Chapter Text
Regardless of what the rest might think, Shrumy believes Ratau was an excellent leader.
He did what none of the Bishops could do and ruled his cult through genuine care and devotion– the kind that rewarded him with loyalty beyond the Crown itself. Even now, without its power, he bore the weight of its responsibilities and continued to shelter his little motley crew of former disciples whenever the need arose.
He was a great leader, and a great friend, but sometimes his heart was too soft to see through deceit. It’s a trait the rest of them shared. And if Shrumy has to be cruel to protect that, then so be it.
“Nobody but me here, Lamb.”
It’s the truth; the others had gone on an excursion to refill their dwindling alcohol stock. While they usually took turns to do it, Klunko and Bop had insisted on joining Flinky and Ratau since their path would let him finish up an errand.
Flinky had offered to stay behind with Shrumy to watch the shack, but Klunko convinced them otherwise, claiming that the close proximity of the Lamb’s cult was enough to deter bandits from their area anyway.
Frustratingly, he’d be right. But just like the others, Shrumy doubts Klunko is aware of just how terrified outsiders are of the Lamb his little crew likes to treat like an innocent, surrogate child.
“I’m aware,” The Lamb replies. Not for the first time, Shrumy wonders if they’re capable of reading his thoughts. The smirk they give him is a little too haughty; a lot too different from the pleasant smiles they like to give Ratau and the others, “I wanted to speak with you in private.”
Shrumy’s hackles rise, but he remains casually leaning against the doorway, “Surely anything you need to say to me can be said in front of them.”
The Lamb hums, their eyes glued to his as they straighten themself to their full height. Shrumy questions how his friends could still think of them as a lamb ; the damn thing is taller than him at this point even without the menacing set of horns curling around their head.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” The Lamb continues, steepling their fingers, “This isn’t anything I haven’t discussed with Ratau before. However, I have reason to believe that he might be a little… biased, towards my situation. Upon reflection, I’ve decided that you may be the best option to help me find the truth.”
Yeah, that doesn’t narrow it down , thought Shrumy. Ratau’s fatherly affection for the Lamb blinds him to a lot of things about them, though the Lamb doesn’t do much to discourage his rose-colored worldview either. However, he’s actually a little surprised that they sought Ratau out for help recently. It’d been a long time since the Lamb discussed anything about their official duties with him, citing their need for independence to be respected as a cult leader.
Whatever this is, it must be serious.
Well, far be it for Shrumy to turn down an invitation to crush someone’s ego.
He nods, “Get in.” He doesn’t bother holding the door open, letting it fall closed into their face. But with nary a movement from them, the Crown shifts into a hand and blocks it, allowing the Lamb to step through without a fuss.
“Hmf.”
They don’t reward him with a reaction, merely striding towards the chair across from him without further invitation. As they take a seat, the Red Crown slithers off their head and down their arm, transforming into a catlike figure with one glowing eye.
“What’s it doing?”
“It wants to play,” The Lamb answers simply. Shrumy stares as the Crown..cat blinks up at them before leaping off the table. It saunters over to a pile of discarded alcohol bottles, tail wagging, “Just ignore it. It’ll clean any mess it makes.”
Whatever. Shrumy grunts and turns his attention back to them, “So, exactly what kind of issue is the oh-so-mighty Lamb struggling with that not even dear old dad could help them with?”
The Lamb sighs. They pull out a book from under their cloak and set it on the table between them, flipping it open to a marked page which they tap with a finger.
╔══ ≪ °❈° ≫ ════╗
Symptoms of Fear:
sweating
trembling
hot flushes or chills
shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
rapid heartbeat
a sensation of butterflies in the stomach
nausea
headaches and dizziness
numbness or pins and needles
dry mouth
ringing in your ears
confusion or disorientation
╚════ ≪ °❈° ≫ ═╝
“What am I looking at?” asks Shrumy. Obviously he can read what it says. But fear is not an emotion he’d associate with the Lamb. Even if he distrusts their facade, he’s seen them during crusades before. Back in Silk Cradle, a few moments before they’d officially met, he’d watched from the shadows as Ratau’s successor ravaged through a horde of uncountable enemies with a confident, malicious smile on their face. Not a bone in that body knew fear, and he’s hesitant to believe that they would suddenly learn it now.
“A gift from Ratau,” The Lamb traces the words then pulls their hand away. Their mask had already cracked with him today, but now there’s not a trace left of the sweet little sheep they show his friends, “A long time ago, just before I defeated Kallamar, I came down with a strange affliction. When I told Ratau of my symptoms, he told me that it was fear.”
