ignore teh typoes

But noooo…she had to stay sober and make sure no one tried to put their disgusting feet in the lettuce like the last feast day.

Heket ground her teeth at the memory. It still angered her that she wasn't allowed to slaughter and carve up that salad-soiler. A day in the pillory could never make up for the wasted food defiled by feet.

She had a running list of things she hated, and wasting food was always near the top.

Heket had many reasons for her hatred, though at least part of it came as holdover from her days as a simple critter. Her second summer of life brought with it an awful drought and lean times. The power starvation could hold over all mortals installed itself in her so deeply that it was one of the few events she remembered from her time before her Crown.

Another part came from her time with The Yellow Crown. Food took effort to grow, even when encouraged with her power, and wasting food meant wasting time and effort that could have been used elsewhere.

Heket stood over the bowls still piled high with chopped vegetables and oil cruets without a single meat dish in sight.

She never would have pegged a wolf as big and muscled as Abas to be a vegetarian, and yet somehow the canine did not care for the taste of succulent meat.

If Abas hadn't been so pretty, Heket might have held it against her.

She understood not eating something because it made one sick, but choosing not to eat an entire category of food just because of some issue with morality? No way she could wrap her head around that. If it fit in her mouth and it wouldn't make her vomit, she would eat anything. It was better to eat bad food than no food, as far as she was concerned. (Though she would always prefer good food to bad.)

Slumping against the table, she took a handful of pumpkin seeds and tossed them in her mouth. She shut her eyes to enjoy the taste of the baked seeds and the sprinkling of salt.

Pumpkin gained entry to her list of loved foods not too long after she found her Crown. She remembered finding her first pumpkin in the garden of a village she persuaded—with the threat of famine—to follow her. The pumpkins were much smaller and bitterer back then, but over the centuries she and her followers bred the pumpkins to the delicious, large squashes that now curled their vines through Anura.

A hand on her shoulder took Heket from her memories. She turned a glower to whomever dared to interrupt her.

The Lamb tilted their head. "You're by yourself."

No shit, wool for brains.

Heket nodded.

"Where...wife?" She croaked.

The reception party was for them and their new wife, after all. For some reason, The Lamb didn't take their new spouses on celebratory honeymoons away from the grounds to spend hours enjoying each other's companies and bodies. As a goddess, Heket often spent a few days alone with her new wife after they wed. Not only did it give her time to relax and indulge in the sweet nectar of physical intimacy, the honeymoon made her wife feel special and more devoted.

How The Lamb let such an opportunity slide by, she'd never understand.

They shrugged. "Abas doesn't like loud crowds, so the party ended up a bit much for her. She's resting in my tent."

The party ended up a bit much for everyone, given the drunks just within eyesight.

Heket grunted to indicate she understood.

The Lamb hopped up to sit on the table, nearly knocking over an oil cruet. Heket snatched it and glared, but she went ignored.

"I'm also making the rounds to check all my other spouses are alright and not feeling murderous." They winked at her. Heket slammed the base of the ceramic cruet on their leg.

Another on the list of things Heket hated, The Lamb treating her like a spouse. She didn't bully them into marriage for love. Narinder can waste his time sharing longing glances and swapping spit with the little usurper. She would rather The Lamb wither and die than treat her like an actual wife.

No, Heket married The Lamb solely for the dress.

She saw it at the tailor one day, a creamy white dress with blood-colored stitching and a red sash around the middle. The moment she pressed her fingers against the soft fabric and delicate embroidery, she knew she had to have it.

She dragged The Lamb from whatever meaningless conversation they were having with a lesser follower to the tailor and demanded she be given the dress. It would need some alterations to fit her body type. Sewing had never been one of Heket's best skills, but The Lamb had followers who knew how to do it. They could assign one of them to make it fit her so she could parade around and earn no small amount of admiration and envy.

The Lamb then informed her that the dress was a wedding dress. Only their spouses could wear it.

Heket spent a few hours seething before deciding to go a different route to get her dress. If The Lamb won't just give it to her when she asked, she would make them give it to her.

For the next several days, she pouted and pretended to be upset, so whenever anyone asked, she could tell them her sob story of how The Lamb so cruelly denied her a simple, little request. Most of the people asking were stupid enough not to think deeply as to why The Lamb denied her one day in a fancy dress, and faith started to wane a bit.

