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Adrien couldn't help it; he really couldn't.The exchange student was just too beautiful to not be enamoured by, and he was sure half the school agreed with him.They had just gotten an exchange student from the Beauxbaton Academy of Magic, and to say she was absolutely stunning would be a complete and utter understatement, completely false on the mere fact that it just wasn't enough.She had long dark hair that he was sure would flow all the way to her ankles if she didn't have it braided.The braid was loose and sort of large, signifying that she had very thick hair. It dangled all the way to her rear, with a string of white, pink, red, and burgundy peonies woven in with the hair, along with a flower crown made of irises decorating her head, a gift to her from Rose, something to remind her of her home in France.She had pale, porcelain-like skin with a smattering of freckles along the bridge of her nose and all across her cheeks, and there were some on her arms and shoulders. She had these iridescent eyes, too, bright blue and with just enough sharpness to puncture the heart of any and all persons who dared to look into them, but not enough to make them feel uncomfortable under a piercing gaze.She was apparently a half-blood, something a few of the purebloods scoffed at despite their private whispers of how pretty she was. She was the daughter of a halfblood from Paris, France, and a pureblood from Zhouzhuang, China, who was more familiar with the Chinese way of performing magic and that had apparently been what the beautiful girl had known before going to school, meaning she had a mix of magic from an ancient culture more familiar and creative with their magic than the modern society of the Wizarding World, and that same modern ideology.To top it all off, she was an aspiring designer, and over the past couple of weeks with the many friends she had already made, she was very eager to show off all of her designs.Adrien, being a pureblood and the son of a designer, had seen plenty of plain clothes and enchanted ones. His father tailored to both the muggles and the wizards, being a bit more progressive than some of their pureblood brethren.And he had to say, this girl's designs were really something.She almost always did enchanted designs, but occasionally, when she got her hands on the right fabrics, she managed to make beautiful, ordinary clothes that had the same effect as the enchanted ones. She knew some very advanced garment charms, and he was really impressed with her. He had even gotten to witness her make up her own charms here and there, when he noticed in their classes. Professor Flitwick had deemed her one of his favorite students, alongside the likes of himself and his best friend, Nino, who frequently made charms that were useful in Professor Flitwick's choir, considering they mostly had to do with music.But, even after all this time, neither him or his best friend had ever happened to catch her first name. Everyone called her by her last name, and addressed her the French way, Mademoiselle, instead of the English or Scottish way, Miss.So Adrien found himself growing very fond of a girl he had no name for, for the exception of the name their whole class had settled on calling her; Lady Creation, or Dame de la Création.Her very close friends called her Ladybug, and he had only heard her talk about it once. Apparently Ladybug and any consequential nicknames sprouting off of that was a name that her parents had given her since, her whole life, the girl had seemed to have an oddly lucky string of events that followed her. Including times when, if she gave someone a blessing, even if had no real intentions, that blessing would come to pass. She even made the comment that people back at the Beauxbatons used to call her Lady Luck, or, by her older peers, Mademoiselle de la Chance.Adrien found that really amusing, actually. He seemed to be the opposite of her. He could only ever remember having a strange misfortune in his life, having very few happy memories with... essentially anything in his life. Nino. Nino was a happy memory, but that was about it. He wondered if that had anything to do with the fact that his mother, an animagus, was a black cat.Adrien blinked. He couldn't even believe what he was looking at.There was Lady Creation, sitting there, looking as casual as ever under that tree, just reading, with the brightest red owl he had ever seen in his life, with bright blue eyes and bespeckled wings.Almost everyone had commented on the strange bird, who seemed to comprehend everything said to it and even try and respond before it remembered that it didn't speak a human language. Lady Creation simply told them it was an enchanted animal, one that had lived with the French side of her family for forever and was related to a phoenix.Adrien recognized its general appearance as a Philippine Scops Owl, but if it's bright red feathers were any indication, he really couldn't say that the idea that this bird was related to a phoenix was completely false.Adrien's own familiar, a grumpy black cat with bright green eyes (whom had also been in his family for forever and a half), leapt up onto his shoulder, balancing precariously before steading himself, staring at the girl with slow blinking eyes."She interest you, too, Plagg?" He asked, gently petting his scruff with his gloved fingers, a place he knew the cat liked. "I'm beginning to question just who this girl really is... she just... seems too good to be real. Like my perfect opposite, but I'm not sure how."Adrien watched as Lady Creation performed a particularly difficult spell, her tongue poking out in a blep as she focused. It was possibly the most adorable thing he had ever seen, and he had been watching her practice this spell for nearly ten minutes now, but she just couldn't seem to get it right.Their professor walked up with a proud smile on his face, but then furrowed his brow, his eyes looking right at her wand. He spoke up quietly, but Adrien's sharp hearing didn't miss it."Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng, if I may ask, what is your wand made out of?"Lady Creation looked down at her wand, blinking at it like it was the most normal thing ever and she was confused as to why she was being questioned about it, too."Ivory." She said, barely missing a beat, and he watched as the teacher and several students in listening vicinity paled, and he felt himself doing the same."L-Like... animal bones?" One of the girls stuttered, backing up slightly.The ravnette nodded and tilted her head curiously at the girl. "Well, yeah. I mean, this is an old family wand from my mom's side - my wizarding ancestors, animal tamers, used it. My Chinese ancestors had elephants, after all. After one of their greatest bulls died in battle, they removed his tusks and carved them all into wands to give to the soldiers that fought alongside the bull, the ultimate memento of respect to the creature." She said as she looked down at the wand with a smile on her face. "It's one of six wands made from the great beast, making it one of the most rare kind of wand on the planet, but that isn't why I use it." She shrugged. "The wand had laid dormant for nearly a century, and my mom had left it out one day after praying to the ancestors, and I grabbed it. I was only four. The wand chose me as it's new companion right then and there, and to this day, they always look so proud when I pull it out. I never tried to pursue a wooden wand like most others my age. I like my wand."A stifled laugh came from the girl sitting next to her, and Marinette looked over, furrowing her brow at her.The girl giggled again and shook her head. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but, it's just - you called the wand your 'companion,' like it was some sort of living creature-""The wand is a living creature, or need I remind you that, unlike your wand, mine is made completely of once living animals and ancient, unintrusive magic? Not to mention that trees are living, sentient beings, if the Whomping Willow on castle grounds is any indication." She furrowed her brow at the girl, like she had said something to her that she simply expected the other to know. "The wand chooses whose magic it amplifies, not the other way the 'round. If the wand doesn't like its wielder, it refuses to work with them. Wands are just as living and sentient as you or your familiar, and to treat them as anything less than a companion is a disrespect to the thing that helps you channel your magic literally any time you have to perform it, and will hold back your magical prowess as long as you continue to do so."Adrien muttered a spell under his breath, then watched as the glowing pink aura of Lady Creation's magic grew and expanded with her anger. Despite her calm voice, her magic showed she was practically fuming, and he watched the other auras around her shrunk in submission to her powerful magic. He didn't cower, though. He suddenly felt closer to this strange girl than he ever had before, and could only wonder how these people would react to her strangely passionate outburst.As the girl's aura shrank, she seemed at a loss for a second, before smirking and crossing her arms. "Okay, so? What? You talk so big, like your wand's core is a phoenix feather or something special like that. Just because your wand is made of a thousand year old elephant tusk doesn't mean-""Three thousand five hundred forty (3540) year old elephant tusk, and my wand core is made of the eye-spotted tail of an animagus albino peacock who was revered as the Spirit of Guan Yin in my ancestor's homeland, thank you very much." The girl all but snarled, standing up abruptly. "Excuse me, professor, but I need to blow off some steam, and I would prefer to do it in a place where being a little destructive wouldn't damage anything important, like another person." She growled. Adrien glanced over and noticed her wand give off a strange aura of its own, and felt his skin crawl as she walked past him and out the door.Her wand was essentially made of the bone of a magical creature and the soul of a witch or wizard, and while he had seen auras radiate off wands with owners that were particularly in touch with that side of wizardry, it was nothing like this. This wand, containing the souls of two very powerful and ancient creatures, had an aura that was frighteningly similar to a person's, and this aura was also angry, apparently as offended of the other girl's words as Lady Creation was.And that's when it dawned on him on just why the two of them were perfect opposites.Adrien was expected to be perfect all the time and felt that extreme pressure from his father all the time. He had lost a parent just before he got accepted into Hogwarts, had a streak of bad luck ever since she passed away, had a hard time making friends, and barely had any family heirlooms to speak of, despite being a pureblood.But Ladybug, this beautiful, amazing, spitfire of a young woman - she was also expected to be perfect all the time, but she didn't care. She acted how she wanted to and was happy to surprise the people around her when she did something they thought was out of character, when, really, it wasn't. She wasn't proud of herself, didn't pride herself on the things she did, and seemed to simply enjoy sharing her accomplishments with the ones she cared about. She had a family, and was so proud of that family, not herself, that she didn't really care about material possessions that much. Instead, the material possessions she did care about had such deep and important meanings and history behind them that it often left people speechless. Her wand, her familiar, everything down to how she controlled her magic when sewing had a familial connection somehow.She was so proud of her family and embraced everything about them, while he wished everyone would just forget that he was his father's son.Adrien could only watch as this French-Chinese girl made large vines grow up from the earth, destroying the castle grounds and the flower beds, which she promptly repaired after sending the vines away, seeming content with the mild display of destruction, before conjuring something and using another set of vines to completely crush it, then vanished it all.He had run out here on a whim, telling his professor that he was simply going to check to make sure she didn't accidentally hurt someone, even though he knew she wouldn't.It seemed both her and her wand needed it, because their auras seemed to calm down, and she sighed, slumping on the ground. She looked at her wand, staring at it for a moment before smiling at it, and Adrien watched as the shimmering red-white aura of the wand reach out and wrap around her own silvery pink aura, and mix together in an unseen bond, one that could only be built on years of trust and communication.His own wand, made of the wood of the poisonous Cypress, had seemed to surprise his peers who happened to have grown up on Wand Tree farms, but he simply felt that it was right. He had felt the sentience of his wand as soon as his fingers curled around it, especially with the graceful presence of the Dragon Heartstring core, taken from an illustrious Antipodean Opaleye that was said to be very social and bubbly creature before she passed away, or so her tamer said. He had always felt honored to have her in his possession, and even sometimes had wordless conversations that were passings of emotions. She was a brave and protective soul, something he was glad to have in his life. He agreed with this girl; the wands were sentient, and deserved the utmost respect. The souls of the wands were made of creatures far more noble than mere students would ever be, and he felt that his wand, in particular, deserved all the love she could get.So after Lady Creation calmed down from her little fit, he walked over and sat down next to her, smiling softly at the raven-haired girl, who blinked at him curiously."Sorry." He murmured. "I just... came to make sure you were okay."Marinette.That was her name.Marinette.Adrien felt dazed in the best way.They had a conversation that had lasted nearly an hour, and they had missed a class, but it had been completely worth it.He got to find out her name, something that no one but the teachers knew yet. She had kept her name secret, a carefully guarded one at that. She mentioned something about how names held power in her family's culture, and she'd prefer not to give that power to the undeserving, but she liked him. More than she did other students there at Hogwarts.The only real issue about this all?Adrien had been very curious and attracted to her already, like a magnet tugging on him harder and harder until he finally gave in and let himself be pulled to her.Now? He found out things that basically sealed the deal for him; he had a horrible crush on this girl from France, and he couldn't find it in himself to care.He found out that she had noticed him before, very often (obviously, since he was in Hufflepuff and she was in Slytherin - their two houses supported each other, why wouldn't she know him? They both went to practically all the events), and even had a nickname for him; Chat Noir, or Black Cat, for his familiar and apparently his aura. He had never seen his own magic, and he was always curious about it. He had yet to perfect his spell for revealing magic, and was only ever able to see others' magic. She apparently had the same problem, and had proposed they work together to find a solution sometime. She described his magic as a green shadow; faded and bright in some spots, and pitch black in others, with the occasional blue sheen. She then remarked on his wand's aura, which looked opaline in nature, and, really, she wasn't wrong.They found out little things about each other, like their favorite treats or places on castle grounds, and eventually set up a study session in the library.All in all? It was a great day for Adrien, and he was already working on a new spell to show Marinette as a gift.

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Adrien quickly found that Marinette was very freeing to talk to and hang out with. She didn't care what others thought of her while he had been trained to always look immaculate and to always leave a good impression. Walking around with her made him feel like he didn't need to be so stiff all the time, could be less than perfect and he'd still be accepted. So it was now, in his fifth year, that he found himself doubling over in the middle of the courtyard, laughing so hard at one of his new friend's stories, and Adrien honestly couldn't remember a time before his mother's passing that he had felt so relaxed. People were giving him bizarre looks as they passed by, but he didn't care. He couldn't remember the last time he was this happy, and Marinette had this brilliant, beautiful grin on her face as her friend laughed. Sure, that smile helped his laughter die down, and she seemed a little sad by that, but it was hard to keep laughing when the butterflies in his stomach made his muscles feel tight, like he was being squeezed from the inside. He had never been this comfortable in public, never been this comfortable in the courtyard of his own school. And it was all because of a silly transfer student who had the best stories of her ridiculous, bubbly aunt.She and Adrien continued to talk there in the courtyard for several hours since it was the weekend; studying, taking breaks, talking, telling stories, and doing more studying. They let the other practice charms and jinxes on one another, which left them both with some bruises, some moments of panic, and some moments of loud, ridiculous laughter. He heard people comment on how strange he was behaving, but instead of ignoring them, he would tip his head back and grin a too-wide grin that showed off a dimple his father hated. "What? Haven't found a friend you can be weird with? That's really tragic." He would sympathize before turning back to the beautiful girl with the braid of peonies.On their way to class, Adrien walked next to Marinette (as per usual nowadays), talking about nothing in particular. About half way to class, however, Marinette suddenly grabbed his hand, beginning to run, giggling loudly as they ran. Adrien let himself be dragged, shocked and confused, before beginning to laugh with her, running the best he could to keep up with her.But having her hand in his felt strange, for some reason. He had expected to feel her skin against his, gripping tightly and maybe even her nails digging into the side of his hand, but instead he felt the strange pull of fabric around his hand, encompassed by her hand. He glanced down and remembered, with much disappointment, that he almost always wore gloves. Leather gloves with long-sleeved shirts or jackets to cover up as much skin as physically possible, because his father, after the loss of his mother, seemed terrified of him finding and losing his soulmate. Adrien felt that, too. Terrified. He saw how much it wrecked his father. Finding your soulmate usually included your magic bonding tightly, and the loss of the person your magic entwined with left part of you shattered; cracked and crumbling like a broken heart. His father's magical aura used to be so full and bright, dark blue and shining like a midnight sky. After his mother died, though, his magic has looked like broken glass. A large chunk of it was missing and he was left unable to perform magic that he used to be able to do perfectly.Adrien had always been scared of the prospect of losing his soulmate, so he figured if he couldn't find them, it wouldn't be a problem. But now that he knew Marinette, he was disappointed that it was just a natural habit to put on gloves in the morning."Class, this is a transfer student from Ilvermorny, Alya Césaire. The sorting hat has put her in Ravenclaw. Please treat her with the utmost respect, she's still getting used to the castle grounds."Alya blinked at the Great Hall behind her huge glasses that reminded Adrien of his cool and relaxed Gryffindor friend, Nino, and watched as she scanned the room. She then decided on a place to sit, a place right next to him, Nino, and Marinette, instead of sitting at her house. She smiled at the group as she pushed her glasses up. "Hello. What houses are you guys?" She asked, her golden eyes gleaming with interest.Adrien glanced to Marinette, who just smiled reassuringly. Ravenclaw was Gryffindor's partner, and they rarely got along with their shrewd counterparts, the Slytherins, or the Slytherins' typically anxiety-filled partner, the Hufflepuffs. But Marinette looked confident, so he wasn't going to interfere."Hi, I'm Ladybug - I'm a Slytherin." She showed off her green and silver tie with a smile. "These are my two friends; Nino, who's a Gryffindor, and Adrien, who's a Hufflepuff. We're sitting at the Hufflepuff table right now - the Ravenclaw table, your house, is just behind us." Marinette turned and pointed to the table behind them. Alya moved her eyes to look behind them. She furrowed her brow, then turned back, shifting around a little. "I noticed you were the only students who seemed to, uh, mix, I guess. Everyone else is sticking to their own...""Yeah, that's pretty common here in Hogwarts. All houses stick to themselves, and while pairs of houses have united together for a front against their respective rivals - Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, and Slytherin and Hufflepuff - no one is really friends with people outside of their houses that often. My man Adrien, though, he was the best friend decision I ever made." The tan-skinned boy grinned, and Adrien felt his face flush with heat. Alya grinned as well. "In Ilvermorny, friendly competition between houses is encouraged, but we aren't so... I don't know... segregated." She shivered and shook her head. "I saw the glares that the table at the end were sending me. It was like they thought I didn't belong here."Marinette scrunched up her nose. "Yeah, I'm sorry. That's the Slytherins." She sighed, sounding disappointed in her own house. "I understand what you mean. At my previous school, the Beauxbaton Academy of Magic, we didn't have separate houses, and everyone just talked to whoever they wanted to. It's weird to have people refuse to talk to me because of what tie I'm wearing." She shrugged. "But these two boys are pretty accepting, and they don't seem to mind having a friendship with people from other houses. You could be our friend." She grinned.Alya lit up at that and grinned, wiggling a little in her seat. "Sweet! I didn't have many friends at my old school, but I was head of the school newspaper. Do you guys have anything like that?" She asked with a grin."What's a school newspaper?" Adrien blurted out without thinking, and Alya gaped at him, almost looking offended. "You- you don't know what a school newspaper is? So that's a no? There isn't-""Hey, hey, calm down, Césaire! No ever said you couldn't simply found a school newspaper, or work as an intern for the Daily Prophet!" He said with a reassuring smile, putting his hand on her shoulder. Alya blinked. "Is the Daily Prophet the Wizarding Newspaper here?" She asked, her eyes lighting up again, going wide. At Nino's nod, she let out a happy whoop! and fist bumped the air, causing a couple students to look over but quickly go back to what they were doing.Adrien couldn't help but think that life would be a lot more interesting with this girl from America. Nino was from America, too, but he had been accepted to Hogwarts before Ilvermorny could get to him. Having been around Scottish and British people for the majority of his teen years has turned him more British than American. This girl seemed a bit more excitable than Nino, though.Well, you couldn't say he was wrong. Alya, while being a natural disaster at charms, was one of the best writers in the school, as well as one of the best flyers. Adrien had never seen Madame Hooch so impressed with a flyer before, with the exception of perhaps the current captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, Charlemagne Courier, who had been captain since their third year, 1971. Madame Hooch mentioned that, if she invested time into it, she could probably become the next Ravenclaw Seeker or even Captain, if she so wished. Alya was also very creative, like Marinette. While terrible at performing spells, she was fantastic at writing them. With the help of Marinette and Adrien, they had already created three new spells in the month that Alya had been there, two relating to Marinette's dressmaking (Alya spent a suspicious amount of time helping her with the dressmaking process - Adrien suspected that Marinette was sneaking her into the Slytherin Common Room to work with her), and one was an astounding jinx that she had written one day while in a playful, rebellious mood. The jinx made the person see stars, as if they had just gotten up too quickly, and stayed in their face for a solid five minutes, compelling the victim to stumble around and run into things clumsily, often leaving bruises, scratches, and many stubbed toes before the end of it. Nino found that he quite enjoyed the effect it had afterwards, when people would stop messing with their group because of the stubborn jinx.Marinette, of course, had made spells on her own before Alya had gotten there, but it seemed she was making much more progress and was showing off designs she had saved for weeks because she couldn't get the spellwork right, all thanks to Alya.Adrien's favorite, though, was when she walked into class one day, her hair braided like a crown over the top of her head, the rest of it hanging down her back, with baby's breath woven in. It was a black shirt with an off-the-shoulder neckline that hugged her body, with long, angel sleeves flaring out from her biceps. It looked like it was made of silk, but the spell on it made it so when she moved, an opaline sheen moved across it, like a lit up gem were shining inside the fabric itself. That spell itself was, yes, complicated, but the cooler part was a new spell that Marinette had been working on for two weeks.When the opaline sheen moved across it, if she swayed just right, an outline of the Palace of Beauxbatons traced out across her shirt; an elegant and stunning way to show pride for her old school, while her jeans showed pride for her current one.Her jeans were a simple, rich green, with a silver belt that also had an opaline shine to it, helping tie it into her shirt, and on the side of her thigh was a large, detailed Hogwarts Crest, hand sewn in over weeks of spare time. She had done it all so carefully, and even went as far as also sewing a simpler crest into her outsides of her black canvas shoes. She was the talk of the school and was getting tons of requests for copies of her shoes and pants in just their house crest, but when asked that she would just sigh and walk off. Marinette was very firm with the idea that the houses shouldn't be segregated and fight, just as Alya was, and wouldn't give anyone anything unless they showed pride for their whole school. Adrien didn't really know how to feel about their pride, but was glad that someone was promoting the idea that students need to be more accepting of one another.But as he stared at Marinette all throughout their classes, the gloves he wore every day felt like they were suffocating him, and he couldn't help but wonder what color he would leave on her if she really were his...Adrien watched as Alya and Nino flew around the stadium, almost seeming to be dancing around each other as they practiced. Adrien couldn't help but be amazed by them. Adrien was useless on a broom, no matter how much he practiced. Not that his father wanted him to be a sports star, anyhow, but it did bother him that he couldn't fly in the air like his friends.Nino came back, signifying the end of the practice session, and landed next to him, breathless and smiling so wide that just looking at him made Adrien's cheeks hurt. His cheeks were red with the wind and his hair was absolutely wild. His brown locks had grown out over the years Adrien had known him, and the Moroccan's hair looked surprisingly more like the Spanish side of his family rather than the African. His hair always looked soft with a reddish sheen on it when it was in the sun, and very few even had the chance to see it, outside of a little scruff poking out his hat. Alya landed next to them, her face looking similar to Nino's, but she was staring at Nino strangely, like he had done something she hadn't anticipated.That's when Marinette decided to plop down next to Adrien, bundled up in a thin pink and white jacket, her long hair in her normal braid, with earmuffs, thin mittens, tights, and white leather boots that went up to her knees. She scared Adrien bad enough for him to jump a couple inches away, and his friends began to laugh at him.Marinette smiled brightly at her friends. "That was great, guys. Alya, I think you might need to find a new partner, though. I think you're going to outgrow Monsieur Lahiffe here soon." She giggled.Nino just grinned and shook his head. "I'll never get tired of how you are still adamant on calling me 'monsieur.'" He said in a bad enough accent that Marinette burst out laughing. Adrien blushed a little at the bell-like laugh, and suddenly wished they were in Paris so he could listen to her laugh and compare it to the bells of Notre Dame, because he was sure that her laugh would be more beautiful.Marinette stood back up. "Well, come on. Dinner is about to start and I got us a spot near the front by the teacher seats. Dumbledore said that he had a special announcement for everyone." She grinned, then began to run to the exit of the stadium, giggling.Alya and Nino lingered, looking at him. "Adrien." Nino said. Adrien slowly looked up at his friends, smiling gently. "Yeah?""Oh my god." Alya grabbed Nino's bicep and shook him a little. "You were right. And Ladybug is clueless, isn't she?""Completely." Nino agreed, sighing exasperatedly. "Huh? What are you two talking about?" Adrien rose a brow at the two of them, rubbing his hands together.Alya looked sternly at her blonde friend, then put her hands on her hips. "You're in love with Ladybug." Adrien sputtered as he felt his face heat up, and he just knew that his red face wasn't from how cold it was.Alya grinned, her eyes sparkling with a glint of mischief. Adrien felt his blood run cold. "Alya, no. I don't want your theatrics getting tangled into this, I'm perfectly happy with my relationship with M- Ladybug! I'm happy just being her friend!" He said quickly and stood up, smiling shakily before sprinting off to go catch up to Marinette.The pair watched their red-faced friend run off, and Nino glanced at Alya, who still had that same smile on her face. "Alya...""What? Do you blame me?""No, I don't, and I think that's the worst part about this situation, because I have a hard time telling you to back down from this one.""Then don't tell me to back down, and help me!""But Alya-""Oh, come on! It would be great if our friends got together!""But what if they're waiting for their soulmates? We can't just force them onto each other, that wouldn't be right.""Yeah, but did you ever consider the possibility that maybe they are soulmates?""How can you be so sure?""I come from a family of Sages. I can see connections others can't. Those two were made for one another, I can feel it.""... If you say so, but we aren't forcing this on them; we're just going to encourage.""Ugh. Fine."Adrien blew against his gloved hands in an attempt to warm them up, still mildly sore and cold to the bones from when he was out on the Quidditch Field. Marinette was giggling as she watched him. "This is why you don't wear leather jackets and leather gloves out in the middle of November in Scotland, Chaton."Adrien pouted at his friend, even though his face was a little red at the endearing nickname she frequently used for him. "Well, it was like 10 degrees out yesterday! It was nice... I didn't know it was suddenly going to be -7 today." He rubbed his hands together. "And my leather jacket has a sweater lining, I figured it wouldn't be that bad today."Marinette laughed. "Here, take off your gloves, my hands are warm." She murmured, sliding her mittens off and looked at him expectantly.Adrien felt the butterflies in his stomach begin to flutter at her expectant gaze, and found himself tugging his gloves off before he could even think this through properly. His fingers were cold, and he had wanted to hold her hand since he first had a real conversation with her. Well, he shouldn't say that. He had held her hand before; Marinette was as happy to show and receive physical affection as him, he had just... never made skin-to-skin contact with her. Adrien stuffed his gloves in his jacket pocket, and reached out to grab Marinette's hand... And then a Gryffindor sped off in between them, knocking Adrien back onto the ground, the careless student yelling an apology over her shoulder as she ran.Adrien blinked in astonishment, and Marinette blinked as well, before the two burst out laughing. Adrien leaned back a little on his rear and Marinette doubled over, hugging her stomach, the two's laughter ringing out in the hallway.It was only for a couple fleeting moments, though. Adrien got up, dusted himself off, then shoved his hands in his pockets, grinning at his friend."Come on, we're going to be late to dinner." He sighed. Maybe someday he would finally work up the courage again to find out if he was meant for her, but currently, he stood by what he said to Alya and Nino; he was content to simply be her friend.

