A/N: Insomnia made this, and as with all things that prevent sleep, it won't let me continue about my way until it's sated. I apologize for any OOC you may find, this story is not a priority as yet, due to other projects. It is a plot bunny gone very, very wild. Rating for events in later chapters.

In short, it wouldn't leave me alone, so here it is.

Disclaimer: I do not, nor pretend to, own any of the featured characters.

At night, the flames and fireflies came at his beckon call. The wind was warm against his face, the moon smoldering orange in the haze of the far horizon, taunting and challenging him.

Chase me.

To the ends of the earth with you – pursue!

Every night, duty bound him to this place, lighting the protective fires against the Dark, the Nihilia.

Every night, he tasted freedom in the glint of stars and turned his back on it, for the sake of those he was purposed to protect.

Days were dank and cold, sheltered in his underground cell and separate from rays of sunlight and an endless, hard blue sky. A preserver and protector at night, Axel coiled in his cell by day, a burden and a captive. A monster.

By day, he slept, his back to the door and the world that made him its tool.

By day, they were the monsters, and he the sheltered and sleeping.

Time held no meaning, his heart a rotting, withered thing as he alternated between cold and warmth, day and night. His only love was the edge of darkness, tattered and torn by the flames guarding the city. His only joy was his freedom, and he exercised it liberally, drinking in the distant energies of the moon and stars to sustain his sway over flames and fireflies.

Built by an ambitious sorcerer, the City of Paper was constructed of spelled parchment, sturdy against fire, water, earth and wind. It thrived on its people's happiness and well-being, its only threat the Darkness that struck at night, the Nihilia that would blot out the spells and blacken the parchment, destroying the city. When the sorcerer had died, he had left Axel and a Creature of Darkness to protect the city. Axel had been found and captured, trusted every night to roam free so long as the fires were lit at sunset and extinguished at dawn. The Creature of Darkness had not been discovered. Axel came to doubt the person existed, always working alone at night and knowing the sun protected the city during the day.

Over origami houses and folded rooftops Axel flew, bounding from basin to basin, bowl to pool, igniting the fires. In the past, he had ignited them all at once, using the fireflies and sending them to each place. As time had moved on he grew bored in the time this left him and resorted to his original training route, a circuit around the wall and then a spiral by aqueduct into the city depths, to accomplish the task. Just as safe, but more time-consuming. More time to fly, to jump and run and gasp for air at the very end, seated on the Watch Tower high above the rest of the city, looking for attempts on his boundaries.

On a night like this, still winded from his run, he caught a shape above the nor'east gate. Heart racing, he ran to meet this foe where it stood, still and waiting, with fire crackling in his palms.

His attack was met with blades, twins of ebony forging and ivory filigree, shaped like keys and sharp like swords. Bleeding hand wrapped in his shirt, Axel leaped backward onto a nearby rooftop, studying his foe.

Shorter and cloaked in darkness, the person crossed the blades and sliced them along each other, the metal shrieking and giving sparks. A final snap and they extended out at either side, at the ready.

"Are you the demon?" The person asked.

Axel's face twisted into a grin. "Demon" was the word the townspeople used. Isolated in his cell by day, even he knew that much. The height and set of the person before him left little question. "It's not good for children to stay up past their bedtime!"

In a rush of wind and shadow the figure was behind him, teeth of the keyblades biting into each shoulder, crossed over his chest. Laughing, the little warrior released him and vanished into the shadows of the night.

When dawn came and he returned to his cell, he was laughing and rubbing at the bruises and small cuts the key bits had left in his shoulders, incensed.

Over the next couple of weeks, Axel began to experience time. It was a strange, sluggish feeling to become aware of hours and minutes, of anticipation and the slow crawl. But every night, especially if the moon was bright, he caught sight of his dark companion running the length of the Wall around the city, hiding in piles of barrels or boxes next to the outer wall or Gates, and once on the very top of the Watch Tower, a stark silhouette before the flames that there burned high. It was the closest look at him Axel got for a good long time. Strong as the wind had been, he'd made out the shape of a young man, neither filled out like an adult nor soft and frail like a child. But he was short, and Axel could not resist jeers over the weeks as he became accustomed to the sightings of his comrade. The boy did seem to be that, always first to strike when the Nihilia loomed at the Wall. For all his obliviousness to the remaining night after his chore was done, Axel did not recall any help fighting the monsters, though this boy seemed to have the city boundaries well under control. He logged this away with every other snippet of information he could glean from shadows and peripheral glimpses. If he was the promised Creature of Darkness, Axel was determined to make friends. Now that the boy was here, the Creature of Light had realized how alone and empty he had been, and how time could be savored just like running and jumping and soaring.

Time could be tricky too, like lighting lamps in the rain. It poured that night, the clouds blackening the sky and stars and moon, leaving him weary and cold. It took forever to light the lamps – the flames were weak and would not take to wick and tinder, sometimes not even to oil or kerosene or fuel. To add to his misery, his shadow-friend was nowhere to be found, though he spent all night just getting and keeping the Wall and Tower fires lit. Dizzy with endless circuits of the damned city, the huge, damp, blasted city, Axel barely felt the approach of dawn. The guards came for him in furies each, snaring his arms and marching back toward his cell faster than he had the energy to keep with. It left him in a bad temper and a building rage as a final, clever burst of shadow broke over his senses.

"Nihilia!" He yelled, breaking free of his guards and stumbling across familiar rooftops and eaves to the rain-slicked wall, where the protective fires had guttered out in the watery onslaught.

Even if it kills you protect the city protect the city protect—

Smoldering embers were all he had to throw against the darkness, the threat of dawn pulsing fear of dissolution and evanescence through his tired body. He hit the monster hard, unaware of the speed he'd reached to protect the wall, to keep them from breaching the Wall…

Blind in the rain, terrified by his first real glimpse of the daylight graying the black, wet night, he immersed himself in the shadow and summoned everything he had and flung it out in sparking, weak flames and fading fireflies. Something heavy and hard struck him in the chest and his last sight before his head struck the Wall was a spinning and whirling silver light.

Tricky, tricky time. Slipping by in days while he slept, feeling like meager hours when he awoke, stretching into century-long minutes when he realized he wasn't alone.

A boy shared his cell.

Rising on shaky arms, Axel settled himself into the embrace of a corner. "You're him, aren't you?"

The boy did not reply. Scowling, Axel gestured. "There's no point in denying it. There's only one reason they'd lock you up in darkness with the likes of me."

Still, nothing.

Vision wavering, he sighed. Though able to see better than humans in the dark, the boy was on his side with his face to the wall, his status inscrutable. Axel was too weary to crawl over and see if he was asleep and settled back down on the cold stone floor, hungry for moon and starlight.