Two blue eyes stared into a man's green eyes, one so bright it was incandescent.
The man's eyes were glossy, and his gaze displayed great pain.
The man had just revealed a painful truth to the girl with the blue eyes.
It was the truth of his sacrifice.
The girl to whom the Blue eyes belonged looked at him, her face covered in the tears of Confession, her expression displaying a look of someone who couldn't fathom the true meaning of his words, nor could she understand the pain it caused him to simply tell her.
Perhaps had he told his best friend, he could've helped better; perhaps had the man told their mentor, who had traveled through hell with the man, then perhaps the situation would not be as it is now.
The man was in pain from the apparent sacrifice and the mental stain of his previous duel.
The girl Selen couldn't understand why, of all those who were better suited, she was the one who was told.
Perhaps he had told them in the past, and they neither could understand the reasons nor fathom the absoluteness of his predicament.
But she instinctively knew that she was the first to learn of this information.
Her mouth moved as if wanting to speak, to comfort the boy, but no words left her mouth; tears rolled down her face, sliding into her parted red lips and filling her mouth with the salty taste of her own incompetence.
Her own uselessness.
Selen was almost always incapable of feeling emotion, and somehow, against all odds, she was able to use this incompatibility to understand her own sacrifice; however, she did not know the truth of it.
Knowing, with her knowledge of another, she could put a name to the element, the cost of power, the sacrifice.
She could help, or she wished she could.
"...I...Sacrifice..."
She was only able to barely mumble these words; the knowledge was there, the emotions were there, but she couldn't fuse the two into anything helpful.
Nothing that could solve this problem.
The boy looked at her with such pain in his eyes; she wished she could help, she wished she was more useful to him.
But wishes aren't something that can help her.
Selen closed her mouth, restricting the tears from flowing onto her tongue any further.
She shut her eyes and moved her head to look at the floor.
She focused her brain on one task, restricting the intake of knowledge, and forced it to look only for solutions to two problems that faced Solaris.
"Solaris... I don't know how to help... Im sorry, im so useless."
She stopped speaking and opened her eyes, avoiding his own.
Had she looked up, the man's expression had shifted from the former look of pain into somthing else, but she did not.
She couldn't help; she didn't understand. All the tools to solve the broken puzzle that was Solaris were in front of her, but she didn't understand how to use them.
She opened her mouth and spoke again.
"I don't know how to help; I don't truly understand, but I do know one thing: this may be all i know. I know that you are not a murderer, Solaris. I know that you would never kill anyone for self-gain, kill anyone out of malicious intent; you are a good person. I know this because... I have killed many times. The reason I'm referred to as an ice devil isn't for any reason other than the way I was found."
Selen stopped having trouble spouting the next part.
Had she been emotionless, then she would've been able to say this even as a joke.
But in this moment, when she was feeding all of her nova into the small ball of ice behind her, she felt everything.
The memories of her past, the feelings of the present, and the fear that would likely come after her next sentence.
Selen choked down her pride and threw the fear back, just far enough to let her words out of her throat.
"Solaris, I lied to you. I told you murder was a habit; I told you that I had no reason to kill those in that gang; I told you my parents were killed before I got home."
She paused, struggling to get out her words.
"But that was only half-truths. The truth is that I killed my parents, I killed everyone in that gang, and I killed the hunter who found me. I killed out of hatred, fear, and out of necessity. That's what I told myself at least, but no, I killed them because I wanted to. I wanted them dead for hurting me; I wanted them dead for discarding me; and I wanted him dead for laying out this truth to me."
Selen's face shifted into a look of immense pain, as the truth hurt her more than anything else ever could.
Selen lifted her head, looked Solaris in the eyes, and spoke.
"Murder is a habit, Solaris, and I'll understand if you're scared of me as..."
Selen's sentence was cut short as Solaris dropped to the ground and wrapped her in a tight embrace.
Selen's body shuddered for a moment, then it stopped; the terrifying pressure that the touch of others brought was not present with Solaris.
Or at least the pressure was subdued.
"Solaris? Why are you touching me?"
Solaris didn't answer; instead, he stayed wrapped around her for a while.
After a while, he spoke in a soft whisper.
"Thank you, Selen. You saved me again."
Selen was lost; she had done nothing, nothing at all.
And yet he was claiming to have been saved by her.
It didn't make sense.
Nothing made sense.
She was at a loss for words, but a few still squeaked out.
"How could I have possibly saved you? I'm nothing but a murderer, a devil."
Solaris smiled faintly.
"Two reasons: one, you didn't lie to me; you told me the truth. It wasn't a pretty truth, but it was the truth. You didn't try to understand because you couldn't, like an angel or a saint would. And two, because you trusted me, as I trusted you. From one murderer to another, thank you. Selen."
Selen didn't understand; even after he explained it to her, she still didn't understand.
The meaning and reason behind his words were lost on her, as they always seemed to be.
In the dark room, she was lost about his reason for being a hunter, and now she was lost about his reason for claiming she had saved him.
Perhaps she would never understand him.
Solaris finally moved off of her, the heat from his soul once again warmed up the room once again.
Solaris extended a hand down, offering it to her.
Looking up, Selen timidly reached up and grabbed it; he pulled her off the floor, bringing her to her feet.
An ever so slight smile rested on Solaris's face.
Somehow he felt better; something was still wrong, but he knew that facing it would be easier if he told the truth to Selen, just as she had done with him.