Work Text:
The day the Lamb’s hell began is fresh in their mind. Yes, despite their now hazy memory they seem to be able to recall every single detail about that day. Warm Ichor poisoning their flesh, harvested straight from the nape of the martyr that had lain at their feet. That beautiful crimson color that had sparkled in the rays of the afternoon sun. Still when they thought back they remember the giddiness in their limbs, the adrenaline that coursed through their body and the hunger at the sight of the fresh kill.
They remember well, standing over the body of the youngest bishop. The way he lay dying and bleeding out in the form he’d chosen to steal away their last breath in. And at that moment, they had been prepared to do the same to him. The crown raised over their hand, a pointed dagger as its form. Their chest heaved along with their short breaths, limbs had shook with exhilaration, mind raced with thoughts of how pleased their beloved god would have to be with them. And as they had readied their blade, pointing it down towards the bishops neck, their prey had the nerve to speak with them.
“Damned, wretched creature,” Leshy’s raspy voice had caused their ears to flick in mild interest, and truly, they’d have to call themself merciful for allowing him to finish, “From the moment your filthy hands rip my heart from my chest, may you never be able to feel peace again,” At the time, they had not cared to pay attention to the words of the fallen god, using their blade to finish the job and watching the blood pool out of the wound.
So focused on their beloved death, the Lamb had tucked Leshy’s words away into the deep corners of their mind for later, not caring to decipher the meaning. The rest of that day falls into a familiar buzz along with many of their forgotten memories, as the effects of Leshy’s words had not settled in until much later. Their hesitant to label what followed as a symptom, as that would be calling their condition a sickness of sorts, but a simple sickness is far to tame to describe what their going through. But whatever symptom, or curse perhaps, had followed days later, started off rather simple.
It was as simple as becoming the tiniest bit forgetful. It had been as if their age was beginning to catch up to them, they remember someone laughing and saying that to them. Someone lost to their memories now. Though the Lamb’s memory had always been strong, it had begun to become more and more frequent that they would misplace what they had just been holding, or forget what they were doing mid-task. But still, they thought nothing of it when they begun to have trouble recalling the faces and names of those in their flock. After all, their were many that had pledged their life to death.
But then more symptoms begun to pile up. Prolonged thinking aloud, a trait they’d had before, though the habit had gotten worse. Pacing around the cult ground, nearly frantic as they found themself lost in thought. Finding themself in a daze more often then naught, simply staring off into the sky with not a single thought behind their eyes. At first they had thought it all to be stress, a result of crashing from the high they’d gotten off of cutting the first chain off of their lord. But then it all only seemed to get worse.
Forgetting only names and faces turned into forgetting the words to their prayers, and so on until whole days were only hazy messes of faint movements and hushed speech. Full-fledged conversations with themself had became a regular occurrence, making their flock uncomfortable and scaring them away. Their pacing had become aimless wandering underneath the moonlight, only awoken out of their muttering dazed haze by the bravest of their concerned flock. And times in which their mind would clear of all thoughts and their limbs would relax seemed to come at any moment they had even the slightest moment of quiet. Even if they were talking to their god, doing a sermon, or even in the middle of Darkwood.
The last of the first set of symptoms to come, had truly nearly broke them. It had been as if the bishops words had scrambled the Lamb’s mind, their one and only paradise. Their mind had become a cacophony of convoluted thoughts and guilt-ridden screams. For a minute they could not quiet the mess that was their head down, for not a minute could they rest or for a while string a feasible sentence together. Out of everything the Lamb remembers well, it’s weeks spent mumbling in a tent, rocking themself back and forth and clutching a broken head as they attempted to grasp their reality.
After their painstakingly slow recovery, the Lamb had tried their best to get to the bottom of their sudden problems. They had begun by asking Ratau, their elder and one of the few they had felt as if they could trust at the time. He was of little help, advising that they take medicine and then inquiring about them getting enough rest. Their god was next of course, the wisest of the wise in their eyes. But he showed no concern with their worsening condition, perhaps only confusion as he sent them away with no knowledge. They asked anyone and everyone they came across in their travels, even the strange fox with the smile of knives. But still, they remained without an answer.
