Chapter Text
His mind short-circuited for a moment, caught off guard by their expression and the name and the reminder (five becomes four becomes three becomes two becomes one becomes nothing), before rage snapped back to the forefront.
“You–” He choked on his anger, welling up in his throat and spilling forth as a vicious snarl, “you do not get to call me by that name!”
The Lamb shrugged, entirely unperturbed. “I need to call you something. So, Narinder it is.”
Even the Lamb’s voice was different. It sounded like a soft, piping bleat usually, like music to one’s ears. This tone sounded more like a flat trumpet tone, blunt and short and a little out-of-tune.
Narinder snarled at them, ears pinned back against his skull, but the Lamb did not quail back in fright.
(Of course they wouldn’t. They were a god now, and he was supposed to be a meek little follower.)
He lunged at them–
The Crown (he would rend the thing to shreds for the betrayal) shot out and hit him in the chest, simultaneously knocking breath out of him (he didn’t need to breathe) and keeping him at arms length from the Lamb, though that did not stop him from flailing his claws at it in an attempt to slash the Lamb across the face.
He was not succeeding.
He probably looked rather ridiculous in his lack of success.
“This will be your house,” the Lamb said nonchalantly, as if Narinder wasn’t currently trying to give them the world’s roughest and most violent tattoo, gesturing around them.
There was no kitchen (though, now that the former god gave it actual thought, none of the houses had kitchens), no bathroom (none of the houses had bathrooms either). There was enough room in the… room, for a dining table and its accompanying stool, a bed, and a small bookshelf. The floors were reinforced with wood, and the walls were painted a dull red.
(Narinder dully noticed that there were some black curtains, as opposed to the white ones most of the other shelters had.)
“It’s a little further away from everyone. Private. I figured you wouldn’t want to live right there among everybody. We have a few snorers,” the Lamb finished, like the world’s worst real estate agent.
At least real-estate agents usually gave you options.
And didn’t fight you endlessly, on repeat, in a fight to the death.
“Lamb–”
“That’s my name. Don’t wear it out,” the lamb replied, though a tiny bit of humor crept into its voice, and even that was snarkier than he remembered.
He growled at it, and the Lamb put a hand up to stop him.
– a hand up, to placate him about their question about–
“We’re both really tired from that big tiff we had–”
Narinder tried not to swell in rage at the oversimplification of the long, bloody, death-filled battle between him and the traitor referred to as a big tiff.
“… so just– get some rest.”
The large cat– for he was still remarkably tall, at least twice as tall as they– stalked towards them, lips peeling back to reveal razor-sharp teeth.
He might have no longer been a god; but a slinking, black shadow of a cat, ears pinned back, snarling and towering over the Lamb was still slightly intimidating, at the very least.
“And, pray tell, what stops me from slaughtering every single member of your flock in their sleep?” Narinder snarled at them, his voice verging on the deeper sounds his voice had once been able to produce.
The Lamb scratched their face, wholly un-intimidated.
“I can lock the door from the outside,” they responded simply, seemingly not all that put out at the idea. “And not with a key. I can literally just keep the door shut with magic. I will if I have to.”
He glowered at them, but decided not pursue that threat further.
As much as it was tempting to make them keep his door locked with magic and exhaust the traitor, he was tired; and he did suspect that flailing wildly at the Lamb wasn’t actually making himself very frightening, but more just making him look like a fool.
The Lamb looked at him for a moment, then nodded curtly.
Their expression, devoid of any sort of humor or even anger, was a little off-putting, despite Narinder’s best attempt to remain indifferent.
“Okay. I’m going to go assure the cult that you’re not going to murder them in their sleep–”
“I would–”
“– that you physically can’t murder them in their sleep,” the lamb corrected, “and you… I don’t know. Sleep. Go to the bathroom. Whatever you want that doesn’t involve the bloody violent death of the people.”
“I don’t sleep,” Narinder snarled back, his eyes narrowed into little slits.