Their stoicism is unsettling, but Shrumy ignores the stone in his own stomach, “And? You’re saying he’s wrong?”
“You tell me,” They answer, their eyes meeting his, “I am the sole God in these lands. I earned that right through the Bishops’ blood, and supplanted the very being that granted me power.”
Ah yes. He’d heard about that. The Lamb had dropped by a few weeks ago to let Ratau know that they’d defeated The One Who Waits after his betrayal, and kept both the Red Crown and their former god. Shrumy thinks the others were just too busy being relieved at their return to realize what that decision said about them.
As if to confirm his thoughts, the Lamb continues, “I keep him in my cult like a living trophy, because I know he can’t harm me. Are these the actions of someone who’s afraid?”
“Sounds like the actions of a typical Crownbearer. Too arrogant to realize how stupid they are.”
Their lips twitch up, “I knew asking you was a good idea.”
“So what? Did you just want a confirmation of your idiocy from someone who doesn’t fawn over or piss themselves at the sight of you?” Shrumy grunts, “If so, I bet that ‘trophy’ you keep in your cult would have more than a few words to say to you.”
The smirk that had been forming on the Lamb’s face abruptly falls.
“...And therein lies the problem,” they reply, “Because even after defeating him, I still live in fear of The One Who Waits.”
Shrumy raises an eyebrow, “Then why don’t you just kill him?”
“I should have,” they spit. And then, their countenance shifts, transparently hesitant and insecure. Even when they faked sweetness in front of Ratau and the others, they always appeared confident. This doubtfulness is far more unnerving than seeing their blatant arrogance.
“But… I can’t. The fear grows worse whenever I come near him. It disappeared during our battle, but after he lost, it returned.”
Despite his distaste for them, Shrumy finds himself interested.
“Is he still trying to kill you?”
“I prepared for it.”
“And?”
“He’s…” And again, they hesitate, “He’s still confined in the medicine bay. Likely too sickly to try.”
“You’re afraid of a cripple?”
This, finally, gets them to glare at him, “...He was not always so. I carried this fear since his reign as the God of Death. Perhaps my head has yet to realize that he’s no longer a threat to me.”
“Looks like a simple fix to me then. Why not just let him rot and die instead of healing him in the med bay? You could even get your followers to speed up the process for you, if you really can’t do it yourself.”
Though subtle, Shrumy notices the Lamb’s pupils dilate.
“That… that wouldn’t be satisfying at all.”
Shrumy looks back down at the book between them. Something is niggling in the back of his mind when he reads through the list of symptoms again, but the thought is foggy.
“You called it an affliction. You thought it was a sickness when you asked Ratau about it. What exactly did you tell him?”
“I asked him about his previous encounters with The One Who Waits during his time as the vessel. I wanted to know if he felt anything similar to me, and how to best deal with it. He told me ‘yes’, that fearing Death was an innate part of our nature, and then he gave me this book.”
“Be specific. What were you ‘feeling’ during your visits that bothered you so much?”
They sigh, the sound filled with growing irritation. It’s a testament to their desperation that Shrumy is still sitting here unscathed, but the situation is starting to become amusing to him.
“What it says in the book: sweating, nausea, hot flushes. My heart beating faster, and a weight in my stomach. My mind was in disarray, and it made it increasingly difficult to interact with him. It’s a weakness and I need to be rid of it. I can’t afford to suffer this if he decides to attack me again!”
Their voice grows higher by the end, another anomaly for the normally composed Lamb. But Shrumy doesn’t notice it, because that nagging thought in his head is starting to become clearer and well…
“So it’s only him? You’ve never felt this way about someone else?”
“Yes, nobody else,” The Lamb growls, now fully ruffled.
“And you’re still feeling it? Even after you defeated him?”
“Yes. That’s why I came here. I need to know if Ratau was wrong, or if I’m still suffering from this fear sickness.”
“You are.”
They jolt, “I am?”
Shrumy grins. Perhaps the Lamb is a deceitful thing– a vicious crusader and ruthless cult leader– but this conversation has proved that they are not as infallible as they’d like to think. And he’s going to relish telling them that.
“You have a sickness, but it’s not fear.
It’s love , Crownbearer.”
•⛧·₊˚☽°✧ -ˋˏ ༻{♛}༺ ˎˊ- ✧°☾˚₊·⛧•
Love.
Love was not an easy thing to come by for sheepfolk during the reign of the Old Faith.
