[PRP] Important Business [Zar x Hollandaise]

[The Semblance of Unity]

She felt great. Hollandaise tripped down the hallways with as much speed as she could muster. Plants needed her, even if no one else did, and the thought made her chest puff up a little. p***k needed her, although that was a terrible name. Aiasha and Nahm had both informed her it was innuendo, but she was still uncertain. It was a cactus, after all, and had nothing to do with anything sexual in nature. Pulling out her eyePhone, she scrolled down the (very, very long) list of messages until she found the correct one. Ah, room 34. The home of one poor p***k the cactus, and she absolutely had to check and make sure Zar hadn't murdered the poor plant.

On unsteady feet, she wandered the hallways of her dorm. After passing Zar's door for the third time without realizing, Hollandaise thought idly that at least it was good he wasn't still in the demon dorms. She'd have never made it. Humming lightly, she knocked gently on his door. Well, she tried. Overbalancing, her fist smacked into his door heavily. Drawing back her hand, she hissed and shook it before frowning at the door. Or course his door was just like him - insufferable. Drawing back her leg, she tottered a bit before kicking the door solidly and collapsing into a fit of giggles.

"Zar!" She giggled before schooling her face and voice into something serious. Super serious. "Open up! It is of utmost importance that you let me in." She banged on his door once again before leaning against it just a bit. Or rather, a lot bit. Amarus hadn't told her that it would make her so light-headed. But the cool wood of Zar's door felt nice against her forehead. Her hands, unable to stay still, tugged and fisted in the ragged edges of her dress. As the months wore on, it was getting decidedly more and more ragged. With a rrrrip, a strip came off in her hand. Oops.

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

Zar had not been expecting a visitor that day. It was the reason why when Holly knocked (or rather thumped) on his door, the Incubus was coiled in his natural form and completely immersed in slime. It was not an activity he partook in when he knew he had anywhere to be, or anyone to meet because the stuff frankly took some time to dry off.

The circular pool in the boil's room was the size of a small swimming pool and was filled to the brim with a slightly iridescent, mostly transparent purple-black slime and it was in the depths of this he floated. So suspended, he wasn't sure he heard the first thump on the wood, but when more followed and Holly's words reached him, he opened his eyes, pupils narrowing to slits as his brain pulled itself out of its stupor.

She sounded like she was in trouble, there was something not quite right about her tone and the urgency of her words.

He was up out of the slime in a single fluid leap, claws digging into the stone as he bounded the few meters to the door, opening it with his tail in a single movement.

The sight that greeted the warder would be a huge, slime covered wide eyed Incubus with his hackles up, ready for combat, hissing throatily.

".....what....issss it?" he asked, the adrenaline slowly ebbing away, replaced with sheer confusion and perhaps a hint of embarassment."Are you alright?"
 

[The Semblance of Unity]

When Zar opened the door, Hollandaise bobbled unsteadily and almost careened into the slimy incubus. Her eyes widened dramatically as she looked at him. For all the times they'd picked at each other on Critter, she hadn't actually seen him very often. His size was shocking and normally, she might be put off by the hissing and the raised hackles. By his general air of danger. Instead, she giggled and poked him in the shoulder. The scrap of cloth that had been in her hand stuck to his skin for just a moment before oozing down.

"Weh," she squeaked out. "You're all... sticky." Dilated pupils fixed on his for a moment as she shook her hand, sending a small glob of slime into the hallway. Wrinkling her nose, she shouldered past him into his room. It was large and black and kind of imposing, she supposed. Suitable. There was a pool and she paused for a moment, debating the merits of using it. But no! She was here on a mission! Hollandaise turned and tripped, landing face down in a mess of pillows. But, like a daisy, she immediately popped back up, eyes searching intently. If she'd stayed down, the temptation to sleep would have been overpowering.

