%title Unseeing - Lyut learns to see

Lyut is slow to begin moving, and when he does, he walks as though a great dream has come upon him. He lets Ýng guide his movements and I stand apart from the lord and Their servant.

Lyut moves as though a great dream has come upon him and lets Ýng guide him, and even so his morning task of making incense is far slower than usual, for his eyes water constantly and he marvels at just how drab the ingredients, so bright and colorful in the nostrils and so familiar to the touch, are to behold. He has not known the comparison of color before, but even to one for whom sight is a new sense, he is surprised to find that the crushed root of nardin and the shaved root of sweet flag look so similar despite the vast difference in aromas and purposes, that the mastic, that steadfast base of a scent, nearly glitters in the sun while the jewel-bright scent of cardamom is belied by so dun a color.

He moves as though a great dream has come upon him until it is time to lay the powdered incense in the bowl of ash, that third prayer of creation, and he realizes that he can see the furrow he digs in ash with his claw, can see the tan powder that he packs in its place, and can see the spiral he builds, and then tears come upon him once more, and all of his prayers of destruction are completed through sight blurred by shock, and he relies on his habits and Ýng's guidance to make it through to the end without burning himself.

I stand apart from the lord and Their servant and watch, and drink in what prayers I may along the way.

At last, the time for ritual passes and Lyut stumbles into the woods to tend to his toilet and lingers a while in wonder at the sight of his own body, the sight of the woods and the leaves and humus on the forest floor, before returning to his cave and, out of the habit of so many years, grabbing his stick to guide him down to the river.

"Do you need that, faithful?"

After a moment's confusion, the fisher laughs. "I suppose I do not, Týw."

"Will you leave it behind?"

His answer is a long time in coming. "It is comforting in my paw. I will take it with me."

Guided still by habit --- and perhaps by Ýng, for I do not know the lord's every thought --- Lyut taps his way down the path to the water, and perhaps it is for the best that he has brought the stick, for his eyes are drawn constantly to every detail along the way, from the way the suns arrow strikes the leaves to the way their shadows dance across the ground when the wind moves across them. His eyes water still, for he is overflowing with sensation. A life lived without a sense is still a full life, and to one born without that sense, raised without that sense, he did not think of himself as blind except in comparison to Zita who picked up the amphorae of incense with such ease that he had never known.

Stops, at last, at the edge of the stream and stares at my domain, mouth open as though to speak, though no words come forth.

I wait a while, and then ask: "Faithful, do you see the wonder of my creation? My friend the water?"

"I had never imagined that it looked like this." His voice is barely above a whisper, and his eyes drink deep of the sight of the stream. "I did not know that something could be as beautiful."

This fills me more than any prayer yet that day. "I am the god of the water and the god of watching and the god of the moon and death. When you come here to fish, when you come here to bathe, when you come here to drink, those are praises that you sing to me."

Lyut tilts his head. "Is Ýng not the god of all things? I am sorry for asking again, but I must know."

"They are the god of many things, and They are the god of me. To sing praises to me is to sing praises to Them in turn." At this, I feel the lord's anger at me soften, though it does not wholly retreat.

"I do not know the words to any prayers to you, Týw."

"That is alright, faithful. You may pray all the same by fishing and bathing and drinking, by rejoicing in those things that are under my jurisdiction."

Lyut nods and steps into the water. This is not the usual order of his mornings, but as the wonder on his face at the sight of the water moving around his legs fills me to overflowing, I do not complain. He stands in the middle of the section of the stream that is his own, in the pool held up by the narrow gap across which he strings his net, in the cool water where the sun's arrow pierces the canopy of the trees. He stands there and he watches the way that the light reflects off the surface of the water. Watches, too, the way the water eddies around rocks, around his legs, explores the funnels of whirlpools with his fingers, peers through clear water to the silt and rocks and algae below the surface.

"What am I now, Týw?"

"What do you mean, faithful?"

"Before this morning, before today, when I did not see, I was complete."

I remain silent.

"I am sorry, god of water and of watching. I do not doubt you, for your gift has spoken for you. I do not turn away your gift, and I offer my praise to you. But if I was complete before and a servant to Ýng, then what am I now?"

I watch him curiously, this servant of mine and of my lord's, standing in the middle of a pool in a stream where his thighs are steeped the cool water. "You are Lyut, faithful of Ýng, faithful of Týw. Has that changed with your sight?"

