#narinder doesn’t know how to just ask someone their pronouns

[theonewhohyperfixates]

Comic sketch because I couldn’t get this idea out of my head.

I remember watching SPN and all that shit about vessels and whatnot. What if that worked in COTL in a similar fashion? Maybe using a vessel is the closest thing Nari gets to probation lmaoooooo. Too bad he gets zoomies.

[its-metous]

Cravings (Cotl Headcanons/Drabbles

The lamb goes to declare another doctrine, only to learn that the declared effect touches much more than just the flocks cultists.

Hi Hi! Not really a shipfic, but I am def a narilamb supporter who really likes to make headcanons so do with that as you wish! Lamb here uses She/Her pronouns and Narinder mainly gets They/Them from the Lamb! Trigger warnings/reader warnings for cannibalism here!

It’s not every morning that when a sermon is given a doctrine is declared. Though the flock is always wary of it. Lectures on their possesions, their praise, their lifestyles all seem to cause a bit of panic in at least one or two individuals. So, when the lamb mentions cannibalism, she is not surprised to watch her cultists fall dead silent.

“My leader…” A duck speaks up sometime after the silence had fallen upon them, “Surely.” They swallow, and it doesn’t take a mind reader to know they’re anxious. “Surely, we wouldn’t need to resort to that would we?”

Several pairs of eyes follow theres to look at there leader, those who weren’t quite brave enough to speak up bobbing their heads and nodding along as a murmur starts to spread through the temple. It was a step up from the last time she had preached on sustenance, then, then they had gotten a feast. But. It seemed an uncanny follow up.

She laughs after a moment, her eyes slipping from suprised that someone had spoken up to amused and the flock seems to tense. “It’s not something that we would resort to per say my friends,” she places them tome back down on her podium as she leans up against it with a hand resting against her chin. “We are the devotees of The One Who Waits are we not? Is the death that our master grants the most devoted of us not something to be treasured?” The murmurs start up again, she’s got them thinking. Good, she smiles to herself.

A hand raises in the crowd from a short bunny trying desperately to be seen, “But we won’t have to only eat others right? Wouldn’t it be a threat to the cult if we only eat everyone? What of our farms?”

“You misunderstand me.” She straightens herself up and removes the crown from her head, holding it high for the crowd to see. “We’re not going to a diet of flesh, nor should you think of this as you would eating your favorite meal.” Her hand presses against her chest and she closes her eyes as if in a promise, “I would not ask that of you.” She hears the crowd breathe a sigh of relief as she opens her eyes, “But.” Perhaps she was getting a bit too much of a kick out of this, mind reading the Oh Fuck‘s had gotten fun. “I am asking that we take in stride our role as loyal followers to honor each life that Death lifts away from us. For they would not let our devotion fail us, so we must not let ours fail them.”

Perhaps, leaving the sermon, most of the followers do not agree with her declaration. But, they also seem relatively at ease with the idea for now, as most of the elderly chose to have themselves sacrificed or ascended leaving few corpses for anyone to have to worry about cannibalizing. At least, she thinks to herself, At least no one is thinking of dissenting from this doctrine. Though she can still remember the one badger that lost his patience when she started collecting tithes… Arguably the worst part of this doctrine was the few stray minds that seemed, well, “happy” about it. She wasn’t quite sure how to handle those individuals, at least not at the moment. Nor was she sure how she would handle her own gods opinion on her choice of commandments, the shepherd was quick to be amused by her decisions as the flock leader.

It’s almost noon when she finds herself still running around the cult grounds, unironically making up meals in preparation for her first crusade in Anura. How she’s going to actually start butchering the elderly that she can’t sacrifice or ascend? She’s not sure still. The only thing she’s really got going for her is that she’s decided she’ll probably just serve them well minced into the carnivore’s meals and not mention it. Everyone will forget about the doctrine if it goes unmentioned for a while. Even if that does mean, a while, considering that none of the followers had said much to her after the sermon. Maybe they just noticed her being busy. Though it does hurt a bit when only Jager waves her farewell on her way out to Anura.

It’s much, much colder than Darkwood she notes. It’s a blessing that she hadn’t sheared yet, even if it made it a bit more difficult to avoid the oversized frogs. Though, all around, it also feels a bit less dangerous than Darkwood? Less chaotic even, but that’s probably rather fitting given it’s bishop. Here, the creatures were simply easier to avoid, or come around from behind and swing at. Maybe it would be something to flaunt to the shepherd when she sees them again, another reason as to why giving her a bell wasn’t the smartest choice. It feels strange that they would have sent her to Darkwood first though, this place seemed so much easier. Just frogs, a few odds and ends cultists, and smoke, that seemed to be it.

