The sidekicks rushed over, scrambling to stand at attention in front of Nock, who was now standing tall, hands on his hips, looking quite haughty and regal.
"S-s-sorry, Master!" Pumbaa said thickly, bowing his head. "We didn't know President Ose would be here."
"We can get you cleaned up right away!" Timon added eagerly. "I managed to salvage your mane scrunchies from the ceiling collapse yesterday! Only three were crushed!"
"This isn't Ose," Nock said with an exasperated sigh, waving a dismissive paw. "This is Zac. The Avatar I was telling you about. The one whom I have been tasked with keeping safe from those ill-mannered charlatans."
Timon and Pumbaa finally, hesitantly, looked more closely at Zac. Their expressions shifted from terror to disbelief, then to pure, unadulterated rage.
Zac laughed nervously, giving a little wave. "Hey guys. Funny seeing you here. Alive."
"HIM?!" Timon yelled, pointing a spindly, accusing finger. "He's the human?!"
"He dive-bombed me!" Pumbaa squealed in agreement, pointing at his own bruised forehead.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa there," Zac said, putting his hands up and taking a step back. "I'm just a cute little avatar. I didn't do anything to you. That was the owl's fault. Mostly."
"Yes, listen to him," Nock chuckled, placing a proprietary hand on Zac's shoulder. "The Avatar is like a lost fawn whose mother was ravaged and brutally eaten alive in front of him by a pack of ferocious carnivores."
Zac frowned. 'Wow, that's… graphic. But okay, I guess.'
"Oh, how weak and traumatized and starved he was," Nock continued, his voice taking on a theatrical, storytelling cadence, "as he watched those heartless beasts rip and tear into his screaming deer-mother's flesh, making sure to eat her from the legs up because they thought the screams of pain made their bloody meal taste better."
Zac rolled his eyes. 'Okay, any time now, Nock. Get to the point.'
"Then they slowly ripped out his mother's organs and ate them one at a time while her little deer cries grew softer and softer," Nock went on, a tear forming in his eye. "Then, finally, as she died, they grew bored and didn't even finish eating her, leaving him to cry and cry over her mangled body."
Zac put his face in his hands. 'What the fuck is he even talking about now? Is this from a book? Who writes this shit?'
Nock continued on for another few minutes, the story becoming increasingly detailed and gruesome, involving maggots and scavenger birds and the fawn's desperate, horrifying first acts of survival. The gist of the story was that, for some reason, the warband, the high demons, were the hungry carnivores who were now taking in the orphan fawn.
By the end of it, Zac felt very dirty and uncomfortable for having listened to the story of his poor, poor, entirely fictional deer-mom being eaten by wolves.
The lion could have just said Zac was a weak bitch and needed to be protected from meanies. But no. Of course not. It had to be a whole goddamn production.
Nock stood there, looking quite pleased with his bardic powers, a single, perfect tear rolling down his fur as he concluded his gruesome tale. He had, in his mind, painted a masterpiece of tragic vulnerability.
Timon, however, was not impressed. He crossed his spindly arms, his beady eyes narrowed. "That human stole your conditioner."
Nock's eyes flew open. "HE WHAT?!"
Before the lion could spin, before Zac could lie, before Timon could hiss in triumph, before Bune could finish trying to scrub a stubbornly pink stain from the apparently very-stainable floor, something happened.
It was a sound, first. A deep, groaning crack from high above.
Zac wasn't exactly sure why things kept happening around him. Was it just that he was in Hell? Was it because he was roommates with violent, emotionally unstable demons? Was it just a big coincidence? Or maybe, just maybe, the castle's architect had gotten some numbers messed up, because the fucking ceilings in this place were an insurance nightmare.
The ceiling of the dining hall exploded downward.
A storm of plaster, stone, and splintered wood rained down as two massive, fighting forms crashed through.
Marchosias and Skarg, locked in ferocious combat, slammed onto the long dining table. The ancient wood, which had withstood centuries of demonic feasts, shattered like kindling under their combined weight. Food, silverware, and candelabras went flying.
They were a whirlwind of violence. Marchosias, armored and snarling, was on top, blasting Skarg point-blank with his silver, annihilating fire breath. Skarg, on his back, was frantically throwing up walls of jagged ice to block the flames, the ice hissing and sublimating into thick clouds of steam on impact.
Skarg managed to get a hand free and slammed it onto the Captain's face, instantly encasing Marchosias's head in a thick mask of ice.
The ice mask held for a split second, then steam-exploded outward with a deafening crack. Shards of superheated ice flew like shrapnel. One massive piece caught Pumbaa, who had been standing there gawking, directly in the chest. The warthog's entire upper half simply vanished in a pink mist, his legs standing for a moment before collapsing in a heap.
The force of the blast was enough. Skarg, seizing the opportunity, kicked out with both powerful legs, sending Marchosias flying off the ruined table. They rolled away from each other in opposite directions, coming to a stop amidst the wreckage, both breathing hard, both ready to kill.
The dining room, once a place of quiet, gothic elegance, was now a disaster zone. And Zac was standing right in the middle of it, a half-eaten waffle still in his hand, wondering if "ceiling collapse" was covered under his new, non-existent health plan.