Zac was wandering through a storm. Icy wind howled, whipping his thin black robes against his legs. Snow, thick and heavy, dragged at his ankles, biting at his exposed skin with a thousand tiny teeth. Around him, a forest of thin, twisted birch trees clawed at the grey sky, their branches like skeletal fingers.
"Hmm," he muttered, shivering. "This isn't Marchosias's bachelor pad. Am I dreaming again?" He pulled the robes tighter around himself. "Why am I so cold? Are dreams always this cold and I just forgot? This is terrible ambiance."
He trudged through the deep snow, looking around at the whiteout. There was nothing in any direction but more snow and more twisted, horrible trees.
Then, a bellow ripped through the blizzard. It was a deep, guttural sound, a roar of primal hunger that vibrated in Zac's bones.
Zac froze. His head snapped around, eyes wide, trying to pierce the swirling snow.
"Wait," he whispered, a slow grin spreading across his face. "This is the chase dream again. The one with the murder-deer. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. I'm lucid! I got in the same dream again and Skarg is here!"
He listened, cupping a hand to his ear. The bellow echoed again, closer this time, from his left. Without a second of hesitation, he started running directly toward the sound. He bumped into a few trees, his shoulder aching from the impact, but he barely noticed. His mind was set on one singular, glorious objective.
Skarg appeared through the blizzard, a colossal, magnificent silhouette of frost and muscle. He threw his head back and howled at Zac, a sound meant to instill primal terror.
"RUN, LITTLE HUMAN! THE HUNT HAS BEGUN!"
Zac ran.
Much to Skarg's surprise, the human ran right at him, a look of ecstatic determination on his face.
Zac slowed as he got close, his eyes dropping. "Oh, he's so naked right now," he breathed, his own breath pluming in the frigid air. "How the hell does he stay so plump when it's so cold out?"
He stopped directly in front of the wendigo, blew hot air into his cupped hands, and then held them out toward Skarg's crotch as if it were a roaring campfire.
"What in the hell are you doing?" Skarg asked, more confused than angry. He took an instinctual step back.
"Shut up," Zac said, stepping forward again to maintain hand-warming proximity. "Why aren't you hard? In my fantasies, you're usually all… you know." He made a vague, enthusiastic gesture. "Neigh neigh, motherfucker, or something. Big dick monster energy."
"What?" Skarg stammered, looking genuinely baffled. The human was supposed to be running for his life, not critiquing the presentation of his genitalia. "What are you-"
"I said shhh, my sexy dream beast," Zac interrupted, looking up at him with a predatory grin. "We have all night, and you're nice and warm. We're not wasting it on cardio this time."
Skarg took a larger step away from Zac, clearing his throat with a cough that sounded like an avalanche starting. "This… this isn't a dream, Avatar. We are… talking. In your head."
Zac looked up from Skarg's semi-flaccid firewood, his grin faltering.
"Huh?"
Skarg furrowed his brow, the motion causing a small shower of frost to fall from his antlers. "It's hard to explain," he rumbled, clearly struggling with the concept. "But demons can… enter dreams. Cause nightmares."
Zac nodded eagerly. 'This is a wet dream, not a nightmare,' he thought, 'but continue. You have my full attention.'
"If the Captain will not let me have your body," Skarg continued, his icy blue eyes raking over Zac's form, a slow, possessive appraisal, "then I will still have your… mind."
Zac fell to his knees in the snow, his hands clasped together in supplication. "YES! YES! YES!" he cried, looking up at the wendigo with tear-filled eyes. "Take it! It's yours! Do horrible, unspeakable things to my psyche!"
Skarg looked down at the kneeling human, a slow, predatory grin spreading across his face. This was more like it.
"You know," Zac began to sob, his voice thick with emotion, "I thought I was cursed or something. Living in the 21st century, with so many advancements in biotech and genetics… I was sure someone was going to figure out how to make a wolfman by now. But no. Just stupid, hairless humans as far as the eye can see."
Skarg's grin faltered. He looked down at the weeping human with a flicker of something that might have been pity.
"I would even have settled for a lifelike robot bull-man," Zac continued, his voice cracking. "Or maybe a ram-man. Yeah, that would have been okay too. I would have even dressed up a human robot in a sexy fox outfit and strapped on one of my-"
"ZAC!" Skarg's growl cut through the oversharing like a thunderclap. "I am giving you to the count of ten. To run."
Zac looked up, his face a mess of self-loathing snot and tears. He quickly began wiping it away with the back of his hand. "Really?" he sniffled. "You mean it? A real chase?"
"And when I catch you," Skarg's eyes hardened, the predatory glint returning with a vengeance, "you're going to scream for me. Whether you want to or not."
Zac stumbled to his feet, a renewed sense of purpose shining in his eyes. "You promise?"
"One."