"Zar," she said mock-seriously, a smile twitching at the corners of her lips. She tripped back to him, and placed her hands on either side of his face. Hollandaise did not blink. "Where is p***k? And why are you covered in slime?" These were very, very important questions.

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

Zar blinked in surprise as Holly wobbled and almost fell into him, immediately turning his attention to keeping a lock on his innate predatory drive. Anything moving in an erratic way, stumbling or off-balance caught his attention like a cat watching a bird. Even knowing that the ghoul wasn't actually viable prey, his instincts tensed and coiled regardless. He did not seem to pay the cloth any attention, his eyes fixed on her as he looked over his shoulder.

Rolling said shoulders, he closed the door with his tail and turned to eye the pile of pillows and their current occupant. Something was very very wrong with the normally serious ghoul.

It took him a few moments to realize he'd been asked a question. "p***k?" he asked. "....oh."

He inclined his head in the direction of a ledge under the only window in the room where the healthy looking cactus sat. "There."

The mention of slime made him pause again and look down at himself. "Oh." he said, and sudden, wrenching embarrassment made itself known. The slime was not something he flaunted in any way, it disgusted him and he was more than a little ashamed that it existed at all. "I.. it's.. it's good for my skin and fur." he said, which was true, if not the whole truth of the matter.

He really wanted to shift out of his natural form to at least get rid of some of the viscous stuff that dripped onto the floor, but even that was going to be complicated. He hadn't actually been wearing anything when he shifted. He would have to find a way to subtly wrangle a robe.

"I was in my pool." he said and pointed at the slime pool. "I was not expecting you. .....are you ok?"
 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"No one expects the me." She waved him off indignantly. She was here now, and that is clearly what mattered. "I am unexpectable." That was a word, right? If not, if was a word now because she was just used it. Hollandaise nodded vigorously in agreement with herself. Whatever Amarus had given her made it terribly hard to think heavy thoughts - so she did a lot of agreeing with herself. She tottered backwards over to p***k, keeping her eyes on Zar. And so, she hit the windowsill with a thump and nearly knocked the poor p***k off.

"Oh," she said, blinking like a startled owl. Hollandaise had taken this long to process anything other than slimy Zar. "You're all... long and stuff. Rideable, although I did not bring any reins. Or the muzzle!" Her face crumpled for a moment and she twisted her dress in her hands before stilling. She made a small noise of discontent and turned around to face p***k, cradling its pot in both hands. Her golden eyes flared once, twice, multiple times - each time dimming after only a few seconds. Hollandaise squinted hard at the cactus. It looked healthy, but she could not hear it. The drug she'd taken had dramatically reduced her ability to concentrate and focus was the key to plant speech. She stood there for several minutes, swaying lightly, staring at it.

Abruptly, she turned, an over dramatic frown on her face. "No, I am NOT OKAY." Hollandaise's voice was nearly a wail. Her eyes glowed once more before she set the cactus down on the sill. "Well, I am mostly okay, but I cannot talk to your cactus Zar and what if it is unhappy. Plants need me, only plants love me but I can't talk to them right now and it is the worst. Amarus gave me the thing so I took it, but then all I could think about was this poor little cactus and you trying to sexual congress with it! This is your fault." Her words were rushed and she swayed even more with each phrase. It wasn't his fault, could not possibly be his fault. It was, as usual, her own fault. She had felt so unhappy and so tired of everything. Amarus had said that the little vial would help and it sort of did.

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

Zar really was concerned about the ghoul. She seemed like she'd been drugged or something along those lines, perhaps inebriated. He found it deeply distracting, all of his instincts were tuned towards incapacitated prey being prey at the very moment when he needed to strike the hardest. He didn't want to bite Holly when she was being so friendly, and he really did not think she would appreciate him trying to eat her either.

Thankfully, she wasn't looking at him, she was paying attention to the cactus, which meant he got an actual chance to look at her instead.

"I am always technically rideable" he offered.

