A/N: A fic originally written for a contest I participated in (won second place! :D) but I changed it to Riku and the gang. Very dark - rated M for a reason. This is the prologue, so it's a little slow setting the backstory, but trust me when I say that it'll get to action in the next chapter. It's all written, after all ;) Enjoy! RxR please.

A darker take on the fairy tale 'Rapunzel'.

To Touch the Earth

Prologue

The attack was fierce.

The caravan's soldiers had struck in broad daylight, as if their victory was so clear that there was no need to conceal themselves. The foot soldiers had struck first, the guards protecting and filling the cages with new game.

Women, and children.

The men of the village were easily overpowered – there was really no point in even struggling, for they were so easily overtaken by the trained soldiers that they fell similarly to flies being swatted away, with no effort needed. So, although they wanted to save everyone, to put an end to this madness, they were powerless.

The village air was thick with the stench of blood, screams and sobs of the dying and captured alike filling the air as the soldiers simply did their jobs and herded who they needed to. It was quite a quick affair, actually – no more than thirty minutes passed until the entire village was either completely packed into the slave cages, or lying face-first into the harsh dirt, never to be buried or to rest in peace.

The children cried soundlessly in fear of their captors, too scared to let a moan slip past their trembling lips. The women were the same – separated from the young ones in the other cages, all the women could do was watch tearfully and remain quiet as the men threatened and smirked and licked their lips lewdly at them. A few of the older ones – they only took women under the age of twenty, slaughtering the rest – simply prayed, hands clasped together tightly and lips moving fervently to the gods. So, with the slaves' lack of words came a heady silence which stung and horrified almost as much as the smell of death and decay and copper which filled the air.

It was just too much.

"Please, please don't-"

The cry had been the only plea muttered in the cages, and the leader of the caravan examined the young boy through the opened door. He had been inspected like a foal for sale for what had seemed like an eternity – it burned his cheeks in humiliation and fear as the guards grabbed him at last and dragged the boy to the most elegantly furbished of the wagons, which was obviously set aside for the owner himself.

The boy continued to sob and cry as the owner looked at him further, interest piqued as he examined the younger's features. The boy was pretty, even with the tears, he decided – quite so. In fact, he quite liked hearing the young voice cry out. The boy's hair was what caught his eyes initially, the smooth, shining silvery strands – similar to his own, but so much more beautiful – begging to be twisted and pulled. And, with practically flawless, albeit tanned skin from working endlessly in the sun, long, fluttering eyelashes and light emerald-teal eyes set over a strong nose and full lips, he also decided that the eight year old was too pretty to be wasted as a slave. The coiling in his stomach told him so, told him that it would be wise to keep this one out of the market and set him aside for his own amusement.

So, he made the guards relinquish their grip upon the boy's arms and pulled him into his 'chambers', ignoring the shrieks and pleads and runny nose and fear as he stripped the child down to nothing but a bare babe and mercilessly turned child into adult.

A quick blow to the head sent the boy reeling into the depths of unconsciousness as the owner finished for the last time, where everything was black and cold and merciless. Yet, subconsciously, he knew to embrace the last dregs of his purity – for the same torture he had just suffered would not end for a long, long time to come.

He was a handsome man, dark and strong and brooding. Power settled upon his shoulders like a cloak, and magic glittered everywhere from his endless, golden pools of vision to the self-made spidery crown which rested upon his temples. A long, stern nose set over full lips and a chiselled jaw only strengthened his dark image, muscles in his lean body rippling underneath his expensive tunics and breeches.

He was the epitome of beautiful, akin to a god's form. To the outside, he was godly – powers which could be rivalled by no man, the ability to tap into the world's life force if necessary to fulfill his needs and desires, and his sheer perfected form made him something to speak of in legends.

His name was Ansem, Seeker of Darkness.

To Riku, however, he was simply 'master'. Never was he allowed to speak his name – it was forbidden, written in magic as part of the rules which he had placed upon the boy from childhood.

Never say his name out loud. Never speak unless spoken to. Never ask for anything. Never try to run away from Keep. Never try to end his own life. And, most importantly, never disobey the master.

Riku wasn't his real name. He was Riku, for that name was easy to cry out when the elder hit his peak and shot his seed deep into the child's throat or core every time the mage came for a visit. It was an easy name to say when he carved things into pale skin, when he blindfolded the boy and gagged him and didn't let him see the light of day through even the window. It was easy to whisper it tauntingly in his ear as he carved his name, his mark, his insignia, endlessly into skin by blade and seed and magic.

The boy didn't remember what his real name was anymore – but then again, he didn't remember a lot of things anymore.

Like how the earth felt like. Distantly, the image of fields rested in his memories, hazy and blurred by time and pain. In those faint, distant pictures, long grasses swayed gently among tiny buildings, with little children running around and laughing. Adults worked the earth, growing crops, while the little ones rolled in the mud and shrieked with delight. And he remembered singing, singing songs of innocent play and of love and warmth.

It had been years since he had seen the earth, or felt it underneath his touch. It had been years since he had felt the wind, or tasted fresh air – in Keep, he never really felt much of anything other than cold and wet and stale air.

