“I am a man of science, Watson!” he exclaims when I suggest that he is more than a machine and his body not just transport.
“My dear boy, you are so much in addition to that. You have quite a philosophical mind too, in my humble opinion,” I protest.
“John,” he murmurs; always needing me to be the first to shed the formal way we address each other when we are outside of 221B.
We sit by the fireplace, glasses of excellent port at our disposal. He waves his delicate hand, indicating that I shall elaborate.
“Quite often, you are questioning almost everything. For starters, divinity, the universe, occultism, the Greek myths. And you can be overly perceptive when it comes to our more unfortunate clients.”
He scoffs and tells me to leave the work out of the equation.
“Very well. Now, do not get all snuffy by what I have to say next. Sometimes, I think of your curiosity as decidedly boyish. It is refreshing and shows how complicated your nature is. I find myself extremely fascinated by it.”
His cheeks have gone crimson now. I cannot tell if it is from annoyance, embarrassment, or delight.
“You say the most derisible things, Doctor Watson,” he replies, a bit haughtily, but I know him well enough to realise when his protective mechanisms are in place.
“I speak the truth. Honest to God,” I say.
“Oh, do leave the deity out of this!”
I chuckle, which blandishes a smile from him.
***
Later, in our bed, he is pliant; his caustic behaviour is left behind in the parlour. Only the light from the near-full moon irradiates him. His pale skin is verging on translucent.
“Oh, darling. Do you know how beautiful you are like this?” I murmur sweetly.
As predicted, perfect circles of pink adorn his cheekbones. He shifts restlessly under my loving scrutiny.
“John,” he pleads, reaching for me.
His need for my touch is ofttimes like a tangible spirit and I find no reason to deny him.
I align my body with his, placing him secure in my embrace. His content sigh and long fingers carding through my hair, leave my heart near bursting.
“How can I love you more with every second that goes by?” I ask him.
“Such divine questioning. You of all people should know that love is never logical, dearest.”
His endearment, only heard inside this room, floods my system with longing.
“I need you closer,” I whisper. “Can I, Sherlock?”
A whimper is answer enough, but he knows that I need to hear it, or I will constantly worry that I have read the signs wrong.
“Always so protective. As if I was a delicate rose petal, or a fragile china cup,” he whispers in my ear. “Kiss me first. Everywhere.”
My prick is engorged now, and I have to talk sternly to myself lest I rut against my beloved’s thigh and ejaculate all over him before a minute has passed.
“You and your ribald remarks,” I tease.
Our lips meet in an ardent fashion. We open up to let tongues dance and taste. I delve deeper; I cannot get close enough. It is frustrating, but at the same time, incredibly arousing.
I move my mouth to his neck. Normally, I would take my time, marking him, but tonight I do not possess the patience for it. Instead, I suckle at his sensitive nipples, using just a hint of teeth, which makes him writhe and keen. His sounds make me dizzy with lust for him.
“Prepare me,” he begs. “I need you too. Urgently.”
He can be so patient, but once his hunger for me overwhelms him, he does not hold back.
“See, your body is so much more than transport, I intend to say, but then his eyes open, and I am helpless. His pleading and loving look undo me.
“My only one,” is all I am capable of uttering.
A soft expression on his face and his hand on my cheek nearly breaks my heart.
“Please, my sweet.”
His quivering voice is all the incentive I need. The can with petroleum jelly is swiftly procured, and when he is sufficiently prepared, I enter him, and every query about divinity, planets, or other bothersome topics, is blissfully absent.
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[#FFF305 Divine Questioning ]
Who are the divine? Are they physical gods in court, mysterious entities in the forest, or mortal beings with powers? What are their questions? Who or what is subject to their questioning? Why? Or is it something completely different, like someone curious about how a slice of cake can taste this good! You create the meanings, you create the stories! Go get writing, go go go!!
Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial with the prompt FFF305 - divine questioning imagining the missing scenes before Wakamiya/Nazukihiko’s return to Yamauchi and the eventual employment of Yukiya to his household, who is only mentioned but hasn’t appeared. Yet. This is an alternate universe as I only conceived an idea that Nazukihiko might have worked in a restaurant as an apprentice due to his penchant for cooking, and other things. A bunch of head canons. Chisato Abe’s original works have been the springboard.
—
Fandom: Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master
Characters: Wakamiya/Nazukihiko, Jun Tenimura (the Great Tengu), mention of Yukiya and Lord Natsuka, original character
Word count : 1019
—
Three weeks before Wakamiya’s return to Yamauchi
Amidst the turbulence happening in the kitchen, there was something peaceful in the apprentice sous chef’s heart. Soon he’d go back to his hometown. As the true Golden Raven, the purpose he was born with would begin in earnest. From his colleagues no one suspected that he was not human, but another being from another realm altogether. One could say he was something close to a deity. Despite it all he’d leave this group of people without them knowing who he really was, but an eager, beautiful young man who fell in love with cooking and creating recipes.
He was preparing his utensils and a knife that he favoured when a pair of scurrying feet approached him. It was the pastry chef.
“Nazuki-san, do you have time? There is someone who wants to see you.” Out of breath, he led the young apprentice to the office. A familiar face greeted him.
“Old friend!” It was the Great Tengu, who everybody called in the Outside World as Jun Tenimura. A businessman. A middleman.
Nazukihiko, after closing the door, received the Tengu’s warm welcome. After they hugged, they both patted each other’s backs. Junten was a few centimetres smaller, with his short hair that was dyed a hundred times before, his round-framed eyeglasses matched his amiable face.
This time, his hair was dyed blueish that became indigo when the sun rays reflected the strands from the office’s glass roof.
“Did you find anything else?” Nazukihiko asked. A letter emerged upon his desk when he went to work to the restaurant a week ago. Feigning his ignorance, he read its content. The sender warned him that his life would be in danger if he planned to return to Yamauchi.
“A friendly reminder that you aren’t safe in the court as they aim for your head.” A foreboding statement concluded the letter.
“Not so much, but it can only mean that they are serious about it, that is, they definitely are planning to assassinate you. So please watch your back.”
The Tengu’s declaration was as straightforward as an arrow pointing at Nazukihiko. As the young crown prince, he knew that his life had always been in danger ever since he was born.
“They never waste time, huh?” Nazukihiko stroked his chin.
“The letter that you received was written by a woman. That much I could infer. I have seen movements from the Southern Territory. From what I've heard from my associates, Lord Tōru has been sending delegates to the Outside World. I can tell you that they have another set of contacts. But I have an inkling that they could be the tanukis. They are known to double-deal and love to trick humans. They could be downright nasty and cruel.”
“If they were seeking help outside Yamauchi I wonder what is in it for them? More power? More money?”
“Nazukihiko, you know darn well that Yamauchi is not going to last forever. Think of it as investment for them. They are finding ways to control their future life outside of that environment.”
Leaving from Suzaku Gate, which bordered around the Southern Territory, and where the Tengu and his clan operated, a Yatagarasu could still retain their image as a human, hence losing the ability of their raven form if they would decide to cross the humongous tunnel that surrounded with rocks and boulders. Inside it was a long conveyor belt that scanned goods from both the Outside World and the country ready to be traded in Yamauchi and vice versa. On the flooring was a number of tracks for trolleys and small carriages where wheels made of iron from the interior mountain were running. Moreover, the officials from the Southern Command kept track of the comings and going-ons of every Yatagarasu who left the country with a special paperwork.
“There are sightings of shiranui in different places, yes. My brother alerted me that a whole village vanished a year ago. No one knew what happened to the inhabitants.”
“Ah! The holes are getting more difficult to maintain, huh?”
“Well, that is the first thing I have to do once I am back. Patching them.”
The Tengu gazed at his friend with compassion in his eyes. Despite holding the highest position in the land, he could never envy him due to the troubles he’d face in the future. Or the moment he returned to his country.
