It had been taking a while for him to process the whole experience. Immediately after Yanus had disappeared he bolted off to find a place to hide and recuperate, tail brushed. He had cowered, trembling in an abandoned burrow for several days. Or maybe weeks. He wasn’t actually sure how long he had been in there.
He had been dissociated and numb, as if he were watching some other cat from behind his eyes. He noticed detachedly that he was shivering. He couldn’t feel his paws. His fur had stayed upright and on edge for days, coated in sticky drying blood, both his and hers. He had remained like that, inattentive to his surroundings, caught in his own head, his own trauma to the point of apathy to the rest of the world.
As he slowly came out of it, the pain had set in. His entire body ached from being tessellated and his every atom rearranged in space. His muscles were stiff from remaining huddled in his crouched position for so long afterwards. And his eye sockets felt raw. Like they had been scraped out. Which he supposed was an apt description for what they had endured. They were so tender he hadn’t tried out the past and future sight again. He mostly kept them closed, trying to preserve what little moisture he could and resist straining the tightly wound surrounding muscles. Even in his dark shelter, the little light that worked its way in strained his eyes, like looking in the sun.
He had finally groomed himself, at least. Going over every bit of himself he could reach several times, almost to the point of excess. But it was meditative, grooming as he went over the whole encounter. As if he was self-soothing and dispelling the distress with each stroke of his tongue. Fixating on the act of grooming kept him focused enough that he could cope with just a trickle of the anxiety at a time without getting too overwhelmed. When he stopped, it would creep in again, flooding him with energy so panicked he would be completely mentally detached just to escape it, leaving his body paralyzed, every muscle stretched taut with fright. And out of body he would just, drift.
So when he wasn’t grooming, he slept. He slept for far longer than he ever had before, curled tightly around himself with his tail tucked snugly around his toes and over his eyes.
He didn’t remember feeling this awful after his god birth. But perhaps it was just that - he didn’t remember much of it at all. He felt a bit grateful that his mind had done such a good job of protecting him, but it was an unnerving sensation, losing time. He resigned himself to the likelihood he would lose more.
Eventually he had started to ease out of his hole, inching toward the entrance as he peered out from blurry watery eyes. He tried not to rub them. The milky one hadn’t cleared up at all, it was like looking through frosted glass, hazy. The eye of the dead. That he had killed. In his skull. Degrading. What in another circumstance could have been an indication of his triumph, the spoils of a successful hunt, was now a constant, implanted reminder of his timidity in the face of adversity. His embarrassment at the hands of a stronger force. Just like Noctua, as if he had learned nothing from his failures. A neverending reminder of his deficiencies.
The sun was shining warmly down through the branches. It felt illusory. Mocking. Everything was the same in the forest, the sun and the trees and the warm humid breeze, while his whole world was completely different. He hated it, a bit. Everything went on as usual while his world fell apart. It felt unfair. He wanted the world to reflect even a little of what he felt, for his pain to be acknowledged, in some way.
He had thought about revisiting the grove. For some sort of self-flagellating closure, or maybe just to see if the rabbit god was still there, that the whole thing wasn’t some horrific nightmare he had dreamed up. But the thought of seeing her again terrified him. He wanted to do something though. Something to prove to himself that he was strong and could overcome, that could do more than just survive. That this was just a minor snag in the epic story of his life. Past. It was likely too soon to pretend he could move on. But not moving on left him here. Low. Beaten down and exhausted. If he didn’t do something it felt like the self-loathing would swallow him up and he would drown in it forever.
It was frustrating, having to get used to yet another set of eyes. Another set of eyes forced into his body. Violated. Again. He hated that he had been compliant, that he had submitted to Yanus, rather than fighting back. He felt complicit in his own assault. He had even thanked her. He felt sick, dirty. More angry at himself than at Yanus.
It felt hopeless, too. Futile, like they could be taken again at any time. Perhaps he shouldn’t get attached. There was a tiny part of him that was glad the opal eye was gone. It had been too overwhelming. Made him feel too small. He had felt unworthy. Unworthy of Sikac’s friendship, when he had done nothing except laugh at her and her mushrooms. Truffles, he corrected himself, his heart aching.
He felt a bit like he deserved it, that he was being punished for hunting gods, for not valuing Sikac. That this was his retribution.
Despite his feelings, once they had healed more completely, these eyes seemed to fit in a way the opal eye had never. Perhaps it was just that despite all its advantages, at its core it was still a rock. Not these eyes though. He suspected they were older than he was. There were a lot of floaters in his vision. Though they looked somewhat different than what he remembered from his original eyes. They seemed almost… ghostly. And though both allowed him insights into time, the requirement of his eyelids in the process of scrying gave him a stronger sense of control. Which, he sorely needed.
He began visiting Lauliet’s pond surreptitiously. He wished he hadn’t forced her to give him her voice. He would have liked to listen to her songs now. It was selfish, but he was too miserable to care. She still sang, but they were sad songs now. Good. It suited his mood. He started to enjoy hearing his own voice, after a time. It was therapeutic hearing his old voice sing songs about loss. About things stolen and the emptiness left in their absence. The irony was not lost on him.
Really though, he was stalling. He didn’t know how to face Sikac, now that he had lost the eye she had gifted him. He gathered his resolve.