He couldn't remember if he had been little once upon a time, nor did he know if he was even 'big' right then. It had been eons since he had last seen his own reflection. It was also hard to judge what he really was, considering the fact that there was nothing to compare himself to – well, other than Ansem. And comparing oneself to Ansem was an impossible feat, for there was no way to achieve that level of immaculateness.

But rarely did he see the master. Always 'working', he was told – working to snatch others cruelly away from their own homes and sell them for slavery. Riku understood the concept of slavery. He had had it explained once – it was what Riku was to Ansem, an object to use for fulfilling every whim and want and scrap of need.

Riku didn't know if he liked it when the master was there. It was wonderful to see him, especially after the long, long trips when he went to foreign lands far away from the little tower – for by the time the mage came back to Keep, all the food in Riku's bowl usually ran out. He knew that if he had three mouthfuls a day he'd live, and with the constant supply of rainwater directed into his dish from the funnels outside of his window, he was usually satiated. However, the bowl could only last for so long, and Ansem never allowed anyone else to come into the tower.

It the chains binding his wrists to the stone and mortar were just a bit longer, he might be able to grab some of the dried foodstuffs the mage always left in the chest opposite to his chains, but they were not longer than his forearm, and he was bound stuck. The only place he could really go to was the chamber pot, spelled in order to make what little waste his frail body created disappear the next morn.

Only Ansem could see him. He was too hideous for the rest of the world. And because of that, it would be a lie to say he wasn't glad that no one else came into his tower to ridicule him, to torment him like Ansem said they would. That was why he hadn't built any stairs, opting to simply steal away from his caravans at night and into the tower using his god-given powers. Riku was safe with him, hidden away within Keep, far away from the judging eyes of the rest of the world.

But Ansem, Ansem sometimes called him beautiful, called him wonderful in all his glory as he marked the younger as his. Riku didn't know if he liked the feeling of being used and pounded into whenever Ansem came back to give him more food, if he liked those brief moments of feeling bigger than he really was when the engorged length was within him all the way. He felt stronger when the master was there; bigger, more powerful, with that body flush against his own. It was his only opportunity to taste a higher level of life.

Ansem's favourite part of him was his hair. It was long – he wasn't allowed to cut it, after all. Riku deeply wished he could, but he didn't allow any sharp objects in the room which the boy could cut it with. Sometimes, when the mage was angry at him for disobeying or due to a bad deal made with the caravan, he would take those beautiful locks which kept him company and bind his body, leaving him cold and exposed in the moonlight upon the icy floor.

However, every time Ansem came and after he was satisfied, he would brush those never-ending locks with such a tranquil heart that it made the boy weep. Ansem was truly his only friend.

He couldn't deny that it hurt, though. Every time he came to see him, every time he removed the lacing of his dress and dug strong, elegant fingers into the spaces between his ribs (they didn't show on Ansem, which was strange, because the bones jutted out disgustingly strong upon Riku's own meager body), it burned more than anything.

It left deep, purple and blue and green markings all over his pasty white skin, each mark hurting more than the last, each thrust ripping him apart as he pressed flat against the unforgiving brick wall which he was bound to, each insult the elder threw out to his beloved Riku tearing his heart to pieces. And even when he kissed the boy everywhere and called him beautiful again and called him his afterwards, tracing that mark he had carved so long ago upon Riku's skin with his tongue and fingers and lips, Riku still couldn't forget the pain.

However, when he was left behind in the morn, it was absolutely unbearable.

He tried to keep his mind occupied, but one could only do so much bound to a wall. His boredom may have been eased if he was allowed to look out of the window – but Ansem made that forbidden. Others might see him, he said, and that would only hurt him in the end.

Riku trusted Ansem. He was the only one the boy knew, after all, who he could trust.

So, Riku found solace in singing. Ansem didn't like it when he sang – it was too loud, and someone as painfully different as him (so ugly when Ansem saw him and so beautiful when Riku had given what the elder had wanted) needed not to voice out thoughts in such a crude manner. But he liked his own voice – it was sweet, and that sweetness reminded him of those rolling hills he had come from.

There were times when he wondered what it would be like to die. To simply not eat anything in the bowl, to not drink from his dish, to wind his thin little neck up in the chains which bound his wrists and cease to breathe. And, more than once, he had experimented with that curiosity.

But the magicked collar upon his neck, the one with Ansem's blood coursing through the veins left in the living metal, prevented him from trying to make those dreams a reality. The collar had been an addition to his wardrobe when he was eleven. He had tried ignoring the dish, tried succumbing to the sense of eternal slumber where he distantly remembered his family awaited him, but Ansem had found him too soon. Ever since, it was a dark, heavy weight upon Riku's neck, despite it being so thin in reality – the power, linking Ansem back to him, warned the mage if his slave was ever close to his death.

And when he tried again to give up his life, Ansem had teleported into that room with the most evil aura surrounding him that Riku had ever seen.

His body had been broken for days.

So, all Riku could do was sit in his tower, watching the golden sunlight enter the small room and tell him when the days passed, his only companions the sunlight of day, the darkness of night, and his own voice sweetly singing sorrows inside Keep.