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Lambert is the vessel of prophecy, the liberator of The One Who Waits, and so far really bad at their job.
They can’t be blamed; to fight and kill were skills truly honed after their head a was sliced from their body, and death, although non-permanent now, still aches. Every spear that dives into their lungs and every arrow that pierces through their eye and into their brain, they are pained. Pain and exhaustion does things to mortals, mind you. It can make them delirious and weak, disrupt focus and make mistakes. Even fighting the same battle, again and again, they’ll make the same slip-up, not that they don’t know how to do something, but simply because they are mortal. Well, as about mortal as a century old sheep could be.
Burning to death thanks to enemies fireballs. Massive internal bleeding from a hammer strike that crushes their spine. Missing a parry and having a spear drive straight through their throat. The deaths were painful, and not always quick either. But they were absolute; they would die, be greeted by Death himself in the afterlife, and then return to try again. So far they were on attempt number 152, or somewhere along those lines. Hard to keep track after a century.
It is now, however, half-way through a crusade that they are given the choice.
A heretic with a sword bigger than it’s body caught them off-guard when they were preoccupied with a worm monster, and Lambert turned just in time for the blade to come down upon them. They dodge, the red crown’s weapon coming up to block what they can’t dart away from in time, but it comes down inches from their head to their side, or more accurately: the shoulder of their sword arm.
The sword cuts cleanly through muscle, bone and tissue and Lambert screams.
(Not the first time they’ve lost a body part, but at least they weren’t alive to feel the agony of the first decapitation afterwards.)
Blood spews from the contact point; the upper part of their arm just above the elbow as the rest of it falls to Darkwood’s dirt with a solid thud. The Red Crown’s sword dissipates immediately upon lack of connection and flies back as a headpiece to the top of their wool, but it offers no further assistnace as the lamb bites their tongue hard enough that it bleeds, stumbling back, and sprinting with heavy breathing into Darkwood’s forest. Lost limb and heretics forgotten.
There’s jeering and chasing behind them, but they fade as the trees blur past. Panic and pain and adrenaline have that funny affect on brains: the retreat for survival is instinctual. Their mind falls right back into prey.
The sound of the enemy fades after a minute, and the running continues until they quite literally faceplant into the ground after tripping over a tree root. It’s a startling snap back to reality, and with it’s cold water reminder comes the pain again. They scramble to sit upwards, the bloodloss making their vision blurry and the mind fuzzy as Lambert crawls to lean against the tree. Labored, heavy breathing. There’s not enough oxygen getting in their lungs. The entire one side of their body burns like hell fire. The side of them is covered in blood, and the ground was beginning to pool with it.
A century and multiple resurrections is still not enough time to remove the fear of death one has when they so desperately want to live.
The Red Crown floats off their head and watches emotionlessly as the vessel frantically rips off the bottom half of their cloak and begins to apply a tourniquet as best they can to the bleeding stump. He does not speak through it, not right away, though they know as they grit their teeth onto the fabric and tighten the knot that it would have been more logical to simply allow the heratic to get another hit in instead of prolonging the inevitable.
The adrenaline wanes faster as hot blood leaves them. They are not healing.
“Can-” They start, and try to keep their voice even. “Can the crown grow back body parts?”
A heartbeat passes before Death speaks through the crown. “Within a lengthy time period.”
He does not define what qualifies as ‘lengthy’, but their mind is too scattered to ask. “The bishops have crowns, but they could not grow back an eye...or throat, or their ears…”
The crown is silent for a long moment. The air is filled only with their haggard breathing and occasional pained hiss, until His voice comes again. “Wounds created by gods can have permanent consequences”
They don’t know what that means. At least, not yet. They’ll save that question for later, too.
Lambert inhales and exhales, and finds that bile threatens to climb up their throat. Nausea follows the pain like a close friend. Darkwood’s air is fresh and smells of flowers, but they’re starting to see eyes in the trees and teeth in the grass. The tourniquet is secured, now they just need to wait for the crown to staunch the bleeding. “How long until the limb comes back?”
Deep voice that comes from the crown and their ears both. “I assume a few weeks. Perhaps months.”