She pauses rerunning through her thoughts as the smell clicks. There’s no visible flames for as far as the eye can see, so she drags her sword behind her and follows the acrid smell. It still seems like a red herring. The area is grassy and autumn like, just like the rest of Anura had been so far, but. Her eyes dip to a few small patches of soot on the ground spaced in the clearing. Something was here. Or, well it had been, she thinks as she steps onto one of the sooted areas and squats to examine it.

It wasn’t a smart choice. At least not in the moment, given how quickly a set of fireballs is shot out and allowed to connect with her head. She’s still writhing by the time she finds herself in the afterlife. Her hearing is slow to come back, but she can feel the room practically shaking with the shepherd’s laughter. “I know, I know, It was dumb.”

“Very.” They say, their red eyes in slits from their cheeks pulling up.

Her arms fall out from behind her and she slumps to splay out in the sand, she sighs. “At least you get some amusement out of it,” her hands reach up opening and closing at the cat leaning over her small form. “Home, I need to try again.”

They shift, reaching a hand down through the slightly loosened chains to have a claw poke at the center of their raised palm. “Are you sure you don’t have something to bleat about to me?”

“No.” She says it quickly, her hand other hand coming up to hold the claw as if it could be considered a threat. They merely poke her more.

“Are you sure? I could have sworn that a doctrine got declared today.”

“You’re mistaken.”

They huff, another hand reaches down and unceremoniously grips her by the back of her cloak and holds her over the other palm. If looks could kill they think. “Cannibalism. That is a sin among mortals you know?” She’s dropped, flailing before being cupped in the other hand with bangs falling over her eyes.

“Waste not want not right?,” she shakes herself and tries to right herself before the palm shifts again and she grapples one of the claws, “why,” the god stills, she blows hair from her mouth, “would you only give me those two options anyways?”

“Two extremes.” Its silent for a moment, “and its amusing.”

“Uh huh.” She shifts back into a sitting position deeming it safer, though she does not release the cat’s thumb from her arms. “Did you eat people? Like when you were free?”

There’s silence, then laughter. It’s hoarse, but the lamb smiles at it. She wonders if they only laugh when she’s around cosidering the other two cats never seem much for conservation. “I could have. Perhaps I did, It’s been so long though I can not point to it as a specific memory,” they hum.

The lamb nods and then laughs, “Y’know I thought you were going to tell me that’s what you did to the last few vessels.”

The god pauses, stunned before they smirk, and lift their palm above their head. “No.” The lamb grasps the cat’s thumb tighter as the palm starts to slip from below her, “It would just be what I’m saving you for.”

They drop her and she flails before finding her feet firmly beneath herself on the waystone. It’s hard to catch her breath as she can still practically hear the god laughing, it stings. There’s only so many curses she can think of and mutter under her breath to try and hide the embarassment, of course they wouldn’t actually eat me. Of course they wouldn’t, the thought repeats as she heads back into Anura before the sunrises.

The crusade is going better this time. It’s still a bit disconcertingly cool despite her cloak and wool, the thinner parts of fleece on her legs feeling the worst of it. But, she’s butchered far more frogs than she can count, and the fireball tree things that she still hadn’t named had yet to even singe her! All in all, her progress felt good with the first witness’s pathway at the edge of the heretic camp she had cleared. It takes little more than a yawn sneaking out of her mouth to lead her to sit down under one of the tents. Her head rests up against the side of it and her eyes close, not intending to sleep so much as take a break.

“Lamb,” the crown calls floating off her head and she hums in acknowledgement not stopping to open her eyes. They didn’t call to her during her crusades often, she’d asked once, they’d called themselves a distraction she remembers. “I have a request of you.”

She snorts, an eye cracking open to gaze at the crown floating in front of her. “I know, I’m on it.” The crown rolls its singular eye, and she struggles to stifle the giggle.

“A different one, I need you to bring me something.”

“Mm?” She couldn’t think of the last time when she got a request of him. Any demand really other than that of killing the bishops.

“A heretic.”

Both her eyes open up to stare at the crown in front of her. “What?” She sits up. “Wait actually how?”

There’s a soft harumph noise that comes from the crown as it shakes, pestered, “Sacrifice them to me. You have declared a change in my nature.”