“For now this is the only thing I have got. But be sure I will contact you once again I get more details, Nazukihiko,” Junten touched again his friend's shoulder, squeezing it. If only a touch could take away someone's worries. But being an outsider, he wanted to maintain a more professional approach to his dealings with the Soke Family. After all, he and Wakamiya had to be careful once the Southern Family got a wind of their partnership. It would be bad for his business.
“I am indebted to you,” Nazukihiko seemed to understand what ran inside the Great Tengu’s mind. At the end of the day, it was Lord Tōru who introduced him to Lord Natsuka, who in turn asked Junten to mentor a then teenaged Nazukihiko in the Outside World. One could not simply discern to whom exactly his loyalty lay. Nazukihiko knew that he was useful to anyone as long as he was able and could benefit the other party. The one in a hundred he still had to determine by himself. It was the divine question that the mountain god could only answer if he were here to help the crown prince.
Wakamiya, sitting alone in his dormitory room, had an idea who would be the possible candidate. The question remained if his brother would be successful bringing in that person to their circle. Once he did, the next steps would be easier. Yet, somehow it gave him anxiety. He had to take it slow. He had to convince that person that he needed him. But before that he wanted to make sure that the “blockhead rumours” were not true.
Of Stygian brilliance are the stars which whirl above me, at least while my eyes are still those that Mezithe has blessed. The night seethes with colours that none save such as I will ever see, and I give thanks for the blood burning within me as the spirits of this sacred land race through my pulsing veins.
The Sultan's men who came from the south to these mountains so long ago; they at least had a reverence for that which was not theirs to possess, they at least knew that some places within this world were hima. Their clerics honored the kinship between those who preserve and those who restore, and so my sires and grandsires took them and the words of the Book of their Prophet to heart.
Not so with these shayāṭīn come from the north.
To them, everything is the province of man. In their arrogance, they treat my kind as though we were the ones who must beg for fallen scraps from their table instead of feasting upon the sweet and sweaty flesh of a maral taken after the chase. I will not honor such adversaries according to the tenets of Khabze. The stench of sulfur is upon them, and they will learn to fear that which howls in the forest at night.
Darkness rushes above the tall spears of pine that roof my ranges; a storm fast approaches in currents of swirling wind. I lope towards a gnarled grove of scarred oak where I was a firstborn offered up by my people to be made birleşik with the grey kindred.
"Whom better to guard against a robber than one who is become turnskin with the inveterate thief?"
Grandsire's laughter echoes in my mind amid oncoming thunder as I remember when sparks of lightning flew through chanting dancers, remember when flesh and bone stretched and altered until adam was alone no more and there was also wolf. We were many in number in those moons; now I am eldest. Few remain that can recall how to bring Schyble's fire down upon the mountains once again.
The rain lashes upon me suddenly then, torrents of condemnation as though from the days of Nuh, incomprehensible sentences sheeting a sullen morning with their fathomless judgments. I have tried to be as much qadi to my people as warq, but gleaning wisdom from the unfolding of His amazing work as it flows past me in the seamless scroll of creation gives scarce comfort against the mighty flood unceasingly threatening to drown us.
Though the waters cleanse me of the stiffening blood of the slain, they are not enough to fully submerge the despair I feel each moonlit hunt, for how can the faith of the few continue to endure against the indomitable will of so many? Still, the mountains have not abandoned us, and a new hope awaits in the vadi below as the storm swiftly abates.
The moon settles low on the horizon above the ridgeline where my ancestors have hunted for generations, a pale crescent flecked as the blade of a worn şaşka. The stars surrender to the encroaching dawn, faintly glintering celestial lamps being extinguished by the breath of The One Who Is All.
How soft my human skin; what strange difference the flesh after hours spent as fur and claw. The wolf within me ebbs, shadows before sunlight. The ineffable beauty of those starry fires seems dim as bellflowers in a greying field to my eyes now, and once more, I am no longer kurtadam but only a man.