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Marinette could honestly admit that she liked Hogwarts. A lot. In fact, she liked it a lot better than her old school. Yes, she still prided herself as having been apart of that academy at one point, but they didn't really have anything to offer her there. Hogwarts let her be more liberal with her artistic nature, and even encouraged students to make new spells and charms. They didn't mind when she flaunted her designs instead of being uniform, telling her that they were glad she was so proud of her magic, and even let her design in class. She was near the top of her class, anyway, so she was glad they didn't seem to mind. Not to mention she had such wonderful friends. Her first real friend, Adrien, was so bright and happy that, really, she felt she didn't quite need any other friends. He was funny, bright, and his magic was so interesting. She had felt the pull of his magic quite often, considering how much time she spent with him. She had even frequently witnessed their magic trying to curl around each other, and thinking about that right now was not helping her focus. It was just making her blush.It was a weird phenomenon, to say the least. The only people she had ever seen that had magic trying to fuse together were life-time friends, lovers, or soulmates aware of their bond. Her and Adrien were none of those things. They had only met four months ago! And they weren't interested in each other like that.But she would be lying to herself if she said she thought her friend wasn't that attractive. No one was a model for their quirky personality, after all. He wasn't terribly muscular, but he was skinny beyond belief for his height - which was like 185.5 centimeters - and he was an astounding 56 kilograms, give or take a couple decimals. She always criticized her parents for trying to feed her friends when they came to visit from school because they were "to skinny," but she found herself thinking this every time she looked at Adrien. He was too skinny - he needed to get some meat on his bones. But when they ate in the Great Hall, he always ate the least fattening things offered at the table. She had endured this for four months, but something about today, after the episode in the hall and the fact that she couldn't focus on her designing anyway, made her stand up and begin to pile potatoes on her friend's plate.Alya stared at her friend in mild disbelief, Nino just chuckled, and Adrien looked confused and mildly amused. "Bugaboo, what are you doing?""Well, Chaton, I'm tired of you looking like you're anorexic. And I didn't grown up in a bakery just to watch one of my best friend starve himself when there are treacle tarts and tarte tatin right here one the table in front of us, not to mention potatoes, steak, ham, croissants, and gravy! You know, things that aren't fish and salads!" She gave him a stern look and Adrien laughed. "Fine, fine! I'll eat! I relent!" He laughed, before shoveling some of the potatoes into his mouth, and letting out a happy hum of approval. Marinette grinned and sat back down next to him, eating a bit of the croissant on her plate as she watched him, continuing to talk with Alya about the latest thing going on in the school, their homework assignment from their potion's teacher, and the new charms they were working on. He looked happy, if a little red-faced. Was it warm in here? She didn't think so. Maybe he was skinnier than she thought he was.Marinette couldn't sleep, and while it wasn't the first time, not even the mermaids could console her. Their somewhat kind words and beautiful voices couldn't lull her to the dream world tonight, and her room was too big and too empty. So she snuck out.She snuck her way out of her dorm, out of the Slytherin common room, out of the dungeon, and outside onto the castle grounds, and made it as far as the owlery before she noticed that there were other people out. A boy with his back to her, he wore a dark leather jacket with a hoodie underneath, the hood pulled up over his head, so she couldn't see any of his face or head. He was... talking? He seemed to be talking to something, kind of reverently, like he was talking to an old friend.Marinette looked up as her owl, Tikki, fluttered up from the tower, flying over and landing on the boy's arm when he held it out for her. He seemed happy to see the owl."Well hello there ol' girl. Did you come out for another treat?" He asked and pulled out a sugar quill, holding it out to the owl. Marinette giggled silently as she watched her owl devour it eagerly, being completely aware of the sweet tooth her familiar had, but had no idea someone outside of her was indulging the solemn bird. Marinette was happy Tikki had another friend."Well, if you ask me, kid, I think you should just tell her."Marinette stiffened up at the new voice, her eyes wide. The voice sounded a lot deeper than a student's should be, and she was momentarily petrified by the idea that a teacher might be out there."Easy for you to say - you're like this weird immortal friend of Death or whatever. You've been around since like the beginning of everything."Tikki squawked at the boy and glared, who sighed. "Sorry, sorry. I didn't mean to offend you, I'm just... nervous, I guess."Marinette hid behind a tree, and watched as her bird fluttered off and glowed, her body changing from the shape of an owl into that of a person's. A young girl, with dark hair, orangey red eyes, and simple clothes that looked similar to her feathers. Marinette's eyes went wide. She didn't know her owl could do that!"Well, Adrien, I can tell you that my charge is very fond of you. It isn't like she would hate you if you confessed to her."Adrien? That was Adrien? What was he so nervous about that he was willing to tell her bird, but not her?"Yeah, but that doesn't mean she returns my feelings."... Oh. He was having issues... confessing to the girl he liked. That made Marinette's heart clench unpleasantly, and she had a passing thought of her distaste for this mystery girl, and she didn't even know why."Seriously, kid. You're completely okay with this ability you have, the changing animals into humans on full moons thing, not to mention you understand us outside of that, but you can't tell a girl you like her? You're a supermodel, for pete's sake! Just rip the bandage off, get it over with! It's a one and done!""Okay, Plagg, but what if she's, like, waiting for her soulmate? I don't want to force myself onto her - after all, there's so many people in the wizarding world... it's more likely than not that I'm not meant to be hers. And being a supermodel makes it worse, actually. Most girls would simply accept a request to go out with a model for the social standing. I'm not ready to be received like that. I don't... want her to date me just because of my name."Tikki let out a laugh and quickly covered her mouth when Adrien pouted at her. She shook her head. "I'm so sorry, Adrien, it's just - well, I've known this girl you love since she was a baby. I watched her grow up at her mother's side. She isn't like that. She didn't even recognize you as Adrien the model when she first saw you on the first day of school. She didn't realize until you finally decided to talk to her."Adrien snorted. "Really?""Oh yeah. I remember the freak out session she had.""Pfft."Adrien belted out one of those lovely laughs that always made her feel light and airy whenever she was around him. It was a strange sensation... as if someone took her body and placed it up in the clouds. She was always proud when she made him laugh, but, again, couldn't quite figure out why. And his laugh made her forget most of the conversation she had just listened into.Apparently hearing her friend's voice was all she needed, because as soon as she went back to her dorm, she promptly passed out with the memory of his smile printed on the inside of her eyelids and his laughter ringing in her ears.Marinette woke in a cold sweat to the subconscious memory of her friend confessing to animals about how nervous he was. Why was he nervous again? Oh. Right. A girl.That had been nearly a month ago, but, for some reason, she frequently dreamed about it, with the muffled voices of her friend and the animals in the background. She didn't know why, but the idea that her best friend was in love with some girl she had never heard of made her feel sick, and wrong, and it made her heart ache unpleasantly and her head pound like someone was beating on it with a sledge hammer. But she couldn't bring it up in conversation. After all, how the hell would she know about his presumably monthly conversations with animals he turned into humans?She wasn't supposed to know, and she wouldn't let on that she did know until she figured this out. There had to be a way to have him bring it up willingly, without much encouraging on her part. There just had to be.Marinette winced as a house elf opened her curtain, the sunlight shining into the water of the Black Lake and into her window, with merfolk swimming around nearby. "Time to get up," they say, in their low, scratchy voices, grumbling as they walk off to go continue their duties. Marinette sat up slowly after a minute of letting the warm sun get rid of the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.There had to be a way.Marinette shivered as the cold bit at her nose and ears, her hands tucked safely into her jacket as she walked the castle grounds alongside Nino, who looked kind of worried. She had asked to speak with him, privately, about something that had been concerning her for a while, and he seemed very nervous about this conversation. They were well on their way to Hagrid's Hut at this point, and no one else was around that could possibly be in ear shot."Okay, Ladybug, you're starting to kind of freak me out. What did you want to talk about?""Oh, stop having a anxiety fit. I just needed to ask you about something with our friend." She rolled her bluebell eyes playfully, shaking her head as she nuzzled her face into her scarf.Nino seemed to relax, and that cocky grin formed on his face. "Which friend? The psychotic journalist, the epic drama queen looking for her next scoop, or supermodel extraordinaire, making every girl in a 10 meter radius swoon but couldn't give a public speech if his life depended on it?"Marinette barked out a laugh and playfully nudged Nino, a big grin on her face as she did. She sighed as she steadied out again, staring at the ground. "Adrien, you big dork."Nino smiled softly as he looked out around them, watching a jobberknoll flutter to a nearby tree. "What about him? I think he's been doing a lot better ever since you two started being friends. He's definitely gotten over a lot of pretenses his father forced upon him that I've been trying to beat out of him since we started school and I realized how jacked up he was." He chuckled. Marinette managed to giggle as well, but shook her head."It... isn't anything like that. I just wanted to ask a kind of awkward, weird question - ah la vache, now that I think about it, this is a really dumb question, I shouldn't have tried to ask-""No, no, it's okay, Bug. Really. It doesn't matter how dumb the question is." He grinned. "We're all teenagers. We all get a chance to be nervous about dumb stuff, right?"Marinette looked at him and blinked in surprise, then snickered. "You've been hanging out with Alya too much." She remarked and shook her head. "Anyway... uh. I was just... curious. Does... Does Adrien have a girl he likes?" She asked before wincing a little.Nino's eyes went wide and he stopped walking, with Marinette following in suit. His reaction wasn't a good sign. It was only confirming her suspicions.But then he grinned, and Marinette was beginning to regret this. "Bug, are you saying you like Adrien?" Marinette felt her stomach drop. "What?! Whaaat? Nooo, no, no, no, no. Nothing like that! I just- I-I heard some stuff, and I didn't know if it was true or not. I mean, Adrien and I tell each other basically everything and, well, I don't know, I mean, I guess I shouldn't say everything, we're only just finding out some things about one another, but! But the idea he didn't tell me about something like a crush wasn't sitting well with me, I suppose? I don't know why? I-I was just curious! And, sort of need a reason to try and bring it up with him, but if you don't know anything about a crush that's completely f-fine!" Dieu, when was the last time she rambled and stuttered like this? Luka? What about this topic made her this nervous?Nino chuckled and shook his head. "It's okay, Bug. I was just teasing you. I don't know who you heard about that from, because so far only me and Alya know, and now you, I guess. But, uh, don't bring it up with him, okay? He's really finicky about that line of questioning, and tends to get nervous really quickly. I don't know what happened to him, but something having to do with his mom had made him have issues with things like love. He's only ever lightly grazed the topic with me, and never answered my questions about it.""His mom?""Yeah. Her name is Emilie Agreste, but I think something happened to her? I don't know. I've found French Newspapers about it, since his mom was originally French, but I don't understand any of it. I can only pick out names, and the occasional word that I hear Adrien mutter."Marinette was beginning to nod as soon as he brought up his suspicions about Adrien's mom. "Yeah. Yeah, I remember Emilie. She- Her and my parents, they used to be really good friends and she bought from our bakery all the time. She acted a little, and was a model for Adrien's father's agency. They got married after she stopped modelling, when they found out they were soulmates. A scandal broke out after their son was born when people found out she was an undocumented animagus and hadn't told her husband until after their son was born. People were worried some unintentional magical mishaps occurred but her baby was found to be perfectly healthy. She endured the criticism, because she was Paris's Sweetheart. They soon forgave her, because, well, it was just really difficult to dislike Emilie. But, shortly before their son got accepted into school, Emilie went missing... and she's been missing ever since. No one knows where she is, how she's doing - they don't even know if she's alive."Nino frowned and looked down. "... Yeah. I suppose that can seriously damage one's view of relationships.""Oh, no. Gabriel and Emilie were viewed as the connection between Hogwarts and the Beauxbatons at the time. They were known to have a healthy relationship and when they went out in public, you could see how enamoured with each other they were. They were constantly drawing on each other with their soulmarks and they were really giggly. They were an adorable couple. When Emilie disappeared, Gabriel became distraught. They had been bonded as soulmates for a decade and a half, and good friends for even longer, before she disappeared. He was reported to be seen walking around in the places they used to frequent in the early hours of the morning where people were not likely to see him, looking sad enough to break someone's heart. Seers mentioned his famous night sky aura looking more like a ripped canvas after her disappearance; as if someone came and shredded his magic with a pair of scissors and left him with nothing." She murmured, looking at the snow gathering at the heels of her boots. "... I think Adrien might be scared that'll happen to him, if his gloves are any indication."Nino's eyes widened. "I didn't even think about the gloves. He just offhandedly mentioned he was a little paranoid about skin-to-skin contact when I asked about it and I didn't even question the excuse."Marinette clenched her hands into fists before sighing softly, looking up at Nino and smiling the best she could. "Thank you, Nino. I'm glad I could talk to you about this." She turned to leave, but stopped, looking at him over her shoulder with a smile on her lips. "Oh, and by the way; my name is Marinette."Marinette watched as Adrien laughed with Alya about something and felt that same oddly light feeling, and let herself smile. She wondered if it was Alya that he liked. It wouldn't be that weird, a Hufflepuff and a Ravenclaw, and the two of them got each other pumped up in the best way. They would probably make a nice couple, but that pang of an ache came back and Marinette questioned why it was there now of all times.Alya then quieted, and helped Adrien quiet down as well, nudging him playful. "So? How's it going with lover girl?"Adrien's face turned a light red and he closed his eyes, releasing a sigh. "Alya, I told you, I didn't want your help with this, I'm happy just-""Being her friend, blah blah, I know, but seriously! I told you, I can see it. You two are like, perfect for one another."Adrien scoffed at that and shook his head. "Please, Alya. I doubt that. I know your mom is a Seer and your dad a Sage and all that, but I don't think anyone can just see a soulbond before it's been acknowledged.""Oh, come on. You're being so stubborn about this. You'll never know until you try, Chaton~" Alya cooed in a teasing way, laughing when she saw Adrien's face turn red. What the-?"Alya! That's not funny!" He whined and punched her shoulder, and Alya squeaked out another laugh and rubbed her arm."Okay! Okay. Geez Louise, Agreste. It's not like I called you her pastry assistant in bed or something." She snorted and Adrien's face got redder."Oh my fucking god, can you not- I do NOT need those images in my head, Césaire!" He pouted at her. "Have you no sense of decency?!""Nope!" Alya chirped proudly, like that was a good thing, grinning broadly. "But, seriously, when are you going to tell her?"Adrien huffed. "Hopefully never, and I'll hex you into next week if you try and tell her without my permission."Alya rolled his eyes. "Okay, but...""No buts!""Adrien!""I said no buts!""Half the school has a crush on Dame de la Création! You can't just sit by and wait! Someone's going to snatch her away from you, and you're her best friend!"Marinette let out a silent gasp and quickly shot behind one of the suits of armor when they looked her way, willing a disillusionment charm on herself just in case she wasn't hidden well enough. She could feel her face beginning to heat up, and suddenly a thousand butterflies began to swarm wildly in her stomach and chest.Adrien's crush was her.Adrien had a crush on her.That's why he didn't say anything to her.And she was dumb for listening in on a conversation she should have never have heard.It wasn't meant for her ears to hear.How could she had been so blind? Now that she knew, it was so obvious - those stupidly dorky grins, the untimely blush, the occasional odd flirt that she just played along with, not knowing she was just adding fuel to the fire.But when she sank to the floor, she had this ridiculous grin on her face, and she couldn't find it in herself to mind the kaleidoscope swirling inside her stomach.Marinette couldn't help but be happy the rest of the day.Like she had simply been waiting for Adrien to like her since they met.She didn't know why, of course; Marinette was routinely confused and didn't know the answers to things that should have been simple.But knowing that Adrien liked her like that made her strangely happy.His laughs and smiles directed at her now made the butterflies in her unusually active, caused her to be very lightheaded on occasion, and even feel a bit bubbly.The last time she had felt this was when she was with Luka, a student who had been a couple years ahead of her at Beauxbaton that she had fallen in love with and dated for a time before things got too complicated. But that had been when she was thirteen. It had been nearly three years since then, and she hadn't gotten this giddy about a person since then.So Marinette had every right to be just as confused as she was, since she didn't consider herself to be in love with Adrien. Or was she just in denial?She couldn't tell.All she knew is that it was almost curfew time, and that the way her three friends whispered to one another in that urgent tone was very suspicious.Marinette watched them warily, not sure if she should ask what was up or not. But, she did actually want to go listen to the merfolk right now. Her housemates weren't very hospitable, but the water-dwelling sentients of this country made her feel better. So she grabbed her sketchbook and her bag, standing up, dusting herself off, bidding her friends adieu and beginning to leave before one of them shouted for her."Wait!"Marinette stopped in her tracks at the familiar voice, and the old, familiar heat traveled up her neck. She turned, looking up at Adrien, her best friend, who was blushing and looking at the ground, his hands stuffed in his pockets. As usual.Alya and Nino whispered something again to him that sounded a lot like go before Alya pushed him forward. He stumbled, landing in front of her and laughing shyly. Marinette could feel more heat rising to her cheeks. Is he going to-?"Mar- Euh, Ladybug." He smiled weakly and Marinette tilted her head at him. "Yeah, Kit-Cat?""Um... Would you like to go to Hogsmeade with me next weekend?"Marinette only stared for a moment, then let her eyes get wide. He is. She then remembered what he asked her. "Hogsmeade? What's that?""Oh! Um, so, every year after their third year, the student body gets to walk or take the train to Hogsmeade. It's a little wizarding village down the way - all sorts of shoppes and stuff. There's a joke parlor, a sweets shop, two pubs, a sort of cringey little cafe for couples called Madame Puddifoot's," Marinette giggled at that, which made Adrien smile, "umm, there's an herb shop that I go to occasionally, a repair place for magical items, a music store, clothing store, hair salon, post office, potion's shop, cauldrons, quills, sportswear, books, a radio station - oh, they also have a branch of Ollivander's there, too, though I kind of doubt you're interested in going there." He smirked when she began laughing, remembering how and why they met and really how ironic it was that there was a wand shop so close by. "And it's coming up on Christmas... Hogsmeade is beautiful during the Winter Solstice, all the way up to the New Year's before they take all the decorations down. Are you... interested in going with me?"Marinette smiled softly, looking at this beautiful boy in front of her. How could she say no to that face? She couldn't and she wasn't planning on doing so."Yes." She whispered, smiling as she gently rest her hand on his shoulder. "I would love to go to Hogsmeade with you, chaton." She murmured softly, staring into his eyes. She was tempted to lean in and kiss his cheek, but knew better than to do so with his family history. Marinette turned again, walking a couple steps, only turning back once more. "I'll see you by the train on Saturday?" She called, and she got a pair of shining green eyes in return, and the most beautiful smile she had ever seen. "Yeah! By the train." He trailed off, and then Marinette left to go to her dorms.But if anyone commented on how unusual it was for a Slytherin to essentially be floating on their good mood when she got there, she really didn't care, because not even a sneer of disgust could bring her down from her high right now.

