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He knows the path through the forest, the way one knows which way to go in a dream. Subconscious repetition- his bare feet on the worn edges of cracked stone, thick green moss stitching his steps together.
He knows the way, so the pup doesn't just go fast, he moves as one does in a dream. Blind intention. The soft whip of grass against his bare ankles, sharper for being dew wet. The air smells alive when he turns his nose into it, green with life. He can smell him ahead.
The fire in the heart of his forest.
His forest, because the pup has lived here his whole life. This morning he'd woken in the cool length of his kennel, shoulders aching from the stone he slept on. The monks had already been at the door, leading him from the kennel to the wide wooden porch.
He was bathed, stone dust washed from the black swish of his tail, his hair combed and oiled. All of him oiled, tickly fingers on his arms and sides and feet. The monks ignored his giggling today. Today he was an offering. Today he'd serve his God in a hunt.
He was dressed but not fed.
Always hungry for a hunt, even though his stomach gurgled when they walked past the kitchens where the other disciples ate their breakfast after prayer. He knew better than to whine.
Dressed but no shoes. He always lost them, so now they never bothered.
The monks don't go past the gate. Not past the gate and many won't even be dared up to the fence, even though Sukuna never comes so close. The forest belongs to him then, the cool curling green leaves reaching out to beckon him in as the gates are opened and he is allowed to run.
Morning birds trill warnings he never heeds.
His feet don't fail him and Megumi runs towards the bonfire in the heart of the forest like an arrow to a heart. His nose turned toward the danger.
He only slows when the trees begin to thin. His feet hitting the moss more and more softly as the trees bow and give way to the eternal bonfire in the clearing, to the massive wall of his God seated before the fire.
Megumi's first memory of him is of his back. He'd been brought in a basket, his brothers and sisters piled around him. It had been cold, despite the blanket over them and the ponderous footsteps of the monk carrying them was more ominous than comforting.
He'd smelled fire. Raised his nose to the wind, and peered over the curved wooden edge.
He'd seemed taller than a mountain, taller than the temple, his head all the way to the sky. His back broad and scarred like the face of a cliff.
And then he'd turned and Megumi had seen someone that burned brighter than the fire.
The bonfire had always burned. The ground blackened around it's untended flame, burnishing the ground. The air was hotter here too and when the pup curled his hands, his fingers felt strange, smoothed by the oil, warmed by the fire.
Before the bonfire Sukuna sat. His back, broad and scarred as it was from Megumi's earliest memories giving way to the hunched bulk of his massive arms, the dark hair curling at the nape of his neck. Megumi’s tail hung still, the whippy flow held suspended as he stepped carefully into the clearing.
A pilgrimage, his steps to the fire.
He stays silent, but like always, God speaks to him.
“Hello, pup.”
A hand, drifting down and Megumi clambers into his grip, he is small even for a pup and his God is big for a mountain. It was what he had done when he’d first reached into their warm wicker basket. Scrambled onto the broad seat of his palm and let himself be raised up. His eyes regard Megumi when he is brought to the summit, the ones in his face and the older, wiser ones that peer from his bark.
"You are getting faster." His God tells him. It's not praise, but fact. Megumi feels it's warmth all the same. This high up he feels the sun as intimately as a gaze. “Are you ready to run today, Pup?”
Megumi squirms, eager in his grip. He loves, loves, loves to run.
He yips in response and Sukuna bares his teeth in pleasure. They’re huge.
“I am too.” Sukuna says. Megumi swallows.
His God loves to give chase.
That’s why he’s here, after all, oiled and hungry. He’s here to run and his God will give chase, will Hunt in His Forest and when he catches him, well. Megumi swallows and whines at his God’s continued gaze. He’s ready to run. He wants to run.
“Good.” Sukuna says and approval from him is a heady thing. The flowers turn toward him as he walks, the trees sway and bow low boughs, offering heavy fruit. He’s seen his god toss apples into his mouth like grapes. His words now make Megumi’s head swim, his eyes wide, his mouth hanging open a little as he pants. “Ready?”
Megumi yips again. He doesn’t want to interrupt with words. He twists as he’s put down, springing onto his feet and bounding around the heavy thudding footfall as God crosses the clearing. His heart is thudding and he bounds back and forth, back and forth, tied hakama flaring, until God pins him in place. A single heavy finger atop his head and Megumi can’t help himself, he arches into the touch, blooming like the flowers, ripening like the fruit, an offering to heaven.
“Run.” Sukuna says and the second his finger lifts Megumi leaps into motion.
Megumi loves to run. When he was younger, he’d chase his shadow, pouncing on it as it scrambled just ahead of him. Now, he runs back and forth, back and forth on the hard concrete of his kennel. Sometimes the monks come to watch. That’s only practice though.
This is real sport.
His feet hit the ground, lifting him, flinging him forward and Megumi doesn’t chase a shadow now. He runs from it. The tip of Sukuna’s massive shadow, wavering just behind him and if it overtakes him-
Grass whips his ankles, dew wet, but he doesn’t feel it now. The forest floor is loamy underneath his soles, shining moss and soft soil and all this means is a balanced springboard to fling him forward sending him faster and faster from the booming laughter behind him. When he looks back over his shoulder, Megumi sees that his God has yet to even hit his stride.