Forget trying to love someone from another species– it was impossible for sheep to trust anyone other than their own family, even other sheep. The concept of a large Flock had been forgotten long ago, abandoned the moment it became a threat to their survival.
Because that was the most important thing, wasn’t it? Survival. If you were weak, if you couldn’t provide, then you stood a chance of being left for the wolves to give the others more time to save their necks.
Luka knew that chance would always fall to them… that Mikael was always the one their parents favored for survival. Even if their older brother was a literal black sheep, Luka was the one treated like an outcast.
Mikael was charismatic, able to persuade even the most stone-hearted vendor into giving away extra supplies, leftover food, and bits of gossip. He was an agile runner, able to outpace everyone in their family without breaking a sweat; the litheness in his feet equally apparent whenever they sparred and he dodged every single one of their blows. He was gifted in magic, taking to it as easily as a fish to water, even if their nomadic lifestyle meant every piece of knowledge he could gain would have to be stolen in scraps from wayward travelers.
Most of all, he was kind; still somehow full of warmth even in a world that only wanted to kill them.
Luka knows that’s why their parents loved him. Even if Luka had been the charismatic one, the agile one, the gifted one… they could never have loved so unabashedly that it reflected back on them. Even as Mikael loved them, their heart never returned the feeling. It didn’t know how. Resentment had choked every last space left in their chest, and left no room for his pity.
They only wanted him dead.
It should’ve been the same for The One Who Waits Narinder. Luka isn’t naive enough to call what he did a betrayal, like everyone else does. They entered that contract knowing the terms, even the ones he’d left unsaid.
So why had it hurt anyway—?
[“You’re in love, Crownbearer. Ruinously so. Have been for a while now, if you’ve been telling the truth. So what are you going to do about it? Kill him? Finish the job?”]
“I should have killed him,” Luka mutters grimly. It would have been the most beneficial thing to their continued reign. Their former god had even agreed, and called them a merciful coward for sparing him.
But when they’d looked at him, (fragile, helpless) a newly-turned mortal, that fear, love(?) sickness had come over them again, and murder was lost as an option.
They glance down at the Red Crown in their arms, still catlike in its form, chewing on a piece of Sin it had wrested away from the lingering Gluttony in the empty alcohol bottles.
They’d always assumed that it took on that shape as a nod to its original bearer, The One Who Waits. But even now, with their connection completely severed, the Crown still took on his shape whenever it idled.
“Why do you look like that?”
The Crown’s ears flick as it glances up at them, but it doesn’t answer. However, it does stop gnawing on the Sin and slurps it up instead, before curling deeper into their arms and letting out an eerie, echoey purr.
I wonder if he sounds like this when he purrs.
They shake their head. There it is again. The sort of nonsensical thoughts that fill their mind whenever they come too near to their former god. These are not the thoughts one should have about the being that tried to kill them.
But they are similar to the thoughts Haborym has about Naver. That Jetre has about Areli.
And they are all in love.
Luka’s grip on the Crown grows tighter.
•⛧·₊˚☽°✧ -ˋˏ ༻{♛}༺ ˎˊ- ✧°☾˚₊·⛧•
The Lamb arrives at the compound just before sunset, their Crown back to its place between their horns. Once upon a time, they would have been bombarded by requests upon arrival, but after years of discipline, their cult has been trained well to recognize when their assistance is truly needed.
Of course, they see the curiosity on their followers’ faces, especially as the Lamb makes their way to the Medicine Bay. But if there’s anything they wish to divulge to the Flock, they will divulge it at their behest. Though they provide for their followers’ needs, they are not beholden to their wants.
A god is not the servant of their flock.
With the cult’s burgeoning population, the Medicine Bay had been rebuilt to include more beds and private rooms. Narinder had been placed in the very back– a quickly cobbled addition to the building since his presence caused the other patients’ conditions to worsen. Many in the cult believed proximity to him could cause illness or misfortune, while the other half simply feared or hated him for their capture during the final battle. It didn’t help that the Lamb had kept him at arms’ length during his stay, preferring to let their followers handle him.
It’s partly strategic. Their attention is a coveted currency they reward to followers for good behavior. To deprive Narinder of it had appeared as a divine punishment from the Lamb, and not as the weakness it truly was.
The way to his room is empty at this time, save for the guards they’d assigned to watch over him. They dismiss them for the day, assuring them that they would take care of the ex-god themself.
If there is one thing that keeps their cult’s devotion to them fully tethered, it’s their strength. The guards had hurried off without any worries.
