NOTE: I just broke up with my girlfriend prior to writing this, so be aware that it may be a tad more melodramatic than usual. Who knows, maybe the end product will be better than usual.

The records had not lied. Jelice was a very sick boy.

Galley was made all too aware of this fact as he peered over the balcony in Jelice's room – yes they were a rich enough family that he was give a room with two floors – down upon the bed where this frail young boy was lying. He gazed into a withering mirror in the doing: Jelice was he, Galley, just in a debilitated state. As the boy slept his chest rose and fell slowly, but not rhythmically. Sporadic, convulsive fits racked his frame on occasion. His skin was pale, untouched by the sun for ages as it was. Galley had seen, too, the boy as he had been in a waking state: slight of voice, utterly sensitive to even the smallest stimulus, and coughing constantly, Jelice did not fail to live up to his written history.

Yet, for a constantly bedridden and obviously spoiled child (the room was littered with expensive toys and objects that made Galley drool with envy), Jelice was unusually humble. Perhaps incapable of rough speech, his voice was silky and gentle. Every movement was made with the utmost care, and no emotional violence ever seemed to flow through his limbs. Jelice was at peace in mind, if not in body. Galley envied this as much as the decorative opulence, taking place in the form of gilded toy horses and finely bound books of all sorts.

Jelice's parents had been in earlier. Both were surprisingly nice people, tender and merciful to their son. Galley could hardly picture them as being stereotypical nobles, snubbing all life but their own. The scene clashed with his normal sensibilities.

They'd read to the young boy, smiling softly all the while, telling stories of mighty knights and ferocious wyverns, powerful wizards and beautiful damsels, all enmeshed into quests of honour and majesty. And Galley, his back against the wall, squinting through the gaps in the smoothly balusters, imagined it all without difficulty, despite having never been read to before. These two boys were already one, somehow, connected through whatever book it was these gentle adults had in hand.

Galley didn't remember his parents, so it was apt to say that they could never have existed in the first place. Perhaps Galley was just some wandering soul, half of shrunken Jelice down there, the piece that would make both of them whole again. The cure to all ailments. What would it be like, having parents? Would they hold him close? Read to him? Love him? Comfort him? Despite his aversion to physical touch, Galley would've given anything for such an experience. In that time, the notion that both boys were simply two parts of a whole seemed plausible; more, Galley wanted it to be so. Could it be?

Galley had reached up to adjust his cap, forgetting he'd gotten rid of it long ago. His life, all thirteen years of it, was suddenly blended, creating a wholly timeless Galley that was united in its woe. Parents would have been nice. No, they would've been perfect. Galley, every bit of him, knew that his problems, his pains, would all be gone, if he had at least one adult to confide in.

And then they'd ended the story – a happy ending, of course – and left the room, quietly kissing young Jelice on the forehead and departing. One candle was left burning to reassure Jelice, in case he break into a panic attack from the enveloping shadows. Galley's vision of oneness dispersed immediately. They were two people again. Galley's dream returned.

But nagging doubts persisted. Was this the right course of action? Or should Galley seek out a form of guidance instead? Forget his ambitions? It was tempting. Perhaps he could just leave this ailing creature and seek out one of those other destinies presented to him. All seemed unsavoury, but Galley realised that nothing in life was perfect.

Could he have parents?

Who were his real parents? Could he ever find out?

Was a normal, moderately satisfying life possible?

Galley grappled with this question as he sat upon the plush carpeting, rocking back and forth gently, one eye upon Jelice's face. Despite the sickness that assailed his body constantly, his eyes were flat and serene, not even twitching. Did having so powerful a force as parents in one's life evoke such serenity? Galley knew, from the very first, that Jelice took little joy in the richness surrounding him. No, it was the love that flowed through his elder's gifts. It kept the boy alive through more adversity than Galley could imagine.

And he could imagine a lot. He'd grown up in the slums. His life had been a huge tragedy: stripped of friends, of guidance, of meaning. Galley had been forced to mature well before his time. Yet, this boy – and Galley could not help but think of him as a boy, for the glowing radiance of youth was still about him – went through so much more. Could togetherness do this?

Images of the Sewer Rats flashed into his brain. They were all, even Squim, smiling at him, and Galley was amongst them. That was his family.

But something was wrong. Galley saw it in himself. The eyes of Galley, between Marlo and Tricks, his comrades, were all wrong. They weren't sparkling. Shimmering brilliance was gone.

They were the eyes of a hawk.

And, soon, it was no longer Galley as he knew himself, but the man in the black cape, the Galley that had to be; the adult who, in order to set things right again, must be evoked.

Galley stopped rocking. He focused upon nothing, his mind stuck somewhere in outer space, half dreaming. Those hawk eyes bore into him. One demanded compliance; the other promised glory.

Jelice moaned a bit in his sleep, perturbed by a slight pain in his chest. It passed quickly, yet provided enough of a distraction for Galley to look down upon him.

Envy was gone. Desire for belonging, erased and replaced by a wish to get the job done. Parents? Their effect upon a person was negligible. One could easily grow to prominence without such an influence. Power, fame, status – all was perfectly within his grasp.

Right?

But no, no, the desire remained, the envy burned fiercely, a gem in the night of Galley's life; only his dream demanded adult sentiments. Those hawk eyes held prominence, but not utter sway. Galley attempted valiantly to resist, but why? Wasn't that what he wanted? Status? Leadership?

What happened to the admiral at his helm, garbed in the finery of kings?

"No, no, I just want to belong, go away," the poor soul moaned aloud, now rolling on the ground, bumping lightly against the balusters. Why was he backing out now? What was this sudden temptation to remain Galley? Why did his premature being scream out for poverty, for happiness?

A voice filled his head. It was that of the hawk eyes.

"You have already decided, whelp. Now your course is irreversible. Before, I said that a myriad of possibilities lay at your feet; now, you have chosen. You will follow. Your life is now mine, to come unto me as you will."

Why was it so painful?

Galley fled, fully aware of what he had to do yet detesting it already. The shadows swallowed him as Jelice slept below, bathed in light.

One, whole in mind but ravaged in body, the other fit as a fiddle yet mentally unsound, both identical at the basest level. The universe has a cruel sense of humour in dividing two beings who so fundamentally require one another.