When she seemed upset that she couldn't talk to his cactus, he gave her a strange sort of look. "Perhaps you could never talk to plants, perhaps it was all some kind of delusion and only now the haze has cleared. Maybe ...whatever has happened to you has made you sane. You seem a lot more rela-" and then that name registered. Amarus. She really was high as a kite it seemed.

That did not make him relax at all.

He made his way nearer, a lazy effortless kind of stroll that clicked his talons and hooves on the stone floor. His smile in this form reached all the way to his ears. "I did not harm the cactus in any way." he said, in an amused sort of croon. "And you would know if I had tried anything on it. Even if it couldn't talk."

Moving a little nearer his tail curled behind him, all muscle and tension. He tilted his head. "I think you should pay less attention to the cactus' happinessss and look a little harder at your own."
 

[The Semblance of Unity]

She let out a gusty sigh, allowing his remark about rideability pass for now. "The cactus is more important. I have taken out my happiness and turned it over in my hands, examined it and found it lacking. I only screw things up, Zar, I cannot fix things. I am not made of good enough parts to be able to be enough and so I am lacking. It makes sense you see - that my happiness is also lacking. Mediocrity attracts only mediocrity and worse, but you wouldn't know." Hollandaise looked at her hands as she spoke, the words flying fast from her mouth with no room for breath. Despite that, her tone was light, as though she might have been discussing the weather or debating joining the fearleaders. Her fingers clenched and unclenched as she spoke and then they began to tap along her thigh. One, two, three, one, two three.

She walked over to him, the movement surprisingly much more graceful than her previous wobbles. (She only seemed unbalanced once.) In this moment, all instinct s of self-preservation had flown out the window and so she stood exceedingly close to him. "Of course I can speak to plants!" She crossed her arms under her chest, offended that he'd even asked. Er, not asked - insinuated, flat out said, which was much, much worse. "You could've harmed that poor baby in some unseeable way! I don;'t know all your nefarious truicks." Hollandaise chewed on her lip for a moment before jabbing one finger at him.

"And don't you smile at me, Zar. You're all teeth and jaws right now and probably have a tongue a foot long like this." She stuck her own tongue out. It was not particularly long at all. "Hmph. Uncouth. You're so wiggly right now; I find it quite distracting. Why aren't you more upright? Do you really wish to be ridden? And is your tail even longer like this? Hm." She poked it briefly with one toe, feeling a shiver run up her foot into her leg. Normally, she would find him quite intimidating, but everything felt just... less than usual. Hollandaise felt vaguely invincible and is someone had convinced she could suddenly breathe underwater, she would've happily drowned. She hummed lightly and poked him again.

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

Zar was grateful that his present form was not one for expressions other than broad, intent grinning because Holly's rapid comment nailed him uncomfortably in emotions that he did not want to think about normally. "I would know." he said, and his tail froze momentarily in its waving. He knew mediocrity in the most intimate fashion, he wore it on his very body, everything about him was grey, black or white, colourless and emblematic of the worthless middle ground he'd inhabited his whole life. He had nothing that he didn't simple eke out from the scraps belonging to other people. "But you are just fine. And not mediocre. I have no interest in creeple who are mediocre." Because he aimed impossibly high always, because even though he did not literally dream often, he dreamed.

Once again she was in his space, close enough he couldn't just snap her up.. but no. He wasn't interested. She wouldn't even taste good, too much plant. She was much better for the sake of argument. Still. He could smell her and taste her on the air this close, it was different but it wasn't entirely off-putting.

At the comment about his tongue he seemed to brighten. "Oh its more than a foot." he offered, and opening his jaws he extended his tongue to over a curling meter before he withdrew it again. "A lot more."

He wasn't expecting her to touch his tail, it took him off guard, the contact blossoming into a cocktail of Zar's emotions, mingled predatory inclinations and self consciousness. But most of all, it lashed out, seizing the offending leg and throwing looped coils about it.

