Zac was sitting in the library, his chin resting on a stack of leather-bound tomes, a thin string of drool connecting his lip to the open page of a demon-to-English dictionary. He was hovering in that fuzzy, twilight state between consciousness and a coma.
"...and so, initially, there were 613 commandments," Bune's Left Head droned on, pacing back and forth in front of a massive chalkboard that was rapidly filling up with diagrams. "But God, in His infinite... well, let's call it pragmatism... realized that the squishy, biological human brain simply did not have the RAM to process that much compliance. So, he compressed the file down to ten. Ten is a simple number. You have ten fingers. Even the dimmest shepherd could count that high without taking off his sandals."
"Mmm," Zac murmured, his eyes half-lidded. "Does it count as coveting my neighbor's wife if my neighbor's wife is a stacked werewolf?"
Bune ignored the blasphemy with the ease of a parent ignoring a toddler's babbling. "The redundancy was inefficient anyway. Why have a rule about not boiling a kid in its mother's milk and a rule about dietary restrictions? Just say 'Keep Kosher' and move on."
The dragon stopped, tapping a piece of chalk against the board. "Though some were quite specific. Like the prohibition against passing children through the sacrificial fires of Molech."
"That seems reasonable," Zac yawned.
"And," Bune continued, his voice rising with passionate intensity, "the prohibition against wearing garments with fringes on the corners!"
Zac blinked, lifting his head slightly. "Why do those not really sound equivalent? Burning kids versus a fashion faux pas?"
"You noticed too?" Bune sniffed disdainfully, looking down at his own perfectly tailored (though currently tattered) suit. "Fringes are just asking for rips and tears! They snag on door handles, they unravel in the wash, and they are mathematically impossible to keep symmetrical! It is chaotic design!"
Bune got worked up, all four arms moving in a blur as he began to aggressively chalk out the specific laws regarding laundry and fabric blends from the Mitzvot. Zac watched the dust fly, genuinely impressed. It was truly awe-inspiring how anal-retentive God was. The idea that there were souls currently burning for eternity because they mixed wool and linen, or didn't wash their tunic on the gentle cycle, was a level of pettiness that Zac had to respect.
The rhythmic tack-tack-tack of the chalk was hypnotic. Zac's head grew heavy again. He was just about to drift off into a fantasy about Marchosias enforcing a strict dress code when he felt it.
A chill.
It wasn't the air conditioning (Hell didn't have any). It was a deep, biting cold that prickled the skin beneath his leopard-print fleece.
Zac sat up, wiping the drool from his chin. He looked around. Bune was too busy ranting about the structural integrity of tassels to notice the temperature drop.
Then, Zac saw him.
Skarg was tip-toeing into the library.
It was a sight that defied physics and reason. A ten-foot-tall, muscle-bound wendigo, trying to be stealthy. He moved with exaggerated care, lifting his massive, hoofed feet high and setting them down with delicate precision. His antlers, which Marchosias had brutally ripped off the day before, were only half-grown back, stubby, velvet-covered nubs that made him look oddly youthful, like a demonic teenager going through a growth spurt.
Zac smiled, a wide, delighted grin spreading across his face. He gave a little wave at the sneaking monster, who was now only a few paces away.
Skarg froze mid-step. He brought a massive finger to his lips, making the universal signal for shut the fuck up.
Zac nodded enthusiastically. He didn't know why the caribou was being so sneaky… it seemed a bit out of character for the primal himbo who usually announced his presence by breaking furniture… but Zac didn't mind. He liked roleplay.
Skarg crept closer, the air around him shimmering with cold. Finally, he reached the desk. He placed a heavy, clawed hand on Zac's shoulder.
Zac's body reacted instantly. The chill of the wendigo's touch didn't register as cold; it registered as a memory. The memory of Skarg holding him down in the snow, the weight, the pressure, the breaking. It was as clear and visceral as the moment it had happened in the dream.
"You didn't even count down from ten this time," Zac moaned softly, leaning into the touch. "You know, some asshole named Leviticus said not to have homosexual relations."
"That is correct!" Bune said happily, spinning around to face his pupil, completely oblivious to the towering wall of muscle standing right behind the human. "He was quite specific! Do not forget, he also said not to have homosexual relations with your father! And he also specified not to have homosexual relations with your father's brother!"
The Right Head nodded vigorously. "Very thorough regarding the patrilineal line! But interestingly vague about step-bro-"
Bune's voice trailed off.
His four eyes widened as they finally registered the massive, furry shape looming over the desk. Skarg had already moved; he scooped Zac up by the waist, tucking the human under his arm like a leopard-print football.
Zac swung slightly in the grip, his tail swishing.
"What are you-" Bune managed to gasp.
He never finished the sentence. Skarg slammed his free hand onto the library floor.
CRACK-BOOM.
A massive, jagged wall of glacial ice erupted from the floorboards. It surged upward, encasing the dragon butler in a prison of solid, transparent blue frost. Bune was frozen mid-gesture, one hand raised in admonishment, his mouths open in a silent scream of bureaucratic outrage.
Skarg straightened up, looking at his handiwork with a satisfied grunt. He turned, holding Zac tight against his side, and began to run toward the exit, his hooves thundering on the floor now that stealth was no longer required.
"Leviticus was a bitch!" Skarg bellowed in triumph as he kicked the library doors open.