Chapter Text
A choice…a chance
That was all it had taken them…that was all it took…
The One Who Waits, long forgotten by time and its followers. His image was destroyed across the land. His temple of eternal peace was ruined, and his image smeared in the books of the old. The God of Death, as he once was no longer, the deity feared as a true being was instead known as a myth in the back of the minds of those who knew.
Not that many knew, not with things being the way they are now.
“For what was their purpose?" He, the idol of Death, snarls. The needle-thin pupils behind the veil glare the unseeable abyss of white, the chains that keep him in this prison rise from a sightless ground. The searing brightness of this wretched land is no longer as blinding as it once was. Though the aches that it left behind thrive deep within the recesses of his head, lasting the eternity he waited and present were they still. But unbothered was he, accustomed to this parasitical pain. His divine ichor crawls down the chains of his prison, forming shallow pools of a dark abyss beneath him.
And not for the first time he thinks back to his siblings prisoners and bares his teeth, wrenching the chains as he could not help but rage at the infuriating inklings, they hurt, oh they burn to think about. They dance around him, he cannot see them, he cannot hear them, he cannot speak to them, but he knows, he knows they are dancing in mock-
“Master, do the chains hurt today?” Death stills and his wrinkled snout melts into a blank facade.
“....they do not.” He finally says to the guard who questioned him. The guard stares for a moment but quickly turns back to watching the infinite white that haunts them all. Death needs not to breathe but huff nearly escapes him when the guards that stand in front of him do not turn around again. The clinking chains make his ears want to flap down and block the noises but a sudden shift in the order of the white abyss makes him slowly raise his head. Aym and Baal seem to have also felt it, they stare forward toward a path blocked by the misty clouds of the white abyss. They are tense, he cannot see what they see, but it is clear that they are confused, deeply so.
The One Who Waits attempts to see beyond the invisible land but he cannot, though a smile curls his lips as Aym and Baal stand stiff, sure that whatever it is will cause no harm. He thrashes against the pesky chains but cannot see what is beyond the upside-down crosses, not until the pitiful figure walks forward…a lamb.
“-the Lamb, conduit to great power, promised liberator of the One Who Waits be-" Death banishes that voice from his head and instead a cruel and bloodthirsty smile adorns his teeth, ready to greet their guest.
“Come closer.” He drawls, the little thing startles as they look at him. Curiously it is not the fear that he expected that meets his eyes, but instead, it is the tired surrender of prey that has been caught after a long, long hunt.
Eyes which have lost life long ago.
But I’ve yet to have met such a pair, Death muses, so how has such a little thing managed to lose life and not meet me.
“Fear not, for though you are already dead, I still have need of you.” Death calls for the little creature and the creature stumbles forward in response to his words, their eyes fly around the white abyss and fall on the two stoic guards by his side. It is almost imperceptible how their eyes widen when they look at him.
“Those foolish Bishops thought they could keep you from me in death. But instead, they sent you straight to me.” The lamb says nothing, but there is desperation in their gaze and Death’s eyes curl gleefully.
“I will give you LIFE again, but at a PRICE! All I ask is for you to start a Cult in my name.” Peering down at the lamb that just stares at him,
“Do we have a deal?” His head tilts and the decaying of his limbs drip his ichor down with the movement. The lamb looks down at their chains and an unknown look clouds their eyes,
“...y-yes.” Is all that is said and it is all the One Who Waits needs.
“Wise choice…” The Red Crown from his brow floats down to rest on the wooly head of the tiny creature.
“Take the Red Crown which I once wore. With it you shall command the loyalty of Followers and strike fear into the hearts of our enemies. Return to the land of the living, but beware for I will be watching you. Now, GO!” The lamb looks up at him with large eyes, and then they are gone, along his Crown. Aym and Baal look at each other but the One Who Waits ignores it in favor of attempting to gaze through the veil of the eye of the Crown.
"Five becomes four becomes three becomes two becomes one becomes nothing.” The voice that echoes in his head is equally ignored.
However an unbidden bitter thought comes through anyway, “Five became four a long time ago.”
So Death watched, he watched as the little thing killed, inanity in each of its movements as it swung its sword in untrained swings and slashes. A detached look as they hacked through the heretics, and finished with a shudder as the last body fell into pieces. Their eyes were wide and their stance wide open, stupid, they stared unseeing at everything and their trembling limbs did not stop shaking. Death looked until no longer he could and pulled back from the scene with a low chuckle, the sharp of his teeth widening as he looked back on his memories.
