Disclaimer: Not mine!
A/N: Written for Wolf Fangs on the LiveJournal community KH Request. She asked for Larxene/Roxas and the prompt 'mirror, mirror on the wall'. This is set in post-KH1, pre-CoM timeline.
Mirror, Mirror
© Scribbler, August 2008.
He had hair the colour of corn, though it didn't lay in neat rows like a field. Instead it swept in different directions, refusing to be regimented, and the blue eyes beneath were just the same – wilful, obstinate, intractable You wouldn't know it to see him from a distance, arms folded and face impassive, but he was capable of more fire than even Flurry of Dancing Flames.
"Such a pretty little boy."
There it went, that tiny flash of something Nobodies weren't supposed to be capable of. He was irritated with her. It made her smile, though she couldn't explain why. He intrigued her; a collection of opposites wrapped in skin and locked together by a pair of keyblades. Maybe it was a result of spending so much time trapped in that damnable castle with only Marluxia and his pet witch for company. Other members of the Organisation came and went, but it was mainly just the three of them, like some warped version of a nuclear family.
"Mirror, mirror, on the wall, tell me what you see in us all," she said, standing in front of the ornate thing in Naminé's room after chasing her downstairs for breakfast. The mirror answered by showing her only herself, and the things reflected in her own flat eyes. She punched it and stood, glass shards so deep into her glove they were buried between the tendons in her hand. "I see a one, a two and a three; Mommy, Daddy, daughter make a family."
He was there when she came down, the latest member sent to check on them. He lingered by the stove where Naminé was making pancakes, the sweet smell of frying batter making the kitchen smell like a real home instead of the all-white mockery it was. Marluxia usually retreated to the colours of his garden to escape the whiteness, but she stayed to stare at the walls until they blinked back, and Namine tried to fill it with homely little touches that sank without trace like pebbles in the ocean.
"You're bleeding," he observed mildly.
Naminé spun around, even though it was just her. The little witch ducked her head and returned to her cooking when she saw the dangerous glint in her eyes and the balancing act of her expression, like a tightrope walker at the top of the tent with no safety net, bending down to set fire to the rope.
"Why did you do that?" he asked when she told them what she'd done and sat at the table, dripping blood to mar the white surface as she pulled fragments from her palm. He sat across from her, expression neutral.
"Because I'm nobody's mother." She snickered. "Or a Nobody's mother."
He didn't get the joke. Her wit was so unappreciated.
"Tell me, Roxas, when you look into a mirror what do you see?"
"That's a useless question. I see what anyone sees when they look into a mirror."
"I don't think so." She leaned close, smearing red and resting one side of her chest in it, making the leather of her coat shiny. They were both black puddles in an all-white prison, but unlike her he could leave. "I think you see something no other Nobody does."
His eyebrows twitched. It wasn't a scowl, but it was enough. She sat back, satisfied, and allowed Naminé to serve her breakfast. Naminé looked like she belonged here, white and spotless and utterly fake.
Marluxia would come in soon and they'd be a trio plus one – one family and an intruder, or three shades of blonde against his cherry-blossom pink.
"Do you bleed the same as us?"
"Excuse me?"
She held out her hand, watching one globule drip from her fingertip. "I've often wondered how we're able to bleed without hearts to pump blood around our bodies. I wonder, do you bleed more easily than I do?"
He smacked his uninjured palms on the tabletop and pushed away, ignoring the plate Naminé had prepared for him. He blew past Marluxia in the doorway, who watched him go with a sardonic eyebrow, then turned and looked directly at her.
"Must you always insist on driving away company?"
"He'll be back," she replied easily.
And he was; face still impassive beneath its upsweep of corn-yellow hair, and eyes still full of questions he thought she could answer because her eyes had spotted and reflected back at him what he couldn't even bring himself to acknowledge.
Fin.