Kingdom Hearts } Of Roses and Orchids
Word Count: 3651
Genre: Romance and Humour.
Ships?: Axel/Larxene, hints of one-sided Naminé/Roxas.
→Friendships?: mentions of Naminé&Luxord.
Characters: Naminé, Larxene, Roxas and Axel.
→Cameos: Zexion and Demyx.
→Mentions: Every other member of the Organization.
Rating: PG for one violent threat.
Spoilers: None!
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any related characters. This was written out of enjoyment of the series, and no profit is being made.
Notes: Takes place sometime after Naminé and Roxas are born, but before Chain of Memories. Kind of continued in At Least Once.
When Naminé offers Larxene a challenge too intriguing to refuse, the Nymph must choose between Marluxia and Axel before the end of the day...or risk losing her reputation.
Of Roses and Orchids
The paper made a soft sound as Naminé flipped the page. Just as she had expected it, the full page illustration of how rose petals folded over one another (with smaller diagrams in the margins displaying different angles) awaited her eyes.
She pulled her sketchpad closer to her, eyebrows furrowing slightly. The edges of the petals on her rose needed some work.
As she reached for her trusty rubber eraser, a terrible crash sounded from somewhere a floor down. She turned towards the door curiously, and she heard a yelp that sounded rather characteristic of Demyx, another crash, and a couple of shouts.
Naminé leapt to her feet and ran to her door. Opening the door a crack, she peered curiously down the staircase across the hallway from her. Nothing to be seen, at least.
Zexion, walking down the hallway with a book in his hand, gazed up at her out of that one blue eye. He stopped just next to her, and peered down the staircase with the same blankness on his face.
More crashes. Then the lights flickered and went out.
Presumably it happened all over the castle, because a second later, when the lights came back on, there were vague, somewhat threatening shouts from all different locations. (Naminé personally swore she heard Vexen shout in some sort of frustration that Nobodies shouldn’t have from all the way in the basement.)
The two Nobodies glanced at each other.
“With all the experience I’ve had in this castle, it’s best not to know, Naminé,” he said.
She nodded slightly. “Right.”
“I’ll see you at dinner, I suppose,” he said, walking down the staircase, his nose returning to its book.
“Mm. Goodbye Zexion,” and she closed her door again.
Naminé returned to where her sketchpad and pencils awaited her. She lay back down on her stomach and started to erase some of her rose’s petals.
This went on for all of five minutes before the door slammed open.
Larxene stood in the doorway, completely soaked. Her two blonde bangs, which usually swept up and over her head, were plastered to her face with water.
There was silence between the two female Nobodies, until the elder said, “I swear Naminé, sometimes I think we’re the only sane ones.”
Naminé got up and ran to one of her cupboards at the foot of her bed as Larxene sat in one of the chairs at the table. The girl ran back and put it on the table in the middle of the room. “Demyx?” she asked.
The woman peeled off her gloves. “Him and Roxas.”
Naminé raised her eyebrows as way of saying ‘And…?’
Larxene sighed, grabbing the towel. “I made a joke about Demyx’s hair. And of course Blondie Junior had to go to his defense.”
“So the lights going out?”
“Me,” Larxene said, unzipping her jacket and starting to squeeze water out of her hair with the towel. “I’m staying here until the Superior or someone drags me out.”
It was not a request. Naminé knew the rules. She lay back down in front of her sketchpad and continued to touch up her rough sketches.
This went on for about ten minutes. Larxene, when in a (relatively) good mood, could get surprisingly quiet and pensive. Naminé had only witnessed this odd side of the other woman twice, and both times it had taken place in the library, with the Nymph reading some sort of classic tragedy. Now, she said nothing, only the sound of that strange fabric moving as she removed her jacket and hung it on the back of her chair made Naminé aware of her presence.
The woman was drying off her arms when she started watching the younger girl sketch. Naminé had flipped to another page in her sketchpad, fixing up someone who looked rather a lot like Xigbar, but had left her rose book open to the page on angles and petals and perspective and such. She scooped it up off the ground slowly, so the girl was aware of it.
“‘La Belle Rose’,” she read the cover. “You haven’t let Marluxia see this have you?”
Naminé shook her head. “No,” she said.
“Good plan, keep it up,” Larxene said, flipping to the table of contents.
The girl furrowed her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“Nobody told you?” Larxene asked. “Today’s Valentine’s Day.”
“Oh, now I remember. Demyx told me about it yesterday. What does Valentine’s Day have to do with Marluxia?”
The woman snorted, looking out of the book with a glare. “He’s only been going on and on about Valentine’s Day for the past week. Yammering about how roses are the most poetic and beautiful of all the flowers and ‘entire civilizations have crumbled over men’s need to give one to the beautiful princess’ and, ugh!” The air crackled slightly as she finished, slamming a fist down on the table.
“Marluxia’s been saying this to you?”
“Yeah. He’s the master of subtlety, isn’t he? Why do you ask?”