And I don’t take orders from you, he also thought, but he didn’t voice it. The Lamb was a god now, and Gods had a tendency of magically forcing its followers into compliance.
They shrugged, their little cape fluttering with the motion. “Then don’t sleep. It’s up to you.”
The Lamb began to leave the hut, then paused. “Oh. One last thing.”
“What?”
If the Lamb was annoyed at Narinder’s less-than-pleasant growl, they didn’t show it as they gestured at the floor.
“The floorboard to the left of the door as you exit squeaks.”
As if to demonstrate, the Lamb pressed its foot to the floorboard, indeed producing a very loud creak. “If you want, I can ask a carpenter to fix it for you.”
A moment of thought, as if the lamb actually thought through their remark.
“Actually, never mind that. You’d probably throw poor Fikomar out the window.”
“Don’t return, Lamb.”
“See you later, Narinder.”
The Lamb departed, the red fleece fluttering a little in the spring breeze. The Crown almost jauntily floated off of the Lamb’s head and pulled the door shut behind it neatly.
Narinder glowered at the door. A (how long had it been?) while ago, just that look would’ve sent the door bursting into flames, but now it merely sat there, as if mocking him.
He pulled the curtains shut, miring himself in darkness.
The sunlight was wholly insulting, and the smell of flowers even more so. The chirping of birds was practically mocking him. It felt like the whole world was laughing at his defeat, at the hands of a small, traitorous lamb, originally intended for slaughter to prevent this very fate.
Five becomes four becomes three becomes two becomes one becomes nothing.
There were voices outside, followers clamoring (if Narinder really focused, and he didn’t, because he didn’t give a damn; he could hear them asking if their leader was alright), and the lamb’s typical, cheerful bleat came back in reply.
Shamura called you Narinder.
Narinder growled and flung himself onto the bed.
It wasn’t quite long enough for him (probably meant for much shorter followers, as the majority he saw were around the lamb’s height if not shorter), so he drew his legs up against his chest and ferociously burrowed under the blankets, yanking the pillow over his head and jamming it against his ears. He didn’t want to hear birds chirping or the grass in the wind, and he certainly didn’t want to hear the lamb’s bleats.
He dreams–
gods don’t sleep–
– of dappled sunlight through trees, and camellias weaved into a crown–
Five becomes four becomes three becomes two becomes one becomes nothing.
– of a happily croaking toad, and thousands of mushrooms–
He was the fifth.
– of fish, swimming with beautiful blue light filtering over them, crystals shining–
He waits by the rocks of the darkened sea.
– of softness, of spiders, of silk–
I loved him.
– of a lamb, with glowing red eyes.
A Crown cannot sit upon two brows.
Gods don’t sleep.
So when Narinder’s three (two, it was only two eyes now) eyes shot open, and he’d gotten tangled in the sheets, and he was definitely not sitting there in a cold sweat; and the light filtering through the window was definitively not bright gold, but rather silvery and dim, he had not been sleeping.
Just… resting his eyes.
For eight hours.
Totally not sleeping.
He sat up, tossing the blankets off of him into a heap on the floor.
It didn’t really matter; if this was his house, he could do what he wanted.
His limbs and spine creaked irritatingly as he stood up, until he gave a reluctant arch of the back and felt several joints pop.
Being mortal was disgusting. At least as a god, you didn’t need to stretch.
He flung the curtains open. The sound was harsh in the nighttime, the little rings keeping the curtain on the rod making a chaotic series of clicks and clacks. He nearly tore the curtains off the hooks, except then there would be nothing blocking out the light and the noises.
It was very quiet out, free of the sounds of cooking and footsteps and anything except the occasional frog croak.
There were plenty of lights, but also plenty of dark spots in the cult. The lamb’s disorganization to the buildings carried over to most of the decorations. The lanterns that lit up the vast majority of the houses were cluttered and mistmatching, casting the whole place in a faint but warm glow. A few were made of wood, a few of gold with crystals from Anchordeep decorating them.
