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The changes started almost immediately, but the Lamb supposed that they had to, given their head had been separated from their body.
There was an extremely disorienting, but thankfully not pained, moment as they came back together and landed on their feet, a sword in their hand and moving on new and raw instinct. Their body wasn’t used to moving like this, they’d never held a sword in their life, but The One Who Waits poured information into them like water into a jug. Like they were truly an empty vessel.
Fight. Run. Defy the will of the Bishops. Survive.
It wasn’t until they were stood in the ruins of what would become the home of their cult, their new follower Pable gathering some wood, that reality such that it was sunk into them.
Well, there was that part of it, ‘them.’ They had been born a ewe and perfectly fine like that, but now their body seemed to be in a slow-motion flux, tugging between their own female default and the maleness of The One Who Waits, flipping back and forth and lingering between with the same ease that their fight wounds closed up. It was disorienting to notice, notice that even their walk cadence changed in real time. So they deliberately stopped trying to notice it, or the full-body aches that came and went, or the terrible creaking sounds that seemed to come from under the earth, or the wailing that seemed to come from the stars.
The Lamb had orders, and a mouth to feed, and they refused to fail Pable if nothing else. Pable looks at them like they hung those wailing stars.
The Lamb is both tireless, and exhausted.
They crusade, remove threats and gain followers. A temple is built, and they make certain everyone has food and a place to rest. The One Who Waits tells them followers are tools to be used. They contend their followers work hard, and deserve to be looked after in any capacity the Lamb can offer.
The Lamb wondered if The One Who Waits remembers what it’s like to be touched without pain.
The Lamb wondered if they remembered.
The temple became a sanctuary, on the nights when the soreness and exhaustion was too much. Sleep only dropped them into The One Who Wait’s audience, to be chided and encouraged in turn. So they took to sitting in the center of the temple on the floor, arms wrapped around legs and staring off, eyes barely open. They’re not certain how many times they’ve done this when the door eased open, moonlight spilling in, and Pable peeked in, two other followers also looking. The Lamb only twitched an ear in acknowledgement, and the door closed again. They thought that was the end of it, but a few moments later the door opened fully and Pable came in, carrying her blankets and pillows, the other followers behind her, much more nervous.
The Lamb blinked as Pable walked right up, and dropped her bedding on the floor by the Lamb. There’s distance, an arm’s reach, but she set about making a nest for herself before picking up a second blanket and draping it around the Lamb. That done, she laid down and nestled into her pillow with a sigh. The other two followed Pable’s lead, camping out on the temple floor, glancing at the Lamb and not seeing disapproval.
Then everyone is settled, and the Lamb gripped the blanket wrapped around them with temporary claws, their own cloven hooves taken over by hands that echoed The One Who Waits. “Thank you, my darlings.” The endearment slipped out, but Pable’s ears wiggled happily, and one of the other’s tails wagged.
From there, a routine established. Not nightly, they had to crusade, bring back supplies, maintain the cult’s lands. But they would sometimes settle on the floor of the temple, and the bravest of the followers would slip in and bed down around them. The number increased, slowly, and when a nervous follower asked if it was expected, the Lamb gently put a hand on their head and told them, “This I do not ask for, but I gladly accept if offered.”
In retrospect, they may have phrased that better.
The followers made them their own blanket and pillow, dyed red with flowers, and they sit in a corner of the temple, waiting for these night gatherings. Pable, now often with Anty a step behind her, gets bolder, and so slowly the Lamb struggled to put a hoof on when, the followers creep closer. And then, in a seeming blink of an eye, they’re laying in the center of a pile of loyal protective bodies, Pable tucked under their chin smug and proprietary, Anty pressed to their back, arms around them both. Other followers crowd in, reach out, touch and grip.
Their followers became living breathing anchors, and they find some true rest in sleep, dark and dreamless, before eventually landing back into the clouds and green of The One Who Wait’s prison.
“You are too kind to them. Too permissive.”
“They work hard. I take care of them; they take care of me. They serve me. If this serves them, so be it, I enjoy this well enough.” The Lamb blinked.
The One Who Waits scoffed, leaning in closer, skeletal flayed arms straining against his chains. “Take pleasure from them as you care but remember. You are eternal, Lamb. They are not.”
