Chapter Text
The prophecy foretold of a lamb.
It foretold of five turning to four, to three, to two, to one, then nothing. A vision of the future, where a lamb brings an apocalypse to the gods.
Killing them, bringing destruction, and creation unto this place of existence. A new age of old faith. Freeing the God of Death from his chains.
The moment his siblings saw the inkling of the future, Narinder was in their crosshairs. There was no sense in avoiding fate; the Five to Four had become true the moment they thought it best to lock him away in his domain. He wonders if they could have avoided this fate if they had never been aware of it. He wonders if they too, had this doubt.
Each lamb was slaughtered. Hunted down, one by one. Those who tried to provide refuge and hide them were killed alongside them for heresy. There was no justification given, no explanation, at least not at the beginning. Gods did not need to explain themselves when they ensured genocide. Even though clearly, they are afraid. The sacrifice of a species was a necessity.
But The One Who Waits knew. He knew, so he waited. And thus the lamb came, in chains, with a tear-streaked face and blood dripping from a closing wound on their neck.
For the lamb, there is no bright light at the end of the tunnel. But it’s everywhere. Burning, searing into their eyelids until they open.
A tall deity, with two cats beside himself, coated in chains not unlike what wrapped around their own their own wrists. Three eyes, crimson, and blood hued with slit pupils stare back from the veil. The god looks satisfied with their arrival.
“Come closer. Fear not, for even though you are already dead, I still have need of you.”
His red crown is bestowed upon his vessel.
A temporary investment.
At first, the sword sits heavy in their hand like it weighs the same as the chain that accompanied them to their death. But it becomes easier to swing, the Lamb notices, as the bodies of those who sacrificed them moments prior are cut down. Fueled by anger, by grief. Revenge becomes a pacemaker for a recently resurrected heart.
The God of Death has commanded them to start a cult in his name, to kill every bishop that keeps him chained. They will do well, they can’t disappoint him. Even when they die to a lackey’s knife before they can truly begin does the God seem encouraging. And this continues because even a lamb’s rage cannot replace much-needed experience with a blade.
“Death is of little consequence.” Says the reaper. His vessel is quiet at his end, looking up at him with wide, reflective eyes. He knows the lamb is his ticket to freedom. Small, pitiful, wooly thing. A weak thing, but it will grow and learn. He will wait for as long as he needs for them to be. “Rise once more, vessel of mine. It matters not how many times you are struck down. The Cult shall continue to grow”
And it does. Slowly, but certainly. Trial and error are expected. Another previous vessel, a rat the god can hardly remember for a time has offered his assistance. So the lamb begins to show promise again, and they begin to slash down heretics as easily as they did with focus more than how they came back powered by memories of their first death. Wild swings become precision strikes. Clumsy luck becomes well-timed dodges.
It takes a month for the lamb to reach the temple in Darkwood and face Leshy’s wrath. He can watch through the eye, a sliver of a connection to the lamb while his brother sprouts vile insults and threats. He cannot see the lamb’s face, but there is a sensation he can’t pinpoint. A sliver of fear from them, maybe. Or the shake of rage. One can imagine how it feels to come face to face with one of your killers, and killer of the rest of your species.
Regardless, they do not speak of it. They do not answer Leshy’s rhetorical questions. A bow is given, and the lamb’s sword is summoned to their palm.
They die.
They die a lot.
It takes three days of persistence for the lamb to finally carve the heart out of the God of Chao’s chest.
They are no grand warrior, no absolute weapon to be unleashed unto his betrayers. Not yet, but they’re getting there. He expects them to fail many times as well as succeed, and he will reward each death with praise. He has enough patience for the vessel to learn its required skills. It is fated of them. There is no reason to rush. He will wait, as he expects to.
What the God of Death does not expect, however, is that the vessel has the tendency to be an informal, chatty, idiot.
“What happened to your arms?”
The One Who Waits pauses. The lamb had just died by the blade of an axe, ambushed by his sibling’s followers. An often occurrence that the lamb has gotten used to, quick to recover from, and learning quicker still. They’re no longer stomach-sick after resurrecting and know to be prepared to get right back to work once they return.
This time, however, the wooly creature stands straight and points directly to the cat’s elbow. “Were you born with them like that?”
“…That is not relevant to your mission.”
“I was just wondering.”
“Make your assumptions.” Says the cat, and the lamb does. He can see the metaphorical gears turning in their head even without reading their mind. He saw the other god’s injuries. The puzzle is not hard to put together. “On with you. You have much work to do.”
The lamb is resurrected and gone with a blink. His servants, the two black cats Aym and Baal, spare a glance at each other but say nothing.
The vessel dies to Heket’s witness once. He prepares a praise for them, some advice maybe. Mortals were fickle like that. They often needed reassurance that they were doing the correct thing. He would spare such words for a means to an end.
Except they are less interested in hearing his praise when they appear and a lot more compelled to tell him about the woes and meaningless things about how things are running with the cult.
“They don’t know how to cook or clean up after themselves, and they get sick because they don’t do either of those things. They hardly have any life skills.” The lamb sighs. It was immediate. They die, appear, and start spewing words before the God of Death can even utter a word. “It’s like they don’t want to take care of themselves.”
Not quite the reassurance The One Who Waits had prepared, but he can work with this. “That bond grows your cult. It creates reliance on you.”
Baal’s eyes flicker from master to the lamb. It’s not often the master takes to talking about things that don’t immediately further his plan, not with mortals, and especially not to listen to one whine.
“It sucks.” The lamb is frowning. “It creates dissenters of yours when I can’t meet their expectations.”
“Then meet their expectations, or kill them.” He suggests. “Or else should I find a new vessel for the crown?”
“You don’t have another vessel.” The lamb says plainly. “There are no other lambs.”
The god’s mouth curls into a frown. “You try my tolerance.”
The lamb opens their mouth to respond but finds themselves suddenly at the marked stone alive. The God of Death has resurrected them for being too annoying.
Anura is a pretty place that holds too many memories. Too many heretics too, and at some point, too many bishops in the same space. The God of Death feels his fur stand up on end in rage when three gods appear before the lamb within his sight. His siblings do not recognize his presence through the crown, but they recognize the lamb. And through the lamb, he listens and waits.
Heket demands that they bow, and pleasantly they refuse. Or at least, refusal in the form of blank staring. The lamb doesn’t react all that much to the god’s demands, really. They wait as he does, hand on the sword handle, a slight shake in their form that is either from fear, rage, or anticipation. Maybe all three.
The refusal enrages her, fuels her followers, and leaves them without a single break. They die on the third passage.
“Why do you look so different from your siblings?”
The lamb’s form isn’t even fully healed yet before they spew out the question. There’s a black scorch mark on their wool and fading bruises on their legs from the most recent death, disappearing as their body mends. The fleece with ripped ends stitches itself back together. None of which they observe, rather keeping their attention on the cat.
“We are different gods.” He answers, and that’s all he has to give.
“O-kay.” It doesn’t seem to satisfy him. The lamb’s gaze drops to his two feline warriors at his side before peering back up. “Do you all come from the same parents? Or is it like, metaphorical siblings.”
“You are becoming distracted.” The One Who Waits waves his hand, and the lamb is alive again somewhere else.
After Heket’s death comes Kallamar. It’s faster this time, the crusades have become routine and the trials have become easier. He watches through the eye as his brother makes his speeches. The feeling of their battle ghosts on the end of his fingertips, barely there. It sticks and lingers, never quite disappearing even as the Lamb goes still once more to the feet of the Bishop.
“Please know, it was not my idea to cast out the Red Crown! The other Bishops, my siblings, the blame lies with them.” Kallamar pleads, and The One Who Waits remembers wailing on his ears, cartilage that ripped easily by his claw. “Please, I beg you, spare me. Kill Shamura, but do not send me to my death. Do not send me to him!”
Coward. Liar.
He will receive the same fate as the others.
The lamb looks at Kallamar with the same unreadable expression, a small movement that the crown feels, and suddenly the god realizes what the lamb has been doing to his siblings.
Curtseying. A slight dip, barely, raising the edge of their fleece before taking arms. A show of respect, or maybe pity. Sympathy for the cowering god’s fear. Perhaps he has been misunderstanding what the lamb has been doing in front of his brothers and sister all this time.
Pathetic. Mortals should not sympathize with gods. The Lamb’s expression is hardened when Kallamar swings a sword down to aim for their head. The One Who Waits awaits the arrival of his brother with curled fingers and a soured tongue.
When they die once more, he keeps his concerns to himself. “Questions again?”
Immediately he is answered. “What happens to the followers that die? I don’t see them here.”
“They are taken care of.” The God of Death reassures. “Afterlife is kind to them.”
“And those I kill in crusades?” They ask, curious. A morbid sentence spoken with such genuine heart. “Dissenters?”
“Taken care of.” Hellfire, then. Eternal hellfire.
The lamb’s speech ends there, but it hovers. The One Who Waits watches the tongue in the sheep’s mouth move as they snap their jaws shut like they need to keep whatever sentence they were about to utter locked away. He senses his family’s names on the tip of the tongue, and finds the question weighed behind them when he pries open their mind, but it remains unspoken. A better judgment on their part for once.