"Shhhhhht" Zar hissed in irritation. "Don't. Ssstruggle. I'm sseriousss."

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Perhaps if she had been in full possession of her faculties, perhaps if it had been any other person but Zar, or perhaps if Hollandaise had ever been more inclined to believe - she might have found some comfort in his words, in his assertion that she was not mediocre after all. But she did not believe, and so did not respond with anything other than a noncommital noise. Later maybe, after her embarrassment faded (because she would remember everything in horrible, horrible detail), the warder could take out his words and lock them away to look at again went she felt sad. Hollandaise could almost trick herself into believing them then. But now, she was not herself, and words didn't matter.

A horrified giggle escaped her at his very, very long tongue. Hollandaise wrinkled her nose and almost reached out to touch it, wondering how different it would feel from her own. Instead, she shrieked as his tail moved, looping around her leg. Strange emotions flickered through her - animalistic things, a sort of wary anxiousness. Blinking, she giggled. It was weird, she thought, and felt very smooth against her, and she was not afraid. Hollandaise had touched his tail and she could cross that off her list. Now, she just needed to give him the muzzle. Oh, and she'd said she would bite him. Another fit of giggles bubbled in her chest.

"Why not struggle?" Hollandaise singsonged. With a side-long glance at Zar, she tried to tug her leg free with a jerk. Then another.

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

Zar was walking an absolute razor edge of self restraint at that moment. Normally, it was fine. Holly was not his traditional prey, there was something alien and unappetizing about plants in general. Right now though, it didn't matter, all that mattered was the way she was stumbling around and the fact that she had touched his tail.

The tightrope couldn't last and as the ghoul yanked on his tail the instincts outpaced the restraint. He twisted and leapt, his tail curling up with more intent, throwing his weight over to try - with a vicious hiss - to pin the ghoul.

"Becaussssssssssse"

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Quite suddenly, Hollandaise was no longer upright. Zar's tail had yanked her down just as he surged forward, effectively toppling the already unsteady ghoul. In the space between breaths, she was pinned underneath a very large, ominously hissing demon. The breath left her in a giant whoosh, prompting a few near-silent giggles. His floor was kind of chilly, although he wasn't - the sensation was weird. Dimly, she thought that maybe she should be the tiniest bit frightened. But she wasn't. Her nose wrinkled at him and her ears twitched.

"Becaussssse-" she tried his hiss on for size; it didn't suit her, so she discarded it with a barely stifled laugh. "-you'll pin me? And do what - be my blanket? Jack, Zar, you're getting me slimy!" She smiled in a kind of hazy amusement. Just then, a glooping string of slime dribbled down onto her nose and lips. Hollandaise jerked back, head connecting loudly with the ground. Creaking loudly, she shot Zar a glare. "It's dripping all over me!" Abruptly, she began to wriggle in earnest, thin fingers curling around his front legs in an attempt to get enough leverage to slide herself out from underneath him. Not because she was afraid, but because she could feel her dress getting slick.

She bared her teeth back at him, which were, admittedly, much less ferocious that Zar's jaws. "I will bite you," she warned. After all, she'd already gotten the goop in her mouth (and it hadn't tasted bad, she guessed, just kind of weirdly Zar-like, so she had to hate it on principle). If his tail were closer, it would be the ideal biting spot - it looked much more vulnerable that the rest of him.

Banefull

 

[Baneful]

Zar was disorientated for a split second, out of his own thoughts and somewhere else, as addled as she was, drinking in the distant echoes of her emotions and the fuzzy edges around them. He was a predator, as close to monster as a demon ever got, his nose full of her and his thoughts full of predation. She was all his, a warm, living breathing creature who he spent so much of his day wishing he could control and dominate.

Even her struggling made it worse, like a cat faced with a suddenly wriggly mouse, her threats reassuring him this was right this was what he was supposed to be doing, this was...

This was completely nuts. He would get in so much trouble.