There were lanterns near the toilets (which made sense; nobody wanted to trip and fall in poop when stumbling sleepily to the bathroom), and in the distance, if Narinder squinted, he could see lanterns by the crypts.
He was scanning the grounds when his eyes landed on a shadowy figure, standing in the middle of the empty field near his house.
(Wasted space. They could have at least erected some kind of statue there.)
After a moment of his fur standing on end (he wasn’t afraid, that was stupid, gods weren’t afraid, he wasn’t a god anymore), he realized it was the Lamb.
For once, the lamb was not puttering about doing chores, or playing Knucklebones, or… doing anything, really.
It just… was standing there.
Its back faced Narinder’s window, so he couldn’t make out its expression, but the Crown seemed bored (could the Crown feel things??) as it shuffled about on the lamb’s head periodically.
“What are you doing?” he found himself demanding flatly.
The lamb jumped– literally, nearly a whole foot off the ground, turning to face Narinder, and he was too far away to see, but for a moment their eyes were dead and empty and red–
Then they were hurrying over, up the small hill, and the whites of their eyes were… well, white.
“Good morning, Narinder. Well, actually, not yet. We have about an hour before the sun rises.”
There it was again; the flat tone, the blank expression. They would’ve looked bored, except their eyes were just a tad too wide for that.
“What were you doing?” he demanded.
“Nothing.”
This didn’t actually seem like an evasive or coy comment, or one intended to tease him. From what Narinder had saw, the lamb had literally been doing nothing.
On instinct, he tried to read its mind (though this, in itself, had never worked on the vessels, and it certainly didn’t work now), and his ears pinned back in displeasure when he couldn’t.
“You should eat,” the lamb said, almost matter-of-factly. “Did you not see the meal I left outside?”
“What?” Narinder asked, because there wasn’t something else better to ask.
The lamb disappeared from his sight for a moment, circling around to the part of the house that he couldn’t see from the window, and reappeared holding a bowl practically filled to the brim with fish.
“I went fishing earlier and I caught a blowfish– been ages since I caught one of those– and it turned out I had enough of the other ingredients, so I made you… basically a big bowl of fish. You always tolerated me giving you, like, seven thousand fish in the offering chest,” the lamb said, holding the bowl up.
Narinder smacked the bowl as hard as he could, backhanding it so hard that the back of his paw stung viciously, even several minutes afterwards.
The Crown darted off of the Lamb’s head and caught the bowl, and then caught the fish that had been in the bowl.
Damn thing.
“Guess you’re not really hungry,” the Lamb responded, looking wholly unbothered about the fact that Narinder had backhanded something they’d personally cooked in an attempt to throw it all over the floor. The Crown carried the bowl inside and set it on his table. “I’ll leave it inside, at least.”
He glowered at the traitorous Lamb, and the equally traitorous Crown, which was now tugging his discarded blanket off the floor and back onto the bed.
“Are you going to sleep?” The Lamb didn’t seem perturbed by all of the glaring he was doing.
“I don’t sleep.”
Narinder willfully ignored the way the Crown was making the bed for him.
The lamb shrugged at that, not willing to push much further. “Okay.”
… well. That was odd. He knew the lamb had the ability to order him to sleep, if it so wished, but it was just evenly gazing up at him.
“What would you like to do?”
“What?” Narinder replied, yet again. The damn Lamb had a habit of catching him off guard.
It always had.
The lamb gestured at the cult grounds with an expansive kind of wave. “Is there something you’d like to do?” they repeated.
Narinder stared.
“A job,” the Lamb finally cleared up what the hell they meant. “I appointed Meran to be a priest today; she’s always been the best with keeping faith up amongst the others. Anyay could use an extra hand on one of the farming stations, their knees are getting bad. They’re getting kind of old, but they insist they’re still kicking. Fikomar is a carpenter; he helps out with all the buildings’ maintenance around here and with extra building– the refined wood never rots, but sometimes the logs do. Tyan–”
He gave a half-derisive, half bewildered laugh. “You are a fool if you think I’ll do chores for your pathetic cult, whelp.”
