Chapter Text
It's a few days, or so, before the usurper seeks him out. He is exactly where they left him: holed up in the private little hut he had been assigned on his first day as a prisoner.
He hardly registers the speech they'd prepared until midway through, when they finally urge him to sit up and look at them. Gently, even though they could so easily force his compliance through intimidation or violence. Regardless, they need only a single word.
"Narinder."
He thinks he would have preferred their violence as he snaps up, tense, though the speed makes him nauseous. His reaction surprises them a little.
"Are you alright?" they have the audacity to ask. The mind games of a cult leader. Those must work wonders on the rest of their flock, he thinks, especially when paired with those big, guileless eyes. But he knows better.
"That name," he rasps, so unused to the new quiet of his voice, "Has been forsaken for centuries. You call upon a ghost."
Narinder was cast away along with all other ties to his family when he'd dared to rise above them. In his failure to supplant the bishops, he was repurposed evermore as only the one who waited below.
(Shamura had been the last to ever speak his name. It had been among their final fully coherent utterances.)
The Lamb blinks at him. They wear confusion so naturally. One could almost think it genuine.
"...What would you have me call you, then?" They tilt their head, and their bell rings a soft jingle in the hut's quiet. It sets his teeth on edge.
A small part of him concedes that it's a fair question. He had existed as something ineffable but identifiable for an immeasurably long time. But no longer. All markers of the bishop, the exile, the god, had been wiped clean. What was left was, as far as identity went, a meat suit stuffed with memories and stitched into a vaguely similar shape.
He spends a long moment thinking, allowing the vertigo to fade. He does not have an answer, but he must respond, eventually.
He simply says, "Look at me."
That uncomprehending look stays on the Lamb's face for another second while they wait for him to continue. It fades once they accept that he won't.
They offer a slight nod, and clear their throat.
"...As I was saying. Even with recruitment as our only avenue for growth, the flock is still flourishing. Creatures are leaving the Old Faith in droves. Some even have families. We're growing faster than ever," they continue on with whatever they'd come here for. Already the words bleed together into a dull buzz in his head. This horrible, jarring haze in his mind is either a symptom or side effect of whatever he is now. He imagines that losing his omniscience must feel comparable to what his siblings experienced, when he'd ripped away abilities and senses. But at least they'd still been gods. Even tearing Leshy's eye out had not been enough to truly blind him. Not like this.
And also, he's vaguely aware mortals need to eat every once in a while. His agony could also have something to do with that. Mundane problems befitting mundane creatures. The thought sickens him.
"--Listening? Hey," the Lamb raises their voice a bit, a note of frustration finally lacing it. It makes him flinch and bare his eyeteeth, like a frightened prey animal, and he hates himself profoundly.
Their gaze softens again at once, and he is abruptly reminded how much more deeply he hates them. That hatred is something a balm to his pride. This situation, this affliction, was done to him, and so all this anger could be directed outward.
They must be able to sense it. He gave them the power to do so, after all.
"I'll get to the point," the Lamb decides, collecting themself with a sigh. "I had a moment to uh-- look inside you, sort of, when you became a part of my flock. You're more like me than you are like them."
He squints a bit. His headache is coalescing into a dull star of pain behind his eyes.
"And how is that," he asks flatly. The Crown on their head is an otherworldly beacon against the dusty burlap door behind them; all that separates him from the mosquitoes.
"You're immortal, too. …Ish. We won't grow old, I mean."
"Death is now your domain alone, along with all it entails," he drones. "I am no more or less immortal than any other of your flock , should you choose it."
Their brow furrows at this, eyes flicking to the side. Considering.
"... I guess. But that isn't what I mean. Just listen," they implore, looking him in the eye again. Their gaze is determined, and even this tiny reminder of their strength makes the fur rise on his back. This body is well convinced that it is not immortal in any way that matters.
"My followers were yours, and you've had more before that. You know how to lead, and we're the only two that could do it indefinitely. I've already been benefiting from your guidance up until this point, and I still could." They speak as though running down a memorized list. His slow, maddeningly limited mortal mind struggles to reconcile any of it.