Over the years, the lamb chooses strange doctrines.
They do not sacrifice often, if at all. This is…displeasing. Although their subjects are often willing when they do go, often fed stories of how their contribution is a help, their worship will grant them a place in the afterlife among paradise, their work not in vain (and these are not lies. He takes good care of his domain.) and still the lamb tells one of them (many of them) not yet.
Not yet, they say, until their lives were lived fully, and the would-be sacrifices are in wrinkled, smile-lined skin and feeble bones with one foot already in the grave.
When they die by Witness Alloncer’s hand in Silk Cradle, skewered in the abdomen by a spider’s leg, the God of Death brings them to his audience again and asks why.
“I was a sacrifice.” The lamb says. The sentence is punctuated with finality, as if that’s all that needed to be said.
It is not enough. Personal discomfort should not pose a barrier to pleasing your gods. The One Who Waits frowns behind the veil. “You are too soft.”
“I’m made of wool. I’m supposed to be.”
Baal makes a noise that the god has not heard in a long time, at least for many years. Aym glances towards his brother with slightly widening eyes, before both straighten their posture and their neutral look returns. For the sake of preventing a headache, he does not acknowledge the joke. “Maybe I should take that crown back.” He says. “And your head along with it.”
“Have you ever played Knucklebones before?” The lamb asks him, plain-toned. The threat is promptly ignored. “Ratau’s been teaching me, but I’ve been wanting to get some practice outside of him. He’s an okay teacher, but I think he cheats. Did you ever play with him?” A pause. “You know, since he was your last vessel and all I figured-”
“I knew what you implied.” The cat cuts him off.
The lamb blinks up at him, and speaks in a voice that isn’t so hostile, but confused. “So answer.”
If the chains weren’t holding him back, The One Who Waits would like to take his forefinger and thumb, and flick the lamb across the afterlife.
“No.” His mouth flattens. “I do not play mortal games.”
“You should learn how to do it. It would give you something to do while you’re here.” They continue talking, and talking, and talking. A gentle gesture is made towards the cat brothers, whose gazes dart to one another briefly while the lamb smiles. “Next time I can bring it and teach you guys. Or try to teach you. ”They gesture with their hands, some movement mimicking playing with dice. “I actually don’t know if I can take the pieces with me in here. I can have Ratua write down some instructions actually-”
“Lamb.”
“Yeah?” They look up. They are smiling in the face of death, hands in a paused motion in a gesture for play.
“Why do you speak instead of action.” The god’s voice is almost a hiss. A part of his throat long since gone without use becomes sore. “What use do you expect to give me with stories of a world and games I have no freedom to do with? You forget your place. You’re wasting my time, and my patience.”
The lamb flattens a little. Their ears droop, and their eyes turn somber. It feels like a victory almost. Arrogance runs in his godly veins as much as ichor does, but the feeling does not last for long. The lamb perks up, craning their head a little higher. “I thought ‘The One Who Waits’ was supposed to be the name of someone with lots of patience.”
He glares at them.
“Okay.” Their posture does not falter. The crown shifts into a sword, and three eyes of his squint at its usage being reduced to a tool to draw shapes into the sand. “Send me back when you’re ready."
He does not for a few minutes longer, but the air does go quiet as the vessel ceases to speak, busy with their drawn-out mock of a Knucklebones setup. The One Who Waits watches as the weapon that slaughters his siblings by his decree is made to show squares and fake dice in a drawn-out playing table at his feet. Aym’s pupils track the edge of the sword as it drags through the marks. Baal watches the scribbled words in the grain.
It is crude and ugly, yet it remains there unbothered. The lamb continues their work until the sword is sheathed back into a crown, and looks upon their handiwork before the God of Death promptly sends them back to life.
He could have done that at any time, long before the drawing in the middle of the lamb’s speech, each time before the lamb even lays eyes on him. He does not know why he didn’t.
The two beneath him stick to his side, naturally. But he sees their ears shift back.
“I care not for it.” The One Who Waits speaks, and it snaps ears and eyes back to him. Not often does the God of Death speak when the lamb is not present. There is little reason for him to do so. “Do what you will.”
Baal is the first to approach the writing in the ground, Aym second. They prod at the unfamiliar writing in the sand with the ends of their weapons, pushing away the wording and inspecting the fake boxes like kits. They are older, but the quiet curiosity they have looks like they are controlled by the ghosts of their younger selves.
Shamura is in a horrific state when they cross paths.
“He waits by the rocks of the darkened sea, at the foot of the long, sudden drop. Within the maw of pointed-teeth beasts, the stutter of the heart, then stopped… He was the fifth. The fifth Bishop of the Old Faith. Our brother, The One Who Waits. Back then he was known by the name Narinder.” Shamura speaks, words in paces. The lamb’s ears perk up, and stay raised as the bishop continues. “But as millennia wore on, he grew discontent with his role. He began to question. He was gluttonous in his ambition. And in my imprudence I loved him. For it, I lost my mind. For it, he lost his freedom.”
“Can you fathom such betrayal, Lamb? Of your own turned against you? Would you like to find out? He was the fifth. The fifth Bishop of the Old Faith. Our brother, The One Who Waits.” Shamura’s words roll over in the back of their throat. All of their eyes are trained on the lamb, who is focused on them, and the sight is reminded of how an older sibling would tell the younger one stories.
Shamura, even in the face of their death, attends to those smaller than them, and repeats the detail that holds the lamb’s attention. “Back then he was known by the name Narinder.”
It stings. The lamb blinks, and their mouth moves silently to mouth something that suspiciously feels like a test of his name.
Once the story is over, and his history is given as a parting gift in some sort of a morbid fashion, Shamura tells them to bow. The lamb smiles and courtesies instead, and the God of Death hisses in between his teeth. Shamura looks down at the lamb with six eyes and silence that lingers for a few moments. “I would have thought my brother had better taste.”
The lamb looks up, as does the crown’s eye. “I think he only has a taste for fish, actually. He likes it when I leave them in the offering box.”
They laugh at the end of their own joke. Shamura’s head tilts. The One Who Waits drags his hands across his cloaks to wipe them of an uncomfortable feeling, and turns away from the sight.
Shamura dies and Narinder does not look.
The lamb is summoned before him this time, without the smell of death coating its wool.
“The time is almost here.” He offers reassurance. “I admire your ability to succeed where others have failed. Soon, the red crown will return to me, and you will fulfill your duty-”
“What’s the first thing you’re gonna do when you get out?”
The lamb’s question is innocent, so innocent. This thing has killed gods, their followers, and monsters known only in nightmares in brutal manners. Died in even worse ways. Their question is informal, and it’s stance is without any semblance of worship. Their voice feels genuine. “Go fishing?”
All three eyes blink down at them. “Is this another joke? Such activities are beneath me.”
“I know of a place.” The lamb laughs. “Cats like fish, right? You always seem to like me leaving them in the offering chests.”
A crawling feeling drags up the back of the god’s neck, something that he has not felt before. It is not good nor bad, but the unfamiliarity of it makes his mouth turn downwards. “Gather more followers. The time is almost here."
Something akin to a disgruntled pout remains on their face as they’re sent back to their life. The casualness of it all was…unnerving.
Years pass, though they really only feel like weeks. The quirks of being an immortal god, and your vessel in the same manner. Narinder sees the world built through the crown’s eye; shelters are improved and given more privacy. Walls are fortified, gates around their compound. Curtains are turned into wooden doors, some even with locks so members can have their time away. Farming has years of drought, then great harvests, and medicine improves. Some cult members find one another and start families, generations of children that begin to grow grey hairs by the time the temple is upgraded. The shrine in the center is ever-flowing with devotion.
They must feel his presence when he starts to view through the crown, because some nights when the rest of the community is asleep, and it is only the lamb doing miscellaneous chores in the dead of night, do they stop their current busy work to set the crown down in the grass, and show it how to weave a flower crown of camellias.
They still ‘die’ sometimes. They come and visit him. They try and bring the crown with them once, and it wilts the moment it enters his domain.
The One Who Waits has decided to make the passing painless for the Lamb. For others, broken bones and the willing sacrifice of agony would have given him more power, but this lamb has earned a peaceful death. When the time comes, he will kill the Lamb quickly, without delay, and let them have a little corner in the afterlife for their duty to the crown. He wouldn’t consume them, but keep them. It was only fitting. It was only right.
Never let anyone tell you that the God of Death was not a just and merciful god.
When the time comes, The Lamb arrives. “Hi, Narinder!”
He did not give them permission to use that name. He does not punish them for it.
“I relinquish you from your service to the Red Crown. Return it to me, and embrace the end that awaits. With this last sacrifice of my most devoted Follower, I will be freed.” His chains are becoming loose. The influence of his siblings has dissipated, and the devotion of his cult has garnered him strength. He could reach them if he so chose. “You will be rewarded for your role.”
The chatty, talkative lamb is silent. They take the crown into their hands, and cradle it.