Naminé paused before responding. His increasingly creepy attempts to get inside her head were most definitely not something she’d call subtle, she agreed, but there was some motive lurking behind it that she couldn’t place. Marluxia had a devious, stealthy way of acting around everyone, she knew, but...
She chewed on her lip. “I just wonder...how Axel would react to that.”
Larxene flipped to a page on rose colours and their correlating meanings before reacting herself. “...Axel? Why would you wonder about Axel?”
Naminé’s danger meter rose a couple of levels. She shrugged slowly, flipping the pages of her sketchpad to a rough of Luxord playing cards. “Some of the other members have told me that the two of you used to be friends before Roxas and I came along.”
“Right. Friends. Nothing more.” The woman replied in a clipped voice.
“Well, what happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why aren’t you friends any more?”
The Nymph glared. “I don’t know,” she said with finality.
They maintained eye contact, Naminé trying to keep a completely straight face under that green-blue glare.
They broke and went back to what they were doing. Larxene flipped a page and Naminé’s pencil scratched away.
After a thoughtful silence, Larxene said, mostly to herself, “A man gave my Other a rose for Valentine’s Day once. ...Orchids are better.”
“Orchids?” Naminé prodded.
The woman nodded, eyes closed as though in a deep sleep, sleep that Naminé knew sometimes brought memories back in dreams. (The exception being her, of course. But she was excepted from a lot of things.)
Naminé glanced down at her sketchpad. “Love is a scary thing…isn’t it Larxene?”
The woman opened her eyes. “Hmm, that’s an unexpected statement coming from you, Naminé.”
The girl blinked up at her elder. “How do you mean?”
“Well,” Larxene brought a finger to her lips, tapping them in thought, “I’d have thought Demyx had taught you that love is this perfect little solution to everything, but someone else has to got to you first. Xaldin? Vexen? Saïx, maybe?”
“Axel, actually,” Naminé replied.
A look of surprise came over the woman’s face. “Axel.”
“He said that love is scary because you have to trust the other person with everything. ‘People who fall in love are so vulnerable. So open to attack,’ he said.”
The Nymph paused. “Surprisingly wise words, coming from Axel.”
Naminé started to wave her feet back in forth in the air, as she scratched absently at her Luxord sketch. “Makes me wonder if he’s ever been in love.”
Larxene took this sentence in, then scrutinized the young teenager lying in front of her. Her eyes scanned from Naminé’s unreadable face underneath her bangs, to the sketch she was working on. She smiled a (surprisingly) genuine smile. “Na-mi-né,” she said, in quiet awe. “How many times has Luxord visited you this week?”
The girl raised her eyes, looking the teensiest bit guilty. “Just the once. A couple days ago. Why?”
Larxene grinned that vicious grin and leaned forward. “He’s been teaching you how to play all his little mind-tricks, hasn’t he? You’re leading me into some sort of game here, I can tell.”
Naminé smiled a little. “Did it work?”
The woman sighed. “Like hell it did. I must be getting soft if I’m falling into your traps. I’ll have to tell him his little apprentice is doing just fine.”
The smile on the girl’s face widened, and Larxene could swear that this was the part where she was supposed to feel some sort of weird sisterly affection. Or something.
For once, Larxene was almost glad she didn’t have a heart.
As she had been pondering this, Naminé had gone off to another one of her cupboards and returned with something long and thin in her hands.
The older woman blinked at it. “Where did you get that?”
Naminé smiled nervously. “I made it,” she said.
Larxene guessed the little memory witch had made the stem out of paper maché and garden wire. (Whoever was brave enough to steal from Marluxia’s shed for her was a brave soul indeed.) The top was made of red paper, no doubt folded following the instructions of that origami book Zexion had given to her last month.
A red rose.
“The challenge?”
Naminé handed over her creation gently, obviously cherishing it as much as her sketchpad. (How sweet; the Nymph suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.) “Give this to either Marluxia or Axel before the end of the day.”
“And if I don’t?”
Naminé shrugged. “Being in love is scary, right? If you back out, wouldn’t that be kinda cowardly?”
“Heh,” Larxene smirked, crossing her legs. “Sorry Naminé, but I can’t be in love. None of us can. No hearts, remember?”
“You’re right,” said the memory witch. “But you like to try the unexpected right? Lexaeus told me that you’re always the first to test a new battle tactic, right up there with Saïx. He said you’d be a good scientist.”
“Ha! Me, a scientist?” The Nymph chuckled. “But, you are right. How I do like to try new things...”
She twirled the rose in her hand. “Choose between my nature-loving friend and my annoying cohort before the end of the day, or lose my fearless reputation to your fellow babysitters. Yes, Luxord’s definitely gotten into your head somehow. …Only one question.”
The girl nodded slightly. “Yes?”
“Why Axel?”
Naminé shrugged, but Larxene took it to mean, ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Aloud, she said, “The two of you... banter.”
“Banter? That’s the reason?” The woman scoffed. “Zexion and Vexen banter about experiments all day. And I don’t see you giving either of them roses.”
