NOVEL NEXT Ch. 6: Eyes
Cass helped Salos clean up in the little tub Telis had brought for him. He put up with the scrubbing admirably, though he glowered through the entire ordeal. He was quick to hop out and shake himself dry when Cass was done. Acceptably dry, he sat himself at the doorway, his head pressed to the crack, watching the hallway.
Salos taken care of, Cass dried off too and got dressed.
Her clothes were clean, just as Telis had promised they’d be. Somehow, even her socks had been salvaged, the thin spots and the holes repaired like new.
Even her scrunchy had been throughly cleaned. The blue fabric was soft and the elastic within perky again.
She sat before the vanity beside the door, opening drawers, looking for a comb to tame her damp hair. She found one in the rightmost drawer and sat up straighter to get started when she looked into the mirror.
She screamed, jumping back. Her stool clattered back over the tile.
Salos was on her shoulder in seconds. His head pivoted around the room, looking for the threat. He didn’t so much as look at the mirror.
What happened? he asked.
“My eyes!” Cass stepped up to the mirror. It had to be a trick. Something magical about it. Mana Sense assured her it was an ordinary object. Nothing unusual about it.
But if the mirror was normal—
What’s wrong with your eyes? Salos asked. He hopped onto the vanity, looking up into her face.
She leaned over him, into the mirror, as if getting closer would dispel what had to be an illusion.
Cass’s eyes had always been brown. A gold-brown in sunlight. Something like milk chocolate in the dark.
She liked her eyes. They were normal—average, even—but they were hers.
The eyes in the mirror were not brown.
They were not gold-brown.
They did not look like chocolate—milk or otherwise.
They were not her eyes.
The eyes reflected in the mirror glowed a startling blue. Like electricity. Like neon.
They look the same as always, Salos said.
“What color are they?” Maybe it was just her. Maybe it was a quirk of one of her skills? Maybe—
Blue. A very powerful blue, Salos said.
“Why?” The word came out in a strangled scream. “Why are they blue?”
Salos frowned. Why wouldn’t they be?
“Because they weren’t before!” She slammed her palms against the vanity. Had they been blue this whole time? Since when? Since that explosion in the void? Since she became slyphid? “Do slyphids have eyes like these?”
Sometimes, Salos said. Usually blue, pink, or orange.
“And they just glow like this?”
When you are emotional.
“I thought you said a spirit’s body was about your self perception.” The words shot from her lips as an accusation.
They are, Salos said. The words were slow and measured. A prelude to more. More, he wasn’t sure he wanted to say.
She forced herself to take a deep breath. She couldn’t take this out on him.
It wasn’t a big deal. She had slyphid eyes. Oh no.
It wasn’t like she could see them, except in a mirror like this. They’d been like that for the last three weeks and she hadn’t even known.
Definitely not a big deal.
It changed nothing. She was still Cass.
She already knew her body was a slyphid’s. That was why she could feel the surrounding air. Why she didn’t need to eat or breathe. It was how she’d survived up to this point.
She was still Cass.
What was a little cosmetic change? The smallest, least notable, cosmetic change?
Not an issue. Not really. Not compared to everything else happening.
Salos stared up at her, shifting his weight between his paws.
Cass took another deep breath. “What else?”
Your body is who you are, filtered through your perception of self. But your eyes always reflect your soul.
Cass froze. Her heart stopped in her chest.
Salos was still talking.
She didn’t hear him.
Her soul was a slyphid’s.
What did that mean?
Did it mean anything? Earth Cass hadn’t even believed in souls. Not literal souls. Metaphorical ones, maybe. But not literal ones.
If it hadn’t mattered to Earth Cass, should it matter now?
She wasn’t Earth Cass anymore. Isn’t that what this meant?
That she hadn’t been Earth Cass. Not for a while.
Who was she? What was she?
Was she in any way that girl if even her soul had been remade in the image of a slyphid?
Her hands started combing her hair on autopilot. They ran through the damp hair, her eyes unfocused.
This shouldn’t matter.
This wasn’t a reason to dive into an existential crisis.
This wasn’t worse than anything else she’d discovered.
This was just another fact.
Her body was a slyphid. Her soul was a slyphid. She had no way home. Her siblings thought she was dead. She owned a person. She was responsible for another person’s life.
She needed to get a grip. Nothing had changed. She’d been this way since she arrived and she hadn’t even known.
In three weeks, she hadn’t noticed once.
It didn’t matter.
If it mattered, she would have noticed already.
It was just another fact. No more interesting than the sky being blue or water being wet.
It didn’t matter.
“Cass.” Salos’s voice cut through the swirling thoughts, soft and plaintive.
Cass blinked and looked down. He’d crawled into her lap, his gold eyes looking up at her wide with concern.
Her hair was braided, the scrunchy at the end wrapped tight around the tail of damp hair.
She was just sitting in front of the vanity, staring at nothing. Completely empty.
“Hi.” She forced a smile for him.
He forced one back.
“I’m okay. I just wasn’t expecting…” Cass shook her head, scooping him up and moving him to her shoulder as she stood. “We should see what Alyx has planned next.”
She could feel his concern for her over their bond. It fluttered around her, warm where it alighted on her, tingling as it hesitantly held back.
She ran her hand under his chin. “Come on.”