Julian’s voice rang out across the front grounds with the kind of clarity that carries whether you want it to or not.

Every guard in the vicinity found somewhere else to look.

"His assistant ?." Julian repeated, descending the steps with the energy of someone who had decided this was personally offensive. "Leon’s assistant.

You’re telling me that Leon, the same Leon who has an E rank potential,

That Failure, is your master ?

To everyone there Yuki was silent, However....

Yuki Frowned.

Anyone observing would see a vein popping on her head.

’This human’

’No Yuki calm down, you can’t upset your master’ she slowly calmed herself, but still to yuki, this level of insolence cannot be tolerated .

The particular quality of her silence was the silence of something very old and very capable exercising considerable restraint, though nothing about her face communicated this. Her face communicated polite patience and nothing else.

Still Julian continued

"I don’t believe it." Julian said flatly. "I don’t believe it for a single second. I don’t know what’s going on here or what kind of scheme this is but there is absolutely no way that failure of all people arranged for someone like—" Another gesture. "For someone of this caliber to serve as his assistant. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not possible. He probably doesn’t even know she exists."

"Julian." Lena said.

"I’m serious Lena." Julian said, turning to her. "Think about it. Think about what you’re being asked to believe here."

She was standing at the top of the steps looking at the silver haired woman at the gate with fox ears and two white tails and golden eyes that had not once lost their composure despite six guards and one extremely loud Julian, and she was processing, carefully and thoroughly, because there was something about this woman that made straightforward reactions feel insufficient.

She was beautiful in a way that was slightly difficult to look directly at, not blindingly so, but with the kind of quality that made you aware you were looking at something that wasn’t operating on entirely ordinary terms. And she was a beastfolk. Standing at the front gate of the Silford estate in the middle of the human capital, alone, apparently unbothered by any of it.

And she was claiming to be Leon’s assistant.

Lena looked at her father.

Arlott had not moved from his position at the top of the steps. He was looking at the woman at the gate with an expression that Lena had learned over seven years to read carefully, because it was the expression he wore when he was thinking something he had not decided to say yet.

He was surprised.

"I don’t require your belief." Yuki said pleasantly, still not looking at him. "It is not a condition of my being here."

The front grounds went very quiet.

Julian’s expression moved through several stages rapidly, surprise, disbelief, and then something that settled into a hot and bristling indignation.

Julian had had enough, "How dare you"

"Do you know who you’re talking to." He said, his voice dropping to the register it used when he was genuinely angry rather than performatively so. "Do you have any idea—"

"I don’t need to know" Yuki said flatly, "Anymore slander to my master’s name and you will regret it"

The guard nearest to Julian took a small careful step sideways.

Lena put a hand over her mouth.

Lily looked at the middle distance with the expression of someone filing something away.

Julian’s face had gone a color that did not suit him.

"You—" He started.

"Julian." Lena said quickly.

"She just—" Julian said.

"I know." Lena said.

"To me." Julian said.

"I know Julian."

It didn’t help. The color in his face had reached a stage that suggested words were no longer the primary outlet he was considering. He descended two more steps, his hand moving to where a weapon would have been if he had come to the front grounds armed, and finding nothing there, which did not appear to significantly reduce his intentions.

"You’re a beastfolk." He said, the word carrying a weight that made several of the guards shift uncomfortably. "Standing at our gate. Making claims you have no business making. And you have the nerve to—"

"Even if you are that trash’s servant, don’t you dare...

Suddenly, he felt the atmosphere change, they all did.

Yuki had had it, how dare this humans slander her master, her aura leaked, targeting him alone,

For a few seconds Julian was paralyzed in fear, but then his talent activated .

He moved.

It was not a measured or calculated movement. It was the movement of a seven year old boy with an A rank talent and a genuine temper who had just been casually disrespected by someone he had already decided to dislike and was not accustomed to either of those things happening simultaneously.

He crossed the remaining distance with his fist drawn back.

Yuki watched him come.

She did not move. She did not shift her weight or raise her hands or adjust her expression in any meaningful way. She simply watched him approach with the same patient golden eyes and made in the span of approximately half a second a decision that was purely rational and entirely contrary to every instinct centuries of sovereignty had built into her.

She did not respond.

He may be related to her master. That was the thought that arrived and settled the matter immediately and completely. She did not know the precise nature of the household’s structure yet but the possibility was real and the consequences of being wrong were not ones she was prepared to invite. Her master had not said anything explicitly about the other residents of the estate but she suspected that provoking a confrontation on her first morning would be categorized alongside attacking without listening in the list of things he would find unacceptable.

So she stood still.

And watched the child’s fist stop approximately four inches from her face, frozen not by any action of hers but by Arlott’s voice coming down from the top of the steps with the particular quality it carried when it was not asking.

"Julian."

One word. Flat and final.

Julian’s fist stayed where it was for one more second.

Then he lowered it.

His jaw was tight enough to crack something. His eyes were still hot and fixed on Yuki’s face with an expression that made very clear this was not a conclusion, merely a pause.

Yuki looked at him.

’So this.’ She thought, studying the furious child in front of her with a kind of detached and genuine curiosity. ’Is how humans raise their kids.’

She had observed humans from a distance for a very long time. She had formed opinions about them, not uniformly charitable ones, based on what they had done to her people and others like them. But she had not spent meaningful time in proximity to human children specifically, and this particular specimen was presenting her with data she had not previously collected.

He was loud. He was impulsive. He led with his fist before he finished his sentence. He had the particular arrogance of someone who had been told they were exceptional often enough that they had stopped questioning it.

And yet.

She looked at the way he had moved. The speed of it, the weight behind it, the instinctive combat positioning even in something as uncontrolled as a temper driven lunge. Seven years old.

’Talented.’ She noted, filing it alongside the rest. ’And completely undisciplined, like a mad dog.’

She wondered briefly what her master made of him.

Probably something similar, she suspected, delivered internally with considerably more economy.

She looked back up at the steps.

The man with the crimson eyes was watching the scene below with an expression that had not changed but had somehow become more concentrated. His gaze moved from Julian to her and then held there for a moment with a quality she recognized, the particular attention of someone who was evaluating something carefully before deciding what to do with it.

Then he spoke.

"Come inside." He said. "We’ll speak privately."

The guards stepped back. One of them moved to the gate with the relieved efficiency of someone being released from a post they had not enjoyed.

Yuki inclined her head toward the man at the top of the steps.

"Thank you." She said simply.

She walked forward through the gate and past Julian without looking at him, her tails moving in their unhurried way, her white ears angled forward toward the main steps.

Julian watched her pass.

He stood at the bottom of the steps staring at the main doors as they closed behind her and his father and could not for the life of him produce a single satisfying answer.

His fist was still clenched at his side.

"Brother." Lily said quietly, appearing beside him.

"Don’t." He said.

She didn’t.

They stood there for a moment in the morning air, the front grounds empty now, the guards returned to their posts, everything quiet and ordinary again except for the fact that nothing about the last ten minutes had been ordinary in the slightest.

Julian stared at the closed doors.

"A failure." He muttered, the word carrying everything it usually carried and then something underneath it that was newer and less comfortable. "An E rank talentless failure."

He couldn’t finish the thought in a way that made sense.

That was the most irritating part.