And so, with no answer, no cure, the Lamb was forced to keep marching onward in their goal to free their god. They entered Anura then, fighting through frogs and flies and meeting oddly met mushrooms and ants. As they persevered, their condition did not get worse. But all the same, it did not get better. That was, until the bishop of famine was underneath their blade.
“May your stomach forever be empty,” Heket had croaked out, the skin surrounding where her throat should have been shuddering as it expanded and blood dribbled out. As they had not Leshy, the Lamb did not humor her with a response as they brought their blade down. Not only did the bishop not deserve their words, but if they had stopped for a conversation then, they may have collapsed on the spot.
Like with their first symptoms, it had been later when the effects had settled. Only distantly do they remember being awoken out of their meditation, with weak legs and an unfamiliar pang in their stomach. Their first set of symptoms had not been painful, frustrating and confusing, but not painful like the growling of their stomach or the dryness of their tongue.
They’d begun to run on an impulse only familiar to mortal beings, leading them out of their temple and into their precious food stores. When their god had strung the Lamb’s body back together after death, their were many things he deemed that they not need carry on from their mortal life, the desire to feed being one of them. And yet, all throughout that night, all they could do was eat.
As if a thief in their own cult, they’d ravaged through the food stores. They had forced as much as they could down their throat, just to drive away the horrible feeling. They did not care when they had vomited, nor when they had been discovered. They only cared when they found that it had not been enough.
Since their death, hunger had been a feeling lost to them. Only to be remembered in dull memories that ended in smoke and red. To say the sudden bout of starvation had scared them was an understatement, it was reality-shattering.
As per usual, their new symptom never went away. It was only after the first death in the cult from their empty food stores that the Lamb was able to pick themself up. It had served as a wake-up call, seeing their starving flock still doing their best to work while they had been curled up in their tent.
During their search for an answer or cure, they had happened upon a mysterious man once. At the time the strange man had gone by the name of Sozo. He’d been a researcher, of all things mushroom. The Lamb remembers him quite fondly, a charismatic man with a mind so scrambled it rivaled their own. Sozo had tried his hardest to give them a solution, that being his beloved mushrooms that he was so obsessed with.
Desperate for relief of any kind, they had tried his solution. And for a day, the measly mushrooms they’d consume had worked. For as little as a day they’d felt good, confused and woozy and out of it, but good in a way they could barely describe. And then that wonderful day had ended.
Vomiting, a pounding in their head, dizziness. A hangover they believe its called. They felt as if they had been dying once more, causing them to question if their symptoms had gotten worse. When they had rested and gotten better, they had sworn off anything to do with the mushrooms. At least at that moment.
With no other options, they’d been forced to ignore the hunger in their stomach and return to the mission of freeing their god. And so they entered the land of blight. The land where they would finally realize what exactly was infecting them.
“May a terrible sickness decimate your body,” The god of pestilence had spoken his last words moments before a bullet was shot from the barrel of a shaking gun. It had been the first time they had listened to what the bishops had to say, truly heard and allowed for the words to flow through their head. And the realization had hit them like a ton of bricks.
The pattern in their words had been been so apparent they felt stupid for not having realized it. Within their final breaths, the damned bishops had been cursing them. And really, of course they had been. The Lamb was stupid to think that killing a god would leave them without consequence.
After the clumsy gutting of Kallamar, they’d left blight’s temple in a flurry. In a way the Lamb had felt excited, after being in pain for so long they had finally figured something out. For just a moment, they thought that they could be cured. They questioned their god the next time they were in his presence, thinking that surely if it were a curse inflicted by his fellow gods then he must have the answer.