The girl cocked her head slightly in thought before replying. “I know, but there’s always something between you two when I’ve seen you talk. I can feel it...like...on my skin.”
The Nymph smirked and ran a hand over one of her bangs. “It’s called static electricity, Naminé. Have you forgotten my element?”
The girl smiled back readily. “Luxord calls it ‘sparks’.”
---
She did not know why she was here.
Larxene stood in the hallway just outside one of the castle’s various sitting rooms. She watched as Demyx swiveled in an armchair, conversing with Roxas and Axel, who preferred to stay on the stationary couch. The sound of occasional sitar notes strayed into their conversation as the musician saw fit.
They way she saw it, this was the lesser of two evils. Giving a rose to Marluxia would practically be giving him permission to go on about the absolute perfection of roses forever. Axel would get bored of teasing her about it after a couple of weeks. She loved that crazy scheming gardener, but he could get a little wrapped up in his flowers.
Wait. Not ‘loved’. ‘Felt companionship for?’ No, she couldn’t feel anything at all.
Hmm. She gazed back out at the three Nobodies. It was... hard to believe they weren’t friends. Not really. Not without hearts. Ah, well. There was time to ponder that later.
“Well, if it isn’t the ‘usual suspects’,” she said as she came forward.
They all froze immediately. Demyx looked up at her and sank deep into his chair. Roxas had the nerve to glare at her slightly. Axel had that constant smirk pasted on his face.
“Hey, Larxene,” he greeted, waving slightly. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
She rolled her eyes in reply and said, “Alright, let’s get this over with as soon as possible. I need to give one of you something.”
Demyx raised his hand like a timid child in a classroom. “Larxene?”
“Yes, Demyx.”
“It’s not for me, is it?”
“No, Demyx.”
“Then can I leave?”
There was a silence.
“What do you think-”
“I’m gone!” The musician got up from the armchair and ran out of the den, sitar in hand.
As the coattails of Number IX disappeared down the hall, the three remaining Nobodies turned back to one another.
“So... it’s definitely for me or Roxas,” Axel said.
“Brilliant, aren’t you?” Larxene replied.
“It’s not deadly, is it?” The youngest Nobody asked. “It feels like I’ve gotten hundreds of death traps from you, Larxene.”
“I lure because I care, squirt. You’ll face a hell of a lot more dangerous things out in the field. Like…Behemoths for instance.”
“Behemoths?” The boy turned to his ‘friend’ on the couch beside him. “What’s a Behemoth?”
“Wellll,” Axel stroked his chin. “Imagine a giant purple unicorn.”
“With tusks,” Larxene added.
“Ah, yes. With tusks,” Axel agreed.
“With tusks?” Roxas asked.
“Yes, but all of this is beside the point,” the woman brought the conversation back to the task at hand. “I need to give you something.”
“Right then,” the red head agreed and the boy leaned forward in curiosity.
Larxene continued to stare at that eternally smirking face with those tiny little markings underneath his eyes. Diamonds? Teardrops? Nobody knew, nobody asked. It was an unspoken rule that talk of Others was strictly forbidden. Maybe it had nothing to do with Somebodies and was something belonging only to Axel.
She doubted it.
He blinked at her, smiled more widely, and it was if she caught her reflection in those stupid green eyes of his. She had been giving something away to him during that little train of thought, and he had caught it. Luckily, Roxas hadn’t noticed and…
Roxas.
If she got him involved in Naminé’s little challenge, she would be automatically silenced into submission. Even if she lost this challenge, Naminé wouldn’t be allowed to say anything because it involved Roxas and that simply wouldn’t do. Their connection was dangerous, or so Xemnas claimed.
“It’s for you,” she finally said, summoning the rose in her hand as simply as she did her kunai. She held it in front of Roxas’s completely shocked face. “It’s from someone else.”
“S-someone else?” The boy stuttered for once, reaching out and taking it. Something in those blue eyes softened as he looked at it.
“Yup. I’m just a messenger.”
The boy continued to observe the rose, made of wire and paper. Axel leaned forward. “No messages for me, I suppose?”
“Nope. Ta, boys. Don’t forget to fetch your water boy back.” And she turned to leave.
The Savage Nymph was victorious for another day. And she thought Naminé’s challenge had actually been interesting, been different. Ha! How utterly foolish of her. How-
“Larxene.”
She turned. Axel standing at the end of the hallway.
“What? I delivered my message, didn’t I?”
“You know we’re forbidden to tell Roxas about Naminé,” he said as he approached.
“Forbidden?” She grinned up at him. “Since when has ‘forbidden’ been an obstacle for me?”
He rolled his eyes. “Point taken.” He paused, then said, “That rose was for me, wasn’t it?”
Her grin immediately soured into a pout with furrowed eyebrows. “What makes you say that?”
It was his turn to grin. “I just know these things Larxene.”
She huffed and started to stalk off down the hall. Click-clack-click-clack…
“I was surprised though,” he called after her, in a thoughtful voice. “I would’ve expected an orchid.”