Her ruse worked, for The Lamb pulled her aside to say they would allow her to wear the dress. Heket felt elated that she bested the puny critter until The Lamb finished speaking.

She could wear the dress if she married them. A mischievous gleam glowed in their eyes.

That fool thought they had won against her. They thought they were cleverer than she!

Heket did not back down and accepted the proposal, to The Lamb's shock.

Not only did Heket get the dress—which she still had in a chest in her shelter—she also got the social power that came with her new title as their god's wife. If she worded her sentences carefully, the simpletons that follow The Lamb believed she held much more sway over The Lamb than she did.

It made getting her way so much easier.

The show of her brothers chasing The Lamb around with a pitchfork, after the ceremony had her in stitches with laughter. As she cackled, she braced herself against Shamura, who could see a grab for power from miles away and knew exactly what she was doing.

The Lamb rubbed their thigh with a laugh. "Ah, so you are murderous, but unlike Bathin and Lily, to me and not Abas."

She rolled her eyes. "Go," she ordered, pointing away. It mattered not where, but the less time The Lamb pestered her the better.

They leaned forward, resting their arms on their knees. "I will. I'm just checking in on you. You seemed to like Abas, at least, from a distance." They smirked as Heket flinched.

She thought she had been careful in her ogling, but could she be blamed for wanting to look? Abas was stunning, tall and muscular, with scars crisscrossing her body. Heket could watch her chop wood at the lumberyard all day.

Admittedly, she had been disappointed when The Lamb announced their engagement to Abas, but she had no plans to do more than look anyway, so she told herself it did not matter much. Unlike Kallamar, she had no desire to share The Lamb's secondhand lover.

As Heket began to gather the other oil cruets onto a tray, The Lamb frowned. They watched her a moment longer before asking, "Why haven't you ever dated anyone here?"

The cruet in her hand hit the table, cracking deeply. Swearing, Heket put a thumb over the spout and turned the cruet so the oil stayed away from the crack before more could seep out.

She shook some of the other cruets until she found the one with the least left in it. She opened it, and poured the contents of the cracked container inside. The different flavors of the infused oil dressings might not go well together, but surely she could find a use for them in something. Perhaps she could dump it in the dishes of people who annoyed her.

Heket dropped the cruet next to The Lamb with a glare. The ceramic shattered. A shard skittered across the table and stabbed The Lamb in the thigh. They shifted back away from her, tossing the shard aside.

"Sorry, that was abrupt, wasn't it?" They chuckled. "My bad. I just got to thinking about it during the ceremony. You know my other wife, Lily? She leaned against," the Lamb gagged, "Kallamar the whole time. Bathin found comfort with his new beau as well. You, however, just kept by your siblings, looking bored as ever. I never noticed until now that you don't have anyone special like that."

While nowhere near as bad as Kallamar had been, The Lamb had a handful of other spouses who actually loved them. The Lamb also did not seem to mind their spouses finding affection in the arms of other mortals—so long as the spouse loved them most of all.

Though it remains an enigma to her how The Lamb, however reluctantly, allowed Lily to pursue Kallamar—or what Lily saw in someone like Kallamar. If she were in The Lamb's place, Lily and Kallamar would be drawn and quartered for treason.

"I would like to know why." The Lamb patted a short beat on their legs. "I'm told you used to have wives. Did you love them or did you only take them for the devotion?"

She narrowed her eyes. This annoying beast loved to pry into other people's business. They took great pleasure in pestering until they had enough information to attempt to 'fix' whatever they deemed 'broken.'

She had seen them do it time and time again to not only followers, but to her own siblings. Prying and pestering was the only way The Lamb could force someone like Narinder to open up and change as much as he had.

The Lamb broke down her walls and convinced her to talk once before, when they escorted her to her temple for one last visit. She had been full of emotions then. Too full. The words and feelings just spilled out.

Rubbing the scar on her neck, she muttered, "Both. Loved some….Wanted loyalty from others…."

If she was honest, she mostly loved them, or thought she did. At least she thought they were all attractive.

Heket had high standards for wives. Not only did they have to be beautiful, they had to be charming and able to make her laugh, but never had to try too hard at either. She expected her wives to be someone she could be as comfortable going and salting lands of her enemies as staying in her temple and cuddling.