…yes…that would serve nicely…
Death called on an old vessel that once possessed his power. While the rat slept, the closest state in which a mortal could get to death, Death brought forward the contract they had made. The fidgety ex-vessel received his will and he felt the cowardly soul jerk from his claws, the urge to claw the insolent soul buried as the chains restricted him. The soul traveled far and quickly from his hands towards the bearer of his Crown. He turns back towards the Crown’s eye and sees what his vessel has done. He catches that they have started moving away from their destruction, clutching the bell that tingles from their neck. Death is pleased by the destruction and watches the little thing meet the rat that was once his vessel. The rat beckons them, eyes widening at the realization that the creature that possesses his Crown is a lamb, but then smiles and shows them the way of a leader.
Their first follower is a dog that trembles at the sight of them, though taller than the lamb, the dog begs for a swift death as the lamb shortens the distance between them. The quacking limbs of the dog are a sight to see as the lamb looks at them with wide eyes and shaking hands. The lamb takes the trembling hands of the dog to their own and brings them into a hug, the follower bursts into large heaving sobs.
The One Who Waits pulls from that scene with a sneer but forgets the dog rather quickly in favor of the devotion that runs through his ancient bones. The One Who Waits leaves at once to begin his scheming.
𖤐𖤐𖤐
Aym and Baal turn to their duties as Death commands them, they go to lead the souls that arrive with swiftness only seen in the experienced, century-old cats. He cannot see them off, having had his sight limited in response to his Crowns activity, but an ancient old envy simmers knowing they are freely roaming around. However, the sentiment is swiftly cut off when he feels a disturbance in the endless abyss of chains, crosses, and white. His senses, which were dulled and imprisoned by the chains that keep him captive, barely catch the sound of a shuddering breath. He had not seen what his vessel had done during their crusade, far too busy in trying to scheme against the growing pain. He attempts to see through the Crown but can only perceive white. Death straightens when his swiveling ears barely catch the slight twinkle of a bell. He smiles at the hesitance, and slight fear, that reaches him when he ever-so-slightly brushes against the mind of his vessel. Death muses that he’d only have to look down to find himself with a lamb that has died. However, he cannot see as this thought sours his amusements, his smile raises itself in response.
“Fear not, for you are my chosen vessel and death cannot halt you.” The lamb stays quiet in his presence. The God knows it is merely because of him that they choose not to talk, not out of any actual fear they should hold for him as their rather complicated head reveals that much.
So Death continues, “I shall not allow it, for I still have need of you. Take what you have gathered. Build and strengthen the Cult.” The lamb's hesitance simmers down in answer to his words and their tense mind lightens as they say nothing in response.
“This is how power is gained. Continue on, undaunted. Each time you are brought down, you rise again stronger.” Death enunciates, making sure to relieve the doubts the lamb might possess over his power there aren’t any and sends them back in a swift snap. He imperils a glimpse through the Crown, witnessing the body of the lamb rebuild itself in front of the teary followers. Unhesitatingly blinking out of the eye back again to reserve his waning power. He ponders upon this encounter and the ache of his mind rises once again. Death knows that the lamb does not fear Death himself, instead fears the act of dying. The remainder of the gash across their throat potentially incites a dislike for dying within them.
Though they have already cut the executioner up.
Death will not touch upon the subject, he finds no use for it unless it interferes with the lamb's quest to free him. If the lamb will not talk, the One Who Waits finds no use in trying to break the quietness of their meetings. The three eyes of the One Who Waits begin to bleed again as he thinks much about the lamb, he blinks the pain away and curses in eldritch as the chains tighten against his bones and what is left of his flesh.
A restraint to his freedom, the chains did everything to impede his escape, they bound his body down, decayed his flesh, took most of his voice, weakened his sight, and dulled his hearing. But most of all, they tightened and pained him when he thought too much. He growls in his rasped voice but bothers not to continue his train of thought. The bore of the land comes back to haunt him and he refuses his thoughts to trail off anymore.
“Do the chains hurt today too? Master?” Aym asks the One Who Waits who looks blankly and turns ahead before answering,
“They ache as much as they did yesterday. They’ll ache as much as they do today tomorrow” Time is not a concept in the endless abyss, but it gets the point across and the cat bothers him no longer.
The One Who Waits has seen thousands of souls pass by, many of them screaming when they saw him, or crying. Always did Aym and Baal lead them where they meant to go according to his will, he was Death after all, he was the afterlife and its eternal being. He has seen thousands of lambs pass by and has never chosen one as his champion, none were ever suitable. It was once, long ago when he still hoped and didn’t wish to ruin his siblings. He had loved them. Why he chose this lamb as his champion he can only wonder, out of the hundreds he has seen he could only wish to think upon it but the chains don’t allow him to do so. He could’ve chosen the strongest lambs, a warrior who fought to skill his body to the highest medium. He could’ve chosen the shrewdest lamb, a trickster as slippery as a snake whose schemes would have escaped any clutch. He could’ve chosen the wisest lamb, a scholar who made her mind the best tool to outsmart her foes. But no…he chose the last lamb that came.
