a pain," you replied, delighting in his mild flusterment at your suggesting as you let your human guise wear off, letting the end of your tail brush his feet. He stared at it.

"How long is it? ...said Goethe."

"Want to peek~?" you asked, startled at the relief you felt when you saw that Snake was just shocked, not scared.

"I-Isn't t-that really invasive?" Snake asked, his face turning a pink hue.

"Aww, Snake, you're so precious," you said, drawing on his face with your thumb."Maybe I will take you home with me~"

"No," he refused and firmly at that, making you frown. "This is my home; I can't leave! ...said Wilde."

"Then what would you say if I stayed here?"

"Please! I...really want to know you better." You laughed to yourself a little at that. Well, it wasn't as if you were doing anything.

"Well..." you said with a smirk, playing with his lip. "I see no reason why not."