Only a man. Call me Temirkhan, of the Iron House.
The hunt had been good, three of the Tsar's scouts who would never return to their garrison on the banks of the Terek. I left them where they fell, opened and red, unsent envoys to those who only know the false faith of empire. Their only liturgy is in powder and shot, and they come against us season after season with their cannon and their crosses.
Below me, nestled in their ormanlık auls, smoke begins to rise from a few hearths where the women have arisen to begin the day's bread. Cormorants from eastward shores hang suspended on the updrafts of dawn, searching inland for their repast. A divine questioning begins to arise in my mind - is this the response of The One Who Is All for my sins, to punish the people for my indeterminate nature?
Perhaps it is because that I am neither wholly man nor beast that these icy devils have been loosed upon us. I had always believed that those nobles who were the firstborn chosen were set as guardians atop these mountains and their passes, as wild and beautiful as the land itself, but perhaps all that is wild and beautiful in this world is truly damned; for it can never submit to the inevitable will of those to whom dominion over dünya has been given.
"By the Mount," I sigh, recalling the words that our mullah had recited during evening prayers, "and by a Book inscribed, in parchment unfolded, by the populated House, by the raised canopy, by the swelling sea - the punishment of your Lord will indeed come to pass." Is this to be our fate?
A whinny draws my attention away from these dark musings. Blaneshu, my trusted stallion, stomping impatiently where I had left him tethered to the leafed stump of a fallen hornbeam. He accepts my dual nature as only an animal raised in the company of men could. He no more fears the wolf scent that clings to me than would any molosser shepherd.
I make my way to him, speaking soft words in the ancient shikwoshir tongue. His ears flick toward my voice, and I feel a rush of gratitude for this simple connection. Casting a final glance upwards, I mount him and turn toward the villages in the vales below, knowing full well that those stars which glowed so brightly in the night above me still shine unseen.
Through the thick sis of morning, I can see other stars high atop the watchtowers, golden bows of twelve surmounting three arrows on a field of green, the newly woven flags of our nascent federation. We have banded together to fight for the freedom of all for as long as those stars will shine. Other princes from the other houses are gathering here, and we will elect one as emissary to the great king of the angels who is said to rule over a realm that is far to the west. We will learn the words of these other People of the Book and beseech them for aid.
"By the Mount," I sigh once again, feeling the heavy weight of that prophecy, "and by a Book inscribed..."
That final judgment will indeed come to pass. But when, and upon whom, remains to be written. It will not fall upon my people while fires divine yet burn within me, I vow quietly. The clatter of horse hooves on the stony paths of the mountains resound a hearkening echo to my whispered oath, and for a moment, I can almost believe that they will keep it.
Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial #305 prompt Divine Questioning
WC 188
Warnings: mentions childhood cancer and other tragedies.
We understand it, don't we? He needs answers. His anger. His doubt. His divine questioning.
We ask the same, don't we? When bad things happen. We can't seem to understand why, if we are good, why God, do such things happen? Why do children get cancer? Why do tornadoes wipe out towns? Why all the suffering?
It is okay to question God. He didn't scold Job, after all. But He didn't really answer him either. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the world? He questions. His own divine questioning silences Job but it also brings a deep peace.
No, He doesn't get all the answers nor will we. There is peace though in knowing the God who feeds the ravens, placed the armor on the dinosaurs, shows the waves were to stop on the shore, and calls the stars by name; He also carries us in His hands and sings songs of joy over us.
Bring Him your questions and rest in His Peace. He can handle both. Recall also, He restored all Job lost and then some. He will do the same for you.
The End of Job’s JourneyThru the Bible in a Year
Reading: Job 38–42
Sometimes, we get so caught up in the debates and emotions of suffering that we forget to stop and listen for God’s voice. In the final chapters of Job, that voice comes—not in a whisper, not through a friend, not even in a dream—but through a whirlwind. God shows up, and when He speaks, the conversation changes. There’s no…