Consequently, she never did have as many as any of her brothers, who seemed to take spouses on a whim. Only Shamura held higher standards than she did. As long as Heket had known them, they only ever had a maximum of three at a time, with long stretches of bachelordom between spouses.

Before Narinder ruined everything, Heket had once had a nice loving group of eleven wives that fawned over her and sang her praises.

She kept less wives after the schism.

It was much harder to find, woo, and arrange a marriage with a woman when Heket was running around The Lands of The Old Faith doing all that needed to be done: culling the remains of The Red Crown cult, wrangling her newly traumatized brothers and their quirks, or helping Shamura run their cult when the pain of their injury made it too difficult for them to do it on their own.

That last two hundred years of her reign, she didn't have time to do much more than assign beautiful women to work at her temple so she could occasionally admire them when she took a breath to relax.

If the culling of lambs had gone off without a hitch, she had planned to talk Shamura into giving her that executioner, Hagar, of theirs, the big one with a sturdy built, wiry spotted fur, and the once pretty brown eyes.

Once The Bishops' fate had been secured in their favor, Heket wanted to restart her harem beginning with Hagar. She had spent more than a few hours on that forsaken mountain imagining holding her in her arms while she waited for her followers to round up the remains of Yngya's flock.

Of course, Hagar went missing after The Lamb resurrected and attacked her. Heket didn't have time to find her before she herself was struck down.

The Lamb jumped a few places in her list of hated things.

"So why haven't you found someone here to date?" The Lamb asked.

Heket snorted, reaching for a large bowl of cut cauliflower. "No one…good enough…."

Hopefully, that put the issue to bed.

"That's, " The Lamb hummed, "not true, and we both know it."

Dammit.

"What's the real reason, Heket?"

Heket was not playing this game! Instead of gracing The Lamb with a reply, she put the bowl of cauliflower on the tray with the dressing cruets then spun around.

She took two steps away from them when she tripped over the staff member she kicked earlier.

The tray flew from her grip, cauliflower already leaping out of the bowl.

She flinched and braced for impact, but instead of hitting her front against the ground, something yanked her clothing from behind and saved her from falling.

Heket looked up to see The Red Crown in the shape of a large claw holding the tray with the stray cauliflower safely in its palm.

The Lamb pulled Heket back to her feet before releasing her bodice.

They scowled at the follower she tripped over while the follower looked groggily at them.

"L…Leader?" He asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Where's the rest of the kitchen crew?" They gestured to Heket. "Why is she the only one doing what she's supposed to?"

The follower's mouth gaped like a fish momentarily before he scrambled to his feet. He bowed at the waist to The Lamb.

"Go find the others and get them back here. Bring the leftovers to the kitchen and do whatever my bishop says to," The Lamb ordered with a fire in their eyes. The terrified follower nodded then darted away to find his coworkers.

The Red Crown floated to The Lamb. Instead of taking the tray and bowl and returning The Red Crown its normal spot between their tiny, red horns, The Lamb let the Crown continue to hold it before taking a half-filled tray of cookies in their hands.

"Let me help you."

- - - -

The cookies didn't make it to the kitchen. The Lamb either ate the remaining, or stored them in their fleece for later, Heket wasn't sure. So long as the cookies were eaten, she didn't care.

Her focus instead rested on if The Lamb's kindness was genuine or if they were trying to lull her into a false sense of security.

Either was possible.

Her mood soured farther when the two arrived at the kitchen.

Both she and Lena told their underlings that the kitchen had to be set back in its proper order before they headed to the reception—no dishes still dirtied, no knives stuck into the cutting boards, no half chopped vegetables and fruit left exposed to the air.

Stacks of dirty plates and bowls, silverware, heads of cut lettuce, pumpkin guts, and more were abandoned to brown across the counter and stove tops.

Heket groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose wishing she still had the power to smite.

When she finally returned to her shelter, she was going to write down every terrible things she had to say to her staff about that evening, then she would drag Kallamar over to have him yell at them for her.

Kallamar had the perfect condescending tone of voice when he reprimanded followers. Those hungover assholes were going to regret ditching her and their duties for the rest of their short, pathetic lives.

The Lamb reached for a dirty bowl with bits of dough crusted to the side, but Heket slapped their hand away.

"Don't."

"Are you sure?"

Heket looked at the messy kitchen then back at The Lamb and their too caring expression.

She cringed.

Fuck it.