With a sharp, panicked intake of breath, Zar yanked back from her, skidding on the slime on the floor and releasing her as he wavered in shape, as he shifted back to his pinned form, slipped and fell on the pillows stark naked, hurriedly pulling his enormous wings about him like a makeshift cloak to conceal himself. The look he gave her was wide-eyed, but not in the same way the massive natural form had looked at her, his breathing fast and panicked.

"S...sorry." he stammered, curling his hooves under him and his tail about him. "I'm sorry about that. Sorry. I told you not to touch it." he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and exhaled, seemingly unfussed by his nudity now he was wearing his wings. "You aren't in your right mind, you know." he said.

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Suddenly the demon shoved himself away, shifting hurriedly into his pinned form. As his tail uncoiled from her, Hollandaise caught a flash of panic, of predator, of things that didn't quite register. In her haze-filled mind it was all simply another amusing thing. Picking her head up off the floor, she watched him unblinkingly as he fell ungracefully into his own pillows. She had done that very same thing earlier! The thought brought a brilliant smile to the ghoul's face. The smile faded quickly as she realized his state of undress.

"You're naked... and smaller." Nudity was not something that really bothered Hollandaise; she'd seen Deszeld nude before, and while the warders in her forest usually had understated sexual characteristics, they still wandered about in the bare minmum. But this was Zar, and he'd sent her that shocking photo. Her eyes had only caught a flash, but it looked like the photo and reality were similar. She closed her eyes in remembrance (because a warder could never really forget), groaned, and hoisted herself up off of the hard floor. With the slime, he couldn't really have carpets - and it was very elegantly demon-looking, if not exactly comfortable.

As Hollandaise stood, her ragged dress slapped wetly against her thighs, prompting a horrified giggle. On unsteady feet, she moved around his room, skirting the slime pool. Still, Hollandaise leaned over to look into it and almost fell. A startled creak erupted out of her, but she scooted quickly to his dresser, floor feeling slick under her grasping toes. He messed up her dress, so he could replace it. Hollandaise hummed slightly off-tune as she ran a long-fingered hand down his dresser before rifling through his drawers. Fine fabrics, soft, even weaves: as expected of demonic elite. "Do you only own frilly things?" Plucking out a suitable candidate, she pulled off her dress and dropped it with a wet plop. The air caused goosebumps to spring up along her arms and legs and she hurriedly pulled it on, bundling up her gross hair into a messy twist. She careened into the dresser as she did so, before quickly righting herself. His shirt was big enough that it reached her thighs, the ruffles on the sleeves covering her fingers entirely. It would do. As an afterthought, she grabbed something for Zar, too.

She balled up the robe and tried to toss it at Zar's head. At very least, Hollandaise hoped it would ring around one of his horns. It was kind of a game and they were large and there, anyway. With a huff, she flopped down in the pillow pile next to him, nearly losing her balance again. His apology had caught Hollandaise off guard and she blinked owlishly at him. Even smaller, he was still much, much larger than she, and something akin to jealousy shivered down her spine. "What're you sorry for? Nothing happened. Well... you got me slimy, I guess. My poor clothes. I don't own very many... In fact, I'm not even sure why Merry said your tail was so jackdamn great." With a derisive snort, she crossed her arms briefly before leaning on him and yawning. Ignorance was bliss; Hollandaise had no idea how close Zar had been to biting her.

"The point," she said airily, as if she were explaining something to a very small child. "-was to forget things that were 'gnawing' on me for a time. And it worked! I'm sure if you asked, Amarus could give you something too. To fix the arrogant bits for a bit. Though you look like you could buck up." She giggled and beamed another smile at him, tucking a pillow under her bare legs. Idly, she wondered when, or if, the lotus drug would wear off. But, like most thoughts of the moment, it flew out of her head before she could think on the implications of anything. Nothing really mattered right now, anyway.

