After showing up again for the first time in months, Ivy came to know the monster a little bit more. The monster revealed itself to be a demon, which didn't really surprise her all that much. It granted cursed wishes after all. Then she learned that this demon was new, and didn't really care for the typical offerings people made for it, preferring food now instead, which was unfortunate for the people summoning it because they had no way of knowing this wasn't your average demon. It was lucky for Ivy however. She could have spent her whole life miserable, but it saved her at the cost of some pizza.

While no longer surprised by the demon's visits, Ivy did have to set boundaries to make sure she had enough money to feed it when it came. They settled on twice a month, or once per paycheck. She even learned the demon's name, which was Azara. Knowing a demon's name was apparently a big deal, but Ivy didn't really understand or care about that. They were unlikely friends, and that's what mattered.

One day Ivy came home to find her big red dragon waiting for her as usual, but it was talking with someone else. Another demon, this one incredibly tall and slender, stood in the living room, hunched over so as not to scrape the ceiling with its horns. This one was male by human standards, and was even wearing clothes; some kind of suit from the look of it. He narrowed his one eye at her as she entered.

"You must be Ivy. Tell me, why do you keep summoning this demon?"

"I told you," Azara interjected. "She feeds me."

Ivy added, "Like they said. I give them food, that's all. Who are you?"

"I am a gatekeeper between realms. I noticed this demon was repeatedly being summoned, so I came to investigate."

"I've never summoned them, though. Not even once. The first time I met them was by accident."

"Really?" He turned to Azara. "Is this true?"

"Yes," replied Azara. "Her neighbors botched their summoning, and I ended up here instead of there. Ivy gave me food and I established the first contract. A second contract was then established. After that we agreed that I could just visit for food, which I've been doing."

"Hmm," the slender demon said. "This is a strange case. I can sense a connection between you two. Does she know your name?"

"Yes. I trust her with it. She has not abused it so far."

"And what made you trust her?"

"I looked through her memories and saw what kind of person she was."

The slender demon shot Ivy a surprised look. "You've had your deepest wish granted?"

"Yes," Ivy responded. "I didn't even know it was what I wanted until I had it. Since then I've been so thankful to Azara for what they did. That's why I'm fine with feeding them occasionally. It's just kind of become a regular thing since then."

"What was the consequence of your wish?"

"There wasn't one."

The slender demon went wide-eyed at this and looked at Azara. "Consequences keep karmic balances! What do you think you're doing?!"

Azara turned to the side and said quietly, "I like this human. She's nice."

"...I'm going to sit in on this to see what it is you do. Please continue as normal without me."

"We just eat and talk a bit, then Azara leaves."

"I want to see your usual interactions."

"If that's the case, then how about I cook you something too?"

"That won't be necessary."

"Try it," Azara said, smiling. "Trust me."

The slender demon grimaced. "We'll see."

Ivy set the bags of groceries she was still holding on the counter and began unpacking them. She always bought a lot to feed her demon, but she wasn't expecting another guest. Hopefully this new one didn't eat as much as Azara did. Tonight she was making a big heaping mountain of lasagna. As she went about cooking, her guests settled themselves in her living room. The slender demon would occasionally give her look of suspicion with his eye. She tried not to mind the looks as she went about her business and the demons in her living room talked about things like the demon realms, or curses. Her life was becoming stranger these days. Eventually the lasagna and all the side dishes were done, and she set about preparing two giant bowls for her guests.

The slender demon gave Ivy an incredulous look. "You actually expect me to eat this?"

"I expect you to try it."

Azara was ignoring the two and already shoveling lasagna into their mouth.

"Give me a fork. I'm not like... her." He said, looking at Azara.

"...Her?! Is that their pronouns?"

"I suppose so, yes."

"Azara why haven't you said anything?! I've been using they/them for months!"

With a mouth full of food Azara replied, "I don't really care. Use whatever you want."

"Are you sure? I don't want to offend you."

"Yeah. Use whatever."

"If you say so. I'll be using she/her from now on, then." Ivy then turned around to grab Slender a fork. She decided that was his nickname until, and if, he gave her his name. She realized her forks might be too small for him, so she ended up grabbing a spatula as an alternative. After offering both to him, he opted for the spatula.

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"It's strange seeing a human being considerate of a demon," Slender said, before hesitantly taking a bite. His eye opened wide in surprise. "Azara was right. This is good!" he said, going in for more.

Ivy smiled as she ate from her plate. She was happy that all demons needed apparently was good food. As she ate she remembered that sometimes Azara talked about hunting, and wondered if that was the extent of food for demons. Slender seemed more civilized though, and even asked for a fork. Maybe demon cuisine was just bad? She decided to ask. "Is demon food just unappetizing? I know Azara hunts, but what do you usually eat?"

"It's not that my food is bad, your food is simply unexpectedly delicious."

"Well what do you think about mine and Azara's relationship now? It really is just me feeding her every other week."

"It's still strange. I've never seen a friendship between a demon and a human before, but from what I've seen and what the two of you have shared with me, I think it's safe to say that that's exactly what this is."

"That's great! I'm glad you understand."

Slender put his hand up. "I can't let this continue, however. The relationship you two share is abnormal. From today on, she is forbidden from returning here."

"Then I just won't leave," Azara suddenly stated.

"What!? That's ridiculous! You can't just live in the human realm. You have a job to do!"

"I'll do it from here. Easy."

"You can't!"

"I will."

"How will you live? There are no demons who live in this realm!"

"I'll just use Ivy's form, then. Ivy," Azara said, looking at her. "Let's make another contract."

"What? I'm sorry what is going on here? What do you mean by 'borrow my form'?"

