As Zac and Bune walked down the hallway, the sounds of atomic deconstruction fading behind them, Bune raised a hand and snapped his fingers. A spectral maid drifted out of the solid stone wall, curtsied low, and presented a neatly folded pile of leopard-print fleece.
Bune took it gently with one pair of hands and passed it to Zac with another. "Here you are, Avatar. We cannot have you running around in paper scraps."
Zac took the bundle, feeling a wash of complicated emotions. He was a bit upset with himself that he was actually happy to get his clown outfit back. It was ridiculous, it was infantilizing, and it had a tail that got caught in doors. But on the other hand, it was warm, it was soft, and if the reactions of the demons were anything to go by, it was apparently a 'sexy clown' outfit.
"Thanks, Bune," Zac said.
"What are you doing?" Bune sputtered, his Left Head looking scandalized as Zac immediately stopped walking. "Please, Avatar, this is the hallway!"
Zac ignored him. He gripped the collar of his tattered paper gown and ripped it away from his body like Hulk Hogan at Wrestlemania.
"Come on, Bune," Zac said, hopping around on one leg as he tried to jam his foot into the fleece leg-hole without falling over. "This can't be the first time someone has gotten changed in the hallway. Even if March is a vincel, there must have been plenty of times back in his frat wolf days that he was kicking one-night stands out of his room."
"Philadelphia is not a fraternity, per se," Bune said, looking a bit confused as he politely held up a hand to shield his Right Head's eyes while the Left Head watched to make sure Zac didn't fall. "And wolves are not nocturnal, contrary to common misconception. They are crepuscular."
Zac winced as he zipped up the front of the onesie. His skin, still tender from the aggressive scrubbing and the near-boiling, felt a bit sticky against the fleece lining. "March is totally not crepe-anything," Zac grumbled, pulling the hood up over his head. The sewn-on cat ears flopped over his eyes for a second before he brushed them back. "Crepes suck. Thin, French lies. March is hot as fuck. And it's always sunny in Philadelphia, so maybe he kicked out one-day stands."
"Crepuscular means that wolves are active during twilight," Bune corrected, his Left Head settling into lecture mode while the Right Head peeked through its fingers to see if Zac was decent. "It refers to the periods of dawn and dusk when-"
"Ugh, Twilight was so lame," Zac groaned, interrupting the biology lesson. He smoothed down his fleece flanks. "No one got knotted, and the werewolf fell in love with a fetus. How the fuck did I get gaslit into being Team Jacob for three years? It was a dark time."
"That sounds... wait, what?" Bune stopped walking, both heads tilting in genuine confusion as they tried to parse the concept of falling in love with a fetus.
Zac sighed, a long, dramatic exhalation. He leaned against the wall, looked deep into Bune's eyes, and channeled his inner melodramatic teen.
"About three things I am absolutely positive," Zac recited, his voice trembling with emotion. "One, that Marchosias is a stacked wolf demon. Two, that there was a part of him, and I don't know how dominant that part might be, that thirsts for my body. And three, I am unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him."
There was a long silence in the hallway.
"Are you having a seizure?" Bune asked, genuinely concerned. "Should we go back to the medical bay?"
"No," Zac lamented, pushing off the wall. "I'm just hungry. For March... and for food."
Bune nodded slowly, looking relieved that the Avatar wasn't having another medical event. "Well, we have more of your waffle food."
The dragon butler walked up to a completely random door (one that looked like it should lead to a linen closet) and pushed it open. Instead of shelves of towels, the vast, candlelit expanse of the dining room was revealed.
"I'm getting a bit tired of waffles," Zac sighed as he walked into the hellish dining room and took his usual seat.
Bune looked delighted. "Of course you are! Or you must be!" The Right Head added eagerly, "We have a wonderful selection! Everything a growing Avatar needs. What does your little singular heart desire?"
Zac leaned back in his chair, staring up at the vaulted ceiling where he hoped another cool fight scene might happen later. "I don't really care. Just bring me whatever."
Bune clapped all four of his hands together. "There is a soul soufflé that is setting now! It will be ready in only minutes!"
"Pass," Zac said without looking over at the butler. "Too French."
Bune nodded understandingly. "But of course. What about a nice Bicorn flank? It is very high in protein and evil."
"Pass. I'm not Mongolian."
"Perhaps some of last week's jellied josser? It went over very well with-"
"Pass. Something about jello always made me nauseous. Too jiggly."
For the next five minutes, Bune attempted to offer nearly every dish the infernal kitchen could commission, from abyssal clam chowder ("Too damp") to roasted hell-boar ("Too piggy"). Each suggestion was met with a flat refusal.
"So you do care what you eat," Bune finally said, sounding a bit frazzled after hearing his entire culinary repertoire belittled by a man wearing footie pajamas.
"I don't," Zac turned his head to look at the dragon. "You just don't have anything good."
Bune sighed, a twin stream of exasperated smoke. "What is good then?"
"Oh, you know," Zac said, waving his hand vaguely in the air. "Good stuff. But if you don't know, it makes me think you're not a very good cook."
"I don't cook," the dragon replied, straightening his cravat. "The help I summon does that for us."
Zac settled for waffles. Again.
After dinner, Bune declared it was time for "remedial equestrianism," and before Zac knew it, they were back in the subterranean cathedral of the stables. The air was thick with the smell of musk and damp earth, a stark contrast to the sterile medical bay.