The sound of her heels immediately halted. She turned and looked at him slowly over her shoulder.
“What?” she said, near whisper.
“Orchids. They’re better than roses,” he replied, as though he was stating the supremely obvious.
“Who told you that?” she asked, immediately thinking of ways she could punish Naminé without getting in trouble herself.
Axel raised his hands in a yielding gesture. “No one. To tell you the truth,” he scratched at the back of his neck, “it just came to me. Just now.”
There was a pause.
“Huh,” the woman said. “Interesting.”
“Yeah,” he nodded. He blinked up as he heard her summon a portal in the wall. “Where are you going?”
She paused, one hand pressed against the cold white wall. “Why do you care?”
He walked up and wrenched her away from the wall and the waiting portal. “Don’t say that.”
She tried to shrug off the hand on her shoulder. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“Just don’t say it, Twelve, you hear me?” he said, and what might’ve been anger hissed in his voice.
She slapped him across the face. The sound resounded in the small hallway and electricity crackled from her hand. Axel, instead of backing down, started pulling her into his arms. She struggled and the Flurry flinched in pain as more bolts of electricity shocked him.
“Don’t you ever call me Twelve, Axel!” she shouted. “I’m Larxene to you! I’m not just some-”
“I know,” he said. She was now trapped against him, her arms folded against his chest, his wrapped securely around her waist. She could easily get away, but those stupid green eyes of his were watching her every move.
The portal, unattended to, faded. “You know what?” she asked.
“I know you’re not just some number. Sorry.”
He looked...surprisingly honest. Honesty; that wasn’t an emotion, was it? It was hard to think when you’re so close you can feel someone’s breath and…
Snappy comeback, Larxene. Get on it.
“Yeah, well. Next time you slip up like that, I’ll use your body for target practice. Your lungs are the bull’s-eyes, got it?”
“Memorized.”
“...What?”
He smirked down on her. “I got it memorized.”
She sighed. “You know, that catchphrase is getting increasingly wearing.”
“Is it?” he asked, and closed the final distance.
Either it was in their heads or Vexen had conveniently set off another ground-shaking experiment. But either way, somewhere, something exploded into torches and thunderstorms and rain and candles and masks and alleyways and castles and dark summer nights and memories that should never, ever, be remembered.
When they pulled back for air, Larxene was shaking like she never had before and Axel felt like he should never open his arms and let this Nymph get away from him again. But that was odd, because there never was a ‘first’ until now, so how could there be an ‘again’?
Somehow, he managed to unclench his arms and she was no longer trapped against him. They stood watching each other shake and gasp for breath, mostly in fear, but maybe in the joy of discovery.
“H-Happy Valentine’s Day Larxene.”
She backed up against the wall, never taking her eyes off him. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Axel.” A portal opened up and she almost fell back into it, glad to get away from him.
The redhead sighed. As if this ‘existence’ wasn’t complicated enough.
“Axel!”
The man turned to a very frustrated Roxas standing in the doorway. “I have been pacing for five minutes straight, and the only logical explanation I can come up with for this,” he brandished the paper rose as though it was one of his keyblades, “is that somebody I don’t know about made it. You’re keeping something from me, aren’t you? The whole Organization is!”
Axel straightened. Roxas let his hand and the rose fall back to his side, prepared for whatever mysterious answer awaited him.
“That was only five minutes?”
---
“Wellll,” Larxene stretched her arms up above her head as she entered the memory witch’s room, “looks like I’m babysitting you tonight, little girl.”
“You cheated yesterday,” Naminé replied, from her seat at the table. She was scratching at her sketchpad unenthusiastically.
The woman blinked. “Oh yes,” she said, putting her hand to her chin and looking at the ceiling, “your little Valentine’s challenge. I don’t think of it as ‘cheating’ so much as I changed the rules.”
“You were supposed to give it to Axel or Marluxia!” the girl said, looking up from her sketch. “Now the Superior is wondering if I’m trying to break out and see him!”
“Roxas?” The woman teased. “Your little knight in black leather armor?” She mimed the actions of a keyblade wielder. “The Hero of Twin Keyblades, come to rescue the White Princess from her ivory tower! Ha!”
Naminé’s face burned red. “Well, what about you?” she asked, standing up.
“What about me?” Larxene replied, beaming.
“I was going to give you this when you completed the challenge,” she said, removing a red orchid from the vase in the middle of the table, “but I-”
The woman snatched it out of her hand. “Where did you get this?”
Naminé flinched, and she was immediately brought her back into her good old ‘shy mode’. “Axel brought it in here. I think he was going to give it to you, but-”
Larxene raised an eyebrow.
“...I’ll be back in a minute.” She turned on her heel and strolled through a portal in the wall, orchid in hand.
As soon as she was gone, the young teenager ran back to the sketchpad waiting for her on the table. She picked up the pencil and added a little line beside her name.
Naminé, one. Opponent, zero.
She added one final touch to the scoreboard’s constant companion.
