Hardly

"Does it bother you?"

"Hmm?" Nova glanced upward, noting Mr. Nielsen looking at him. "Does what bother me?"

The human's fingers fiddled nervously with themselves for a moment, before hesitantly pointing up towards Nova's face. "Your eye. I mean, your missing one. Does it bother you?"

Nova immediately resisted the urge to shift his Eye to the empty socket that Mr. Nielsen referred to, and instead tried to give him a friendly, albeit toothy, smile. "Ah, no. Not really. It's uh, just normal, I guess. I've always been this way."

"Having only one eye?"

"Yes."

Mr. Nielsen gave Nova a shrewd look before turning back to his glass, putting his focus on that instead. His short shears made quick snipping motions, putting small slices in the molten glass, and creating a peeling edge around the side. Nova watched him intently, curious about the process, but he was too focused on that to ask any questions. A rarity for him. Usually he found it impossible to keep his mouth shut. Mr. Nielsen never seemed to mind, however. He was already kind enough to take Nova in as an apprentice, even if the scrawny human lad was more than a bit strange and was missing an eye. Still, Mr. Nielsen hadn't ever asked him about it — not until now, that is. 

"Why do you ask?" Nova pressed a moment later, slowly rotating the rod so that Mr. Nielsen could continue his detail work.

Giving a mild shrug, the human kept looking down at his work. "You always seem oddly perceptive at times. Like you have two eyes, and maybe more besides. Like you can see things that are happening before they happen. Or maybe that aren't there."

The Wormling in his throat shifted uncomfortably, making it look like he was just swallowing, but even then, that didn't really help Nova's case much. "I see.. haha.." He laughed nervously at his pun, sweating fingers still keeping the rod in motion. "Well, I guess I've just learned how to deal with it."

The workshop is quiet after that. The human worked silently, skillfully manipulating the molten glass as he uses his tools to shape it. Nova continued to watch him, taking note of his technique, knowing that he'll have to make his own glass before long. But even after the day is over, Mr. Nielsen leaves without little more than a goodbye, leaving Nova in the workshop alone to clean up. He does, dutifully so, clumsily sweeping and putting the tools back in their proper place. He doesn't sleep, but rather paces the workshop over the course of the night, waiting for the human to come back in the morning. And he does, just like all of the other mornings. But unlike the other mornings, Mr. Nielsen is quiet. He says nothing, asks no questions. Only begins his work, and Nova jumps in to help. All day he waits for the human to speak, but it doesn't happen.

It doesn't happen the next day, or the day after, either. 

Over the next week, the workshop remains devoid of spoken words. Nova wanted to be able to break the silence, but he feared losing his position at the workshop, and he needed to make his glass ball, because his life quite literally depended on it. He can't upset this status quo, no matter how fragile it is.

He learned several new things, like how to press glass into molds to give it shaped patterns, and how to smooth the surface while the glass is still hot. It's fascinating to him; humans truly are a clever species. His own project currently is a small glass orb, which is harder than he thought, but he works on making them while Mr. Nielsen words on projects that he doesn't need an assistant for.

"There's been another like you before."

Nova looked up, Mr. Nielsen's voice startling him for a brief second, considering the days they'd spent in complete silence. "What do you mean..?"

The human shook his head, pressing his hands to his knees before standing up. "She was like you," he reiterated. He walks over to his work bench, opening one of the drawers and rifling through its contents. Nova watched him nervously, not knowing what was happening. 

Mr. Nielsen looked through two drawers before he seemingly found what he was after. Holding something in his hand as he walked back towards Nova. Depositing it in his hand.

A glass orb, almost half the size of his palm. It's heavy, like a large marble, and the glass is an odd shade of green, and is entirely opaque. But the thing that Nova noticed about it, first and foremost, was the layered pupil in the midst of the glass. He clenched it in his fist, looking up at the human, who looked right back at him. "She was here years ago," My. Nielsen said, pointing to the glass eye in Nova's hand, "That's what her eye looked like. Not entirely unlike yours."

"You.. you know, then?"

"I know."

Nova's hands wrapped around the glass eye, his thumbs pressing against the smooth surface. "Why didn't you just say so, then?"

"I wanted to make sure I was right.. and I wasn't sure if I wanted another one of your kind in my life." He looked over at Nova, eyes narrowing for a brief moment, and wondered if he was even doing the right thing by saying anything about it. But it was too late to turn back now. "She.. was my wife. I knew what she was, more or less. It didn't matter to me. She fancied me, and I her. We shared many years together."

Mr. Nielsen turned away, looking out the window instead of looking at Nova now. "But I guess my mortality got to her. I got older. She didn't like it. Didn't want to get any more attached to me if I was just going to die someday. So she left one night. Never even said goodbye. I made that there, just so I would have something to remind me that she really had been here. Before I'm too old to forget."

---

Nova stares out of the orb he sits in, gazing out into the infinite recesses of cold space. His large ears twitch as the fading whispers of memories pass through his mind, wondering what he was trying to remember. The Wormling spits out his Eye into his clawed hands, and he holds it carefully. Staring at it for a few minutes. 

Hmm. He can't seem to remember what it was, although holding his Eye like this also seems to trigger something in his head. 

But that just makes it all hurt. He pops the Eye back into his mouth, and begins dragging the flats of his hands down the glass, beginning to spin the orb. Moving it forward.

He'll remember some other time.