Redhawk Caldera Fighting a giant goldfish at the South Pole

Backdated to the day after the eclipse.

He slept well through the day, waking only when dusk began to rise. By then, the sun had returned to its usual rotundness, but in the fleeting moment between sleep and wakefulness, Nightjar could still see the crescent sliver on the back of his eyelids. His eyes still felt grainy, so he rose with a loud yawn and smacked his lips, prepared to take a trip to the lake. But when he opened his eyes, all plans for the day fled.

To say his vision was completely gone would be inaccurate, for he could still see in his peripherals. The center of his field of vision, however, was nothing but a whirl of black smudges. They seemed to shift in and out of focus like static, telling him that there was still something there, but the shadows perfectly obscured everything directly in front of him. As a young cub he had glanced at the sun briefly and had a temporary dimming of his vision, but the pain of staring at it had ensured no permanent damage was done.

The crescent sun hadn't hurt his eyes, though, but the damage was as certain as if he had been staring at the full sun for several minutes. His eyes were unaffected from outward appearances but the blankness of his vision would give him away, if not his sudden change in behaviour. He rocked back on his haunches and stared up at the sky, seeing nothing but the waving of tree branches in his periphery. So unclear was it that he couldn't even identify the individual leaves. They were just green smears. It was no vision to work with.

When ten minutes later his sight hadn't improved at all, Nightjar skimmed back his lips, shrunk to the ground in a frightful ball, and snarled loudly, as if somehow he could scare away his affliction, but he knew it was far more serious than that. This wasn't something he could frighten away, no matter how much he fluffed up his hackles. Nevertheless, he coiled in on himself, prepared to strike at whatever came before him... though if anything was in front of him, he could not see it to strike at it.