Faster. He needs to run faster.
Thin, whipping branches lashes for his tail and Megumi evens his breath as he hops over the gnarled roots of trees wider than he will ever be and as old as the lumbering monstrous thing that thuds behind him. Each footfall like thunder, and when Megumi glances over his shoulder the wide maw of his belly is grinning, tongue lolling free in excitement.
“Run, pup!” God says and Megumi obeys.
Megumi loves to run. He sets his eyes ahead of him and lets the wind lift him. Starts in the sleeves and the tips of his hair but soon it’s lifting him farther and farther, and his breath races through him like he’s drinking the wind that carries him.
Still, the shadow finds him. Bobs along the heels of his feet, no matter how fast he picks them up and flings them forward. His heart pounding and Megumi knows that this race will end like all the others.
Thunder biting at his heels and he runs faster, he runs faster and still a hand reaches down and scoops him up, easily.
The first run he had been terrified to lose. He had run and run and when the fingers had dropped around him like a cage, he had curled up and refused to move.
“Why do you hide?” The thing had asked and Megumi had lifted his head to answer.
“You’ll eat me.” He said. That’s what monsters did...
Megumi giggles when he’s lifted, sweaty and flushed, his heart racing still.
“Faster than before.” God says and he sounds thoughtful. Megumi glows under the praise. “What will I do when you finally escape me and run past the limits of my Forest?”
Could he run that fast? Megumi wonders. If God thought so… it must be true!
“Miss me.” Megumi answers and shivers at the sharp teeth flashed when Sukuna throws his head back to laugh. It pleases him to make him happy. Offerings are meant to please.
“I will.” God says and Megumi blinks. “I’ll take a taste to remember you by.”
“Eat you?” The monster had said and Megumi had nodded. “No. Not yet. Not all at once.”
Megumi yips as he’s raised higher, a thumb pressing him flat to the hand holding him, letting his bare feet dangle free and he giggles when Sukuna lets his tongue slip out, licking along the soft arch of his foot. It makes him squirm and kick, his tail beating furiously against the palm at his back. Tiptoeing on the tip of his tongue, Megumi can feel the wet vibration spread through his toes when Sukuna laughs at him. Slick and disgusting and he’s giggling when Sukuna nips the edge of his pants between big fingers and pulls them off, freeing him like fruit from it’s skin.
More lapping, licking tongue, up his ankles and over his calves, brushing hotly over him and Megumi twists and whines until another hand comes up to pin his arms, another to holding him open and it feels so good to have his full attention. The weight of the world resting a feverish gaze on him, teasing the soft spread of his thighs as he pants.
In the morning, the monks pray. Bells ring and fires are started and Megumi used to sit at the chain edge of his door and listen to the prayers and wonder what it would be like to spend a life of peaceful devotion.
He prays now, but it’s different.
Cupped in the palms of God, Megumi spreads his legs for a monstrous wet mouth, hotter than anything should be. Lays open like an offering to be consumed and when he cums, his God drinks him all up, sacrament and salvation. Splits him on the tip of his tongue and fills him fully until he’s hollow and gasping only one thing, reverence in his voice.
“Sukuna… Sukuna…. Please…!”
“Would you like to be mine, and mine alone?” The mountain had asked, bending to peer at him with fierce terrible eyes. The mountain spoke with a deep and rolling voice, and it raised the hair on Megumi’s neck, like heat from an open fire, sudden against the cold. “Would you like to run and play in my Forest, until the days end and the world goes cold?”
The fire had burned behind him, bright and terrible, casting Megumi in his shadow and he’d nodded, too scared to speak.
And then the mountain had smiled and it was like the sun had risen, and suddenly Megumi understood the gold on the bells and the lilting prayer in the morning, the sheen of devotion on the monks foreheads as they meditated, because this was something even he, small and useless could believe in.
“Please, please…!”
Sukuna always answered his prayers.
Afterwards, he walked him back. Megumi riding high on his shoulder, giggling when Sukuna brushed the tip of his tail away from his sensitive ear. From up here he could see the peaked tips of the tiled temple roof gleaming in the sun, and bark at the birds as they passed. The thudding of his footfalls was different up here, and when Sukuna turned to look at him Megumi nuzzled into him, soft and affectionate.
The few pilgrims brave enough to face the object of their devotion stood at the gate, and Megumi barked for them, squealing when Sukuna lifted him from his place in heaven and placed him back on the earth. His feet on the loam and Megumi stared upward unblinking into the smiling face above him.
“When can I stay?” He asked. He always asked. He didn’t want to sleep on hard stone floors and rise with the sun. He wanted to sleep in the lap of his God and dance by the fire at night.
“I thought you wanted to run to the edges of our Forest?” Sukuna asked warmly.
“With you.” Megumi said, childish and determined. His God looked thoughtful again.
“One day, pup.” He said. “When the world is different and there is no end to the places we could burn a fire.”
It felt like a promise.
Megumi woke with a start, hands fluttering, half formed signs. His dorm room was silent, only the blinking light from his phone as it charged and the soft sound of Yuuji snoring through the thin walls.
And yet, the smell of smoke, all around him.