In the center of the aisle, Bune was busy tightening the girth strap on Leonardo, the Pygmy Aspidochelone. The massive snapping turtle looked less like a steed and more like a geologic formation with an attitude problem. He was currently occupied with munching on something that looked suspiciously like a bloody, severerd arm clad in a tatters of a paladin's gauntlet. Crunch, crunch, crunch, went the beak, grinding bone and steel alike with terrifying ease. Leonardo ignored his soon-to-be rider completely, his ancient, hateful eyes fixed on the middle distance as he chewed.
Zac looked at the saddle Bune had procured. It was a custom job, clearly modified from something meant for a much wider beast. But what killed Zac's mild enthusiasm wasn't the saddle itself... it was the straps.
"Is that..." Zac pointed a trembling finger. "Is that a five-point harness?"
"The Captain insisted," Bune said, clicking a heavy iron buckle into place. "It is a safety restraint. We cannot have you falling off."
"It's a seatbelt," Zac groaned. "I'm riding a rock with a seatbelt."
He sighed, resigning himself to his fate, and turned his attention to the beast. He leaned over, hands on his knees, his face dangerously close to the turtle's jagged beak.
"Who's a good mutant demon turtle?" Zac cooed, his voice pitching up into that sickeningly sweet tone usually reserved for kittens or particularly fluffy puppies. "You are! Yes, you are! You're a little snapper, aren't you?"
He reached out a hand to pat the turtle's rocky head.
SNAP.
The sound was like a gunshot. Leonardo's neck extended with blinding speed, his beak clamping shut on the empty air where Zac's fingers had been a millisecond before. The wind of the snap ruffled the fleece on Zac's sleeve.
"AH!" Bune shrieked.
The dragon butler yanked Zac backward by the hood of his onesie, hauling him out of the danger zone just as Leonardo hissed and snapped again. Bune didn't hesitate; he lifted Zac bodily and plunked him into the saddle, immediately beginning to click the buckles of the harness shut.
"You must be careful, Zachary!" Bune scolded, his hands flying as he secured the human. "The Aspidochelone's primary diet is sailors! They lure ships close by pretending to be islands and then drag the unsuspecting crew to a watery grave!"
Zac blinked, adjusting the straps that were now crossing his chest. "Do I look like a seaman?" he questioned innocently.
Bune paused, his two heads looking Zac up and down critically. "Well," the Right Head mused, "you certainly don't smell like one now that you've been bathed and your uniform has been cleaned. But sailors are usually quite... human. Crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside."
Zac shook his head, struggling against the restraints to lean forward once more. He thrust his hand right back into the dangerous snapping zone near the turtle's head to give it a scratch behind the jaw.
"Ignore him, Leonardo," Zac whispered to the beast, who was now eyeing his hand with renewed hunger. "Something tells me all of the demons here are dying to eat virgin human semen."
Leonardo stretched his neck backward, his jaws snapping shut inches from Zac's wrist.
"Bad turtle!" Bune scolded, rapping the beast lightly on the shell with a knuckle. "No maiming the Avatar!"
"See?" Zac said with a grin, winking at the frustrated reptile. "No denial. He's just jealous you might get the first taste."
After Bune spent another ten minutes lecturing Zac on proper posture, "Back straight! Engage your core! Stop wiggling," he handed Zac a riding crop. It was a wicked-looking thing, made of black leather wrapped around a flexible spine of bone.
"Oh, kinky," was all Zac had to say as he inspected the tool, giving it an experimental swish through the air.
"Not kinky," Bune corrected sharply. "It is how you will direct your mount on how to move and when to stop. This mount will not be able to feel your heels since its shell is so thick and indestructible. It responds to percussive cues."
Zac nodded in understanding, his eyes lighting up. "So if I moan he goes right and if I yelp he goes left?"
Bune frowned, both heads looking deeply unamused. "No."
Once everything was settled and Zac came to terms with the fact that he would need to give his new mount light smacks on his right and left legs to turn, and a smack on the top of the ancient turtle's noggin to start and stop, the rest of the riding lesson seemed to fly by.
But not literally.
Leonardo was quite slow. After half an hour of diligent crop-tapping and Zac shouting "Mush! Mush you geological formation!", they had completed exactly one circle around the stall. It was like riding a tectonic plate.
