before Garnet had reached her sixth birthday; the Invincible appeared to her as an "eyeball" in the sky. She and her mother fled from the village by a small boat and traveled to Mist Continent. Her mother did not survive and died at some unknown point before the boat wrecked in Alexandria Harbor where they were found by Doctor Tot. Coincidentally, the little girl looked almost identical to Alexandria's former Princess Garnet, who had died shortly beforehand due to illness. However, the child had a horn. As an alternative to publicly announcing the death of Alexandria's beloved Princess, the King of Alexandria ordered the child's horn be removed and the little girl assumed Princess Garnet's identity. Garnet has repressed her memories of her former life in Madain Sari; the only remaining memories she has of her former life are a recurring nightmare involving her escape from the village's destruction and "Melodies of Life", a song that only she and Eiko know. The King of Alexandria died some time before the beginning of the game, leaving Queen Brahne in complete control of Alexandria and Garnet as the sole heir to the throne. At her fifteenth birthday, a year before the beginning of the game, a suspicious man known as Kuja appeared in the Castle; ever since Kuja's initial arrival at Alexandria Castle, Queen Brahne's behavior had become more hostile. Upon hearing that the theater troupe Tantalus would be performing Garnet's favorite play (Lord Avon's "I Want to be Your Canary") in Alexandria on Garnet's sixteenth birthday, Garnet resolved to stowaway on board the Prima Vista, Tantalus' theater ship, as it returned to its home port in Lindblum where she could consult with her father's long time friend Regent Cid Fabool IX about her adoptive mother's radical behavior (not knowing that Cid had already requested Tantalus to kidnap her precisely because he feared Queen Brahne's increasingly erratic behavior and wanted Garnet away from her). After their escape, Garnet assumes the alias of Dagger to try to keep a low profile among the commoners, a name she continues to employ for the majority of the game. The robe that Garnet wears to conceal her identity during her escape is white trimmed with red triangles, which is the design of Final Fantasy's typical White Mages' robe. Despite this visual cue, Garnet's role in battle is more suited towards Summoning with White Magic as a