The Lamb whistled; a long, slow wolf-whistle. “Ohh, that’s a new one for the insult book. Just short of swearing at me.”
Narinder snarled at them. True to form (well, this more deadpan form, at least. He still wasn’t that used to it), the lamb did not flinch or even look upset at his reply.
“That’s fine. About the chores, I mean. Get some sleep.”
“I don’t sleep,” and Narinder could have pointed out this must have been the fifth time he was saying that today, but he didn’t.
The Lamb folded its hands politely behind its back. “Yarlennor passed by earlier today, and she said you were making very adorable snoring sounds through the door.”
The Crown bounced on the Lamb’s head for a moment. It looked a little like it was laughing at him.
Narinder glared at them both. (Since when could the Crown laugh?) “I’ll rip her to shreds limb from limb for that blasphemy.”
“She’s three.”
“… put her in the pillory, then. She lies.”
The Lamb grinned at that.
The expression was familiar, much more so than the nonchalant blank stare the Lamb had been fixing him with for the whole conversation. Narinder almost found himself relaxing–
Wait. No. Traitor. He wasn’t about to let his guard down.
He jerked his curtains shut again, blocking his vision of the moon illuminating their wool in silvery light. “You are disturbing my rest. Leave.”
“Sure. Good night, Narinder.”
“Don’t ever speak that name again.”
“Okay, Narinder.”
… he was pretty sure the Lamb had said that last one just to get on his nerves.
He debated knocking down the door of his house and attacking them again, but the former god was fairly certain the Crown would just prevent his assault. He’d already made enough of a fool of himself today.
Two weeks passed.
It was… kind of fine.
Okay, maybe not fine. None of this was exactly fine. But Narinder had literally gained the name ‘The One Who Waits’. He had waited hundreds of years.
He wondered if mortality had disrupted his sense of time, because he could have sworn these two weeks somehow felt longer than hundreds of years, despite that literally not being possible.
He’d sleep, most of the time. The bed was remarkably comfortable, so it was easy to drift off in the evenings.
Shamura, bundling them all in silk for bedtime.
However, despite his best efforts, he was often woken up in the mornings by the sound of singing birds.
It didn’t help that he’d accidentally clawed holes in the pillow so that all the stuffing fell out and didn’t really block out the sound anymore.
The Lamb (or some poor follower, when the Lamb was out playing Knucklebones or fishing) left meals at his door.
If it was the lamb, it was always two firm knocks and a jingle and a muffled “food” through the door, and they would never be there when he opened the door; and if it was the followers it was a frantic hammering on his door and then rapid footsteps as the followers ran at full speed away from the hut.
Occasionally, it was followed by the sound of someone tripping and basically rolling down the whole hill.
It was good to know he still inspired some fear.
Most of the time, the meals were fish or meat. There was the occasional beet or cauliflower mixed in, upon which a note would be attached: Sorry, it was the beet (or various other vegetable that was in the meal) or a meal that might make you throw up.
Narinder always took the time to shred the entire note into teeny little shreds that he’d throw out the window, though once or twice the wind would just blow all of the bits back inside.
As a god, and especially as the god of Death, any food Narinder had touched had always rotted the moment he touched it. It was, oddly, different with offerings from the vessels, they lasted long enough that he could accept them and ‘consume’ them; but when he’d been in the mortal realm, he never received food offerings. He bore little ill will about that; as much as it could hurt to see his siblings shrines piled with food, it hurt more to be unable to eat anything offered to him.
It was, therefore, a unique experience to be able to eat now.
(Fish tasted as good as it smelled, as reluctant as he was to admit that.)
At least the food was decent. Eating and sleeping weren’t exactly riveting ways to pass time, though.
