Cam is dipping a grilled cheese sandwich into a bowl of tomato soup when he feels the summons. He goes ahead and grabs it. Doesn't even drop the sandwich.
Also the summoner is naked. That might be relevant. She notices the new shadow and peers at Cam. "... How did that happen?" she wonders, completely unbothered by being naked in the snow.
"Hey!" says the snake. "I'm not involved in whatever she was doing!"
"Surprise! Talking! Snake!" says Cam.
"Why in the hell am I a surprise talking snake?" says the snake, rearing up to peer at herself.
"... Very well. Every single human or witch in the world has a daemon. The daemon is their personified soul. That is the literal definition. Souls are not - theological, that would be idiotic, why would I care if they were? If one of them is hurt or in pain, the other is hurt or in pain. No one but you should touch your daemon, outside of someone you trust completely. Daemons know their other half outside and in. The snake is you, without her you would not be a person. If you had shown up without one I would have thought you were a zombie, because a soul is a rather important thing to be missing. You missing your own head would be less jarring."
She doesn't seem to have a snake of her own, strangely enough.
"I think so," says the snake. "But I don't know any more about snake junk than you do."
"...okay. And what is the deal with bears."
"My soul is not a snake, I am a witch, so he is a bird. He is away on an errand, I was summoning him to save him the flight back, but before I'd even finished my runes, you appeared. Mortals' daemons can be various animals. I... wouldn't know what to think. Perhaps your soul was curled up inside of you, asleep? If that was not the case, you would not be a person. Other people can't touch her because she is - your soul. It's. The most personal and private and vulnerable part of you. I believe mortals in this country execute people who purposely touch someone's soul. I know witches would, certainly. And armored bears keep their souls in their armor, I don't know why, I've never met one."
"I expect to be pretty inconvenient, if it's a special witch thing to be able to leave your person!" adds the snake unhappily. "What if we can't take summons anymore and someone terraforms Mars without us?"
"I am from - starting from the basics - I am from a world where humans live mostly on a planet called Earth, with some on space stations, Earth's moon, or a neighboring planet, Mars. The year is 2159. In addition to humans there are three kinds of daeva - demons, angels, and fairies - and if you draw the right things on the ground you can summon us to do things in exchange for stuff and then send us back where we came from, respectively Hell, Heaven, and Fairyland."
"...I have demon magic," observes Atriama. "Excuse me, summoner, but what exactly would count as 'touching' me, can I just laminate myself and call it good?"
"I wasn't going to send you back unless you'd like me to. Especially considering 'horrible snake-related fallout.' That would be cruel. Someone physically touching you is what does it, Atriama. Laminating yourself would probably fix the problem, but it might be uncomfortable."
"The method," sighs Cam, "is concentrating on getting rid of me, for about a minute."
"Witches don't care about nudity," she shrugs. "I wear silks when I'm around my dad, but my brother's so used to witch culture that he also doesn't care. We don't use money, and instead tend to pay in favors. I'm a member of a witch clan, one I joined... somewhat recently." She shows her wrist - there's a tattoo of an unfamiliar symbol on it. "There's also an... issue with some witches claiming mortals at daggerpoint. I am against it."
"No one here is going to forcibly touch you," says the witch. "Anyone who tries it is the worst kind of criminal. Or a very young child that severely needs a lesson. In your own world I don't think people will know that, I'm afraid. I don't believe I can help, but I can look for methods."
"If it turns out that me and Cam are a package deal such that I will appear whenever he's summoned from now on, I had better have a good defense," says Atriama. "Laminate myself in plastic or declare the scales not part of me - are there any hermit crab daemons? Do their shells count? - Or he'll have to stop taking summons and that would be awful."
"And somebody would terraform Mars without us," adds Atriama. She starts coiling up Cam's body to drape herself between his wings and over his shoulders. He looks quizzically at her but doesn't stop her.
"Likewise. So, this is actually a terrible circle, I'm not bound at all, but my gaping cultural unfamiliarity inclines me towards slightly more conservatism than 'make spaceship, fly to Mars, terraform immediately'. How do you feel about harboring an exchange student?"
"Next time I accidentally summon a demon, I will be sure to make the circle less terrible," she says dryly. "I'm fine with harboring an exchange student, though you'd have to make sure it's all right with my dad if you want to stay in his house. Since you've got an unspecified magic I think my clan will also let you stay on clan lands for at least a little while."
"So to speak. But this is an optional exchange student program. I can and will fuck off into space if it's going to be inconvenient or involve supplying machine guns to questionably ethical insurgents or something in order to buy permission to stay in any given patch of land."
"I can't make information that has never been set to recorded format before - which means no automagical translations, encodings or decodings, circumvention of research, sprouting brand new symphonies out of nothing, etcetera. If you believe such a ritual has been lost, I may be able to get ahold of it depending on how much information you possess about when and by whom."
"Okay. Weird but not immediately relevant, then. Meanwhile: you're speaking American English, maybe with enough of an unfamiliar perhaps-witchy accent that I couldn't tell if you were Canadian but not so much that I think you're British or Australian or that I have landed in Singapore or anything. You appeared to recognize the phrase 'library of Alexandria'. What else have we got? Wikipedia? Zeppelins being unpopular after one exploded? What does the skyline of New York City look like? Do the mortals around here use dollars and persistently fail to get used to attempts to render same as coins in non-fractional denominations? Are bees in trouble? How is the ozone layer doing?"
"We're in America. Near Chicago, if you're curious. Wikipedia exists, zeppelins became unpopular, I - haven't seen New York, but you could probably just get pictures on the internet. Dollars, yes. Bees... I think they're fine? Possibly? And I've heard people mention problems with the ozone layer, but my education is perhaps lacking somewhat."