-Marluxia's Garden-

Marluxia turned a corner so quickly trying to run to check on his garden that he slid across the floor and fell. Standing up and shaking of the painful stinging feeling throughout his now small body, he started to run again. Soon, he reached the entrance to his green house. He stretched his arm up as high as he could, and grasped the doorknob. He slowly turned it, and when the door finally opened, he walked in. With a sigh of relief, he could see that his brightly colored garden was healthy, and fortunately, not burned.

"I'm so glad Axel wasn't in here instead..." he sighed. He walked over to a nearby stool, and dragged it to the table where his watering can was. He climbed up on the stool, and grasped the empty watering can. Stepping back down, he carried it over to a hose and filled it. Once it was full, he picked it up with a grunt, since it was now very heavy. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but since he had decreased in age so much, the task had become much more difficult. Marluxia then began watering as many plants as he possibly could reach- or until he became too tired. But, he enjoyed tending to his garden. He eventually became absorbed in doing this, and didn't notice when someone else strode in.

"Hello," someone greeted him. Marluxia gasped and spun around.

"Who-" he began, then, seeing who it was, he grabbed his hood and attempted to pull it up over his face, nearly falling off the stool. But, the man stopped him.

"Wait..." Xarvis said quietly, "Don't- I know who you are. There's no need for that."

"You- you know...? B-but I told Alex-" he stuttered.

"Alex didn't say a thing about you," the man replied.

"But how-? How did you-? But-?" Marluxia tried to speak, but Xarvis gently placed a hand over the little boy's mouth.

"Shh..." he whispered, pressing a finger to his lips, "I figured it out myself."

"Mmph?" Marluxia said, but his voice was muffled by Xarvis' hand.

"What? You didn't think I could figure this out for myself? I could tell that it was you... Rauliam. But not at first," he explained.

"Mmm..." the small boy replied, "Mmph?"

"Yes, yes, you did do a pretty good job hiding at first," he admitted, "But, eventually it wasn't good enough. I would like to know, though: why did you want to hide away from me in the first place?" Xarvis removed his hand from over Marluxia's mouth.

"Well... Are you still mad at me?" Marluxia asked, his eyes becoming enormous.

"No... I'm just glad to see that you're safe. After I heard- and saw- that those strange creatures were attacking everyone, I was worried..." Xarvis replied.

"You were?! er... Do you mean the heartless?"

"Is that what those creatures are called? Well, I wondered where you had gone after you left..." he continued, then smiled, "But here you are, safe and sound! And in another world! I still wonder how you managed to do that." Marluxia smiled and shrugged.

"Here... let me help you water these," Xarvis offered. With this man's help, Marluxia's garden was watered in no time. Xarvis eventually said goodbye and left, to attend to other things. He walked down one of the long hallways, and as he was on his way, he noticed Zexion passing by, holding a small pile of books.

"Hello, Zexion!" he called. The little blue haired boy looked up toward him.

"Hello," he replied.

"What are you up to?" Xarvis inquired, curious.

"Oh... I'm just going to my library..." he answered.

"Really? You have a library?"

"Yeah! You wanna see it?"

"Okay..."

"Alright! It's just this way!" Zexion said, excitedly. Xarvis began to follow him, with little idea as to big Zexion's library really was.