He’d occasionally knock the bowls he ate out of from the table onto the floor, but that got incredibly boring incredibly quickly, and you could only do that so many times before the wood cracked.
Still, it was something to do.
‘Something to do’ got so boring so quickly and gah.
How had he tolerated being chained for so long? He had to be better at coping with hundreds of years of patiently waiting. What had he used to do?
Well… he’d been angry. Very angry.
Yes, that certainly helped. He was angry still, at the Lamb, for its betrayal.
(Angry at the Crown, too.)
But, somehow, that didn’t really feel like enough. He had been angry then, certainly, and he was still angry now, but it didn’t change all that much about feeling bored and knocking bowls onto the floor.
He was still trapped.
What made it different now, then?
… he’d been plotting, he supposed. Plotting and scheming on how to free himself for so long.
And he’d had the vessels to watch, though none captured his interest like the foolish lamb. He’d only spared Ratau because it was annoying to retrain his vessel every time it died. He hadn’t expected the lamb to be so entertaining–
No. It was a traitor. And besides, its routine was dreadfully boring.
It always went counterclockwise, from the stairs that led to the Bishops’ old Temples, and the circle the lamb used to travel elsewhere.
They’d clean the outhouses, across the way from the lone hut on the hill (because of course the outhouses were just across the way from his hut. At least it made it easy to sneak there without anyone noticing him), then walk through the graveyard.
It grew ever-larger, and a whole area had been marked out already, with some pre-dug holes– some elders were probably near death. The Lamb always prepared the graves ahead of time. The entire field had sprouted flowers, creating a soft, airy environment that softened any grief that the followers may have felt, at least a bit.
The graveyard was lit at night too, with the finest crystal lamps, casting beautiful colored light over everything. And during the day, the sun would reflect through the crystals. The lamb spent at least half an hour there every day, simply standing in the field, watching rainbows dance on the headstones.
Then the lamb would check on the crypts, before moving onto the farms. From here, they’d replenish the seed and fertilizer bins, refill the composter, and gather up all the vegetables and mushrooms and berries, before circling back to the kitchen and dumping the supplies there for meals, though more and more often, the followers were doing it themselves–
He abruptly realized that the entire routine was practically permanently etched into his brain. Well. Shit.
He flopped onto the bed again, pulling the shredded pillowcase over his ears and resolving to purge it from his memory somehow.
The One Who Waits watched his vessel gamble.
The Lamb gave a playful groan when they lost to Shrumy again, though clearly, they didn’t really mind. They always gambled fifty coins, and inevitably would lose all of them by making the worst moves. It was obvious they had trouble judging what the best move was, sometimes.
Shrumy gave a little huff, obviously pleased with the outcome. “Hmpf. Again?”
The Lamb eagerly started the new round, the Crown watching the Lamb make its moves.
This round did last a lot longer, with the Lamb actually playing slightly better than before, but of course, it inevitably lost again, and there went another fifty coins.
The One Who Waits watched, and debated cutting the lamb off from gold coins until it could understand when to quit gambling.
… but then it would stop donating fish.
“How are the crusades going?” Flinky asked, leaning forward a little bit.
The Lamb beamed, as if about to divulge a particularly good secret. “I got through Anura for the first time today.”
Ah, so this was earlier on, when the lamb (for some idiotic reason) refused to use fervor or heavy attacks.
Wait.
Earlier on?
He remembered watching in total befuddlement as they’d struggle to get all of the enemies around them with the sword’s limited slashes. Did they not realize how far the tentacles could erupt? You could obliterate a further enemy without even moving.
(Thankfully, they picked it up.)
He remembered? Something about this felt odd.
Had Shrumy been there, when the Lamb had been in Anura?
Had Klunko and Bop?
Ratau watched as the Lamb resumed yet another new round. “That’s it. You’re a natural at this game.”
They were? They’d lost hundreds of times, and increasingly large amounts of money.
Hadn’t they?
… the room was empty. Hadn’t there been more people in there before?
