Aphrodite and Cupid grinned at each other. They had just discovered the perfect way to open Ares' eyes to true love...

Ares sighed with contentment. The day had been long but satifying. His pre-war plans were actually ahead of schedule but not by too much. He'd managed to trick Xena and Gabrielle out of the area. For once in a long time, things were almost perfect. Then again, the god of war was so used to feeling lonely that it blended into the background.

Stirring his bath water, Ares looked over at the one thing that he'd had for as he could remember. He started to hum. He didn't do it often, much to the world's delight, but soon he was belting out a happy ditty. "Rubber ducky you're the one. You make bath time lots of fun."

He reached for Harle Quin, but just as his finger reached him it vanished. "NO!"

Midnight near Thrace found Joxer pealing off his armor as he climbed a small embankment. There was nothing he loved more that skinny dipping in the grand aquaduct. Within moments his lean, milky white frame was swallowed up but the slightly murky water. Even with the dirt and grit it felt wonderful to be cool after walking in the summer heat. He wiggled his toes into the mud on the bottom before letting himself go and simply float.

Before long, the steady current had pushed him a fair distance from his clothes, but as he stared up at the stars that he drifted under, he decided that it was worth the walk or swim back. He also realized that life was good. Nothing to trip him, no one laugh at him. There also was no one to laugh with him.

Joxer started to think about it. Xena rarely laughed when he was around. Neither did Hercules. That cuckle that Iolaus had was kind of annoying. Gabrielle's could be to but not always. Ares probably had a great laugh, if he even tried to not make it sound maniacal. Then too, Joxer was fairly certain that most of what the god did was for show. He could be nice. After all, he'd answered most of Joxer's prayers and kept him alive.

As something larger than a twig brushed him, he realized that there was no one and nothing around to keep him from drowning but his faith in Ares. Getting more dirty water in his mouth than he care to think about, Joxer managed to both seize his attacker and stand up in the waist deep water.

A duck. It was made of a yellow material, like they used to make canteen out of, with the face and beak painted and somewhat beat up. He looking it over, wondering where he could get such colored fabric. If filling a canteen with air would make it float, then he could make frog shaped ones for children. He set it back in the water to watch it bob and decided that it was really kind of cute. Just than it started to float farther than arm's length away.

He dove after it and ended up under the water, looking up at the underside, where he was shocked to find "Ares GOW." Just in time he floated into a rock, startling him out of his stupor.

After dragging himself and the toy out of the water without killing either of them, Joxer sat for a moment. He looked down at Ares' duck and suddenly dropped it. The god of war would torture him to death if he accidentally popped the canteen.

Of course, that made him giggle. This was a child's toy. What would Ares need it for? The giggle died as he began to wonder if his god had ever had a childhood and if he had if had lived so long that he no longer remembered it and if not how long was the memory of a god.

The duck had to be important or else Ares wouldn't have put his name on it. Straightening his shoulder, Joxer looked toward town and found himself near to a little used entrance not too far from Ares' temple. What luck.

Ares stared at the stool that was Harle Quin's throne. He kept him, like his sword of power, in his temple at Thrace.

The shock was beginning to wear off and be replaced by anger. He was War and Discord knew better than to touch Harle. Who was so evil as to take his ducky?

Just then he felt someone enter the building. It took him a moment to recognize that it was the young man who sometimes traveled with Xena. Praying to anyone who would listen that he not be an messenger from her and simply come to pray like usual, he began to listen.

"Um, Ares, I found something that I think you'll like, ur, want, um... Okay, I found your canteen in the aquaduct."

Canteen? Exasperated, he popped in to the throne. "Huh?"

Joxer, stunned by the fact that Ares was naked and realizing that so was he, merely held out the battered old toy. "Harle!"

As Ares rushed forward to cuddle his ducky to his chest, Joxer decided that this was better than any dream he'd ever had about a naked War, beacuse for the first time, the god was smiling a genuine smile of happiness.

With a joyous laugh that went straight to the mortal's groin, Ares invited the finder of his beloved ducky to share the rest of his bath. It was just coincidence that said finder had played a staring role in a fantasy, or a dozen, of the god.

Closing the mirror in his mother's face, Cupid smiled even wider.

"It was just getting good," whined the goddess. Who stomped her foot and glared at him.

He shook his head and said "Somethings should be between a god, a mortal and a rubber duck."