Sooo, I kinda binge read all of your CoTL au, and forgive me if I missed anything, but do your lamb and Narinder ever make-up and work things out? Or more specifically, does Lamb ever forgive Narinder?
They do make up eventually! They just gotta work out other issues first.
The first few months the Lamb basically ignores Narinder and leaves him in the care of an elderly follower who typically takes on ātroubledā newbies. Antheaās tired, theyāre confused, theyāre grieving Aym and Baal since during their time as vessel they essentially became like a second parent to them, and theyāre hurt because for the first time in their life Anthea wanted something. They wanted to tell Narinder their feelings, they wanted to maybe start some sort of life together, like the lamb had never considered having a future out of the guilt of being the survivor, so finally letting themselves indulge that selfish wish just for it to crumble? Did he think so little of them, that an out of context conversation was enough to push him away? Forget him not respecting their privacy deal by listening in-that stung the most. Anthea puts their grief in a box and throws themselves into cult-leader/new god stuff to try and not have time to dwell outside of nightly visits to the graveyard to cry over their family and the twinsā graves.Ā
Meanwhile Narinder immediately regrets everything after the two of them have a massive argument that first moment he appeared on the indoctrination stone-he realizes he jumped the gun, is now down two children and the person heād fallen in love with now refuses to so much as look at him. Nona, the elderly deer woman heād been placed into the care of alongside the Knucklebones Gang as Anthea's parental figures quickly figure out the whole situation is just miscommunication and are trying to get him to just tell the lamb plainly āYou were doing the exact same thing my siblings did before they betrayed me, I'm sorry I was scared-ā, but its kinda hard to do when the lamb just avoids him. Plus heās thinking heās earned what heās got.Ā
Aym and Baal getting revived is what kickstarts them slowly talking again. When Anthea gets the necklaces from the seller the lamb has no clue how to use them, so they go to Narinder with basically āWeāre both at fault for their deaths, youāre at the graves as much as me mourning, Iāll put aside everything just please HELP MEā. And he does. Perfectly. Its been 4 months and Antheaās having a really hard time justifying their anger since heās been behaving the whole time, and when it comes to the twins only speaks in regards to resurrecting them, works on things/loses sleep preparing the ritual when the lamb has cult things to do, and when an old failsafe left by Shamura activates during the ritual itself he runs to the lambs side to help keep them steady as they break through it. Theyāre still hurt, but they do realize that theyāre being a bit of a jerk ignoring him like this.
The twins also donāt come back mentally ok. Their deaths/the resurrection leaves both with pretty bad PTSD and separation anxiety (theyāre like 11-12 theyāre too young for all of this), and especially at night the twins alternate between needing Anthea, Narinder, or both nearby to sleep since despite Narinderās denial heās their dad 100%, and the Lamb is basically the twinsā maternal parent. It was Anthea being so good with the kits that got them to become friends at first, and it's the kits that slowly help them to be that again.Ā
It still takes time for them both to be ready to sit down and just explain where their heads were at that day. As Anthea frees the bishops and gets their sides of the story they realize just how much their behavior mirrored the bishopsā prior to their betrayal of Narinder and how much of their behavior in a way mirrors Shamura themself, the āoldest siblingā giving pieces away till nothing was left and they snapped (Anthea never reached that point, but Shamura did with jumping the gun on imprisoning Narinder. Lives of the many over the one with potential to be a risk), and Narinder needs to come to terms with how his imprisonment came to be/make amends with his siblings.
They DO make up after a little over a year, and after everything kinda falls back into place. Things are different sure, but they love each other too much to hold back anymore.
(Love how this AU has become half miscommunication since this pantheon has no clue how to talk to each other, and the other half is the Lamb accidentally adopts two kittens with Narinder before they suddenly have a weird gotta share the kids despite the divorce arc)
