Wooden planks.

-

Galley was gone, but not forgotten; instead, he'd been shoved down, down into the cavernous recesses of his own mind, forced there by a personality trait gone mad. The dark part of himself, one might say, except for the fact that this murderous new Galcian was capable of acts of mercy. Even kindness, if he felt like it. Galley knew as much. The problem was, most of the time, Galcian didn't feel like being nice. It conflicted with his interests. The way to success, to achieving Galley's dream, now Galcian's, came through trampling the weak.

Galcian, in his complete frustration over Galley's inactivity, had taken over. Swiftly, brutally, and without remorse. He'd given Galley one final chance to take up the sword, and thrust it through the heart of the Voirel's thus enacting the plan: but Galley, out of his love for young Jelice, refused. It was too much to ask, the plan too inherently monstrous.

So Galcian took over. Galcian, the result of massive mental trauma on Galley's part. A schizophrenic creation. When Galcian's personality had begun to take on shape and form, Galley could not tell: he'd simply been, one day, and never since departed. The hawk eyes. No doubt it was partially a result of Mama's disappearance; but then, his creation may have been smouldering for ages, ever since the presumed capture of Tricks and Marlo.

None of the conjecture much mattered now. Galcian now existed. He now had control. And Galley, left in the pits of his subconscious, without any power over his fate, could do nothing about it. He simply wailed away voicelessly and watched as Galcian burned down the Voirel manor.

Indeed, Galley was no more. Galcian was all.

-

Desmond went first. A shaft of fire pierced him through his midsection, leaving a smouldering, craterous hole about the size of a pineapple. With a heaving gurgle he collapsed.

Lindi and her slim daughter went next. Both had tears streaming down their cheeks; all four dewy trails were incinerated in one blast. It erupted upwards, from the basement, catching the mother full on but merely clipping her progeny. The ashes of one and a half people intermingled in the aftermath, whipped about by crackling spires of flame.

Jelice's brother, not without a hint of military pride, roared with a lion's might and charged Galcian. In a show of respect from one warrior to another Galcian stabbed the older boy, straight through the chest, with a wickedly curved knife. Where'd he'd gotten it from, he couldn't much remember. The transition from pure thought to flesh and blood was not without its peculiarities. Galcian's foe fell to his knees, gasping for air and receiving only smoke. The room was already ablaze.

All this left but one person. Jelice, little Jelice, kind little Jelice.

Waving aside the smoke, ignoring the burning in his lungs and the ash clinging to his face, Galcian climbed atop Jelice's bed and peered down at the frightened boy.

Correction: coughing, frightened boy. Jelice seemed far worse off than his older brother when it came to breathing, despite the fact that the latter bore a pierced lung (amongst other things). His limbs flailed frantically, reaching for some intangible source of comfort but grasping only air. Did he want his mother and father? Probably. Galcian could only speculate as to the answer, however.

"And now," Galcian announced, still gazing down with a sort of revulsion for the squirming creature, "you're mine. Off with yer clothes."

Despite the heady roar of the fire and the incessant crackling of wood, Jelice managed to hear this, and his rapidly glazing eyes filled with confusion. What?

The answer came without pause or mercy, as was generally the custom with Galcian. He bore himself upon the boy and tore Jelice out from below his covers (not without great distaste, either; Galcian enjoyed physicality only when it accompanied violence), running his still bloody knife through the buttons on Jelice's pyjama shirt. The front fell open, bearing skin taught against ribs and a thin line of blossoming red from navel to throat.

"Whoops, guess I should be more careful, eh? Ha!" He yanked the shirt off of Jelice rather roughly, ignoring Jelice's feeble attempts to claw in self-defence. His fingers, virtually bereft of nails, did no damage.

Next came the pants. Galcian, coughing lightly from the mounting smoke – Jelice's toys seemed to be ablaze, now – simply flipped his emaciated cargo over and held on to the bottom cuffs of his fuzzy pants. Jelice slid rather smoothly out of them in a way that would've appeared rather comical under different contexts. With a sickening thump he flopped onto the floor and rolled, face turning a deep purple.

-

Mighty Lord Galcian, resplendent in his finely gilded armour and bearing a spear thicker than a man's forearm, had stood over Jelice in his nightmare. He'd been absolutely gigantic, a virtual bear of a man, with huge, knotted locks drooping down from a jowled face. Like any lord worth his salt, Galcian was mounted upon a muscular charger, one clad like a king. In the nightmare, he'd skewered Jelice with a dozen wounds before galloping off for other conquests.

In short, he'd looked nothing like this young man rampaging in Jelice's room tonight, one small detail aside. And what detail was that?

The eyes, of course. It was all in those avian orbs of his. A hawk. They'd been the deciding factor, that which incited Jelice to dub the wiry creature in his bedroom Galcian.

And he knew, now, as he lay upon the floor, nude, his flesh searing, lungs about to burst, that he'd not been wrong in his estimation. Galcian was a fine name for this angel of death.

He missed his family already. He missed his uncle Samson. But, most of all, he missed that shadowy young boy who'd sat upon his railing for all those months, nameless and friendly. Jelice was no fool: he'd been aware, since the fourth or fifth visit, that his visitor came not in dreams. But that didn't matter, for he'd been a friend. Interloper or no, he'd been a friend.

He'd been a brother.

Where had Jelice's brother gone?

This sorrowful question plagued Jelice as he rolled in agony, until, as a final measure of ensuring his success, Galcian turned one last devastating blast of energy upon his victim. Jelice was incinerated, leaving no trace of his ever having existed aside from a charred hole in the floor.

Was the world really as cruel as this?

-

Having watched this, Galley fell silent. He would not speak again for many years.

-

Galcian discarded his clothes. The act of doing so was difficult: his head, though freed from Galley's annoying chatter, was now incredibly light. The smoke was clearly taking its toll. He wobbled as he worked, tossing aside a ragged pair of shoes and pants far too big.

The ceiling began to collapse. Staggering, Galcian yanked the pyjama pants on. He nearly collapsed into one of the holes he'd made.

Identifying objects became difficult. Galcian managed to run into the sofa in the living room, a china cabinet, and two doors while attempting to pull the ragged shirt on. Why he'd not stolen a fresh pair of clothing from Jelice's drawers was not immediately obvious to him.

The house burned. Several other rooms were catching on, devil's tongues licking out of newly brightened closets and bedrooms. Galcian, lost and confused, wishing he'd done it all far more quickly, staggered about in a frenzy to get out. The front door was elusive.

Upon realising he'd left his moonstones back with his now smouldering belongings, he bellowed, but to little effect: the effort only succeeded in setting the room spinning. It all seemed to be a veritable pinwheel of darkness tinged by flecks of glowing red.

The plan would not work if he was dead. It would not.

It most certainly would not.

Smoke filtered in from other rooms. Galcian could hear the very foundations of the house creaking with pain, now.

It would not do to perish now.

So he collapsed, his will demanding compliance but limbs not obeying. Was this what it was to be a real person?