Night troubles 2

"I don't sleep. Your head is troubled." The gingerhead stated cut and dry. He didn't even need to look at Ellianor guess his thoughts, and guess it right. It made the black-haired man uncomfortable.

Before an answer could be given, the gingerhead continued. "Let me guess, ripped away from your world, and with so much crap in your mind that you can't keep up with the pace." For a moment, he scrubbed the blade with more strength against the wetting stone.

"You now have to deal with this new world, and try to survive, adapt to it." Another loud scrub came from the wetting stone as if the blade itself was screaming in pain.

It made Ellianor wince.

Worse was how the man seemed to think, to know how it was going for him, how Ellianor's head worked. "I have seen that song and dance many, many times." He returned to wet his blade silently.

"A dragon destroyed my world. The corruption overtook it. I was reincarnated. I was transmigrated. I was placed into another body. I was killed." Magenta eyes narrowed against the blade's edge.

With an unnatural light in the purple orbs, the emotionless voice of the man took on a sharper edge. "Your situation is not quite special. Nor is your pain. Stop worrying, you are yet another pebble in the star ocean."

'Another pebble in that realm of chaos.' A soul lost in the realm they were forced to inhabit. "You should just live your life. Nothing has changed, you merely broadened your horizons." once again he spoke as a matter of fact.

Ellianor closed his eyes. 'You are not wrong.' There were many earths, which meant many humans lived and died already, and many continue to live and die as they speak about this.

It was not taking into account the other planets inhabited by humans, and alien species. In the face of everything, his suffering was meaningless, and he should live his life happily knowing nothing changed, it only was transformed and opened to him.

Ellianor laughed. It was a good show of nihilism. It showed that his worries are for naught, and everything could be alright if he fought for it, since nothing has changed. 'I can't accept that.'

It placed a smile on his face, that roundabout cheer, but Ellianor was not that of a person. "The suffering of one does not nullify the hurt of another. I'm far too petty and self-centered to accept that."

Pettiness and pride were not characteristics Ellianor would describe himself with, but there were times when he could not help but indulge in petty grudges and emotions.

"My life is mine, and I know it will hurt, and will be filled with crap I will have to deal with, so I will push through and pull myself together." He smiled back at the gingerhead, that raised his magenta eyes to meet his.

The pupils were slitted, and a supernatural arc of light rested in his iris, wrapped around his pupil. "I don't need to negate or say my suffering is meaningless to walk forward. I will shoulder my pains, and deal with them. That is what an adult like me does."

Their eyes continued locked on each other in refusal to give away space for the other, to back off in this childish stare contest.

"I see what you mean. It is a good mindset, but solving your pain is harder, and less effective, than numbing yourself to it."

The gingerhead spoke dryly, his movements over the blade stopped.

"Even if I am numb to it, the pain will stay there, I would rather get it off me, than let it gnaw me from inside." Ellianor knew what was like to have a pain you couldn't escape.

Two curses that were constants in his life. He could not escape them, the prices of land were too high, his salary too low, and there was no one to help him through that metaphorical hell.

Before the gingerhead could continue, Ellianor cut him off. "I know there were pains that you can't escape but… you shouldn't stop working towards fixing it, and erasing it from your life, even if it is hard."

His life savings back on Earth, his Earth, will be forgotten, and no one will ever know the money he saved to buy an apartment to escape his remaining family.

A slow, and excruciating process, now null and wasted.

Life had its own cruel jokes. He escaped that life to find himself in one more deadlier, and now the line between those two lives was blurred.

That was the worst one between the two? Ellianor was the only one who could answer it.

The gingerhead's eyes softened, as he returned to sharpen his blade. "I see. That is not a bad mindset to have, even if I find it not optimized. My name is Muriel. Greetings, Ellianor."

Ellianor had heard his name before, somewhere in this same hub, but now was the first time he introduced himself.

"Greetings, Muriel." The man's face was tired, and his eyes showed the faintest lines of age.

A name so soft, and pure like Muriel was not the best fit for a man like that, it was what Ellianor's instincts told him.

The man had a dangerous, aloof aura around him, even if he didn't act upon it, or enforce any act of violence.

'Maybe there was a time when he was not like that?' Speculations would give him no answer about that person's nature, or why he was like that.

For the first time since Ellianor saw Muriel, he stopped wetting the blade and got up from his corner of the room.

"Do you want to talk? I doubt Urienm had given you the answers you seek, much less the ones that are important to you. He is always so worried." For a moment, Ellianor saw the faintest marks of a smirk on the ginger's face.

It was deliberate. It was an open show of hostility towards Urien, and he wanted it to be seen. Ellianor gulped, and got up. "I don't see… why not we shouldn't talk."