Inside, the Lamb spots Narinder lying on the bed, slumbering away under the Medicine Bay’s starchy white sheets. Peering into his mind, they confirm that he’s truly asleep, not a single sign of a planned ambush in his head.
But as they pull away, they brush against a persistent thought.
Hurts.
A frown tugs on their face, unbidden. Luka walks closer to his bedside, staring down at the emaciated form of the beast they’d once called their god. Like this, it is difficult to imagine him as the bloodthirsty tyrant painted by the Bishops, or the messianic presence that had torn them from death.
This feeble creature, with hollow cheeks and scars on his limbs, is not a figure that should strike fear into a god.
And yet, the Lamb trembles at the sight of him.
[“I… that’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? A lot of these fear symptoms you’re so worried about are the same kind of symptoms you find in lovestruck fools.
And if you don’t think it’s fear, then what else can it be?”]
They scowl. Without those red, red eyes boring into them, it’s easier to stop their shivering. They call the Crown into their hand and shape it into the Traitor’s Razor, pressing the tip of the blade against his neck.
This close, Luka can see the angry red scar wrapped around it. Narinder’s robes had hidden his collar during their time as his vessel, but the thick choker had stayed along with the remnants of his chains when he became mortal. They’d expected a struggle when he was first brought to the cult so they’d left it there when he was summoned to the indoctrination circle. But to their surprise, he’d arrived there unconscious.
It made it easy for their followers to remove the chains and transport him to the medical bay. Luka had only spared enough time to probe his mind for notable traits, unsurprised when the Crown informed them he was sickly and faithless. His immortality caused some apprehension, but the Crown assured them it merely stopped him from aging; he could still succumb to murder and illness.
(There had been one other trait…but dwelling on it just made their sickness worse.)
They touch their own neck, a thin pale line from their beheading hidden beneath a gilded bell collar. Compared to Narinder’s, theirs was barely a scar— skin and vessels carefully stitched together by steady fingers.
[The steady hands of a god… the first gentle touch they’d felt since…]
The Crown blinks up at them, ever unreadable, and melts out of their hand without their word, slithering back up their head like a trail of ichor.
They curl their empty fingers, but they don’t call it back to their hand.
“I should kill you,” Luka murmurs, but their tone holds none of the venom nor promise of before. The words that follow tumble out like trembling little sighs, “You are making me weak. I cannot be weak.”
Never again.
They run their hand down the length of his arm, their touch soft so as not to wake him as they trace the scars wrapped around his wrist. Their touch was a rarity ungiven to their flock. They knew from observation how dearly simple animals craved this contact from the ones whose love they sought. After a moment, they kneel by his side and raise his limp hand to their cheek, trying to remember the sensations they’d felt the last time he’d cradled their face.
[It’d been one of the worst injuries they’d ever received: flesh-eating poison right across their face. They’d fought through the rest of that battle completely blinded yet filled with rage– enough to slaughter through the others before Heket’s Disciple, Eligos, finally took them out.
Thankfully, Death made everything painless, although they kept their injuries. They’d sat before The One Who Waits wordlessly while he’d drained them of poison and sewn up their flesh.
He’d done their eyes last, his fingers careful against their face as he put them back together. The first thing they’d seen when their vision returned was his eyes: large and unexpectedly round beneath his veil.
And then he grinned.
“Truly, I’ve chosen the perfect vessel. Who else could call themselves your equal in ferocity now? Though you’re here before me, you’ve proven to them that Death is of no threat to you, and so nothing they do could bring you fear.”
Luka remained silent… speechless. Their god had always been strangely kind whenever they died (though they did it very little out of pride). Yet this had been the first time they’d ever heard that word from him.
‘Perfect.’
...That had always been Mika—
“...Th-thank you,” they’d stuttered. Suddenly, they couldn’t meet his eyes, couldn't breathe, couldn’t stay here any longer.
Perhaps that was the beginning of the end.]
His fingers against them had been cold, but their face felt so, so hot. And that sudden fever hadn’t stopped, not until he’d sent them back to the cult.
Now, they feel nothing but that familiar weight in their stomach, suddenly too heavy to bear at the sight of Narinder’s pallid face and the feel of his too-thin wrist in their hand. Too thin, too weak, too helpless — screams the whirlwind in their head. And in a softer voice, quiet like a knife — how could you have let this happen?
Luka lays his arm back against the sheets as their hand begins to tremble anew.
And for the first time since they were born, they feel a tear slip down their cheek.
Oh… they think, a hand tracing the dampened trail.
…
…I guess this isn’t fear.
This isn’t fear at all.