The Lamb only smiled, a resurrection spell already tucked into their spell book, and mind, and heart. “So you say.”
“Two Bishops gone, Lamb, two hearts stolen. Two remain. Two chains remain.”
“Five then four then three.” Then two, then one, then none.
They woke up with a gasp, panting wide-eyed and trembling. They’ve changed again, in the night, and Pable was wide-eyed and whimpering thinly, one of the Lamb’s clawed hands dug into her back through her clothes.
That made the Lamb move, pulling their hand back with a curse and sitting up, looking at the damage and blood. “Oh, Pable. Do forgive me, I was dreaming.” A tarot card was tucked into their vestment and they pulled it out and used it, the injury healing. Pable gasped in shock, eyes huge again as the Lamb gathered her in and held her. Anty sat up and hugged the Lamb from behind, and there was a moment of trembling silence, lit only by dim moonlight. The Lamb can sense their thoughts, suddenly nervous then shockingly hot before Pable’s mouth found their neck. Anty echoed the motion on the other side, careful, both of them braced for reprisal.
The Lamb blinked up at the rafters and slowly melted. “Only if you want to. If this is how I can serve you.”
Pable said something about love into the Lamb’s wool, but they already knew that. They ended up stripped, on top of Pable, pushing their fluxing body to settle into something in-between, something easy to please with and be pleased, panting as Anty knelt behind them, ran a hand down their spine, found healed scars hidden by sheered-tight wool.
The others woke up at some point, but all were frozen, silent, watching this display of passion and carnality that quickly crackled with magic, pushed away any lingering aches the Lamb’s body had as light and power saturated the temple, the crown going frankly wild as it seemed to have no idea how to react to what was happening.
They sprawled limp and sandwiched after, panting, feeling their favored followers breathing hard against them when the minds of the others trickled in, shock and heat and uncertainty. They blinked, even as Anty’s teeth worried their neck again, licking their lips and clearing their throat. “I ask this of no one. It is a decision I leave to you, only to you. Only if you want to. I will gladly serve in this capacity.”
There was a pause, and they felt the exact moment the air changed and some of the others realized yeah. Yes, they want to.
The Lamb is as insatiable as they care to be. Supercharged on magic and three beating godly hearts. All their followers are treated exactly as they needed and wanted to be. The hard working are treated with kindness and blessed, the naughty punished with enough severity to discourage repeat offenders, the loved accepted into the temple at night. Never ordered, never demanded.
Five, then four, then three, then two.
The One Who Waits was restless, yanking on his chains. Sometimes the Lamb looks at their hands and arms, and their bones gleam through translucent skin. Sometimes their teeth gleam sharp and pointed. That keeps happening until their own teeth seem gone, replaced by a muzzle of feline teeth that their followers accept as a marking of the Divine, and heretics balk at in blind, confused fear.
The Lands are not all that large, they are realizing. Even without using magic, the Old Faiths only really had a fraction of this broken world. And in regions where the Lamb’s flag flew, things got… better. It’s not safe yet, but the heretics seemed to know the risks of stepping into the lands once held by the Bishops, now held by the Lamb.
More people, more followers, means more risk. They try to keep an eye on things, check in with every follower, looking for problems. When dissenters slip in, it feels like failure, especially when they choose to strike at the Lamb by striking at the two most loyal to them. Older and helping run the cult, Pable and Anty enjoy relative favor and privilege, and the dissenters cut them down.
The Lamb is questing when it happens and they disappear from the lands of Shamura, charging back into the lands of the cult with a scream that’s half bleat, half angry spitting cat. The grounds are in chaos, the loyal with improvised weapons, but the Lamb sees nothing but the bodies on the ground, and the dissenters who seem shocked they’re back so quickly.
They rip the dissenters apart, paint their altar and the temple in blood, and channel the sacrifices directly into resurrection, clawing Pable and Anty back from down below, snarling at The One Who Waits.
“These two are mine. Take the heretics.”
The One Who Waits laughed, then they’re all above. The Lamb is knelt, a hand on Pable and Anty both, who are coughing their way back to younger, refreshed life as the cult sings around them.