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Marinette smiled as she walked around Hogsmeade with Adrien. Just watching her fellow students and the way they interacted was honestly enough for her. She saw that, here, in this non-intrusive place, where everyone was just teenagers, they really didn't seem to care about houses. Everyone was laughing and jinxes were being thrown this way and that, sharing the sweets they got from Honeydukes' with fellow classmates who couldn't afford it. Her and Adrien already had their personal bag of candy from Honeydukes', and since her friend was so insistent that he be the one who pay, she simply got a little of everything. She had never tried many British sweets and sugar quills were about as far as she had gotten. She was really interested in the ice mice.They were on their way to the Three Broomsticks when Marinette ducked away from an oncoming snowball, her arm automatically going round his and clinging to him to dodge away. She felt her friend freeze beside her, and Marinette blushed, an idle thought crossing her mind: Is this what it's like to go on a date with someone who actually likes you?Because, yes, while she had been on many dates before, none of them actually liked her. She was Lady Luck, she was one of the most popular girls at Beauxbaton and getting a date with her was, to them, a blessing of good luck for the rest of their lives, and a good entry into the popular boy or girl crowd (for a couple days. Ha).But this boy was already popular. He didn't need any good luck in his life to get a high standing, he was already there. No, this boy had gotten blushy and nervous when he asked her out, and even admitted, out loud, that he liked her (to their mutual friend, but whatever).No, this boy actually wanted her around, and not just for the publicity.So Marinette snuggled into his side and rested her head against his shoulder, letting him guide her to the pub he wanted to show her, knowing full well that his red face wasn't because he was cold.Marinette was smiling when they found their friends there in the Three Broomsticks, who waved and beckoned them over. She didn't mind being forced to sit with her date, since Alya and Nino had taken up the other side of the booth. Their two friends pushed the mugs of butterbeer closer to them, and Marinette just stared at it curiously, while Adrien grabbed the mug and took a couple hearty gulps, pulling away with a happy laugh. "What is this?""Oh my god." Alya blinked at her. "Do you guys seriously not have this in France? Actually, what am I saying - of course you guys wouldn't have butterbeer, France is wine country!" Alya groaned and slapped her own forehead.Marinette wasn't sure if she should have been offended by the comment, looking over when Adrien began to to chuckle. He shook his head, then smiled at Marinette. "Butterbeer has just a little bit of alcohol in it. You'd probably have to drink ten full mugs to even get a little buzzed, and that's if you're a lightweight." He shrugged. "It tastes like butterscotch, so it's popular among us Hogwarts students, and Madam Rosmerta gives it to 16-year-olds even though we aren't supposed to have it for another year." He winked, a brilliant smile on his face.Marinette felt that now familiar blush rise to her cheeks, and suddenly, she didn't feel all that cold anymore. She shifted, unwrapping her scarf from her neck and pushing her coat and earmuffs off, then shook the snow out of her braid. The vine that was entwined with the rest of her hair began to bloom again, soon producing the small beginning of peonies. She had no doubt that if she kept blushing like this that they would be in full bloom before they left again. She slipped her mittens off, taking the mug in her delicate fingers that felt fragile and sore from being frozen, lifting the drink to her lips and taking a sip. It was incredibly sweet, but it did taste like butterscotch. Like the warm butterscotch on one of her family's cakes or baked into some of their cookies.Marinette was suddenly wishing that she was back home, in Paris, eating her mother and father's pastries by the fire. Maybe she could take her new friends back home sometime, show them her life outside of school, the place she longed for occasionally.So she took a couple big gulps of the butterbeer like Adrien had, letting it bring back pleasant memories. She then leaned up against her date, and forced herself to relax.She was here with her friends, and that's all she needed.Marinette laughed at something Alya said and glanced outside, smiling when she noticed that the sunset was almost over, which signalled that it was almost time for the town to "light up," as Adrien put it. He had described it kind of vaguely, but she was still excited about it, but she would just have to wait a few minutes more."So, Ladybug." Alya said, looking at the ravenette. The girl in question turned and smiled, tilting her head. Alya cleared her throat, that playful grin on her face as she looked at her. "Big, big question. You're good at a lot of things, a lot of things, so I just wanted to know - is there anything you're not good at?" She said quizzically, clicking her pen on the table.Marinette tilted her head before shrugging. "Most of the stuff I'm not good at involves interacting with people, I guess." She giggled. "I've been told I'm extremely oblivious, um... I tend to jump to conclusions, I'm bad at reading other people's emotions, and I get attached really easy." She looked down at her lap as she swung her legs, her heels only lightly scraping against the wooden floor. "I... have really bad trust issues. To the point where I've stopped sharing my name and have asked teachers to hold back my name from other students. I was hurt a lot when I was at Beauxbaton and I find that people spitting out your name like it's a bad taste in their mouth is really painful." She shook her head and smirked at Alya, her eyes reflecting the light of the floating candles. "Unless you think you're trustworthy enough to know my name?"Alya lit up and scooted closer, leaning over the table. "Of course I do! Why wouldn't I be trustworthy?"Marinette giggled. "I don't know. You're the paper girl for the Daily Prophet. How do I know you won't keep this to yourself?""Of course I'll keep it to myself. That's like asking me if I would willingly out myself as a witch to a muggle. Yeah, like I totally want to be executed. I've seen what your vines do, they could rip someone apart. Why would I want to be on your bad side?"Marinette laughed. "Okay, well-""Hey, the lighting of the town is starting! Anyone who wants to see it better learn how to apparate real quick!" A voice yelled from the entrance of the pub.Marinette gasped, shooting up out of her seat, grinning at Adrien. "Come on! You promised!" She laughed and dragged him up out of his seat as he sputtered."We don't even have our coats on!""Oh, come on, Kitty! We'll only be outside for a couple minutes! Both of us can last a couple minutes without a coat!" She laughed, dragging him outside, feeling pure joy bubble up in her chest as she pulled him out into the cold.It was -7 out again today, but Marinette felt warm all over, even as she ran out of the pub with her hand gripping the crook of Adrien's arm. All the lights in the shoppes had been turned off for the lighting of the town, and as the last sliver of the sun disappeared under the horizon, floating candles all along the streets and in the fir trees began to flicker to life, then the lights in the shoppes, and as the snow fell gently down from the sky, she realized that this was the place she wanted to be. Right here in Scotland, at Hogwarts, with the best people she had ever come to know. Not in France, despite how much she missed her family. She wanted to stay in this postcard-worthy town by her school, standing with her best friend, frozen in time.Her hand slipped down from its grip on his elbow and into his hand, and found that she quite like the feel of her hand in his. She liked it even better, now, when he wasn't wearing gloves.As they walked back to Hogwarts, Marinette found herself more content than she had in a long time. They were all bundled up again, and Marinette was leaning on Adrien with her arm around his once more. She was so content, and Adrien seemed to be at ease. She was glad she agreed to this, more so than she thought she would be. Tomorrow was the start of their winter break, and she, Alya, and Nino would all be taking a Port Key to get back to their respective countries, leaving Adrien alone on his train ride back to Birmingham. She felt bad, almost wished she could go on the train ride with him, but she had a feeling Nino had already offered and he had denied it, saying he didn't need the company, when he obviously did.After getting back to Hogwarts, Adrien walked her all the way to the corridor both their houses were in, smiling brightly at her as he lifted her still gloved hand and mock-kissed the back of it, making her giggle. "Thank you for going out with me today. You didn't have to."Marinette chuckled. "But I wanted to. Thank you for the wonderful time, Chaton." She murmured and leaned over, nuzzling his shoulder gently before pulling back, turning to walk to her house's common room, smiling over her shoulder at him. He had this dorky, lovesick grin on his face that made her stomach flip happily, and she decided it was probably better if she didn't look at him. Seeing him happy like that did things to her that she wasn't sure how to comprehend. As soon as she was inside her common room, though, she suddenly felt like she was missing a part of herself. She was still whole, but something was wrong. She couldn't figure out what.She went to her dorm and got rid of all her winter wear and her shoes, then plopped down in her bed, not caring that she was still in her day clothes. Despite the odd feeling of emptiness, thinking back on the day made her giggle, rolling over onto her side and curling up, her hands tucked into her chest. A blue glow seemed to be coming from the water and was kind of distracting, so she turned over to keep it from bothering her, but when she did so, the glow seemed to follow her. She sat up and looked around, confused, then glanced down at her hand, noticing the same distracting blue glow. It was an almost aquamarine blue, similar to the glare she had been seeing. So she lifted her hand to look at it, and she felt her breath leave her in a rush.Aquamarine blue with beautiful golden and pink swirls covered her palm, glowing dimly, but bright enough for her to have noticed it after she turned the lights off.There was only one thing that this could be, of course, and she had only made skin contact with one person that could have left a mark in this shape, which resembled something akin to her hand having been held.
Ah la vache, how am I going to stop him before he leaves in the morning?
Marinette hadn't gotten much sleep last night. Her heart had been hammering in her chest non-stop and she hadn't been able to keep her eyes off the mark all night, and seven hours later it was just a heavily faded reminder of just who exactly she hadn't been able to stop thinking about recently.As soon as the clock ticked to seven, she had gotten dressed and more or less raced to get out of the Slytherin dorms, only to be stopped by one of the seventh years, who stood in front of the entrance to the common room with a sneer on his face. "And where do you think you're going, Miss Dupain-Cheng? You and the rest of your half blood friends aren't scheduled to leave until eight."Marinette frowned at her elder. Seriously, there's nothing wrong with half bloods?But instead of sending him some snarky comment, she pushed her still dimly glowing hand in his face, and his eyes went wide at the faded tints of her palm and fingers. "This is why, now get out of my way, you three-eyed toad." She snarled before shoving him out of the way, then raced out into the dungeons. She began to run out to the main level. If she sprinted, she could make it to the train before it left at 7:15, and then maybe she could stop being in denial about these feelings that were now akin to dead weights in the pit of her stomach. She found herself running across snow in the minimal clothes she had decided would keep her warm enough to go snag her best friend, which were just her white knee-high boots, some blue jeans, a pink sweater, and a white scarf. Those by themselves wouldn't have been enough to warm her, but the sight of her friend still on the platform encouraged her to run faster. Seeing him made her core feel warm, and that warmth spread across her whole body."Adrien!" She yelled. Just ten more meters to go, and she'd be in his arms. But him stopping himself from boarding the train, turning to the sound of her voice and looking both shocked and that typical red face of his made her laugh in her breathlessness. She couldn't believe she was laughing at a time like this, but she couldn't help it. He was just too much. He walked back onto the platform, furrowing his brow. "Marinette?" He called back, watching her run to him.Marinette leaped onto the platform, not bothering with the stairs, running up to him before tackling him in a hug, hearing him let out a grunt of surprise, catching her in his embrace and holding her tightly. He stumbled back a couple steps, but did manage to catch her somehow with his still too-skinny frame. "Marinette? What are you doing here? We weren't supposed to-""See each other until after break?" She breathed. "Oh yeah, like I could do that after sitting up all night with that stuff glowing all over my hand." She laughed, and Adrien's eyes went wide. "You saw-""Yes, and I'm so happy it was you." She laughed breathlessly before covering his lips with her own to make sure he didn't try to continue questioning her. Her hands gripped the lapels of his pea coat, pulling him just a little closer, and she couldn't help but sigh as his lips moved back against hers. Her hands slowly moved from his coat to cup his face, moving her fingers over the edges of his cheeks, the top half of his neck, and as one hand slipped into his hair, a trail over to the back of his neck and into his hairlineWhen she pulled away, she let herself slide from his hold to the ground, smiling brightly up at him, knowing that her lips were stained bright blue, yellow, and pink, but began to giggle what color she had left on him.Her mark on him made him look adorably ridiculous. Especially with that damned grin on his face and that dazed look in his eyes. The marks she had left on his face looked like flowers in bloom, streaked with silver and glitter, making him look like he was a half-painted child at the carnival. Her hands were covered with his iridescent markings, along with a patch on her wrist. She wondered absently if those marks would last her the whole two weeks they would be apart, even though she knew they wouldn't."I've wanted to kiss you since that first day- I can't believe you beat me to it." He laughed, reaching out an ungloved hand and gripped her opposite hand, a gentle but bright glow of soulmarks pressed between their fingers. But then came the parting, where Marinette was forced to let go of his hand and let him board the train. He got onto the steps of the train and stopped at the door to the car, staring at Marinette as the train began to pull away. Marinette walked slowly with the train, smiling sadly at him. "I'll see you after break!" She yelled over the engine. Adrien smiled brightly, gripping the bar so he didn't fall over. "I'll see you-" His voice was drowned out by the engine as he yelled to her, waving as the train sped away, and Marinette's heart ached with that same emptiness as it had less night, and that emptiness got wider and wider the further the train fled away from her.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Adrien was in a mild daze the whole four hour ride. He had managed to get his own booth, closed and locked the doors, and drew all the blinds so no one could see him. He kept putting his fingers on his lips or on the marks all over his neck and jawline, and occasionally conjured a mirror to look at the markings. His hand was shining so bright with the silver she left that he almost couldn't look at it.He couldn't believe it. He really, really couldn't.Marinette was his soulmate, and she was so proud of it that she had left marks all over him.He didn't understand his soulmate sometimes, with the odd things she chose to be proud about since he had always been taught to be proud of himself and his wealth, but he wouldn't have it any other way.Because he couldn't remember the last time anyone had been this proud of him.Turns out that marks on thinner parts of one's skin faded relatively quickly. That made him sigh with relief after the first five minutes when he saw the visual reminder of her lips had faded, but he also felt disappointed. He liked the marks that reminded him that he had a soulmate, the ones that reminded him that he was Marinette's. But it brought him some uneasiness, he believed Trelawny called it anxiety, because he was a model under his father's strict supervision to have very incriminating marks all over him.The marks on his neck were only just beginning to fade, after all, and the one on his hand still looked like someone had put the sun in his palm.He wondered if Marinette, back in her home in Paris, was staring at the marks all over her hands and wrists, too, hoping they wouldn't fade like he was.He wondered how long the marks would last, considering it was supposed to be two weeks until he saw her again.That thought made him shudder. Two weeks? He didn't know if he'd be able to survive two weeks. He had felt it since he boarded the trip, but his magic felt... off. He felt like velcro that had been placed on his magic and then had very forcefully been pulled off, ripping his magic to shreds but left with the promise that it would be put back later.But Adrien had a plan.Since his mother was born in France, born in Paris, Adrien and his father often went to go visit the City of Lights. Especially during his winter break, when, every year, he was expected to go do a Yule fashion shoot for the wizarding community, and a Christmas fashion shoot for the muggle community. Adrien was determined that in the next few days, he was going to find Marinette after one of his shoots, and be the soulmate she deserved.He needed to.Because they hadn't even been apart that long and it was already eating him up inside that he wasn't within a 50 meter radius of her.He was jolted out of his thoughts when the train came to a stop at the station there in Birmingham, and he quickly grabbed his scarf, wrapping it around his neck to hide his soulmarks, slipped on a pair of sunglasses and a hat, grabbing his bag and letting Plagg hop up onto his shoulder.He took a deep breath. Merlin, he hadn't even thought about how his father might react to this development. How was he going to tell him that his soulmate was a halfblood from Beauxbaton Academy?Adrien got off the train, feeling more stiff and nervous than he had in months. He missed Marinette. She helped him relax, loosen up a little. Now he remembered why, at age 16, he had always had back problems.His father's assistant (you mean minder. Shut up Plagg), walked up to him as Adrien swatted at his black cat, who just continued to sit pristinely on his shoulder. "Hello Adrien. How was Hogwarts?"Adrien hesitated. No, he wouldn't tell Nathalie first. He loved Nathalie but his father was more deserving to know about this first, considering how touchy the subject was. "It was fine. Thank you for asking." He looked away, careful to keep his head turning to a minimum so he didn't expose his neck. "Is our first stop Father's office? I need to talk to him.""Of course, it always is. Your father wants to hear about your grades and how your standing at Hogwarts is doing, and of course any other details you're willing to share with him." Nathalie murmured as the notepad next to her with its quill wrote quickly, keeping track of everything, no doubt.Adrien smiled. "Yes, of course... Come on, what I need to say is... uh... a bit urgent." He smiled shakily before walking off to get to the car he was sure his bodyguard would be driving.He opened the back passenger door and saw a pair of legs on the other side. He wasn't really surprised. They often picked up other models or perhaps other important persons to travel wherever Adrien was going for some reason or another. So instead of reacting, he simply went to the trunk and put his luggage there, then moved back to the passenger seat and got in.He slipped off his sunglasses and his hat, setting them in his lap before turning his head towards the other passenger, mouth open and ready to greet them, when suddenly his eyes met his father's.He let out an indignant squawk and jumped a little, causing Plagg to jump from his arm and mewl in protest.His father looked as neutral as ever. "Hello to you too, Adrien. You seem surprised. I thought you told Nathalie that you wanted to speak with me?""Uhh."Adrien just stared at his father, not really sure how to continue, but guessed that the best place to start was the truth."W-Well, yeah, I did, I just... guess I figured I had some time to psych myself up for this?""Why's that?""I-I don't know how you're going to react to this."His father stared at him for a moment, his gaze empty. He heard stories, occasionally, of the life that was in Gabriel's eyes when he was young spitfire of a designer. The blaze that burned in his eyes when he got inspiration and the determination and hope in his voice when he said "just one moment more, I'm almost done." He hadn't seen that in so long, Adrien couldn't remember if he had ever seen it at all.Now, his father just let out a non committal hum and turned his head away as the car began to move"How was Hogwarts this year?""It was..." Adrien paused, then smiled a smile that he knew was real. "It was wonderful, actually."Gabriel glanced over with mild surprise, and nearly flinched when he saw the smile that was crinkling the corner of Adrien's eyes. Adrien had never mentioned that Hogwarts was "wonderful" - "okay," or "fine" were typically the words he chose to tell his father how fantastical his wizardry school was.

"Dad, can't I go outside and play in the park just this one time?"

"No, son. Go to your room, now."

"... okay, dad."

"Wonderful?" His father asked, looking his son over curiously, reaching his aura out and lightly scraping against the green-grey aura of his son. He wondered, absently, when his son's aura had gotten so dark. It used to be bright green and blue, sometimes looking like a grassy plain with a bright sky, other times looking like a calm and peaceful sea. Now his son's aura almost looked like the beauty of a tornado before it touched ground; when the clouds turned navy blue with that ominous green glow.

"Hey dad!"

"What is it, son?"

"Knock knock!"

"Adrien, I don't have time for your ridiculousness. Go bother Nathalie."

"But dad-"

"I said, go bother Nathalie, if you're so desperate for attention."

"Yeah." Adrien smiled, feeling his father reach his magic out and wrap his magic around his, seemingly trying to see if something had changed with his magic. He wouldn't find anything, though; Adrien had gotten very good at hiding things over the years, especially if they pertained to his emotional baggage.

"Um... Father?"

"Yes, Adrien?"

"Well, uh, you see... my friends want to go to the theater to see a movie, and I was... sort of hoping that I could go with them?"

"Don't be ridiculous; you're behind on your dueling lessons. Go up and see your tutor. He's up in the tower, as usual."

"... Yes, father."

After finding nothing, Gabriel slowly retracted, letting his magic sit back in its own comfortable confines. "Why's that?" He asked, and Adrien almost thought he sounded interested."Well... I met a few people at Hogwarts this year." He murmured. "And one truly wonderful friend... she...""She?" Gabriel asked, raising a brow at him."Yes, she." Adrien internally rolled his eyes. "She really helped me improve my self worth.""I hadn't known that your self worth had needed improvement." Gabriel remarked, and Adrien almost scoffed. Yeah, because you don't talk to me.

"Father?"

"What is it?"

"Do you have a spare moment of time?"

"No, I have to leave for a meeting in two minutes. If you want to do something about your schedule, then go bother Nathalie, please."

"Yes sir."

"Well? Did she get off the train with you? I imagine if you had a friend you liked this much, you wouldn't have rode the train home.""No, she didn't get off the train with me." Adrien shook his head. "She's a transfer student from the Beauxbaton Academy of Magic. She started going to Hogwarts at the beginning of the year.""So she lives in France?""Yes, and she... well, she left me with something to remind me of her while I was at home for the holidays.""Oh? And what's that?" Gabriel asked and repeated that quirk of the eyebrow, and Adrien could have sworn he saw a hint of a smirk on his lips. "Should I be worried about what this girl left with you?"Adrien blinked in surprise. (Was... was that a joke? I think it was. You aren't any help. I am just a cat, you know.)"Uh... well." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I'm... not sure how you'll react to this..."Just rip it off like a bandaid, he told himself, pulling his hands from his pockets, tugging off the glove that covered the hand with the shining silver soulmark, and quickly held it out to his father, wincing as he expected to be yelled at.But he wasn't yelled at.No, Gabriel froze in his seat, staring at the soulmark on his son's hand that was shining like a piece of white-hot metal."... Oh."

"Nathalie, do you think that I could get a firecall with my father this year for my birthday?"

"It seems unlikely, but I could probably make him squeeze it in. Are you sure you want that?"

"It's... it's better than nothing, right? I can't get him in person. It would be nice to at least... try... and talk to him."

"Okay, Adrien. Maybe."

"Thank you, Nathalie. You really are the best."

Adrien looked at his father as the man grabbed his hand and began looking it over. He then pulled back. "It's a very beautiful soulmark, indeed. Would make a lovely pattern for a dress or a skirt. Perhaps some shoes. Do I get to know the name of this soulmate of yours, or is this a secret?"Adrien hesitated. He didn't know if he should tell his father about Marinette. She didn't like it when her name was shared out without her permission, and he hadn't exactly had time to ask her if it was okay to tell him. He could always just tell him her last name, but he would probably just find out her full name with that, anyway, and he didn't want to keep who it was from him. The truth was better than nothing."Marinette Dupain-Cheng."Adrien watched as his father's dull grey eyes got wide, something flickering in his eyes as he looked directly at Adrien as he said the name, which elicited a small gasp from the man. "Could you repeat that?""Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Do you know her?"Gabriel's eyes glittered with an emotion that Adrien was unfamiliar with seeing in his father's eyes. It almost looked like mirth, but it had been so long, he wasn't quite sure."No, no. I don't know her. Not personally. But - I do know her parents."It was Adrien's turn to go wide-eyed. "What?""The Dupain-Chengs. They run a Boulangerie, correct?" At Adrien's nod, Gabriel's eyes began to sparkle, and a smile spread across his usually solemn expression, and the corners of his eyes crinkled with joy. Adrien felt his breath leave him. When had he last seen his father smile like that?"Emilie, your mother, she - she was very good friends with the Dupain-Cheng household before she left us, and she absolutely refused to buy our bread from anywhere else other than their bakery. Would floo to their apartment above that little shop in France after we moved here, to Birmingham, just to buy us a loaf of bread for the week. She mentioned once that they had a daughter, just a couple months younger than you, that was so cute. But she always said that the little girl was so small. Her parents were scared she wouldn't make it."Adrien huffed, letting a grin spread across his friend. "Marinette is plenty strong, she wouldn't let a little vertical disadvantage knock her down. Trust me, she's fine." He chuckled, and Gabriel's grin seemed to get wider."After your mother left us, I thought that was the last time I would ever hear of the Dupain-Cheng house. I suppose I'll have to deal with them for a while longer, now, won't I?"Adrien just stared at him for a moment before his words finally hit him, and his jaw went slack, staring at his father as if he had just grown a second head. "Wait, does that mean you-"Suddenly, his father began to laugh. Loudly. Happily. Full, joyful laughter that was just a bit scratchy from underuse. Nathalie turned her head, her blue eyes wide in shock as she listened to her boss laugh, and the Gorilla's shoulders were a bit more rigid than usual."Yes, yes! Of course I'm okay with you having Miss Dupain-Cheng as your soulmate. She may not be a pureblood, but I'm far too fond of her family to say no." His eyes were shining as he stared at Adrien.Adrien just couldn't believe it. He really, really couldn't.His father - that bitter man who had lost his soulmate and been reduced to basically nothing - approved of Marinette. His amazing, wonderful Marinette. His father approved of her and he hadn't even met her!"I... I don't know what to say.""I do have one question; I did hear from the Beauxbatons that had a particularly talented designer there who had the last name of Dupain, and went by Ladybug?""Oh. Yes. That's her." Adrien said, biting his lip."Is she any good?""Yes. Yes, she is definitely good." He said before grabbing his scarf and unwrapping it from around his neck, momentarily forgetting about the marks on his neck until he watched his father's gaze shoot from his hands to his neck, his eyes going wide. Adrien decided to ignore it. If he asked, he would just tell him the truth, whether he wanted to hear it or not. "Here, this scarf was a present she made for me..."Gabriel took the scarf and began to study it, having the intention for only looking for a second, but something caught his eye. It was a simple scarf; it was done up in a repeating pattern of black and yellow stripes, all decently large, large enough for a polaroid picture.Which is exactly what they seemed to hold.Every single section had an enchantment of a photo, the outline of friends' faces and scenes playing out on the scarf in little shining jewels. At the end of either end of the scarf was a sewn-in Hogwarts crest, with each of their names sitting by their respective houses."She's really good at spellwork and such. She doesn't like making ordinary clothes much, but she does occasionally when she finds things with similar effects to her favorite enchantments."Gabriel nodded along, staring at each of the moving photos for just a second before smiling at his son."Son, would you like to go to Paris a few days early?""What?""You heard me."Adrien blinked, staring at his father. "... Wait. You were serious.""Of course I was. Why wouldn't I be? I'm fully aware of what it's like to be away from a soulmate. Not to mention, we still have a house there. It's very close to the Dupain-Cheng bakery, I'm sure you could probably walk there every day we were there if you wanted to."Adrien's eyes widened as it dawned on him which house he was referring to. The mansion. That big, spacious mansion with the marble tile and the pictures of his mom everywhere with his old room that had a climbing wall in it that he used to scale when he was feeling hyper.He had lived there until he was six. And then, of course, his mother had continued to buy from them even after they moved to England.Right there. Marinette had been right there all that time ago and he hadn't even known. He hadn't known until years after their only real connection had been forcefully severed. He wondered, did his mother know? Is that why she kept going back to them? Hoping to stay in touch for her son until the right moment came, to introduce them after they weren't just little kids anymore who simply didn't understand how important that mark was.He wondered if Marinette remembered his mother. Did she know her, too? Or just her parents?"I... I would love that."And that's how Adrien found himself on the train the next day, heading to London with a Portkey waiting for them in his father's office. He was already heading that way two days before they were supposed to go to Paris. Adrien was feeling giddy. His father had decided to sit in a separate booth with Nathalie, and Adrien was alone, with his bodyguard standing outside his door to keep it that way.Adrien could already feel Marinette's hand carding through his hair, could already hear her bell-like laughter ringing in his ears. He wondered if the bakery was really as wonderful as it sounded, because it sounded like something he didn't have but desperately wanted.The bakery sounded like home.Getting off the Portkey at the Eiffel Tower and looking out at Paris was so different this time, and even though he pondered why, he knew the answer. Plagg jumped onto his shoulder and almost made a motion that looked like a person shaking their head. (You're a mess, kid. I already knew that, but thanks for your valuable input, anyhow.)Adrien looked at his bodyguard who only shrugged. Adrien had no idea where this bakery was, and neither did the Gorilla, apparently. No, instead his father stepped forward with Nathalie, his hands held together behind him in his usual stance.Adrien stared at him curiously, before it sort of slapped him in the face with the realization. "... You've walked there before.""Of course I have. It was your mother's favorite bakery. We walked there at least once a week." Something like a chuckle escaped him, and Adrien start forward to follow him. "And you just... remember it by heart?""I know it better than the designs I make by hand." He murmured. "In fact, I even put the design of route from the Tower on one of the shirts I made for an Autumn line. Most assumed it was a sparkly take on the tech, future idealism going around." He shrugged and shook his head. "But what would they know?" He chuckled.Adrien stared at his father, wondering where the cold, emotionless man he had come to know had gone. But as they walked, with Adrien walking behind them, he realized it was probably this city in general. His father always seemed... more loose whenever they came to Paris. More lenient. This was the city he had found his lover in, after all, and probably had joyful memories of almost every street. This city made him happy.They walked by a school, and then across the street, and Adrien watched his father as he made a point of looking right at a black and gold building as they passed it. Adrien just tilted his head before looking over as well. His eyes went wide and he felt his breath leave him for a moment as they walked right by a busy bakery, run by two people he recognized. He had only ever seen the couple in photos that Marinette showed him, but it was definitely them.Marinette's parents. Soulmates, and bakers to boot. Sabine and Tom.They both had soulmarks that lingered on their skin that patrons would just smile at, and bid them a nice day, and then leave. Sabine had beautiful, maroon-tinted marks and drawings all over her arms and a large one on her hand that looked like a handprint. Tom had streaks of a royal blue around his neck and over his arms where it looked like Sabine had dragged her arms down his. Being here, in Paris, this close to Marinette's home - he could already feel his magic returning to normal, mending itself, and putting in something a little extra. He looked up and could see the very large and pink presence of his soulmate, and it twisted strangely, like it was confused.Adrien wondered absently if he would get to have the pleasure of having Marinette's marks shining against his skin all the time at school, and if he would get to decorate her in his mark for everyone to see.Because that would make him happier than any boy had any right to be.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Marinette found herself very confused that day, lounging on her balcony without much of a care in the world.Her mind had been on Adrien, the imprint of his bright green eyes lurking behind her eyelids whenever she tried to rest. She found she couldn't think of much else. His smile had infected her mind like a disease and lurked there as she tried to keep her mind off how much she missed him already.All the markings he had left on her hands and wrists had faded around midnight last night, and she found that without them, she felt more empty than she had in a long time.But she could feel her magic shift sometime around half past eight that morning, not long after she decided to sunbathe.She didn't know why it shifted, but it did, and she could feel the pull of someone else's magic, beckoning her near and calling out to her like a heartbroken child to its mother.She didn't move, though. She didn't need to. By eleven, the presence was right under her bakery, shimmering with potential and tugging on her magic harder and more insistently.But by the time she got up to look over the railing, just the remnants of their magic were left, and the person it belonged to was nowhere to be seen.Strange.Marinette hummed peacefully as she sat at the register. The lunch rush had ended a couple hours ago, and she was put up there so she could watch the shop and do her homework, since hardly anyone was here.She did hear the bell ring at some point, signaling the door had been opened and someone had come in. She looked up and when she saw blonde hair, her heart jumped in an odd way before she realized that this particular mop of blonde hair was long and belonged to a girl, not to mention is was pale, as cold-hearted as its owner. Not the warm sheen of gold that assaulted her daydreams, or the emerald eyes that lurked behind hers.No, these eyes were an icy blue, sharper than her own eyes, almost intimidating.Almost."Ha. I had heard you were back in town on a break from Hogwarts, but I hadn't believed it. Still sulking in your family's useless bakery, Miss-fortunate?"