The Lamb tossed the dice.
They clattered on the table.
Nothing.
The cozy fire that filled Ratau’s shack had gone out, leaving the space feeling icy and barren. The room was empty, devoid of life, except for the Lamb, staring blankly into space. Even that familiar little smile was gone.
… no. This was wrong.
The Lamb turned to look at him, even though there was no way it could know he was watching.
Red.
Narinder totally didn’t shoot out of bed so fast that he slammed his head into the ceiling.
What a ridiculous suggestion. That would imply he’d been asleep first.
Rubbing his head, he glanced at the window; the light was silvery again. Though, whatever time of night it was, he had no idea…
Nightmares. Many of his vessels had nightmares; he was familiar with them.
– prophecies did not simply come to the mind, Shamura scolded a careless statement, dreams and nightmares and prophecies all intertwined–
Though, more often than not, he’d hear his vessels babbling tearfully to a loved one about being chased or killed or falling endlessly from the sky.
If anything, nothing of note had even happened in this dream. So, it couldn’t be a nightmare.
He growled and threw the blankets off, almost tripping in them as he stalked to the door and flung it open.
The night air was remarkably cool on his fur, almost refreshing. It smelled crisp, sharp, better than the air that had gotten quite stuffy in the hut, especially since he refused to keep the windows open.
His shoulders relaxed, surprisingly quickly.
He’d missed the nighttime, more than he really expected to. After all, he could always just see the stars and the moon through his vessels. But nighttime really was meant to be accompanied by cool air that smelled crisp, new, like the entire world was resetting.
Narinder growled at himself. He was getting soft.
He was about to go back inside when he saw the Lamb.
Again, they stood, back to him (and… really any other of the other followers, that may have been able to spot them if they groggily made their way to the bathrooms), perfectly still. The Crown was the only thing moving on their head.
He approached them, paws making barely a whisper in the grass. In fact, in the gentle breeze, there was… pretty much no sound. At all.
He may have gotten close enough to look at their face if the Crown hadn’t turned to look elsewhere and happened to catch sight of Narinder in its peripheral.
It promptly bounced off of the Lamb’s head in surprise, and the Lamb startled around, expression shifting slightly– Narinder couldn’t catch it.
Damn it. He would have to be more creative next time.
“Fine,” he said, roughly, cutting back into a conversation that was two weeks old.
The Lamb blinked up at him, the surprise in their face settling into blankness. It was strange, how much that little doofy smile not being present made the Lamb simply feel like a stranger. It was also strange, how they would almost cease emoting.
“Fine what?”
“The job. The chore. Whatever you want to call it,” Narinder growled. “Give me one.”
“Were you that bored? I thought cats liked to sleep,” the Lamb replied, a ghost of the familiarity tugging at their lips.
Narinder snarled, hackles raising.
The Lamb let the amusement dissipate from its expression, leaving them looking blank again. “Alright. What do you like to do?”
Narinder stared at the lamb.
The lamb stared back.
“This isn’t very helpful,” they said at length.
“I was chained for hundreds of years in what amounted to a white void. I don’t have hobbies, charlatan.”
“Fancy one, this time. Three-syllable insult.”
The lamb looked around the cult grounds, as if requiring a refresher on everything. “Hmm. Somehow, I can’t really see you farming.”
The large cat’s face scrunched. Picking and planting and fertilizing crops while baking under the hot sun? “No.”
“Thought not. Hmmmm. Well, I could put you at the refinery, but seems Janor has taken a knack to it, even though it takes forever… and she’s really annoying about it, too. She always accuses anyone else who approaches that they’re stealing her job. What about masonry? We can always use extra stone.”
“I’m not a mole,” the former god muttered.
He was acutely aware that despite his former Godhood, the Lamb now possessed all of that power.
For some reason, they hadn’t punished him at all for his attitude, even when he’d once returned one of the food bowls covered in deep gouges by hurling it full-force down the hill into a small group of followers that had shrieked and scattered.
