Riku was slumped against a wall, taking a moment to plan the execution of the task at hand. Axel waltzed in with a large pile of arrows and dumped them at his feet. Riku sat and began sorting through the arrows, differentiating between the gold tipped and lead tipped.

"You know, I've always been one to talk out of turn," said Axel casually. "And I think that there's more to your father's plan than he lets on."

"Oh do you?" replied Riku, calmly.

"Yes. I've been his servant for almost two centuries and honestly I don't trust him one bit."

"Well that makes two of us. But let's not worry about my father's motives for now."

"Why not?" said Axel, both disappointed and confused.

"Because, in the end, I don't care what his real motives are. I'm doing this out of boredom, remember? The sooner I can get this prince out of my father's hair, the sooner he'll get out of mine."

"Oh what a tangled mess we attempt to brush," said Axel, attempting to be clever.

"Funny," said Riku, not really thinking so. "But either way, the task at hand is simple, so it shouldn't be that big of a deal."

"I have to say, though. You're father has a sick sense of humor. Making someone fall in love with a wall? That's just weird."

"Sadly enough, it's not that weird," said Riku. "People have fallen in love with stranger things. Even gods have trouble finding love in normal places. Just ask Apollo."

"Love's an odd thing, isn't it?" asked Axel sardonically.

"Indeed …" Riku stared forward thoughtfully.

After a moment of watching him, Axel spoke up. "So… have you ever, ya know?"

"Wait, what?"

"You know; golden arrow through the heart? Have you ever tasted your own medicine?"

"Have I ever been in love?" Axel nodded. "I couldn't even if I wanted to." Riku's tone was dismissive but Axel was persistent.

"Oh come on. The god of love has never even frolicked in his own fields?"

"My fields? What? No, it's not that it's just….Never mind. We should both go to bed. We have things to do tomorrow. Goodnight, Axel."

"Aw, but how am I supposed to sleep without a bedtime story?"

Riku sighed, exasperated. This servant was certainly one of the most annoying he had ever encountered. He had never told this secret to anyone (mostly due to the fact that no one ever cared enough to listen) but it seemed Axel would not give up until he was given some sort of explanation so Riku decided to just make with the introspection.

"You see, as crazy as it sounds…. There is a person…. Someone I hold inside my heart."

"They must be very small." Axel grinned, leaning forward and raising an eyebrow teasingly.

Riku exhaled sharply but continued. "Whenever I go to sleep, there's someone there. Always the same person who greets me. I don't know who it is. I never see their face. But they talk to me in my dreams…. And honestly," for a moment, Riku stretched his arm out above him, gazing through his fingers and attempting to grasp the stars, "I don't think anyone else could measure up."

"I don't get it," said Axel.

Riku closed his hand slowly and then dropped his arm. "No….you wouldn't."

"So there's someone who appears to you in your dreams, huh? A woman?" Axel waggled his eyebrows ever so slightly.

Riku grimaced. This was the other secret he had never told to anyone, though it was common enough in the realm of the gods that no one would really care. "No… not exactly."

"Oh so you're one of those," said Axel, understanding immediately. "There seems to be an odd surplus of gods here on Olympus who prefer their own gender over that of the opposite gender. It's almost funny."

"I am the god of love," Shot Riku indignantly. "I don't have to explain myself. I can have anyone I want: man, woman, or even both at the same time."

At this, Axel began to laugh. "Whoah, okay, too much information" Axel's laughter died down after a moment as Riku continued to glare at him. "Although, I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't the exact same way."

Riku, who had been fuming until this point, was pulled up short by the sudden change of Axel's words. He took them in for a moment and then looked back and the servant, who had leaned back to look into the distance, looking pensive.

"You know, I don't think you know the story of how I came to be your father's servant."

Riku said nothing. It was true; he had not heard the story. It had never interested him. Axel had seemingly showed up one day in a tuxedo and long coattails. Riku had never once questioned it.

"Of course," Axel continued, "The main reason I've never told this story is that anyone who wasn't involved didn't give a damn."

"No. You've caught my interest now. I'd like to know," said Riku, attempting to sound aloof so as to hide his true level of curiosity.

Axel smiled wryly. "Alright," he said. "But only because you asked … You see, a long time ago I was actually alive. I was a different person with a different name. Just a kid from a small town with no real direction to go. My best friend, Isa, and I would always get into trouble. He was always the more motivated of the two of us. By the time we were teenagers he had gotten a job and was advancing in school while I couldn't be bothered to care. Needless to say, he was always busy and we didn't have that much time to hang out.

"I was living in constant boredom and every day got lonelier and lonelier. But then one day … I ended up meeting someone. He was asking for directions. He told me he was a traveler and that he was looking for some friends of his. I showed him around the town, we ended up talking, I found out he'd been to dozens of places looking for his friends. His stories were incredible to me. The things he'd seen, the people he'd met, the things he'd had to fight. I couldn't believe it especially since he was younger than I was. He was really small too. He had these big blue eyes that just stared at you like he was begging you to adopt him. After about an hour with him I realized that he was probably the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life.