"Ugh, what's your problem, Chloe?"

"What's my problem? You just spilt your dumb tea all over me!"

"You were the one who tripped me in the first place."

"Such rude accusations! I did not trip you! You're just such a klutz that you trip over air."

Marinette groaned internally at her... acquaintance's bad play at the nickname her seniors had given her at Beauxbaton. But, Mademoiselle Bourgeois was still technically a customer. She wouldn't ruin her parents' reputation by being rude to a customer.So she stood up, and smiled at Chloe like she hadn't just dissed her family, like she wasn't the reason her wand was burning with rage in her pocket."Welcome to the T&S Boulangerie, Mademoiselle Bourgeois. Is there something I can get you today, or are you just browsing?

"How does it feel, Marinette, to be on the floor looking like the abomination you are?"

Marinette dabbed a bit at the mascara tears going down her face. She didn't respond to Chloe as the blonde insulted her.

Chloe seemed taken aback by Marinette's reaction to her, which was none at all, and glared at Marinette. She stalked closer."Browsing. What are you playing at, Dupain-Cheng?" Chloe spat Marinette's family name like a bad taste in her mouth, and Marinette remembered, vaguely, why she no longer told people what her name was.

"Ugh, what's that trash you're wearing? You didn't design that, did you?"

"As a matter of fact, I did design it. I just got finished with it a few days ago."

"Figures it's one of your designs. It's ugly enough to almost make you look pretty."

"I'm sorry to hear that you won't be buying one of our delicious treats today. We've recently added a lovely assortment of British baked goods to our repertoire in celebration of a family member getting accepted to an esteemed school in Britain over the summer. Would you like a free sample of our new treacle tarts? We've gotten quite a few compliments on them."Chloe's eye twitched and she leaned back, staring at Marinette incredulously. Marinette took great joy in knowing that she was confusing Chloe. Alya had been a lot of help in getting control over her anger when it came to people insulting her family."Is there something wrong, Mademoiselle?""Yes. You're acting weird. it's like you're a wind up robot."

"I knew he would dump you. He was crazy for even dating you in the first place. Who would ever love someone like you, Dupain-Cheng?"

"Hm. I'm sorry. I'm not annoying you, am I?""Of course you're annoying me - your very presence annoys me, Dupain-Cheng! But you aren't even reacting to me!""Why should I?""Because I'm insulting you! How are you not getting angry at me?"

"I'm not sure, Chloe. But at least I'm not you."

"Maybe it's because she doesn't care about you anymore, Chloe."The two girl's flinched and looked over at the familiar female voice. Marinette felt the blush immediately take over her face when she saw familiar pairs of brown and grey eyes.A pair of grey eyes that she used to look into so fondly.Chloe glowered at the pair. "What are you doing here, Couffaine?""Buying pastries. But apparently, we need to get you off of Ladybug, too." His voice was stern, and his golden aura and her silver one both rose threateningly, knowing they were more powerful than the usually meek icy blue magic that surrounded Chloe.Chloe just scowled once more before huffing and marching back out the door, muttering under her breath.The two siblings turned to look at Marinette, and she felt a smile creep up on her face. She came out from behind the counter, her heart lifting into the sky. "Juleka! Luka! I can't believe you're here!" She squealed before hugging the two of them, nuzzling them both happily as they laughed and hugged her back loosely. Marinette pulled away after a moment, grinning at the two of them. Luka smiled back at her, that usual soft smile that always made her stomach flip with the familiar affection he held for her. He moved to hug her again, but then flinched, staring at her... scanning her."Mari?"

Marinette smiled as she tilted her head back to look into the blue-grey eyes of her crush, giggling at the look he was giving her.

"What?"

"Oh, don't worry about it. I just think you look adorable when you look so expectant."

"That so? Maybe I should start asking for more of you, then. Perhaps kisses?"

"Luka!"

"Yes, Luka?" She asked and tilted her head, and briefly wondered why he almost looked... heartbroken, but was smiling confidently."You found him, didn't you?"Marinette nearly choked when Luka said 'him,' and her thoughts immediately went to who she would much rather be talking to right now.

Marinette was blushing heavily as Luka's lips met hers for probably the fifth time in the past minute or two, letting herself get lost in the gentle intensity as her hands went up to grip his hair. She wasn't sure if she'd ever get enough of the older boy, even though he wasn't her soulmate. Luka was addictive in a calm sort of way, one that made her feel like she was home again.

"Wh-What? How did you know?""Your aura had blue and green in it." Juleka spoke up in her pretty much monotone voice, scanning the area above Marinette's head. "Just a little, around the edges. It looks like his aura tried to attach itself to you and failed pretty miserably."Marinette began to giggle at the two of them before nodding excitedly. "Yes, yes. I found my soulmate while I was at Hogwarts. Isn't it wonderful?" She let out a bubbly little giggle and turned, conjuring up a silhouette of sparkles that helped her twirl around and release her before disappearing. She landed with her back on the wall, a big grin on her face. The only people she had gotten to be lovesick with was her parents, and they teased her relentlessly about how dopey she sounded and began prodding her for a name she wouldn't give them.

"So."

"So."

"I guess this is just it, then?"

"Yeah... I'm sorry, Luka. It's just... I've been waiting for them for a while now, and I would feel terrible if I was dating someone else when I met them. Don't take this the wrong way... I love you, and I really, really just want to kiss that look off your face, but..."

"I understand. I thought the same thing a couple times, but I liked you too much. I love you, too, my little Bug."

But then she recalled what Juleka had said to her and furrowed her brow, looking over at her. "Wait... wait." Marinette cleared the clouds that surrounded her mind, shaking her head. "You said green and blue?""Yeah. They sort of look like clouds... I guess. The blue was pretty dark at first, and I thought it was black, but it's really bright now."Marinette blinked in surprise. "That's... odd." She agreed quietly, wanting to grab ahold of her own magic so she could take a closer look at it. She shook the thought out, and smiled at her friends again. "Let's not worry about that - how have you two been? It's only been four months but I feel like I haven't seen either of you in forever."Marinette gestured to one of their cafe tables and they sat down, with her joining them with some scones and croissants for them to enjoy. "Oh, it's actually been very boring without you around, Mari." Luke remarked, grabbing the scone and looking it over curiously before taking a bite, then smiling. "We were more interested in your time at Hogwarts. And apparently your soulmate.""Does he have a name?" Juleka asked with a playful little smile.Marinette giggled. "Of course he has a name, silly." She murmured wistfully, putting her chin in her hand, taking bit from the scone between her fingers."... Are you going to tell us?" The ravenette pried a little more.Marinette giggled more and sighed. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you who it was. I'm sure you would need to see it to believe it.""That's too bad." Luka shrugged and gently place his hand over hers, looking at their joined hands with mild disdain. It was a look she was familiar with. Even before they dated, Luka always seemed to be disappointed that they weren't soulmates, because while Luka had been sure that Marinette was his and wanted her to be his pretty badly, Marinette had never felt the need or want to be Luka's soulmate. She did with Adrien, though. There was no mistaking that."I call him Chat Noir, though. He has a black cat as a familiar, and they both had really bright green eyes, so I guess I just named him after his pet." She giggled and sighed, shrugging a little as she leaned back in her seat, but didn't remove her hand from his. Having his touch was really comforting."You mean like your owl? You and her have pretty similar eyes."Marinette smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I guess Tikki's eyes do kind of look like mine." She chuckled a little."So, this Chat Noir..." Luka started and got Marinette's attention, who was smiling. He hesitated. "I'm guessing I can assume that he wasn't treating you badly?"Marinette laughed at that notion. Right, like Adrien would ever treat her bad. They were best friends, after all. "Heavens, no! Chaton would never. No, no, Chat is so sweet. Him and I were friends before we found out. Best friends, actually. He helped me feel comfortable there in Hogwarts while I was still getting used to the differences. When it was getting close to Christmas, though, I..." Marinette licked her lips and ducked her head. "I may have accidentally found out he had a crush on me?"Luka chuckled. "You mean like half the school?""You know, everyone's been saying that about me, and I'm starting to become concerned that it's true and I have a secret fanbase or something.""You do." Juleka piped up."What?""Uh, ignore her. Anyway, just continue?"Marinette tilted her head at the siblings curiously. before shaking her head and just doing as asked. "Anyway, like a week after I found that out, he asked me to go on a date with him to this little town by the school called Hogsmeade. I agreed.""Is that where you found out?" Juleka asked."Yes.""How come you didn't find out before then?"Marinette shifted uneasily. "Chat... Chat had parents that were soulmates. He lost his mother a few years ago and it broke his father's heart in half and left him a little out of it, permanently. Chat always wore gloves and long sleeves and pants. He was scared of finding his soulmate and losing them, I guess. It was cold at Hogsmeade that day, but the pub we were in with our other friends was bright and warm, so he had discarded the gloves. I pulled him out of the pub before he could put his gloves back on." She blushed and smile shyly, scratching the back of her neckJuleka began to giggle quietly. "Leave it to you to trip your way into finding your soulmate."Luka grinned at that remark and nodded in agreement, and Marinette whined at the two of them. She didn't sign up for teasing from them, too!The Couffaine siblings left about a half hour after they came to get Chloe off her back, and after they left, several more people from the Academy came to visit her as well, all greeting her happily. Mylène Haprèle and her soulmate, Ivan Bruel, along with Marc Anciel and Max Kanté, who both smiled a bit awkwardly but quickly let themselves relax.But now, Marinette was alone, left to stew about her thoughts of all her friends here and all her friends back at home.Mylène and Ivan hadn't changed much, but Max and Marc had done the opposite.Max looked much more handsome than the last time she had seen him, which was before summer break. Instead of his stiff, straight, afro that he had sported since the beginning of forever, the sides and back of his head were shaved and replacing the stiff peak of hair on the top of his head was a bunch of short dreads that stood in a similar way, but gave his hair a lot more movement. He had grown nicely into his features, and gotten glasses that weren't quite as big. He was still a big nerd, though.She felt happy for him. She was sure, whomever turned out to be his soulmate, would be very lucky indeed.Marc had certainly grown into his own skin since she left. He wasn't shy anymore. He was a little awkward when he first walked in, but soon he was the person in the room who was smiling the most, leading conversations, and happily letting her read some of the work he had done using some of her designs as inspiration for bits of text. He had a streak of his hair that was pure red and, like always, his nails were painted. Marinette had always liked that he painted his nails. It made him seem more flamboyant, but she had especially liked it when he allowed her to paint his nails and get creative if she really wanted to. She hadn't gotten to do that in a while. Maybe she should ask him sometime before she had to leave for Hogwarts again.But it was almost time to close the bakery, and as she cleaned up her workspace, her parents came out with smiles on their faces. Marinette stared at her parents curiously. "Maman? Papa?"The two looked at each other before looking back at Marinette. "That music piece from Disney is playing in one of those theatre houses you like so much. We were wondering if you want to come with us?" A smile played on Sabine's lips as Marinette lit up."Oooh, yes! I would love to!" Marinette looked to the kitchen before snapping her fingers and letting her magic arrange everything else, and then she ran upstairs to get some clothes on that weren't covered in flour and some shoes. "I'll be right back!" She yelled over her shoulder, and heard her parents giggle.Marinette got situated down in her seat, sighing happily, glad the seats were already comfortable. It was a muggle theatre, so she couldn't use excessive amounts of magic, but she had been prepared to have to use a cushioning charm if it was uncomfortable. Her parents sat on one side of her and the other seat next to her was quickly filled as well, along with the rest of the seats there in the auditorium.The boy next to her shifted as the lights dimmed slightly and commercials began to play. She saw him glance at her several times, and she wondered, absently, if there was something wrong. Eventually, he piped up. "Have you seen this movie before?" He whispered, turning to look at her. He had blue eyes and dark brown hair, but something about him was painfully familiar."Yes... have you not?" Marinette asked curiously, and he shook his head in response. "I didn't see many movies when I was younger, and this is the first time I've gone to a theater in a long time.""Oh. That's sad. Well, this is a little all over the place with a bunch of classical music. It's fun.""What's it called again?""Fantasia.""Ah. Right. Kind of weird name." "Yeaah, but it's okay. Everything's a little weird, right?""... Yeah, I suppose so." The boy was smiling now, looking less nervous and more excited.By the time Marinette got back in her bed for the night, a dull pain was filling her chest and making her mood go from pleasantly satisficed to somber.So as she climbed the ladder to her bed, and curled up on top of the sheets, she placed her hands over her aching heart and longed for her soulmate. She had no idea that a heartbreak so dull could produce so much pain.She just prayed it wouldn't get worse over these next two weeks.

Adrien laid his head in her lap, and she subconsciously ran one hand through his hair, the other holding the book she was reading. She was careful not to touch his scalp, something he was very grateful for.

"Marinette, did you date anyone before you came to Hogwarts?"

"Yes. One person."

"Were they nice to you?"

Marinette giggled and nodded. "Yes, Luka was very nice to me. Why? What's wrong?"

"Whenever someone mentions relationships, you always get kind of wistful..."

Marinette paused, then lightly tugged on his hair, eliciting a purr from her friend.

"I didn't really want to break up with Luka. I loved him, a lot, and he loved me. But he wasn't my soulmate. I had been waiting for too long for my soulmate and got scared about what would happen if I met them and I was still with someone else. I didn't want to offend him. He doesn't deserve that."

"You are very kind, Bugaboo. I'm lucky to have you as a friend."

"And I'm lucky to have you as a friend, Chaton."

All she really wanted was to have Adrien close to her again, but he was all the way in Britain. Probably off modelling or shadowing his father at his work. He probably had barely any time to think of her.If only that wasn't the case.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Adrien shifted into another pose, tilting his hat down just a little and grinning at the camera as it went off with his fingers still grazing the brim of the cap. He had been at this for a while, and sure, he didn't mind it. Modelling was something he was good at. But he really just wanted to get out of here and go running to the bakery like his father had promised he could do as soon as this shoot was done. The Yule shoot had been going on since they got here since his father deemed it necessary for him to get the photo shoots over and done with so he could spend the maximum amount of time he could with Marinette before they started the Christmas shoot. Really, Adrien was grateful, but it had been three days since he had gotten into Paris. He was forced to use charms to hide himself when he went out in public and his father was basically beating the howlers informing him of his son using magic outside of school off with a stick. He just wanted to strip the charms off of himself permanently and go surprise Marinette. Today was the last day of the Yule shoot, and then had three full days, including most of Yule itself, before he had to start the Christmas shoot. Which meant most of the next four days was his to curl up by the fire in a bakery he could only imagine was constantly filled with warmth and familial love, if his father's descriptions of it were anything to go off of.But the last thing he wanted was what happened after he got off set.When he finally got a break from the camera, and had full intentions of going to the cafe across the street to get some coffee to keep him going, a shrill voice called out for him and he felt his shoulders stiffen."Adrikins!!"Adrien watched as his familiar's hair all stood on end and he hissed, then ran off. Adrien himself winced but turned, smiling at Chloé as she bounded up to him, but, for some reason, didn't attach herself to him. She had a big smile on her face and looked expectant, but he didn't hug her. "Hey, Chloé.""Adrien! I didn't know you were here! Are you doing everything early?""As a matter of fact, I am. How have you been?""Oh, I've been wonderful since a certain pest finally got out of my hair.""Oh?" Adrien turned and began to arrange his bag as he listened to her, looking to make sure he still had Marinette's gift to her to celebrate the Winter Solstice."Ugh, yes! You would not believe how annoying that girl was. I feel sorry for you, she transferred to your school after all."Adrien nearly dropped his bag but quickly clutched it, confusion and a tad bit of anger flooding his brain. "I, uh... beg your pardon?""Oh surely you know her. She had a tendency to beg for attention wherever she goes.""You... there's no way you're talking about Marinette, right?""Oh, so you know her name. I'm surprised. I heard she wasn't giving out her name anymore and was asking people to just call her Ladybug. Figures, it's a horrid name anyway." Chloe blew a piece of hair from her face and rolled her eyes dramatically.Adrien took a deep breath to keep from yelling at his childhood friend, looking up at her with his best deadpan. "You can't seriously be talking about my soulmate like that, can you?""What?"Her and Adrien stared at each other hard for a moment, and the silence weighed down heavily on his chest. There was no way Chloé was speaking bad of his wonderful Ladybug, right?"Ah la vache, you're serious.""Of course I was being serious, why would I kid or lie about something so trivial?""Well, I don't know! I thought it was maybe one of those awful jokes you like to make-""I make puns, not jokes about my very dry love life.""Whatever. I mean, it's not like you're serious about her."Another stare down and Chloé's shy aura curled in confusion."You...""I'm very serious about my Bug, Chloé. And, no, you can't change my mind. I just spent four months being her best friend, and I intend to spend the next four months being her best friend and her lover." He frowned at his friend, then got up when the photographer called for him."I have a shoot to finish. I'll catch you later, Chlo." He said before moving past her. Chloé just stood there and watched him leave, looking lost.Marinette sighed as she moved her pencil across the paper of her sketchbook, looking up to the skyline of Paris for some sort of inspiration or distraction, but no luck. Coming up onto her balcony hadn't helped. All she could think about was Adrien. The ache had increased since that night, and while even though it was just two days ago, it felt like it had been a century.That's it. She just needed to... get out of the house. Why confine herself to her home? There was a whole city out there for her to explore all over again.Something in her hesitated though, like it wanted to wait here and beg for the distraction to come on its own. Eventually she did get up. One hour, the same feeling whispered to her. You can only be gone for one hour.She got dressed, pulling on her Beauxbaton and Hogwarts pride outfit, and grabbed two black ribbons as she went to braid her long hair. She french braided her hair, figuring it was only appropriate, leaving her bangs in front of her face instead of pinning them out of the way. She tied the ribbon around one of the pigtails after she had braided about half of her hair, then did the same to the other, part of her hair still hanging free. She muttered a wordless spell without her wand and smiled as those bits curled up elegantly. She felt nice, much nicer than when Chloé had come into the shop a couple days ago.So with that, she grabbed her sketchbook and her pencils and ran downstairs, told her parents where she was going, then rushed out the door with several patrons turning to look at her and smile as she ran. Tikki perked up from her perch there in the lobby, chirping and flying after her to go outside, flying next to Marinette as she ran.And ran and ran until they got to the Trocadero, where she grinned at the familiar sight of the place she used to go to whenever she couldn't focus. She loved this place; the atmosphere, the tourists, even the man who fed the pigeons there every day. She loved it all.So she jogged up the steps, sat down, opening her sketchbook and beginning to draw absently, hoping that if she continued to change what she was drawing and looked at the change of scenery, she would find something she could stick with.Marinette smiled by the time she was done, feeling more productive than she had in a long time. Staring at the five messy sketches that she would clean up and perfect later, but for right now, she felt they were perfect, and Marinette was giddy.Until she looked at her phone and felt her blood run cold when she realized she had been out here for two hours, when she had only intended to be out for one."Crap. Tikki, we gotta go." She said and gathered up all of her things, then made a run for it. She didn't miss the people that smiled, people she recognized. Didn't they come here all the time? Did they recognize she hadn't been there at the Trocadero in a while? It didn't matter; she needed to get home! Marinette didn't even know why she was panicking. It's not like she had to do something when she got home, or had to go somewhere and was late. In fact, now that she recalled how she left, she wasn't even really the one who thought to only stay for an hour. What was that?But as she stopped in front of her home, she panted, and figured it wasn't really all that important. She was home now, that's all that mattered. She noticed that the sign was turned to 'closed,' thought that curious since it was only four in the afternoon, but didn't really think much of it. Maybe her parents just wanted an easy day. She could understand that desire. She wasn't surprised when she found the bakery empty but still smelt like freshly baked bread. Since there wasn't anyone there, she went upstairs to the apartment, with Tikki flying over to perch on her shoulder. As soon as she opened the door, she stiffened at hearing a voice that didn't belong to her either of her parents, who was laughing. She very quietly closed the door behind her and crept out of the short hall, looking to the counter to see a man with slick, platinum blonde hair conversing with her parents. She felt relief flood her mind and body. There had been a lot of hunts for halfbloods lately, and she wasn't sure if she would be able to handle someone trying to take her Papa. The man had his back to her, so she couldn't recognize him, but her parents were smiling brightly as they talked to him and that's all she needed.Her mother did notice her presence entering, though, and when the man finished his thought, Sabine turned towards her and smiled. "Great timing, Marinette! We would like to introduce you to an old friend ours. I think you might know him?" She grinned in a mischievous way that had Marinette's mind panicking a little over who the hell her mother could have invited, until he turned, and Marinette's jaw dropped."M-Monsieur Agreste.""Ah, you know who I am. Your parents said you would. I hear you're an aspiring designer?""W-Why, yes, I am... but, what are you doing here in France? I thought your main office was in London?""It is, but I come here to Paris every year before the Winter Solstice on special work. Tell me, those clothes you're wearing; did you make them yourself?"Marinette slowly looked down at her clothes before squeaking to move where he could see her better, nodding quickly. "Y-Yes sir, I made these while I was in Hogwarts." Gabriel got up and began to circle her to look at her handiwork, stopping when he saw the outline on her shirt glimmer, along with the enchanted sheen. He laughed softly. "Very clever, Mademoiselle. I would have never thought to do that. It adds a nice touch to the seemingly plain shirt." He said before making his full circle, smiling coolly at her. "I quite like it. I'm sure you'll be an astounding designer if you keep at it.""Th-Thank you, sir. B-But why are you here, in my home? This is the last place I thought anyone would ever see you-" Marinette finally registered what Gabriel was wearing, and looked a little shocked. He was wearing a red turtleneck sweater and a pair of khaki slacks and some worn leather shoes. She hadn't ever seen him look this relaxed in any of the photos of him she knew of, except for the ones that featured him and his missing wife, but that had been five years ago."What, can't an old man visit his old friends?" He chuckled dryly and shook his head. "I'm actually here because I had someone with a particularly convincing argument on why I should come and relive old memories." Gabriel perked up a little when he heard the door click from up in the stairwell, and a small smile spread across his face. "Ah, here he is now, actually."Marinette's eyes widened, realizing that the only thing going upstairs was her room, and wondered why anyone was in her room. She glanced over, seeing her parents grins, and just knew that this was somehow their doing. She whirled around, prepared to ask a million and one questions to the person who had probably been coaxed to go up to the balcony, the only entrance to which being her room, but she felt her heart freeze when she came face to face with shocked green eyes."Adrien." She breathed, sounding almost reverent and that made Adrien blush."Marinette." He said calmly, though he really wanted to scream her name. She hadn't been here when he arrived an hour ago, even though something told him she just had to be here. But that was okay. He had gotten to talk to her parents and explain why he was here, and they showed him the balcony that, as they told her, had become her favorite sulking spot since she got back, pouting about being away from someone when she had just met them.She was in her signature braids, and he briefly wondered why she had any right to look as cute as she did in pigtails, but it was only briefly - because the next thing he knew, he had a squealing Marinette in his arms, clinging to him like he would disappear if she let go.He began to laugh, picking her up and spinning them around once before setting her back down, staring into her eyes. He watched the heat fill her cheeks as she bit her lip, her hands resting on his shoulders. She reached up, gently touching his cheek with her finger, giggling as a speck of sparkling silver appeared. She traced the outline of a heart on his cheek, smiling as red and pink began to bloom on the silver like flowers on a vine. Adrien shivered a little at her touch, looking a little dizzy but smiling widely. "I'm not going anywhere, Princess. You don't have to cling to me.""Oh but I do, my knight. After all, you're in Paris, the City of Love. I need to get all the love I can before it just goes back to being a City of Lights." She murmured softly and leaned up, kissing him softly.Adrien found himself melting into her and kissing back all too eagerly, releasing a sigh against her lips. He would have been content there, too, to just kiss her until his lips were swollen and Marinette was completely breathless.If it weren't for the giggling in the background.He pulled away and rose a brow at Marinette's parents, who just continued to giggle. He didn't blame them, he probably didn't look very threatening with a heart on his cheek. Marinette just rolled her eyes and giggled. "Don't mind them." She whispered. "I just refused to tell them who you were - they've been really excited at the idea of meeting you since I came home with blue and pink hands." She giggled, sighing as she leaned up against him, nuzzling her face under his chin and leaving silver streaks on his neck, along with blue and pink and gold streaking down from her forehead to the tip of her nose, getting smudges and blots of blue on her cheek as she snuggled into him. Having his arms around her made her feel okay again for the first time in days, like everything was going to be just fine now that he was here. After the reunion and a bit of small talk between them and her parents and his father, Marinette began to drag him up the stairs, smiling broadly as they got up into her very pink room. He had just come from here, but he hadn't gotten a very good look at it. Marinette's parents had more or less pushed him up the stairs, up to the ladder that went to her balcony, and began to tell him about every plant they had up there. He didn't mind, of course. He loved herbology, it was just quite sudden, and as soon as they had pushed him up here, her parents had left with the promise to come back. He had climbed down himself when he had been up their for a full half hour without anyone bothering to even come back up.Her very pink room had an elevated bed, which was also pink, that had some decently used looking pillows on it, along with a very long pillow that circled the end and looked very new. It was pitch black, and he caught a glimpse of green on one end, but he couldn't see it that well. He, instead, looked elsewhere. Marinette had put up all the photos of them and their friends, all moving at their own pace and timing despite everything else going on around it. She also had photos of complete strangers, all with notes around them that had comments about their clothing, things that she seemingly liked and disliked about every outfit. He walked closer and watched as she put up another, this one being of a boy with pitch black hair and golden eyes standing in the snow, who looked starstruck.Adrien smiled as he recognized the face he had put on for a single day, staring at it curiously as she put more sticky notes up around it. 
It looks uncomfortable?