“The time is now. Relinquish the crown to me and give me your life. You’ve done well.” A large, bony and ichor-stained hand comes to the top of the sheep’s head and touches their wool, something he has never been able to do before due to the chains that bound him, but no more. Immortality has seeped into their soul thanks to his influence. His touch does not end them, but a finger pats their head in a gentle manner that Death has learned only from watching through the crown, and mimicking the lamb.
The lamb is quiet. Narinder stares down the little god killer, retracts his hand and waits. It is a full minute before they speak.
“I’m sorry.” Says the lamb, settling the crown on the top of their head once more. “I can’t do that.”
…
…
...The traitor lamb draws their sword.
They die.
They die again
And again.
And again
…
…
…
Black ichor and the red hue from hell in his skin. Eyes that purge from his skull and demand repentance for betrayal. Followers of the old faith strung up in his domain. His teeth ache for the meat of a traitor. His claws find purchase in red sand and drag the white of the wool of his sacrificed vessel across hell until they find an opening, and chip away at the strength he’s gathered for over a thousand years.
Anger. Anger. Anger.
The lamb dies. Bloodied. Crushed. Mutilated.
The lamb is persistent.
They can fail as many times as they want, but they only need to beat him once.
…
…
…
Narinder wakes up on cold stone.
The world is blurry and vision has not come to him clearly. The sockets of his skull ache, and his body feels alien. Unusual. His fur feels on edge, the clothing to on his skin feels lighter than the weighted robes he used to wear, and the eye on his forehead is shut tight with pain. The strength he’s been gaining from the lamb’s actions was sapped, halved, barely strong enough to keep him upright as the mind adjusts and he takes in what is happening, but he can't. There is a pressure, a force, pressing down on his chest and making it tight, and the body he takes is forced to make an expansion of his ribcage at rapid motion.
Breathing, he thinks. He’s breathing. Something the god of death simply does not do, and not at a rapid rate like this.
He looks down to his claws and sees not chains, but fur and the edge of scars on his skin. The flesh on his wrists is raw there, covered in ichor. His blood is dark, and it drips down to the stone beneath his feet, staining it’s markings that decorate its surface.
No.
He knows this stone.
A shadow covers him. “---ider?”
Blood and ichor. Payment for betrayal.
“Narinder?”
He has been stripped of everything. He was robbed of power. He has become nothing.
Five becomes four becomes three becomes two becomes one becomes nothing.
“Narinder?” The shadow hovers closer, crouches in front of him, and a soft hand comes to rest on his shoulder. “Deep breaths. Inhale, exhale.” They say, and make an example of it while three eyes lift up from the grass to the being. “Breathe slowly. Hold it for a second, then let it out. Inhale, exhale.”
His usurper, the Lamb, with a face framed by soft wool is clean of blood and ichor and dawning his crown. The lamb’s hand and fleece is starting to become dirty with the ichor bleeding from the wounds on his wrists and eyes, pooling around at their feet. His traitor smiles gently and offers him a hand to stand up like he’s seen them do hundreds of times. Anger.
Narinder lunges.
“You vile, miserable thief!” Gasps come from around them as he tackles the lamb, suddenly aware of the few followers that were watching the transgression, but he has little care as they drop to the soil, hands wrapped around their neck as their eyes fly open. Narinder squeezes, teeth bared, hissing anger. “You’ve stolen from me! You’ve stolen from your god! You pathetic traitor soul will be flayed after I skin you! You’ll rot for eternity!”
Surprise coats the lamb’s face, (or, at least something akin to it) as their hands fly up to their wrists. Pain echoes when their fingers touch the bleeding scars from where the chains held place, but his grip stays locked into the lamb’s throat even as they start to pry him upwards. “I’ll make you wish you were never born!”
Suddenly, arms and hands come around his body. Narinder is lifted, albeit only briefly. Anger surges through him as one hand leaves the lamb’s throat and comes to slash at his attack. Claws he hasn’t used in years are sharpened by fur and flesh as it shreds the chest of the ox behind him, said mortal releasing their grip and stumbling back, hands coming up to a bleeding wound.
The lamb beneath him is almost drowned out by the screams of some cult members, one hand reaching out to the ox, one lifting the remaining of Narinder’s wrist. Their yell cracks. “Wait-!”
Narinder’s free hand comes up, teeth bared, and his claws extend for the lamb’s face. It never drops; another set of arms and yelling mortals grab him by the tunic, and with a hard pull he is removed from the attack. “Vile, disgusting lamb! Putrid! Traitor! You’re nothing but a false prophet and soul bred for sacrifice!”
The mortals that hold him back are struggling, it takes several, some of them calling out for help. Narinder is weak, greatly so compared to his past form, but in a moment of rage-fueled clarity, the cat’s hands reach up to grip a mortal that has one of his shoulders and grasp them tightly. Incoherent screaming starts from behind him and rings in his ears. The fingers in his palm shake, then try and pull away, but the skin begins to corrode rapidly until the fingers pull away at the joints and fall into his grip, dropping to the ground.
Rot? Decay?
Oh, good.
It happens all in milliseconds long before the time the lamb is even able to stand back up. Narinder swivels his torso to face the rabbit that holds a grasp of his tunic, claws digging into the side of the hare’s cheek. Fingers puncture by the temple, a thumb between their eyes. The follower releases a blood-curdling scream, body paralyzed with pain as the others drop him out of fear while Narinder starts to rot and render the flesh away from their skull-
“That’s enough!”
A shadowed hand comes, wrapping around him completely, cutting him off.
The lamb is behind the power, holding Narinder in place. Long gone is the passive, calm, and collected expression they were even in the face of death, to his siblings, to him. Instead, their eyes are wide, pieces of wool dirtied by soil sticking out of place.
Trapped again, still Narinder spits. “I’ll tear your heart out from your throat! You deserve nothing but pain, to rot! Traitor! Blasphemy!” He yells. Motions move rapidly near them. Followers are speaking, voices in worried, panicked quips. The bear that lost his fingers and the rabbit that’s missing an eye are wailing and withering on the ground, their pains of agony decorating his threats.
The lamb’s power is stronger than him, but the anger of betrayal that fuels him does not care. He watches the light in their eyes flicker when he struggles, and the hold on him begins to loosen. Blood and black ichor spill from his wrists, his eyes, his mouth as he growls. Some followers start to drop to their knees, others back away as the lamb approaches the trapped cat. “Damned lamb! That crown is rightfully mine-!”
A hard, heavy hit to the back of his head. The world begins to blur.
The vile threats he had boiling out of his chest suddenly stop cold in his throat, and Narinder is once again reminded that he is, in fact, in a form more mortal than he previously was before.
The lamb’s voice echoes as darkness takes hold. “Get them to the healing bay! Don’t touch the affected areas. Go get-!”
…
…
…
Being a cult leader kinda sucks when you never asked for any of this.
It does, however, have its perks.
Everyone is your friend, or at least pretends to be. You are never lonely, at least until they die of something. And there is something very satisfying about being able to help, (or at least attempt to) everyone to live a good life, even if that said life was for the sake of being devotional cattle for a god that the lamb owed their very existence to lest they be sacrificed and the final extinction of their species.
Maybe they have a biased look at things, but for someone who’s got no one else? The followers are nice.
When they’re not being exhausting, that is.
Cooking. Cleaning. Delivering sermons. Overseeing weddings. Blessing newborns. Crusades, delivering resources, making schedules for the workers, attending to the sick, training others to do the same, teaching them life skills they were too busy trying not to die from the god’s will to develop, and teaching others throughout the years. Rituals every week, some more desirable than others. Tending to the graves and the garden surrounding them. Visiting Ratau and hoping the cult hasn’t gone up in flames for the three days they are gone. Stopping members from trying to fight each other, or forcing each other to eat disgusting things, or asking the lamb to force someone to do it, or lock someone in a prison, or killing them, and any other dark desire they have in their head to come and request only to turn their back against them when it’s blandly denied.
(No, the leader is NOT going to force your ex-lover to eat dirt and excrement. Please stop asking.)
All in all, Lambert thinks they do a very good job running the place considering the circumstances. Not to say that there aren’t a few hiccups here and there.
Dissenters aren’t uncommon, especially in the early days when the temple was freshly constructed and everyone was still sleeping on grass mats in shaded spots. But the times have changed; they have homes, markets, facilities like a real village. They ARE a real village, and something that the lamb has been working on for literal decades. One of the perks of not being able to age is that you have all the time in the world to work on your projects without ever feeling like you’re wasting your (revived) life away. They try not to linger on the downsides of immortality for too long, though. Let’s not think about it.
Dissenters though. Yes, back to them. Troublesome things. It’s either because the lamb refuses to do something ridiculous (no, they’re not going to marry you either. You just asked to feed your ex lover feces, what on earth makes them think that was an appealing trait?) or often their lack of ability to function with someone holding their hand every step of the way puts all the blame on the lamb for their sorry state. They’ve lost count of times of how many followers get sick because they ate something they really shouldn’t have, and blamed the leader for not ‘protecting them’ from such a state.
