Author's Note: Just to say, the whole story will change from whom the third person is following, between John and Sherlock. If this bother's you, then you can pick a person, read only their parts and get a rather jumbled tale. Also, notes at the end will mostly be for review or fun facts. Some are completely necessary however. Anyways, thanks for all the wonderful reviews on the prologue and I hope you enjoy this chapter!
Chapter 1: The Wooden Box and the Copper Tin
Leaves rustled overhead as the cool afternoon breeze fluttered around the port side city of Perishin, the sun beating down on its calm expanse. Ships sailed into the docks so carefully while their sailors shouted and directed the movement and the workers below hauled packages and crates for boarding. Busy tourists and hurried workers of all sorts meandered through the grassy streets, passing each stone building in the warm summer day. A few pack animals trudged up the paths, hauling theirs drivers and whatever goods were laden upon their strong backs as the merchants called out prices to the public, brandishing their wears in hopes of luring the needy customer. Life in the second largest city in Exemia was such, and Sherlock hated almost every predictable minute.
Yet here, in the small mortuary, he could escape for a moment, though his current subject was less than comforting. Last night, a small group had brought in a monster, sliced cleanly in half while they were traveling from the east. Now, the Shade lay before Sherlock, who had been kindly asked to determine the origin of the creature's brutal demise. No one felt a drop of sympathy for it, but if its death could be linked, a weapon might be found that was effective against the ravenous species.
It sneered at him, even in death, yellowed grimy fangs peeking out from its black maw as white eyes stared unseeingly around the room. Sherlock could push back the quaking fear of it while he maneuvered around the examining table, peering curiously at the clean, precise wound. He would have to take a sample of the tissue around the cut, check it for any foreign substances but he had a sure hypothesis already forming in his head.
Taking his sample, he headed to the other side of the lab, his excitement from earlier waning as the answer became clearer and clearer. As he examined the grey flesh, the door to the mortuary opened with a bang, though he gave it little notice until someone began shouting in his ear.
"You went off on your own again, Holmes! This is the third time this lunar. I would sack you if it weren't for your damn anwei(1) breathing down our necks." Coincidentally, it was Dimmock who was breathing down his neck as he peered curiously into the microscope. He would be easy to ignore if it weren't for the stench of his lackeys, Anderson and Donovon disrupting any chance of concentration. It seemed Anderson had skipped out on his family again last night, instead opting for the rather desperate Donovon. What an ordinary turn of events.
"I've solved forty percent of your 'dead' cases in the last three solars, never failed to catch a criminal, and I've saved the whole department from going into the negative from falsely accusing the innocent, and yet you still won't allow me to do things my way." Tomorrow, he would have to speak to the travelers who came across the Shade. If he was right, which he was, then this had turned out to be a most disappointing little mystery.
"We have codes and rules." He turned to Dimmock then, glaring at the Marvolo.
"Surprising how they aren't working." He sneered after a moment, grabbing his coat from the back of the laboratory chair, though his oddly short superior tried to block his path. "Besides, if Donovan and Anderson can wrap up a case without my help, then it isn't worth my time."
"If your anwei…"
"Oh please. You need me, Dimmock. My anwei's political status has nothing to do with my still being under your thumb." Sherlock pressed past his superior, calling back over his shoulder as he exited, "If something interesting comes up, you know where to find me."
He floated easily above the crowds, in no real hurry to return to his humble abode and spend the next week or so holed up with Reginald and his needle. The breeze was in his favor this afternoon, surprising for this time of year, yet easily linked to the amount of Anhelans whipping about excitedly, eager to drink in the festivities. Below him, people moved lethargically along, most of them foreigners, either to this continent or to this realm, it made no difference. It was the one time every five solars nearly every Exemian off-realm came home, to pander in the widened pathways to Zwaloricalt(2), enjoying the excess of energy and the festivities that marked the phenomenon.
