Andras was ten feet away, walking briskly toward the back of the stable, furiously snapping his fingers to coax the reluctant warg to follow him. He looked like a man fleeing a crime scene.
Zac frowned, his lower lip jutting out. "I know the kid comes first, but communication is important in a relationship, my love! Please don't ignore me when we're talking!"
"WHAT?!"
Andras spun around so fast he tripped over his own feet. He stumbled backward, his arms windmilling. Goremaw, sensing an opportunity for playtime, barked happily and launched himself at the off-balance demon.
Andras went down hard, hitting the straw with a squawk of surprise. Before he could recover, the warg was on top of him, straddling his chest and pinning him with affectionate weight. Goremaw immediately resumed his assault, a massive, sloppy tongue slurping up the side of Andras's face.
"You tell him, Gore-iental Express!" Zac cheered, clapping his hands. "You tell that naughty demon that he shouldn't run from his feelings!"
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SAYING?!" Andras sputtered, spitting out a mouthful of warg fur. He flailed, trying to reach for the hilt of his cutlass, but Goremaw's weight was immense, and the owl demon couldn't find any purchase in the slippery straw. "GET OFF! BAD DOG! THIS IS MUTINY!"
Goremaw just wagged his tail harder, thumping it against Andras's ribs like a drum, delighted by the game of "pin the master."
Zac leaned against a stable pillar, watching the chaos with a content smile. 'Yep,' he thought. 'Definitely fixable.'
Before Zac could continue sexually harassing the murderous demon, he was distracted by Bune finally reappearing from the tack room. In the short moment it took for Zac to properly appreciate the butler's rolled-up sleeves and ruffled outfit… which made the dragon look like he had just returned from a nap that included a lot of thrusting… Andras had sunk into the shadows, pulling Goremaw with him, once again retreating from his emotions.
Zac had lost his prey, but he now knew even more about the resident bad boy. The way to his heart might not be through elaborate Rube Goldberg-like traps designed to one-shot elephants, but through a much more furry and honestly derpy alternative. And Zac already had an ace up his sleeve: the hellhound seemed to like him.
'Just wait until I begin carrying warg treats with me,' Zac grinned wickedly. 'If your dog loves me, you will too. Dogs and owners take after each other, right?'
"Finally, that backstabber is gone," Bune's Right Head huffed, dusting imaginary lint from its lapel.
"Are you alright, Zachary?" the Left Head questioned, looking him over with concern. "That dirty warg did not hurt you, did it?"
Zac was indeed a bit bruised from being tackled by the dog, just as he was bruised from being tossed around by the various demons for the past sixty-ish hours, but his leopard-skin suit stopped anyone from seeing the damage. "Actually, I found it quite calming to pet Goremaw," Zac said. "Maybe we can convince Andras that I need his dog to be my emotional support animal."
"Emotional... what?" Bune asked in genuine confusion. "Goremaw has been Andras's steed since the Fall. That dumb dog is the only one the owl can't push away."
'Dumb dog, huh?' Zac thought. 'Well, I guess I'm a retarded poodle because Andras would have to hide his dick inside of himself to keep me off it. Now, how best to get him to see that Goremaw loves me and we would be good dog dads together?'
Bune attempted to regain Zac's attention by dragging him further down the aisle to inspect the other options.
"Behold, the Giant Vesper" Bune announced, gesturing to a massive bat hanging upside down, its leathery wings wrapped around itself like a cloak. Zac approached, hopeful, but the bat simply screeched at a frequency that made Zac's teeth hurt and shuffled further up the rafter, clearly wanting nothing to do with him.
Next was a basilisk, a crocodile-like creature with surprisingly long, muscular legs designed for sprinting. It looked terrifying, until Zac got close, at which point it hissed, scrambled backward into its water trough, and submerged itself completely, leaving only two judgmental eyes above the surface.
There were camels with three humps and mouths full of razor-sharp shark teeth that spat acid when he looked at them. There was a bull made of what looked like polished bronze that snorted actual gouts of fire, but extinguished itself and played dead the moment Zac touched the gate.
But the worst blow came from the Arachne-Weaver. It was a massive spider, easily the size of a minivan. Zac, trying to be open-minded, had approached it with a friendly smile. The spider didn't try to eat him. It didn't try to wrap him up for later. Instead, it frantically began spinning a web across the front of its stall... not a trap, but a wall. A solid, opaque barrier of ropelike silk designed solely to keep him out.
"Denied by a spider," Zac muttered, watching the creature seal itself away. "That's a new low."
By the end of the rejection humiliation ritual, Zac was ready to give up. He didn't care if he had to carpool with Nock or Andras. Their vehicles were good enough, and he didn't mind riding bitch. In fact, wrapping his arms around Andras's waist on a motorcycle sounded infinitely better than seeing all of Marchosias's exotic pets treat him like he was radioactive.
"There is... one more," Bune said hesitantly, stopping in front of a small, low-walled pen near the back.
Inside was a rock.
"A rock?" Zac asked flatly.
"A Pygmy Aspidochelone," Bune corrected. "Though 'pygmy' is relative. It is an island-turtle."
It looked just like a large, jagged boulder, until Bune tossed a piece of raw meat from a bucket near it. Slowly, with the sound of grinding stone, a head emerged. It was a snapping turtle's head, beak sharp and eyes ancient and mean. It snapped up the meat with terrifying speed, then looked at Zac. It didn't run. It didn't hide. It just blinked slowly.
"He doesn't hate me!" Zac cheered.
Ten minutes later, Zac was sitting atop the Aspidochelone's jagged shell, his legs dangling over the sides of the massive reptile. The creature was roughly the size of a coffee table.
"Now, grip with your thighs!" Bune instructed, holding his arms up as if spotting a gymnast. "Maintain your center of gravity! The Aspidochelone is known for its... stability."
Zac looked around the stable. He looked down at the turtle. He looked back at Bune.
"Bune," Zac said. "I don't think we're moving."
"Patience!" the Right Head chided. "He is building momentum!"
Zac waited. The turtle let out a low hiss, blinked again, and then slowly, painfully slowly, lifted one massive, clawed foot. It placed it down about six inches forward.
"There!" the Left Head clapped. "Progress!"