The sketchy Luxord smirked up at her.
← Back to Archive
Genre: Romance and Humour.
Ships?: Axel/Larxene, hints of one-sided Naminé/Roxas.
→Friendships?: mentions of Naminé&Luxord.
Characters: Naminé, Larxene, Roxas and Axel.
→Cameos: Zexion and Demyx.
→Mentions: Every other member of the Organization.
Rating: PG for one violent threat.
Spoilers: None!
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any related characters. This was written out of enjoyment of the series, and no profit is being made.
Notes: Takes place sometime after Naminé and Roxas are born, but before Chain of Memories. Kind of continued in At Least Once.
When Naminé offers Larxene a challenge too intriguing to refuse, the Nymph must choose between Marluxia and Axel before the end of the day...or risk losing her reputation.
Of Roses and Orchids
The paper made a soft sound as Naminé flipped the page. Just as she had expected it, the full page illustration of how rose petals folded over one another (with smaller diagrams in the margins displaying different angles) awaited her eyes.
She pulled her sketchpad closer to her, eyebrows furrowing slightly. The edges of the petals on her rose needed some work.
As she reached for her trusty rubber eraser, a terrible crash sounded from somewhere a floor down. She turned towards the door curiously, and she heard a yelp that sounded rather characteristic of Demyx, another crash, and a couple of shouts.
Naminé leapt to her feet and ran to her door. Opening the door a crack, she peered curiously down the staircase across the hallway from her. Nothing to be seen, at least.
Zexion, walking down the hallway with a book in his hand, gazed up at her out of that one blue eye. He stopped just next to her, and peered down the staircase with the same blankness on his face.
More crashes. Then the lights flickered and went out.
Presumably it happened all over the castle, because a second later, when the lights came back on, there were vague, somewhat threatening shouts from all different locations. (Naminé personally swore she heard Vexen shout in some sort of frustration that Nobodies shouldn’t have from all the way in the basement.)
The two Nobodies glanced at each other.
“With all the experience I’ve had in this castle, it’s best not to know, Naminé,” he said.
She nodded slightly. “Right.”
“I’ll see you at dinner, I suppose,” he said, walking down the staircase, his nose returning to its book.
“Mm. Goodbye Zexion,” and she closed her door again.
Naminé returned to where her sketchpad and pencils awaited her. She lay back down on her stomach and started to erase some of her rose’s petals.
This went on for all of five minutes before the door slammed open.
Larxene stood in the doorway, completely soaked. Her two blonde bangs, which usually swept up and over her head, were plastered to her face with water.
There was silence between the two female Nobodies, until the elder said, “I swear Naminé, sometimes I think we’re the only sane ones.”
Naminé got up and ran to one of her cupboards at the foot of her bed as Larxene sat in one of the chairs at the table. The girl ran back and put it on the table in the middle of the room. “Demyx?” she asked.
The woman peeled off her gloves. “Him and Roxas.”
Naminé raised her eyebrows as way of saying ‘And…?’
Larxene sighed, grabbing the towel. “I made a joke about Demyx’s hair. And of course Blondie Junior had to go to his defense.”
“So the lights going out?”
“Me,” Larxene said, unzipping her jacket and starting to squeeze water out of her hair with the towel. “I’m staying here until the Superior or someone drags me out.”
It was not a request. Naminé knew the rules. She lay back down in front of her sketchpad and continued to touch up her rough sketches.
This went on for about ten minutes. Larxene, when in a (relatively) good mood, could get surprisingly quiet and pensive. Naminé had only witnessed this odd side of the other woman twice, and both times it had taken place in the library, with the Nymph reading some sort of classic tragedy. Now, she said nothing, only the sound of that strange fabric moving as she removed her jacket and hung it on the back of her chair made Naminé aware of her presence.
The woman was drying off her arms when she started watching the younger girl sketch. Naminé had flipped to another page in her sketchpad, fixing up someone who looked rather a lot like Xigbar, but had left her rose book open to the page on angles and petals and perspective and such. She scooped it up off the ground slowly, so the girl was aware of it.
“‘La Belle Rose’,” she read the cover. “You haven’t let Marluxia see this have you?”
Naminé shook her head. “No,” she said.
“Good plan, keep it up,” Larxene said, flipping to the table of contents.
The girl furrowed her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“Nobody told you?” Larxene asked. “Today’s Valentine’s Day.”
“Oh, now I remember. Demyx told me about it yesterday. What does Valentine’s Day have to do with Marluxia?”
The woman snorted, looking out of the book with a glare. “He’s only been going on and on about Valentine’s Day for the past week. Yammering about how roses are the most poetic and beautiful of all the flowers and ‘entire civilizations have crumbled over men’s need to give one to the beautiful princess’ and, ugh!” The air crackled slightly as she finished, slamming a fist down on the table.
“Marluxia’s been saying this to you?”
“Yeah. He’s the master of subtlety, isn’t he? Why do you ask?”
