Axel returned a short time later, a young man with him; he was young and dressed as a performer from the circus, in one hand he held a lyre, in the other a small bag, on his face a wide smile of paint and a happy smile of lips and teeth.
"This is Demyx" Axel said, patting the boy's back, "I found him out of a job and on the road, so I asked if he wanted to work for a count. What do you say?" Count Marluxia looked at the boy intensely and then asked,
"What can you do?"
The boy bowed very deeply, looking awkward and rushed, saying,
"So please your lordship, I sing, play, juggle, and I was an acrobat in the circus."
"Show me."
Demyx removed seven or eight brightly colored balls from his bag and maneuvered them expertly through the air, I was already impressed by this feat, even more so when he began catching them behind his back and on his nose or bounced them on his elbows and knees, all a perfect performance done with complete focus, without fear of failure.
Next, he performed a series of complex physical acts that involved rapid aerial stunts in quick succession and displays of flexibility in ways I did not know a human was supposed to bend.
"And what song would your lordship like to hear?" Demyx asked as he picked up the lyre.
"Any song that will convince me to keep you," he responded dryly, "don't hesitate to impress me."
The poor boy squeaked and nearly dropped his instrument. Against the wall Axel was laughing at him, and I alone took pity on him to give him a nod of encouragement, whispering to him,
"Go on."
At that, Demyx played a few notes and broke out into song. He used the lyre expertly and sang us a story about a foolish young girl who wanted to marry the Spirit of Winter. When this spirit refused her love, she flung herself into a pond and was encased under a layer of ice, so when the Spirit realized his true feelings, she was already dead. It's odd, but all the saddest stories have winter in them, I think, and I myself pitied the maiden, if only because young Demyx's singing was so enchanting.
As the last note faded into the air, Count Marluxia's applause echoed throughout the room.
"What a charming little musician. Vexen, was that not a lovely song?"
"Indeed it was." Demyx smiled brightly and bowed.
"Thank you milord. Thank you, thank you!"
The count flicked his wrist at Axel and said,
"Take my new fool up to the countess, would you? She's in her study." Then as they were leaving he added, "Are the flowers in the garden?"
Axel's smile reached the marks on his face when he said,
"Come on, you trust me more than that, don't you my liege?"
"I trust you enough to find me the most beautiful flowers," the count poured himself another cup of tea, "but I want assurance you got the job done right."
The guard crossed his arms and clicked his tongue impatiently.
"The flowers are in the garden, arranged just as you like them. Everything's been taken care of, all they need now is to pass your inspection, which I don't doubt they will."
"You have a habit of disappointing me though, Axel. Are they tender young buds like I requested, or did you forget that detail? The whole point to my gardening is that I wish to raise them to maturity myself."
"Then be at ease, they're all as young and healthy as I could find, green down to the last one. Now excuse me as I run this delivery, Countess Larxene would appreciate the company of a fool..."
"I hope this delivery is better than the last, I detest disappointment and I find your taste somewhat lacking."
Axel's eyes drifted curiously towards me and back again.
"Well, I'm beginning to think you've got no taste at all."
Count Marluxia choked on his tea and laughed out,
"Nicely put, Axel. You're right in that we must not keep my dear Larxene waiting, she'd enjoy the company of a...talented young bard."
Axel and Demyx left the room and I was about to leave as well when I had the urge to ask,
"Is the countess always alone?"
He responded with faint surprise, covering his bewilderment that I even thought to ask that.
"My lovely Larxene? Of course not, she usually spends mornings in her study and has afternoon tea with me. You see, she prefers solitude to dull company and she's even more selective than I am about who she spends her time with."
"So you don't," I hesitantly stated, "have bad relations with her?"
He chuckled and looked at me with a mischievous glimmer in his eye as he said to me, "We get along splendidly, no doubt about that. We drink the best tea in the late afternoons, followed by dinner and wine, and then we entertain each other until the early morning hours."
Zexion entered to clear the table. "Good day, Dr. Vexen."
I remember that I didn't get much done that night for being so sore about the captain's accusations. I also remember I slept without dreams.
Axel only came to breakfast that once, after that I dined with the count alone. I never knew what he did after morning tea, and I wasn't curious enough to ask. I found out from Zexion, one day in the library, that the count spent most of his hours in the labyrinth garden he was so fond of. I did meet with the little jester again, however, he came down with a cold and was sent straightaway to my workplace.
"This always happens, every winter." he said as I made a syrup to stop the hacking that broke into his every few words.
"Stay out of the cold," I advised, "and try to keep yourself warm at night."
Demyx chirped, "Will do sir, not that I have much else to look after apart from my health."
