Chapter Text
First he had heard a cruel voice telling him, that he'd failed to serve Her.
Followed by blinding yellow light and overwhelming pain.
Then he had lost consciousness.
When he finally woke up, there was nothing but darkness.
Upon asking what had happened, he was told, that his eyes had been burned and his face disfigured.
The bug speaking to him told him that, while they'd found and persuaded a passing Locust girl to help him, she'd only been able to do damage control and once she had treated his burns and ensured his recovery, she'd gone on her way, leaving behind instructions on how to treat the scars from that point.
Shame, he would've liked to thank her. Not that it really mattered now.
He had been blinded permanently.
By his own goddess.
Because he had not been good enough.
But why?
Why had he not been good enough?
From birth he had been told, that if he served their creator with passion and faith, he would be rewarded.
And he had served Her.
He had served his goddess with all his might.
He had worshipped Her, sacrificed to Her, fought for Her, killed for Her even.
And this was his reward.
The charred eye sockets that had once housed three perfectly functional eyes seemed to hurt even more from the sheer knowledge of this betrayal.
And before he'd known it, tears had been running down his face.
Huh.
He had always thought tears came from the eyeballs.
Apparently he'd been wrong about that too¹.
Lurien had decided to leave.
Before, his exceptional eyesight had made him invaluable. No one had wielded distance weapons with such deadly accuracy as himself.
But now, that he'd literally been branded and his eyesight was gone, he had become a liability.
Not to mention everyone could now see, that his goddess was displeased with him.
He didn't need to see to know that the others were talking behind his back. He could hear their strange tone, when they spoke to him. He could feel the difference.
So when a group of Moths talked about moving away, he asked if he could come with them.
They agreed and so he spent his last day in the Tribe packing his basic possessions with the help of one of his brothers.
The next morning, when he got ready to leave with the group, his aged father gave him a blind bug's cane and told him to “come back healthy”.
Tse.
He knew what that old bastard really meant: Come back healthy or not at all.
But that was fine.
He had no intention of coming back.