Whether The Lamb was manipulating her or not, she would let this terrible monster have the win tonight, as a wedding gift.

Taking a deep breath, Heket leaned against the counter.

"Don't deserve it."

"You're right about that. You worked the whole reception. Make the others clean this up."

"No, I mean…why I don't…" She swallowed the pride blocking her throat. "I don't…deserve a…relationship."

The Lamb looked confused for a moment before what she meant clicked inside their little lamby brain.

"Why?" They asked with a careful tone.

Heket's shoulders sagged.

"Couldn't …keep…family together…or safe…" She mumbled. "I failed…them. How could…any…one want…me? "

She expected some meaningless reassurances and faux clemency from The Lamb, the same she would get if she ever admitted that to her brothers or Shamura, but instead The Lamb exclaimed in a bewildered tone, "<i>Bitch, what?!</i>"

Ignoring her surprise, The Lamb continued, "That's bullshit! So many people here want to put their faces between your tits or your thighs." They slapped their chest. "Myself included! If Narinder wouldn't break open my ribcage and eat my heart and lungs while I was still alive for it, I'd ask to put my face there, too!"

She cringed, unconsciously covering her chest with her arms and pressing her legs together.

They blushed. "Sorry, but it's not my fault three out of five of your family members are hot."

Her cringe deepened as she debated asking whom out of Leshy, Kallamar, and Shamura was in the "hot" group with her and Narinder.

She decided she didn't want to know.

"Not…like that…stupid," she snapped. She already knew she was attractive. Anyone with working eyes could see that.

"Then how do you mean it?" The Lamb asked.

Regret settled in her stomach. What a foolish mistake telling them her thoughts. If Shamura ever found out about this moment of weakness, she'd be lectured for letting the enemy slip past her defenses and sneak away with valuable information.

"Couldn't protect siblings…not ok for me to be…loved after that…"

"But it's OK for Leshy? He failed to protect all of you too, but you don't have a problem with him dating," The Lamb pointed out.

Heket wanted to smack some sense into their fluffy head.

"Different.…He was the youngest….The weakest. He…can't be blamed."

If she hadn't underestimated Narinder's final vessel and overestimated Leshy, she wouldn't have sent him to fight The Lamb alone. His first death rested heavy on her shoulders.

The Lamb shrugged. "OK, so it doesn't apply to Leshy because he's the baby of the family—fair enough. What about Kallamar and Shamura, then? They're both older, and, no offense, Kallamar was more difficult to defeat than you and Leshy combined." They winced.

" They're…different, too," she insisted.

"How? "

Heket opened her mouth but no answer came out. What could she say? They were right, in a way.

Everything she held against herself could easily apply to Leshy, Kallamar, or Shamura.

She was too weak to defeat The Lamb. She didn't go for help when she should have. She was overconfident with her power. She let her emotions get the better of her.

But Heket was different from those three on a fundamental level!

She was the one who stepped up when Shamura couldn't. She was the one to make the hard decisions. She was the one holding everything together as that damned prophecy ripped her family apart.

"My failure…is greater," she finally said.

"Heket," The Lamb put a hand on her forearm, "you did some really bad things, the repercussions of which I am currently trying to repair." They paused and looked to the distance in the direction of Anura.

No, Heket realized with a jolt, in the direction of Ewefall.

"Because of that, I can't offer you any absolution for the atrocities you did against me or any number of others. That you haven't earned," they took a breath, "but I can tell you that if you told your siblings what you said, they would absolve you, truly, the moment you finished. None of them, even Narinder, thinks what you did was any worse than what they did."

Heket pushed The Lamb away. "Go…to your…wife..." she croaked, her head suddenly pounding.

The Lamb was wrong, even if she couldn't explain how. They had to be wrong, because Heket knew she didn't deserve to be loved outside her family ties. She was a failure. If she so badly failed her siblings, her unbreakable bonds formed in blood, why would anyone want to take a chance on her?

The Lamb looked her up and down before they nodded then turned and left.

— - -

By the time all the leftovers had been dealt with and the kitchen somewhat cleaned up, all Heket wanted to do was scream, and she couldn't even do that anymore.

She hobbled towards her shelter, glaring at anyone she passed. From behind her, the reception still raged with music and loud cheering. She almost wished she had the energy to join the fun, but the idea of dealing with drunks when she was still sober made her stomach hurt.