"Take care of yourself. After all, who else would be able to entertain the countess?"
He smiled sheepishly and wrung his hands, having no juggling balls to hold.
"The countess stopped calling me a few days ago," he sadly declared, "I think she's grown bored with me."
I didn't think much of his down-hearted tone, I found I couldn't relate to it, I just handed him the flask and ordered him to drink it all down and not complain about the taste.
"Do you like Count Marluxia?" Demyx asked after handing me the empty cup.
"He's an interesting man," I said after some thought, "who comes from nobility and has embodied all their graces. He is educated, courtly, and has a fine taste in tea, though he devotion to flowers concerns me from time to time..."
"No," he interrupted, "I meant...oh, never mind."
I was having trouble balancing the tasks of working on my research and listening to the jester prattle so I exclaimed,
"Out with it boy! I don't have all day, just say what it is and leave!"

"Is Count Marluxia your friend?"

Demyx regretted saying those words; his face pulled in like he was expecting a blow and his hands were nervous fists at his sides. What came from me was not an attack but a strangled response,
"That is preposterous! He just uses me as morning company for a lack of courtiers, we don't have the emotional ties you are referring to. He is a lord after all, and I'm..."
"A peasant?" His expression was so timid and saintly I mistook it as condescending.
"I am not a peasant! I was going to say that I hold the equivalent position of a minor church official, which is more than I can say about you in any case." Demyx took a step back and nodded his head in a single slow motion.
"I see. Forgive me doctor, I was out of line." Then he dropped to his knees and pleaded, "Please don't tell the count! I'll never, ever be insubordinate again!"
I dropped my pen mid sentence and didn't bother to pick it up.
"What on Earth are you wailing for? Why would I say such a thing to Count Marluxia?"
He knelt there on the ground, sobbing and trembling, saying to me,
"Axel told me that I should never ever get out of line in this place, and that if milord was ever displeased with me, I'd be killed and replaced without a second thought!"
The very idea, I thought, was completely absurd; I couldn't see the amiable Count Marluxia, who was so against the hierarchy of society, to order execution for something so trivial.
"Don't pay Axel any mind, he's the scourge of humanity."
"Oh," Demyx said as he dried his eyes, "well, he did have the heart to take me in though, right? He could have left me to die on the streets where he found me, so in a way he saved my life."
"Where did he find you?"
He assumed a sitting position, realizing that the danger had passed and said,
"I was kicked out of the circus a few days prior and I only had enough money to get myself drunk. So there I was, out on the dark roads of the village of Hollow Bastion with my juggling balls and lyre; too drunk to stand but too sober to cry, and then Axel came along in a riding coat, pulling a cart with the Count's delivery. He asked why a circus man was out on the street and then proposed the court jester position.
"It got a little hazy after that, because the next thing he did was bring me to a bar to get me some more drinks and talk. He said he would take me to Lacoste as long as I followed all of his conditions: I would do as I was told without questions, I would never go outside, I would never enter any door that was closed without being bidden, I would never enter the Western Wing without and order from Axel, milord, or milady. I would drop any subject that was refused to be spoken of, and I would not look inside of the cart."
Axel was most certainly insane, I thought, to impose so many groundless restrictions on the young man...perhaps he was just that cruel.
"He's obviously trying to scare you, the count isn't anyone to be afraid of."
Demyx's expression softened until it was his naturally cheerful disposition.
"You're right doctor, I'm being frightened about gossip and nothing more. I shall just put these worries aside and practice my act, maybe write a new song!"
"That's wonderful," I said, finally reaching down to retrieve my pen, "but I have research to attend to and I've put it off long enough, so if you could just..."
"Right, say no more, I'll just go now." To my amusement and annoyance he did back-handsprings to the door and with a friendly wave said, "Thanks for everything!" before bounding down the hall.
The night's efforts turned out to be, as usual, hardly the success I'd been expecting, and I returned to my room to get some sleep. As I looked outside, I found myself alert and restless, because I was remembering my nightmare about the black ghoul. It was foolish and unfounded, yes, but it was only to be expected when my upbringing before my studies were filled with superstitions and tales of poltergeists and vampires and other creatures of imagination. My mother and father, both stricken down respectively by disease and broken heart in my youth, found it vital to relay these stories to me, as they believed that those monsters walked among us and were a danger to us. In the monastery, I learned about creatures created by the forces of evil, demons of greed and pride. Though I never believed in any of those creatures, my mind did not, could not, draw a more sensible conclusion, so I decided that the specter was merely a nightmare, a ghoul in it's own respect, a beast that rode through the world of sleep, not the world of men.
That night I dreamed of Hell, and the shrieks and screams of the condemned souls were outside my window and around my ears.