He runs his hand above the water, feeling the boundary between water and air with his pawpads. He feels the surface tension of the pool, and through him I feel his wonder. He tests and plays as might a kit of his people even as he begins bathing. Each time he comes up for air, he sings a line of praise to Ýng, and every time he is beneath the water, I know that he is thinking about what he is now. Each time he dives, he is singing his praises to me as well, and now he is cognizant of this as well.

After he has said his prayer and cleaned himself he wades to his net in which he finds three small fish. He gives thanks to Ýng and, after a moment, to me as well.

With the fish on the shore, wrapped in net and stunned, gasping and drowning in air, Lyut watches. He watches them glitter and wiggle. He watches them die their slow deaths. He traces sun-struck scales with a claw and asks: "Do the fish see beneath the water, Týw?"

"Yes, faithful. They see my domain and all its beauties."

"Do they smell beneath the water?"

"After a fashion, yes."

"Do they smell my incense?"

"No, faithful. The boundary between the domain of air and the domain of water is too firm for the smoke of your incense to pass. After all, do you smell your incense beneath water?"

"No, I do not breathe under the water." Lyut looks angry, then laughs. "Only, I wonder."

"Yes, Lyut?"

"I wonder if the fish upon the shore here has the chance to smell the incense and hear the prayers to Ýng before it dies."

I do not answer directly, saying instead: "You are not going to die, faithful."

He looks satisfied at this answer and I realize that I have said what he needed to hear. I know that Lyut holds terror in his breast even still, that he will hold it there until the end of his days, for I have taken his innocence from him. I am pleased to see his satisfaction, and I sense Ýng's bemusement at my anxiety over pleasing a servant.

I am pleased all the same, and I remain with my servant.

I am with Lyut as he gathers his fiddlehead ferns and pawfuls of clay. I am with him as he sets his net once more. I am with him as he cleans his fish and heads back to his cave to prepare his daily meal.

Three times, he closes his eyes and his whiskers droop as he attempts to settle back into his unseeing routine. He is testing himself, I know, and I do not stop him. I do not stop him because I know that when his eyes are open, he is closer to me, to Týw the watchful, and when his eyes are closed, he is closer to our lord, Ýng, the god of all things, and it is good for him to understand this.

He closes his eyes to shut out the sight of preparing his meal, too confused by the twisting of the ferns around his fish. The leaves which make so much sense to his long-practiced fingers do not behave to his eyes the ways in which he expects.

He closes his eyes to eat his food after cracking open the clay baker, for the sight of the fish changed by fire is unnerving. The change in texture he had always known had changed, as too with the taste, for Lyut was no stranger to the flavor of raw fish. Now, sight-ridden, he finds the taste of the fish reduced when his eyes are opened, as though too much of him, of his mind, his being, is taken up processing that which he sees.

And he closes his eyes, last, when he lays on the ground to dry and meditate.

He closes his eyes as he lays on his front, and then when he rolls onto his back, he keeps them closed, and I see his cheeks wet with tears.

"Speak to me, faithful. Why are you troubled?"

"You say that you are the god of watching, yes?"

"I am."

"Must watching always be with sight?"

Again, I do not answer directly. "Do you wish now that you had not regained your sight?"

"It is too much, Týw."

"You are strong, faithful."

"It is too much." He shakes his head. "I feel less holy. I feel less pure when distracted by seeing. How can I serve Ýng as faithfully now that my time spent watching is time spent serving you?"

I feel Ýng's anger rising against me once more, and I answer carefully. "To live is to be holy, to live and rejoice in life, to be pure and clean in your actions and words. Ýng is the lord of all things, and to Their servants They gave life as a way for the universe to recognize its own beauty and wonder."

Lyut's face twists in a anger. "And yet I cannot hear Ýng as well today as I did yesterday. He is with me, I know, but..."

"The only mind which can hear as purely as it sees when both eyes and ears are open is that of Ýng, true, and yet in seeing, do you not also praise Them? It was They who made seeing as well as hearing. It was They who made me."

At his his features soften. His words are slow, and he processes his thoughts and feelings aloud. "I, as a servant, do not understand the hierarchy of the gods, but, yes, if Ýng made the light and the sun and colors and also you, then I suppose I pray to him as easily by rejoicing in sight as I do in sound and touch."

The sun is overhead and tipping down its long path through the afternoon. The colors of the trees are bright and I am with Lyut. "Rejoice, then, in your sight, faithful, for in doing so, you offer prayer to Ýng and to myself."

A slow minute passes as the fisher meditates. At last, he opens his eyes and looks up to the trees and cloudless sky.

"I will try, Týw."

"That is all we ever ask of our servants, Lyut."