“I knew not of my captors possessing such an ability, and I can only wonder if they did either,” Their god had said to them, a distant frown on his face and eyes like rubies, “A know not of a cure for your ailment, vessel, but it has not proven lethal thus far, so push through and carry on, I have nearly been freed,”
They had been sent away then, with nothing but a crumbling body and broken spirit. It seemed to be at that moment when all of their hope was lost, with an answer yet no solution in sight. They’d had no choice to resign to their tent then, remembering the promise of Kallamar’s words well. All they had known is that they would need to prepare for the worst, whatever it may be.
The symptoms of Kallamar’s curse came upon them slowly. Their first symptom had been a cough, the start of most sicknesses. They’d cough and cough, stealing their breath away and causing their throat to go raw and red. They’d double over with the force of it, coughing uncontrollably until blood was coating their mouth. And then the retching began, even if their body had already been emptied and it was only spit flying out of their mouth. Their symptoms seemed to go on and on, shivering even when burning up, pounding headaches, aching joints, the unfamiliar feeling of exhaustion, and more that sent them to bed rest.
It was a near torturous time, being confided to the med bay as if one of their flock. Being tended to and talked to as if they were weak, not being able to provide for those they swore to protect. They hated it, the very knowledge that their flock was forced to go out in their stead as they rested in hopes to get better from something with no possible cure.
On both them and the state of their cult, Kallamar’s curse had been the harshest. But by some stroke of luck, it just so happened to be manageable. They’d been opposed to the idea of consuming camellias when first offered, fearing the flowers would have a similar result as the mushrooms. But no, they had been so very wrong. They had no idea what bliss could be brought on from just a few measly flower petals mixed into their food each day. The camellias had not cured them, nor had they aided them with any symptoms other then blight’s. But still, that had not stopped the tears from springing into their eyes when they were able to walk to the other end of the room without collapsing.
With the medicines help, they had gotten back on their feet in the weeks to come. They had not wasted their time with making the last stretch of their mission, eager to see their journey to the end.
Defeating the last bishop had been their longest conquest out of all of the siblings. The enemies of war were strong, and their own limbs weak from their sickness. A sickness that would still come and go whenever they would forget their precious medicine. Their encounters with the bishop had been frustrating as well. Shamura was the type to speak in convoluted ways, with riddles and rhymes that their tired brain could never begin to decipher. If they had ever answered the Lamb’s questions, they wouldn’t be able to tell.
They’d tried to make Shamura’s death swift. Putting bullet after bullet into their empty head, making sure they wouldn’t get a chance to utter those accursed words. They’d ripped into the spider’s chest in a gruesome fashion, taking the heart for their god with glee at their success. But then, they’d heard a whisper.
“May your mind forever be at war with itself,”
The Lamb had screamed. Years of pain and anguish being let out in a single sound. And in that moment, it had made them feel better. Wailing and screaming in a pool of their murderers blood seemed to have made up for something.
And then they had been met with their god once more. They had met with him, unsightly as they were with blood-soaked clothes and a tear-stained face. And yet he had praised them, for doing so well in freeing him, for slaying so many in cold blood. For being a mortal wearing the mask of a god. And then he spoke of their end, the end he himself would deliver. The death that would mean relinquishing all control over to their god. A merciful, painless death, that would mean freedom from the curse placed upon them.
He’d granted them time. Time to say goodbye to the life they’d once lived, the flock that they loved, and the places they’d grown fond of. Even the pain they’d grown used to. They allowed for the next symptoms to take over their body before they died, something they had blamed on mere curiosity at the time.
There were only two symptoms gained from Shamura’s words. The first being slumber plagued by nightmares. Sleep had been a thing forgotten to their body, replaced by meditation when they lost their head. Already in the midst of an eternal rest, the dead need not feel tired . And yet with the bishops curse, they had begun to. And so at some point, sleeping had indeed become apart of their routine. Still, the act of slumbering was rare, a tactic used only to stave off pain and exhaustion. So when each night seemed to end with them crawling into bed, they had known it had something to do with their curse.
Though their increased sleep had not been bad, the accompanied nightmares had been new and unpleasant. Not a night would pass where the Lamb would not spring awake, shivering with eyes blurry from tears and only finding themself to be more exhausted. In truth, the Lamb did not remember their nightmares or the memories associated. Only the smell of ash and taste of blood that they would often wake up with. That was enough to assume the horror’s they’d seen in their dreams.