Wind blows through the trees and it makes their dizziness dispel to scan the space. They are alone.
“I’ll be ambushed. They’re looking for me.” They’re speaking out loud for him, facts he already knows. “I cannot hold my weapon properly, and…the bloodloss makes me slow.”
Silence. The Red Crown stares at them.
“I want to go home.” Ragged breathing. Death lingers in the air they exhale and lingers in their taste buds. “I’ll just rest at the cult for a few…weeks…”
No, they can’t. The flock is hungry. Their faith is constantly shaken with every failure to defeat the Bishops. They will starve and dissent if they return in this state, unable to provide. Unable to give, and give, and give.
“Lamb.” The One Who Wait’s voice is calm. “I will wait for my resurrection, but you do not have to.”
The suggestion is clear, and Lambert still furrows their brows. “You..just want me to give up-?”
“It is merely convenience.” The God of Death offers, and they can imagine that hand movement he likes to do and the sound of chains clinking when he wants to make a point. “I have invented a great power. It is to be used.”
The bleeding has slowed, but the pain still shoots through their body enough to make them entirely numb. Wetness wells at the bottom of their eyes, and they don’t know if it’s tears or blood. They’re tired. They wish for rest.
Still, the Lamb remains. “But I hate dying.”
The crown’s eye simply stares. Hard silence is their given response. Intuition tells them that they just said something wrong.
Logically, he is correct. Is the smarter move, given the circumstance. There is no need to for him to continue to convince them; they lose in either case.
Slowly, with shaking fingers of their still-intact hand, the Lamb unbinds the wrappings around their wound and lets the blood flow freely.
“You’ll live again.” His voice comes back as they relent. “But we shall discuss your fears in detail before you return. I will see to it that they are..addressed.”
There is not enough blood in them to argue as the heartbeat slows, and the world is turning dimmer. They let their head fall back against the tree and listen to the sound of leaves bristling, wind blowing against their ears. The final sleep does not come easy, not with the mind and body still fighting for life, but it comes eventually, and it comes fully.
The Lamb awakens in one piece in death’s domain, standing clean and undamaged upon his symbol.
The One Who Wait’s black veil completely shrouds his face. The God waves his skeletal hand once, and both cat disciples in meditation are broken from their positions, and promptly leave. They walk away so formally and so practiced on the same path in the sand like a million times before. Attendees to Death, they’ll do what tasks he cannot to maintain the afterlife, while Death himself maintains his vessel.
“Sit.” He demands, and Lambert is scratching at the skin of their arm as he glowers down at them. They cannot tell if he is scolding them, reassuring them, or something else entirely. “We are going to have a vital conversation, vessel.”
-
They are lost again.
Killing gets easier. The dying part comes and goes, depending on the death, but now they’re starting to actually get to the part where the crusades don’t always end in their demise. Anura’s pathway has been open to them for sometime now. The death of the Bishop of Famine has yet to occur just yet, and there is much they must do before they can face that challenge. Not to mention the cult has grown substantially in the last decades. There are many more requests, friends to be made and lost. Of golden statues and mushroom men, allies that don’t die are valuable indeed.
They’re busy, though. A badger requested fresh flowers from Darkwood to woo her next lover, and the Lamb senses devotion in her heart rise when they agree with a small comment of blessing their union upon their return.
It has been a week since they’ve left.
That follower probably thinks poorly of them by now.
The mazes of Darkwood change and shift, and the Lamb was not an inhabitant to know it’s corridors of trees, but an intruder the magical place tries to weed out. Days have passed since they first entered, and the flowers they picked once they found them have already begun to wilt. Whispers from the crown tell me of sickness in the cult, and hunger starting to rear it’s ugly head as their food supply begins to run out, because apparently everyone is afraid to farm or hunt on their own accord unless the lamb specifically tells them to. Beings too afraid to overstep some imaginary line with the prophet lamb. They should have put someone in charge before they left, but they never expected to be gone for more than a few hours.
The flock will not survive without them. It’s numbers have grown, but many are traumatized still from their rescuers, and many doubtful still as generations still hold hearts true to the Old Faith. There are frankly some who come and show that they are untrustworthy, but those are dealt with on a case by case basis.
