Chapter Text
Sherlock sinks. John tries his best to buoy him, but Sherlock continues to sink, the blackness of his despair rivalling that of the seabed and a starless midnight and the glossy ink of his own feathers. It is not a quick dive into the clarifying cold. Every day that Anahera is missing, he dips a little bit more into the dark.
John tells Sherlock that he cannot blame himself, that she was in no danger as she looked for them, and they for her. Sherlock counters that she went looking for them only because she knew how much they wanted to be parents; she wanted to help. John counters again, reassuring him that she did not seek them in risk; her disappearance makes no sense, not unless she left the island, and why would she do that?
Still, Sherlock sinks.
“For Tui, Sherlock. Please. She is coming to visit with us today, and I don't want her to see you like this, not if it will make her feel worse.”
It is not until he sees Tui approach that Sherlock understands that the weight of his own sadness might add to her grief. Her shoulders are bowed, and her eyes are dull. She looks only half herself without Anahera by her side. He becomes more aware of himself as he observes her, noticing how hard John has worked to keep him groomed, and warm, and safe. He pulls himself up to his full height, and takes the first steps he has taken in days. His body feels stiff, and heavy, and if he weren’t trying so hard for Tui, he would feel even worse for having let himself drift so far away, from himself, from John, from the colony.
“I am sorry,” he says, as she joins them.
“I have not come for an apology, Sherlock. You have done nothing wrong. I have come so that we can support each other. Alone will not protect us.”
Sherlock hugs Tui, and tries not to cry. She and Anahera have been part of his life for more than six of his seven winters. If the iceberg were turned, if it were John who had gone missing, he would not want his friends to mirror his own pain. He would want them to hold onto hope, even if he felt it slipping away. He must do the same for Tui.
John hugs her next, and asks, “How are you holding up, Tui, and what can we do to help?”
Tui sighs, and shakes her head. “Quite honestly, I’m a mess, John. This is so unlike her. But, I do have an idea, and a way that you can help.”
“Good, ideas are good. What is it?”
“We should go to the Council and tell them that she is missing. They will not hold another meeting until after the hatchlings come, and we cannot wait that long. Maybe someone saw her, or heard something, the day she disappeared.”
“Of course!” Sherlock says. “Oh, how stupid of me not to think of this myself!”
“You are far from stupid, Sherlock. We have both been beside ourselves with worry, and not thinking clearly. Now, though, it is time to take action. What if we split up? You and John can talk with Siger, Erebus, and Cetus, and I can talk with Pavo and Vela. Who is the Junior Council representative this moon?”
“I think that honour falls to Ariki. We will find him, too. Ask everyone to spread the word to their families and friends. Then those pengs should ask their families and friends, and so on. If anyone has seen or heard anything, should they report back to you?”
Tui considers. “Me, you and John, or any Council member, I should think.”
“Yes, okay. This is good.” Sherlock hugs Tui again before they part, and they promise to meet at midday.
Sherlock can tell that John is keeping a close eye on him as they walk, searching for signs of the blackness that had consumed him. Talking to Tui had helped a great deal, and having a task to work on continues to pull him up and out of that horrible trench of a place.
“I’m okay, Johnling. I’m sorry for behaving that way.”
“Don’t you dare apologize, Sherlock. Not for loving a friend so much that you can barely breathe at the thought of her loss. I am relieved, though, to see that you’re starting to bounce back.”
“Hmm. We pengs are good at bouncing, aren’t we?”
John chuckles and bumps Sherlock’s shoulder. “That we are.”
Over the course of the morning, Sherlock and John find and talk to Ariki, Cetus, Siger, and Olive. Although not a council member, Olive has the ear of the entire colony, and promises to spread the word herself. Sherlock and John speak freely with her about the day of Anahera’s disappearance. The three of them were looking for each other, they explain, excited to share an idea that would give Sherlock and John a hatchling of their own. Olive listens, empathetic and kind, and vows to come to them immediately if she learns anything that might be important, no matter how small a detail.
