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The air in Darkwood is thick with blood and rot. Yet the air feels different in this room - not only from the crackling scent of burning flames, but also the scent of something heavy, drawing down the Lamb like a physical burden. Is it just the Red Crown sitting upon their brows, or something else, they wonder?
Their body almost sags from the weight - grief for their fellow lambs, for a normal life they have to shed away, and all those lives they had ended almost too easily-
The duck, Clauneck, whose feathers are as red as the embers on the corner of his room, has a voice that sounds like a dim glimmer in the night, like the stars and moon hanging on the branches of the woods - even when the sun sits high in the sky above. He speaks of the inevitability of fate, of power the Lamb will wield - or have always had the potential to wield?
That's too much, almost too much, for someone who has just given up their life less than an hour prior. But the One Who Waits has chosen them. Them. They can't be weak.
Not anymore.
Choking back the urge to scream, the Lamb reads the cards Clauneck draws: Telescope, which is just what it looks like... and True Sight, which stares at them, like the red eye of their Crown. Unblinking. Unyielding. Powerful.
The eye of their new master below.
The Lamb draws the True Sight - or maybe they were drawn to it.
Weakness begs exploitation.
They give Clauneck a nod of gratitude and go back to their crusade.
Weakness , the Lamb muses, What does the One Who Waits see in me, other than weakness to be exploited?
Weakness is what has defined them their entire life. They let their family sacrifice themselves to the Bishops. Let their neighbors take the fall. Let themself be pushed around like the frail sacrificial beast they are. One by one, the stronger lambs fell.
They almost can't believe it when they come across the cloaked cultists in the next clearing. A rickety knee, hidden by the folds of their robes, glows red. An unprotected back beckons them to strike. A messy formation, easy to break. So many lives, so easy to take.
By the providence of the One Who Waits, True Sight thrumming within the Red Crown, his chosen Vessel sees them all-
Weakness begs exploitation. It doesn't have to be yours.