A ring, wide and well-defined, occupied by two children sparring with blunted foils and sweat-sodden faces. Their eyes are narrowed with concentration, jaws tight with exertion, minds occupied entirely by the fight.

Neither is at the age of puberty quite yet, the older boy eleven, the younger merely ten. Their ages are close enough that talent is the bigger separator between them than development, and it is the smaller boy who pushes back his elder. Thin metal rings against thin metal, rattling haphazardly out into the air once or twice each second. Each time the sound rings, the older boy is forced back another step. An unpracticed eye might mistake their bout for some practised choreography, but such an illusion comes only from their preternatural skill.

Were either of these boys to die, the one who remained living would have indisputable claim to the title of earth’s foremost fencing genius.

An unexpected twist sent one sword an inch farther left than was anticipated by its opponent, and the resulting block came milliseconds too late to keep it from slipping past. Metal flexed, a blunt tip struck a shoulder, and the touch was called. Both boys stepped back, taking their helmets off to reveal grinning, gap-toothed faces.

“You were close this time.” The younger of them laughed, shaking his brother’s hand as they’d both been taught to do after a win. His brother shook back, mirroring his smile.

“Closer every time, I think.” It was a lie, and they both knew it, but the younger of them was far too kind to correct such things.

“Fancy another go?” He asked, eagerly. His brother was often not free to spar, which only ever left him with their instructor, Derek. Derek had been an olympian once, though never countable among the best, and despite his years having long since advanced past fifty he was still spry enough that it was a rare day for either boy to even graze him. The youngest of them was certain he’d surpass their mentor eventually, but there was little satisfaction to be found in handily losing to an opponent twice one’s size.

“I think I’m up for it.” The elder grinned, then glared as Derek stepped forwards.

“No, you’re done for the day.” The old man cut in, coolly, rigidly. There was never any arguing with him when his voice got like that, the boys had learned that much long ago.

“I feel fine.” The elder snapped, trying anyway. Nothing came of it of course, and a muscle jumped in his jaw as he glared up at their instructor. “Let me show you.”

Some time passed before the boy finally agreed to take a rest, and he moved to the side of the ring. He’d grown energetic in his arguing, moving around, pacing and hopping- developing body not quite able to master the adrenal energy infusing it in the wake of his fight. In most children, such a thing would have been nothing of any real concern. The elder was not most children.

His heart seized, a sudden, choking pain that squeezed his chest into agonised spasms and had him strangled by the very air in his throat. He dropped down to his knees, trembling and gasping, and in an instant his brother and tutor were by his side.

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He lived, of course. His family was well aware of his condition, and well prepared to keep him safe in spite of it. When the boy’s eyes next opened, they came to rest on his bed, his stabilising medical equipment, and his little brother asleep by his side. It must have taken him some time to awaken, for the smaller child’s slumber was deeply set and unshaking.

A weak heart was what his parents had described. Poor at pumping his blood, and getting poorer still as his body aged and his circulatory pathways lengthened. Some days he could be the athlete, dancing and fighting and wrestling. Others...Others he’d risk death in the attempt.

Days passed, then weeks, then years. The boys continued their training, just as they always had, but it became far scarcer. The elder’s growing frame demanded ever more of is withering heart, and the tortured organ proved a match for the challenge less and less often. Eventually it was a rare day in which he could spar for even so much as minutes.

“It’s fine.” He’d tell his younger brother, lying each time. “We all have our good luck and bad, at the very least this is happening to me instead of you. You’ll actually go places!”

Repeat a lie often enough and it might even convince yourself. The boy managed to lul himself into a near-acceptance of the bare, cruel facts of his life. Almost. He was thirteen now, and it still stung seeing his younger brother spar. The child was barely into the changes of puberty, but already he could beat Derek more often than not.

He never lost to his elder any more, not since the cruelties of life had kept him from his training. As one brother had grown enfeebled and sickly, however, the other seemed only to rise. Training like a maniac, driven on inexorably by the knowledge of his own blood’s illness. The younger tortured himself with his work, tearing the flesh from his palms, ripping muscles to pieces and reforging them into bands of wrought iron. More time passed.

Life is an unpredictable thing, cruel, callous. Ironic. A brother died. The younger. He was walking home one morning when a car struck him, speeding dozens of miles per hour over the limit, impacting the child with such velocity and force as to leave no hope of survival. His hardened bones and musculature gave no real resistance against the tonne of steel battering them.

His family and friends wept, snarling their regret and bitterness, and none more so than his elder. Even after years of chronic agony and invalidacy, nothing could have prepared him for such a loss.

But life is an unpredictable thing, cruel, and callous. And above all ironic. The younger brother’s heart survived his accident, paramedics arriving soon enough to save his organs, if not his life. And it was put to good use.

In later years, the elder would come to consider the legality of his transplant. He was sure there were waiting lists for such things, sceptical, even, that his brother had been a valid donor- the child was, after all, a child. But at the time he only accepted it. The surgery was a success, the recovery no harder than the condition he’d lived with for years, and at its end he had a new chance.

But health and stability were of little comfort to him. He heard his little brother’s voice on every breeze, saw his frame in every shadow. And simply holding a sword again was a reminder that they would never spar, no matter how long he lived. The elder had lived on where the younger had died, and the world had been robbed of its foremost genius.

He resolved to do whatever he could to make the most of his chance, and turn himself into whatever approximation of his more gifted sibling was possible. If only to honour the sweet little boy he’d grown up with, whose smile had been as bright as a sunbeam.