What was he staring at?

Pants have a nice pattern, hem's a little too low. Looks stiff. Need different fabric.

The jacket is too simple. Buckles, maybe?
Adrien was chuckling under his breath at every comment. It wasn't his father's work he was wearing just then, but that designer had been so proud of that jacket. It was a rather comfy jacket, but it was also extremely plain. He reread the second comment.
What was he staring at?
You really are oblivious, aren't you, Bugaboo? He thought quietly, smiling as he remembered that day.

Adrien stared at Marinette, who was smiling and taking pictures of places and things. She was as beautiful as he remembered, with her vine weaved around her hair to constrict it as she walked around. He was right, her hair went all the way down to her thighs, almost to her knees, even in the ponytail she had put it in, and her blue eyes were shining with joy.

He watched as she turned to him, and suddenly found himself being sucked in by her gaze. All he really wanted to do was run to her and hug her, but he knew that would be strange, considering what he looked like right now.

She just giggled at him and snapped another photo, then turned and began to skip away, somewhere on her way slowing back to a walk and looking a little sad.

He wondered if that sad look was for him.

Adrien smiled when Marinette nudged him, grabbing his bare hand before letting it go again, leaving another patch of silver. He already knew what she wanted, and he was happy to comply. He pushed his hoodie off and hung it up, his arms now plenty bare. Marinette got up and went into her closet for a brief moment before coming back out in pyjamas, a tank top and some shorts, smiling at him again as she came over and ran her hand down his arm. Adrien looked down and watched as the flowers bloomed on his arm in earnest, and he reached up and began tracing swirls over her bicep, grinning proudly. Marinette was practically shining with both happiness and the tattoo-like swirls on her arms and face by the time they decided they had proficiently marked their territory, and Adrien felt his mind and body settle. This is where he wanted to be. Not France, not England; no, it didn't matter where he was, as long he had Marinette close he would be perfectly happy.The marks on their faces were already beginning to fade, even though it hadn't been that long since they were put there. Sabine decided that would be a good time to call them down to dinner, so Adrien got up, offered his hand to Marinette, who took it eagerly, their hands glowing as the soulmark was renewed. He lead her downstairs, smiling as the three adults looked at them and smiled proudly at all the marks running over their arms.Adrien hummed as he laid his head on her shoulder, watching her draw quietly, smiling as she erased something and replaced it with something a bit more practical. He had only seen her like this one other time, having kept her designing process kind of private at Hogwarts, but he couldn't fathom why. He loved the look she got on her face when she focused on designing.

Adrien stared across the cafe at his crush as she rigorously drew and erased, drew and erased, drew and erased. She was either in a slump or on a roll, and he couldn't figure out which one, not from here. But as she drew, he realized something, that he guessed was the reason he had sort of followed her all the way here to this cafe.

Despite seeming to love her home, she never talked too fondly about it. She mentioned she had bullies she wasn't looking forward to seeing when she got back home.

So Adrien decided that, if he had spare time, he would come check up on her when he could to see how she was doing. He couldn't imagine her getting very depressed over some bullies, but you have to always expect the unexpected, and Marinette loved to surprise people.

He tilted his head at a small design she drew off in the corner, smiling as she looked it over."What's that?" He asked and tapped the small piece.Marinette looked at it and giggled. "Oh, that's just my signature. I go by "the Miraculous Ladybug" when I design. If I ever get a brand going, I think that's what I'm going to call it. I always sew my signature into an inconspicuous spot when I make clothes."Adrien smiled as she talked about what she planned to do with her future, wrapping his arm around her waist and making a blue stripe appear on her stomach where her tank top had ridden up. "I like it. It suits you. Could I, perhaps, model for you?"Marinette began to giggle more. "If I let you do that, I'd have to call it 'The Miraculous Ladybug and Chat Noir.'" She murmured, reaching a hand up and brushing some hair from his face, streaking silver across his forehead.Adrien began to purr lightly, leaning into her touch and nuzzling his face against her shoulder a bit more. "I love it." He mumbled, making her laugh happily, and Adrien vaguely recalled that he once wanted to compare her laugh to the bells of Notre Dame.Maybe he'd get a chance to do that tomorrow.As Adrien dreamt, he found himself in the same theater he had followed Marinette into. His brown hair was ruffled up the way she liked it to be, and his blue eyes were staring straight at her as she went through the ticket line.He watched as Sabine and Tom looked at him and winked, and realized that, maybe, her parents had known all along that he would follow her all the way to a theater playing reruns of thirty-year-old feature-length cartoons. He hadn't seen Fantasia before, but Marinette seemed really excited about going, so he figured that it couldn't be that bad. So he bought a ticket and followed her, along with more people coming in to buy tickets.He found himself a seat next to her, and began to fidget. He had thought this was a bad idea, but now that he was here, he didn't want to leave, but somehow her looking over and realizing it was him was almost terrifying. This wasn't really how he wanted her to find out.But when he looked over, he was no longer in a dim theater, but out in the middle of a grassy plain with a clear blue sky, with his mother sitting right next to him, smiling brightly at him. She still had those green, almost cat-like eyes. "Hello, Adrien." She serenely.Adrien choked back some tears at the sight of his mother. "Mom...""Hey, don't cry." She murmured and reached out, brushing some tears from his cheeks. "I'm right here." She smiled, lifting his chin gently."Where did you go?" He asked softly, gently putting his hand over hers.Emilie hummed and shook her head. "I can't tell you that right now. I can only tell you that I'm close by, and that I'll come back when it's safe. I see you found that darling Marinette." She snickered and looked at his arms.Adrien blushed but shook his head. "You knew... what do you mean 'when it's safe'?""Oh, honey. I know more than you think. I am a black cat, after all." She grinned, but then shook her head, trying to look serious. "There are things you don't comprehend right now, but I have something special for you that I never got to give you. I know it was meant for you, this wand has been calling for you ever since you were born." She smiled and pushed it into his hands. Adrien looked down at the wand, staring at it with big eyes. It was smooth and bronze, with cracks of bright blue here and there. He looked at his mother, confused. She just smiled. "It's a wand made of stone and gems. Aquamarine, to be specific. I'm sure you'll find it very calming to have around." She smiled. "The core - it's made of the whiskers of your grandfather and I was worried they were dying so I infused some of my own." She giggled. "Black cats are very powerful magic-infused creatures, Adrien, and you have two of those in your bloodline in the form of animagi, both contributing to that wand. If that wand doesn't accept you, then you're welcome to smash it." She grinned. "Because it sure as hell won't accept anyone else."Adrien found himself laughing, looking down at the wand curiously. "Who was my grandfather? I don't ever remember you talking about him before."Emilie seemed to falter at that question, but then shook her head. "Your grandfather was sealed into his animagus form a long time ago. He wasn't really worth mentioning, since you would never get to see him anyway." She shook her head, smiling at her son. "Not to mention, he was more your great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather, and not my dad."Adrien blinked and looked at the wand. Did wand cores last that long? No, that man must have been replacing it himself all these years, but where was he?Emilie gasped as the area around them shook. "No." She whispered before grabbing Adrien and hugging him. "You're waking up, my son. I have to go. I love you, never forget that." She said and planted a kiss on his forehead. "W-wait a minute, I have so many questions!" He yelled as she disappeared, grabbing at where his mother had been as the scene vanished.Adrien gasped awake, his green eyes staring up at Marinette, who was sitting up in her bed and rubbing her eyes, looking like she had just woken up as well. She yawned, stretched a little, then looked down at him. "Adrien? Are you okay?" She asked, taking in his frightened expression.Adrien blinked slowly before looking into his palm. There sat a bronze wand with blue crystal swirling up from the base, and he could practically feel his mother's aura radiating from it, along with something vaguely familiar but unreachable in terms of hopes of figuring out what that aura was. Marinette's eyes followed his gaze as well and blinked, now looking more awake. "What's that?""It's... it's from my mom." Adrien said, and he felt his heart clench tightly. It's from my mom, he repeated in his head, and then hugged it tightly, now wishing that he had more things from his mother.Marinette didn't seem to understand, but smiled anyway, running her fingers through his hair. "It's beautiful, Kitty. I'm sure she was very proud to give it to you."Adrien tried not to sob as she said that, curling up in her lap and letting her lull him back to sleep.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Adrien did find it a little amusing that he now had an undocumented wand in his possession with about as an unusual magical core as Marinette's, but when his father asked him where he had gotten it from, Adrien found it wasn't that funny after all.After all, how do you simply tell your father that his lost soulmate gave it to you? Emilie had been presumed dead by everyone after that first year went by, including his father. No one just goes missing and somehow lives unless they willingly went missing. Adrien had never been willing to admit that his mother was dead, especially when he could still see her aura scattered all over the house on full moons.It just wasn't possible that she was dead. if she were, then why were remnants of that familiar green-gold magic still all over the place? It just didn't make sense. So when he had to reluctantly admit to his father, and Marinette and her family, that he had a dream about his mother speaking to him and giving him the wand, which he woke up with, the blank, shocked look on all of the adults faces was expected. What wasn't expected was Marinette's knowing smirk. When asked, she just shrugged, her eyes shining. "I simply knew she wasn't dead. Emilie wouldn't have just up and left and then let herself die without ever trying to contact her soulmate or her child in the afterlife. She was too kind to abandon her family like that."And Adrien had to admit that was true, too. His mother wouldn't have just left and then died on him without coming back as a ghost literally just to tell them that she was sorry she didn't say goodbye.His mother is too kind.Adrien smiled as he walked with Marinette, humming a song both of them were familiar with but didn't remember the words too. Their hands were connected, shining silver and blue between their fingers.Marinette kept looking at him and smiling, giggling a bit and humming bits he couldn't recall fully, and when the song ended, she scanned him quietly."Your magic really is blue.""What?"They came to a stop in front of a moving ice cream cart, and he tilted his head at her. "I thought you said it was black and green?"Marinette shook her head. "No, I said it was black and green and a really dark blue in some parts." She corrected, looking him over again. "Some of my friends came to see me the day after I got home. One of them was Luka and his little sister, Juleka." Adrien rose his brow at the mention of Luka but didn't say anything. "After I told them about you, Juleka mentioned that part of your magic had attempted to attach itself to me, and there was like an outline or a patch of it in my aura, but then said that it was blue and green. It got me curious." She looked up at him and smiled. "But ever since yesterday, it's like the black is becoming brighter. It looks more like a royal blue right now, like your father's. It's really pretty, even if it clashes kind of weirdly with the really bright green." She giggled.They walked up to the ice cream cart as the other patrons got their ice cream and left. The hearty man running the stand turned to them as they walked up and smiled brightly at them."Marinette! How lovely it is to see you back in Paris! And you have a boy with you, have you gotten past the last one yet?"Marinette began to giggle at André and smiled softly. "You mean Luka? No. But I think my magic likes this boy better." She murmured and lifted their hands to show the glowing between their palms, and the ice cream maker gasped happily, clapping his hands together. "Why yes, I think I agree with you! What can I get for you two, an ice cream for my dear Marinette is overdue!"Adrien chuckled a little at the strange pattern of rhyming this man seemed to have, but Marinette was smiling like an idiot and so was he, so it obviously worked.Marinette glanced at Adrien shyly, looking at him through her lashes before returning her gaze to the rotund man. "A couple's cone, s'il vous plaît?" she asked politely, and André grinned broadly."Why yes, my lovely, anything for the hearts of newfound soulmates, I'll make you a cone that's top rate!" He cheered, and Adrien felt André's magic surround his own, and he flinched. It was so surprising, that such a non-threatening man could have magic large and strong enough to cover his own and Marinette's. Marinette had such a big magical presence, Adrien couldn't dream of ever being able to stretch his magic enough to surround hers unless he did some very rigorous training for the next several years.He felt André's magic move around his, and he shivered when he realized what the man was doing. He was using his magic to scan him like a copier, but for what purpose, he wasn't sure. Marinette didn't even look phased."Mint, fresh and bright like your love, and peaches with chocolate chips, for the sweetness and richness of your souls. And finally, add some green tea, to keep you wise and to help see you through to your goals." André said before handing them a cone in the shape of a champagne glass with a small stack of ice cream on it, and two small spoons. Marinette picked off the cherry on top and ate it with a happy hum, and Adrien gagged playfully. "How can you eat those?""Mmmmm, I don't know what you're talking about, these are delicious.""As if!" The two teenagers began to laugh and Adrien handed the ice cream maker some money to pay him, the two calling their goodbyes to him as they left with their ice cream.Adrien stared at the ice cream, and recalled how just refreshing it sounded when André was narrating his process. So he picked up one of the spoons and took a bite, lighting up as the fruity flavor drifted over his taste buds, melting easily and leaving a single chocolate chip, a pleasant taste to get right after something so fruity."Oh Merlin.""What?""This is so good!"Marinette began to laugh at him. "You can't be serious," she giggled, "you lived in Paris for six years and you never once had André Glacier's ice cream?""Hey, those six years were when I was little. Even if I did have it before, you can't expect me to remember!"Marinette laughed again and shook her head, leaning into him as she took another bite of the ice cream. "I'll take you everywhere you didn't get to before, how about that?" She asked and looked up at him, linking her arm around his. Today, he had put on a short sleeve shirt that he had never worn. He wore it because the moment he came out of her bathroom and Marinette saw him wearing another long sleeve shirt when it was such nice weather out for December, she immediately pushed him back inside and told him to put on something more appropriate. So that was how he ended up in short sleeves on December 18th, when it was still somehow 9 degrees out and not much of a breeze to speak of. That was also how his arm more or less looked like a silver bouquet instead of anything remotely resembling skin, since she had been clinging to him the whole time they had been out. It was relaxing to admit that, for once, he didn't mind being clung to. After finishing up their ice cream, they walked in a comfortable silence all the way to the Eiffel Tower. At some point Marinette had just closed her eyes, letting him draw their path, trusting him not to walk her into a wall or something.As soon as they arrived at the Eiffel Tower, though, Chloé walked up. He had almost nudged Marinette before he saw her, then remembered the two had... well, less of a friendly relationship."Adri-" She stopped, looking at the girl on his arm, looking a little surprised. She studied the pair before looking to the silver all over Adrien and the blue all over Marinette."You... really weren't kidding."Marinette opened her eyes and looked at Chloé, blinking at the girl who didn't look condescending, nor did she look mad. She just look mildly shocked, but somehow not surprised."Chloé?""Hi, Marinette. I see you... found your soulmate. And, he's...""Adrien Agreste? The boy you used to brag about being your best friend when you were younger?" She asked and rose a brow at her."Y-Yeah... him." Chloé continued to stare, then looked down. "He really was. We were each other's only friends when we were little. That stopped after he moved, so I couldn't really say anything for after that."Marinette blinked and looked Chloé over slowly. "Something's off. Why aren't you insulting me?""I... um."Adrien tilted his head at his friend. "Chloé, is everything alright?" He asked, holding out a hand that had patches of pink and red all over it.Chloé just stared at his hand for a long moment and sighed, shaking her head. "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. I guess that serves me right. You never did lie just to help people, Adrien. I should have just believed you." She looked up and gave him a very humble smile. "I hope you two are happy with one another, and congratulations on being united." She said, waving as she walked away, seeming much more... somber, maybe even relaxed...Adrien looked down at Marinette as she watched Chloé walk away. "Mari?""Huh?""You okay?""Hmm? Oh, yeah, yeah... I'm fine." She furrowed her brow, staring at Chloé's back. Adrien just shook his head at his soulmate and nudged her. "Come on." He said and began to tug her up the stairs, smiling brightly. He watched as the confusion and concern washed away from her face, replaced with a smile of her own at the sight of Adrien's childlike glee.The view from the Eiffel Tower was probably breathtaking, but after they got in the elevator and up to the stop, it promptly began to downpour. If Adrien had cat ears, they would be lowered in disappointment. Not to mention, they had to go out in that, and showers were already something Adrien had to train himself to be okay with doing every day - he hated getting wet, and unlike his shower, that rain was most likely cold. Marinette didn't even look remotely bothered by the rain, though. In fact, she was smiling, and he found that nearly as confusing as her love for cherries."Why are you smiling like that? It's downpouring.""Yeah, it never fricking rains in England. Seriously, does rain exist there?""Not really, not like this. I just don't understand why you're ecstatic about having to walk in the rain.""Well, one, we're magic, and you have an undocumented wand." She whispered, nudging him playfully. "Two, haven't you ever heard of that American saying?""Which one?""Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain." She grinned, then grabbed his hand. "Come on, Chat. You can conjure an umbrella or something, but I wanna go dance." She grinned as she dragged him back into the elevator and started to make their way back down to the ground. He pulled out his wand and conjured a large, black umbrella, but Marinette didn't wait for him before sprinting down the stairs and running out into the downpour.Adrien was surprised at the sight he was greeted with when he got to the concrete.Marinette was letting the rain soak her. The loose red button-up she was wearing was quickly soaked through, turning it more of a maroon color, which revealed a bright blue pattern of poinsettias all over the shirt, and Adrien felt his jaw go slack. He thought it was just an ordinary shirt."You knew it would rain today?!" Marinette laughed and spun around happily, her braided hair swinging around. The peonies shivered from the rain and slowly disappeared, being replaced by sporadic clusters of colorful hydrangea. She was a red, pink, and blue mass in the rain, spinning and dancing with her black skirt flaring out around her. It was somehow staying dry and flowy, and Adrien could only assume that was also magic.Adrien walked up to her, casting a heating charm around the umbrella. When she felt the heat surround her, she looked up at him, smiling widely.Her bangs were sticking her her forehead, her hair now looking more black than it ever had, that blue shine non-existent. Her face and neck were shining with the wetness the rain had left there, making her pale skin practically glow there in the dark created by the clouds and his dark umbrella. Her blue eyes were the brightest he had ever seen them, shining with amusement and joy and something more... something he didn't recognize, but it made him feel warm inside, it made him feel loved. So he leaned down and covered her lips with his own, pulling her closer by her waist. He felt her arms wrap around his shoulders and her body press close to his, and he could already feel the water from her clothes soaking into his.As the umbrella shook and then snapped closed around them, and the two of them couldn't help but giggle, he was happy to admit that he didn't really mind being wet this time. Marinette and Adrien had gone home and gotten some dryer clothes, but then went back out as soon as the rain had stopped that night. Marinette was still glowing from the rain water that had soaked into her soft skin, and now she was wearing a red dress with a square neckline, a black strip going around her waist, with the skirt a shimmering pattern of black polka dots on the skirt. It really made her blue-black hair and eyes pop, and the soulmarks he had left all over her made her look like she was shining.Marinette was blinding, and there was a point when he had to remember that even though that personality and magic of hers certainly added a couple inches, Marinette was short - petite, even. Not to mention the ferocity of her wand's aura, radiating from her pocket, glittering white and red. And Adrien noticed for the first time, that, his cat, Plagg - he had a dark black aura that looked more like orbs of black liquid floating around him. He wondered why he hadn't ever noticed that before.Having Adrien's eyes on her felt good, but she figured that having his eyes on her wouldn't ever not feel good. He had been staring at her pretty intently ever since she came down from her room, and every time she thought about how he was staring at her, she felt her face get warm.She also figured it had something to do with the gift she gave him. It was simple, really - a plain, black t-shirt that had the same effect as her black shirt, only with the Hogwarts castle instead of the Beauxbaton one. He had been so taken with it, too - put on one of his father's green blazers and some khakis and come out with her, looking prouder than she had ever seen him. She couldn't even fathom why.But as they set out for the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, Adrien stopped staring at her and started looking at the buildings lit up with Christmas decorations, his eyes glittering with amazement, Marinette was smiling. She didn't have to have his eyes on her all the time, because the moments that truly felt the best was when he was looking at something new with that childlike glee. She wouldn't ever get over that.Coming up to Notre Dame, Adrien tilted his head back to look up the length of the two towers, blinking rapidly. "Oh wow." He mumbled, and Marinette began to giggle. "That's it? 'Oh wow?'" She grinned.Adrien looked at her and grinned. "It's a pretty building... I like the circle window thing in the middle." He grinned."You mean the Rose Window?" She asked curiously, and Adrien nodded."I guess."Marinette just shook her head at him and nudged him forward to go inside the Cathedral. Upon entering, his eyes went big. They had all the candles lit and all the lights up in the upper windows and on the ceiling, giving the whole building an almost mystical feel to it, and making Adrien's kitten eyes come out. He began to walk around the practically empty Cathedral, looking at just... everything.He would stop and look at every single window, every beautiful mosaic depiction of the Christian figures and biblical scenes, all the complicated swirls and Gothic arches all sloping up into the ceiling to create an open but fortunately not suffocatingly lonesome atmosphere. This whole building always made Marinette's magic shake and vibrate with potential. Many souls still lingered in this building, buzzing around her in their transparent haze, unwilling to be seen. No one could feel lonely in a building full of lingering spirits.Marinette could see Adrien's own aura tremble with potential. The royal blue slowly brightened up to a sapphire, and the usually wild green shifted and evened out to a cool emerald. When his aura began to shine, Marinette knew she had finally seen his true colors.Magic was finicky as it was always evolving and changing and stretching. One's aura color and shape could change with every major event in their life, and it's general brightness usually depended on one's emotions. When Marinette had first seen the black color of Adrien's magic, she had been shocked. She had never heard of a black aura on someone like her soulmate. Grey, and white, yes, but black auras typically surrounded dark beings like Dementors or the dark wizards of old that used to terrorize Muggles and Muggle-borns. The green that followed him and his kind words had convinced her that he wasn't a bad person, just hadn't been treated like a good person for a long time.The longer she spent with him like this, the brighter the black became and the more calm the sporadic green got. And that shine showed her that he was finally happy, and calm. He wasn't self-conscious, he wasn't hiding anything, not from her anyway. She saw the way his aura got dark around his father or Chloé. He was okay with being himself in her presence, and that thought made her smile. Marinette just followed Adrien around the Cathedral, coming up by the altar, past the pews. Staring up at the complicated portraits, Adrien looked enamoured with every tower, every streak of blue across the ceiling. Marinette looked at her little golden wrist watch, then nudged him. "Adrien." She murmured gently, hugging his arm gently and sliding one hand down to grab his, lacing her fingers in with his. Adrien looked down, blinking slowly to refocus his eyes on her. He then smiled, squeezing her hand tightly. "Yeah, Maribug?""It's seven. They're about to ring the bells." She murmured, smiling up at him. "Isn't that why you wanted to come here?"Adrien lit up and the clouds cleared from his eyes, and Marinette blushed as that wide, bright smile that formed on his face, the ones that she would never see in any sort of magazine or commercial. He looked genuinely happy.That's when the bells began to ring, sending a shudder down her spine. The ancient rhythm of eight hundred and ten years rung in her ears, knocking her out of the trance that Adrien had briefly put her in. She felt the air vibrate and felt her magic spread out. Adrien watched her the whole time, seeming to follow her pink aura with his eyes as it stretched farther and farther. "This place does wondrous things to your magic, my lady." He said over the bells, and Marinette just nodded in agreement, leaning into him and letting the trembling movement sink into her bones and force her muscles to come loose. As she listened to the bells, she let herself be immersed in her own thoughts for the first time that day. She had kept her mind on Adrien the whole time, and not any of the mildly strange things that seemed to follow him and her. His new wand was odd. It had the same golden aura of Adrien's mother, but occasionally little black blurbs would be ejected off of it, and she wondered what it was really made of. Adrien wouldn't tell her. She thought about Chloé, who, after she walked away, Marinette saw Chloé's magic become bigger than she had ever seen it. Chloé's magic had always been shy and reserved, and Marinette assumed that was why Chloé was mean. Marinette assumed she was trying to compensate. But after seeing Chloé's magic expand like that, she figured... she might have been wrong about the blonde. Her father was the mayor, after all. He didn't really have that much time to spend with his daughter. Not to mention her mother seemed to not love her at all. She had married her Muggle of a father for more exposure in the Muggle World as the wife of the mayor of Paris, the capital of France. That pompous Pureblood didn't want anything to do with her Halfblood daughter.It was after the bells stopped ringing that Adrien bent down, whispered something in her ear, and Marinette started to laugh, laughing loudly enough for her whole voice to echo throughout the empty hall, bouncing up to the ceiling and back down to the concrete floor.Adrien smiled at something after she had calmed down, but she wasn't sure what. As the young couple walked out from Notre Dame, they stopped to look at the pigeons, walking to the large crowd of them and watching as they all fluttered away in response. Marinette giggled as the wall of birds fluttered up to the sky to go sit on the gargoyles of the Cathedral, but when the birds disappeared, there was a very confused man in front of them, blinking in shock.Adrien blinked back at him. He didn't look that much older than them. Maybe two years. That would put him at 18, but still a year into being an adult.The man looked at Adrien, slight recognition filling his eyes, then down at Marinette, and he simply looked surprised."Marinette." He said gently, then smiled at her. "How are... you..." He looked down at their arms and hands and Adrien suddenly felt a little subconscious about the marks all over them. But Marinette just smiled at him and shook her head."Hello, Luka."Adrien felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end and he looked at who he now knew to be Luka. Dark hair with blue surrounding the edges, grey-blue eyes, and somehow too gentle of a face.He didn't blame Marinette for having liked this man when he was a boy."You... that's your soulmate." He said and smiled a little shakily, almost sounding like he didn't believe it. Adrien reached his arm up and wrapped it around Marinette's shoulders, placing his hand on her bicep and hugging her to his side, a sudden bout of emotion building up in him to keep Marinette close to him and away from Luka. She was his, not Luka's.Marinette just giggled and leaned into Adrien, shifting in his arm and making him leave a large streak of blue down her skin. "Yeah. I told you that you wouldn't believe me if I told you who he was." She smiled.Luka looked up at Adrien and smiled, holding his hand out. "Luka, nice to meet you. Do you go by Chat Noir or Adrien?""For you, it's Adrien." The blonde said a little stiffly, lifting his hand up and shaking Luka's hand, watching as Luka's eyes darted down to stare at the silver and red on his fingers, something flickering in his eyes.Luka pulled back and smiled. "You both have lovely soulmarks." He remarked quietly, and Marinette shifted uneasily in Adrien's grasp."Luka?" She asked, staring up at him.The man just stared at the two of them for a moment before letting out a breathless chuckle, shaking his head. "Oh, don't worry about me, Dame de la Chance. After all, I see you've finally found the person your lucky charm likes the most. And my god wasn't it a lucky catch for you indeed. Don't waste your breath on little old me." He grinned, walking around them to go to the Cathedral.Marinette frowned before turning around, her magic growing again. "LUKA!" She yelled. The ravenette turned and looked at her strangely, and Adrien saw her pink aura rear up. "I hope you find your soulmate, too!" She called, and the suddenly a piece of her magic broke off from her, going and attaching itself right onto Luka's hand before turning red, and then blue.Marinette had told him before why people called her Lady Luck at Beauxbaton, but he had never actually seen her give someone her blessing. He figured she used some sort of spell, he hadn't realized just how big of a deal it was. Detaching your own magic and giving it to someone else, just to make sure they get what they wished for? The act as so selfless, Adrien's brain almost couldn't comprehend it.And yet Luka just smiled sadly and shook his head. "I wanted it to be you!" He called back. "But it's okay! He looks happy with your blessings decorating his skin." And he walked away, and Adrien was left to wonder what Luka meant by 'her blessings.'Adrien watched as Marinette sewed, rather intent with doing so, his head leaning on her shoulder. She had let him watch her make clothes before, of course, but this was the first time he got to be so close, cuddled against her but careful to not constrict her arm or her shoulder so she could hold the piece of fabric properly. His father was also off to the side, watching a TV Show with Maman Sabine, but would glance over every now and then to his son and Marinette and examine Marinette's work. He even gave her pointers one time about half an hour before. Adrien took this peaceful moment in time to look at Maman Sabine and Papa Tom and really study their soulmarks. Each soulmark was unique and beautiful in its own right, and Sabine's and Tom's were no different.Tom's soulmarks on Sabine's arms were maroon, yes, but they did something similar to Marinette's flowers when Tom traced out patterns on her arms. They were barely visible on the woman's golden pale skin, but they were there. Shards of gold would bloom out from the edges of each string or patch, looking like golden sprigs of wheat or corn. Sabine's marks on Tom's arms were very beautiful and he hadn't noticed it before, but whenever she traced patterns, her own blue mark would begin to spread out against his skin making complicated little swirls that reminded him of the Baroque patterns there in France, like curls of leaves and lace. In some places it went from a dark navy and brightened up into an icy shade. They were decorated beautifully with their marks and that thought made him look down at the marks on his arms.The flowers there most closely resembled cherry blossoms, or sakuras, as Marinette called them sometimes, but those were just the pink ones. The red blossoms looked more complicated, almost like a more open version of a rose, with less petals. Marinette had told him that they were supposed to be peonies, but they looked nothing like the peonies that grew on the vine in her hair. When he remarked about this to her, she told him that was because the ones in her hair, what she called 'Sea Shells," were native all over China, but the particular one he wore, resembling a 'Blaze,' were native to mostly only Tibet, her mother's homeland. He thought that curious as he studied the fading marks on his hands.He then looked back down at Marinette's arms. His mark reminded him of the opaline magic of the wand he had originally gotten for school, only instead of the majority being white, the majority was a bluish-green color with golden sparks and elegant vines of pink. Like an opal. Figures. He was born in October. But then he looked at his father. He remembered how happy his father used to look with his mother's soulmark all over him. His mother's soulmark was gold and a very pale green, with the green often bursting into frost-like wells as she traced patterns on him. He remembered it sparkling like glitter, and making his father look like a happy accident at an Arts & Crafts party. Gabriel's mark on Emilie, though, looked like black lace. All he had to do was tap her palm and her whole hand would turn into flowers and leaves and hearts with hexagons all in between. Emilie had happily flaunted that gorgeous soulmark like it was the new dress everyone was talking about, and often had his father cover her arms in his soulmark so she could wear sleeveless shirts and go out on the town like that. She was proud of her soulmate and liked the feeling of having his soulmark all over her, for everyone to see. The only reason people knew it was a soulmark was because of the way it shined despite its dark appearance. He wondered if, now that he knew she really wasn't dead, if he would ever get to see his mother's happy smile as his father decorated her arms for a trip to the department store for fabric.That thought made him both happy and depressed. Adrien pulled out the wand his mother gave him and looked it over quietly. The golden aura of his mother radiated from it eagerly, ready to be used at any time. The wand had already accepted him. The red and gold sparks that had erupted from it when he first tried to use magic with it were bright and wild. This wand was quite eager to be used again. The last owner, he gathered, had seemed to die a long time ago. How long ago? He wasn't entirely sure, but something told him it was a long time ago. Adrien watched as a black bubble emerged from the wand's aura and disappear before it could reach the end of the aura. His mother had been concerned that this wand's core was dying, but if those odd blurbs of magic that didn't belong to her were anything to go off of, this wand's original core was still alive.But that wasn't physically possible, was it? He couldn't remember how many 'greats' there had been there in that title his mother had rambled off, but wizards and witches, more often than not, lived to be over a hundred years old, sometimes two. This could have been back in the BCE era, easily, depending on how the age expectancy fluctuated over the centuries. He wondered if he could ask Plagg. The cat wasn't very talkative in his feline form, but when he let him out as a human on the full moons, he would stretch and roll around in the grass and just not shut up.It was December 19th. Adrien glanced up at the calendar on the far wall, and noticed that there wasn't another full moon this month. But he had known that, because the last full moon was on the 10th. Adrien counted the days in his head and felt his heart grow heavy with the knowledge that he wouldn't get to talk to Plagg until the 7th or 8th of January, and he rubbed his temples.There had to be a faster way. Maybe he could figure out how to access that potential before the full moon.There had to be another way.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The Winter Solstice was upon them and Adrien was feeling a little fidgety. He had a gift for Marinette, and when he had bought it at Hogsmeade when she was too distracted to pay him any mind, he had had full intentions of simply mailing it to her.But he was here, in Paris, sitting next to her in her bed while they played a round of wizarding chess, with the board floating in front of them so they needn't worry about tilting the board one way or another. Adrien was losing, but he had expected that. When it came to Marinette, he was much better at Gobstones, because he was very good at distracting his lady from the game. His gift was small, really. He hadn't really thought much of it when he had bought it, but every time he thought about it since then, he realized it was terribly intimate and wasn't even sure if she wanted it.It was a pocket watch, and it was a shiny white gold. The chain wasn't anything too impressive, just a chain. When opened, one side of the watch was an actual clock to tell time, on the other looked like a foggy mirror. The watch was meant to be bought for communication. It could be used for a variety of reasons and synced up to as many watches as you wanted. You just tapped the foggy mirror with your wand and muttered the name of the person you wanted to talk to, and you could see and talk to that person if they had a watch that was synced up to yours. So, of course, he had two of them.The two were meant to be a matching pair. They both had engravings, one with the silhouette of a boy and one with a girl, facing each other. Hers had the boy. That was really the only way he could tell whose watch was whose. And it wasn't like he was embarrassed about the thought of wearing them! Heavens no. Both him and Marinette had agreed that it would be extremely hard for the two of them to hide their connection, so there was absolutely no point in attempting to, and they would be going back to Hogwarts as a couple.No, he was embarrassed about trying to give it to her.He had been mildly relieved when he found out that, like his family, Marinette's family was Pagan and only celebrated Christmas if they went over to a Christian friend's house, and that he didn't have to find Marinette a Christmas gift. That also meant there wasn't a 'present time,' per se. Gifts were sometimes exchanged during the feast that would be held three days before the end of Yuletide, the first of January, but it could be considered rude if the other attendees hadn't thought to bring gifts for anyone since it wasn't required.Now that he recalled it, actually, he couldn't ever remember seeing the Dupain-Cheng family at the gathering on December 28th on any year, and that wouldn't have been caused by them being French. All of Europe was under the order of the Ministry, and wizarding families from all over (mostly Pureblood and Halfbloods since not many muggles still practiced Paganism, therefore many Muggleborns were Christian) came to feast.The only person he knew from France that regularly came to those was Chloe. She usually came alone. Her mother was more interested in the banquets held in Ilvermorny, and had no time to come to the homely feasts in Wizarding London, and her father was a muggle. The only person that typically came was her butler, Jean. And he was usually very professional and not very loving at all. Sympathetic, but he wasn't a replacement for a parent.Adrien found himself becoming a little depressed the longer he thought about Chloe's peculiar situation, but thinking on her unloving situation and not thinking as hard about the watch, he didn't feel as weird about giving it to her, but he did think that maybe he should give it to her today anyway, since he was starting shoots again tomorrow.Adrien waved to Marinette as she went off with his father to go to the fabric store. He had decided that he was stay back on this particular trip, since he wouldn't be very useful in that field of expertise anyway, and it also gave him a chance to talk to Tikki. He went to his bag and pulled out a box of sugar quills, popping it open and going to the bright red bird, whistling to her to beckon her to his arm. The owl opened it's big blue eyes, hooted at him, then fluttered over and landed on his shoulder. He went upstairs with her, smiling gently. Maman Sabine and Papa Tom were both down in the bakery, and his father and Marinette were out to the store. He had Plagg and Tikki all to himself to talk with.So he went up to Marinette's room, where he found Plagg laying on the chaise where the window let the sunlight in, looking content and fast asleep.Adrien rolled his eyes and walked over, sitting down on the chaise and waking up the decently large cat. "Hey, Plagg." He murmured, giving one of the sugar quills to Tikki, who ate it up happily. Plagg just glared at him and Adrien rolled his eyes, pulling out a wheel of cheese from his pocket. "I brought your favorite." He cooed, grinning as Plagg perked up. The cat stood and stalked closer, leaning up to sniff the wheel, and as Adrien moved it from his reach, he walked closer and put his paws on Adrien's chest to get just a little closer. "Ah, ah. You're going to help me with something first, and then you can get your cheese."Plagg turned his head to look at Adrien, their noses just barely touching. Plagg narrowed his eyes at his charge, but then backed up and sat down on the chaise, curling his tail over his paws carefully. What do you want, kid ?"I want you and Tikki to tell me how I can get you into your human forms before a full moon."Tikki and Plagg both looked startled, looking at the boy. Tikki hopped down to sit next to Plagg, then turned her head to look up at him. 
Adrien, why do you want that?
"Because you can help me with other things if you're human. Plus, you guys are more talkative."The two animals looked at one another. Adrien could feel their doubt, and he was beginning to doubt this idea too."Look. I turn animals into humans. So what? Animals are wise and helpful, especially you two. I just need some help, and then you guys can go back to being animals! Okay?"Tikki looked a little shocked, then glared at Plagg. Plagg just rolled his eyes.
What is it, birdy?