The last lamb that survived through tragedy, treachery, genocide, and all that killed the last of their kind. The last lamb who cried alone when the cold killed their followers, broke down when their followers succumbed to starvation, and could not bear to look at their own hands for days after chopping up the heretics that killed them. Death believes it’s because he had no other choice he doesn’t believe he could care to know why at this stage, it worked, that is all that matters. He will be freed.
𖤐𖤐𖤐
The ex-vessel leads them to Darkwood, the domain of the calamitous Chaos. The rat shows the vessel the power of devotion, the faith of the followers, and how to use it. The little lamb is quick to take the knowledge in stride, no matter how burdening. The One Who Waits simply does as his namesake and in patience observes, to a limited extent.
However, unfortunate is the lamb to encounter the domain’s master soon after. The power of Darkwood abruptly shoots up in a crazed state. With his Crown of disorder and a garland of branches that grow like horns around his head, he meets the lamb with surprise.
"How can this be?” Chaos mutters, his body unseeing of the lamb, but his Crown sees everything for him. Its green eye flits between the lamb's paralyzed body and the Red Crown.
“You were put to the blade, Lamb, as all your kind were. And yet here you stand before me, unrepentant.” Chaos sounds amused, confused, and so very annoyed. Distant in a way that Death can no longer understand, not that he desires to. The lazy presence of the worm that loiters in the air suddenly squeezes the lamb in tumult.
“The Crown... his power... could it be?” Chaos hisses, quickly becoming riled against the power that backs the lamb but then calming almost immediately as if drunk.
“But I am stronger still~ Turn tail and run, Little Lamb.” Chaos merely laughs at the insinuation of his demise. The One Who Waits curls his claws and thrashes against his chains at the sight, his eyes burn, he can feel the remains, the muscles pulsing within the eyes of his kin he growls, the chains tighten in response.
The heretics of the land riot under the influence of their angered God, making it far more difficult for the lamb to pass through. They die a lot as a consequence. In every corner of the maze that is the consciousness of Chaos, the lamb dies. Skewered by the blades of the heretics, ripped apart by the maws of the creatures of Chaos, or because of their stupidity, The One Who Waits always meets them in the white abyss. Healing beneath his presence, watched by the three ever-ichor-bleeding eyes. He knows their mind, their soul deeply devoted as they die once and over again.
They meet creatures strange to them, though not to him as he reminisces on the times he used to trade with those exact travelers, three owls that speak in riddles. One who sees the line of fate. Another who saw the realization of that fate. And finally, the last who played with the tools of Gods, made them deadly.
Once possessing titles of the Ancient Age.
His vessel learns much after each death. Their granted power became attuned to their moves, their body forced to learn to the skills imposed upon them, and their strength became more and more formidable. To the point in which they eventually take away the sacrificed worm followers of the Green Crown. The first of the worm followers blubbering for mercy under the blade of the Red Crown, Death would urge them to sacrifice it but he does not bother to mingle with the affairs of the ‘leader’. The lamb smiles and sends them away mercifully.
They arrive at the feet of the One Who Waits with a heavy body but their rewards are fruitful. Summoned to the call of Death, they stand in waiting for him. The smile of the One Who Waits is grand against their threaded veil, sharp and toothy as he compliments their accomplishment.
"Very good, my vessel. It seems I chose well when I kept you from Death.” He tilts his head at the wooly creature, “I will be watching your every move. Do not disappoint me.” His three eyes narrow but the lamb stays quiet. Even with hunger, sleep, and thirst driven away by the Crown’s power, the little creature still looks tired. Death hums, uninterested, and sends the lamb away. Aym and Baal watch the creature disappear quietly and turn to their master as one. Though they say nothing and the One Who Waits ceases his thinking as the chains begin to ache more than usual.
“...do the chains pain you more today? Master?” Baal asks, breaking the silence.
Death looks at the guardian quietly and mutters, “Yes, but not for much longer.” Baal and Aym retreat quietly after that.
