[PRP] Dead Devil Hills (BarthxZar)

[Toshihiko Two]

Spookday was the very last of the excursions, and Barth had been intentional in his selection of activities. That the human equivalent was Sunday was his own private joke. Zar, he knew, was probably only upset about the placement.

The drive was two hours out, closer to the coast, and although Barth had only done mornings about twice in his verifiably long lifetime, they set out while it was still dark. Barth was barely functional enough to drag his way to the carriage.

He slept against Zar on the way over.

Barth had been secretive about their destination with Zar, but had told Grimhold and advised him to bring a very broad umbrella and some reading.

When they finally stopped, it was (with some surprise to anyone who knew Barth) at a set of sand dunes. Very large sand dunes. Dunes without elevators. Wind blew fiercely over the top. The ocean was a few miles out, and once past the stubby grasses the dipping hills seemed to roll on their own. The sky was beginning to turn orange.
 

[Baneful]

Zar had been trained for a long time to be a morning creature and still when stressed tended to lapse into insomnia. He was very very stressed at present and had been for most of the time at the cottage he'd mentally dubbed "the cage". Getting out should have been better, it wasn't. Out in the carriage he had time to worry once again about what perils awaited him at the hands of his parents.

He still put a wing around the other demon and curled his warm soft tail across his lap. He hadn't missed the significance of the day, but had assumed it was nothing but coincidence, projecting his own intellectual laziness onto Barth.

He raised a brow at the dunes and at the ocean off in the distance. Curiosity knotted up with an excitement he barely allowed to bloom in him. He didn't want to be excited, it was pathetic. But it was beautiful in a way that books and endless paperwork had never been, incidental and changing. And it didn't make sense for Barth to be here, grand places were too much distance.

"Is this right?" he asked and curiosity bloomed through the link.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

Barth struggled to answer. He was not a demon who watched sunrises. They were here to take advantage of the cool and indirect light. He wasn't sure how long Zar would want to stay, but meals had been packed.

He tried to cross the divide between his fully capable sleeping self and the waking world.

"Yes," he decided softly, barely moving his lips.

"Dead Devil Hills," Grimhold announced, with some satisfaction. He steadied the carriage, dismounting and patting its side. The carriage creaked, clicking its wheels as it squatted in the sand. He watched the distant and rising sun with some suspicion.

"Not as ominous as the name implies," Barth said, gravity sinking him completely horizontally into Zar's lap. He moved his arm over his eyes, blocking the light.  

[Baneful]

Zar to his own deep embarrassment was a demon who watched sunrises and it took some degree of effort to tear his eyes away from the horizon and to re-ground himself with more decorum, still trying to push down the childish curiosity and excitement that rebelled in him.

The name did sound ominous to say the least and he gave the other demon a fleeting raised brow, tensing almost imperceptibly before relaxing once again as Barth reclined into his lap, helpfully splaying his wing to obligingly shade him, the light illuminating a lightning storm of intricate veins in the membranes.

"It is fairly ominous." he said, and found himself against his own will thinking about that vision, the tiny stunted excuse for a creature that was all he'd become in that other world simply fading away into nothing without even the imagination to choose a place like this.

He was not normally one for idle affection, it was a weakness in itself, but if he was honest he felt weak these last few days and indulgence was not the worst he could do. He gently and subtly ran his hand along the swooping sinuous curves of the other demon's horns.

"Do I get to ask why?" he said.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"I had-" and here Barth yawned, "promised you a beach vacation. Once upon a time. But- mm-" he raised the arm slightly, using the shade and dark Zar supplied instead.

"These dunes have...a unique property, that I think..." and he tried not to doze, but he did for a little while.

"You'll like," he managed. There was no malice or undercurrent of threat. "Besides the hike. We do have to go up them. And the sand...I'm not really built for it. But...sorry, it's early."

He still had not opened his eyes.

"Would you mind? I think....once we're up, you'll get the idea. I wouldn't be recommending hills, if it weren't for- the unique..."

Barth trailed off, losing his train of thought.  

[Baneful]

Zar was unhurried and patient, waiting on every word with a comfortable sort of ease, seeming to realign himself with some looser easier pace. Even subtle functions like the pace of his breath, the blinking of his eyes and his twin hearts slowed subtly. The sensation was always liberating, a natural function but one which blossomed an easy satisfaction in him.

"You did." he agreed. "It was an agreed perk, one that I expected you to forget." Except he seemed to forget things more often than Barth did, in fact Barth seemed to have a very good memory. Speed was not an indicator of efficiency.