After riding lessons, Zac gave his new turtle buddy a few too many treats. He felt a bit gross about reaching into the bloody bucket (what even was that squishy grey thing? A pancreas? A spleen?) but the way the ancient, murderous turtle actually seemed to acknowledge his existence when bribed with snacks was worth the slime. He tossed one last glistening organ into Leonardo's waiting maw.
"You're a very good boy," Zac cooed, wiping his hands on his leopard-print flanks.
Back in the hallways of the keep, as Bune led Zac to his small room for the night, Zac couldn't help but ask if Bune knew whose turn it was in the dream rotation.
"I am not sure," the dragon said, both heads looking slightly preoccupied. "All I can say is it is not me. After the incident in the baths, I need to make sure the caldarium is drained and scrubbed down."
Zac followed the tall, two-headed demon, frowning. "I was only in there for like, a few seconds before Nock rescued me. And I heard that there are no bacteria in Hell since they are technically alive or something. I wasn't that dirty."
"It is not because of you, little Zachary," Bune said as he began ascending a seemingly random staircase that definitely hadn't been there yesterday. "Nock's little hero stunt has dirtied the water. It is no longer clean."
The Right Head looked back at Zac, a look of profound fastidiousness on its face. "All of the fur dye has turned the water blond. Could you imagine the Captain being stained gold after his evening bath? It would be a disaster."
Zac nodded, his mind immediately conjuring images of a Californian Marchosias with big aviator sunglasses, looking sun-kissed and relaxed. "Beach bum March would totally be a surfer," Zac murmured dreamily. "Catching waves and breaking hearts."
Bune snorted, a twin puff of amused smoke. "You have such a wonderful imagination. As if anyone could envision the Captain wasting time with such trivialities."
Zac sped up to walk next to Bune as they made it to the second (or twenty-second… the layout of the keep made absolutely no sense) floor. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull daddy," he teased, nudging the dragon's arm.
"It has nothing to do with being dull," the Right Head said.
The Left Head nodded in agreement. "You do not seem to understand that idle hands are the Devil's, uhm, playthings."
"But you are all literal devils," Zac retorted.
"But we do not need to act as such," Bune said, his voice unusually somber. "After an eternity of fornicating and feasting..."
"...of manipulating minds and molesting mankind," the Right Head said.
"...of being seduced by our base instincts," the Left Head whispered.
The Right Head looked at the Left Head pityingly. "Having a clear head, and tangible goals and relationships, is quite appealing."
"Yeah fucking right," Zac yawned, unconvinced. "As if fucking and frolicking could ever get boring. Stop trying to gaslight me. First it was no waffles, then it was waffles, then it was you're fighting a gold addiction, and now you're getting high on my virgin aura."
"That's not-" Bune's two heads tried to say.
"It's fine," Zac cut the butler off, waving a hand. "Just call it a tolerance break or whatever, but don't treat me like a child. Everyone loves to party."
"No, this isn't a-" Bune tried to interject again.
"I know you really want me to grind against your claspers as you semi-vore me, and I'm cool with it," Zac said, stepping into his room. "I get how life… or uh, death, gets in the way of things. Responsibilities, reality. I really do."
Bune stood outside of Zac's room, his frame vibrating. His scales were rippling, and his neck muscles were bulging ominously.
"You are mistaken, Avatar," the Left Head said, his voice tight. "The warband... we..."
"The Captain has been trying to help us," the Right Head whimpered. "When I was in the throes of my gold fever, I could not control my desires. I was dangerous."
"Well whatever," Zac said, shrugging. "Maybe it's good for you, but don't speak for the others. They definitely all want to get this human semen, and me being a virgin isn't helping them control themselves."
"That's the point!" Bune pleaded. "If you cannot control yourself, are you even an individual? Or-"
"Are you just your weakness?" the Right Head finished.
"Well my weakness is my blue balls!" Zac yelled. "I'm not a therapy device! I've got needs too!"
With a wet, tearing sound, Bune's middle head erupted from his shoulder just as Zac slammed the door shut.
"I HUNGER! GIVE ME YOUR SEED!" the new head roared, spit flying and making a soft sizzling noise where it hit.
Through the crack before the latch clicked, Zac saw Bune's Left and Right heads' eyes go wide with mortification.