They stop to chat with other friends, as well, knowing that the more pengs they speak to, the faster the news of their enquiry will spread. By the time they make their way back to Tui, the colony is abuzz, and there’s an energy of intrigue, concern, and determination in the air. Everyone wants Anahera home, accounted for, safe. Everyone wants Sherlock and John to have a hatchling. For Sherlo-Kimi, and John the Tuahangata, they say. For Sherlo-Kimi, John the Tuahangata, and Anahera, the ghost-angel.
Tui has talked with Vela and Pavo, plus Janine, Anthea, Irena, and Molling. No one has seen or heard a thing, but they have all promised to spread word of Anahera’s disappearance, and to do what they can to bring her home. Sherlock and John update Tui on their own conversations, and the three of them take some small comfort in knowing that they have done what they can for now.
That night, Sherlock enters the huddle feeling lighter than he has in days. He settles against John’s chest, fussing and nudging until he and John have as much of themselves pressed together as is penguinly possible.
“She’ll be okay, Sherlpeng. I’m sure of it,” John says, slipping his wings higher up Sherlock’s sides and prodding one of his legs between Sherlock’s.
“I hope so, John. I don’t think I'd be able to stand never knowing what happened to her.”
“Shh, love, it’ll be okay. We did good work today. Someone must have seen something, something they didn’t even realize was important at the time.”
Sherlock relaxes into John, and that night proves to be one of the rare times that Sherlock falls asleep first. He sighs, he settles down, he lets John pet and nuzzle him further and further into that midnight respite, and then the moehewa begins.
He dreams that he and John stand on a precipice, high above the sprawling plain of Pobeda. Below them, hundreds of their own colony members form a queue, shuffling toward them, waddling the slowest waddle Sherlock has ever seen. When the first one finally arrives, she says nothing, but pushes an egg onto Sherlock’s feet. The next one arrives, and slips an egg onto John’s feet. More and more come, steady as snow, and each of them give Sherlock and John an egg.
John and Sherlock cannot possibly hold all of the eggs; after two, they have reached their capacity, and yet the eggs are everywhere, piled up in their wings, pressed between them, in mounds around them, impossibly balanced, towering over them.
“Wait!” they call as the pengs retreat, eggless once again. “Wait! We need only one! We cannot manage so many! Please, come back!”
Sherlock feels the first egg begin to slip. He spins solutions as fast as he can, seeking some magical movement that will save that egg, and all the others that are about to follow its certain path to the ice.
His heart speeds up in that moment just before he acts, and the dream changes. He and John are alone. There are no eggs. They stand on the Pobedan ice, their backs to the sea, and they observe the colony swell and swirl around them.
“Look,” John says. His voice is low and rough, the rumble of a calving iceberg. “Look at our lives, Sherlock, look at the evidence of all we have done.”
Sherlock is tired, but so very content. All around him are the offspring of the offspring of the offspring of their hatchling. There are dozens of their descendents of all different ages, all of them beautiful proof of who they are, and who they were. Sherlock opens his mouth to speak, but his throat closes up, and his eyes blur, and his tongue swells thick in his bill.
“Sshh, it’s okay, love. We’ve had such long lives together, haven’t we? It will be okay. Soon now, we’ll go, and we’ll be reunited with so many that have passed before us. And do you know, Sherlock, whom I may be most looking forward to meeting?”
Moehewa-Sherlock shakes his head.
“Selvic. We’ll finally get to meet Selvic.”
Sherlock turns to smile at John, because yes, that is something wonderful to look forward to, a homecoming he has thought about many times in their advancing years. He turns to smile at John, but John is gone, and now he is facing Anahera.
She is blindingly white, and he must squint to see the shape of her through the light.
“Anahera! Where have you been! We have been so worried about you, worried sick!”
“I’ve been right here, Sherlock.”
“But you haven’t been! We’ve looked everywhere!”
“Well, then, I suppose I’ve been here, but not here, too.”
This makes perfect sense to moehewa-Sherlock, and he laughs, thrilled, as if finally having solved a difficult puzzle.
“Yes! Excellent! It is very, very good to see you, Anahera.”
“And you. I thought of you and John while I was here-not-here, and I have brought you something.”