Fact of the matter is: the growing flock needs their leader, but the shepherd has lost their way.
It’s the fifth, sixth, or maybe seventh day when they finally find somewhere they don’t have to fight heretics constantly, stop walking and pull the crown from their head. They stare through the eye’s pupil and speaks to no one. “Where do I go? I need to go back home.”
In all honesty, they could have asked beforehand, but Lambert was still a bit…reluctant.
For a long moment, there is nothing but silence and the crown’s pupil does not shift. They’re about to take that as an answer before His voice breaks through the air.
The One Who Waits sounds mocking. “Are you lost, little lamb?”
Their nose scrunches up immediately. “I wouldn’t be asking for directions if I wasn’t. Use your brain bits.” They snark. The response is silence, but they imagine he’s fuming a bit from them backtalking. Whatever. They want to go home.
“Silence, ungrateful thing.” He hisses. Yep. They’ve annoyed him. “I was to offer you a solution, but it appears you’ve forgone your privileges with a smart mouth.”
There’s a fallen tree in the clearing; a massive trunk that’s horizontal and still as tall as they are. They climb the bark and sit on the edge, legs dangling over the side. “Is the cult doing okay, at least? You haven’t talked about them in like, two days.”
There is a pause. “No. Their faith wanes in your absence. You are failing your role.”
The Lamb deflates. The air is cool here, at least. Hunger no longer plagues them like how it did before the crown, though they missed the feeling of taste so much they opted for the ability to consume meals again after Leshy’s defeat when prompted for a reward. Another option would have been the ability to teleport back mid-crusade without the use of magic-infused teleportation stones. Probably not their best decision. “Fine. What’s your idea then?”
The Red Crown shifts into a dagger without their say so, and the handle fits snugly into their hand.
The One Who Wait’s tone is almost polite. “I will see you safely home.”
Lambert blinks at it.
“Drive the blade into your heart.” He tells them after a moment, a bit plainer just to get the point across. “It is quicker this way.”
If a heretic were to come upon them now, they’d see a lamb locked in dead eye contact with a floating weapon in dead silence and hopefully be too creeped out to engage in combat.
“You want me to die on purpose.” They say. “As in...not injured, and by my own hand, purely because it is faster than just giving me directions?”
“I have no directions to give you. Leshy’s domain is as much as a maze to me as it is to you.” The God of Death argues back, calm collection in his voice. He talks like how they pretend to be in sermons: certain of themselves, with the right words and answers to everything. “I will not force you. I state a choice you have.”
Their nose wrinkles. “It doesn’t feel like I have a choice.”
There is a low chuckle that echoes in the back of their mind from him. “I could demand it from you should you need help deciding.”
They play with the petals of the camellias they picked. “So an illusion of choice. Got it.”
“I only offer you a suggestion; use death and resurrect as a tool as much as you use the crown. You lack the ability to materialize back at my cult, this is what is available to you until you can.” They can see his smile now; sharp fangs locked into a grin that knows too much. Manipulative or genuine. They wonder why he puts in the effort instead of taking a back seat and allowing it to play out on their own terms. Entertainment, maybe.
The lamb weighs the blade in their hands, and sighs. The dagger is flipped, positioned over their heart and while the lamb knows they have enough mental strength to drive the dagger to it’s mark, they still shut their eyes tight. “I still don’t like dying.”
They arrive on his symbol and are greeted immediately with a frown. The disciple with dark robes and a moon staff is to his side sharing a scrunched look, but his counterpart appears to be missing this time.
Before The One Who Waits can speak, Lambert thrusts the bouquet of flowers up towards him. “Want these? They came with me, you can have them.”
His brows furrow, and there’s a moment where they think he’s debating on insulting them or ignoring them. Though, the camellias with bright, blood red petals that droop with wilt begin to rapidly decay, and Lambert brings their arm down to pout at the black rot and ash that’s falling away from their fingers. What remains of the flowers slips through the cracks of their hand, and joins the sand. “…Nevermind. Can I stay for a little while before going back?”
