Narinder

The One Who Waits It had been mercy, in hindsight. The new godling had seemed cruel, and there certainly was an element of that tinting its decisions, but the Bishops hadn’t seen the full scope of things. They had lost everything twice over and the sting of indignation and death were all consuming. How were they expected to see mercy when they had been ripped so far from grace that they were left writhing in the mud? Rotting in the space between realms, forgotten by death and cast out from life. The infant godling hadn’t been idle. It was making a choice. Learning how to wield the unknowable power at its fingertips. It heard whispers of the fate of the Bishops and had strengthened its resolve. Into the swirling waters of purgatory it ventured. Into the harsh void it roamed. Newly birthed and mad with power, it didn’t know how it burned through purgatory. It didn’t know how it came like a sun. Like a creature of fire that set everything it touched ablaze. And the godling had smiled just a little too wide as it turned its burning gaze towards what was left of bishops. It hadn’t seemed like a mercy, when the lamb dragged them from purgatory kicking and screaming and burning. Death would have been a mercy, they thought. For, having tasted godhood, the bitterness of mortality was unbearable. They had seen the godling rip their crowns away and grip them in a bloody hand. It had seemed cruel to allow them to continue on, reduced to broken fragments. The Bishops were no more.

The vessels they had claimed? The creatures of flesh and bone left behind, bereft of power yet brimming with memories that stretched beyond mortal limitations? That was another matter entirely. The flock had welcomed them. Had extended their collective hand and gave them a new purpose. They had been allowed to mourn. To grieve their own loss. To rage against a fate they had tried so desperately to avoid. Those were mortal now, and the new godling's mark was a fresh brand on their souls. Bound. Powerless. Reborn.


It had seemed cruel when this newly appointed god, free to travel as it pleased, brought them souvenirs. Trinkets from their homes, inert fragments of the domain they had built. Salt rubbed into the too fresh wound of mortality. They begrudgingly accepted the gifts, sometimes staring into the swirling haze of their own dying power with an unknowable expression on their faces. And they did wonder, deep in the recesses of their minds, if it was meant as mockery or offering.