Sherlock finds he doesn’t have to squint quite as much now to see Anahera. The aura of her illumination has begun to fade. He can just begin to make out the distinct feathers of her face, even the tiniest ones around her eyes.
“You are very kind, Anahera. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Oh, but I did, Sherlock.” Anahera leans in close, and Sherlock has the briefest glimmer of a thought that she is about to share a very important secret. He leans in toward her.
“Are you ready, Sherlock? Are you willing?”
“Am I ‒ ? Yes. Yes, of course. Whatever it is ‒”
“This was mine. Now it is yours.” Anahera brushes again him, just the lightest of touches, but Sherlock finds himself off-balance, and has to flatten his tail against the ice so he does not fall over. Just as suddenly, she steps back, and sighs. “This is it, then, Sherlock. I do believe we are safe now.”
“Safe? Were we in danger?”
“Always.”
Anahera’s light is almost completely gone now, and Sherlock has the sudden urge to step forward and touch that shine before it altogether disappears. He cannot move, though. His feet are so heavy, his legs are like pillars of ice. He looks down to see what holds him, but encounters only his own belly. He looks up again, and she is gone.
Sherlock wakes himself with an enormous yawn, and surveys the sky for the sun’s position. The day is already underway, but he feels surprisingly tired for having had such a full night sleep. John is still snug up against Sherlock, his wings slotted under Sherlock’s, his head resting on Sherlock’s shoulder.
Sherlock yawns again, and John begins to stir. He raises his head and blinks his eyes open, then hums against Sherlock’s neck and kisses him hello.
“I had the strangest dreams, Johnling. Did you have any dreams?”
“I dreamt of shrimp and cephalopod and a particularly tasty herring. What did you dream about?”
“Eggs. First, I dreamt that the colony gave us more eggs than I’ve ever seen, hundreds of them. We couldn’t hold them all, and they began to fall. I tried to catch them, but then the dream changed ‒ you know how that happens sometimes? ‒ and then we were old, Johnling, you and I, we were so very old, and our great-great-great-grand-pengs were all around us.”
John shuffles closer to Sherlock as he talks, warm and cuddly with the last shadows of sleep. Sherlock wraps his wings around him, and tries to pull him closer, but John fidgets, trying to find his own comfort.
“I think maybe we were dying, and we were looking at our lives’ work, right there before us, all of these beautiful emperor descendents. And you said that you didn’t mind going, because we would get to see old friends again, and we would finally meet Selvic.”
“What do you ‒”
“But then you were not you anymore, you were Anahera, but it was like Anahera had travelled to the skies and back, because she was glowing like the moon, and I could barely see her through the intensity of it.
“And she said the strangest things, about being here but not being here, and about bringing us a gift. And then she started to fade ‒
“John, are you listening to me at all?”
“Sherlock. What on earth ‒” John cranes his head between them, low, close to the ice.
“What are you doing? I’m telling you about my dreams.”
“Sherlock.” John looks up at him, and he has the silliest look on his face, so serious, so focussed, as if he has not heard one word that Sherlock has said, and is about to explain for the one-thousandth time the deliciousness of silverfish.
“What? What are you so ‒” Sherlock stops mid-sentence, because John isn’t even looking at him.
“Sherlock. Come here.”
“I am here, John.”
“Come down here, I mean.”
Sherlock bends down as low as he can, curving his neck and twisting his head to meet John’s gaze. “Okay, I’m here. What?”
“What is that?” John is staring at Sherlock’s feet.
“Those are my feet, John. What is going on with you?”
“Not your feet, love. What’s on your feet. On them.”
Sherlock opens his bill to tell John that there’s nothing on his feet, but then his mind and body connect in a way that they sometimes do, his body telling his brain something, instead of the other way around, and he scrunches up his forehead, because not only is there something on his feet, but that something is between his legs, and up against his belly, and it’s very warm.
Sherlock closes his eyes.
“Oh gods, John. Gods. What is it? Tell me. Please, tell me.”
There is a heart beat of silence, then another, then one more.
“It’s an egg, Sherlock. There’s an egg on your feet.”