My lamb, nenien, the fox, and her most loyal disciples 🥰🥰🥰
LOTS of thoughts and info dump ⤵️
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
- tyjaur: (wolf) born from the bones of ratau as a gift for the lamb for a fine sacrifice to the fox