As Zac watched Marchosias chase Andras out of the room yelling how he was going to strap the owl to the breaking wheel, he couldn't help but smile. Sorry, Andras, he thought. I know you were supposed to keep me from running into that Amdusias guy, but no one could ever keep me from the Wolf Daddy. It's just fate. It's magnetic attraction. Gravity.
However, this train of thought did bring up a good point.
"Hey Bune," Zac questioned, "how can a demon be a unicorn? Aren't unicorns like, even more pure than me? Don't they cure disease and neutralize poisons or something?"
Bune looked over from where he was directing a few spirits in fixing up the large, Kool-Aid Man-shaped hole in the wall where Skarg had made his dramatic exit not even fifteen minutes ago.
"God created our demonic forms as a curse and a joke," the Left Head said, quickly looking back at his work.
"Amdusias was an angel of healing before the Fall," the Right Head added, not looking at Zac. "The unicorn form is to constantly remind him of what he once was. We have been marked forever. Tainted."
"Speak for yourself," Nock said, picking at a piece of dirt under his nails. "I'm fabulous."
Zac looked over at Nock. The lion looked once again like the pampered king, his fur gold, his mane voluminous, his armor shining. "I do appreciate all the time you put into your make-up," Zac said thoughtfully, "but I do think your all-natural look is much hotter. It's scary sexy."
Nock looked aghast. "Ever since I began my regimen, the others have respected me so much more! The suit makes the demon, you know."
Bune laughed, a dry sound. "We all know who you are, Sabnock."
As the pampered lion man began wailing about the dragon not understanding the benefits of contour and proper mane extensions, something in Zac's mind began nagging him to stop staring at the hunky demons and think for a second. Amdusias was a unicorn. Unicorns were creatures who were so pure they cured disease. And the hunky lion man before him had the Detectable Plague.
"Nock!" Zac shouted, cutting off the cosmetics clash. "Would a unicorn-skin condom work?"
Bune finally looked at Zac with both heads, horrified. Nock looked at Zac, contemplating.
Before either could voice their opinion on the absolute horror that would be a unicorn-skin condom, Halphas entered the room. The harpy eagle demon looked a bit winded and on edge, his feathers slightly ruffled.
Bune's heads turned to the eagle, immediately beginning to grill the Earl on why he wasn't in attendance for Duke Amdusias's visit.
"Oh, I hate that guy," Halphas said, aggressively tucking his white tank top into his cargo pants and fixing the brim of his camo hat. "Don't tell me, he was singing again, wasn't he?"
"Of course he was," Bune lamented, his hands fluttering in agitation. "And I needed to sing right back at him to make him leave."
"It was awful," the Right Head said sadly, drooping low. "My ears are stained terribly."
"Ha, sucks to suck, Buney-boy," Halphas sneered, trying to sound tough as he leaned against the table. "Maybe if you just grew some nuts you would have just bit him to death. You know the Captain would give you a commendation for that, right?"
"I'm not a glutton," Bune said with a huff, turning back to his work patching up the Kool-Aid Man hole in the wall.
"I have four more testicles than you do," the Right Head added sharply over its shoulder.
"Yeah, but they are little baby girl testicles," Halphas said, puffing out his chest to its maximum, feathery expansion. He snapped his fingers, summoning himself a massive protein shake in a poof of black smoke and grey down feathers. "Not big, badass eagle balls."
Halphas took a swig, his boast dying off in his throat as he noticed Zac staring at him with an unreadable expression. The eagle choked mid-gulp.
"I... I didn't see you there, new guy."
"So, big badass eagle," Zac said sweetly, taking a slow step forward, his eyes locking onto Halphas's beady ones. "Care to explain what happened in the Trojan Horse?"
"You uh, woke up before I could make you beg me to stop, I guess," Halphas said, immediately starting to chug his drink.
"Oh is that what happened," Zac said, taking another step closer to the apparently very dehydrated demon. "Because I remember it a bit differently."
Nock and Bune watched intently.
Halphas finally had to take a breath. "You know how the human brain is," he said, snapping another drink into existence and putting it to his beak. "All mushy living cells, it's bound to make a mistake every once in a while."
Zac walked quickly up to Halphas. "Are you a pigeon?"
Halphas fully choked on his drink and spat it out everywhere. "Cough! What makes you… cough, think that, cough-coo-cough! I'm an eagle!" Coo. He coughed out a piece of bread. "Just look at me! An eagle!"
Zac wiped the soggy, half-digested piece of sliced bread from his shoulder and yelled, "Just tell me the truth! Am I never going to see eagle dick?!"
Nock and Bune grimaced in pure vicarious cringe from watching the second-in-command of the warband being sexually questioned by a scrawny human who was half his size.
Halphas spewed protein shake across the table, the liquid dripping off his beak and onto his meticulously ironed camo pants. His eyes were wide as he looked at Bune and Nock, then back at Zac, and in a voice that was just a bit too macho, he said, "What do you mean? Did I sex you so well that you have amnesia? Haha... coo."
Zac, once again wiping himself clean, crossed his arms. "Was that before or after the part where you had a panic attack and exploded into a thousand pigeons?"
"Oh, you must have been dreaming," Halphas said, looking around the room with frantic eyes. "Isn't the Avatar such a joker, guys?"
"It's not a joke," Zac said flatly. "You built up my expectations just to rug pull me. I've been fantasizing about what your dick looks like since you nearly shot me with your crossbow when I first arrived! Is it long and pointy? Is it thick and short? Is it pronged? Is it colorful? Do you have balls above the shaft? Do you have some weird fist-like dick that's bulbous near the tip?"
Halphas's beak hung open. "You saw it last night in your dreams when I totally dicked you into a state of insanity! Bune, Nock, the virgin has lost his mind!"
"Is it perpetually slick and wet from hiding under your feathers?!" Zac yelled over the eagle. "Is it twisted like a corkscrew? Is it detachable? Is it flexible like a tentacle? Is it internal? Does it have secret muscles that would let you punch me from the inside? Is it like a pyramid, all sharp and angular? Or is it boring and shaped like a human's?!"
"Detachable?!" Halphas squawked. "What does that even-"
"Does it start small and inflate when you get it in me?! Is it flat?! Does it have four heads and you only use half at a time so your refractory period is over by the time you blow your load so you're ready to go again right after?! Does it have a drill tip?! Is it armored?! Does it explode when you use it?!"
"IT DOES NOT EXPLODE!" Halphas yelled.
"WELL HOW WOULD I KNOW?!" Zac yelled back. "You're not even an eagle, are you?! And now I'm going to have to start thinking about what a pigeon dick looks like! You totally rug pulled me!"