Naminé paused before responding. His increasingly creepy attempts to get inside her head were most definitely not something she’d call subtle, she agreed, but there was some motive lurking behind it that she couldn’t place. Marluxia had a devious, stealthy way of acting around everyone, she knew, but...
She chewed on her lip. “I just wonder...how Axel would react to that.”
Larxene flipped to a page on rose colours and their correlating meanings before reacting herself. “...Axel? Why would you wonder about Axel?”
Naminé’s danger meter rose a couple of levels. She shrugged slowly, flipping the pages of her sketchpad to a rough of Luxord playing cards. “Some of the other members have told me that the two of you used to be friends before Roxas and I came along.”
“Right. Friends. Nothing more.” The woman replied in a clipped voice.
“Well, what happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why aren’t you friends any more?”
The Nymph glared. “I don’t know,” she said with finality.
They maintained eye contact, Naminé trying to keep a completely straight face under that green-blue glare.
They broke and went back to what they were doing. Larxene flipped a page and Naminé’s pencil scratched away.
After a thoughtful silence, Larxene said, mostly to herself, “A man gave my Other a rose for Valentine’s Day once. ...Orchids are better.”
“Orchids?” Naminé prodded.
The woman nodded, eyes closed as though in a deep sleep, sleep that Naminé knew sometimes brought memories back in dreams. (The exception being her, of course. But she was excepted from a lot of things.)
Naminé glanced down at her sketchpad. “Love is a scary thing…isn’t it Larxene?”
The woman opened her eyes. “Hmm, that’s an unexpected statement coming from you, Naminé.”
The girl blinked up at her elder. “How do you mean?”
“Well,” Larxene brought a finger to her lips, tapping them in thought, “I’d have thought Demyx had taught you that love is this perfect little solution to everything, but someone else has to got to you first. Xaldin? Vexen? Saïx, maybe?”
“Axel, actually,” Naminé replied.
A look of surprise came over the woman’s face. “Axel.”
“He said that love is scary because you have to trust the other person with everything. ‘People who fall in love are so vulnerable. So open to attack,’ he said.”
The Nymph paused. “Surprisingly wise words, coming from Axel.”
Naminé started to wave her feet back in forth in the air, as she scratched absently at her Luxord sketch. “Makes me wonder if he’s ever been in love.”
Larxene took this sentence in, then scrutinized the young teenager lying in front of her. Her eyes scanned from Naminé’s unreadable face underneath her bangs, to the sketch she was working on. She smiled a (surprisingly) genuine smile. “Na-mi-né,” she said, in quiet awe. “How many times has Luxord visited you this week?”
The girl raised her eyes, looking the teensiest bit guilty. “Just the once. A couple days ago. Why?”
Larxene grinned that vicious grin and leaned forward. “He’s been teaching you how to play all his little mind-tricks, hasn’t he? You’re leading me into some sort of game here, I can tell.”
Naminé smiled a little. “Did it work?”
The woman sighed. “Like hell it did. I must be getting soft if I’m falling into your traps. I’ll have to tell him his little apprentice is doing just fine.”
The smile on the girl’s face widened, and Larxene could swear that this was the part where she was supposed to feel some sort of weird sisterly affection. Or something.
For once, Larxene was almost glad she didn’t have a heart.
As she had been pondering this, Naminé had gone off to another one of her cupboards and returned with something long and thin in her hands.
The older woman blinked at it. “Where did you get that?”
Naminé smiled nervously. “I made it,” she said.
Larxene guessed the little memory witch had made the stem out of paper maché and garden wire. (Whoever was brave enough to steal from Marluxia’s shed for her was a brave soul indeed.) The top was made of red paper, no doubt folded following the instructions of that origami book Zexion had given to her last month.
A red rose.
“The challenge?”
Naminé handed over her creation gently, obviously cherishing it as much as her sketchpad. (How sweet; the Nymph suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.) “Give this to either Marluxia or Axel before the end of the day.”
“And if I don’t?”
Naminé shrugged. “Being in love is scary, right? If you back out, wouldn’t that be kinda cowardly?”
“Heh,” Larxene smirked, crossing her legs. “Sorry Naminé, but I can’t be in love. None of us can. No hearts, remember?”
“You’re right,” said the memory witch. “But you like to try the unexpected right? Lexaeus told me that you’re always the first to test a new battle tactic, right up there with Saïx. He said you’d be a good scientist.”
“Ha! Me, a scientist?” The Nymph chuckled. “But, you are right. How I do like to try new things...”
She twirled the rose in her hand. “Choose between my nature-loving friend and my annoying cohort before the end of the day, or lose my fearless reputation to your fellow babysitters. Yes, Luxord’s definitely gotten into your head somehow. …Only one question.”
The girl nodded slightly. “Yes?”
“Why Axel?”
Naminé shrugged, but Larxene took it to mean, ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Aloud, she said, “The two of you... banter.”
“Banter? That’s the reason?” The woman scoffed. “Zexion and Vexen banter about experiments all day. And I don’t see you giving either of them roses.”
