Primary Mycellium

Nenien has a beloved worshipping relationship with death - she views death as the ultimate blessing as it's what led her to meeting the one who waits and attaining godhood. Though, she doesn’t truly view herself as a god (at first), she sees herself more as a shepherd (lol) that guides her followers towards Paradise (death).

Once she learns that narinder lowkey spurns death/wants desperately to live, she seizes his godhood bc she thinks those who beg for life are weak and undeserving. So she kills him. Death is the ultimate guide - an honor, a judge, the final executioner, a punishment, and ultimately unhurried.

When she resurrects him, she holds his face and gently tells him that running from death is for fools... she'll walk with him to the end. He's her consort !

The Lamb and The Fox have the relationship of two business professionals who are in love but never say it/act like it/tell anyone, its just a completely mutual knowledge that lends itself towards favoritism and small deals (sacrifices lol)

He's never had meals willing prostrate themselves for him, but that's exactly what Nenien's followers do when she brings them to him. They all but eagerly climb into his mouth. His mouth waters when he looks at her but his desire to be around her outweighs his hunger. He does satiate his desire to consume a god though by asking for an old "friend."

Nenien tells Ratau that she is taking him to Paradise. She's excited for him! She holds his hand the whole way. But then he begins to beg and scream and her demeanor shifts to disdain... no wonder he wasn’t a worthy vessel, she thinks. At least with this, he will truly experience the divine. She keeps his staff in her quarters afterwards.

Later, the fox gives her a gift.

The Fox: i usually like to eat my meals, bone and all... i'm not the type to leave food on my plate, you see. But i suppose bodies touched by god are hardier. These bones didn’t quite sit well with my stomach, and no matter how I tried i couldn't break them, even with teeth like these. So, how about as thanks for something that was once yours, little lamb, I give you something of mine.

He pulls Ratau's bones from his mouth and theyve become warped and disfigured in his pit of a stomach. He folds them over with a piece of his essence and hands her an egg... she can do as she pleases with it.

It hatches when she bestows a piece of her soul into it, hatching her first and only child, the Wolf.

He and narinder have a contentious relationship.

Her disciples are all followers touched in some way by death

- naano: (deer) the first corrupted by sin, hunted and killed by nenien, reborn as something Else

- hauranty: (raccoon) born the same day both of her parents died

There’s a lot of backstory and tid bits I haven’t shared about Miel since I’ve gotten myself deep into flushing out their character, and thinking more about the COTL universe in general. NOTE: this is gonna be LONG, so bear with me!

Some trivia about Miel: As I’m sure you’ve noticed, she’s gone through a couple redesigns. From the post you commented on in this ask, this was my first EVER drawing of her:

I named them after I finished this drawing, which I think I mentioned on here at some point I picked her name from running through translations of “lamb” through different languages on Google Translate. Lol. I liked the Romanian word of lamb, so I stuck with that. THEN I got comments on how “miel” translates to honey in Spanish - which honestly became the catalyst of shaping her story (more on that later). The name for my goat, Kozel, also came from the Russian translation of “goat” (I know, very original lol)

Anyways, her design. Although I’ve drawn many anthros and furries, I was still very new to drawing bovidaes (or just sheep and goats in general) and her design at this time was… sort of uncomfortable to draw. I REALLY strugged with headshape and hooves. Her first designs she had basically flat feet with hooves as toes.

The above is her first reference. I got rid of the dangly bells (too annoying to draw) and simplified her facial markings. Oh my god. Look at those feet. (sobs)

Even though I tweaked somethings, she was still uncomfortable to draw. That’s alright. I’ll get the hang of it, I’d tell myself over and over - but the design still wasn’t satisfying. Something needed to change, especially that awkward headshape. ASAP!

I took a lot of inspiration from how @kyoukorpse draw’s his lamb’s facial structure - flattening out the snout and having the facial markings work as a guide, rather than just slapped on there. This image really helped me understand how to draw a sheep’s head:

Okay, now I'm sort of getting the hang of head and shoulders, now it's just those damn knees and toes. I really digged how @tingrasta drew legs on their lamb; the legs and knees and ankles all look very well balanced and I sorta mimicked their style to figure out mine, especially since my "accurate" lamb legs looked like chicken legs with stumps.

After a few concentrated observing sessions of other's styles and scrolling through pages of lambs and goats on Google Images, I think I got it. Whew. Thank you COTL artists who figured this out.

Another thing was outfit. At the time, I really did not know how to design Miel’s fit, at all. I referenced mostly on canon lamb’s fit and just added a dress underneath. I still wasn’t feeling it, obviously, lol. But, scouring through Pinterest gave me some pointers, and thus her final design - along with her other forms - was accomplished.

See, I really wanted her to have some braids after seeing a new Fortnite skin that came out a couple months ago. I actually sort of incorporated some design aspects from the skin Cassidy Quinn (Chpt 6 S2) and a cool cape blazer I saw on Pinterest (can’t find it, curses for never pinning)

The braids I use for Miel’s design is from the Procreate Braid Brush Pack by EggisPrintShop on Etsy. I just simply use the #19 braid brush then draw over it.

If you want to hear about Miel's backstory, I have a TON of stuff written up. But since this ask is already super long, I'll leave it like it is. I haven't thought indepth about a character, let alone a fan character for so long since the good ol' Homestuck days back in '15. The big difference between then and now is I just wanted my fan characters to look cool, but now I want my oc's to look cool and make sense, developmental-wise and not totally unclipped from canon (my fantrolls could've been their own species, to be honest with you). Still, I like to toy around with canon lore and concepts and poke the boundaries once in a while. I almost scratched the idea of Established Miel eating the crown because I haven't seen anybody else in my perimeters really come up with the same or similar idea, but then I thought... well... when you kill the bishops and take their hearts in canon, their crowns are just gone. I kind of assumed the lamb just absorbs them or something, so the idea of my lamb having the crown as an afternoon snack isn't too far fetched.