You seriously let him believe that he turns animals into humans? Are you kidding me? I thought we agreed you would talk to him about what his powers actually are?

Well how was I supposed to know he'd take me seriously? I haven't gotten around to it, so what??
Ugh .Adrien rose a brow at the two of them. "What are you talking about?"Tikki sighed and looked up at him, stretching her wings for a second before settling once more. Adrien, you don't turn animals into humans. If you did, that would just be weird."Then what do I do, if not that? I mean, you guys are animals, aren't you?"Tikki hooted sympathetically. No, Adrien, we're not.Adrien was stunned into silence, looking between the two creatures curiously. "Then... what are you?"
We're animagi who have been sealed into our animal forms, a seal so ancient and powerful that people have forgotten how to cast it and how to break it. You have a very unique power, one in which reveals the true nature of a person. This power only becomes active on full moons, when your magic is strongest.
Adrien blinked, staring at Tikki, wide eyed and unsure. "And... you're alive because why, again?"Tikki and Plagg both looked uneasy for a moment, but Plagg spoke up first.You remember when you called me Death's friend ?"Yeah, but that was a joke."Well, you weren't entirely wrong.Adrien blinked and stared at Plagg. The cat shook his head again.We're immortal beings, people spared by Death and given the permission to continue to live as long as we find a mortal human to attach to and protect, there to prevent the premature or artificial death of the mortal. Our mortals have to die of old age. In exchange, we live however long we wish. No wounds can kill us, no illness can cripple our souls. We never grow old.Adrien looked between the two of them. "But, how..."
Tikki was the first sentient being in the universe. She was created by the entities you call gods and goddesses, the personalities that have no body. She was a pure being they had given the power of creation. She could make anything she wanted, and use her powers to do whatever with. She could even alter her appearance to take the shape of a wise creature that the gods revered, what you call an owl. Instead of making a place to live, instead of giving herself food and water - anything she cared to have to give her comfort, she made a friend.

I made Plagg.
Adrien stared at the two creatures in front of him and felt a shiver run down his spine, not sure if he entirely believed what he was hearing.
Tikki created galaxies, she created stars and worlds and creatures so far beneath us, and yet she had compassion for every single one of them. She had so many plans for the empty space the entities gave her, but the first thing she made was a friend to share it all with. Tikki used to come up to me, rocking on the balls of her feet as she excitedly showed me what she had made that day.

I made Plagg to be my friend, but I also made him to be my opposite. I am a being of creation, Plagg is a being of destruction. He was made to be everything that I couldn't. He destroyed things with the touch of his fingers, and I made them more beautiful than before.
"But... how were you turned immortal, then, if you were already powerful beings?"Plagg and Tikki looked at one another again.
Around the time you humans refer to as 5000 BCE, Plagg and I decided to become human.
"What?! Why?"
We grew tired of overseeing the universe. We wanted a break. So Tikki made others like us, all with different powers, hoping that it would suffice for the universe. And then we left, hoping a more simple life would satisfy our needs for a break. We weren't entirely mortal. We didn't give that up until much more recently.
"When was that?"
Around 50 BCE, in China, when the beings Tikki created started coming to Earth, too. We hadn't even grown that old yet, or got very used to the limits in our magic, before we were sealed into our animal forms, deemed too dangerous by the humans.
"Why was that?"
Because we used what we had left of our otherworldly magic to play. After some... circumstances and a lot of emotions, we went to China to play. Laugh away our worries and our tears. We caused so much destruction - but I always fixed it! But the people there never wanted it to happen again, so they sealed us away. Death took pity on us and made that deal, and also cited that he owed his creator and his mistress.
"... His mistress?"
Uh. Let's not talk about that.
"Plagg-"Look, kid. You're the only one who can understand us, so you're the only one who knows about this. You can't tell Marinette, even though I know you tell her everything. Why did you want to talk to us in the first place?"I... I was hoping... you'd help me with this wand, and my mom."Tikki looked sympathetic for a moment before sighing. There is one way..."What is it? Please, anything to help you two. I know you can't like being stuck like that."
It isn't that bad. I get to lay around in the sun all day and no one criticizes me.
Adrien glared at his familiar before looking to Tikki, who almost looked like she was laughing. Death sealed our souls into jewels so our souls could never die, and put them in the hands of a line of Chinese monks to guard them. I have no idea if that temple still exists, and I haven't spoken to Death for about a millennium, but that's where I know they would be, or in the hands of a trusted monk from that clan somewhere in the world.Adrien furrowed his brow. "And I could release your souls, and you could become human again, whenever you wished?"Tikki hooted in amusement. No, you can't break them, and you would have to break them in order to release our souls. Only Plagg can break the Miraculous Jewels."So, what?"
You just have to activate them. The Miraculous can only be activated by a wizard or witch worthy of wielding them, but they amplify magical power that already exists inside you. I chose a family where anyone from that direct line would be able to activate it, which is Marinette's father's side. Plagg chose one to do the same thing, your mother's side of the family.
"How did you know they're worthy of activating them? Is there a special quality that you looked for?"Tikki and Plagg both had the grace to look flustered for a moment, shaking their heads.
No.

No.
"Then what is it?"Tikki rubbed her head against her wing. Tom and Marinette, they... oh jeez.
It's okay, feathers. He's going to find out anyway. Especially if he wants to find his mom.

I guess you're right.
Adrien looked between the two... uh... he supposed they were like some type of gods that had been condemned here, even though they didn't really seem to mind all that much.
So. Uhm. I guess it's better just come right out with it - People from Tom's family line, well, they, uh... They're my direct descendents.

And people from your mother's family line are my direct descendents.
"Direct descend-" Adrien was about to ask what they meant, but then his eyes went wide, staring at the two of them. "Y-You two had kids?!"
NOT WITH EACH OTHER

NOT WITH EACH OTHER
The two beings hurried to explain that, and he was sure if they were humans, they would be blushing furiously.
Well...
One with each other.
But we don't know what happened to her.
"Her? You had a daughter together?" Adrien suddenly felt his heart breaking, staring at the two of them.
Yes. She lived in Egypt with us for 15 years, and we taught her everything we knew back then. But after those 15 years...

She got married to a Greek, and sailed away with him. She never wrote us a letter or tried to summon us after that, like we had taught her to. We never saw her again.
"That's awful." Adrien breathed. "Didn't you try to find her?" We looked all over with her. We scoured the whole of Europe for our little Phoenix, but we never found her."Phoenix?"
The bird of life and death, as you wizards call them. They live beautiful, independent lives, die in a pit of ashes, and then rebirth themselves. Plagg and I made our beautiful little chickadee as a gift to the world, one that had attributes of the both of us. But she didn't want us. So after a hundred years of searching, we stopped, figuring that she simply didn't want to be found. We would have never thought that Wizards and Witches would start using her kind's feathers as a way to channel magic. In a way, I'm almost proud. In another, I just have to wonder who she had children with, where they are now, and why they would give up their feathers.
"What was her name?"
... Chione.
She was called the daughter of the Nile, the place where she was birthed. People said that she flowed like the river, and shown as bright as the sun. Later people mistook her rebirth, when her golden and red hair was pure white, as her being a snow nymph. The greek man took her, saying she was too beautiful to keep in a place like Egypt. She went with him willingly. We don't know why."I'm so sorry." Adrien frowned, saving that name in his head for later, even though he knew he was probably never going to meet her, and even if he did, why would she want to see her parents now?"So... let me get this straight. You two were the first sentient beings in the universe. Not the first personalities, but the first real, living beings?"
Correct.
"So, you two were the first sentient beings. Tikki made everything, and Plagg, you're meant to be her opposite. You got tired of running the universe, so you made a bunch of other people like you to run it for you while you took a break for a couple thousand years, and then you had kids with people before you got sealed away - Tikki had kids with someone to make Marinette's current family line, and Plagg had kids with someone to make my current family line. And then you had Chione together?"Chione came first."Right. And then you went to China... to try and forget your grief over Chione?"
Not forget. Just lift the sorrow.
"Sorry... But your play caused too much trouble, and now you're stuck like this?"
Correct.
Adrien rubbed his temple slowly. "Plagg, so I'm... related to you?"
And Marinette is related to Tikki.
"Were you the one who made this wand? And the one who kept restoring it?"
I was. But I need to replace the core every couple decades, which is a hassle, but I wanted to give my family a gift to let them know I was still here. Your mother disappeared with the wand before I could replace the core again. I'm glad she figured out how to replace it herself. It's very powerful now, but the core will not last as long. 
"What about Marinette's wand? Why is it's core still active?"
When it was given to my family, I put a blessing on it to never rot. That stubborn peacock's feather will continue to live as long as it's owner is as chipper as a bluejay.
Adrien laughed softly and shook his head, grinning broadly at these two little creatures. "Well, where do we start?"
What?
"I said I was going to help you. I'm the only one you can talk to, after all. Where do we start?"Tikki squawked and fluttered a little. Adrien, you can't be serious. This could take years!"Or they could be right here in Paris."
Or they could be all still be in China!
"Adrien, we're home! And we have a visitor! Come downstairs!" Marinette's voice called from down in the apartment.Tikki flew up to sit on Adrien's shoulder and Adrien picked Plagg up. "Come on, Grandpa. We have company."
I swear if you ever call me that again-
"You'll what? Hairball in my shoe? You already do that all the time."
Whatever, just - no telling Marinette, not yet.
"Fine." Adrien went downstairs, with Tikki on his shoulder and Plagg in his arms. He turned and on the couch, sat Marinette, with a case of fabric off to the side, his father, who was looking Adrien over curiously as he stood there with the two animals, and a short, older man, who was smiling brightly."Hello, Adrien. How are you today?"Tikki hooted in alarm and Plagg's jaw dropped much like a human's.
There's no way!