Those days are in the past now. These incidents don’t happen as often anymore.
But when they do, it’s usually for a better reason.
“It hurt us! That thing is not safe to be around. You saw what it did to Jayen and Normar!” A badger that normally tends to the fields is ranting to another in the middle of the village. This conversation was kept hushed, until something must have been said that peeved the animal. The other in said conversation, a red panda whose ears fall back against her head at the raising volume of his voice, steps back as the dissenter rants.
“I don’t know what the reasoning is, but that thing should not be here. I don’t care if it’s a ‘god’. I don’t believe that.” The badger huffs. Eyes are turning towards the pair, and feet stop walking to stop and watch. “I’m starting to think that maybe what it was spitting about the lamb might have been right.‘”
The panda speaks up, timid. “But the lamb has kept it away-”
“That’s not enough!” The badger cuts her off. “It should have been killed! But they didn’t! How can we expect them to protect us when they allow something like that to reside in our walls. If it was up to me, I would have fertilized the soil with it!” They huffed, chest puffing out. “I could take much better care of this place if I called the shots-”
“That’s very ambitious of you.” His decree is interrupted. “It’s a very stressful job.”
The conversation stills, and both badger and panda turn to the voice. The lamb stands there, smiling. They’re holding a tray of food; a thin wooden slab with a bowl of fruits and veggies in the center.
The panda’s ears flatten against her head. Other followers quickly get back to work. “My lamb-!”
“It’s okay.” A soft smile. A reassurance look. Their bell jingles slightly when they gesture the tray towards the badger. “I was actually hoping to find someone to take this to our…guest, at the end of the village. Since you’re not on the job at the moment, maybe you’d like to introduce yourself to him?” They say. The badger takes the tray more out of habit than will, though even the dissenter looks nervous at the request. So the lamb smiles. “Don’t worry. He’s not all that bad.”
The badger does not look convinced. The red panda excuses herself, and the little crowd that was forming dissipates and sneaky eyes stop following them. With the tray in tow, the lamb watches the badger turn on his heel, mumbling something about ‘false prophets’ and other similar words under his breath.
This is not the first time this badger has dissented. This is also the same badger who keeps asking for his ex-lover to be given disgusting meals, threw a tantrum when the lamb refused a marriage proposal (that they are certain was purely for a chance to hold some authority more than any actual affection for the them) and has a habit of bullying other followers into his whims.
So maybe the lamb doesn’t think too much about it when the badger enters the secluded cabin on the far end of the village, and does not return for several hours.
Lambert approaches with dinner later in the evening: a plate of cooked fish, and enters without knocking.
The place is trashed. There’s ripped curtains covering the windows and blocking out any light the sunset would have given the room. Ichor is coating stains on the floor. It’s dark, so it almost blends in and makes those spots look like small void holes in the ground. A scan around the space shows scratches on the wood; furniture that was already in here such as a dresser, an end table, a side table and the bedframe have deep etched lines in them.
They’re not done inspecting the space before three red pupils appear within the dark, and they are attacked.
A hard force knocks them to the floor, the tray clattering to the side, but this time the lamb is ready; knee pulled back, they kick Narinder off with a grunt. He rolls backward while the lamb gathers to their feet. Half a second passes as the cat crouches to attack again, but a sword is produced, holding it in between themselves and the former God of Death.
The room has no natural lighting; that’s what the candles and lanterns are for. But those aren’t lit, so all they have to go by is the red glow full of hate glowering at him, and the silhouette of black fur that blends in with the dark. Even if the lamb could barely see him, the cat’s hissing in his throat gives him away. The sword presses against his chest. His tunic, too, is ripped with holes and matching the room. probably shredded by his own doing. They imagine his fur is standing on end.
Ichor bleeds still from his wounds on his wrists, and trickles out of the corner of his mouth. “You’ve come to face death, lamb.”
“Lambert.” They correct.
“Traitor.” Narinder hisses.
A side glance to the dropped food tray. The cooked fish is forgotten on the ground. Next to it is a spilled bowl of greenery from earlier. “You haven’t eaten anything since you’ve gotten here.”
A low, guttural growl comes from Narinder’s throat. “I’ll devour your heart.”
Lambert blinks at him. “Where did Grenor go?’
The cat presses further onto the blade of the sword. “Give me the crown.”
“Grenor, the follower I sent in here. He was supposed to give you food.” Lambert’s eyes scan the cabin a little more. Their eyes adjust, and take in more detail; particularly the black stain of ash and what appears to be…cremated remains? “...Ah.”
“Your follower is no more.” The cat chuckles, maniacal smile stained black with blood. “Pity the fool to have faith in you after you commit treason.”
Cannibalistic tendencies, maybe? Well, Lambert can't say they’re surprised.
“He was a dissenter.” The sword lowers a bit, then hoists back up when the cat moves an inch. Three red eyes never leave his face, waiting for them to slip up. The lamb sighs. “He was a threat to our community. I wasn’t hoping for this, but it’s not a huge loss. I just didn’t expect you to eat him.”
“I did not-” Narinder makes a noise of disgusts. “-eat him.”
“Oh.” Another glance towards the remains. “I just assumed-”
“Give me the crown.”
The lamb stills. “I can’t do that.”
“Give me the crown, or I’ll give you a fate worse than death.”
“You already promised me that.” They keep the sword forward. A barrier, even though their arm was starting to ache from this position. “Would you please consider-”
Narinder lunges again, the sword cutting through the flesh on his as he maneuvers around the blade, but he does not care. He’s fast enough, barely, to catch the lamb in the middle of their sentence to land a hit; he aims for their neck but they dodge and his claws graze their forehead, slicing the brow and letting the weight take them both down. Hands come up to stop him from reaching their neck, and Narinder’s hands find the skin of the lamb’s arm instead, gripping tightly. “I’ll rot that tongue out from the inside of your skull!”
“Stop this!” A kick to his stomach. The cat is lurched back (oh and how he curses the mortal bodies. Organs react badly to trauma. Pitiful forms.) and he stumbles back. The lamb is back on their feet as he recollects himself. A maniacal smile to his teeth, he zeros in on them where his hands made contact.
His eyes darken when seconds pass and all that appears on the lamb’s limbs is a quick start to a bruise.
The lamb, too, glances down at their own skin.
Did he intend to…? Yes, it is the same as what he did to the others. But there is nothing there.
Did that ability disappear? No, there was a fine grain pile of a corpse in the corner for a reason.
The One Who Wait’s claws extend. He is heaving. Not used to this form, breathing does not come easy, even if he hadn’t of just been hoofed in the chest. His body shakes with uneven rhythm, rage and exhaustion. “If I cannot rot you, I will gut you.”
The lamb backs to the door. “I do not wish to fight you.”
“You LYING FILTHY-”
“Eat something.” They say as finality, and backs out of the door, shutting it behind him.
Sounds of rage emit from the other side of the wood. The lamb waits for a moment if only to see if it quiets down, and it does. Moments pass, and nothing but wind. It takes a minute for Lambert to understand that Narinder is listening to sounds for them as much as they are listening for him.
The cat does not follow, nor leave the hut when they return to the center of the village. Lambert has certainty that he will remain there. Rage-fueled as he is, Narinder is smart. The woods surrounding their home still housed heretics and his sibling’s followers who would be eager to bring death upon the now-smaller and weaker god of death that is responsible for the demise of their bishops.
A dog who’s carrying wood to the storage stops when they cross paths, and her head tilts at the sight of the leader. “My lord, your head is bleeding.”
Lambert blinks. A drop of blood in the corner of their vision they had not acknowledged blurs, but otherwise does not linger for too long. They smile. “No worries. It will not last for long.”
It does.
Their bedchamber is a nicely decorated place. A cabin with locks and larger than the rest, more divine and kept clean. It is here that Lambert hunches over their books and papers, scratching schedules and practice runes with squeezed ink does another drop of blood splatter a crimson dot across their page. They stare at it, and turn to the mirror; a body long, golden framed one that was a gift from a craftsman follower long since passed. Bags settle underneath their eyes that years of sleep cannot fix; decades of forced immortality show no age to a smooth lamb’s face.
And the cut on their forehead was still bleeding.
Eyebrows furrowing, they turn to the bedside drawer. Some linen is there. It’s not proper bandages (they’ll have to visit the healing bay for those) but it’s enough to tear a piece off and hold it up to their head to staunch the bleeding. It only does after a few minutes, and left behind is a rag soaked completely red. A pink thin scratch stretching across their upper brow. From how their skin was already stitching together, it shouldn’t be long before it disappears, never leaving a scar.
But a cut like this should have healed within seconds of receiving it.
–
They visit the cabin again, and the door is locked tight. No answer comes when they knock, and they do not force themselves in. They try again in the evening, but the results are the same.
They repeat this the next day.
And the next.
And the one after that. The lamb leaves a tray of food at the door each time.
The other followers have taken to avoiding the hut. Whispers and rumors radiate through the village and echo softly at sermons. Some express their discomfort freely to them, while others keep quiet, and some hardly care. The badger was not a favorite among the populace, so his loss wasn’t necessarily one that was mourned, but the very timing of his disappearance is irrefutable. Mixed opinions surround the cabin’s occupant. Lambert highly doubts Narinder is aware of any of it.
