Memory file: Larxene

"Alright my dear, you'll have to be honest. Our assignment is to research memories, so what better place to start than within our own lovely skulls? Everything, anything you remember from before we met..."

"Marluxia, I've told you those petals are annoying."

"And we both know you can handle petty annoyances by focusing on the assignment..."

"Do my ears decieve me? You're admitting to being petty?"

"Petty is entertaining."

"Shut up a moment, let me think..."

She stood on a railing, booted feet tucked safely on the middle rung as she leaned forward, all bright smiles and laughter. Horses danced and cantered a few feet beyond her, the guardsmen on their backs laughing and waving at their admirer. She'd snuck out of course, slipping away from their deportment teacher to see the border patrol off.

She'd be in for it later of course. Her sisters would sneer at her troubling herself over commoners; the teacher would make her walk rounds with books on her head...but the guards liked seeing her. She couldn't have not come. Not when this patrol would last weeks. An older man slipped from the rank and file, his storm gray horse covered in old scars. She loved to trace her fingers through the white lines, like lightning done in horse hair...

"You're going to get in trouble out here little one." the man rumbled cheerfully.

"Only a little" she replied, fingers being lipped by his horse "Besides, you asked if I'd see you off, Captain!"

"That I did, that I did. The men would get depressed if their favorite princess didn't see them off! It'd be unlucky!"

"I was a princess of some kind. I had sisters..."

"Of course you were, nothing else would do for you. Besides, we'd never let a common girl into the Organization, we do have standards after all."

"Oh yes, standards like Vexen? Or even you, the amazing Flower Powered man? Please, give me a break..."

She covered her painting carefully, drawing the fabric over it before tying the string tightly, after all, it wouldn't grace the halls. That privilege was for the best, and the best simply wasn't her. She was good though. Maybe good enough for other people...

It was awkward, lugging the thing down the tight stairs at the back of the hall, but well worth it as she leaned the covered canvas against an empty work table. "I brought a gift, Ana!" she called into the large kitchens, making a flour dusted woman glance up.

"Oh dear child, you should be in bed at this hour! Breakfast isn't for hours yet!"

"I know" she smiled, using her handkerchief to dust off Ana's face teasingly "But I know how you hate interruptions once the day gets going. This is for you, and all those midnight snacks you snuck me when I was little..."

"You're still little, girl" the head cook chuckled, flashing a look at the package "You got me a new cutting board?"

"As if I'd dare take that choice out of your hands!" she laughed, pulling the string off, and lifting the cover for the woman to peek. They'd been told to paint scenes around the castle...and she'd chosen the kitchen gardens, with the girls gathering for the noon salads, and Ana and her daughter sitting on the bench outside, fanning themselves as they took a break from the hot ovens indoors. Not exactly appropriate subject matter she'd been told.

"Oh...bless you child." was all Ana could say, flour covered hands rising to almost stroke the painting.

And so it went.

Her sewing was certainly not fit for making a feast cloth for the table, but her attempt went into the dower box of her lady's maid.

Her poetry and penmanship was a worthy effort, but not enough to impress a prince. It impressed a few wandering bards though, who were delighted to have their songs set down to pass along properly.

Her dancing was enough to help fill a ballroom, but the dances were to be opened by someone better. At Ana's daughter's wedding though, the bride had somehow learned to dance as gracefully as any common girl could dream...

Her singing was good, but not breathtaking; but she was the only princess to ever learn all the songs sung in the kitchens!

Her musical ability was passing fair, but couldn't draw tears. She often slipped away from the castle to play for the guardsmen though. Smiles were better than tears ever could be in her books.

Her grasp of law and judgment was superb, but tempered with far too much compassion for the court. Servant squabbles were more often than not brought to her rather than the Seneschal though...

Her classical knowledge and philosophical knowledge would never enthrall suitors; but the stable boys could tell you about the classic stories the princess told them, and they were a far more thoughtful bunch than any high bred gaggle.

Her looks, while a cut above due to breeding, did not stop hearts in the streets. No great sonnets were composed to her beauty, but she was far more approachable than any worshiped figure...

"Wow, for a princess, I didn't really have anything going for me. Didn't even get the bluebird magnetism..."

"Like you'd have put up with that, Larxene."

"Well, no, but I remember always...not being quite good enough. Ever."

"Well, we fixed that from the start, so don't trouble yourself over it dear. Now, tell me, was there a Prince in your future?"

"Why, jealous? Or think it'd be fun to go courting the princely type?"

"They make such charming faces once they figure out the innuendo..."

The rough, callused fingers adjusted her grip again as she seethed in the guardroom. The sword lessons were another little secret she had, the guards taking them on as a joke at first...but now, now they were a welcome distraction as she fumed. "They just...all of them..."

"I know little one" the Captain sighed, stepping back and bringing his own practice sword up "Girls, even princesses, can be mean."

"But!" she almost cried, starting the session anew with a lunge "...to say I'll never...no one. I mean, I know there aren't many Princes around, not for at least a months travel, but a spinster? Doddering around the castle forever?"