"It's just a contract that let's me be human. That's all."

"What are the consequences?"

"None."

"You'll be living here though. Do you know what that means? You'll be leaving your life behind. You'll have to have a human job to pay for bills and food and you'll have to manage your demon job on top of that. I wouldn't mind you living here but... I don't see how it's feasible."

"See?" Slender said. "Even the human is reasonable. You can't live here."

"I just need Ivy to make a few wishes and I'll be set," Azara replied. "And I won't even have to adjust the karmic balance of the wishes since it's allowing a me, a demon, to live in the human realm."

"...You're really set on this?"

"If I'm going to be stuck in one realm or the other, then I choose this one."

Slender sighed. "I'm leaving for now. But I will return for you." He warned as he vanished in a cloud of smoke.

"So... You're moving in? Just like that?" Ivy asked Azara.

"Yep," Azara replied, smugly. "You're stuck with me now."

"Okay then. So how do we do this human form thing? I'm curious what you'll look like."

"Since I'm the one who will be making the wish, I'll have to loan you some of my power."

"O-Oh. Is that dangerous?"

"Shouldn't be. Let's do it."

"Um. If you're sure then, okay."

"Grab my hand," Azara said, offering her messy lasagna-covered hand.

"Give me your other one."

"Fine, just take it already," she said, switching hands. Ivy grabbed Azara's hand and felt her claws close around her hand. Then a warmth spread from her hand to her whole body, slowly filling her up. "Now let's do this before you burn up from the inside."

"What!? You didn't say anything about that!"

"Relax. That'll take awhile to happen. When I make my wish, all you have to do is accept it, and let the power flow out of you. Got it?"

"Y-Yeah. Okay. I trust you."

"Good. Now. I wish to have a human form."

Ivy relaxed and closed her eyes as she assented to Azara's wish. The warm feeling she had vanished as if being sucked out of her. When she opened her eyes, Azara didn't look any different.

"It didn't work?"

"It did. The wish was on my terms, so now I can be a human whenever I want to be instead of being stuck as one." She closed her eyes to focus, and began to shrink. Her fur disappeared. Her claws, horns and tail receded. Her eye flames flickered out of existence, and her third eye vanished. When she opened her eyes again, she was now a very tall, very beautiful red-headed woman with dark skin. She was also completely nude.

"I'll um... Get you something to wear."

"No need. We just have to repeat the process a few more times to make sure I have everything I need."

Ivy grabbed Azara's hand once again, and felt the same warm power as before fill her up again. They did this a few times to make wishes, taking care of everything she would need to live with humans. She wished for supplies, human common sense and all the legal paperwork she would need to live. She also wished for a job at Ivy's company, knowing it was one of the better paying ones in the area. She fully intended to live as a human would instead of just wishing for a lot of money. When they were done, she was fully dressed, prepared, and no longer covered in lasagna.

"So what does this mean for your name? I understand that demon names hold power but will you still go by Azara?"

"I will. Because it was my wish I was able to add the stipulation that my name doesn't hold any power anymore, since I am human now."

"You can just do that?"

"Yep! I'm all set. Speaking of being human, I'm so small and frail now. You really live like this?"

"Yeah. We all do."

"Let's do one more wish then. I'll make us tougher!" She said with a smile.

"'Us'?"

"Yeah! Don't want my reason for staying here getting hurt."

"You stayed here just for me?"

"Of course! You're the most interesting thing in my life. Back home it was all about making sure I granted wishes for sustenance and hunting."

"Wait, you eat by granting wishes?"

"Yeah. It's also something I'm supposed to do to help maintain karmic balance in the universe. Other than that my only other food was wild game, so until I met you I never really thought about food."

"Oh, I see. So I'm just your food provider then," Ivy said teasingly.

"Don't be like that. The gatekeeper said it himself, we're friends, aren't we?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Then let's make that wish."

After finishing the last wish, they cleaned up the mess in the kitchen and went to investigate all of Azara's new things. It was mostly necessities such as clothes and a computer, but they could get more things over time. They then settled on the sofa to watch tv before bed. Azara had seen tv shows before while visiting and hadn't really been interested, but now she was doing her best to be human.

"Mind if I get more comfortable?" Azara asked.

"You're going to take your shirt back off?"

"No, I mean this." She suddenly grew two feet. Her horns and tail came back, but not as large as before, and her eyes were flaming again, plus her third eye returned. "That feels a bit better. The human form is so stuffy."

"O-Oh. I wasn't expecting that."

They spent the next couple hours watching tv and browsing the internet. Ivy had Azara temporarily return to her completely human form so they could take a few pictures and post them online. Finally, the day was done and they both had to get ready for bed as they had work tomorrow. But there was a problem. There was only one bed.

"Um, sorry. I didn't think of this, but where will you sleep?"

"On the bed?"

"You've seen my memories. You know I'm attracted to women, right? Are you fine with that?"

"Yep. I already thought this over when we were making my wishes. There isn't room for another bed in this apartment, and I'm not sleeping on the couch. I also don't mind sharing with you."

"And you don't care that I used to be a guy?"

"Nope. And you never were. Besides, I'm not even human, but you don't seem to care about that."

"I guess you're right." Ivy smiled. "Let's get some sleep.

"There we go."

Azara refused to leave the form she was currently in, where she was still shaped like a human but had demon parts. She said it was more comfortable. This caused a problem, as beds aren't designed with eight foot tall midform demons in mind. She ended up having to curl up into a ball somewhat, which caused her to basically be spooning Ivy.

Azara slept well that night, wrapped around Ivy, but the woman being wrapped around did not get much sleep.