Two resurrections at once, they thought. A miracle if there ever was one, and they feel heavy with exhaustion, and light with elation and power. They hold a sermon, throw a feast because it’s a day for miracles, and afterwards the temple almost inevitably descends into orgy, no one concerned that the Lamb was still covered in blood. At some point in the middle of it all, the Lamb always lost sense of time a bit in these moments. Letting pleasure drown out the aches and their higher mind, letting pleasure turn into power, The One Who Waits began to push on their mind. The Lamb pushed back, not wanting to be taken down below right now, and by purpose or mistake, The One Who Waits slid into their mind.
They were still present, the centerpiece of the event really, too many hands on them to count, and The One Who Waits froze up in shock. His mind wasn’t really comprehensible to the Lamb, but they could feel a sense of overwhelmed panic that slowly fell apart into ‘OH.’
They would have laughed, but their mouth was busy, and when they came again, for the who-knew-how-many time, the power backlash nearly took the roof of the temple off.
Narinder.
His name is Narinder and the Lamb wants to laugh and laugh at Shamura, at the world, at the idea that something exists that would stand in front of the Lamb and still demand they kneel and be sacrificed.
Shamura had fucked up, apparently. It had been all her fault, that Narinder became The One Who Waits, that he was chained. The Lamb feels nothing but satisfaction when they tear through Shamura’s lands, then Shamura, and claim the fourth heart as their own and bust the last chain. The world rocks with the knowledge, and they know the work is still not done.
Five becomes four becomes three becomes two becomes one.
But there’s still two, isn’t there.
A crown cannot sit on two brows.
The Lamb had done as asked.
The Bishops dead, the chains broken. But it seemed Shamura was smarter than accounted for. The One Who Waits was still trapped, and demanded the Lamb kneel.
The Lamb looked at their followers, their beloveds, felt their phantom hands and mouths, and refused. “Take it from me if you think you can, Narinder.”
Narinder’s scream shook their bones. “So you have betrayed me?”
“No more than you have betrayed me.” And the Lamb drew their sword.
The fight is not easy.
Aym and Baal fall, and they make a note to apologize, as humbly as they can, to Forneus. Then it’s just them and The One Who Waits. But there is life waiting for them, at home, and they have no desire to die here.
No shock, perhaps, that The One Who Waits cannot die. But seeing him humbled, small, was a bit of a surprise. As was the terror on his face.
They stared at him, knelt at the point of their sword, and remembered an echoing, wonderous oh.
They spare him.
…becomes one.
Becomes nothing, perhaps someday. But not yet.
The cult is all but a flourishing town. The Old Faith dead, only the Lamb remaining, the lands calming and their followers settling in for an easier life.
Narinder is prickly, cutting, quick to anger and panicked at being touched. He scoffs at the Lamb’s kindness, mocks their mercy. The Lamb gives him time.
Years pass. Pable and Anty live three full lives before they come to the Lamb and bow their heads.
Their most dear followers ascend to the next plane. They’re tempted to shut the temple forever that day, but Narinder finds them huddled there alone that night, holding tight to two vestments, and regards them solemnly.
“You could have denied them.”
“It has only ever been their choice.” The Lamb grated out, looking away. They had almost denied them, truth be told, but in the end, they let them go.
“I should think, if nothing else, I would have taught you nothing is forever, Lamb. Not even love. Not even life. Just us, ironically, the last link in the unbroken chain. Everything dies, except us, because we are death. The question is, how will you go on?”
They have no answer, bury their face into vestments that will soon lose their scents. Narinder just stayed at the door. Later, they would realize he was gently keeping other followers out.
But the sun still rises, the crops still grow. There are new followers, arriving on their own now from time to time. There are even children.
There are still mouths to feed.
So they get up in the morning, and try to continue knowing their loved ones lived beyond what any normal mortal ever would have.
They paint Pable and Anty on the walls of the temple and the sun still rises.
They marry Narinder almost out of spite. To prove the crown can sit on two brows. To prove two eternal death gods may not be able to create life, but they can foster it. Narinder finds it hilarious, and brings back the orgies perhaps as retaliation for the marriage. But the Lamb can only laugh, heavy heart lightening bit by bit. And the sun still rises.