However, as routine continues to pass, it becomes less of a big hoopla and more like general gossip. As long as the leader lives, food is in their belly, and a place to sleep, they are content. Time passes. Faith remains.
At least, for now.
It’s when one evening as Lambert is helping pour bowls of soup does a follower, an older doe with a penchant for farming, asks about the bowl they’ve set aside. “Is that your meal? It’s on a tray. Do you not plan to eat with us?”
Lambert glances towards the setup. Beetroot soup and a slice of bread. Not a fully reinvigorating meal, but food to put in the stomach and keep the hunger pains at bay, at least. Something easy, something that would settle well on an empty stomach without making the consumer sick. Beside it sits a roll of bandages.
“No, it is our guest’s.” They continue to pour the doe’s bowl, and give her a comforting smile. “I will deliver it after everyone has their fill.”
The doe’s eyes are gentle and her smile is understanding. She’s normally a very easy-going follower, dedicated and hard-working, even as recent events seem to have put a bit of strain on the village. She was a rescue from Darkwood, and her gratitude never lightened even after many years of service. Sweet thing, aged and kind.
The wrinkles in her eyes deepen ever so slightly. “Ah, I see. Well, I do hope you be careful.”
Lambert cannot read her mind.
There is a pause when they raise the bowl to her. Her slight facial expression changes, and the underlying tone in her sentences; it’s all they have to go off of what she thinks. The thoughts that used to be so clearly read in each of their minds, although invasive, were no longer there. Instead, there was simply silence and an assumption of what could be. Or might be. Or should be.
“Of course.” The lamb keeps their smile raised, and their tone polite, handing her the bowl. “Please, enjoy.”
She departs with a small bow and goes to sit with the others, all of which Lambert stands a distance away trying to pick apart every single follower in sight through the mind. It is not only her, but the others. There is silence where thoughts used to float. There is quiet where they used to be accompanied by constant chatter.
They clean up the kitchen mess, say farewell to the villagers still awake, and bring the soup tray and bandages to the cabin at the far end of the cult grounds.
The door is closed as per usual. Lambert sets the tray to the side, and knocks on the door. “Narinder?”
No answer.
A pause. “Are you hungry? I bought beetroot soup this time.”
No answer.
The lamb’s fingers come up to touch the pink slash mark still healing on their forehead, days after receiving it, and think of pink marks that decorate the cat’s wrists. “Are you bleeding?”
Silence.
Was he even still there?
The door isn’t locked this time, so it pushes away easily to view the inside. The cabin is empty. They should have known better than to leave him alone.
Setting the bandages on the table along with the food, they scan the room. Still destroyed. Remainders of yesterday’s meal that was dropped off sit at the door, untouched, and rotten. Though that apple looks more decayed than how it should normally be, even if just left out for a few hours. A certain god might have something to do with that.
Blood still stains the floors, and there is a slight trail that leads out of the cabin, and into the woods.
Lambert follows it. Maybe they were wrong about before, something they mull over as the trail leads past the walls of the cult’s grounds and into the forest. The blood is easy to track as the grass is paler around it, the brownish of the earth coming through instead of green. The path dies where ichor stains, and it does not take long to follow the trail of dying grass and leaves to a clearing where suddenly it stops. The trail ends here. There are no more tracks for them to follow.
Lambert raises their hand to the crown, and draws arms.
A blur of black and red jumps down from the tree above them, sharpened claws barely miss them when they dodge out of the way-
-but a hand grabs their ankle and drags them back. For some reason, Lambert is slower than usual.
Out of reflex, they swing with the sword, not to slash or kill, but to push the cat off of them with the flat end of the blade. A hiss of breath as it connects with his chest lasts only a moment before his neck cranes forward past the obstruction, hands and claws trapped away. Narinder does not have his chains or his powers, but he has teeth, and sharp canines to puncture deep into the lamb’s arm.
A yell of pain. A foot against his chest. The cat is kicked away again, his ribs aching (breathing hurts, it was becoming his least favorite pastime) as he stumbles back until he’s stopped by a tree. The lamb’s blood is smeared across his mouth.
“Come here.” Narinder speaks lowly. A difference in the chaotic berserk rage when they last saw him. “Make yourself useful and die. Maybe I’ll make it quick.”
He sounds tired. Weak. He’s not as bloody, but there’s still a ring of fresh ichor that seeps out from the exposed wrist. The weakness in his form betrays the hostility emitting from the cat’s being.
Lambert’s gaze drops down to the skin on his wrist. “You’re still bleeding.”
“I have eyes, lamb. Three of them.” He hisses. “Do not state the obvious like it was not your fault I am in this state. You don’t deserve that power.”
“How-”
He scoffs. “By giving me the crown-”
“No, I mean,” Lamb rubs at the bite mark on their arm. It’s deep, but at least the bone wasn’t broken. A surge of pain makes them bite the inside of their cheek. Pain from something like this isn’t something that should phase them anymore. The One Who Waits has a grin when the grimace. “How are you doing this?”
“Do you expect me to explain?” He spits. “I reigned with precision and experience. You? You weird the crown’s power like a child with a toy, playing how you’re told to play.” He chuckles. Mania is evident in the flash of his teeth. He spits out blood, lambs mixed with his own, onto the forest floor. The grass dies in a circle where it lands. “You are not worthy of it’s ability.”
“You’re the one who gave it to me.”
“And I will be the one to sever it from your head.” Narinder attacks again.
Again, the flat blade of the sword comes to his chest but he tanks it, claws reach out and find purchase in the holes in the lamb’s arm, and drag. The lamb’s struggle is well, but the bark of a tree finds their back. Narinder has them pinned. It is difficult lately, Lambert thinks, to try and defend yourself from someone you don’t want to hurt.
The choice is made for them. Hell fire forms in the lamb’s hand (not enough to kill, just get away, get away, get away) and then…sputters out. Widened eyes with hitched breath blink at the empty palm of their hand before they pay for their distraction. The world shifts and the back of their head slams against the bark, one clawed hand bunched up in their fleece, the other reaches for the crown.
“I would have carved you out a pretty place in the afterlife before your betrayal.” Narinder hisses lowly, voice full of venom. “You would have had peace. You would have had others. Now you’ll know nothing but pain. I’ll be the last thing you see-” They struggle, one hand on the grip of their fleece, the other trying to pull away the open grasps towards the crown. “-before an eternity of suffering!”
He shifts his fists, and the lamb’s head hits the bark again. They grit their teeth, a bite in their tongue that draws blood, and summons the sword-
Yet no sword comes. Their hand remains empty.
Narinder reaches the crown, sharp points digging into the shadow. There is a spark of black lighting somewhere above them. Maniacal laughing, victory, inches from the lamb’s face. No. No!
The moment lasts for a millisecond.
Narinder’s smile drops faster than Lambert can process.
He’s still pinning them, even as the lamb breaks from their frozen shock and continues to push back does Narinder have a grip on them that’s akin to a stone corpse. Face locked with wide eyes, black large pupils and a red slit that stares at the crown above the lamb’s brow. Their breath comes back at them when they claw at his hands, and Narinder’s form is ridged.
Then, his glare drops. His eyes level with the lambs, unblinking. “What have you done?”
It’s like a trance breaks. Lambert curses under their breath. “Get off-”
For a God of Death, prying his fingers off feels like the grasp of rigor mortis. Whatever shock has taken over the cat paralyzes him that when Lambert pushes their knee against his hips, bending his fingers back with a curse and wretching his hold from the crown out of his hands, Narinder hardly flinches. Lambert should not feel this weak. “What is wrong with you-?”
“What-” Narinder repeats, low and softly. His eyes remain wide, locked with the single eye of the crown. It shifts down to the lamb’s “-did you do to the crown?”
One hand on the crown to make sure it’s on top of their wool, another splays out and attempts to summon the sword again. This time it works. They grip it a little tighter than usual. “Just-” Lambert searches for words. “Just calm down.”
Narinder remains quiet. His fingers twitch. His eyes are blown wide open. Face locked in disbelief. Shock.
“Narinder…?” Lambert calls. A minute passes. The sun was fully set, and darkness had taken over the forest. A staunch hold on the crown is stable on the head of their wool in between their horns.
No response.
Any attempt to read his mind goes as well as it did with the others. Silence, punctuated by the forest’s cicadas.
Lamb can’t just leave him here. Well, they could. And they should. After everything this god has done to them, made them do, and almost done, they could. Leave him to be fodder for whatever heretics and remaining followers of the other bishops to find. Probably skinned or sacrificed. Where does a former death god go now that there is no one overseeing the afterlife? Would Narinder find out if they left him here?
Their inner thoughts break suddenly when from Narinder’s throat comes a strangled noise. It bubbles, starting slowly, then cackles. He is laughing, and it is not of joy or relief or any positive affliction, but a madness that coils with every low chuckle. It is a hysterical sound, one that has him fall to his knees. The ground around him starts to wither.
