@soursoil : it walks with a wobble, white wool drenched a sweet pinkish-red around its mouth and down its neck. it smells of altar wine. it smells of the church: dusty wood, candle wax, yellowed pages... and mischief. it glints in the little lamb’s golden eyes like a promise. it’s been where it shouldn’t be, done something it shouldn’t have, and by the looks of it, managed to scurry away blame-free. now, too tipsy (or perhaps too lazy) to find a decent hiding place, it flops innocently over onto siegfried’s boots...
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀an eerie silence has laid itself upon the ruins that siegfried has made his home in for the night. at the end of the rectangular outline, in the center of what is left of a wall, the moss covered stones are stacked high into the sky. could this have been a church once ? built in an unfortunate location, in a time when wars were fought between its followers and an ancient race of fae or mountain giants ?
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀maybe that is just his vivid imagination. humans fight wars among each other, too. and they destroy each other's churches too, don't they ? even when they share the same god, who they each have their own version of.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀when the clacking steps of cloven hooves echo through the hollow ruin siegfried can sense a presence in the air that does not feel like the holy one that the bishops of his home have once described. it feels neither good nor bad. just strange, tickling his skin through the air, and making the hairs on his arms stand up. he holds his breath as he watches the wooly thing approach. his better judgement tells him that it is just a lamb. but a more primal, more sensitive intuition inside of him knows that this is not the whole truth.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀it seems he's made a mistake by staying frozen on the spot, huddled on his sleeping mat, perhaps hoping that it won't notice him . . . with its jolly gait and self-satisfied expression. how can a sheep have that sort of look ? siegfried wants to move away when he notices the discrepancy. but then it is too late already. the animal flops itself onto his boots and he swallows. a strange urge in him wants to reach out, curiously, bury his fingers in the wool and feel its softness.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀“ it's alright . . . ” he whispers. more so to convince himself of it. siegfried reaches out but then stops himself mid-air. he turns his gaze away, to a window that is half-formed. he can still pretend . . . pretend that this isn't a malicious spirit come to haunt him, but in fact an innocent little lamb, covered in its own blood, or the blood of its dead mother, because the world is cruel.