You have got to be kidding me.
Adrien had the urge to ask them what was wrong, but kept his mouth shut. He could only talk to Plagg inside his own head, not Tikki, and he figured Plagg wouldn't be much help.Adrien walked over and gently set Plagg down on the couch, smiling at the old man. "Hello. I'm actually feeling pretty great today. You already know my name - May I ask you what your name is?""His name is Master Fu Wang. He's apparently a friend of Maman's." 
Damn your girlfriend and her good luck.
Adrien felt his face heat up a little and he glared at Plagg, who was sitting on the couch, glaring grumpily from his spot there. Master Fu looked at them with an amused expression, looking between him and the cat curiously.Adrien looked back at the man and smiled apologetically. "Sorry. I'm really in touch with my familiar, and he sometimes expresses things he doesn't really mean-""I'm sure Plagg means every word he says. He's never lied, you know."Adrien blinked in surprise. "You... know my cat's name." He said, though it was more of a statement than a question."Why yes. That cat has caused quite a bit of trouble for a lot of people, but I'm sure he's very humble now?"Adrien barely held back a snort. "Humble indeed." He muttered and shook his head. "How do you know his name?""Your mother used to grumble and grumble about this grouchy cat that she had at home, but whenever I asked her why she didn't get rid of him, she would simply remark that she couldn't, that he was family to her." Master Fu smiled, and behind his gaze was something knowing, and that something made Adrien sweat a little."Well, Master Fu, uh..." He smiled, stuffing his hands in his pockets, feeling awkward now. Tikki fluttered down and landed on Master Fu's outstretched arm, looking at the old man curiously. She cocked her head this way and that, then looked down at his wrist. On his wrist was a strange bracelet that kind of looked like a turtle shell, and Tikki let out another squawk of alarm and flew off, going and landing on her perch. Master Fu just chuckled, and Adrien wondered why Tikki seemed so shocked.Marinette got up from the couch and wrapped her arms around one of Adrien's, and Master Fu watched the soulmark shine between them. "Master Fu wanted to have dinner with us. He said he had something he wanted to talk to me and you about." She shrugged and let her lips quirk up in a little smile. "That okay?""Yeah... y-yeah, of course. You don't have to ask me, Bug." He murmured before nuzzled her gently, feeling himself calm down slowly. He could do this. With Marinette by his side, he could do anything.Adrien sighed as he laid back against the couch, with Marinette sitting close. Master Fu had requested he talk to them in private, and the adults had all fled to the bakery to talk over hot cocoa. He had never even thought of his father drinking hot cocoa before. Master Fu smiled brightly at the two of them. "Hello, La Coccinelle. It is nice to finally meet you."Marinette blinked at the man before smiling gently. "You don't have to call me that, Master. It's just my pen name. Or, I guess it would be more of a pin name." She grinned, and Adrien put his forehead on her shoulder, snickering and chuckling, suddenly unable to breathe."I love you so much." He said when he finally regained his composure, nuzzling against her gently. "Love you too, Chat." Marinette pat his head, still grinning childishly. Master Fu smiled endearingly at the two of them. "I have Yuletide gifts for you, and they're very valuable - I need you to be very careful with how you use these." He said, picking his bag up and beginning to search through it.Adrien blinked at this man they had never met. Why would he had Yule gifts for them? Wait, Yule gifts!"Ah, crap." Adrien pat himself down and huffed. "What is it?""I have a gift for you, too, Mari. It's upstairs, though. I don't want to leave to go get it." Adrien sighed."Oh, go, go. I can wait."Adrien lit up before bolting up, practically vaulting over the couch, using the back as a support, landing on his feat and rushing up the stairs.Master Fu laughed softly. "A regular cat, that boy is.""You think so?" Marinette smiled. "He doesn't always land on his feet, though.""That is a myth, my dear Marinette." Master Fu smiled. "He has made the best of his situation, though. I imagine his mother would be very proud of him for being happy with you instead of sulking.""He was sulking.""Was he?""Yeah. Over her. Everyone thought she was dead.""Well, why would they think something as silly as that?""Because-"Adrien came bounding back down the stairs, a big smile on his face as he walked over and sat down next to Marinette. "Sorry." He murmured, then looked at Marinette with a smile."As we were." Master Fu grinned, then pulled out two small, octagonal boxes, and held them out to the two teenagers. Plagg instantly perked up when Adrien grabbed his, and murred, getting up and pawing at the box. Adrien hadn't ever seen him act like such a cat before, and it kind of threw him off. Tikki flew over and came to sit on Marinette's shoulder, leaning over to look at the box. The old man just laughed. "Those two are eager to get out." He murmured."What do you mean, sir?" Marinette asked, looking up at him."There are jewels inside that I think those two are very eager to see again. You should see for yourself." Master Fu smiled at the two teenagers.Marinette and Adrien looked at each other. Marinette shifted uneasily. "You go first."Adrien nodded and opened the box. A green glow surrounded the jewel inside, lifting up and swirling for a bit before going into his pet, who mewled happily and stretched, then looked up at Adrien, and grinned strangely. "Ah, that feels better."Adrien and Marinette both yelped and jumped back, both of them backing up into the corner of the couch, and Tikki fluttered away to land on the edge of the table when Marinette moved."P-Plagg?""What? I thought you would be happy that I no longer have to talk in your head?" He murmured, sitting down and beginning to lick his paw, rubbing it over his face."Y-Yeah, but I'm used to you talking in my head!""Wait, you can talk to Plagg in your head?"Marinette's sudden intervention in the conversation made him jump again, and looked at her, beginning to blush. "I... can." He said slowly, then rubbed the back of his neck.Marinette grinned, and that threw Adrien off even more. "You two haven't been talking about me behind my back, have you?""N-no!""Yes.""PLAGG!"The cat cackled before walking over and pawing at Marinette's box. "Open this. I wanna talk to Red again." Plagg almost seemed to pout, looking up at her.Marinette blinked at the cat. She reluctantly opened the box, and a pink light flew out and into Tikki, who opened her wings to accept the sprite, then took in a deep breath, seeming to smile. Tikki looked a lot more alive and animate. She looked at her charge. "Thank you, Marinette. I feel much better now.""Y-You talk too." "Of course." Plagg jumped from the couch onto the dining table, purring loudly as he began to rub against her, his tail flicking this way and that."Plagg.""What?""This is not the time for you to be scent marking me.""You're kidding me, right? I just got my scent back, you can't expect me to not do this.""I was expecting you to have a bit more decency.""HA! You made me to be your opposite, feathers. Decency is your thing, not mine."Adrien blinked at the two, and saw, for the first time, how much affection these two must have, if they were still throwing out playful banter even after their long existence together."Wait, are these..."Master Fu looked at Adrien questioningly, a small smile on his face. "Have you been talking with animals for too long, Chat Noir?"Adrien blinked and looked up at him, his eyes going wide. "Y-You know about my mom... her animagus.""And I had to hunt her down to get that jewel back.""She had it?""She meant to give it to you. I figured I would just finish the job."Adrien looked down at the jewel and felt his eyes sting with tears. Another gift from mom..."Wait. You mean to tell me that Emilie had that thing the whole time and never once activated it?""You are dangerous enough as it is, and Emilie was scared that even with her husband, she would not be strong enough to control you, since she didn't have Tikki around. She loved you very deeply, Plagg, but I believe that granddaughter of yours was looking out for the well being of all of Paris.""Dangerous? Me? How so?" Plagg drawled, grinning broadly."Does the disappearance of Atlantis ring a bell with you?""I had too much cheese!" Plagg swatted the air dismissively."The leaning tower of Pisa?""I didn't see it!""Dinosaurs?!""Oh, yeah, yeah. I- I did go too far there, but I was young!" Plagg ducked his head, still smiling.Master Fu rolled his eyes, and so did Tikki. Marinette looked around quickly at everyone."I'm sorry, am I missing something? What in the world is going on, and why is my owl talking?"Adrien, Master Fu, and the little gods all looked at each other, then back at Marinette. "I think that is something better left to Plagg and Tikki to explain. Please, put on the jewels, and let us begin.""Uh... how do we put these things on, exactly?" Marinette looked at the little black stone, confusion written across her face."Pick them up. They will turn into whatever your subconscious wills it to be." Adrien and Marinette looked at each other, then picked up the small stones that laid inside their boxes. Adrien's eyes went big with wonder as the cloudy grey gem morphed and turned into a shining, perfectly round ring with a flat, round face. He slipped it onto his finger, and while it felt much too big, he could slowly feel it shrinking down until it fit comfortably around his finger.He looked over to see Marinette's stone glow, separating into two entities, forming a pair of little black earrings. She stared at then curiously before slipping them into her ear lobes, humming thoughtfully as she rubbed over the left one with her fingers."Good. Now, call the name of your familiar, and say, 'Exonero'."The two looked at one another once more. Adrien smiled at Marinette, and she sighed. "Fine, I'll do it first." She smiled uneasily. She then looked at Tikki, who was staring up at her hopefully, her feathers fluffing up anxiously. Marinette smiled, then sighed. "Okay Tikki - Exonero." She called. The jewels on Marinette's ears glowed pink for a moment before filling in with red, five black bubbles appearing on each one, and Tikki flew up. The owl's body glowed pink as she swooped down, and as she landed on the floor, transforming from an owl to a young girl.Marinette watched as the light disappeared, leaving a girl with bright red hair and big blue eyes. Bits and pieces of her hair almost looked bespeckled like her feathers as an owl. She had a dress on, one that looked similar to the one Marinette had made and wore when Marinette and Adrien went to Notre Dame, and she had no shoes on her feet.Marinette's jaw was slack, staring at the girl who was giggling, having a smile so bright, it lit up the whole room. She had a bright white aura, serene and flowing easily. Adrien was sure that if muggles could see magic, they would claim that Tikki would be an angel, and that white aura was a halo."Hello Marinette. I'm your familiar and guide. Your miraculous gems amplify your magic just by wearing them, but once per release, you can call on my help, and I can increase your magical abilities tenfold for a single spell. I can also fix any destruction with no cost to my energy. It's a pleasure to finally converse with you!"Marinette put her hands over her mouth, standing up and slowly going over to Tikki, looking her up and down slowly. "Ah la vache, you were real.""Whatever do you mean, Marinette?""I-I snuck out of my dorm one night because I couldn't sleep and I got to the owlery and Adrien of all people was out there, and he was talking to someone, and then i saw you come out and turn into a person, but he was also talking to someone else. I went back to my dorm and I had completely forgotten about the exchange, figured I was tired and it had been a dream. Y-You... Y-You're a person right now!"Adrien was staring, blinking in mild curiosity. "You caught me on one of the full moons?" Marinette looked over at him, then nodded a little. "I-I guess I did? I don't remember much about what you were talking about it, but I had dreams about it for nearly a week. It kept me up in a cold sweat sometimes.""What do you remember?" He asked and tilted his head, his eyes looking at the marks on her arms again."Uh.." Marinette scratched the back of her neck. "It's... embarrassing." She blushed. Adrien just looked more interested. Marinette sighed. "You were talking about liking a girl. And I was sort of... I guess I was jealous at the time? That you would be willing to talk to my familiar about that issue, but not me, and the idea of you having a girl you liked made me feel sort of gross and dejected for a while, and then I found out that it was me that you liked, and then you asked me out to Hogsmeade, and I was really fully intending not to stoke the fires of your crush because I wasn't really sure if I liked you like that, and then... well." She looked at the soulmarks decorating her skin with a smile. "I guess I had a little wake up call." She giggled, her eyes shining with glee. Adrien was blushing furiously and while Tikki was giggling, Plagg was gagging. "Ugh. Humans. So gross.""Hy-purr-crite."Plagg perked up at Tikki's voice. Tikki was grinning, and Plagg was pouting. "Not fair! You can't pun on me like that! I made puns!"Tikki laughed. "Yes, you did, Kitty, but I was the one who embraced them." She grinned and walked over, picking Plagg up and gently scratching under his chin. Adrien let out a strangled noise, his face redder than it was before, and Plagg rolled his eyes and grumbled."Just release me, kid.""F-Fine." Adrien took a deep breath to calm himself, then looked up. "Plagg, exonero."Plagg squirmed as his body began to glow green, and Tikki let him go. Plagg landed on the floor, then grew into a boy. He looked different than whenever he let Plagg out on the full moon. On the full moon, his hair was completely black and his skin almost tan. The male that rose up now had dark hair all the way up to the front of his hair, where if faded a little into grey before a bright, blonde, messy tuft interrupted the black and grey. His aura was mostly the same; pitch black bubbles practically dripped from him, but behind that, his aura was a very bright green.Tikki grinned and walked over, attaching herself to Plagg and sighing softly. "Hello, my lion."Plagg snorted, putting his arm around her. "Hey, feathers. It's good to see you like this again." He murmured. Tikki leaned up and kissed his cheek, leaving a bright white mark there on his cheek, and left Tikki's lips black.Adrien blinked. "You two are soulmates?""After we became mortals, yes, we became soulmates. Figures." Plagg chuckled, hugging Tikki to his side, and she obliged by cuddling into him.Marinette finally frowned and stomped her foot. "Will someone please tell me what's going on?!"Tikki and Plagg were forced to give Marinette the rundown of everything, and soon Marinette looked at Plagg with that menacing glare of hers and made him answer for a lot of the things he had screwed up, while Tikki just sat there and giggled.But then Plagg perked up, two decently large cat ears sprouting up from his head. "Shit. Tikki, we gotta change.""I know, I know." But Tikki was pouting as she transformed back into an owl, and while Plagg didn't look any happier, he also did it without complaint. The three adults came back into the room, smiling at Adrien and Marinette. "We all good up here?" Sabine asked, looking at Master Fu, who nodded."Yes, all except one thing." He looked over and saw the teenagers' questioning looks, and he smiled. "Adrien, I believe you had a gift for Marinette?"Adrien looked confused for a moment before smiling. "Oh. Oh right. Uh." He pulled out a small box and smiled at Marinette. "Here. Maybe something relatively normal will make this a little less confusing." He smiled.Marinette tilted her head before taking the box, opening it up, then gasping, grinning as she lifted the pale gold watch out of the box, looking it over. "I saw these on sale at Dervish and Banges while we were in Hogsmeade? I almost bought one of these! You couldn't have gotten this while we were there?" She was smiling broadly at Adrien, who briefly wondered why he had thought this had been a bad idea."I did. I have one that goes with it, too." He smiled at her."May I see it?" Master Fu asked, looking curious. Adrien nodded and pulled out his watch and handed it over to Master Fu, who opened and inspected it before smiling. "Ah, yes, these will do perfectly. Marinette, may I see yours as well?"Marinette handed it off and Master Fu cast a second enchantment on them, smiling as they glittered with potential. "There. Now these watches can double as maps and compasses. As long as you carry these, you'll always be able to find each other." He smiled and handed them back.Adrien looked at it and smiled. "I don't know when we'll need that, but there are some kind of odd things going on at Hogwarts.""What do you mean, Adrien?" Master Fu looked concerned.Adrien just shrugged. "Before we left, I saw a lot of strange behavior. I saw a kid get knocked flying into a wall from thirty feet away when no one cast a spell on him, and I saw several animals freaking out for no good reason. Animals don't just go berserk, like people do. Especially magic ones. I think something's wrong.""Hm. You might be right. But don't assume the worst, it may just be a minor issue.""Yes, Master Fu."

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Chloé walked the streets of Paris, looking up at the buildings, looking up at the sky. It was already an odd occurrence that she would be walking instead of having someone drive her around, but she needed to clear her head, and she had new tennis shoes she needed to break in.When was the last time she had seen Adrien as happy as he had been with Marinette? She couldn't honestly recall. She remembered him being happy when they were little, when they were just kids at the abandoned park in the middle of the afternoon. She remembered him smiling on the camera set, and smiling whenever she came to visit him on set, but those weren't the same smiles as the one he had when he was looking at Dupain-Cheng.His eyes had been crinkled around the corners, that dimple on his left cheek had been in full force, and that look in his eyes was anything but the casual look he gave her or that damned camera. No, Adrien loved Marinette to the point where his eyes basically looked like a kitten's whenever he was around her, and Marinette didn't look much less smitten with her partner.Marinette hadn't mentioned that she had found her soulmate when she had walked in to hopefully knock her down a few pegs the other day for working hard enough to be transferred over to another wizarding school. She imagined that if she hadn't tried to complain to Adrien after that argument, he wouldn't have told her either. She wouldn't have found out until she accidentally caught them walking around, shining like stars both sort of literally and figuratively, and she would have probably thrown a fit instead of the calm reaction she found herself giving that day by the Eiffel Tower.Adrien had never truly lied to her, so she hadn't known why she couldn't find herself to believe him when he told her. Maybe it was because she was used to people name dropping, and had done it herself a couple times to make herself seem more esteemed. Maybe she just assumed, in the spur of the moment, that Adrien had decided to do the same to protect someone he didn't know, because he was like that sometimes. Maybe she didn't know him as well as she thought she had.So what was she to do? She didn't have any other friends besides Adrien, and she was almost positive she had ruined her chances with anyone else in the school as a potential friend. There was Sabrina, but Sabrina didn't really think for herself and never had. Neither did her father - he just abided by the law and enforced it, and often pretended he knew what his Muggleborn daughter was talking about when she talked about Beauxbaton. Chloé wondered if she could somehow change that. Probably not, but now that she found herself thinking about things that actually mattered, she figured it was worth a try. Chloé felt her magic stretching and stretching throughout the whole day. It was a strangely pleasant feeling. She had never been too worried about how small her aura was, and when people commented on it, she would brag about how dainty auras ran in the family and were considered to be non-invasive and pretty, even though she knew she was lying through her teeth. Her mother had such a strong magical presence, and yet she was somehow meek.But after a day full of being honest with herself, she could feel her magic trying to expand past the walls of the back alley she was in, looking at stores and service stores and wondering if she should try and buy something mundane for once, like a lily to put in her hair or that rope necklace with that round of amber for cheerfulness. She looked out at the empty alley and found herself smiling at the peaceful silence and emptiness, but it somehow wasn't lonely. People existed inside the shops that linger there, moving around and working diligently despite the lull in customers. 
I wish I could simply freeze, stay here, in this place in time and never have to leave this feeling.
A mouse scurried up and began walking by her feet, and Chloé looked down at it. She never truly minded mice, or frogs, even though they didn't seem to care where they pooped. The mouse was blonde with black ears, and while she couldn't really see it's eyes from here, she thought they were this strange bluish color. She simply shrugged to herself and continued, letting the mouse walk beside her. She soon came to a split, and she looked down at the little mouse as it stopped with her, sitting on its haunches and sniffing the air, then looked up at her. Chloé tilted her head curiously at the small thing. "Well, which way do you think we should go?" She said, quietly stuffing her hands in her small pockets. Her wrists didn't even fit inside the shallow excuses, though shallow excuses were something she was used to by now.The mouse tilted its head at her before squeaking and scurrying over to the left, stopping again to look at her, its ears and nose twitching. Chloé looked down the alley and just saw a bunch more shops, shrugging and nodding, stepping out to the alley and walking once more.She did wonder, absently, how the mouse was keeping pace with her. While the blonde wasn't power walking, she wasn't exactly sauntering either. She walked for nearly five minutes before the mouse stopped, and she only walked a couple paces more before she noticed and stopped as well, turning back to look at the mouse. The mouse squeaked loudly at her before running up to the door of the shop right next to them, scratching lightly at the entrance.Chloé tilted her head and looked up at the shop. It was a massage parlor. A small one, but still. The doors were made of thick wood, with intricate carvings painted in red. They were geometric in nature, and it reminded Chloé of the weeks that the Dupain-Cheng household would celebrate the Chinese New Year, selling special Chinese pastries that pretty much everyone loved. Chloé had never tried them, but she wanted to. She had even considered going out of her way today to stop by and buy some, if she hadn't walked by and saw Marinette working the register. No way she was going to face Marinette now.So Chloé heaved the door open and was greeted with a very quaint parlor, decorated with more Chinese-esque things that she wasn't sure were real or fake. The most she had ever seen were at the Dupain-Chengs, after all, and she wasn't sure if they were a good example or not. It wasn't like they completely morphed the shop, that would seem suspicious, and they did serve muggles. The mouse hurried inside and immediately went to the back, past the paper door that had been left open. Chloé gasped quietly, pushing the door back closed, then began to hurry after the small critter. "Hey, what're you doing?! You probably can't be in here-" She whisper-yelled as she chased after the mouse to catch it, stopping as she came into the room, where a small older man was sitting with his back to her. The mouse scurried up to him, and he let it crawl onto his hand. It began to squeak at him, and Chloé could hear the smile in his accented voice. "Ah, it is good to see you too, Pollen. Who have you brought me?" The man turned his head and he smiled at the blonde. "Ah, Chloé Bourgeois. I was wondering when Pollen would find you. Though, I guess she might have been waiting for you to become a better candidate than your mother." The man began to chuckle silently, fondly. Chloé rose a brow at the man."You... named the mouse?""Oh no, Tikki did.""Tikki...? Isn't that the name of Marinette's weird red owl?""Ah, sharp memory. I think she will be a lovely wielder, Pollen." The man said cheerily to the mouse.Chloé furrowed her brow further. "What in the world are you talking about? In fact, why are you talking to a mouse?"The old man set... Pollen down, then got up. He pressed some buttons into a gramophone (why does he still have one of those things? They have normal record players...) and the music player opened, then pushed something up. An octagonal box, with a bunch of drawers and a latch on the top. It had the same engravings as the door. The old man opened the top of the box and pulled out a foggy yellow gem, turning and smiling at Chloé. "Chloé, you may not understand everything right now, but I assure you, this is for you. Not for anyone else. This is the Bee Miraculous, an enchanted gem that will treat you well if you treat it well. And Pollen wants to be your familiar from now on, if that's okay with you?" He asked with a smile, gently pulling Chloé's hand from her side and setting the gem inside it."I guess, I mean, it's not like my familiar likes me much. Not that... anyone really likes me much. But why are you giving this to me? You don't even-" Chloé's eyes went wide as she watched the pale stone shifted and formed into a pure silver hair comb in the shape of a bee, shining in the light. She blinked at it, slowly lifting it up and looking it over. "I- what just-?""Pollen will fill you in." He said as a yellow light shone from the now transformed jewel, floating up and into the little mouse, who let out a happy, human-like sigh. "But the Miraculous has chosen you and picked a form best suited to your needs. It is yours and only yours now." He smiled kindly. "All you have to do is put the comb in your hair and say Pollen's name, then say 'exonero.'""And what will happen when I do that?""You shall find out." He smiled again, and something in his brown eyes was almost mischievous.She decided it couldn't possibly be deadly. She had already scanned the item and the enchantment was rather simple, but something was wrong about that. Why was it so simple? She couldn't seem to break it, and it was a little concerning. But she lifted her hands up, sliding the hair comb into her pale hair, shifting it around a couple times until she got it in a secure spot that wasn't painful. She then looked at the mouse and rubbed the back of her neck. "Okay... Pollen, exo... nero?" She said, almost timidly, and couldn't help but notice that she really didn't sound like herself.She watched as Pollen scurried around in a circle before glowing yellow, becoming significantly taller, and Chloé backed up, frightened for a moment, until she realized it wasn't getting much bigger than herself.When the light disappeared, it revealed a woman who was very tan in complexion, with chocolate brown eyes, but her pupils, for some reason, were a very bright blue. Her hair laid in curls around her shoulders, almost completely black, but it faded into an almost brownish red color. She was wearing a v-neck dress with a natural waistline; the top was black, with the sleeves looking to be made of lace and the torso filling out be opaque. The bottom was a yellow high-low design, and she was wearing beige heels, and she was still barely Chloé's height. Chloé was wearing flats. Chloé could just stand there and take in this woman who had apparently been a mouse just moments before, and was smiling at her. Pollen pinched the sides of her dress, did a short curtsey, then looked up at Chloé with a smile. "Hello, my Queen." She said gently, sounding almost serene. She had a melodic voice, one that Chloé could easily imagine singing and being quite good at it. "Umm... me?" Chloé pointed to herself.The woman giggled. "You are the only girl here. I don't think there's any competition." She grinned, a set of perfect white teeth behind the tan lips, and Chloé almost flinched. "Oh." She said, a bit lamely, then fidgeted. "What... are you? An animagus? No, that couldn't be it, I had to say that spell for you to come out...""You're so smart, my Queen." The girl smiled and walked up. "Correct, I am not technically an animagus, but it would be the closest term you humans have to my kind. I'm sure whoever Tikki and Plagg are with, that's how they introduced themselves. But!" The woman smiled, then winked at Chloé. "I am a Kwami, a magical being made from an abstract thought by the first Kwami, the Kwami of Creation. I am the Kwami of Subjection, Pollen." She smiled, but Chloé looked uneasy again."Subjection?""Oh, don't be like that, my Flower." The woman put her hand on Chloé's shoulder and lifted her chin slightly, smiling kindly at her. "Subjection doesn't have to be a dictatorship, and I prefer the wielders of my Miraculous to be strong but not cruel. Your mother, she's a disappointment. She was such a promising child, I thought she would grow into a great holder, but she never grew out of that need to be above others. A good Queen rules with a love and sympathy for all her subjects, not with a whip." She grinned. "But you, my Flower - you are unsure right now, but a good person doesn't just come from nowhere. I know you will make a lovely wielder."Chloé blinked at the strangely sincere words from the woman, and she pulled out a handkerchief, dabbing at her eyes quietly, trying not to cry, less she make her mascara run. "W-Who are you?""I already told you that, silly." She giggled again, and Chloé felt her lips quirk up in a smile."N-No, I mean... you're so nice. Do I know you?""Oh, no, darling. I wish you had, but I needed to come to you at the right time. I am an ancestor of yours; you are one of my direct descendants."Chloé let out a sort of choked laugh. "So you're like my grandma, or something? But you're so young...""I am your great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother."Chloé blinked, and suddenly she didn't feel anymore tears coming, all she felt was shock. She looked at the woman in front of her again, blinking slowly. "I-" She didn't look any older than 25! What does someone say to that?! "You're my what now?""It's been seven generations, and I suppose it's probably been eight or nine for Tikki and Plagg, but I've finally found a holder that I like. There are other lines, of course. Most of my descendants don't have just one child, but again, your mother is quite the disappointment." Pollen rolled her eyes, as if just the thought of Audrey had her annoyed. "I don't age the same way you do, in fact I don't age at all, but that isn't the point.""Wait, did you say Plagg? Like, Adrien's grumpy old cat?"Pollen burst out laughing, stepping back and doubling over slightly, putting one hand on her stomach and the other on her knee. Chloé stared at her as the woman laughed like teenager had just told her the funniest joke ever, and wondered if she really had said something funny.When she had herself composed again, she was smiling elegantly. "Yes, yes, I'm so glad someone finally said that. Plagg is so, so grouchy. I think the only time I've ever seen him happy is when he was with Tikki, and he had a pile of cheese nearby." She grinned. "Content as a cat."The old man let out a chuckle, and Chloé briefly remembered that he was there. She fidgeted. "So, I have a Kwami for my familiar now... and she's my grandma from six generations back... which is... how long ago?""Very long ago. Our descendents tend to live longer than normal witches and wizards, and Wayzz's descendents even longer than us, but I had my first little honeycomb in 36 BC." She smiled. "Many lines - your family line is the product of my eldest child, who held herself like a Queen and, in fact, became one."Chloé blinked. "I- Really?""Yes. Her name was Zenobia. She was a Queen in Syria and she was called the "warrior queen." She ruled a great empire for nearly five years all on her own before some Roman scum decided to try and knock her down a peg. I'll never forgive that man." She rolled her eyes, but smiled again. "Even after she was defeated, she lived like a queen afterwards and had many little rosebuds. I was very proud of her."Chloé blinked before wiping her eyes again, laughing softly. "Mom always did brag about her being related to royalty." She laughed. Pollen frowned. "I thought we agreed not to mention her?" Which only made Chloé laugh again."Well, I believe you two will make a splendid pair. I'll see to it that the holders of the Ladybug and the Black Cat are informed of their new companion. They will help you become who you want to be. Or, perhaps, who you really are?" Fu smiled in a knowing way and Chloé felt a chill run through her."Let us go home, my Queen." Pollen glowed again and turned back into a mouse, looking up at Chloé. "I have a gift for you, and I think it would be best if we were at home. Hotel Bourgeois, yes?" The mouse squeaked, and Chloé almost squeaked, too. Chloé walked into her room and let Pollen out of her hair. She squeaked happily and jumped from her shoulder, glowing again and turning back into a girl. She sighed and slid her heels off, then stretched as she set them by the glass doors that lead out to her balcony. "Nice place. I only managed to sneak into here once, and it was a bit painstaking, so I didn't get to see much of it." Pollen hummed and yawned a little. Chloé blinked. "Wait, you've been in here before? Inside the hotel?""Yes. But, again, I didn't get to see much before I got thrown out. They tried to drown me in La Seine. As if I could die from something as silly as drowning." She snorted. "That butler was mighty surprised when he saw me climbing back out onto the pavement after about five minutes. He thought he was hallucinating. Are all the staff muggles?" Chloé smiled and gripped her elbow, shaking her head. "No. I have a special butler. His name is Jean something-or-other. He's a halfblood like me. My mom hired him specifically for me when I was a little girl without my father's knowledge. That was... back when she was still around." She mumbled and sighed, walking over to the window, looking out onto the city she had grown up in but knew little about. "At least, I have you."Pollen looked at her and smiled, patting her shoulder gently. "That's right, my Lily. I have always been here, and I always will be. Remember that." She murmured and leaned over, kissing Chloé's cheek, which made the young girl laugh weakly and let out a shaky sigh."Yeah. Thank you." Chloé swayed a little, then left her side, slipping her tennis shoes off and sitting on the bed, looking up at the tan woman. "Well, is there anything special I need to know? You said something about a gift?""Ah! Right, thank you for reminding me." Pollen walked over, and as her bare feet graced the floor, petals appeared under her steps. Chloé briefly remembered all the Christian weddings she was made to attend, where the flower children would scatter petals all over the ground for the bride to walk on. The bride was not meant to touch the ground, and apparently neither was she.Pollen pulled something seemingly out of thin air. It was a golden locket, and Pollen had a smile on her face. "This locket is something I made for my descendants, but I usually only give it to the truly deserving. I'm not to sure about you yet, but I can sense your kindness behind all that heartache. I want to give it to you now."Chloé stared at the locket curiously, then took it as gently as possible. "It's enchanted. I have made others for the other holders, since I'm the only one besides Nooroo who even keeps track of these sorts of things, and I have them somewhere. I might have left them in the miraculous box. I'll have to ask if they want them to give to their holders if they ever find a suitable one." She shrugged.Chloé glanced up. "There are others?""Oh sure. There's the Ladybug, the Black Cat, the Butterfly, the Peafowl, the Jade Turtle, the Fox, the Bee, that's me, the Ox, the Mouse, the Dragon, the Tiger, the Serpent, and the list goes on and on and on." Pollen waved her hand around in the air for emphasis, then shook her head. "Open it." She grinned.Chloé looked the simple locket over once more before popping it open. Inside was a portrait of Pollen on one side in what looked like Victorian attire, and the other side had an engraving of a bee that looked like the bee on the hair comb. She was about to question the locket before it glowed yellow, and the image of a tree glowed up into the air, shining. Chloé stared at it curiously, and then a picture popped up at the bottom. Once again, it was Pollen. But then a line drew up from her and spread out. Three pictures, then twelve, then twenty-four, then sixty something. It grew and grew until it abruptly stopped, with one picture enlarging itself. It was a picture of herself, with her mother's picture just below hers with an 'x' through it. There were several other photos like that, like she purposely crossed out the people she absolutely did not want as her holders. Chloé vaguely realized that... this was an ancestry chart."You... documented your family?" She asked, bewildered but also in wonder."I documented all of the Kwami families. I am a bee, after all. it's in my nature to be a family gal." She leaned against the wall and grinned. "I have a decent amount of the wizard and muggle population documented as part of a Kwami family. It isn't exactly a special thing, to be apart of a Kwami family. It's only special if you have the actual Kwami." She giggled. "You know, most people don't even know we exist - but those who do, they try and constantly get their hands on us. Too bad no one really knows which ones exist and which ones don't, except for Master Fu, of course.""So you're the thought of subjection, is that what you said?""Correct, my flower.""Then why aren't you a queen?""Oh, I was. But, you know, I was a queen when the human life expectancy was a little under forty. I had to fake my death multiple times as I kept taking the throne, changing little things about myself to lie to my advisors and my people. I thought it rather funny how my servants tried to pretend they didn't know it was me. But that was all in the past." She waved her hand dismissively again. "I was eventually overthrown, and I had to, once again, fake my death and get the heck out. But what they didn't know was I took all the archives with me. No one realized that there wasn't any history or art left in that castle until I was already gone. There was a mad hunt there for a while, but I'm pretty good at making myself look like any other ordinary peasant." She snickered.Chloe found herself giggling as well, looking down at the locket and smiling at the detailed family tree. She gestured her finger vaguely on one of the pictures on the same level as her, and considering how far away he was, they would barely have any familial connection at this point. He was like a seventh cousin or something wild like that. Everything disappeared as the portrait got bigger and text appeared at the bottom.
Ambrose Seer Grey - Age 16, male.

