Heiden walked briskly through the dungeon. Despite being dead as he could be, he still had perspiration forming on his forehead.
"Is it true?" he asked for what seemed like the hundredth time. The prisoners rattled against the cell bars, screaming, cursing, flailing their hands out to reach, clawing. The dungeon smelled of rot, yet none of it phased Heiden and his secretary.
"On my lord, yes. Yes. Yes. A hundred times, yes. It. Is. An. Elf. Woman. She summoned Dedora to help wipe out a village or something during the testing phase, but he, seeing as the summoner was an elf Woman, broke off the contract then and there and dragged her back through the pathway," Heiden's secretary spoke, pushing up her glasses.
She sounded a bit tired.
"And she is still alive?"
"Yes, Lady Achlys is keeping her isolated from the influence of the realm. She shouldn't be claimed by death for a while."
"Good, yes, very good. Finally, I can take a break!" Heiden muttered.
'Finally!! I can shift the blame if it doesn't work out.'
Heiden knew very well just how much his liege was looking forward to this day.
He, as his liege's most loyal subordinate, had to show that he did his very best. And this elf was the perfect tool and a scapegoat.
Before long, they arrived before a cell. The dungeon was relatively clean on this side, with less of the smell of rot and sulfur, and less weird moss covering the rocks. Pure life radiated out from inside the cell, making Heiden and his secretary hesitate to step inside.
Inside was an elven woman, trembling in fright, a weeping mess, not daring to look up, even as the footsteps sounded ever closer to her.
Heiden nodded to the guard beside the cell, and he opened the door.
The woman trembled, crawling backwards with the wall behind her back, at the groan of the iron-barred door opening.
"P-please! Please!!! I beg you! Please let me go! I just want to return home. I won't ever dare go near a summoning circle. I-I just wanted revenge. Please!!!"
"Relax, young lady!" Heiden spoke, his voice filled with demonic charm that oozed persuasion, "We mean you no harm. If you would help us with this just one task, I promise you, on behalf of the entire daemon realm, you will get your revenge. In fact, we can even help you with overthrowing the kingdom if you want."
The young elf looked up.
The daemon looked terrifying to her every sense, yes, but with each word he spoke, he seemed to look less and less terrifying. Her body was still tensed, yet her mind betrayed her.
"Is- is it true?" she asked with hope she hadn't dared to have just moments earlier.
"I promise in the name of my lord." Heiden smiled gently.
"What do I have to do?" The elf asked in a daze, yet at the next moment, her old self returned, "Please, please don't tell me to betray my race!" she cried.
…
…
"Now, young lady, I want you to be honest with me,"
Hearing the first words his lord spoke, Heiden sighed in his heart.
"How do I look?"
Sela had already made up her mind to lie through her teeth and get the most terrifying instance of her life over with.
'You are the most dashing person I have ever seen, my lord.' She would say.
Looking at the skeleton wreathed in dark robes that pulsed with an aura that promised the sweet relief of death, she choked back her tears and said;
"Y-you look like the grim reaper–!!!!!" Sela, the elf, desperately covered her mouth with her trembling hands, choking back a scream of despair.
She felt like her knees were giving out, but the rush of adrenaline from just now helped her stand.
"Naturally, ka-ka-ka," The skeleton cackled, closing its mouth rhythmically to imitate laughing.
He continued, imitating a motion of wiping tears from his eyes, "Now, what I want to know is, how would you describe my look from an elven aesthetic standpoint?"
Sela desperately clutched at her mouth, but she spoke anyway, "You look terrifying!!"
Sela wailed through her covered mouth. It was over, it was all over. She was going to end up becoming one of his undead bottom feeders, like the ones she'd seen sweeping the floors down the hallway.
"Acceptable." The skeleton nodded, waved his hands and shouted, "Daisy, bring my wardrobe!"
A giant ogre pulled a loooong bellboy trolley behind her back, setting it in front of the skeleton.
The trolley was so long that Sela momentarily forgot about her damp trousers.
The skeleton nodded at the ogre.
"Much appreciated, Daisy. You may leave."
The Ogre dragged itself back, and the skeleton called out behind her, "On your way out, ask someone to bring Mrs Elf here a set of clean clothes. Thank you, dear!"
The skeleton looked back at her.
"Now, Mrs…?"
"Sela." Sela spoke, her hands clawing her cheeks.
"Nice name," The skeleton nodded, "Sela, you will be helping me choose an outfit for a meeting with a nice and beautiful elf. It should be aesthetically pleasing to–forgive my words–your kind.
"Now, I don't want this to go wrong. I really don't. This is a very important day in my life. You got that?"
Sela nodded.
"We don't have all day now, how about we hurry up?"
…
...
The skeleton, or as she now knew Lord Jonah, wasn't a bad person. He was kind and patient with her, unlike his subordinates, and Sela felt really at ease.
So at ease that, Sela asked him a question that she had in mind.
"Lord, you are such a powerful being. If you're so insecure about your skeleton form, why don't you mould yourself a body of flesh, or use magic to alter your form?" Sela looked at the changing skeleton curiously as she asked that question. Somewhere deep in her mind, her cautious self was screaming at her to stop.
"..."
Aside from the rustling of Jonah changing clothes, there was no other noise.
The yawning Heidan froze like a statue, even the ever-present breeze in the grand hall seemed to have frozen.
"A good question," Jonah began, buttoning his shirt over his skeletal frame, "The person I'm going to meet is very special to me.
…and I don't wish to deceive her."
The skeleton looked himself over in the mirror.
The shirt hung loosely on his ribcage, but it didn't look all that bad.
Heiden brought over the vest and helped Jonah put it on as he continued.
"Well, I don't think I'll be able to deceive her even if I wanted to, but still. I wanna be honest with her, with who I am at the moment."
"And if, if and only if, things work out the way I think they will, I don't want myself to be cornered," Fully suited up, Jonah did a twirl in front of Sela, "How's this?"
"It looks magnificent on you, my Lord, but…an overcoat would be nice?" Sela couldn't help but ask, "And who is this lady?"
Jonah answered, draping the overcoat over his shoulders, which promptly slid down his shoulders.
"...Well, her name's Elizabeth."