It was an exciting time, even for Sherlock. With the increase in tourists, there was a positive curve towards crime, and with so many different cultures mashing together, the illegal actions took a rather creative turn. If he had been a different man, he might've prayed for something more distracting than a thief with an uncanny ability to disappear into the ground. Along with the increased possibility of distraction came the boost he needed in order to fully assimilate his prosthetics. While they're half-usefulness had been a marked benefit, with the amount of zwa now buzzing in the air, taking hold of whatever natural being it could, his body would be able to fully integrate the metal into his body. Soon, nerves would be defining themselves more than ever, full feathers sprouting out of the softened metallic surface as layers would begin to form within the structure itself.
Or so he suspected. He had little to go off of, but the hypothesis was that the prosthetics would take one a more limb like quality, making a softer layer of 'skin' over the hard 'bone'. They would be nigh unbreakable, and his body would be able to concentrate on things other than these curiosities. They left him tired, averaging a need for four hours a night when before he had needed merely three. He was still unused to the amount of exhaustion that plagued him so easily now, and he wondered if this was how the metal-workers felt when they began to age so quickly.
Despite his annoyance over his body's inferior performance as of late, these issues gave him something to do, something to work towards and allowing him to bury all thoughts about John in their more important wake. No matter what he tried, he couldn't delete the man from his mind, the doctor having wormed his way inside and occupying such a large section of his thought process. He brought up memories of easiness and companionship, of affections and desires. All the memories were ones Sherlock could lose himself in, but once he was forced back into the bitter reality of their situation, he found himself reaching for his solution once more.
He craved it even now, so soon after a case. It should frighten him, this dependency, yet he could easily lie to himself that it was a coping mechanism, a punishment for allowing him and John to get close when they would have to be forced apart. Everything in him craved their contact, needed to be close again to his kerlaily, but he had to suffer if John was to survive his own world's brutal necessities. Not writing back to John had been a torture all on its own, but if Sherlock was to break their connection enough to allow to seek out a wife, then that's was he had to do.
He kept the letters, all four of them. Sometimes, in his more addled state, his fingers sought the wooden box out, grasping the worn paper, reading and re-reading their short messages for the umpteenth time despite being able to state aloud each word from memory.
He was brought out of his thoughts when an Anhelan, pure bred, blond, and smiling flew up next to him, puffy green wings with blue and purple radiating together throughout, gesturing invitingly even mid-flight. He was little older than Sherlock, hailing from the deep rainforests to the southwest judging by his bright plumage and tanned skin. A storm-watcher, most likely, coming to Perishin to visit family and snatch a kerlaily or boersy(3). His body language suggested he wanted Sherlock to accompany him to the night's festivities. Sherlock's told him to take a nose-dive straight into the nearby ocean. The colorful man flew away with an agitated huff, and Sherlock found himself suddenly eager to leave the busy streets.
Alighting upon his balcony in the treetop flats that encircle the outer rims of Pereshin, it didn't take much to notice the marginally wider gap between the door and the frame than he left this morning, nor the permeating scent of his brother's own underlying pheromones. Another unsurprising attribute to find when walking into his flat was Mycroft with a small fire at his feet, burning away to last of Sherlock's fix in a control smokeless flame. It wasn't the first time it had happened, nor most likely the last.
"Is it that time already?" His brother paid him little mind, putting out the fire with a wave of his hand, leaving little evidence beside a scant amount of ash to be blown away with the evening wind. Every few lunars, he would find Mycroft in his home, having been sent by Mummy to try and fix the youngest Holmes. They would agree that the elder had tried his best, and go their separate ways once more.
"I have a feeling you won't be needing your 'hobby' here shortly." His brother answered, wings relaxed behind him as he leaned on his umbrella. Only when in their home realm did the elder Holmes keep his feathery appendages in full view. In Trias, the metal-workers generally found the sight of them distracting from their tedious lives, something which honestly wouldn't help the ambassador at all in his meddling affairs.
"I assume you are here for more than just the destruction of the last of my distraction." Without a word, his brother produced a smooth shining box from the interior of his coat, holding it out to Sherlock somberly.
"This was given to me by Gre-… Lestrade not three days ago. Found in a small house that was the epicenter of large chain of explosions in the lower district of Guier." He informed as his brother took the container, noting its decent weight. It was handcrafted, silver-colored and of obvious metal-worker influence, it's cool surface chilling his fingers as he felt the pleasant hard exterior. On the lid, his name was engraved in an elegant script, damning him to its possession. The sweet stench of Farish majicks could be found wafting off of the steel, having erased all forms of evidence and even protecting it from the supposed explosion.