There was nothing to suggest otherwise, but he hums something in acknowledgement. Lambert shakes the lingering feeling of a blade in their ribs and makes themselves comfortable on the stone. “So, I have some new ideas for buildings in the flock, but I’ll need some gold to do it.”
His head tilts. Even for a death by their own hand, they’re still going to be chatty. Might as well be since they’re here.
-
Some in the flock believe them to be weak after every death.
It is after a normal morning sermon when it happens. Finor had seen to the arrangements of attendance and sewn new banners for the temple. Breakfast was served already for those suffering an empty stomach. The Lamb had their speech pre-written and rehearsed. There is nothing unusual about the schedule nor weather or anything at all, there is nothing to warn them. Even mind reading everyone appeared to have the same usual thoughts: some doubt, yet faith remains.
They must have missed one, somehow.
The Lamb had entered Darkwood once more the night before on the request of a deer’s hunger for the domain’s native berries. They find hardly any, but there was enough meat, pumpkin and wheat to last them, so the task is pushed to the side and forgotten.
This was, apparently, a fatal mistake. One must tend to their followers near every whim if they wish to harness their devotion. That deer really liked his berries, or maybe he was just wanting an excuse.
They’re conversing with the rabbit after morning sermon when he approaches. A deer with cut ears, and a bobbed tail. “My lamb.”
Lambert turns to him. “Hmm? Yes, Hubre-”
A sharp pain. A knife taken from the kitchens is plunged into their stomach and dragged upwards. It is so sudden and bold that they do not process the attack coming from within their own flock grounds. By the time the shock allows them to blink, the deer has pulled the dagger out and driven it in again. Repeatedly. Into their stomach, lungs, chest, anywhere he could stab.
Gasps and screams can be heard from the stragglers whos stayed behind in the temple. Finor curses loudly as she moves towards a crying child to cover their eyes. Gravity feels overwhelming, and the world sick. It’s not the most violent way they’ve died by a long shot, but certainty one they’ve been caught most-guard from. Their hand flexes to grasp an invisible weapon. Their throat feels blood bubble and trick out from their mouth. The deer’s arm is covered in red from his actions as the Lamb falls down into a growing puddle of it.
In total, the assassination is over in a matter of a few seconds.
The Red Crown gives strength to the body that mortality wouldn’t have allowed. Lambert lies facedown and motionless, seemingly lifeless, on the floor while the deer turns back to the crowd to sprout heresy of false gods and prophets. Long live the Bishop of Pestilence, he says. Weird. He wasn’t even a disciple from Anchordeep. Perhaps the Lamb should vet their rescues more.
They’re going to have to get rid of him. He might hurt the rest of the flock. They could have cut out the infection sooner, kept an eye out for this. They will the crown’s power to staunch the bleeding, to raise them so they can pry the dagger from the swinging dissenter’s fingers-
“Come.” Says The One Who Waits, and collects freely in the corner of their mouth. “Let yourself die.”
Their throat is wet and their lungs have holes in them. “My...flock...my…flock…”
Death is in their voice. To onlookers, it sounds like nothing else but a death gurgle. To Him, it’s a plea.
“A day in my domain is nothing but minutes in life.” He says, and they can feel the world slipping away. He has stopped allowing the crown to heal them. “Die, Lamb. Come here.”
They let go, and the world blinks black before the white of the afterlife takes it over.
The first thing they do is curse, which just spits out blood into the sand and come out incomprehensible. The second thing they do is wait until the wounds stitch up before allowing their anger and confusion to express. “After everything I did for him, and this is how he thanks me? I mean, I know I’m not the perfect cult leader yet but did I really deserve that? He tried to kill me!”
“He did kill you.” The One Who Waits corrects.
They’re pacing in a circle on his symbol, uncaring if his two disciples (Both of them, this time) share concerned looks as the Lamb curses and pulls at their wool. “Why did you want me to die there? My flock might be in danger! I looked weak in front of them and now the dissent is only going to get worse.”
“Time is different here.” He cuts them off. “You have a moment to clear your head, and I suggest you do so again before raising your voice at your god.”
“I just got stabbed, I can raise my voice if I want to.”