The girl cocked her head slightly in thought before replying. “I know, but there’s always something between you two when I’ve seen you talk. I can feel it...like...on my skin.”
The Nymph smirked and ran a hand over one of her bangs. “It’s called static electricity, Naminé. Have you forgotten my element?”
The girl smiled back readily. “Luxord calls it ‘sparks’.”
---
She did not know why she was here.
Larxene stood in the hallway just outside one of the castle’s various sitting rooms. She watched as Demyx swiveled in an armchair, conversing with Roxas and Axel, who preferred to stay on the stationary couch. The sound of occasional sitar notes strayed into their conversation as the musician saw fit.
They way she saw it, this was the lesser of two evils. Giving a rose to Marluxia would practically be giving him permission to go on about the absolute perfection of roses forever. Axel would get bored of teasing her about it after a couple of weeks. She loved that crazy scheming gardener, but he could get a little wrapped up in his flowers.
Wait. Not ‘loved’. ‘Felt companionship for?’ No, she couldn’t feel anything at all.
Hmm. She gazed back out at the three Nobodies. It was... hard to believe they weren’t friends. Not really. Not without hearts. Ah, well. There was time to ponder that later.
“Well, if it isn’t the ‘usual suspects’,” she said as she came forward.
They all froze immediately. Demyx looked up at her and sank deep into his chair. Roxas had the nerve to glare at her slightly. Axel had that constant smirk pasted on his face.
“Hey, Larxene,” he greeted, waving slightly. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
She rolled her eyes in reply and said, “Alright, let’s get this over with as soon as possible. I need to give one of you something.”
Demyx raised his hand like a timid child in a classroom. “Larxene?”
“Yes, Demyx.”
“It’s not for me, is it?”
“No, Demyx.”
“Then can I leave?”
There was a silence.
“What do you think-”
“I’m gone!” The musician got up from the armchair and ran out of the den, sitar in hand.
As the coattails of Number IX disappeared down the hall, the three remaining Nobodies turned back to one another.
“So... it’s definitely for me or Roxas,” Axel said.
“Brilliant, aren’t you?” Larxene replied.
“It’s not deadly, is it?” The youngest Nobody asked. “It feels like I’ve gotten hundreds of death traps from you, Larxene.”
“I lure because I care, squirt. You’ll face a hell of a lot more dangerous things out in the field. Like…Behemoths for instance.”
“Behemoths?” The boy turned to his ‘friend’ on the couch beside him. “What’s a Behemoth?”
“Wellll,” Axel stroked his chin. “Imagine a giant purple unicorn.”
“With tusks,” Larxene added.
“Ah, yes. With tusks,” Axel agreed.
“With tusks?” Roxas asked.
“Yes, but all of this is beside the point,” the woman brought the conversation back to the task at hand. “I need to give you something.”
“Right then,” the red head agreed and the boy leaned forward in curiosity.
Larxene continued to stare at that eternally smirking face with those tiny little markings underneath his eyes. Diamonds? Teardrops? Nobody knew, nobody asked. It was an unspoken rule that talk of Others was strictly forbidden. Maybe it had nothing to do with Somebodies and was something belonging only to Axel.
She doubted it.
He blinked at her, smiled more widely, and it was if she caught her reflection in those stupid green eyes of his. She had been giving something away to him during that little train of thought, and he had caught it. Luckily, Roxas hadn’t noticed and…
Roxas.
If she got him involved in Naminé’s little challenge, she would be automatically silenced into submission. Even if she lost this challenge, Naminé wouldn’t be allowed to say anything because it involved Roxas and that simply wouldn’t do. Their connection was dangerous, or so Xemnas claimed.
“It’s for you,” she finally said, summoning the rose in her hand as simply as she did her kunai. She held it in front of Roxas’s completely shocked face. “It’s from someone else.”
“S-someone else?” The boy stuttered for once, reaching out and taking it. Something in those blue eyes softened as he looked at it.
“Yup. I’m just a messenger.”
The boy continued to observe the rose, made of wire and paper. Axel leaned forward. “No messages for me, I suppose?”
“Nope. Ta, boys. Don’t forget to fetch your water boy back.” And she turned to leave.
The Savage Nymph was victorious for another day. And she thought Naminé’s challenge had actually been interesting, been different. Ha! How utterly foolish of her. How-
“Larxene.”
She turned. Axel standing at the end of the hallway.
“What? I delivered my message, didn’t I?”
“You know we’re forbidden to tell Roxas about Naminé,” he said as he approached.
“Forbidden?” She grinned up at him. “Since when has ‘forbidden’ been an obstacle for me?”
He rolled his eyes. “Point taken.” He paused, then said, “That rose was for me, wasn’t it?”
Her grin immediately soured into a pout with furrowed eyebrows. “What makes you say that?”
It was his turn to grin. “I just know these things Larxene.”
She huffed and started to stalk off down the hall. Click-clack-click-clack…
“I was surprised though,” he called after her, in a thoughtful voice. “I would’ve expected an orchid.”