Heket's body and brain ached from that stupid sheep's pestering and prying. Kicking herself for falling for their tactics, she prayed to whatever god might listen to her that the next time The Lamb went on crusade, something chopped them in half and it took a long, painful time for them to die.

"Heket, is that you?" A voice shouted.

She looked towards the direction of the voice to see Leshy with Narinder draped over his shoulder. He waved his arm, presumably to call her over, though he was facing away from her.

"Heket! Narinder said he saw you! If he did, come here and help me!"

With a longing gaze towards her shelter just a little ways away, Heket wandered to her brothers.

She grunted loudly to alert Leshy that she was near him. He adjusted Narinder before raising his head with a relieved smile.

"Help me out here. This lug is heavy." He raised the shoulder Narinder leaned against, which caused Narinder to whine in response. Heket went to Narinder's other side and slipped her arm around his back before she pulled him against her.

Leshy heaved a sigh, rubbing his shoulder. "I'm ninety-percent sure cats get heavier when they're drunk. Cor does the same thing when he's had a few."

Heket wondered if the yellow cat Leshy had wrangled into a relationship was drunk somewhere, too, and that was how Leshy got stuck hauling Narinder around alone.

Leshy kept his hand on Narinder's arm to help guide himself as Heket made her way to Narinder's shelter.

Narinder moaned and groaned then complained that he wasn't that drunk. He could walk just fine if he wanted. He just didn't feel like it.

When Narinder lapsed into silence for a moment, Heket said, "I have…question."

"Anything is better than Narinder's babbling. Ask away," Leshy announced. Narinder tried to slap him by feebly waving his arm around. His attempt was so pathetic, however, that even the blind man could dodge it with ease.

Heket's stomach twisted as she forced herself to ask,"Would you care…if I…got a…girlfriend?"

Leshy tilted his head, his brow furrowing. He started to speak, but Narinder loudly cut him off.

"Yes, I would mind!" He shouted, pointing at Heket best he could while still leaning against her shoulder. "You'd go after Azzy, and I don't want you to go after her because she is my best-friend! You'll steal her from me!"

Leshy smirked. "Well, now you gotta take Astaroth from him. He stole our followers before. It's only fair!"

"Nooooo…" Narinder whimpered, resting his whole weight against Heket . "That stupid wolf already stole The Lamb from me for the next few weeks until the new wears off from her. Stupid, buff woman! You can't swoop in now and steal my bestie with your stupid, buff, frog-toad, feminine charms…" He paused then looked up at her with half-closed eyes. "But if you do, even to spite me, you'd better treat her right, or else." He shook his fist at her.

Heket snorted. Admittedly, she did like Astaroth as a person. Heket once watched her tackle a spy then zap him with her stinging tentacles until his flesh began to burn and sizzle like fat in a hot skillet. She was witty and smart, even if she, for some reason, allowed Narinder to take the spot of her best-friend.

Astaroth made a few flirtations towards her before, but Heket had brushed them off or pretended not to hear.

Honestly, knowing it would piss off Narinder to go on a date with her made Astaroth a much more appealing woman in Heket's eyes.

After a couple more steps filled with Narinder's caterwauling, Heket dropped her older brother onto the floor of his shelter. He flipped her off before pulling a blanket over his head and shoulders, but not the rest of him. A moment later, he was snoring loudly.

Leshy looped his arm around Heket's as she escorted him back to the ongoing party—though Heket had a hunch once Leshy left with Narinder, many of the other party-goers took their chance to escape as well. Whether it was a leftover quirk of his Crown still stuck to him or not, Heket didn't know, but any party Leshy attended rarely ended before he left.

Leshy's free hand tapped against his thigh. He had left his cane at the party by mistake and must feel a little antsy without it.

"Hey, sis?" Leshy asked. "What was it you were talking about before Narinder started ranting about Astaroth and Abas?" He tilted his head. "You're gonna ask someone out?"

"Maybe…" She muttered.

"About time!" Leshy threw his free hand up. "I guess Shamura wins the bet then."

"Bet?!" Heket winced.

Leshy nodded. "Well, yeah, Kal, 'Mura, and I started a bet about when you would finally get a girl a little after Shamura showed up. Kal said within three weeks, I said before a year passed, and Shamura took everything after that." He sighed. "Technically, they won a while ago, but we decided the bet doesn't actually end until you're smacking on some lovely lady, then Kallamar and I need to give Shamura five gold."