He appears to ignore that comment for the sake, but the way his ears pin back suggest he was taking issue with how far they were pushing their boundaries. “Take this assassination as a lesson, Vessel. You are too soft. You’re allowing you cattle and fodder to become too confident in opposing you, and my faith.”
They kick a plume of sand up with their feet in dejection. “Bah. All you ever do is scold me.”
The One Who Waits glowers at them. They wonder if he regrets bringing them here. Boney fingers and claws curl in and out in displeasure. Anger, maybe. There’s a sharp frown hidden behind his veil that they never get to look behind.
The God of Death almost sneers. “You are very lucky that I am patient.”
“Can you pick me up?”
“Vessel, You-what?”
“Can you pick me up?” They repeat, walking just below him close enough where the chains would allow his hands to reach them. “I need to complain for a bit before going back. I want to get comfortable, and I’m tired of craning my neck up to talk to you.”
The One Who Waits stares. Somewhere to the side, the white robed cat’s eyebrows has reached the top of his forehead, and his brother matches his gaze.
He blinks at them. “You’ve become far too bold to request such a thing.”
“Have mercy and pity on me, O’ Great Death.” They rock on their heel, a slight smile on their face. Tone only a touch sarcastic. They even dip in a half-bow. “Please, do allow me to take in your divinity wholly. Pick me up. My neck hurts.”
There is hesitation, not out of lack of will but more so out of awkwardness. The God’s hand comes down, chains clinking around his wrist and at first they think he’ll reveal his palm and allow them to climb up onto their resting spot. Instead, four fingers behind them and with a thumb pressing against their mid-section, Lambert is promptly grabbed as claws close around them and lifted up off of the ground.
He acts like he’s never done this before. The grip isn’t strong enough to hurt him, but loose enough that they can wiggle their legs and wrap their arm around his thumb for support. It’s only when they slip for a few inches does the grip suddenly tighten, and Lambert lets out an cut-off bleat as they’re accidentally squeezed.
The One Who Wait’s ear twitches at the sound.
“I’ll have to put Hubre in the pillory, but I’m thinking I’ll do something dramatic when I revive to really scare the daylights out of him, you know?” They make themselves as comfortable as being held by a skeletal can be; head falling back to rest against his fingers. “Maybe float up and have bleeding eyes when I revive. Make my horns grow bigger and spout something about how I’ve seen death and I can introduce him and yada yada. I’d speak something in demonic for dramatic effect, but I don’t want to accidentally burn the ears of any nearby onlookers.”
The God of Death shifts his palm slightly, and the Lamb is rotated in his hand like an inspection of a shiny gold coin. “Your pronunciation for it is poor. You would only make your own tongue burn.”
“I’ll figure something out.”
-
He asks again at the end of a crusade.
They are in the final temple room, having traversed through Anchordeep’s maze and found one of Kallamar’s witnesses waiting at the end. The fight was not particularly difficult if not annoying with how many jellyfish the monster summoned, and the creature the disciple turned into became a coward the moment it faced defeat at the Lamb’s hand. Saleos, a round thing that appears to be a mix of a plant and a jelly fish with black ichor spouting from misshapen eyes.
The Lamb offers him a place in the flock, as they do with all the others. He accepts silently, shaking, and is teleported back to the stone as easily as the rest. They’ll have a follower to indoctrinate when they get back.
They always linger behind though. Goodies and treasures remain in the parts of the temples that disciples are assigned to guard, and when one was practically a single parent of an entire civilization, they’ll need to take what they can get. They’ve wiped the Red Crown’s sword clean of blood and have rummaged through the chests. Gold, stored food and small trinkets are shoveled into the crown’s storage. They’ll have to sort it all when they return-
The One Who Wait’s voice breaks through their focus, and echoes in a deep smooth tone. “Come to my domain.”
Lambert pauses, and drops the silver cup they were holding into the crown. “But my flock will think badly of it?”
“You have killed a disciple. The cult will not see that as a failure, all they will witness is your eventual return on the stone, with a new follower as evidence of your victory and bloodshed.” His voice rings back and forth between their ears, and makes them raise. “They will not notice your death. Come.”