His cult grows, slowly but steadily, and so does his champion. Each successful crusade leads the lamb closer and closer to ‘He of Havoc’ as that trickster god is called. It is through one of the crusades of the lamb that the sky turns red and the power in the area turns erratic as beings of power come from the ground to appear in front of his vessel. The red of Famine, the green of Chaos, and the blue of Pestilence stand before the wooly creature. Each with varying reactions to the power of the lamb, one fearful, one rageful, and one gleeful. The One Who Waits shrieks at the sight of them and his chains pull against his wrath. Baal and Aym, who were far away in their instructions over the dead, rush over to their master’s side when the sound echoes across the white abyss. For the price of taking away a voice, the chain that circles over his own throat tightens to the point where he is barely audible. But all that he feels is not smothered and in lieu heightened in its culminating hatred.
The lamb, holding the Crown, is frozen in witness to the overwhelming power of these hissing Gods.
"So it is true. The Red Crown sits upon the brow of another." The Goddess of Famine says.
"But how? We did everything we could to—" The God of Pestilence speaks but is swiftly cut off, "It matters not. We need not bother…Shamura with this. Deal with it, brother." Pestilence looks down and Chaos tilts his head.
“As you command, my sister."
Death howls silently in his cage, the unextinguishable anger flooding through his divine ichor.
He grants the lamb the power to read the minds of their weak little followers after that, tired and his aching head prevent his words from formulating any hatred. He threatens them of becoming servants to the followers who are supposed to be serving them, power is gained when one is empowered over others after all. The lamb bows and is brought back away to recruit the latest of their ex-heretic followers.
𖤐𖤐𖤐
Hours turn into days, days turn into months, and months turn into years as the lamb learns. The ‘Leader’ learns, and the cult grows. The lamb grows stronger, Death watches it all happen through a patient hungry eye. Through chaos, famine, and pestilence the lamb stands tall. Leading their cult with patience as their sermons grow stronger, their preachings more understanding, and their ‘kindness’ more forgiving than what could have ever been witnessed in the land of the Old Faith. Death understands everything, though the curse of pain through thinking makes him irritable enough to forget to understand anything. So he stops thinking and greets his champion after every successful crusade or in every death that greets them back to the white abyss. The years pass with gain and loss as the cult thrives through every disaster thrown their way, and Death watches it all happen. Greeting the dying cultists with pleasure and leading them toward their promised end. To cultivate the devotion granted and to grant them in turn for serving him so devoutly. But for those that dissent, preaching hatred to the ‘false idols,’ there is a hell that reaches for them and Death gleefully throws them in it.
He watches them grow their cult. The lamb broadens the Cult’s farms, creates lumber yards for the followers to chop wood in, mines to mine the stone in, and expands the kitchen to serve more food to the estranged people of the Old Faith. The lamb builds tents to prevent the followers from having no place to sleep and some days brings hoards of mass sacrifices to the cult for refuge. Most of the creatures stay, though a couple leave, many come back within days of their abandonment. Death would say to kill them for leaving, but the lamb welcomes all of them back with open arms.
Death says they’ll dissent. They naturally do, the lamb isn’t present to hear him, nor can Death speak still.
It is during one of the final crusades to reach Chaos that the One Who Waits finds himself a rather pleasant surprise.
He recounts the times that once were his own as he watches the lamb explore the land of grassy mazes, once of a burrowing worm, a throaty toad, a shivering squid, and a soothing spider. The dead mourn that should’ve long passed is still present and continues to follow him, greedy to indulge in his pains. The lamb skewers the gurgling heretic that tried to rip them apart and easily rips out the sanity of the defeated heretic. The lamb stands tall and leaves the clearing with quick steps. Answering Death’s call, they appear before him, the rotten nostalgia that hurts his head had not stopped its pesky presence and it twisted the words of congratulations he was going to say.
"You see me here in chains, reduced to nothing.” He starts, the words flowing out of his control, “But it has not always been thus. I was bound to this wretched place by the Bishops of the Old Faith. They betrayed me and left me to rot.” The horrifying pain which the chains once inflicted on him runs through him phantomly.
“Each of the four chains that bind me are guarded by one of the Bishops. Destroy the Bishops and you break the chain. Break all four and I will be freed.” His eyes which had wandered far from this vessel of his snap back to the little wooly creature.
“I gave you life anew, vessel, and now you must repay the debt. You know what must be done. To defeat the Bishops you will need to become stronger. Sacrifice a follower to absorb more power—this will aid you in your quest to free me." He draws nearer making the chains clank but the lamb doesn't move nor react.
The One Who Waits tilts his head and gnashes his teeth in irritation, “Am I made clear?” and the lamb blinks before opening their mouth with curled ends.
“Is that what my God commands me to do?” They ask, and if it were not for the fact that the lamb speaks much when Death looks through the Crown, his eyes would have widened marginally more.