The second thing brought on had been hallucinations. The Lamb doesn’t remember exactly when they’d began, only that they’d grown gradually in their severity. Sometimes as simple things, easily perceived as fake like a shadow in the corner of their eye. And then on occasion they would hear their name. Or at the very least, a mix of sounds they believe to their name, now too muddled by cotton for them to decipher. Picnics with their mother, watching their siblings play, funeral bells, all became apart of their daily life once more.
They had not bothered with the extremities of finding a way to cope with Shamura’s words. Instead they had chosen to frolic in their nightmares of falling gray snow and towering figures. And feed into the delusion of warm charred smiles and faint off-putting laughter. And when their flock would worry, would beg them to take their medicine and lay down to rest. The Lamb would shake their head, smile at their flock, and tell them the day of death’s freedom would soon arrive.
And arrive it had. The day they had clashed with their beloved god is possibly the most clear in their mind. His domain, the afterlife, had always provided them with a tranquil feeling. Their mind would quiet down, their stomach would fill, and the shivering would stop. It was not a wonder to them why. Death was special, sacred in the glory the bishops thought to steal. The afterlife was a place not touched by the bishops, it was the realm of death. And it was where the Lamb belonged, where their story was meant to arrive at a close.
And yet when their god said to kneel, they said no.
To this day, they are not sure why they denied his orders. Narinder had once been their god, the one they cherished most in this world and the next, the one they lived and died to worship. And yet to that very god, they had said no. They had smiled and told him they wanted to remain.
It had not just been defiance against their god, but the very concept of death itself. And still they are not sure where the sudden will to live had come from. When they had arrived at their gods feet, death had seemed as though a mercy, a way to escape the pain the bishops had inflicted upon them. But perhaps in the end it was the pain that had made them defiant.
In the end, their final fight had been with their god. They remember how his disciples swords had cut through the air and their own bullet’s echoing around the afterlife as blood splattered. And their god in his rage. Dripping with blood, face spit into fours, and hands clasped as if in prayer. But oh, how beautiful he’d looked, their promised death. The Lamb had been dragged down into the deepest pits of the afterlife, watching as unspeakable horrors unfolded between their very eyes. And as they had been doing all of their life, they fought on. And they had remained victorious.
“You have supplanted me,” His voice had been small, so had been his form. No taller then themself as he remained on his knees in front of them, fur matted with blood and wrists skinned, “A vessel no more , instead a crown bearing deity, damned Lamb! I am at your mercy, are you to be a vengeful false idol, or a merciful coward? No longer can you blame your vile acts on me,”
The words had remained in their throat for a moment two long, creating an awkward silence for a few beats, “I get to decide? after all of these decades I’m just now getting a choice,” They rasped out in a breathy voice, gun in their hand shaking as they aimed it at their fallen gods head, “Ah, a lovely idea has just popped into my head! You’re siblings would surely enjoy a family reunion, would they not? Perhaps you may also ask them how to fix me,” They had smiled then, sad or crazed they aren’t quite sure.
“So, you are no different to me after all, you have become as I am,” Narinder had scoffed in the face of death, bowing his head as he prepared himself.
Their shoulder’s had sagged, his acceptance making their stomach swirl, “Is that truly all you feel the need to say to your vessel? Even your siblings had more,”
Their god had offered them a smile then, a wicked one full of sharp fangs, “You are correct, my Lamb, allow me to offer you consolation,” He had leaned forward, pressing his head against their gun and closing his eyes, “May you have an agonizing death, slowly decaying from the inside out until all that remains is a mere memory, and so that one day, we may meet again,”
The Lamb does not remember whether their shoulders had rose in a sob or a laugh as the gun went off. But they do remember the black ichor their god had bled, and the way it stung against their flesh, worse then any of the bishops ever had.
“May we someday meet again, my lord,”