[There may be some doubt that this is actually a Gatchaman story. The world and all the names are different, and i'm not sure i should even bother with a copyright announcement (tho' Gatchaman and all characters thereof will never in any reality be mine). Nonetheless, in my mind this cannot be anything else. You probably won't be confused for long.]
Chapter One: One And One
When the boy and his father and mother lived together they were happy. His father the swordsman went to fight the Greencoats though, and didn't come back. One winter his mother grew faint and pale. The healer said she would never be well, so he sold himself to the slavers for money enough to make her last days comfortable. He had black hair and blue eyes, but after that winter he did not smile often.
The winter was hard and the Greencoats advanced. The slavers paid little for those they bought, and spent little to keep them alive. If one lagged behind he was taken from the coffle and killed where others could see, to give them reason to keep moving.
The slaves fought like rats over the food tossed to them. The boy closest to Blue-Eyes had the same birth year, but he was as tall and long-limbed as Blue-Eyes was compact. The slavers guessed he came from a Greencoat rape and called him Killer. It was the only mercy Blue-Eyes found, for when the slavers took out their spite on the boy Blue-Eyes ate his own share and the boy's. Otherwise he was lucky to get any.
On a night of damp weather and boredom they beat Killer more than before. The slavers said he wouldn't be able to walk. They talked about how they'd kill him the next day, with embellishments because part of him was the enemy and this was the closest they could come to revenge.
The dark blue eyes of the other boy were empty and unfocused, but he walked when the others walked. At the end of the day he lay down, and sighed. He did not move when the others scrambled for chunks of dry bread.
Blue-Eyes got two, and broke one in half again to get a piece small enough to soften in his mouth. He squatted as far as he could get from the others, given the neck chains that linked them all at night. That put him nearer to Killer than would have been wise, when the other boy was whole.
The boy's eyes opened. Blue-Eyes stopped chewing. Killer looked at him, and looked past him, and closed his eyes again. His face never changed. There was no rage on it, no fear, none of the cruel amusement with which he'd watch the smaller boy try for food he'd never get. Just . . . a mild curiousity.
("This is what I see on my last night living. Another boy eating what could have been mine, a fallen tree, a sky with clouds. This is all there is.")
Blue-Eyes crawled closer, feeling for the other boy's hand. It found him first. The long fingers caught his throat.
"If you want my shirt, wait until morning. I still need it tonight."
The fingers couldn't grip. Blue-Eyes felt the arm tremble. If fell back to the ground. Blue-Eyes dropped the larger chunk of bread by it and backed away.
Killer needed to use two hands together to get the bread to his mouth. Before he was done, the rest of the coffle were mostly huddled for sleep. Blue-Eyes edged forward and put the last half-piece on the ground.
"The other part is here," he whispered, patting the front of his shirt.
"Give it to me."
"It would be wasted if you die tomorrow. I'll eat it myself if you don't keep moving to the end of the day."
The next day was like the day before. Somehow Killer stayed on his feet. The slavers were uneasy. They said the Greencoat blood made him strong like an animal.
Killer's eyes were different though. The blankness was gone, replaced by something not far from panic. He looked at Blue-Eyes when he thought Blue-Eyes didn't see, then stared at the grey sky when the other boy looked around.
In the evening Blue-Eyes won two pieces of bread again. He gave them to Killer.
"Where is the piece you saved yesterday," Killer asked, when he'd eaten them.
"Ah, I didn't think you'd live all day. I ate it myself when the sun was high."
"Liar. You had nothing saved," Killer said. "You told me a story so I would keep walking."
Blue-Eyes blushed. He turned his back on the other to sleep.
On the following day Killer was almost steady as he walked. Blue-Eyes stumbled and stared at nothing. When bread was thrown to them that evening he got only the smallest chunk. He gave it to Killer.
The other boy divided it meticulously, almost crumb by crumb, and handed back half. Then he took two chunks of bread from in his shirt and handed them to Blue-Eyes, who gave one back.
Working together, the two of them had an advantage even over grown men. They did not sleep empty-bellied after that, not if the slavers gave them anything at all.
Late in the darkness Killer whispered, "Are you asleep?"
Blue-Eyes was silent. Killer spoke in another land's tongue, and then in the one they shared.
"You have fed a clanless cur at your table and he will be your hound. Send me to hunt and I will bring you meat. Though the lion roars your flocks will fatten, for I will ward them. Does any man seek your rest with knife at hand, he shall find me at your lintel."
He shifted to fit his bones to the earth warmed by his body, and he slept. And Blue-Eyes, who had been close to sleep before, lay awake instead.