Lambert says nothing back, but they do pick up pace of pilfering through the spoils and dropping what’s shiny into the crown before standing up and running off. They go in the opposite direction from the adjourning room, back into the Bishops maze. The domain here always smells damp, but the sights that greet them again are pretty. Everything is blue in the night, and shifting like water in the corner of their vision.
They’ll find something quick, and they have an specific idea in mind. They’re walking through grounds already cleared, the remaining corpses of heretics already slain passing by as they search.
His voice is close to their ear. “Cliffside, to your right.”
...Excuse me?“
“I don’t want to die like that again. That was an accident.” A pause. “And I’m trying to be careful around tall heights now.”
There is something like a scoff that vibrates through their skull. “You climb me, frivolous vessel. You speak no sense.”
“Yeah, well.” They hop over a corpse, heading towards an area they know they skipped. There might be some jellyfish there. “You’ve caught me every time I’ve fallen.”
Silence from him.
They find what they’re looking for: jellyfish with the ability to explode, creations from one of the Bishops for some unknown reason. They wonder briefly if this was for a defensive purpose, an offensive one, or simply just because they could. A show of power perhaps, or maybe the jellyfish were born to be bombs.
In any case, Lambert runs up to the closest one they see, plants themselves directly in front of it and pokes it with one fingers.
Their hypothesis is correct: an explosion directly to the face destroys the brain fast enough to feel any pain of death. They’ll have to note that detail for later.
The boys are here again, sitting cross legged on the ground in what looks to be practiced meditation. Both open their eyes at the Lamb’s arrival. Aym glances over at the God of Ddath with a look neither disagreeable or concerned but rather…knowing. Baal smiles, then forces that smile down for the sake of looking proper. He does, however, raise the slight of his fingers off his knee in the semblance of a wave.
Lambert smiles and waves back.
Baal hesitates before his hand raises and points to his own face, and makes an expression too fast for the Lamb to decipher before the cat makes eye contact with their Master, and returns quickly to meditation.
Oh, right. Their face looks pretty messed up right now. There’s gore disappearing from their cloak collar as it stitches itself back together. The Lamb looks up to the God of Death. His head has tilted again. He’s probably interested in watching the healing process. “What did you need me for?”
They forgot to ask before they died for him. Oh, well.
The giant cat’s answer is plain. “Your handwriting is deplorable. You dishonor my doctrines.”
Ah, so they summoned them so he could complain about them. Seems just about right. The grin on their face does not disappear, thought their eyebrow raises. “Bad enough that I had to die for it?” They ask. “Couldn’t it have waited until I died in combat?”
“Fashion the crown into a sword and use it on the sand.” He doesn’t leave room for argument. “I will teach you how to form proper symbols.”
-
In the middle of the night, in the dark of their room lit only by the flame of a single candle, His voice is gentle. “Come here.”
They look up from their desk and scattered papers. (Scribbled letters to the courier for Ratau, shipment lists for Plimbo, A certificate of indoctrination for the new rescue from Silk Cradle, multiple attempts to correct their stringy hand penmanship by writing the same name, again and again, a new found knowledge they’ve kept close.) Lambert feels eyes on them. The crown sits on top of their head, but shadow picks at their skin and tingles against their neck. “What? Right now?”
The deep voice hums in affirmation.
“It’s the middle of the night. I’m not in a crusade. Using the red crown will leave a bloody mess in my room.” They refute, but their tone is not argumentative. Far from it. There’s a smile in their voice as they lean back in their chair, twirling the quill. “You want me to?”
“Come.” Death beckons, and he sounds warm. “I will not scold you for it.”
They push back their chair from the desk quick enough that it grates against the wooden floorboards, moving to blow out the candle, which takes two tries becuase they were too fast the first time and the second time had to slow down enough to make sure the flame is out before they leave. The letters and his name and their doodles are left out on the desk to be picked up later. Lambert exits through their bedroom door, and the crown locking the space behind them.
They almost trip down the stairs on the way down, and it’s not until they correct themselves just before gravity sends them to the bottom does His amusement echo. “That would have been a quick route to me.”
Lambert stifles their laugh. “It’s not guaranteed.”
