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Aubrey Little doesn’t like her new eye. Doesn’t want anyone to see. It’s bright, and loud, and plastered to her identity like a marker reading “GUILTY” in pulsing, red letters. She washes the smooth, brown skin on her face with a rough washcloth and a soap she bought at Leo’s store. Drips moisturizing eye drops into her eyes with her head tilted all the way back. She blinks in the mirror. Still orange.
It almost glows against the complexion of her face. It stands out like the sun at sunset, bright and round and luminous. Of course, if she concentrates, she can tell it isn’t really glowing. Hell, she turns out the bathroom light to make sure. There’s no night vision or something cool that she gets from it, either. She’s just standing in a pitch black bathroom, the cool tile under her feet and the cool counter under her fingertips. She focuses on that feeling. That grounding cold that brings her back from orbit.
She flicks the light back on and stares down her own reflection, studying her eye. Maybe it’ll do something cool when I do magic, she thinks. She conjures a flickering light onto her fingertips and looks at her eye. Nothing. She stares at the flame for a while as it dances in the air. She thinks deeply about what she's done. She's broken the one rule Vincent gave her. Don't touch the crystal, his words rang in her head. It occurs to her that she should have listened, but there was just something there. Something called to her from that crystal, from that planet, and she couldn't stop herself. That was her moment. She just wishes there was some sort of reason for why her eye is now the way that it is, if it isn't going to do anything astounding.
“Damn,” she mutters, extinguishing the flame. Then she thinks for a moment. “Thanks for letting me use your fire, Earth,” she says. She feels a bit silly saying it, but she has taken Janelle’s explanation of her magic to heart. If her power comes from the world she lives on, then she figures she might as well thank it.
She wanders out to the bed in her room, plopping down onto the soft mattress. She feels a bit better than she did back in Sylvain. She felt so weak and feverish, like the energy had just been sucked out of her. She still feels a little weak, but much better now that she’s relaxed a bit. She’s too tired for the gravity of her new eye color to sink in. She knows in the morning it will probably hit her like a freight train, but for the moment it is simply there .
I need a way to hide this , she thinks. She grabs her wallet, flipping through the cash in there. She definitely has enough to buy a pair of sunglasses at a gas station or something. She knows the selection would probably be better at Leo’s General Store, but she also knows that it will be a good while before that establishment is back up and running.
It’s dark out. Night time. Later than it was when she ran from the crystal, ran for the Gate, her heart pumping and her mind spinning and her lungs burning. Most of the Lodge residents had already turned in for the night, so Aubrey knows her chances are high that she could sneak out, purchase sunglasses at the local gas station, and sneak back in with no problem.
Sneaking out of the Lodge proves to be easier than she expected, because by the time she gets her boots and coat on and leaves her room, the main room of the lodge is empty save for Moira. Everyone else had headed to bed, but Moira stayed up, polishing the piano with care.
“Hello Aubrey,” Moira says with a whimsical smile as Aubrey reaches the bottom of the stairs.
The room is darker than usual, with nothing but the light from the fireplace. Aubrey knows from an offhand comment by Dani that in this firelight, her eyes already look a tad orange, and she thanks the world for that.
“Hey Moira,” Aubrey says with a smile.
“Where are you heading at such an hour?”
Aubrey shrugs, trying to stay vague. “Remembered something I need to buy, so I’m heading down to the gas station to grab it.”
Moira nods. “I hope you find what you’re looking for,” she says as she turns back to wiping down her piano.
“Thanks,” Aubrey says, genuinely grateful for Moira’s unending kindness.
Buying the sunglasses is what Aubrey worries about now. She doesn’t know how she’ll manage to get in, buy sunglasses, and get out, without anyone noticing her unnaturally orange eye. She stands in front of a window, using her hand to brush her hair down over her right eye. It’s not perfectly covered, but it’s good enough. She strolls through the small aisles of little bits and bobs, and smiles when she finds the rack of sunglasses.
She glances over them, looking for ones that would completely block any view of her eyes. She lands on a pair of sunglasses, the frames white and the lenses heart-shaped, the insides shifting between blue and green, completely reflective.
“Perfect,” she murmurs, trying them on and looking at herself in the small mirror at the top of the rack.
She pays quickly, the tired man at the register not questioning her or her choice of purchase at such a late hour. She gets back into the Lodge and into her room with no trouble at all, seeing that by now even Moira has retired to her own room.
She sets the sunglasses on her bedside table, kicks off her shoes and tosses her coat onto the ground. She collapses on the bed with a heavy sigh. She hadn’t realized how fast her heartbeat had been racing until she feels it slow. She’d left the lights off, and Aubrey doesn’t have a chance to change into sleepwear until she falls into a deep sleep on the bed, her covers still neatly made and her head not quite on the pillow at all.