It's another morning. I'm still in bed, but I can hear melting water dropping from the roof.

“It seems spring has arrived,” I say to myself, “I've been wondering, when is the next Blue Moon?”

“We just had New Moon after the Green Moon yesterday,” Rowan answers, “the Blue Moon should be in 20 days.”

“Good morning, Rowan. Thanks for the information. How are you feeling?”

“It's not as bad as last time, thanks. That stuff Mittens provided us helped a lot.”

“You know, Rowan, you don't need to force yourself so much.”

“Am I not good enough?” Rowan sounds as if he's about to cry.

“No, no, no, that's not what I meant!” I pat him on his head, “you should take it easy. I don't want you to fall ill because you're overdoing it.”

“I… I'm fine.”

“Rowan, please… Why are you so intent on this?”

“Isn't this my duty as your spouse?”

“No, it's enough if we support each other! This also means I will support you. I don't dislike that passionate side of yours, just watch your health, will you?”

“If you say so…”

“I've been wondering, how long is a season?”

“Each season is a Blue Moon and a Green Moon. By the way, the beginning of a season doesn't always coincide with a new moon.”

So a year is about 336 days.

We get up, shower and get dressed. After that, we meet up with the hunters. When we arrive at the meeting place, only Bob and Dohal are there.

“Good morning, Bob!” Rowan and I greet him.

“Good morning!” he answers.

“Where is everyone else?” Rowan asks.

“They're not coming,” Dohal answers, “since we already have the boar for the feast tonight, they said it's a waste of time to go hunting today.”

“I get where they're coming from… but with just the four of us, we can't cover the whole area,” Bob says, “hunting in winter is already taxing… and the melting snow isn't making it any easier.”

“Well, at least we can go wherever we want to.”

The four of us move out. It's quite exhausting to move in the melting snow. The walk is all the more exhausting, with the other three insisting on us going uphill. But going there seems to pay off, I spot something pink again.

“Another boar,” I tell the others and point in its direction, “can you see it, Dohal?”

Dohal squints his eyes and shakes his head, “no, I can't.”

I knock an arrow and let Aevita's blessing flow through the arrow. Kill the boar.

“Do you have space in your fridge?” Bob asks.

“Yes, there's enough space in it,” I answer while still imbuing blessing into the arrow.

“I see.”

I take aim and shoot. The arrow hits it in the head. No, it penetrated the head. The boar just drops to the floor.

“Whoa!” Bob exclaims, “that was quite a lot of blessing in that arrow!”

“I think I overdid it,” I answer, “the arrow went through its head.”

“It's better than it attacking and injuring you, I guess,” Dohal says, “some people underestimate herbivores and get injured by them. There's a reason we hunt in groups.”

We walk up to the dead boar.

“Why don't you keep this one?” Bob suggests.

“Pardon me?”

“You should keep the meat and pelt of this one. Since you can store it, you should bring the meat with you on your pilgrimage.”

“Isn't this too much?”

“No, it's fine. It just feels wrong to have the lazing hunters profit too much from today's hunt. Especially since it's another boar. I have to say, you're quite a lucky guy.”

“I'll make use of it then,” I answer, “but about the pelt, do you know someone that can process it?”

“I can do that,” Bob answers, “I'm still working on the other pelt, but I can take this one as well. Let's carry this on to your place before disassembling it.”

After arriving at our house, Rowan, Bob and Dohal disassemble the boar while I go to the shuttle.

“Mittens, do you have the schematics for the glasses for Dohal yet?”

“Yes, I have prepared two variants.”

Two pairs of glasses appear, I take them and bring them outside to the others. They are letting the blood of the boar drop into a pit they have dug. How did they…

“Good morning,” Ruby greets me, “I saw you bringing in the boar, so I thought you might need some help with digging a hole for the blood.”

“It helps a lot,” Rowan answers for me.

“How did you know you'll be finding a boar?” she asks.

I tell her about the second boar.

“Yes, that makes a lot of sense. We can ill afford to have a big feast every time you kill a boar, if you keep up with this rate.”

“If killing boars is so rare, isn't there a chance they might go extinct?”

“No, there's no need to worry about that,” Bob answers, “it's just they don't turn up around here that often, you usually find them closer to the Aevita's temple. And over there, there's more than enough of them.”

Dohal notices the glasses in my hands and asks: “Are those the glasses you mentioned last time?”

“Yes, these are two prototypes. Try wearing them.”

Dohal puts the pair with a red frame on his nose and looks around.

“Yes, I can see the pink colour of the snow boar now. It's not strong, but it's more noticeable than without the glasses.”

He swaps his glasses with the with pair with a green frame and looks again.

“These don't seem to work.”

Dohal put the red framed glasses on again.

“Can I just keep wearing them?”

“It should be fine, but since you can see those colours more clearly now, other things might look different or even disorienting to you. So I wouldn't suggest that without further testing.”

“I'll only wear them for hunting in winter then.”

“Can I try?” Rowan asks.

“Sure you can, though I don't think you see notice any difference,” I answer while handing him the green framed glasses to put on. He looks around. His gaze fixes on Ruby.

“Hmm, the colour of Ruby's blessings look… different now,” Rowan states, “completely different from Aster's blessing.”

We all stare at Rowan.

“Could it be…” I ask him, “to you, the colour Ruby's blessings just seemed to be quite similar to mine?”

“Yes…” he reluctantly answers, “to me, it's a different shade of the same colour. Why?”

“No, they're quite different colours!” Dohal answers, “aren't they, Aster?”

“Don't ask me, I'm the one with winter vision,” I answer, “I can't tell you what is considered normal vision!”

We look at Ruby.

“I'd say the colours of the blessings I received are quite different from the ones Aster has,” Ruby states.

So red-green colour blindness is just something Rowan has, and not something all Amaugans have.

“Come to think of it,” Ruby says, “I've always been wondering why you were asking me about Aevita's blessing when I came back from my pilgrimage, even though I haven't received it.”

“So my vision is broken?”

“Different, but not broken,” I state, “in fact, everyone perceives the world slightly differently.”

“If you like, you can keep the glasses, Rowan,” I answer, “it seems they are of use to you after all.”

“I'll use them with care.”

CC-BY 4.0 q. Thái “0xReki” Chung

https://amau.ga/1/16/