The temple is dim and quiet, and the darkness caresses them almost as they lock their second entry and speed walk past the podium. The One Who Waits continues. “You Are uncalculated and reckless. I’m sure it would have worked out in our favor.”
“Hush, Narinder.” The lamb all but grins as they walk towards their death. “You sound so impatient. Give me a moment.”
He says nothing else, but they imagine a skeletal tail thrashing about.
The kitchen is empty as expected when they enter. The most recent shipment of goodies have expanded their menu a bit, no longer constrained to what survives the soil in the garden here or what they find out in the local wilds, so the storage room is a bit crowded. They find the package tucked away underneath where the cauldrons are hung, wrapped tightly in a brown packaging. The contents are usually ground up for toppings or turned into oil for cooking, but could make for a decent snack on their own if one desired. At least, followers tell them so.
The Lamb is deathly allergic to peanuts, it turns out, and they know exactly where the little damnable things are kept.
The smell of them makes their nose tingle when they open the package, and they grab one and pop it in their mouth. They stand and walk out of the kitchens, tossing a few peanuts into the air and catching them in their mouth as they walk towards the temple. Better to die in their room just in case any follower gets a midnight craving to find the corpse of their leader in the kitchen grounds. “Have you ever had peanut butter before? I haven’t, but Plimbo says it’s pretty good with bread and jam. Thought about trying that next time.”
Their throat is tingling already, and their face is starting to feel a little stuffy. It’s only been about thirty seconds, but they reach the temple, locking the doors behind them and slumping against the heavy doors.
He’s audible, even as ringing starts in their ears as breathing becomes a bit more labored. “…Interesting choice of method.”
“Didn’t feel like leaving a mess.” Their voice comes out light and wheezed. Lambert eats another peanut.
They arrive to the afterlife with a puffy face, watery eyes, and skin with lined ripples beneath the wool. Their lungs immediately start to feel better upon death, but it lingers as the effect dissipates. They go to greet him, and instead cough out phlegm and noises of a whistling throat. His disciples are both missing this time, probably busy.
A ichor-stained claw comes down, and rests against their back. It pats them softly, and air enters their lungs. They pretend not to notice when the God of Death pays too much attention to their breathing and almost unconsciously mimics the movement, his chest rising and falling as theirs do.
“I can’t wait-” Cough, cough. Lambert clears their throat, feels the last of the allergic reaction fade and their face return to normal, and smiles. “I can’t wait until you’re free. That way I don’t have to die to see you.”
His head tilts. He is quiet again, face unreadable beneath the veil. They’d ask to go back under it if his silence wasn’t enough to make them wonder if the suffocating feeling was a lingering reaction to the peanuts, or the possibility that they just said something wrong.
“Whattya need from me?” They put their hands on their hips and grin up at him. “I’ve got no new updates on the crusades. Shamura’s disciples are tricky, but nothing new. There’s nothing new about the cult either, nothing that I haven’t told you this morning.” They rock on their heels, and quietly count the times they’ve come to see him in the last week. He won’t point it out, but they’ll tease him about it. “Did you just miss me?”
“No.” The One Who Waits answers. “I am never not apart from you. You are not far enough to be missed.”
“Oh.” They blow a raspberry. “Would you miss me if I was?”
He deadpans behind the veil. “I would not miss you. There is no degree of separation to let that feeling fester. You are my vessel, and therefore under my constant supervision. A requirement for our deal.”
He’s completely avoiding answering the question. “All I’m asking is that would you miss me when I’m gone?”
“Stop.” He says, and it sounds final. He sounds annoyed.
The Lamb’s grin widens.
The God of Death’s head lowers to glare at them, but it’s a shadow all too comforting.
“Alrighty, Narinder. Since you’re in such a sour mood.” They jest. They walk forwards to better be in his reach. “What’s the reason for tonight? Bad writing? Did I mess up a crusade again? Too nice to a follower before sacrifice? You said you wouldn’t scold me.”
One could hear the ringing silence in his domain of death, as The One Who Waits hesitates.
“You seemed bored.” He says. It’s all he gives them. No further explanation.