Fool.
“Yeah. I can’t really see you hammering away with a pickaxe either. Doesn’t suit you.” The Lamb stepped slightly back, not in fear, but to get a better look at him, overall.
“Carpentry?”
“No.”
“Priest?”
“No.”
“Janitor?”
“Absolutely not.”
The Lamb scrunched its face slightly, but a small smile tugged at its lips. “You know, this isn’t going to go anywhere if you say no to everything I suggest.”
He just scowled back at them.
Narinder was not going to admit that the tiny smile was a comforting expression. Why would he? The lamb was a heretic.
“How about cooking? We always need more food.”
“… I am not an adequate chef.”
Obviously, the issue of the food all rotting the second he touched it was a big part of that, but as a god, he’d never actually had the need to make his own meals– he didn’t know a thing about cooking.
“That’s alright, we have all the recipes written down,” the Lamb replied, face already back to a blank slate. “Besides, you don’t have to do a lot of heavy lifting or moving.”
“I’m not a weakling, Lamb,” Narinder growled.
“Yeah, but still, I can’t really see you farming or anything like that. Besides, the kitchen has a little roof over it, so you’ll be able to stay out of the sun.” The Lamb mimed a little roof with its hands.
The Crown, apparently in the habit of mocking its former master, rose and made a little cover over the lamb.
Narinder had to breathe very hard through his nose to resist the urge to slap the Crown out of the air.
“Fine. That’s fine.”
“Oh, good! I have a spare chef-hat somewhere.”
The Lamb gently plucked the Crown out of the air, practically cradling it like a baby, and reached into its immense storage space, rummaging around.
“I don’t need a hat,” the large cat growled as the Crown closed its eye, apparently quite pleased with the feeling of being rummaged around in.
“Sure you do.”
“Lamb–”
The Lamb released the Crown with the hand they were holding it with and held up their palm in their placating gesture– the one they’d used when asking about Shamura, a sort of I know, just wait a second.
He hated that he swallowed the rest of his raging words and merely glowered at the lamb.
“It’s not to embarrass you. I’ve been trying to, like, make you not sound like you’ll explode and kill everyone, but I think the followers still would assume you’re just trying to poison everybody.”
The Lamb did look slightly apologetic. “I don’t think the fact that you tried to attack a child helped all that much. But, back on topic, the hat is usually just to indicate that it’s your job, so this means I’ve approved you to do it, and that… will hopefully get people not to harass you. Or assault you.”
Narinder glared at them, eyes narrowed into slits. His tail twitched. “I don’t want to wear that.”
“Sorry. Please put up with it,” the Lamb replied, totally unperturbed with his anger and pulling out a nice chef’s hat.
They hopped up, floating into the air, and placed the hat delicately on his head while hovering in the air.
He growled softly, hoping to intimidate them, but he may as well have just growled at a wall.
The wall probably would’ve been more intimidated, actually.
The Crown did a little jaunty motion in the air, like it was dancing, when the hat didn’t immediately fall off of Narinder’s head.
The hat did fit perfectly, at least. It would’ve been far more humiliating to have the thing flop over onto his face.
“That’s not bad, actually. It does seem like it sits on your head perfectly, so that’s good. Some of our followers have slightly weird-shaped heads. Which is great! I don’t think any of them look bad or anything,” the lamb commented, stepping back to admire their handiwork, “but it does mean I do have to hand-stitch some hats for them. Your head’s not weird, but I don’t exactly have a way of getting measurements for you, so I was kind of hoping this would work.”
“… I thought you said this was a spare.”
The Lamb looked at their palm. The Crown helpfully formed a little hourglass for them, conveniently out of sand. “Oh, look at the time. Get some rest, Narinder.”
“Wretched beast–”
“I kind of preferred whelp. It was funnier.” The lamb turned away and began to take a brisk walk away from Narinder. “Good night, Narinder.”
The cat glowered after them.
He was not looking forward to tomorrow.