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

"Yes. Quite." Zar said uncomfortably at the statement of his nakedness. Incubi and Succubi were supposed to wear nudity like a crown, with confidence and pride. He did no such thing, to this day uncomfortable by being unclad, even in his natural form he would have preferred to wear something to keep himself modest, a ridiculous notion with fur to do that job but one that dogged him all the same. "My apologies." Still, he couldn't take his eyes off of her as she helped herself to his clothing. He didn't stop her, simply raised a brow as she removed her dress, looking her over more in curiosity than any sort of lechery. He knew very little about her kind and plants in general.

He did get rather flustered despite himself at how she looked in his shirt, hurriedly looking away just in time for the robe to end up over his head.

Ungainly and distracted he untangled it from his horns, one of which ended up in the arm. He donned it hurriedly. "Mostly frilly things. It.. it is expected."

He sat on his tail forcefully pinning it under his weight. "Merry had rather intimate knowledge of my tail." he explained. "Most of the time is is indeed a bore and a dangerous thing." He put a wing around her absently as she leaned against him, the posture.

"Amarus did give me something. I still have it in my possession. I learned the hard way that if you run from the things that are gnawing on you long enough they will catch you in the end or you will be running for so long you forget how to stop. I face my problems head on now, even if they hurt. I make my own way in the world, because it is important to fight now. Its important to fight or the world will consume you."

Mercifully this change of topic had pulled his attention away from trying to eat Holly or seduce her. He was back to being concerned about her (though he'd never admit it) "What sort of things does a warder worry about?"

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Hollandaise froze for a moment when his wing stretched protectively around her before her shoulders relaxed. Take everything as it came, she thought - it wouldn't do to think terribly hard, after all. "Your tail does not seem so very dangerous. I am disappointed, you realize- The frills, though, I suppose they are cute. Do you like them?" She remembered the last time someone had wrapped their wing around her. The last times. Mathias with his warm, falsely-offered feathers, Deszeld covering her with one wing when the warder slept, surrounded by content plants in a large, comfortable bed. Nothing like her own narrow bed. The corners of her mouth twitched and turned down. No, no - she wanted, she needed, light-hearted nothings and escapes. But Zar wanted sadness. With deliberate slowness, she untangled her fingers from where they had clutched at each other.

"Did you know," she said conversationally, head tilting to peer up at Zar before she glanced down again. Her hair was twisted up, and could provide no comforting curtain. Idly, her fingers began to tap up and down his arm, and between taps they sketched out swirls and curlicues against his grey skin. "-that I still need to count the shadows when I go anywhere? That entering my own room is an exercise in courage? Even now..." She inhaled deeply and held it for several moments before speaking, feeling that breath burn in the bottom of her lungs. "Maybe, once there was a ghoul. She was stupid and knew nothing and could not learn. Maybe there was hound... and he dogged her steps and haunted her room and in every shadow he was there. And maybe her door still has his claw marks and maybe she cannot sleep because of it. But she was not good enough to know how to stop him, she was not good enough to keep from ruining her own friendships, she was not good enough to fix everything she'd broken. And maybe she tried, but she couldn't understand anyone and maybe there was a sharp pain in her chest when she thought. Maybe she was too stupid to be here, maybe no one wanted her. So, she wanted to forget, maybe, for just a little bit. Forget and just - not think."

There was a shaky breath and when she looked at Zar again, her eyes were a bright gold, shinier than normal, although she would not cry. Never in front of someone. Abruptly, her breath hitched and she waved her be-frilled arms around dramatically, nearly smacking him in the head. "But I am Zar and I never have problems because I am so awesome. ...What problems could you have? Nevertheless, you should drink the thing right now anyway. And doesn't sitting on your tail hurt?" The string of question were a desperate attempt at distraction. Hollandaise stared intently at him, desperately thinking it might be more fun if both of them were loose, and maybe Zar would stop asking her painful questions.

Banefull

sorry for sudden secret spilling haha