Carefully, curiously, Sherlock opened the lid, finding a different array of scents hitting his nose: the tang of rusted iron, the musky heaviness of earth, and even one he hadn't forgotten, forged among the inked letters that sat well-read in a wooden box by his nebwau(4). He dug in, bypassing the parchment to find a small lock of blonde hair, tied carefully in a deep crimson ribbon with a small strip of shed scales, presented in a macabre gift, a taunt. It was too easy to recognize the foreign skin, the that he and John had found in the slavers hideout solars ago.
"You've seen this before." Sherlock said, keeping his hand steady, the sudden urge for his needle now overwhelming as a cold sweat began to trickle down his neck
"Yes. It was the same threat carried out on Desch in order to have you kidnapped." Sherlock offered a non-committal grunt, reluctantly replacing the lock of hair into the container, drawing out the neat little piece of parchment, almost a card more than anything. The paper was of Trias origins, though the ink was imported from a mortal realm. Three little words were emblazoned in a bright red, the same hue of the ribbon, across the space of the card.
Come and play.
"Moriarty." Sherlock said, a tight sort of anger, renewed after so long of searching and waiting, coming to his voice as he closed the lid, card back inside. It was a call, a sneering malicious threat so subtly powerful that he couldn't ignore the message. He walked over to the table, setting the container upon its surface before turning to Mycroft finally. "I'll have to go back."
"It would appear so." They stared at one another for a moment, a long pause where neither quite knew what to say. They had been avoiding this, the possibility of returning to Trias in the search for the elusive criminal, though Mycroft had been doing as much as he could in-between moderating the metal-worker government. Moriarty was proving slippery, cunning, as he should be, and Sherlock had been itching to lead the search for him. With a direct invitation, neither Mycroft nor their Mummy could refuse him.
His wings taut around him, Sherlock clasped his palms before him, pressing his fingers to his lips, a small smile beginning. He would be able to see John again. It would be a terrible, rash idea, but his time in Guier would be short, so why not spend it with the other man, who was invaluable as a partner and a friend?
"I'll need you to deliver a letter before I do."
The dry air of the evening was welcome change from the strangely late rain of yesterday. With the warm Humming weather, it came as a reminder of the quickly approaching cool weeks ahead for Gueir and the surrounding territories. It was a strange season now, so reminiscent of those annuals ago spent nannying Sherlock into better health as he lazed around the flat. The two Silence's after he had fled back to Exemia had been hard, lonely and bitter spent working or avoiding the public. Last annual's had been easier with Mary by his side, keeping him company and letting his mind stray from what was missing in his life. This Silence would be even better, a child to raise and everything else falling into place around that.
The knock at his study door had John nearly bolting out of his chair as he came blundering back to the present in the otherwise quiet house. There should be no one wandering around, what with Marjorie, their maid, having gone home an hour ago and Mary tucked into bed early that evening. The child, in the late stages of her pregnancy, had drained her of her energy, despite wanting to continue to her work. While away on leave, a substitute had stepped in to teach her class on Universal Astronomy at the local Higher Education, though her correcting eye was still needed on most lessons.
Opening his study door, John found Mycroft Holmes standing behind it, in all of his usual smug pomposity. It took most of the doctor's restraint not too slam the door on the ambassador's face, or push him back out when he waltzed in, uninvited.
"How did you get in?" John snapped while Mycroft collapsed dramatically into his plush desk chair. He didn't share Sherlock's observation powers, but it didn't take much to see the relaxed posture and near constant hint of smile on the other man's lips. Whatever was causing the ambassador's apparent contentment, John rather wanted to find it and strangle it.
"Ah, Dr. Watson. So good to see you too. How is the dear Mary doing?" When John continued to glare at him, Mycroft's face fell slightly before answering. "Did you know your maid stay's after hours to partake in your vast collection of pain relievers? She seemed rather keen on letting me in once I 'discovered' that little fact." In fact John did know. He had caught her not last week pinching a few pills when she had assumed he was knee-deep in his evening paper. Instead of making a fuss, he allowed it to continue, seeing how she had been such a blessing so far with both the housework and helping Mary while he was with his patients.