Heket shook her head. "I'm not…haven't…" She sighed, gazing at her little brother. He looked so earnest and accepting of her that a pang squeezed her heart.

How could she have failed him so badly? How could she have let him die in her watch?

Leshy was a good brother. All the happiness he found since losing his godhood was earned for all he suffered because of her failures.

A terrible woman like her didn't deserve anyone if she couldn't protect even him.

The Lamb's words echoed in her head. "But I can tell you that if you told your siblings what you said, they would absolve you, truly, the moment you finished."

A tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away, despite knowing Leshy couldn't see it.

"Are you…." she coughed, forcing the words from her ruined throat. "Are you…mad at me…for telling you….to fight Lamb…by yourself?"

Leshy froze, jerking Heket to a stop beside him.

His mouth opened and shut before he said, "What the hell are you talking about? Of course, I'm not. " He gently slapped at her forearm. "That's stupid. Don't be stupid. Didn't we all already talk about this?" He frowned. "We, as a family, aren't holding what happened against each other anymore. I'm not mad at you anymore than I am at Kallamar or Shamura or even Narinder. We fucked up. It's what fucked-up families like ours do, Heket!"

Her weak voiced trembled as she asked, "Family forgive…but, others…. I…fail…ed…." Heket took a breath. "Who would…love a fail….ure…?"

She could almost see the gears grinding together in his mind as he took in what she said. He pursed his lips and pulled his arm free from hers. After running his hands up her arms to her shoulders, he let out a long, weary sigh, then vigorously shook her back and forth.

"I just said 'don't be stupid'! Did you hear me?!" He shouted. "It doesn't matter if you failed! I failed! You failed! We all failed! You still deserve to try and get some coochie if you want it! If someone holds that you died to The Lamb against you, punch them in the gut and move on. They're not worth your time!"

His hands stopped shaking and gave a squeeze.

"Got it?"

He beamed at her, all teeth and gums and brotherly assurance.

She hated it, and she hated that she hated it. Some part of her yelled at her to argue. That part wanted to keep wallowing in her guilt and disappointment as a failure, as it had been since she was brought to her new hell by The Lamb.

Giving in and punishing herself by avoiding affection had been so easy, if not logical, that she fell into the pattern of brushing people off.

Was there really a point to punishing herself anymore? Was living among The Lamb's flock while her own cult waned and the memory of her godhood was forgotten to time not punishment enough? Why did she feel the need to add to it for sins that were already forgiven?

Her chest hurt as she swallowed a sob that threaten to climb out of her throat.

"G…got…got it…" She forced out before pulling Leshy into a bone-crushing hug.

— —

"'…And farther more, if you ever abandon your posts during a feast again, expect to have your organs rearranged from the inside when I shove my hand down your throats and switch the positions of your lungs and livers. Understand, you worthless sacks of shit? Now get to work making the kitchen spotless and all the unused food ready to be cooked today. No grumbling or complaining about being hungover or else."

Kallamar loomed over the kitchen staff, looking down at them disparagingly, with Heket's speech held in his hand.

The staff flinched away and huddled against each other like cornered critters in shame and fear, as if Heket herself had reprimanded them.

"Also," Kallamar added, "she didn't write this, but remember to wash your hands. This place is an e. coli outbreak waiting to happen." He waved his hand to dismiss them. "Now, go."

As the staff scurried away, Kallamar rested an elbow on Heket's shoulder.

"How was that?"

She nodded at him and patted his back. "Wonderful," Heket signed.

"Why, thank you! It's been so long since I got to denigrate a group of mortals. I've quite missed it."

A loud groan took her attention From Kallamar preening himself towards Lena, the other head cook who went missing the night before. She wobbled to the kitchen with Witness Astaroth supporting her side. Lena had bags under her eyes with messy fur. She spoke with a croaky, scratchy voice.

"I'm so sorry about last night. My lover pulled me a side for one drink, then one became two and…" She trailed off, rolling her hand.

Heket shrugged in response. The high of watching the lower staff be belittled still coursed through her, so she let her counterpart's mistake go this time.

"It…fine…"

"I think you need some water, Lena," Astaroth laughed, "and maybe a snack?"

Lena's face paled at the idea of eating. With a shake of her head, she left towards the kitchen.

