Born as Amélie Deschamps, a common young tailor's apprentice, she lived on the outskirts of Paris where even in the fields one could hear the dulcet tones of of Notre Dame's bells. She was quiet, demure and shy. Attended evening mass every afternoon, walked to and from the store to her home, keeping mostly to herself with her head down and out of trouble. Nothing special, no one important. Even in the shadow of the Tailor, who's praise was renouned by the local townsfolk within the city, even as the older woman took most--if not all of the credit when it was apparent that Amélie was growing stronger in her work as months passed. Amélie, however, lacked any and all confidence to argue, meek enough to accept the meager pay she recieved and lived through her life playing it safe.

But it wasn't enjoyable.

The Feast of Fools was Amélie's only reprieve and the one thing she only asked of her employer to attend each year. She found the glamorous and unhindered lifestyle of the gypsies to be enlightening! Careless and free, no responsibilities except for each other and every day was a new adventure for them. She missed them when they would travel outside of Paris but her eyes lit up every time the reappeared for the festivities and made it a point to go a little out of her way to spare a coin or two for them on her way back home. She envied their lifestyle, entertaining the idea of wanting nothing more than to join them, to see more than beyond Paris, free from her own path in life and where it was headed.

Whispers within Notre Dame's attendents began to flow into the streets of Paris. Judge Frollo's intent for hunting down the gypsies in Paris had reached to an unhealthy obsession to eriadicate them all. Amélie kept her head down and quietly moved along, worried for the vagabonds but too scared to do anything to help them. All she felt was a deep sadness that they would be found by the guards and burned for being no one but themselves, it didn't seem fair to her. However, as she came home she found a family of gypsies hiding out in her yard, Amélie realized she could do something to help. A little something to repay them for the joy they given her from their shows. So she hid them away in her house, working more hours with the Elderly Tailor to purchase more food to feed a house of one with five other strangers. They repaid her kindness with stories of their travels, the places they went to and the shows they did, even going as far as to teach her a few tricks of their trade as she used the skills from work to repair their clothes and make them seem a little nicer. It was during those times she felt more open and free like herself, even going as far as to use her middle name as a moniker along with the gypsies using countless aliases, and if she were honest with herself, "Marie" just sometimes had a better ring to it than "Amélie". Together they made a quaint little family, hiding from the Parisian Minister and the Palace of Justice.

Until one day Amélie came home and found her house burning to the ground with Frollo's soldiers finishing the job. They mocked at her and laughed, mentioning in passing that the Tailor in town gave them the heads-up of a family living out in the countryside, Amélie soon realizing that her master sold her out and the family. She rushed in, trying to find the family in desperation to get them out but the smoke and ash and heat all but consumed her--her fear, her hysteria. Only one member of the family was found still alive, a little boy crying as hard as Amélie was, and from their conjoined sadness did the Heartless appear--consuming both of their hearts.

Within the next morning after the Embers of Paris subsided into a smoldering ash over the city, Amélie awoke as someone new. She felt lighter, carefree, but airheaded and confused. However as time passed and she induldged in life's pleasures, she came to the conclusion she'd take her new life in stride and run away from her past for the future ahead, not as Amélie anymore but as Mexira.