“Uh huh.” They click their tongue, teeth white in a grin. “Bored.”
They reach the shadow underneath his hand, their own coming to rest upon the chain that leads up to his wrists. He could easily send them back, but they know he won’t. The Lamb puts both hands through the loop of the chain and pulls at them. It does not tug on his wrist nor do they have the strength to bring him down; it would be offensive and insulting to think that they could, but he pretends it works. The hand falls to the sand, palm upwards. He says nothing as they climb onto it, nor anything as he raises it up to his veil without prompt.
“What does Death like to do when he’s bored?” The lamb stretches completely out, limbs splayed, and looks at him through tussled wool. “Maybe I should get you a cat-toy, of some sort.”
A claw taps down onto the head of their wool, just on the tip of their horn, and The One Who Waits hums.
-
-
-
They’re having the nightmare again.
He feels their pained whimper in his ribcage long before he’s close enough to their room to hear it.
He enters the room silently, foregoing the door or picking the lock to simply merge into the wood in a mist of shadow and form on the other side. It leaves the taste of ichor in his mouth. The mortal body he houses in is still adjusting to his ever growing ability, but he arrives, fur blending in with the black of a dark room, and comes to the foot of the lambs bed.
Their fingers are curling into their pillow, face twisted into pain anger fear sadness with tears that streak down onto the bedspread and wet the collar of their night tunic. A weak breath of a word escapes their lips, and from their throat is a faint whine. The lamb’s body is tense, wool sticking to their forehead. They’re writhing. whispers of a nightmare, incoherent in their sleep. Three eyes watch in darkness as a god killer deteriorates.
He thinks briefly of summoning the scythe, but the definition of assassination has long far escaped him, and the enemy their facing is not something physical he can kill.
The crown is awake, floating above it’s bearer, and stares emotionless at the god they share.
He does not pay attention to it. Eyes on the lamb.
“Na-rinder.’ Their voice is weak, broken. A sob threatens to begin. ‘Na-rin-’
“Lamb.” He makes his voice firm. His claws are curled into fists at his side. Wake up.
They almost jolt when he speaks. Unpleasant, not quiet or soft at all. They don’t deserve it. Their head lulls upwards, eyes fluttering open to search the darkness half-lidded and to find a demon standing at the foot of their bed.
They’re still half-asleep, he can tell, or perhaps not awake at all. They don’t yell at him this time. The space on the bed where he last snuck in is notably empty. He refuses to think about it.
“You’re causing a disturbance.“ he says, and pointedly leaves out the detail of how, who, or why.
The lamb's head is messy, their eyes and wet face stay unwiped, sluggish, as one arm lets go of the death-grip on their pillow and instead reaches for the shadow in the room. Their movements are slow, palms open, and blanket falling from their shoulders.
“Narinder.” They call his name, slow and slurred with sleep. “Come.”
There is no pause, no hesitation, only silence as the God of Death falls to their call.
Death crawls into their bedsheets. Bleary eyes watch the shadow as it traverses to the side of the mattress, a black hand coming to lift the covers up over them and himself. What rules of distance has long since been broken by this point; the Lamb’s eyes are closed again before he’s even fully situated; Narinder feels a horn barely scrape his chin as a wooly head plants itself into the crook of his neck. Their nose breathes evenly onto his skin, and their mouth moves in mummers against his collarbone. He has to adjust their arms himself to lay comfortably instead of splayed outwards, lifting their limbs like a doll so they’d lay more comfortably before his own wrap around the usurper’s back
One hand rests on the small of their waist and back, the other curls underneath them, coming to cup the back of their head and neck where four claws sink into their wool, and his thumb finds a soft spot on their throat.
There is a pulse there, and Narinder wills it to slow from the quickened rate. The thumb pets in gentle, slow movements. The lamb’s moving mouth begins to slow until it stops. Their ears stop twitching. Their muscles de-tense, and their breathing is even.
Sleeping like the dead, the saying goes, but the dead often rest in peace, and he is good at providing such. But only to this one. Only them.
The red crown is settles somewhere on the bed covers, no longer alert.
Death closes his eyes, and presses his nose further into their wool.