No, it had never mattered, but there were times when it felt like things mattered, when it felt like every, little insignificant thing mattered a great deal. Ideally, people would go on thinking that things mattered because it gave them meaning and some kind of purpose, some kind of hope. To that was to lose everything, and knowing that, Laruku had decided that nothing mattered. Losing everything had been the only way to come out of it with some half-baked sanity. It was ironic, somehow. Most people needed things to matter to keep going; he needed the opposite. It was empty, but not feeling anything meant he had no reason to run away either. It was really too bad the apathy was never a permanent thing, though sometimes it seemed to be. It was in their nature to care and to feel that things mattered. It was hard to fight against nature.
Laruku didn't say anything else as his cousin walked off. He didn't know who was waiting for her, and almost didn't remember who Jefferson was, but he supposed that it was good for Iskata that she had people there in one sense or another. If there was ever anyone that had cared, then certainly it was her. She cared too much, but she was, perhaps, happier that way. He couldn't tell, really, but he waited until he thought she was out of sight, and then he turned and went back the way he'd come.