"Not likely girl, not likely. They were just yanking your braid, I promise" the captain chuckled, blocking neatly, if with just seconds to spare as her anger lent her speed.

"That's the problem, it is likely! It...all of them have to get married first right? All eleven of them! There's just not enough 'worthies' to go around, not in time. And even if they were, only Elsa gets to stay here, she rules after Father, the rest of us have to leave, go off to some strange land to be good little Queens to people we don't know!" the last ended on a wail as her wrist flexed, executing a stroke to do the guards proud that almost scored her partners belly.

"Whoa, calm girl, calm. I'm not sure what the problem is now. Are you angry because you might not marry...or because you might?" the Captain sighed, wishing he'd actually raised a daughter, it might have helped him understand this girl.

"I..." she blinked, halting her attack as she mulled that over. "I don't know. It hurts..it hurts a lot that the girls believe I won't be able to do what I'm suppose to do, that I'll fail. But it also hurts to think I'll just be sent off with a stranger to get the youngest daughter out of everyone's hair..."

"Well, seems to me...that you need to ask your friends for a bit of help." the Captain rumbled at last, tapping the end of her weapon with his own. "We'll get some out looking for someone appropriate. If not a Prince, we'll find you a Hero we approve of, how's that? We'll make sure that you don't end up with a true stranger, and we'll even try to make sure you stick around, we like you here after all..."

Her weapon wavered, then fell, tip planting itself with a wooden thunk in the dirt as she stared at him, gaping "You...you all would...why?"

"Why Princess, why wouldn't we?"

"Hmmm, sorry, no Prince. Want to know something absolutely hilarious though?"

"Of course"

"Looks like I was always number twelve."

"Oh dear...you'll never live it down. Princess Twelve..."

"Tell, and I'll tell them what you wear under your coat."

"Come on, I promise, you'll love it. He wants to meet all of you." she heard her sister saying, several beds over as she got ready to...dance. A strange thing, getting into a dress at bedtime. She had no idea who her sister meant of course, the palace gossip said a proposal had arrived with a messenger for the eldest's hand in marriage...

...and she'd been told before any of the other girls even knew. Servants heard everything, after all, and everything they heard, they told to their favorite princess as a matter of course.

She hadn't heard a whisper of late night dancing though. "Who?" she asked, giving up on sleeping as the other girls laughed and fluttered about, finding their own gowns.

"That's a secret" the eldest smiled, chivying the youngest towards the closet "But I promise, he might even be able to help you find someone hmmm? Wouldn't you like that?"

She wanted to say she already had friends whom she trusted doing that...but they'd have laughed and sneered at her. Instead she just flashed a smile and climbed into the blue silk her sisters chose for her "I'd like to know what's going on..." she answered at last, after each dancing slipper had been laced, and each girl lined up according to the eldest's whim.

"Why, we're going dancing!" was the infuriating answer, though she couldn't help but smile excitedly as she began to hear music. Why had she been worried? It was just dancing! A ball! Something fun for girls who deserved it! She didn't even blink when one of the beds slid aside to reveal a stairway. No, she simply laughed, slipping her hand into her sister's as they formed a delighted chain of girl going down into the dark...

There were woods, in that land beneath the bed. Great forests made of sighing jewels and precious metals, and kind men who took their hands and led them to a castle not that far away...

And they danced. The twelve of them and their escorts, turning and wheeling in a brightly lit and mirrored room. No talking, no need or breath to do so as they spun. The lights became a blur after time though, the laughter in her throat forced as she noticed shadows forming deep within the mirrors.

Shadows that made her chest burn with fear, an emotion so intense that it snapped the bonds of the fugue over her. She did not dance with a charming man, but with...something else. She had never seen it's like, nor read of it's kind, clad in head to toe gray that was skin tight and shadowy, oddly, she didn't fear him. No, the form moved to place itself between her and the mirrors as her sisters danced on...and all she could do was watch in horror as those mirrors shattered, letting in a horde of something darker, hungrier than the gray suitors...

Then her sisters screamed, chill and high as the suitors moved as one to face the threat, and worse, those screams began to die off, one by one.

She couldn't see through the swirling morass, darkness coming inexorably closer, then suddenly there was a strong back before her eyes, clad in dark coat. The man wore a hood, and a weapon moving so fast she could barely see it danced among the shadows before them...

"Princess, please, come with me. Your world..." he gasped, a shadow striking a little to deep "...your world is no longer safe."

She didn't have time to agree or fear, nor even shake her head. The darkness was growing, and for the first time she saw the bodies of her sisters, limp and dead...

She screamed; and the darkness swallowed them.

"There was someone there...at the end."

"Someone?"

"Not a heartless. Someone...never mind. It was probably no one important. You know the rest. I woke up, you found me yadda yadda yadda."

"And we all lived happily ever after right? You know I'm going to have to get you to record those memories...as your commentary just isn't that useful."

"Hmmm, maybe later. Now I'm bored, and really, you probably don't want to see me as a Somebody. It'd be such a shock to your system..."

"I'm not nearly as delicate as I look..."

"Oh, but you're delicate enough, Marluxia. Delicate enough."