“Narinder?” The lamb repeats.
“Why did you spare me?” The question comes out low and panted.
Lambert hesitates. “Why…not?”
“Why not.” Narinder repeats, low. Then, he chuckles, voice coated with a sense of madness. “Why not?”
“…I don’t have an answer for you yet.”
A pause. Then he laughs low again. Claws curl into the soil and leave long marks. “You are vile and cruel. I’ve taught you well.”
The One Who Waits rises, and the Lamb raises their sword in between them just in case and tries their best to ignore the flickering of shadows that seem to haunt the blade. Narinder's gaze doesn’t even drop down to the red crown’s blade, pupils zeroed in on his usurper, face twisted with the absolute madness of knowing. Understanding. Failing. He stands there. Just…quiet. Processing, the Lamb thinks.
It’s fascinating to watch the God of Death go through several stages of grief in such a short matter of time.
“When I kill you,” Narinder starts. “I will make you understand every agony, every pain, a heart and body could ever take. Then I will do it again, and again. No one will remember you. No one will save you.” He has a tone of finality. Calm, even-toned threats of absolute certainty. “You will have a special place in my purgatory to relive the tortures I will create for you until you are erased to nothing.”
“Ah.” Lambert’s ears raise upwards, and soak in his words. “I brought you some bandages and soup back at the cabin.”
The God of Death’s stare is blank and unreadable. Then, he turns away from them, heading back towards the wall and the edge of the forest where the cabin sits. The motions are mechanical and emotionless. The Lamb watches his back disappear into the brush, further and further away until he is no longer visible.
When Narinder is gone, Lambert’s sword shifts back to the red crown. It does not raise to their head, instead cradled in their hands. They turn it over, inspecting it. The eye is wide open, plain, the pupil unmoving. Nothing is immediately visibly wrong.
Lambert’s eyes trail up to the space where Narinder disappeared, then to the ground where dead grass surrounds ichor and blood stains.
—
The cult leaves him alone.
Those who remember tell themselves it was all a dream. Those staunch on the memory that he is in fact the former god of death are ridiculed when they speak. For what God of Death would reside as a hermit in the far end of a village meant to be their cult, with a frail body, never to be seen? Maybe they think he doesn’t even exist. That wouldn’t be far from the truth; the god he once was is now reduced to the same body he would use as fodder for power. What kind of pathetic god would that be?
Speculation, of course. Narinder does not interact with the followers enough to know, or care, about what they think of him.
Adjusting is difficult, but he has been through worse. Adapting to this form is not as strenuous as the limitations those chains held him to for a thousand years. But it is still…well, limiting. Exhaustion is a new one, although it is the kind that sleep does not fix. Apparently, he has lungs, and those are the organs responsible for episodes where breathing does not feel like it comes naturally.
(The world dims at the edges when that happens. The souls of his siblings speak in haunting voices with every inhale, and his own voice is among them, berating how he got here.)
Shamura and Heket would have called him a fool. Leshy would have wondered why he hadn’t slaughtered them all yet. Kallamar maybe would have pitied him.
The lamb knocks at his door sometimes. He ignores them, and they leave after a few moments without saying a word.
Food is…bad. It tastes horrible. It’s been a long time since he’s ever decided to consume something, and the urge to do so isn’t quite there. The trays of food brought to his door twice a day are either left alone or spilled. Sometimes its followers tasked with the delivery. Sometimes it’s the lamb. Sometimes he doesn’t see who it might have been; they’re quick and gone before he can see.
That’s not to say he hasn’t tried to eat, more so out of curiosity than the need. Apparently, this form hadn’t expired from starvation yet, but before he knew its extent he wanted to try. There’s no telling what awaited him on the other side of the afterlife when there was no more reaper to guide the souls. Chaos, probably. Assuming he would even go to the afterlife, and not just fizzle out of existence the moment this body decided it could no longer reasonably house him.
One tray of food left out consisted of a type of mixed meal with veggies and morsels. It’s not fit for a god, but no peasant dish either. He supposed this would be adequate enough to try. He plucks out something white and bushy out of the mixture (cauliflower, he thinks) popping the head into his mouth-
-and spits it out onto the ground outside his door.
Rot and decay. The food is clearly fresh, the veggies are freshly cooked and still gleam with life from a recent harvest, but the taste is of putrefaction. If one had not looked at at the food and seen its careful preparedness, its blind tasting would have given a sense of rot and mold.
Narinder spits out the rest of the taste on his tongue, clearing it with his salvia as much as possible. He leaves the uneaten food out on the tray by his door, and someone comes and collects the untouched food about an hour later.
Time passes. He cannot tell how quickly or how slow. He counts it as a full day each time the Lamb comes by and knocks on his door. Which, by this method, it has been maybe a week or two. He’s lost count.
Occasionally others will appear when the lamb does not. More often it is curious mortals who think he is simply a sick new indoctrinate. They come to the door and offer an introduction, hellos and welcomes, some wishes that he ‘feels better soon’. No one addresses his appearance or his former stature. They are unaware of who resides behind these walls. He answers none of them, and eventually, they stop coming after the first week.
The lamb leaves offerings at his door. They still knock once a day. They talk, too.
Chatty, obnoxious thing.
“I went to visit Ratau today.” They speak through the flimsy barrier that keeps Narinder separate from the rest of the world he was so previously desperate to return to. Now a prison not of his design, but of his choosing. He’d rather be in here for an eternity than to face the reality of his situation outside. “His walking stick snapped, so I helped repair it. It’s sturdier now, but he’s been leaning on it a lot more recently. I might try to convince him to let one of our woodworkers make him an actual cane instead of just using a branch he’s had for a few decades.”
Narinder could care less about an ex-vessel’s day-to-day life. The lamb should know this. If he waits long enough (and he is very, very good at waiting) then the usurper will get bored, or be called elsewhere, and he shall be left alone to ruminate.
Quiet from the other side of the wall when he does not answer. For a moment he thinks he is spared the rest of the day’s chatter, but there is no sound of footsteps retreating, and the damned lamb begins to speak again. “I failed a crusade. I had to return early last night.”
...Oh?
“Some of the abilities I normally use weren’t manifesting.” They continue to speak, and this time Narinder listens fully. The lamb’s voice is muffled from the barrier, but he rises up from his seat on the bed, ears turning towards the door. The lamb does not know that three eyes are burning holes through the cracks in the wood where Narinder can see bits of wool and fleece move beyond his doorway. “I could still summon the sword, but the other powers were...difficult.” He can see them shift a bit in the crease of the door hinges, movement that suggests they’re looking down to their hands. White bandages appear wrapped around one of them, and above that is the bandaged bite marks that refused to close quickly enough. “It’s like I’m calling for something that the crown thinks I haven’t learned.”
“So your solution is to come and whine to me about your incompetence?” Narinder mocks, and his throat aches with speaking in what is probably the first time in weeks. “I am not your diary, vessel, nor your resource. You fail because you lack the capability to handle the power you’ve stolen. Perhaps the crown knows this.” He snickers. “Cry to your masses if you so wish. Do not bother me.”
Silence on the other end of the door. Narinder waits for retreating footsteps.
They do not leave. “Do you wanna come outside?” They ask, and the tone in their voice is so innocent someone might think it is genuine. Maybe it is. He does not care. “I know a private place where you can sunbathe in the daytime if you want. The others won’t bother you there.”
Narinder hisses low, and sinks further into the dark. “You would.”
The conversation is punctuated with another period of silence, then finally the sound of the lamb turning and leaving. Keen ears listen for their retreat and find that they walk slower than usual.
He returns to his ruminating. Sitting on the bed meditating, or fidgeting. Raising a hand, shadow-colored claws still sharpened from his actions around the room: a place that hadn’t seen daylight since he figured out he could shut away the world and cover the windows with tattered curtains. They flex open and inwards. Not a sword, not even a dagger, but at the very least his natural form comes with natural weapons.
At times black lighting sparks in between his fingertips, and he tries to recreate the occurrence again for hours to find it futile. He tries it again. The tingle in his hands feels like cold sand. It dissipates, and he is without results.
Narinder goes back to staring at nothing.
—
There is a hermit on the far edge of the village that’s rumored to have a tall stature made of shadow, three crimson eyes, and a demonic stare evil enough that when you make eye contact, it’ll turn you into stone.
That last part is probably exaggerated a little bit, but there must be some reason why the leader visits every day, never to enter and always to speak through the door, leaving food and other offerings that go untouched until they or another unlucky follower comes to collect the unappreciated gifts. This leads to rumors and speculation. The leader does not speak of said hermit voluntarily, and their answers are the same each and every time they are prompted by the bolder of their populace.
“My friend is very sick.” The lamb repeats with a smile. ‘Friend’ is a different title not often heard. Not enforcer, not follower, but friend. One who never comes to sermons or feasts, or leaves their hut to work. The others look to the word ‘friend’ like it’s as if the leader calls upon a ghost. The lamb still smiles. “It’s a type of sickness that the healing bay can’t help with. He just needs to rest for a long time.”