The sound of her heels immediately halted. She turned and looked at him slowly over her shoulder.
“What?” she said, near whisper.
“Orchids. They’re better than roses,” he replied, as though he was stating the supremely obvious.
“Who told you that?” she asked, immediately thinking of ways she could punish Naminé without getting in trouble herself.
Axel raised his hands in a yielding gesture. “No one. To tell you the truth,” he scratched at the back of his neck, “it just came to me. Just now.”
There was a pause.
“Huh,” the woman said. “Interesting.”
“Yeah,” he nodded. He blinked up as he heard her summon a portal in the wall. “Where are you going?”
She paused, one hand pressed against the cold white wall. “Why do you care?”
He walked up and wrenched her away from the wall and the waiting portal. “Don’t say that.”
She tried to shrug off the hand on her shoulder. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“Just don’t say it, Twelve, you hear me?” he said, and what might’ve been anger hissed in his voice.
She slapped him across the face. The sound resounded in the small hallway and electricity crackled from her hand. Axel, instead of backing down, started pulling her into his arms. She struggled and the Flurry flinched in pain as more bolts of electricity shocked him.
“Don’t you ever call me Twelve, Axel!” she shouted. “I’m Larxene to you! I’m not just some-”
“I know,” he said. She was now trapped against him, her arms folded against his chest, his wrapped securely around her waist. She could easily get away, but those stupid green eyes of his were watching her every move.
The portal, unattended to, faded. “You know what?” she asked.
“I know you’re not just some number. Sorry.”
He looked...surprisingly honest. Honesty; that wasn’t an emotion, was it? It was hard to think when you’re so close you can feel someone’s breath and…
Snappy comeback, Larxene. Get on it.
“Yeah, well. Next time you slip up like that, I’ll use your body for target practice. Your lungs are the bull’s-eyes, got it?”
“Memorized.”
“...What?”
He smirked down on her. “I got it memorized.”
She sighed. “You know, that catchphrase is getting increasingly wearing.”
“Is it?” he asked, and closed the final distance.
Either it was in their heads or Vexen had conveniently set off another ground-shaking experiment. But either way, somewhere, something exploded into torches and thunderstorms and rain and candles and masks and alleyways and castles and dark summer nights and memories that should never, ever, be remembered.
When they pulled back for air, Larxene was shaking like she never had before and Axel felt like he should never open his arms and let this Nymph get away from him again. But that was odd, because there never was a ‘first’ until now, so how could there be an ‘again’?
Somehow, he managed to unclench his arms and she was no longer trapped against him. They stood watching each other shake and gasp for breath, mostly in fear, but maybe in the joy of discovery.
“H-Happy Valentine’s Day Larxene.”
She backed up against the wall, never taking her eyes off him. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Axel.” A portal opened up and she almost fell back into it, glad to get away from him.
The redhead sighed. As if this ‘existence’ wasn’t complicated enough.
“Axel!”
The man turned to a very frustrated Roxas standing in the doorway. “I have been pacing for five minutes straight, and the only logical explanation I can come up with for this,” he brandished the paper rose as though it was one of his keyblades, “is that somebody I don’t know about made it. You’re keeping something from me, aren’t you? The whole Organization is!”
Axel straightened. Roxas let his hand and the rose fall back to his side, prepared for whatever mysterious answer awaited him.
“That was only five minutes?”
---
“Wellll,” Larxene stretched her arms up above her head as she entered the memory witch’s room, “looks like I’m babysitting you tonight, little girl.”
“You cheated yesterday,” Naminé replied, from her seat at the table. She was scratching at her sketchpad unenthusiastically.
The woman blinked. “Oh yes,” she said, putting her hand to her chin and looking at the ceiling, “your little Valentine’s challenge. I don’t think of it as ‘cheating’ so much as I changed the rules.”
“You were supposed to give it to Axel or Marluxia!” the girl said, looking up from her sketch. “Now the Superior is wondering if I’m trying to break out and see him!”
“Roxas?” The woman teased. “Your little knight in black leather armor?” She mimed the actions of a keyblade wielder. “The Hero of Twin Keyblades, come to rescue the White Princess from her ivory tower! Ha!”
Naminé’s face burned red. “Well, what about you?” she asked, standing up.
“What about me?” Larxene replied, beaming.
“I was going to give you this when you completed the challenge,” she said, removing a red orchid from the vase in the middle of the table, “but I-”
The woman snatched it out of her hand. “Where did you get this?”
Naminé flinched, and she was immediately brought her back into her good old ‘shy mode’. “Axel brought it in here. I think he was going to give it to you, but-”
Larxene raised an eyebrow.
“...I’ll be back in a minute.” She turned on her heel and strolled through a portal in the wall, orchid in hand.
As soon as she was gone, the young teenager ran back to the sketchpad waiting for her on the table. She picked up the pencil and added a little line beside her name.
Naminé, one. Opponent, zero.
She added one final touch to the scoreboard’s constant companion.
The sketchy Luxord smirked up at her.
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