#cotl fic

My Lamb's vessel to God design, and Narinder's recovery progress in the cult !

The Lamb’s grasp on Knucklebones was… rudimentary, at best. The game relied mostly on luck (as Aym proved, when he was biting back curses that Narinder couldn’t remember if he’d specifically taught them to the kit when he kept rolling twos and Noon had lined up two fours in a column and just rolled another), but there was also some (minor) strategy involved. For whatever reason, the Lamb was just bad at strategy in Knucklebones. Narinder would’ve had to have at least 20 arms to count the amount of times they’d lost to relying on dice combinations and having them wiped out at the last second, or pigeonholed themselves trying to focus on one specific combination. And even with twenty arms, he probably couldn’t have counted all of the times they’d actually lost at Knucklebones. Even though he could hardly call himself a Knucklebones expert, being that the last few people he’d actually played against were children, he was decently confident that he’d win. ... Less than a minute later, Narinder was no longer decently confident.

Illustration of a scene from Chapter 21 of Black Sheep!

(timelapse beneath the cut)

Fanart for @baaahaus using her characters from her narilamb racer au fanfic, eurobleat on ao3!

Now with a Comic!

The Lamb could feel their heart beating wildly in their chest. In the silence of the Inbetween, it was loud and almost thundering in their ears. They had a choice. A very important, possibly last choice.

The Red Crown sat cradled in their hands, held close to their chest. It was almost vibrating. With excitement, anxiety, an itch to fight? Lamb didn’t know what, but it was active and waiting.

They felt a heavy frown pull at their face. Arriving in the Inbetween, they’d felt a sense of a happy anticipation. Rejoice for The One Who Waits is to be released from his chains! But now… there was a catch.

They must sacrifice themself for the breaking of their God’s chains. They must return the Red Crown to its original owner.

“Well?” The One Who Waits, Narinder’s, deep voice rumbled talk above the Lamb, sounding almost… impatient. Lamb would be too if they knew their release was moments away.

In the end, Lamb knew what they would choose. It was a choice they would make many times over for their God.

Willing their fearful trembling away (they would be in a better place soon, they must keep faith), Lamb took a deep breath and raised their head to meet the eyes of The One Who Waits. They opened their mouth—

“I su-“

—Their mouth was suddenly, brutally shut with a click as the Red Crown whisked from their hands and slammed atop their own head, nestled between their horns.

No. No, no, nonono that want right! What was it doing!?

That wasn’t their choice!

Terrified, the Lamb looked up at their God only to watch as his mouth turned down into a deep frown then raised in a snarl as his pupils shrunk and absolute anger settled on his face. And hatred.

“Betrayal.”

No.

The Red Crown made the choice and it wasn’t The One Who Waits.

~~~

I actually have it planned for them to meet in my AU Death After Life ! Its still a few chapters until we get there but we are working on it <3

A far Younger Narinder's first kill as Shamura's new god assassin. he was verrrrry proud for taking out Ala with the scythe Leshy gifted him. (also if I should put a gore warning for the severed head, please tell me and I'll throw it on. I wasn't too sure since it wasn't really a human head. or had anything dangling from it.) (Also heres the chapter link for Thawing Heards and Frozen Memories. this IS the chapter art for it, but this also fits into the rest of my headcanons for Narinder sooooo) But ye, Narinder back during the War him and his siblings waged on the other gods acted as both the field medic and assassin, even using his healer attire to sneak into the territory of his targets. the system Him and Shamura thought up was pretty simple- He'd use the crown to store away his scythe and cloak, the crown shifting to it's snake form and hiding within his robes, while his veil would help hide the closed third eye. (He'd also obvs tuck in the second tail in his robes too) then he'd just. waltz in, break into the innermost temple of his target, decapitate them, steal their crown (and more often than not take their head with him) and then just waltz out. no one would suspect anything because healers generally weren't armed and were usually considered off-limits. their enemies did eventually piece it together and start checking every healer that entered their territory, but by then Narinder had taken out most of the hard-hitting old gods and the war was pretty much over. Design wise, I based Ala off of Narwa from Monster hunter Rise, since for some reason thats just what my brain defaulted to. I figured the regular tooth relic was one of their main fangs, while the Blessed version of the relic is from their inner jaw. To go along with this pic tho I did make a side-by-side comparison to the pre-chains Narinder and the post-chains one, mostly for shits n giggles.

An Indirect Kiss

- where the Goat tore off Shamura's fang while sparring (they were in the fight pit)

From Chapter 21