He slithered his tail a little more firmly around the other demon and holding him close, carried him in his arms in a way that was getting rather familiar at this point. Walking did not bother him and he stepped out of the carriage with only the most subtle regret to be leaving the shelter from the breeze. It forced him to fold his wings more firmly lest they be blown off balance.

"Did you have a direction in mind?" he asked, "Or will any dune suffice?"

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"The first one. Any. There's..."

"A blanket. Under the seat."

Barth was glad to be carried. He slumped over, back to sleeping on and off. The sand was cool, and the skies opened with color. Zar would find the breeze increasingly difficult to combat.  

[Baneful]

Zar picked up the blanket and tucked it in his ever useful tail next to Barth. His hooves were not particularly suited for sand, a lot of his effort in walking simply slipping away into the dunes. He leaned forward into the breeze as he went, struggling to keep his wind resistance down and to keep going. He might have been irritable if the sky wasn't so distracting, as it was all he was was determined.

He made his way to the nearest dune to them, scaling it with the kind of determination that goats display when scaling anything.  

[Toshihiko Two]

The wind was most insistent at the very top. Zar could see the extent of the dunes now, how they troughed and peaked. The hill sloped gently and invitingly. The soft sand that made the struggle up so difficult was, too, ideal.

Zar would feel a certain peaceful satisfaction from the other demon.

"A little better than a cliff, isn't it?" Barth asked. "They fly kites out here, you know."  

[Baneful]

"Better than a cliff for what?" he asked uncertainly before giving the other demon a puzzled look. "We don't have any kites either."

His lacking imagination did not tie easily to ambition.

"But it is beautiful." And it was, the brisk air making him want to just lean into it, the way it swept around his horns somehow satisfying. "Why would you want to come out here though?"  

[Toshihiko Two]

"No. I brought you instead. A little bigger than a kite. But the physics are the same."

He didn't answer the cliff question any more directly than that. Zar was a creature of instinct.

"Even if they don't work, you won't find a better place to try it."  

[Baneful]

Zar found himself self consciously pulling his wings tighter at even the thought of using them.

"But... I'd just fall. I'll look like a fool." Barth got pulled a little closer as if he was a living security blanket. And the link said, even if he did not state it out loud that there was no one else he was more anxious about seeing his weaknesses, even after everything.  

[Toshihiko Two]

Barth made a truly selfless offer.

"If you need me to...sleep through the first few tries, I will."

He followed up, quieter.

"The sand won't cushion... pride, I'm afraid, but- you won't. Even if you fall."  

[Baneful]

Freeing one hand, he took the blanket and flipped it out onto the sand before putting Barth down on it.

Pride was something had been all but bred into the Incubus, held in highest esteem in his family and at home. He was a terrible demon and was convinced that if he didn't have his pride he did not have anything at all to hide behind. But Barth's comment steeled him, despite himself, even if it was hollow reassurance - which it might have been - he wanted to believe it.

"You can if you want. It does not actually matter." he said, stepping carefully over to where the sand heaped up in a precipice of sorts. He looked dubious, it was a long way down even if it was cushioned with sand.

Rubbing his temples he carefully unfurled his wings, the long razor topped fingers uncurling from where he'd had them clenched like knuckles out of of the way. Immediately his membranes caught the breeze like a sail, forcing him to stagger backwards before almost on reflex he leaned forwards instead and found himself curling his wings in a way that meant it wouldn't be so uncomfortable, almost like blinking on a reflex.

He was startled as the movement of the air had him standing on the very tip of his hooves, lifting him off his feet. Panicking at the sensation he closed his eyes and jumped and found himself flapping his wings on sheer instinct. He did not land on the sand immediately below the overhang but instead went much further than he'd expected, crashing to the sand only when he started over thinking how it felt.

Picking himself up, he looked back at where the other demon was, a long way off if he had to walk around the dunes. He set his jaw, heartened and giddy at the relative success of his initial leap and rather than walk around, he took a run up and a jump, this time snapping his wings out at the last minute and flapping crazily, at first bobbing erratically before climbing up and up, undignified and desperate but nevertheless not falling.

When he found himself above Barth, he did not actually know how to land and so just folded his wings again and dropped like a stone, landing with a sandy thump next to the other demon and just laying there for a few moments, not sure what had even just happened and if it could ever by any stretch of the imagination be considered flight.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

Barth reclined on the blanket, heavy enough to keep the whole thing from sailing off after Zar.

He did sleep in spite of himself, but he caught a few of Zar's movements.

Barth smiled sleepily at the other demon, resting his head in his arms.

"Better than walking back up, hm?"

He moved slowly, to kiss the joint where Zar's wings met his shoulders. There was a buzz of brief, relaxing fear.