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update from sparkleup

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Madison Scott-Clary 2020-11-26 23:03:22 -08:00
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writing/unseeing/learning.md
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@ -36,10 +36,82 @@ Lyut tilts his head. "Is Ýng not the god of all things?"
"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.
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, explores the funnels of whirlpools with his fingers, peers through clear water to the silt and rocks and algae below the surface.
(fishing, watching the water)
"What am I now, Týw?"
(talking with Tyw instead of meditating)
"For what, faithful?"
(Tyw tries to convince him to rejoice in seeing, but he isn't so sure)
"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. 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, and then 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. 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 traces sun-struck scales with a claw. "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 are too different. Do you smell your incense beneath water?"
Lyut looks angry, then laughs. "No, I do not breathe under water. 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. Say, 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 sense Ýng's bemusement at my anxiety over pleasing a 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. 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.
He closes his eyes to shut out the sight of preparing his meal, too confused by the twisting of the ferns around his fish.
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 and he finds the taste of the fish reduced when his eyes are opened, as though too much of him 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, though 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."
"I feel less holy. I feel less pure when distracted by seeing."
I feel Ýng's anger rising against me once more, and I answer slowly. "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 wonder."
Lyut's face twists in a grimace. "And yet I cannot hear Ýng as well as I did yesterday."
"The only mind that 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?"
At his his features soften. "I do not understand the hierarchy of the gods, no, but if Ýng made the light and the sun and colors and 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."
"I will try, Týw."
"That is all we ever ask of our servants, Lyut."