Someone whispers with pity that maybe it’s a corpse of a lover in there, that the house smells of rot sometimes when they pass by. The lamb’s ears flicker in the whispering bug’s direction but makes no change in facial expression or scold him for their gossiping. Though, if that same follower finds himself on janitorial duty for the next week, then that just so happens to be a coincidence.
The lamb does not correct many stories that are whispered. For the most part, it keeps the followers away from the ‘hermit’. It gives them time to think about what to do next, even if some repeated questions about said cat was getting a little repetitive. The stories are harmless. Just gossip.
It’s one afternoon when there is continuous banging on the wood, noise and ruckus that interrupts his medication enough to the point where something in his mind snaps (not that it already hasn’t) does Narinder swings open his front door, body tense and shadowed in anger expecting to see standing target of wool on the other side.
The space that he stares through is empty. He blinks, and catches sight of something quivering a foot or two shorter beneath him.
A child, a fox kit that can’t be much older than ten winters, stares up at him with a wide, fearful gaze. “Y-you really do have three eyes!”
Narinder blinks.
The child blinks back.
A distance away, there is color hiding behind a large bush. Tiny tails and paws can be seen, and little eyes peeking out behind leaves in matched curiosity and fear. They duck further into themselves when Narinder’s gaze scans over them. The sound of whispering and hushes comes from the children. Either this was a dare, a punishment, or some other stupid reason this interaction was happening.
“I brought you this!” The fox kit in front of him catches his attention again, and shrinks when Narinder’s pupils flicker back to him. The boy lifts up his hands; a small bowl of berries sit in his palm. “Leader said you were sick. Not to bother you.” The berries shake a little as the boy does, and he keeps his eyes glued to the ground. “Please do not tell them I was here.”
(He looks like when Aym and Baal were small. He shakes like Kallamar used to.)
Narinder’s tongue rolls over in his mouth for a moment before he decides to speak. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“I-I stole these from storage.” The child admits. Unlike adults, you often don’t need godly powers to pull confession from children. Just a really intimidating stare. “Please, do not tell them!”
Narinder grins. Their follower’s loyalty may be waning, even if this evidence is only just a child. How fortunate.
“I will not tell them.” He says, if just to make the thing stop quivering. “But I don’t eat berries.”
The fox kit looks up from the ground, brows furrowed together. “Then, what do you eat?”
His grin stretches, opening a maw of teeth and ichor that he knows should be horrifying. “I eat followers of the lamb.”
The fox kit goes stone still with a terrorized look. Children start screaming from behind the bush, and scramble to get away, kicking up dust as they retreat back into the village. They leave the fox boy frozen at Death’s doorstep. This cult has not been desensitized to these sights, for the lamb as been too soft in years, even before his dethroning. He saw it through the eye long before this current generation.
Though, to his mild surprise, the fox kit is either too stupid or too frozen to run. The bowl is still held upwards, its contents jostling as its holder shakes. “Um! I’m sure berries taste a lot better if you give it a shot!” Lamb! Lamb, please save me!
Narinder goes to scare him away, to shoo away the child, to never come here again but pauses.
Those last words were not spoken. The boy’s mouth is twisted into a nervous, scared smile, closed tight for some sense of peaceful submission, even though the child looks close to wetting himself. He did not choose this of his own volition. He wants to be rescued, but he did not call out.
Narinder read his mind.
“I-” The kid stammers. “I can go-”
The child freezes again when the cat leans down, plucking a single berry with two claws and bringing it up for inspection. It’s red and plump, so from a recent harvest. There’s nothing to indicate it would taste the same or worse than the cauliflower he tried. Not that he was particularly hungry, but the thing in front of him stops shaking when he focuses on the berry rather than the boy. It’s an old habit, he thinks, acting before thinking. To humor a kit’s whims. It’s not something he left behind in his domain.
He slides the berry in his mouth and bites down. An immediate grimace sours his face. Rot.
“Is it…better?” The fox kit stands grounded, looking up at him with caution.
Narinder refrains from spitting out into the dirt. The berry is swallowed, and a vile taste lingers in the back of his throat. “It’s the same.”
The kit lingers, and goes to speak again but another voice, a much more annoying one, cuts through. “Narinder?”
Narinder stands to his full height again, eyes dragging over to the lamb. The fox kit’s head turns suddenly, and stammers, happy to see the leader before it dawns on them what they’re holding, then suddenly trying (and feebly failing) to conceal the small bowl of berries behind their back.
The lamb approaches. They are holding something bundled in their hands. White and red. Black eyes trail down to the kit, and dart calmly between the God and the child. “Would someone like to explain why children came screaming about a monster trying to eat kids at the edge of the village?”
Narinder’s energy has already been sapped from this interaction. “And you presume that to be me?”
“Who else would it be?” Lambert refutes, and turns to the fidgeting kit. They blink. “Aren’t those some of the berries for tonight’s supper?”
“Um.” The kit is stammering. Caught red-handed. Their face flushes with embarrassment and nervousness, but not fear, Narinder notices. Something about that doesn’t sit quite right. “Um. I- I didn’t-”
“Your punishment is to help in the kitchen. Merya will teach you how to make real meals with those, and you will help her clean up after supper is done.” The lamb does not wait for a confession, although their tone is hardly scolding. Their expression is much too gentle for what is supposed to be a punishment for stealing from the community’s stores. The lamb is smiling. Narinder watches them with low lids. “You can learn how to make tastier snacks for you and your friends that way.”
The fox kit suddenly perks up. His attempts to hide the bowl are forgotten. “Yes, my lamb!”
“Go on.” Lambert nods their head in the direction of the kitchen, further into the village.
The fox kit does a curious bow to the leader, and (to Narinder’s brief surprise) turns and does the same to the cat before scuttling off. Both adults are quiet for the moment as the child runs out of earshot before Lambert’s head turns back to him. “You socialized today.”
Vile. Narinder’s mouth twists up into a wretched frown before turning his body and shutting the door behind him-
-the door stops before it can shut. A lamb’s foot is stuck in the wedge, preventing it from closing fully. Narinder sneers at it, but Lambert is not phased as they step through the entrance of the hut, forcing the (former) God of Death to take several steps backward into his dark hovel as they enter. Their hand comes to shut the door behind them, and what little light they have to illuminate the space is what trickles through the cracks in the wood and the tattered curtains, and the glow of Narinder’s pupils that never quite went away even after his defeat.
Lambert opens their mouth to speak, and it turns into a cough. “Eugh, this place is…dusty.” Coughing again, they clear their throat. He waits for the wretched sound to stop. “You know, I don’t think all this dust and dirt can be good for your health.”
“Make your statement and leave before I wash the floors with your blood.”
“…I don’t know if my blood would make very good floor cleaner.”
“Lamb.” He growls.
“I brought you something.” They gesture outwards. The thing they were holding, a bundle of white and red. Narinder’s gaze drops down to the offering but does not take it, instead three eyes darting back up to the lamb’s face in scrutiny. They must have expected him to react in such a way, because they’re already unfolding the offering for him. Cloth and cotton fabric, robes that do not match the rest of the follower’s unvarying designed attire. Judging by its cleanliness and expertise in stitching, it is new, and suspiciously looks like close in design to the robes he wore in his domain. At least, in concept. Not quite right.
His fingers curl mechanically at his sides. “Explain.”
“You’ve been wearing the same thing since you’ve arrived, and I don’t even think you’ve had a single bath.” Lambert gestures to the room’s state. “You’ve torn your clothing and your room to shreds. I thought that maybe, you know, you’d like not being in a ripped up robe with caked blood in your clothes and fur?”
Ah, right. No wonder the fox kit was scared at the sight of him. He hasn’t changed his bandages once. Black ichor stained the white of them, bleeding through. At the very least, it blended in with the rest of his fur, even though it matted and clumped knots together. Narinder hardly noticed. “I don’t want your charity.”
The clothing is gestured towards him again. “It is an offering.”
“A proper offering would be your head on a pike.”
Lambert hums, unphased. “This one has a hood sewn onto it.”
The offering is held out to him again. He has a feeling Lambert will simply keep their arms hoisted up until he takes it, so for the sake of speeding up this interaction, he snags it from their hands. It catches in his claws, but doesn’t tear. A further inspection spies faint symbols on the hood and sleeves, similar to how his old robes from decades long past used to decorate his attire. Attire that only the lamb has seen in their visits in the after life, that no random follower would have the memory to replicate them. His thumb brushes over the threading over the seams and find it carefully stitched. Narinder’s glare goes back to the lamb. “I imagine you’re not just here to bestow a gift.”
Lambert’s smile is disarming, but he knows better. “What gave you that idea?”
“If it was simply the robes, you would have left them at the door.”
“I mean, yes.” Lambert says. “Not preferably, but yes. Talking is good for the soul, you know.”
“I don’t have one.” He grumbles. He actually doesn’t know if that’s true or not, but the lamb’s nose twitches at the statement and that’s satisfactory enough. “What do you want?”
The lamb hesitates, and that makes Narinder nervous. For what could make a god killer halt in place in the face of their dethroned god?
