Sleep Like The Dead

Chapter 1

It had been a week since The Lamb had been summoned to the Gateway in the aftermath of Shamura’s death.

A week since The One Wh-… since Narinder had ordered them to kneel.

A week since they refused.

A week since they won.

A week since…

Since they had returned to the cult, bloody and victorious over their former patron, only to find him at the center of a concerned crowd by the indoctrination circle.

Comatose.

They had brought him to a hut on the edge of the cult grounds, a hut they had built for themselves to move into once their god had been freed. They didn't plan on the whole... Sacrifice thing...

The Lamb methodically tucked the blanket securely around Narinder’s still form. The only sign of life being the rise and fall of his thin chest. Whether the thinness was a sign of his former role as Death or due to his long imprisonment, the Lamb wasn’t sure but it was something of concern.

As was the gnarly look to his wrist, scarred and furless, oozing black ichor onto the matting fur surrounding the wound.

“Oh, what am I going to do with you?” The Lamb murmured softly as they smoothed out the blanket.

While not entirely sure why Narinder had fallen into a coma, the lamb suspected it might have been related to the shock of becoming mortal.

The wounds that were so easily shrugged off as a god were fatal to any mortal.

“Had I known what this would do to you…I just wanted all the bloodshed to end…” they smoothed another fake wrinkle in the blanket.

They did not regret killing the Bishops. How could they when the four had stolen their entire people from them? The genocide had started before they had been born and thus any chance of them knowing what it was like to be a Lamb, to know their culture, their heritage, was destroyed before it began. The genocide had extended to any who would show a lamb any form of mercy or those who tried to preserve anything of lamb culture.

Cats, black ones especially, were also affected, being considered an ill omen and too many cats considered themselves allies of lambs to allow such brutality.

And for what?

The prophesied inevitable had finally come to pass. Five became Four became Three became Two became One became…

Nothing.

The Lamb began to gather the old, ichor-stained bandages they had replaced and threw them into a bowl. Cloths they had used to wipe Narinder down followed. The old bedding was thrown by the door, ready to be washed. They refused to allow anyone else to care for him with only the healers being allowed to watch over him while they performed their duties away from his bedside.

An act of devotion, penitence and safeguard all rolled into one.

“It’s funny. I thought we’d do all sorts of things once you were free. I wanted to stay by your side. I wanted to show you my favorite fishing spot by the docks and show you where I picked all those camellias in the Darkwood. I wanted to make you my favorite meal.” They were quiet for a moment. “I wanted to know if I meant as much to you as you did to me. Even if I didn’t, I hoped you let me stay. I would’ve given anything, you know, but after everything I’d done for you, after all I had given, you just had to ask for the one thing I couldn’t do.”

The Lamb sat on the floor by the bed and rested their head on the cover, watching his face for even the smallest of reactions.

“If you hadn’t demanded that... If you had found another way… Would you have let me stay?”