“How did I do that exactly..?” The question drags but the crown replaces itself on her head, finished with the conversation.“ It’s unsettling so she rests no longer, manifesting her weapon as she heads towards the witness.

It’s quick work and she beams a bit at it, even though the crown floats from between her horns to look down at her. They’re frowning, but she likes to pretend they’re beaming at the witness she sends back to the cult too. She’s quick to start heading for the exit, until the crown does not come back towards her.

“Lamb. The heretic.”

She cocks her head over her shoulder, foot still in the air to march home, “Like now?” She eyes the crown then the exit, again.

“Lamb.”

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you.” She mumbles shifting with her cloak to head back into Anura in search of any remaining heretics. It’s dark by the time she finds a camp she skipped over. The heretics seem unaware of their peers’ massacre by the time she arrives with a brandished axe. With the witness gone, they pose a simple threat, especially in such small numbers. It almost reminds her of the prochecy. Five, then four, then three, then two, then one. But she doesn’t let it reach nothing. There’s just the one left, broken and bleeding as she let’s go of the axe for the crown to form. They stand there, over the heretic as it whimpers. “So, how do I do a sacrifice in the woods?” She looks to the crown as it shakes. She finds it unreadable.

“Draw the ritual circle, do the ritual.”

“I don’t bring chalk with me into the woods.”

“I see an obvious replacement.” They hum lowering to the blood covering Anura’s floor.

She makes a face, sticks her tongue out and ‘“blehs”. “That’s kind of gross.” but the god does not seem to care as it stares at her.

She shifts slightly more so out of discomfort than anything before sighing and reaching her hand into a corpses blood to drip a circle into the ground. There’s no candles, but the sun is rising so she can see at least some of what she’s doing. Even if the main thing she’s seeing is her own bloodied hands and wool. It takes a moment and there’s a residual gross feeling as she finishes and looks towards the heretic who still hasn’t managed to do more than drag themselves into the brush. “Will you do the incantation for me?” she asks the crown floating behind her.

“Have you not memorized it?”

“Nope.”

“It would serve you well to be more dilligent.”

“Well,” the heretic screeches as she drags it back onto the circle, “I didn’t think I would need to know them so far from the cult.”

“Hmph.”

“Is that a yes?” she drops the heretic and they fall into its center.

“If it is the only option.”

There’s a nod from her as she starts to step out of the circle, wary of her face flashing up with blood like the last time. But it doesn’t come as the crown speaks a bit too quick for her escape and she finds herself falling. Then it’s all white sand as she panics. “HEY!”

The two wardens are here this time, one smirks at her graceless arrival. Her eyes travel as she rights herself flustered and dusting off the sand sticking to the blood on her, freezing when she finds the god holding the heretic that seems to have fallen here with her. It smells wrong. And from her view below it seems to be decaying within the gods grasp, she finds herself lucky to always be in the god’s good graces. They eye her as she oggles them and speaks “So kind of you to have not butchered this one into quite so many pieces.”

“Yeah…” her voice trails off as she continues to watch the blood drip off them. “Why, actually how. How did I change you?” she asks hands making air quotes around “change” in particular.

They grin, “watch.” And she does, eyes widening as the god tips their head back and devours the heretic in much the same way they had dropped her in their previous meeting. She flinches, the other two cats ears flick back to ignore the horrible sound of bones cracking.

“You..?” The puzzle pieces aren’t fitting. “You eat people because of me?”

“Close.” They hum licking their lips as they slump downwards, resting their arms against the sand to look the lamb in their eyes. “You declared a doctrine in my name. Do you think it has no effect on me?”

She stays quiet and the cat snickers as her metaphorical gears turn. “I declared you to be… a cannibal?”

“No. You’ve declared me to be a lot of things, this is just one of the things I can.” They gesture to the small pile of blood before them, “indulge in?”

She frowns and shakes her head, “Gross. You’re gross.”

“You declared it.”

“Yeah, Yeah,” she hums before her eyes go wide and she moves towards the god, “Wait,” a finger gets pointed in the smiling cats direction. “Does that mean you were actually threatening to eat me the other day?”

There’s a cheshire smile to the god as her voice peaks at the false realization, they’d laugh if they had not done so so much already. “I suppose you’ll find out if you’re not quicker next time I task you with my cravings.”

“Death!”

They don’t hold back as a hoarse taunting laugh fills the afterlife. It’s almost bittersweet that this is their last vessel, yet the one they have had the most fun with.