She was under her tree. He smiled at her predictability, it was comforting. He quietly ascended into the rainbow eucalyptus’ branches, finding a notched branch that he could sit in comfortably, content to watch her. He still wasn’t sure what to say. He decided to test out his new eyes.

It required a whole new muscle that he wasn’t aware that he had. Perhaps it had come with the eyes. Flex out, flex in. He stimulated the muscle without paying much attention to the apparitions that came into focus. It flexed out laterally from outer to inner, unlike his nictitating membrane, and rested beneath both his third eyelid and his outermost ones. It felt a bit like he was crossing his eyes. He wondered how it worked. If the eyelids would work with another set of eyes. Though it was mostly translucent, he could see tiny capillaries lacing across the surface. They appeared to be pumping the gold hued fluid of his godly ichor rather than blood, giving a soft hazy aura to the phantoms beyond. When he finally focused he could make out many soft spectral-like forms of Sikac, happily rooting around from his milky eye. They overlapped well with the floaters he saw without the eyelid, as if the eyelid was only bringing the images into focus.

He closed his other eye, satisfied to watch her for a while. He was a bit apprehensive about looking into the future. The past seemed a bit more stable, safer. If the two eyes were mirrors of each other, he could expect to see overlapping apparitions of different times in his future eye as well. The older after images looked to be somewhat more faded. He wondered if there was a time limit on the distances he could scry into.

Yanus seemed to imply that she knew from the beginning that Yuno wouldn’t last. He wondered if his ability with the eyes would improve over time, if he would become more proficient. He wondered what would happen if he refused to act upon the future the eyes showed him. He hesitantly opened his other eye.

He could see spectral versions of himself and Sikac on the forest floor below. His illusory form looked agitated, its tail lashing and ears back. Sikac looked tense. He wished he knew what they were saying. She made a sort of aborted, lunging motion, then turned and left. He tried to flicker ahead. No Sikac. Maybe he was using it wrong. He concentrated harder, ichor thrumming in his blood, to no avail. He could only watch the confrontation again. There was nothing afterwards. She was gone. He tried to stymie the rising panic. A single tear of blood dripped from his over-strained eye, trailing down his cheek before falling down below, to land on Sikac’s snout.

She looked up.

‘How long have you been there?’ This wasn’t the first time he hadn’t announced his presence. She hadn’t been foraging, just relaxing underneath the tree, content. Novem didn’t know how to avoid the coming confrontation. He didn’t even know what he had done, what he had said, how he could change the future when he didn’t even know what he had to change.

The eye. It had to be the eye, what else could it be? Something to distract her.

Too late.

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‘Did the eye help with your hunt?’

‘Yes, it was perfect!’ No, that was too complimentary, he had never been so polite to her before. He had to tone it back, keep her from suspicion. And divert away from the eye. ‘No mushrooms today?’ Shit. Truffles. But if he corrected himself now she would know something was wrong.

She scoffed, ‘I know you do that on purpose, I’m not stupid.’ He felt wronged. The one time he didn’t actually do it on purpose. And guilty. He did think she was stupid. Only a little bit. Well. More than that. But that was why he loved her. Wait. He loved her?

‘I went to so much trouble to make a perfect gift for you and you can’t even be bothered to remember the one thing that is important to me!’ She seemed to be truly upset. He needed to apologize. Probably. He had never done so before and he wasn’t sure of the proper procedure.

‘I’m sorry!’ It slipped out, a little shrill. ‘You are?’ She seemed a bit stumped. ‘Then come down and apologize properly.’ She harrumphed, getting back her bearings. He definitely did not want to do that. She would notice the missing eye right away.

‘I said I’m sorry! I don’t even know why you’re so particular about them, it’s not like they’re actually special.’ That came out way more irritable than he intended. And too close to the truth. He needed to remain calm, to not become the irate cat he had seen in his vision.

‘What are you talking about, you told me they are the thing that made me indestructible!’

‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean you have to keep eating them.’ He froze.

‘You mean you’ve been watching me all this time, knowing that I thought I needed to continuously eat them to remain immortal, just, just laughing at me?!’ Her volume increased with each word until she was shouting. ‘What is wrong with you!?’

He had considered what might happen when she found out, but he had never considered that he would care about their friendship. Care about her. He had no idea how to fix this. He needed to lie.

‘I thought you just liked them!’ That sounded good, it sounded reasonable. Hopefully she would buy it.

‘You liar. You knew.’ She turned away. He had to stop her from leaving. He knew she wouldn’t come back. He lept down.

‘Wait,’ He trailed after her. ‘Please.’ The word sounded strange on his tongue. Awkward. She turned around. And looked him in the eyes. They both froze, the moment felt heavy. As if every blade of grass, and leaf, and flower, every mote of dust was suspended.

‘Where is your eye.’ She said it like a statement. Like an accusation. As if she already knew the answer. As if no answer of his would matter except for the fact that it was missing.

He wasn’t sure how to answer. Or rather he didn’t want to answer. He just wanted to go back, to, to maybe the moment when he was in the tree. Not far enough. Before when he still had the eye. He would be grateful for it. He would appreciate it. Appreciate her. His heart felt like it was twisting in his chest and he felt the stinging wet pressure of tears rising. What to say…

‘I traded it.’ He tried. He couldn’t tell her that it was stolen. It was too shameful. Too raw. He never wanted anyone to know. But especially not her. He didn’t want to be weak in her eyes. But being ungrateful, careless wasn’t much better. There were no right answers. ‘I really appreciated that you made it for me, but it was too much.’ That sounded alright, close enough to the truth.

‘So you gave it away.’ She said it flatly, softly. But it wasn’t as cold as before. Maybe he could turn this around.

‘You did force it into my socket. It hurt, you know. More than when Noctua took it.’ Maybe he could make her see that this was better.

‘I thought you accepted me, but then you went behind my back and made a prosthetic. You didn’t even ask if I wanted one.’ He hadn’t exactly meant to say that, but it was how he felt, the resentment slipping out from where he had buried it.

‘So instead of telling me, you just went out and gave it away. After lying to me for the entire time we’ve known each other about the truffles. Did you ever even care about our friendship? Or was this just another game to you?’ She seemed to be struggling with herself. She gave that aborted sort of lunge that he had been dreading. Caught herself. And left.