“...indeed, to grow your power this is what you must do.” The One Who Waits stretches his smile and the lamb merely tilts their head forward, back to their usual way.
But unusually farewells, “Of course, my lord.” And the lamb disappears and the One Who Waits blinks and from his peripheral vision sees Baal and Aym blink too.
Thus was the first time the lamb spoke, and like a champagne bottle whose cork popped open, the lid can never be forced closed again.
A large festival was done in the favor of the One Who Waits, the lamb with blank eyes a large smile declares this day a holy day and beckons nearly a quarter of a dozen creatures to their places on the altar. And grandly as they nearly always did, summons the land on which they are meant to rest, bringing them towards the paradise they were promised at the side of their ever-forgiving god.
The feast of devotion is delicious.
The next day they set out on their longest and hardest crusade so far. Having gone to kill the owner of the Green Crown, ruler of the maze-like Darkwood.
The youngest of the Old Faith, Leshy, ‘He of Havoc’.
𖤐𖤐𖤐
The One Who Waits does not watch the battle.
He does not watch the youngest of the Old Faith yield before his vessel, his power.
Death does not watch but is nonetheless present, he hears the screams of a god traveling across a realm that would reach for Chaos soon. He listens and he revels in this victory, he smiles deranged at the pain, the terrible pain his warden must be feeling.
The pitching noises in his ears shriek their tune.
“No…Nononono! NO!! NOO!!! YOU SNIVELLING CREATURE I WILL NOT- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-”
“...”
Leshy was the youngest of the gods, he found his Crown one day while searching for little critters in the forest that would become his domain when he gained power. Shamura had urged him to go play for a while, Heket had begun to cook a feast for her followers then and she promised the young worm that there would be plenty for him. Kallamar had gurgled when he announced his plans to forage around in the forest. Narinder had just snorted when Leshy whined to him and the young one eventually strutted away in frustration.
Leshy was heard shrieking in glee; only hours later, the siblings rushed over in worry only to find the young worm being tossed by the trees of the Darkwood. Screaming as the eldest trees, sentient and willing under the power of the Green Crown, flourished and served the whims of the shrieking worm. The siblings smiled under the mirth of seeing the youngest with such joy.
Leshy had found his Crown one day scavenging for little critters in a forest that would one day become his. The Crown fit him too large.
Narinder had put the Crown there purposely, to be found by the muttering little worm. Under the fear of the siblings in those times, they had been blind to see the effects of the Crown on Leshy. But their youngest had been safe.
That was all that had mattered to them then.
The One Who Waits refuses to see, but he can hear still, he can hear the beating heart the lamb collects. His shackles hurt, his face hurts, his ears hurt, his whole body hurts, but he cannot stop feeling hunger.
Aym and Baal are present to see their god stare blankly ahead with no purpose, a maddeningly large smile on his face, but they say nothing for to them it is but normal
The One Who Waits refuses to see, but he can feel the soul of the fallen Chaos and through the pulls and taunts of the strings of his power, Leshy lives on…forever in an agony of his own making.
Gods can die under Death's thumb but are not so easily forgotten. And if Death wishes to, that remembrance can create a never-ceasing purgatory of the Gods’ own making, the God is dead, and it will stay dead as long as this power belongs to him.
He wants to see them suffer, and for eternity, they will suffer.
One of the chains that holds him, the chain that does not allow him to see the ends of the white abyss that imprisons him, snaps.
A power long forgotten by time surges back into his decayed bones, into his weary soul, he sees the crosses that make this land resistant to his influence, he sees the chains that bind him and the broken ones. And much like his namesake, he waits for his champion.
The One Who Waits smiles wide when his little vessel appears before him a roar of blood-red flames, "Leshy fell before you like a grain of sand before a tidal wave." The words fall from his mouth with such ease, his hunger for freedom insatiable. He knows of the past but the One Who Waits will continue to await the future with patience. He chuckles and pushes these thoughts that hurt his head away.
The lamb looks up at him and smiles too, “Anything for my God!” They bow in a low dip, a hoof behind them and an arm in front. Disappearing in the flames of his power, leaving behind the faintest wisp of blood. He watches the lamb no longer after that, the terrible pitch in his ears growing and the ache in his head growing. It hurts to think but that does not stop Narinder from looking down and staring at the wispy figure of Leshy. Not there as Death can now see, but still, he sees the figure plop down next to his feet and curl like when he was younger and then remain as if resting.
His flesh is decaying, fraying at the ends like a melting corpse, the pinkness of soft tissue on top of his head fully visible.
He is too proud to mourn.