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No, they were servants, and it was implied that they were not willing servants. And a neutral party is not out of either party; it is one completely separate. Try to remember there are many races in this game; Demons, Angels, Cefiro, Arcs, Sprites, Undines, etc.
Well, I can't be sure about Arcs, but Sprites, Undine and Cefiro are all the same things. We have to look at the name origins here, along with what the game itself says. Now, just within things that are obviously Sprites, we have Fia and Lina (round ears), and the Pixia family (pointy ears) The Pixia residence are obviously supposed to be Pixies, a type of fairy folk. Undine, Sylphs and Gnomes are all types of elemental spirits (Water, Air and Earth respectively) within Alchemy. However if you say they are something seperate from sprites because they don't look exactly alike, then how-the-hell are Gladiators and Slimes both Demons? As for the Cefiro, I'm fairly certain somebody in the script calls them Sprites, but if not it's still a word (Spanish, I think?) describing a fairy king.