Larxene's standards are high, and Axel finds that the more he dances with her, the more skilled he becomes, the more he gets out of a class. She doesn't take most of his, of course, because he's still part of the lower school, but sometimes she'll turn up, old practice leotard on, battered shoes, and dance with the rest of them, standing somewhere near the back of the class, clearly just going through the motions, but she shines. She stands out as no one else does; her turns, her idevelopé/i, her extension, just that little bit better, polished, worked on and clean. In the class of developing dancers, it is easy to see where she beats them, why she is the prima ballerina, and they are all struggling to take her crown. The girls scowl when she shows up, even Naminé, who is normally pleasant to everyone, but Axel loves it. There is nothing better than learning from the best, and he worships her every move. She responds by turning her face to him, smiling, open like flowers to the sun, and they are always paired together for the ipas de deux/i, no matter what, because the teachers aren't blind, after all. They know that Axel's dancing is improving literally in leaps and bounds, and all because Larxene is willing to give him the time and effort, all because she is willing to drop back to his level, almost, and bring him to higher standards. Their partnership is evident, and beautiful, and it is everything that Axel had hoped dancing would be for him.
The only blip comes when the auditions are up for the lower school winter show. Larxene is, as she had said, taking the main role in the company's winter production, and she wouldn't debase herself in a lower school show anyway, it's not good for a ballerina of her stature, to be seen to enjoy dancing below her level. So Axel goes to the audition, aiming for the role of the Nutcracker, the main male role in the ballet, and dances beautifully, using all of the extra tuition he's been getting from Larxene, all of the skill and competence, and of course, he gets the role. That isn't the issue – he's a idanseur/i who Larxene has taken interest in dancing with, of course they want him to dance the main role, he's being prepped for main roles in the company, seeing as Larxene gets along with him, which certainly can't be said for the relationship between her and Riku. No, the problem is who is chosen to play Clara. Obviously, it had to be someone who danced well with Axel, someone with skill and grace, the ability to keep up with him and to learn from his new knowledge. So, of course, they choose Naminé.
This isn't a problem for Axel; he misses dancing with her, where he has taken to practicing with Larxene, she has been taking extra classes with Marluxia, forcing her body impossibly smaller, impossibly bent, twisted, learning ever more complicated moves. There is no doubt that she can keep up with him – she may even outshine him now, like she always did before – and she is lovelier every day. Larxene, though, smells a rival in the little blonde, smells a challenger for her crown, and realises she is growing older every year, and that every year brings less flexibility, less strength. She is twenty-four this year, and Naminé will only be seventeen, having been dancing with the school for over a year. Sure, she's not yet trusted with the company, because she's young, and the young are often high strung, and anyway, she can not spent quite as much time ien pointe/i as she'd like, just out of professionalism, waiting until she is eighteen to put the work in properly. However, if she does this performance well, if she makes a glorious Clara, then people will start to talk about her taking small roles in company productions, and when that happens, if she does well, performs admirably, she will start getting the second supporting roles, and before Larxene knows it, she'll be the understudy if anything happens. And in ballet, if anything does happen, it could spell the end of your career – as Larxene well knows, having taken over halfway through the show when Kairi was carried off, pelvis ruined, and she's never looked back since. She doesn't feel bad about taking Kairi's place, always thankful that she got the chance to become prima ballerina at a young age, ready to spend several years at the top. But if Naminé begins out-dancing her, then her race is run, and she'll be relegated to chorus before she knows what's happened. She can't let that happen.
There's nothing she can outwardly do, but she knows that the best way to knock a dancer's confidence is always going to be to do with their weight. They could be the most talented, beautiful dancers, but they will always be afraid of those few extra pounds which mean they don't move quite as they should, don't catch the eye of the directors, get passed over at auditions. So Larxene has a plan, which she spreads through the other dancers, who are all so very able to carry a grudge which isn't theirs, but are willing to attack simply because with Naminé out of the way, they all have a better chance of being the next prima donna. It's not nice, but it's the way of any pack – someone always has to be at the top, someone has to be at the bottom. She drops a few careful hints when she next sees Naminé dance, giving her pointers, but at the same time, critiquing her figure.
"It's amazing, really, because you carry it so well."
"If I had your figure, I'm not sure I could get that level of extension."
"I'd never know how heavy you are, to see you dance."
"Maybe the shape of ballet is changing towards the fuller figure."
She isn't the only one, because the girls are like sharks, and when they taste blood in the water, they go in for the kill, so everyone else begins to agree in tiny little ways.
When Naminé steps onstage for her first night as Clara, her first in a week-long run, she is dizzy, light-headed, she hasn't eaten in days, and everything in her life is narrowed down to food and her feet. He toes hurt, her ankles wobbling in practice, leaving her in tears that her body won't do what she wants it to, won't run like she wants it to. Axel is there in practice, but he isn't really there, his budding romance with Larxene assured now, the two of them inseparable. He has arranged to have red roses delivered to her dressing room tomorrow night, opening night for the company performance, and it has cost him almost everything he has. He doesn't notice that Naminé, too, has nothing left, although in a completely different way. She's falling apart at the seams, the wardrobe mistress tutting at her as she takes the costume in again, the teachers trying to take her aside and help her to understand that a dancer without food is a dancer with no strength, and a dancer with no strength is not a dancer, at all. It is no good – Larxene hasn't set the seed of poison, she's just encouraged it to grow, and now it has spread out of all control, leeching power from all other places. Naminé is no longer certain that she wants to be a dancer, no longer certain that she has any place in this world, when just three months ago she was the darling of the whole lower school, feted to take over from Larxene. So when she takes her first steps with Axel, as Clara and the Nutcracker, dancing the ipas de deux/i, she isn't paying attention, isn't connected to him – and he is apart, himself, thinking of a different blonde, a different ballet, a different stage. So when she leaps, he isn't prepared, and she lands on one foot, one weak, starved muscle, which gives way, sending her over sideways with an audible snap.
The show is stopped, Naminé carried away on a stretcher, crying, still protesting she can dance, her skin stretched taut over her bones in a way that even the other dancers find frightening, looking at her and realising that could have been them, if Larxene had willed it, if the others had circled them, and it makes them look warily at their friends. If they can create this, a skeletal wreck with her bone poking through her skin, still thinking she can get ien pointe/i, our of someone who was kind, smiling, skilled and always ready with a kind word for anyone, then what could they do to someone without quite that much skill, quite that much kindness? Axel phones her mother, refusing to let the ballet school do it.
"Hello?"
"Oh… um… is your mom there?"
"Who is this?"
"It's Axel. It's about Naminé."
"Why? What's happened?"
"There's been an accident."
Axel hangs up after explaining, listening to the sick horror in boy's voice at the end of the phone, the anger driving up behind it, and feels horribly guilty, ill with it. He doesn't go to Larxene's show the next day, or any of the others for the first week. He just sits in his tiny lodging room, staring out of the window, and wonders how this has all spiralled so out of control.