"I'll go make sure everyone is doing their jobs. You take the day off. You deserve it." Lena put a hand on Heket's arm as she passed. "Sorry again."

Once Lena left, Astaroth rocked on her heels, eyes sparkling. To Heket, she said, "You know, I could use a snack right about now." She winked at Heket. "A plate of pretty, red frog's legs would be nice." Astaroth's eyes traveled down Heket's form to her legs then back up.

Heket's cheeks heated up and her body went stiff. Kallamar rolled his eyes and pushed off his sister's shoulder.

He signed to her, "You plan flirt back? Or," he smirked, "you scared?"

A sinking suspicion in her stomach told her that Leshy probably talked to Kallamar about the conversation the two of them had the night before. Though she never told him to keep their talk a secret, she made a mental note to spit in Leshy's food today for the betrayal nonetheless.

Astaroth tilted her head slightly. Could she understand sign language? Her quiet sibling, Agares, could. Kallamar had told her that. Just because one of the knew, didn't mean—

It doesn't matter. Just respond!

Heket flashed a smile that felt too wide on her face. "I could use...a snack…too…I heard...jellyfish is a…delicacy."

Astaroth giggled and covered her smiling mouth.

The feeling that she didn't deserve this, that she was a failure, still lingered in her stomach, but Heket shoved it down.

She was not going to let that feeling hold her back from trying to smooch a pretty lady any longer.

— - -

AN:

How much of this is character analysis and how much is personal projection? I won't tell.

Anyway, I feel like I don't see enough content about Heket and how she seems to be the most discontent or depressed of all the Bishops. For example, in the final cutscene with Narinder's relic, Leshy and Kallamar are both happy. Shamura is mostly neutral. Narinder is…Narinder.

But Heket? She got the angry face.

Not Canon, but her lyrics in the metal song also continues this theme. "commended to follow the flock and follow. Spend out all my days in sorrow" are the only lyrics in the whole album that relate to their fate after purgatory.

Anyway, I have read a grand total of one and a half chapter of a Rene Brown book, and it was a chapter about how we tend to judge ourselves harsher than the people we care about even for the same thing.

So Heket thinks how she failed is worse bc it's her failure. She can rationalize her non-Narinder siblings failures involving The Lamb as not as bad.

Like 80% of her dialog is about the other Bishops' and hers relationship. How she knows they're monsters but she doesn't want to lose them. How She will stop you after your killed her little brother.

The Bishops are super important to her. I know that discord interview said they were written with them loving each other but loving power more, but in my headcanon, Heket changed that order after Narinder was sealed so power and her siblings were equal, but after Leshy's death, power went down to second.

The First Ones' plan was for "Three Brothers in Primary Colors" to pass along power to the new generation of gods, but something when wrong. Instead they got two obedient brothers and a sister with eyes a little too wide with curiosity.

There was a good reason Chemach had to be held to a slightly higher standard, though, since mortals can't use the true power of Kudaai's weapons or Clauneck's card without having one of Chemach's crowns, but instead of gentle parenting this kid, they did the ole "God with a Big Hammer" treatment, as my late grandpa used to call it.

That is, The First Ones were just watching for any mistake she made so they could reprimand her for it.

Unlike the Crowns, the cards are almost useless to mortals. Nothing could rip or damage them and unless the card was drawn by Clauneck's hand, they gave no abilities.

At most, a mortal might be able to use them like regular, vibe-based tarot cards.

So long as Clauneck didn't withhold the cards from any who asked or didn't try to change fate himself, it didn't matter, and that made it easy to slide under the radar and avoid being noticed. He just had to be reactive and never proactive.

Like the cards, the weapons weren't all that useful to mortals, well, no more useful than any other well-crafted weapon. The weapons didn't make them stronger or invincible or call up spirits to fight.

Unlike the other two, Kudaai created things. He had material proof to show off he could do what he was meant to do and could do it well.

Either a sword cut through god flesh cleanily or it didn't. There was no waiting to see if a mortal was truly a good fit for a Crown or if Fate would really turn out as predicted.

(Kudaai also kind of fits the "Hero" role, too, tbh)

By the time the very last First One left, Chemach has been pretty well pounded into the mold she was meant to fit into, Clauneck learned to keep his bill down in the cards, and Kudaai just went on thinking his siblings were making a big deal out of nothing.