"Kagu." Pause. "... Pretty, nearly flightless, travels quickly on foot?"
"Children's daemons can change shape. He sort of wanted to be a dragon or a firefly - I was more friendly to the first idea - but we had to be a bird so we could be a witch properly."
"It's an open question, really. Not completely, or far fewer people would wind up with really inconvenient or unattractive or impractical daemons."
"Yup. And when they can change they can be anything at all, even animals that don't really exist. If they're reasonably creative children."
"It's a pity Vern missed out on it. Oh, well, I like her as she is. And she's quite happy, so it's fine."
"I think I still haven't gotten around to showing you the old photo albums with pictures of me and Path being a musk ox or an ostritch or an eel, I should fix that when we get home."
"Yes. Yes, please do, those sound adorable and I support their existence wholeheartedly."
"This all must have had an amazing influence on your society, it's a pity it's such a big deal to visit and look around."
Adarin nods. "It took some adjusting to - would it help if I explained what it was like? As someone who spent most of my life not having a daemon. I've got a comparison point."
"Well, architecture and layout's a bit different to allow for daemons. Restaurants have spaces for daemons to sit that are out of the way, but still nearby, that kind of thing. Not obvious or in your face, but it's noticeable if you pay attention. Uh - there's a bit of preconceptions about what daemon you have and how you'll get along with other people. It's faster to guess if you'll like someone on sight or not by their daemon, easier to avoid the people you won't get along with and aim for the ones you will."
"The only thing I've noticed consistently is that I don't care for biting or stinging insects. Never met a venomous snake I liked either but those cases have seemed more - incidental."
"Right, but it's more than you get without daemons. It's not - the one true thing to judge everyone by, though. Just... Helpful. In general."
"Discrimination by daemon type - except in cases where particular types are practically necessary, like, if you want your daemon to train to do surgery to other people's daemons you need something with good dexterity like a monkey - or practically impossible to accommodate - like a dolphin, most anyplace - is illegal for most public and corporate contexts. I mean, in my native country. But people do it anyway."
"That's - kind of horrifying. To have your soul incarnate get judged."
"I'm used to it as a background fact. People discriminate based on - height, attractiveness, skin color, accent. At home; do they not here?"