"What do you want?"
"Ah, straight to the point. I can see you're rather determined to see me leave so I'll make this short." He dug into his coat for a moment, pulling out a small envelope with John's name written in the familiar scrawl across the front. "I came to deliver a letter, as I said I would."
"No." John crossed his arms, shaking his head.
"Come now, don't be childish."
"Three annuals, and now he writes? No, I'm not taking it. Give it back to him, or better yet, burn it." He crossed the room to the door, indicating for Mycroft to leave. "Now, if you wouldn't mind…" The ambassador nodded curtly, with a tight smile, before placing the letter on the edge of John's desk, walking over to the doctor.
"I understand you have written him off, but I would highly recommend reading it. It is a matter most urgent." With that, Mycroft left, umbrella swinging by his side while John stared at the envelope from across the room, unsure of what to do with it. Running a hand through his short hair, he decided to leave it for now, beginning the usual nightly routine of getting ready for sleep.
It was only after he had been about to go into his bedroom when he found himself walking past the study once more, pausing in the doorway when he realized that the glass candle on his desk was still lit. Anxiously, he went over, stopping just before the hard wood, staring down at the damning paper before him. For a long while, he merely watched it, arms folded over his chest as the seconds ticked by and a carriage rolled by outside his window along the cracked street.
"Right." He said, licking his lips before rubbing them in an agitated manner. "Right." He had the envelope in hand, fingers gently holding the parchment as if afraid it might burst into flames before he could even read the letter within. It was strange, after so long wishing for a correspondence only to receive one when he was determined to propel Sherlock fully from his mind and desires. The dream, however, from the night before must have shaken him for he was moving without thinking eager for the words within.
Finding himself in his chair, with shaking hands he peeled open the flap and withdrew the paper, though not immediately unfolding the letter to read the words. He wondered what could be written there. An apology? No, Sherlock was too proud for that. A request for some sort of communication in hopes of friendship? That seemed unlikely as well. Maybe it was a letter to brag of a new-found 'bond' or whatever it was that Sherlock had called it though John was swift to put that out of his head, not liking the bitter emotions that welled up at the thought.
Feeling as though he had put off the inevitable long enough, John unfolded the crisp, slightly blue paper to reveal a scant amount of black lines amongst the expansive space.
John,
Situations in Trias have been brought to my attention and a request has been made for my return. I will be finding myself back in Trias in two weeks' time, and I do pray that you can accompany me once more to help track down the source of various crimes across Gueir. I fear Moriarty is at his game once more, and having you by my side would be greatly invaluable.
I will be seeing you quite soon.
Sherlock
He read it twice more before a cacophony of emotions that passed through him were as volatile and fleeting as they were expected. He was coming back. Back to Trias, back to Guier, and back into John's life. Anger, joy, anxiety, fear, and nearly every combination of the rest hit him with a brutal force which ebbed away into a stunning numbness like he hadn't felt since Sherlock first left.
Without thinking, he opened one of the drawers in his desk, pulling out a small dulled metal tin, inputting the number code before it creaked open on rusted hinges. Within were the notes that Sherlock had left whenever he had gone out to explore the vast metal-worker capital and a single black and gold feather laying neatly on top. He gingerly placed the letter among the other items, staring within for a moment longer before closing and replacing the faded coppery tin among the papers and books in the drawer.
Oruik, what was he going to do?
1- Review! Anwei is the Exemian term for the parent that cares for the child.
2- Zwaloricalt (zwah-lorie-colt) is the lake of zwa (magical energy found solely in Exemia) that most Exemians believe to exist below the surface of the world. No one really knows if this exists, but its morphed into the form of an ancient myth that no one really feels like debunking.
3- Beorsy is a type of mate that's purpose is to merely breed. Together, they form a strong physical and emotional bond, but it is easily broken after a certain amount of time. They separate depending on their race; Some only stay together till the child is weened, others until it is fully raised.
4- Nebwau is your typical Anhelan bed, which greatly resembles a bird's nest.
Well, that's that. Please review, and see you next time!