"I may be the only god left , but I'm still newly minted. And beyond that, your presence at my side is good for morale. We owe everything we've built to you," they continue with a strange, small smile. Not a threatening one, but it matches the undefinable look in their eye that pins him to the pile of hay he's been reluctantly calling a bed. Whatever this expression is, it makes them look younger, more the sweet and woolly little creature that was meant to be born and breed and die in peaceable obscurity with the rest of its sweet and woolly little herd.
"And like I said, the flock just keeps growing. I can care for it on a large scale, but it's more feasible to stay on top of things on a more, I guess… relational level if there's more than just one person at the head," they explain with a nod, seeming satisfied with themself. And oddly, it's their forthright manner here that's throwing him off guard, more than anything.
Through the Crown, he had listened in on their sermons. They were a talented preacher, sometimes fearsome and sometimes loving, always grandiose. He'd drunk deep of the devotion their fervor inspired, and of their own fidelity to the gospel in their hand, penned carefully in his name. Their own worship.
And now, they speak to him as if they're haggling with one of the vendors on the outskirts. Like that poorly disguised cannibal who sells them fish.
"So, I think it'd be a logical course of action if we just get married, and lead together," they finish, nodding again.
The bright-eyed, satisfied look on their traitorous face fades noticeably with every passing second. Because he is just glaring at them. His gut roils with sour bile, and any sense of newly installed self-preservation is swiftly forgotten.
"...There is no end, it seems, to the humiliation you deem fit to sentence me," he finally growls, swinging his legs over the side of the haystack to sit forward and face them head on.
"You have already betrayed me, supplanted me, and reduced me to one of the walking saddlebags of fealty and meat that colonize this forsaken patch of grass in your name. You wear my Crown , and yet believe some-- pathetic afterthought of a truce will in any way fool me? I know what I am, here. And yet you mean to dangle a shred of influence in front of me, with which to tempt me?"
He spits a laugh at the end, weak and bitter as it is. He briefly considers standing, but decides this whole situation isn't worth any more effort than what it takes to chastise them.
A trophy really has no reason to expend effort, anyways.
The Lamb glances between his eyes, troubled. "I was just--"
"Listen well, traitor," he interrupts them lowly, ears pressed flat. "You've won your godhood. That is your boon for having slain the last of us, just as my kin slew all yours. In this way alone, I do not begrudge you my defeat. Your existence in kind and caste shall be an eternally singular one, and mortality is the very least of it."
The Lamb is quiet as they listen. They had always been quiet and attentive at his summons, and it is so easy to fall back into the mindset of saying his piece that he must deliberately remind himself that they are no longer in the gateway, and he no longer has anything to gain from divulging wisdom onto a vessel. There is no vessel.
"...As for me, you'll get nothing more than you would out of any other follower . You have already taken everything of use I had to offer.
"Fledgling divinity or no, heed this final suggestion and leave me in peace: You will find neither equal nor advisor within your own cult."
His words cut clear in the still air, and he becomes aware that it must be nighttime outside. Or perhaps early morning. It matters little; he sleeps through it all regardless.
The Lamb regards him silently, still with that concerned crease between their eyes. He can no longer read their mind, but their face has always been an open window into their general emotional state. This has yet to work against them. Twice now, they have wept openly in the face of their own demise. He supposes most do. But they came out more powerful on the other end every time, tears and all.
"...So that's a no, then?" they finally pipe up.
He stares, two out of three eyes wide open. Briefly estimates how quickly he'd be eviscerated if he decided to throw caution to the wind and go claws-out for their eyes. Or maybe their heart, so no one could accuse him of being repetitive.
"...No, lamb. I will not marry you," he says instead of doing that.
"That was a joke," they reply flatly.
"You have all the power here. If you want me in your harem, you need only decree it."
Their nose wrinkles. "That's not what it is, and no, I'm not gonna do that."
"Then we are finished here, O Great Leader," he sneers, then shifts to settle back onto the hay bed. He can feel the Lamb still watching him, their eyes on his back damn near tangible. His tail sweeps irritably behind him.
"...You're right about some of that, I think. Not all of it," they speak up after a second. "But thank you for the advice."
He hears the rhythmic chiming of their bell as they finally leave the hut, and disappear out into the commune. He finds himself tracking the noise until it fades, forcing him to notice the creaking and chirping of wind and insects in its absence.
Damned lamb.