"We ended up talking until the sun went down. When I asked him where he was going next he said he wanted to stay in the town for a few days. We saw each other every day, a few days turned into a week, and a week turned into two…. I didn't realize it at the time, but I think I was in love with him ever since that first day. Every evening we would climb up on the rooftops and watch the sunset, just talking about everything. When we ran out of things to talk about, we would just sit there, watching the world go by….. One day, I finally just gave up. I kissed him and I told him how I felt. He was surprised but after a minute he told me that he felt the same way.

"The few days that followed were probably the happiest of my life. We planned to leave the town and look for his friends together. I'd get to travel, and we'd get to be with each other. We spent a day or two packing and getting provisions for the trip. When we weren't packing … well let's just say that thing progressed …. Quickly. We were perfect together …. "

There was a long pause. Riku watched wordlessly as Axel sighed unsteadily and ran a shaky hand through his hair.

"The night before we were supposed to leave we decided to watch the sunset from the tallest roof in the town. We scaled the wall and were almost to the top when we realized that the tiles were loose. Before we knew it, we were sliding off the roof. I managed to catch myself on the edge before I fell but I didn't grab him fast enough before he slipped off the roof….. I couldn't even do anything. I couldn't even bring myself to let go …. I watched him fall about 4 stories before he hit the ground face first. Honestly, I'm surprised I didn't pass out from trauma or something. To this day I kinda wish I had... maybe then I wouldn't remember exactly what it sounded like when his skull cracked open on the pavement… The town doctor told me that he would probably die within the day.

"I was desperate. I did the only thing I could think of; I ran to the temple of Asclepius, god of health, and offered myself up. I would have done anything to keep him alive." Axel chuckled in what was clearly a poor attempt to shake off his own emotions, "Ya know, they always told me that the gods answer our prayers but this was more literal than I had ever imagined. All of a sudden, there was Asclepius standing in front of me. So we made a deal. My soul in exchange for his recovery. I would have spent an eternity in Hell if necessary. I just wanted him to live … It didn't work out quite like I'd planned, though. Rather than letting me live out the rest of my life and waiting until I died to take my soul, Asclepius just brought me to Olympus as soon as we'd sealed the deal. He'd held up the end of the bargain. Ventus had recovered by the next day …. But I had disappeared.

"No one knew where I'd gone. The last people to see me were bystanders I passed while running through town to the temple… People stopped looking for me after a while. My parents; even Isa stopped looking for me …. But Ventus kept looking …. He never found his other friends; the ones he had been looking for when he first came to Radient Garden. And he never found me… He ended up becoming lost in the underworld a few months later. He went there to search for me."

Riku had been stunned into silence at this point. He had heard stories with sad endings (being a god of love and desire, you tend to hear many of them) but to hear something like this told firsthand…. He kept looking at Axel, allowing him a moment of pause to reflect on the painful memory. When the moment was over, Axel exhaled quickly and adopted a quicker, much more casual tone for the end of his story.

"So, as soon as I got to Olympus I found out that Asclepius only made the deal with me because your father intervened in the name of love. That and he wanted a new servant. So they dressed me in this ridiculous butler outfit, gave me the name Axel, and since then I've been the unwilling slave of the god of love. Ironic, huh?"

Riku was still at a loss. His eyebrows creased and he avoided Axel's gaze.

"And that," Axel said. "is your bedtime story."

"Pretty depressing for a bedtime story, don't you think?" Riku grumbled.

"Well, either way, we should get some sleep. We have a perilous date with a beautiful prince tomorrow."

Riku snorted, "If that's what you want to call it. Ah, yes, on your mission to retrieve the spies today …"

Axel turned after a moment, "Yes?"

"Did you, by any chance, catch a glimpse of this prince?"

"I saw him for a moment as I was shaking the scouts out of their stupor," said Axel hesitantly.

"… And?"

"To be honest ….. he …. Reminds me a lot of Ventus. He looks just like him …" Axel tilted his head to one side and threw a Riku an unreadable look. "Needless to say, the image brought back some memories and I was stuck there for a while myself."

Riku sighed, slipping back into his defaulted state of boredom. "Well, like you said, we'd better get some sleep if we plan to take out this prince tomorrow."

And with that, Riku walked from the room, dousing the lights as he did so.

Author's note:

DEVELOPMENT ON AXEL'S PART! Oh yeah. X] I personally love the LeaxVentus pairing cos I kinda see it as a parallel to Akuroku. You're free to disagree, but that's just how I feel x]

Okay so this chapter was a little shorter than the last one. I'll be honest, I actually have a decent chunk of this story written but I'm not writing it in order xD

And honestly, writing is really fun but unfortunately I don't always get motivated. :/ But I swear: if at least one person likes the story and really wants me to keep writing, I will write the whole thing for that one person. X] Seriously. So if you like it, then please review and stuff. :) Thanks again for reading this!