Their eyes scan the room again, either out of a fidget, or searching for a place to sit, their weight shifts on both of their feet. Whatever it is, they are searching for the words to find it. The chatty, charismatic talking lamb does not have the sentence immediately at their disposal, and that is unlike them. They appear before him in a way that reminds him of when they too were in chains and tattered rags, many years ago in his domain.
Ironic how they’ve changed places. Tattered rags and the metaphorical chains of this form, the anguish of a different type.
“When I…defeated you,” They start slowly like an improper use of a word would set him off, which is futile to avoid since the lamb’s voice alone makes the god’s blood boil. “I don’t think you were supposed to retain any sort of power after you were turned into this form.” They adjust their fleece, inhale, exhale, and look to him with the same solid determination they’ve carried since decapitation. “The day you came here, you injured my followers when they restrained you. The rabbit and the bear. The one whose eye and fingers you rotted off.”
The One Who Waits makes a noise of acknowledgment. “Death would have been preferable.”
“They haven’t left the healing bay since then.” Lambert continues, a bit more curtly. “Whatever you did, it’s spreading. On them, I mean. Not like a disease to the others, but the rabbit’s face is halfway gone, and the bear’s arm has…decayed, all the way to the shoulder.” They pause for a moment. “We thought that amputating it might have saved him, but it’s still spreading to the rest of him. Whatever else you did must have already reached the rabbit’s brain. Whenever they talk, it’s just incoherent foam coming out.”
The God of Death looks disinterested in their fates. He half turns away, half chuckling as he walks towards the bed where he’ll meditate once the annoyance is gone. “Kill them quickly if you wish them not to suffer, then. I do not care to hear your soft-hearted concern for no followers of mine.”
“I can’t read their minds.” Lambert confesses. Narinder stops, and turns back to them. “I can’t read their thoughts anymore. My abilities stutter when I used them. They’re exhausting to use now.” They look at their hands (Bandaged. Wrapped in white linen. There’s a small, faint line of a scratch on their forehead too.) “It didn’t used to drain me like this.” Opening and closing their hands. A power they’ve gotten so accustomed to now feels like a phantom in their skin. “Do you still read minds?”
Narinder’s head tilts, quiet. The look he carries is unreadable, the mind still a closed door, that power long gone for two weeks now before the lamb could even test if it would work on its former authority. The lamb awaits for a response, an addition. It never comes.
Three crimson eyes bore holes into Lambert and they let him. Then, Narinder’s face shifts from unreadable to mild disappointment. “Not yours.”
Lambert’s ears perk up. “In particular?”
“The child’s was weak.” He hums, more so narrating his own thoughts to himself than to the other in the room. “I assume it would have to do with the constitution of one's mind. Or not. I’ve yet to stomach the company of the rest of your flock to try it.”
“But…you can do it.”
Narinder scowls at the repeated question. “Yes. Just not yours. Take whatever comfort you want from that and leave me be.”
“You could have just lied to me and said that you didn’t.”
Narinder’s throat dries with a comeback, and his tongue sits unmoving. Yes, he could have. He doesn’t know why he didn’t, or why he’s even entertaining this conversation with the lamb to this point. If this had happened weeks ago in his more shocked state, he’d be trying to tear the lamb’s intestines out with a shovel. He can’t do that. At least, not yet.
His grip around the robes tightens. “You’re trying my patience.”
“You know something I don’t.” His ex-vessel speaks. “I think I know what it is.”
The God of Death remains still, silent. The three eyes that are always half-lidded with a tired, exhausted sort of expression are widened with a curious interest, and the Lamb is the beacon of the room. One would not find the scraggly being with matted fur and torn attire to be all that threatening, and certainly not to a killer of gods and their disciples. Lamb is not afraid, but they are aware. They wonder if the worry they have for all they’ve built to be ripped out from underneath them is the same as what he felt when his siblings cast him below in chains, and the lamb revoked his size and title.
Narinder finds amusement in the paralyzing realization, and sharp teeth etch up into a smile. “You split the crown’s influence in two when you spared me. These consequences are of your own making.”
Theory confirmed, panic, surprise, anger. Lambert’s face falls, and they attempt to remain neutral. “How-?”
“I do not know.” Narinder cuts him off. He’s chuckling now. The reaction given to him is enough to make his tail swish from left to right in wide, swinging motions. The lamb’s fear is a satisfying victory. “I do not remember how you ‘spared’ me, so that detail is up your knowledge. I assume, however-” A mad look returns, the cat takes a step forward. “That this can be easily resolved-”
The sword is summoned, the flash for it brightening the room just for a moment before it’s drawn. Lambert holds it tightly, the end of the blade pointing towards Narinder’s chin. The cat’s smile does not leave, and he does not take a step back. The red from his pupils glints off the blade.
Lambert’s brows furrow. “A crown cannot sit upon two brows.”
“Agreed.” He sly, head tilting to the side. The robes clutched in his hands bunch in his closed fist, the other hand coming up to reach for the blade. “Let’s not complicate things.”
The sword is twisted. His hand is jutted away. Lamb’s grip tightens on its handle. “Do not try anything. If this is true, we don’t know what the extent of this…issue could be. Aside from some of our abilities being…distributed, between us.”
“I don’t care.”
“This should not be possible.” Lambert’s tone carries disbelief. The lamb is starting to crack, an audible pulse racing. Good. Narinder feels something in his chest match its pace. “Explain this. What are the limits? What else has changed?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care.” Narinder laughs. “Though if you’d like to test it and see if your powers of self-resurrection are as ample as they should be, by all means, try it.”
“Narinder.” The lamb whispers lowly and he does not like the raised hairs that come when they do. “I don’t know what will happen if one of us dies. There’s no guarantee the power will go to the other. That thought process isn’t-”
“I don’t care.” Narinder says with a wicked grin. Lambert’s eyes widen, pupils small. “Kill me, or die. You cannot have us both existing. I won’t allow it.”
He expects the sword to plunge for him in the manner that it lingers. The blade stays at his chin, and though he might be able to dodge it in time, the lamb at the moment was a little more powerful than him. They’d be smart to keep it that way lest he remains, and one day that sword will not save them, no amount of the red crown will. It would be the smart thing to do. The godly thing to do. To ensure ounce’s survival as a deity. Not that he won’t try to take them down with him. They don’t look like they heal quickly, maybe the same rate he’s been reduced to.
And if he can’t kill them now? He can wait.
He will wait until the Lamb is weak, when their guard is down when they think he has become compliant and become just another one of their faithful followers numbered under the leader’s wool. He will wait until the Lamb no longer pays constant attention and surveillance to his every move out of caution when he switches to calling them by a friend and not by curses, when they breathe as easily around him as they do their lackeys. Narinder will wait, and then, when the Lamb’s vulnerability shows, he will strike. He’ll figure out what happens when you kill half of the crown’s authority. And he can wait for that chance for a thousand years again if he has to.
From the way the lamb’s fingers turn pale gripping the handle, Narinder may discover what happens to dethroned gods in hell. And the lamb will too, if he can help it. Maybe they’ll be wiped from existence together. It’s an insane, calm thought that echoes in his mind as the fingers on his hand splay, and the claws at the end of the tingle with shadow in anticipation.
The fight never comes. The sword is suddenly withdrawn, and Narinder finds himself with a falling face at the empty air in front of him.
The crown returns to the top of Lambert’s head, and they inhale. Exhale. Adjust their fleece and clear their throat. “I’ll bring a water bucket with soap and rags tonight. And uh, a broom too. With some new curtains…and sheets.” They ramble, looking around the room. Chatty lamb. Always so talkative. Narinder stares at them. “I don’t think you smell like rot, but your home does. I don’t see how you stomach it.” A glance towards the corner. The stain of a dissenter long since corroded is still burned into the floor. “...I can bring something for that.”
“Favoring will not save you.” He speaks. The cat’s voice is lower than it was moments prior.
“Yeah, yeah. I believe you. I really do.” Lambert looks preoccupied. The lack of reaction causes something visceral in Narinder’s chest. “You should really come to the feasts and eat something. Or at least get a plate to go. I can always bring you one, but I don’t know what you like. Outside of fish, I mean.” They walk over past him, either ignoring or unaware of the frozen feeling of the cat’s stance, and reach for a window. They promptly pull back the curtain, and it rips again a little as it moves. Sunlight enters and casts streaks across his fur.
Lambert steps back, nodding to themselves, and turn towards the door. “I have other matters I have to attend to, so we have to continue talking about this later. Maybe figure something out. I can’t run the flock without the crown’s help, so you’ll have to help me.”
The audacity of the lamb has always been…notable.
Narinder has no words, so he stares.
“I’ll be at the temple if you need anything.” Lambert smiles, halfway out of the door. “Let me know if I need to make any adjustments to the robes. I had to take a guess at the measurements.”
The door shuts behind them. Three eyes glare into the wood for some solid seconds before the air finally feels like it’s settled.
Narinder raises a clenched fist up to view. The robes are still soft and untarnished in his corrosive grip.