Reial started as he came out of a deep slumber. His legs no longer ached, and he felt better. Not himself, but better. He didn’t recall how he came to be in this stark white room, nor what happened after he comforted his sister upon their reunion. Time blurred like a Strider without their Sight, blending his dreams and reality of that green-eyed man.

Perhaps he was being too hopeful believing it to be all a nightmare. That when he woke, he would find his sister and drog sleeping beside him in Recunda’s endless fields. With the pink star rising in the sky.

Instead, he found only Charette snuggling up to him. His wet shirt a reminder of the tears they had shed. How long had she cried for? Were her gasps and whimpers so meaningless to him that he had already forgotten what they had sounded like?

Reial pushed those thoughts out of his mind and prayed that sleep would take him again. To that land devoid of sadness and misery, of pain and Coursers, and of uncaring instructors and unhappy childhoods. Where Scorch could prance around happily again, with Yusjek on his back. A time when they can all be together again.

Reial wanted Charette to hate him, to blame him for allowing the Courser to take Scorch. To yell at him for being unable to improve himself, yet all she did was cry and cling to him as if he were all she had. A broken husk desperately trying to repair itself.

Nothing made sense anymore, so why bother? There was no need to get out of bed, no need to put on a smile and act like everything was fine. There was no need to be.

His struggles, his successes, his life, they were all pointless when they’ve never brought him true joy. It was only due to his sister and drog that those emotions could be brought to light. Now one of them was gone, leaving only a hollow heart.

“Not all is lost, Reial,” Linithesis whispered. “For you still have him, and his memory.”

“He’s gone, Linithesis. I’ll never get him back.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because the Courser’s a better Strider than I’ll ever be.”

“Even with enough practice and hard work?”

“It doesn’t matter, nothing I do is ever good enough.”

He was destined to fail at everything he did, so why not embrace it? That way he wouldn’t disappoint himself with what happened next.

“Reial.”

“What?”

“Don’t live a life expecting tragedies and short-comings.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Why not?”

“Because your disillusionment is ultimately false. Our minds work in a way to try and convince us that everything that happens is either predominantly good or bad. That isn’t the case. There’s growth, learning, discovery, stagnation, and change, all of which can never be truly tethered to the ideals of good and bad. They have, and always will be, outliers.

Is joy bad if a twisted individual partakes in another’s suffering? Is sadness good if it can give you the strength to stand back up again? Even if we often view it as a negative emotion. Is it not the individual that decides what is, and what isn’t? We choose to believe that something is inherently good or bad based on a collective perception, but not our own. Aren’t our thoughts greater than those that once were?”

Greater than the Empyreans? Greater than even the Almagest and Solvaylius? Reial had difficulties believing that. Their knowledge was timeless, was it not? To keep pushing forward, to strive for greater heights, to simply be a better person that you could be happy being. Perhaps those ideas weren’t strictly good or bad like Linithesis had stated.

Did that not mean that there weren’t inherently bad things either? What of the home invasion that broke him? Could he not rightfully classify those are terrible?

“Justification is a fickle thing,” Linithesis explained. “It would sate some, infuriate others, but most wouldn’t care at all. Isn’t that common nature though? To accept, refuse, or pass on what has been given to you?”

Reial’s depression was ignited by his fury. “How can you begin to justify what they’ve done to us? We were children.”

“I was but a child when Our great society collapsed. Do you truly believe that a googolplex of beings cared for its justification?” Linithesis countered. “No, they too suffered, some more than others. They didn’t care, they only wanted to survive. The stars do not wait for us, Reial. That is why we must come to them.”

“So, then what? Do you want me to discard my feelings on the matter? To forget about what happened to me like it never happened. Just so I can be happy for your sake?”

“No, I’m not asking you to forget. I’m asking you to accept what’s happened and move on with your life. Clinging to the past will only break you further.”

Tears welled in Reial’s eyes. “Shut up.”

“I understand that they aren’t a pleasant thought, but you need not let it consume you. Instead, try and take away what you can from the experience. Learn from it, heal, acknowledge that it alone wasn’t the sole cause for who you became. And if you can’t, then take your time to come and accept it.. It’s okay to be mad, and it’s okay to cry for the person you once were. Do not mourn what was lost, because together, we will forge a Remnant from the tattered remains. We will blink like the night sky, and burn like the sun for all to bask in. For we are, and always will be glorious stardust.”

Linithesis’s presence burst alight, enveloping his mind’s eye in an ever-burning glow of warmth. Reial remembered, he remembered the loving words of people and Pneuma’s long past. Of a sheltered upbringing in a strange, space-locked environment, and of the stars that spoke to him in odd, quivering voices. Of stories and lessons, of losses and separations. It all made sense to him now. He had never been staring at a light, he had been gazing into Linithesis’s very own being. His remnant of stardust. Pure, radiant, and incomprehensible.

An all-consuming, natural force of undying love and affection, for everything that has ever been, and will one day be. Nothing was spared from his adoration, and yet, Reial sensed a deep underlying sorrow hidden beneath its exterior. One that reared its elegant head out from the bright shadows of his being.

Reial’s mind trembled as he felt tears streak down his face. He wasn’t crying for himself, nor was he crying for Linithesis. He cried because he pitied the splendor which Linithesis’s being shone with. The splendor of an infinite light torn and twisted with immeasurable wounds.