Birthplace - Stratford-Upon-Avon, UK.

Current residency - Nice, France.

Brown hair, dark brown eyes, pale.

Occupation - Assistant to a secretary at his father's company. Father related by marriage, not blood.

Misc: Ambrose has been mildly desperate for his father's attention for some time now. He often trips over himself trying to impress him, but his father seems to have little interest in him. Set reminder; pick him up from that god awful building and get him to a more progressive area, like Auschwitz or something.
Chloe burst out laughing and covered her mouth quickly, knowing that laugh was completely uncalled for, but hadn't been able to help it."What is it?" Pollen smiled."You..." Chloe took in a deep breath and let it out. "I can't believe you made a holocaust joke. His father can't be that bad, can he?"Pollen walked over and looked over her shoulder, glancing over the profile before rolling her eyes. "That man works that boy to the bone, and it's just too bad, too. He's such a smart lad. I made that note a few days ago. After getting you, I was planning on getting down there and more or less kidnap him. Bring him back to Paris, most likely.""He doesn't seem too bad.""I know, he's cute, ain't he?" Pollen grinned as Chloe rolled her eyes. "And he's related to me.""Yeah, by like this much." Pollen pinched her forefinger and thumb together before giggling. "And that doesn't mean anything. There have been people in history whose soulmates were their third cousin, and there's still enough blood relation there for things to go wrong if they had kids together, and there probably were things wrong with those kids.""Are you suggesting that this boy could be my soulmate, of all things?" Chloé set the locket down and crossed her arms, raising a brow at this strange woman."I'm suggesting that it's possible, and that there's so much genetic difference in you at this point that it wouldn't really matter anyhow." Pollen rolled her eyes and smiled. "Don't you know that Bees are the type to stick to their family?""Ew! I did NOT need to know that!" Chloé shivered and shook her head quickly, grabbing the locket and closing it. "Great, now that's going to be on my mind all day. Thanks."Pollen laughed. "I guess the first thing I need to teach you, my little bumblebee, is how to take a joke. But seriously, we need to find your soulmate. Soulmates have more powerful magic when together, and the Bee Miraculous works best when the holder has their subjects to back them up. The more people you feel the need to protect, the more powerful your magic will become. The Queen is only as powerful as her subjects encourage her to be."Chloé blinked and touched the comb, then swallowed slowly. "But... what if I find them, and I've already hurt them? What if they hate me?""Then you make them like you." She smiled. "Another quality of a good queen is that she is willing to admit when she made a mistake, even if that mistake carried on for far longer than necessary. I assure you, if you show that you truly regret the way you behaved, most everyone would forgive you. People aren't good at holding grudges in the face of guilt and regret."Chloé looked at her and opened her mouth to say something, then closed it, then opened it again. "Are you sure you're not the Kwami of Manipulation?"Pollen laughed. "No, no. I was being serious. Now, come on. We have to get in contact with the Ladybug and the Black Cat. I'm assuming you know who they are?""... Yeah, I do." Chloé gulped and sighed, getting up. "I... know where the Ladybug most likely is, but I don't know where... the Black Cat might be.""Why's that?""W-Well, the Ladybug, she..." Chloé rubbed her head. "I used to bully her. A lot. Ruthlessly, actually. I really screwed up with her.""Oh, honeysuckle." Pollen came and put her hands on her shoulders, staring at her sympathetically."And I used to be really good friends with the Black Cat, but I messed up with him too. I accidentally insulted him and his soulmate, who happens to be the Ladybug. He's probably doing a photoshoot. I hadn't known. If I had known, I-I...""Chloé, look at me." Chloé flinched and looked up at Pollen. It was the first time she had called her by her first name, and it was surprising to hear. "You were a different person then, okay?" She smiled. "They won't forgive you easily, but they will, in time. The only thing you can do is take that first step." She squeezed her shoulder gently.Chloé let out a shuddering breath and leaned down, putting her forehead on Pollen's shoulder, careful not to cry, but letting her shoulders shake a little. "Yes. I know... thank you." Pollen removed Chloé's ponytail and ran her fingers through the soft blonde locks that fell around her shoulders. "Of course, Chloé. Remember, I will always be here, and I always have been."

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Luka sighed as he scratched his head, looking around at the city of Paris, his home. He wondered absently if it was after he broke up with Marinette that it had become this lonely or if that didn't happen until she left for Hogwarts.Paris wasn't as busy as most assumed it to be, even in tourist season. Only the main roads had many people, the very main streets and the ones with schools or office buildings, unless there was a nice cafe. So Luka prowled around on the roads that sprouted off the main roads, the ones with just restaurants or little shops, ones that cars only occasionally went down and people rarely went to after lunch.Trying to remember the good times at Beauxbaton didn't help, of course. Most of the time, Luka was either alone or with the small group of musicians that gathered outside the school after class hours, or alone. He didn't have many friends, and Juleka was about as lonely as him.The few friends he did hang out with were Juleka's friends and their siblings, and almost all of his good memories had Marinette. It was never a good idea to date someone who had too many memories attached to them, especially if there was a risk of breaking up. Not being soulmates made it pretty likely that you were going to break up in this society. Most people waited for their soulmate, and few others didn't care for them or even the notion of them.After he had found out Marinette wasn't his soulmate, he had become one of the latter.His teacher had often told him and his class that when a person was born, another person would be born soon after for that person. If you weren't made for someone else, someone else would be made for you. So the ages were always close. He hadn't assumed they meant a few months apart, of course. He wasn't entirely sure about other couples, but he knew Marinette's birthday, and Adrien's birthday was in every teen heart throb magazine that existed. It wasn't like it was private knowledge.Marinette had been born nearly five months after Adrien, what with her being born mid-March and him being born at the very end of October. Luka had been bewildered when he learned this, and looking at other examples of famous soulmates, there was a trend. Even with Adrien's parents, they were only three months apart. Marinette's parent were also five months apart, and there was one couple he found, an acting couple, that were one month apart, and Luka had thrown the magazine on the floor at that point.He really had wanted it to be her. He knew that wasn't physically possible, and the trend made it scientifically improbable, but screw a guy for wanting a person other than the one he was made for.  It didn't help, either, that he kept seeing Adrien or Marinette everywhere he went. Adrien was doing photo shoots all over town, and Marinette hadn't ever been able to sit still for long unless you took her to an arcade. It was mildly ironic. He had remembered thinking that everyone was very acutely aware that Dame de la Chance wasn't around anymore. Her good luck was infectious, and anyone within about a ten meter radius was a bit more chipper. The usual groups that she hung out with were more quiet than normal, and all of them would flinch and scramble to catch someone who fell before they hit the ground, and Luka had seen them catch themselves before they said "are you okay, Marinette?" because that silly girl was a klutz until halfway through fourth year.Miracles didn't happen on a daily basis anymore, magic gone wrong now caused more damage than it used to. People were a little more short with others than usual.People at Hogwarts, however, had been reporting strange going-ons. Something weird happened and someone got sent to the hospital wing, expected to be there for three days, and they would get out the next morning. The flowers were too vibrant to still be alive this far into winter, even with magic. The ice on the lake was thick enough to ice skate on for the first time in forty years, but then people would sometimes randomly break the ice and partially fall in but not all the way. The animals that they took care of for their Magical Creatures lessons had been more peaceful than ever, but would have random bursts of anger that would injure students or staff. It was positively peculiar. It was nothing ever as drastic as that at Beauxbaton, and it made Luka wonder if Hogwarts was really that unlucky or if it was just Marinette counteracting. It couldn't be, right? There was no way it was Marinette. Her good luck wasn't that good, just her blessings.Her blessings.Luke looked down at his palm and saw the blob of blue magic attached to him. Marinette had given him a blessing that day at the Cathedral, but he couldn't fathom why. She knew what he had wanted, and she had still done that. He didn't want her blessing for something like that."... uka. Luka!"Luka whipped around to look at a girl who had been walking near him for some time now, but he hadn't paid much mind to. He recognized her, kind of. She was a student at the academy, too, but he had only seen her a handful of times in classes. She wasn't that noticeable, she had blonde hair with a streak of pure purple by the front of her hair, different in the fact that it was purple and not blue, but not that different."Um, hi?"The girl smiled gently. "I've been calling your name for a couple minutes now. You must have been really spaced out.""Uh, yeah, I suppose so." Luka shrugged and turned away again, looking out in front of him."... So, can I ask what you're doing in this part of town?""Needed to clear my head." Luka turned his pale eyes on her. "I was... going to find a spot to sit down and play.""Play?"Luka nodded back to the guitar on his back. She glanced back at it before lighting up. "Oh! That's right, you're one of the musicians. I completely forgot. What kind of guitar do you play?""Acoustic-electric.""That's right. Do you mind if I listen to you play?""No, not at all.""Great! Where are we sitting, then?"Luka looked around for a moment for a suitable place, spotting a little cafe with few people inside. The girl smiled and nodded, walking there with him, seemingly happy, though he didn't know why. He didn't know her, so why...? He went into the cafe anyhow, pulled his guitar off his back, and sat down with her. He pulled his guitar in front of him, took a couple seconds to tune it the way he wanted it, then began to play.First it was just a couple chords, then he looked up at the girl to see her look interested, but not very into it. So he changed his style from the unsure sadness that he held and turned into something more dramatic, something that started innocent and light and slowly built up into something more... adventurous, idealistic, uplifting. He watched as her expression changed from merely interested to her eyes sliding shut and a smile spreading across her face. She put her chin in her palm and just listened as he played.People started wandering into the cafe. The staff were staring at him, listening silently. A pair of girls that had come in talking stopped kind of abruptly and looked over.It wasn't long before he had a small crowd around him, listening to him strum away at his guitar for all his worth. Luka hadn't been this invigorated to play in a long while, and he wasn't sure where it was coming from now. All he knew is that he suddenly felt a lot lighter, like a heavy burden had been pulled off his shoulders.When he struck the last note, silence fell over the cafe. Then the people erupted in applause, and some people started leaving Francs for him on the table, no matter how many times he told them he didn't need it. The girl smiled at him from across the table. "That was really something. I think you deserve the money.""But I didn't ask for it.""They gave it to you because they liked what you did, and wanted to show you that they appreciated it. It's no different than any other musician." The girl giggled. "Take it. You earned it."Luka looked at the small pile of Franc notes on the table, then sighed, grabbing them, straightening them out, then folding them and putting them in his pocket. He looked at her pointedly to remind her that he didn't like what he had just done, and she just giggled.She held out a hand covered in a mitten. "Magnolia de la Fontaine. It's a pleasure to meet you."Luka glanced at her hand before lifting his own and grabbing her hand, shaking it slightly. "Luka Couffaine. It's a pleasure to meet you, too." He said, smiling a little.They both looked over when they heard a mew and saw that, sitting where the crowd once was, was a fluffy cat with a smokey grey-blue coat and big copper eyes, and a mouse sitting on top of its head, all grey and silvery. The two were staring rather intently at the pair, and Magnolia was the first to speak."The cat's letting the mouse sit on it.""I see that.""Why is it staring at us? Why are they both staring at us?"Luka shrugged and stared back at the little animals. "Are you hungry, little guys?" Magnolia cooed, getting up from her seat and crouching down next to them. The mouse squeaked and scurried up, climbing up her pants leg and onto her knee, sniffing at her face. Magnolia giggled and rubbed his head gently. "Aww. Do you want some cheese, little guy?"The mouse shook his head and squeaked again, and Magnolia tilted her head at him. "Then what do you want?" She asked.The mouse squeaked once more before scurrying off outside. He came back a moment later with a discarded popcorn bag, and the cat seemed to chuckle at the mouse. Magnolia tilted her head. "Popcorn? Hm." She looked up at the cat. "What about you, pretty girl?" She smiled.The cat tilted its head and then got up, making a circle and staring up at the cafe's display box. Magnolia got up and looked at it, then smiled, looking back down at the cat, crouching down and holding her arms out to her. "Wanna come tell me what you want, mademoiselle?"The cat's scruff fluffed up and she walked back over to Luka, rubbing herself against Luka's legs gently. Luka blinked as Magnolia began to giggle. "I think she wants you to pick her up, Luka."Luka sighed and looking up at Magnolia, who was staring back at him expectantly. He resigned himself to the task, picking up the cat without her arguing. He held her close to his chest and walked over, letting the cat lean down to look at the selections. The cat looked around for a moment before laying a paw on the glass.Magnolia looked over and blinked. "The mini brioche...? Okay, I guess." She shrugged and looked at the cafe woman who was standing there, looking puzzled. "Can we get some popcorn and the mini brioche please?" She asked with a smile, and the worker only nodded a bit lamely, walking off to go get what Magnolia asked for.The blonde looked up at Luka and smiled. "Do you often have strays come up to you?""No." He said and set the cat down, who promptly began to circle his legs again. "This is... new."Magnolia giggled and leaned down, letting the mouse scurry into her hands. She set him on her shoulder and smiled. "I used to have animals come up to me all the time on my parents' farm. It was nice. The creatures here in Paris are a bit more skittish." "What kind of farm did your family run?""Wand Trees." She murmured, smiling when the woman came back with her order, and she happily paid, then took the plate and small bowl, carrying it back over to their seat. "All kinds of critters that we let run around there, since they couldn't really do much harm to the trees." She giggled as the cat jumped up onto Luka's lap and began to eat the brioche offered to her. Magnolia let the mouse run down her arm onto the table, ducking his head into the bowl and pulling out a popcorn kernel and beginning to munch away at it."That's interesting. I had a friend who wanted to make a wand tree farm when she was younger. I think she gave up on that dream." He shrugged, lightly running his fingers threw the cat's fur and listening to her purr."Hmm." Magnolia smiled at him. "Say, Luka, would you like to get a coffee with me sometime?"Luka looked up at her, and thought about it for a moment, then smiled. "Sure. I wouldn't mind that. Before or after break is over?""Preferably before, but I understand if you're too busy-""I'm not busy at all." Luka smiled at her and shrugged. "Name a date and a place. I'll be there. I'll even bring my guitar with me if you want."Magnolia let out a laugh. "That'd be great, Luka." She smiled. "How about Saturday at noon?"Luka nodded. "Fine with me.""Great." She giggled, getting up. "Well, I gotta fly - oh, do you wanna come little buddy?" Magnolia smiled and picked the rodent up off her jacket after he pounced and latched onto her. She put him up on her shoulder and nuzzled him. "Well, see you on Saturday, Luka!" She called, grabbing the popcorn and hurrying out the door."See ya."

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Magnolia scratched the head of the little mouse she had sitting next to her and sighed, smiling softly at it. He had been sitting there so patiently while she painted, she figured he deserved a treat. So she got up and pulled out a bag of caramel popcorn she bought on the way home, ripping it open and giving him a couple pieces. She giggled at his loud squeak as he promptly began to gobble down the sweet and salty popcorn. "You've been sitting there so nicely while I finished up my painting, I figured you deserved something. You're so skinny." She murmured and ran her fingers over his silvery back. Magnolia looked at the painting. It was a portrait someone had commissioned to her, for a boy who wasn't even in his third year yet. He was quite adorable, but his features were odd to draw. He had such a messy mop of hair and strange eyes for someone so young, and she was having some difficulty capturing that properly, but she was sure that as soon as she got most of the details down and enchanted it to move, she could get that mischievous but knowing look down, and get his fluffy, messy hair to flop right.The mouse squeaked after a moment and walked up to the portrait, sniffing it a little before looking back up at her and squeaking. Magnolia giggled and sighed. "He's a strange kid, isn't he? He looks like a troublemaker to me." She grinned as the mouse shook his head in an almost exasperated manner. "That's okay, it's not like it's due tomorrow. They want it before his birthday in March, and they were going to hang it for him to come see when he goes home for summer break." She giggled. "Ah. That sounds rather nice, but I think this is the kind of kid to let that go to his head." She shook her head and got up, grabbing some of the popcorn for herself and popping it in her mouth as she went to get more brown paint.The mouse squeaked and jumped off her desk and began to scurry around her feet, and she giggled, looking down at him. "What is it?" She asked, wiping some of the access paint from her hands before pulling out her ponytail and redoing it, the purple streak pulled back to look like it was going across the side of her head before hiding in the ponytail. Her hands were a canvas of their own, a mess of red, gold, brown, black, and white. She never really knew how the paint did get on her hands and wrists and forearms, it just sort of appeared there. But that was okay. Magnolia prided herself by telling her peers that she was happiest when she hand paint on her hands, even if her uniform's gloves covered them up almost in their entirety. The paint stains reminded her that she was unique and not just another French girl dressed in blue that guys swooned over, because defining herself like that was self-deprecating, in her opinion.The mouse squeaked once more before running to her door, scratching at it lightly. She rose a brow at the creature. It wasn't fussy, hadn't been since she brought it home yesterday, so this was some odd behavior. Perhaps it was hyper, maybe she shouldn't have fed it the caramel popcorn. She opened the door, and watched it scurry across the pavement from her workshop. She tilted her head at the rodent and walked out after it. "Little friend? Where are you going?"The mouse squeaked and looked at her, then continued on. Magnolia began to follow the small critter curiously. She wondered if all the mice she knew were this sentient and seemingly aware, or if that was just something she had imagined as a child. Magnolia followed the mouse into a park, where it scurried near the middle and then sat up, its nose twitching and it's whiskers moving this way and that.The blonde stepped in front of the mouse, looking around for a minute before crouching down, squatting precariously and putting her elbows on her knees. "Little friend, where have you brought me?" She asked softly. "I really should be painting right now, you know. It's my only way to make money as a student with my set of skills." She smiled at the little creature.The mouse just squeaked again, then ran in a circle, looking up and to the left. The girl looked over as well and squealed when she saw a man standing there, jumping back and landing on her rear, hissing as she landed on a small pile of rocks. She rubbed her rear slightly to try and help ease the pain, and the man chuckled. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you, Mademoiselle De La Fontaine.""You know my name?" She asked, looking up at the old man curiously."I do. And I know your little friend's name, too." He chuckled and nodded to the mouse."He has a name?""Yes, his name is Nooroo. He is a very special mouse.""Yeah, I figured that out today after I was lead across the city to a random park.""Not random, but perhaps to you it is. Come now, Monsieur Couffaine is waiting for us.""Monsieur-?" Magnolia turned her head and gaped when she saw the boat home that Luka lived on, where Luka and his sister were sitting, conversing with one another about something or other. She looked down at the mouse again, who looked mighty proud of himself, padding over and climbing back up onto her shoulder.Magnolia sighed, and resigned herself to this fate. When had her life suddenly become so strange?Magnolia was surprised at the messy homeliness of Luka's boat home. He was, of course, way too chill for his own good, but she hadn't taken him for the messy type. Their flamboyant mother was almost too much, but Master Fu handled her and calmed her down with practiced ease and a serene smile on his face. He motioned for all three teenagers to come to the lower level of the ship. Juleka was the one carrying the cat today, Magnolia noticed. It appeared the cat didn't mind either of them holding her.Master Fu turned to them and smiled gently at the trio. "I would like to give you three some early Christmas gifts. Though, Monsieur and Mademoiselle Couffaine, you will have to share this gift until your other Kwami finds you.""Kwami?" Juleka asked in her monotone voice, petting the cat's head as she began to purr."Those two animals you have with you there." They all automatically looked to the mouse and the cat, who were unblinking, not looking phased despite the sudden tension around the humans they sat on.Master Fu just smiled, the held out two boxes. "Couffaine siblings, Mademoiselle De La Fontaine, I present to you the Miraculous of the Butterfly and the Miraculous of the Peafowl. You inherited them through birth, and now your Kwamis have chosen you as their holders."The three looked at each other again and Luka was the first to reach out. He pulled the box from the hand gestured out to him and his sister, opened it, and was greeted with a pale sapphire. A blue light shone from it and flew to the cat, who purred again and wiggled. "Ah. That feels a lot better."Magnolia squeaked a little and flinched when the cat began to talk, and Juleka just blinked down at it. "You can talk?""Now I can." "That doesn't make sense.""A lot of things don't make sense.""Touché.""Mademoiselle De La Fontaine?" Master Fu asked, smiling as he continued to hold the box out to her.Magnolia looked at the box and bit her lip, then reached out and took it. She opened it as well, a pale, colorless gem resting inside. She rose a brow at it, then it began to glow. It cycled through a couple colors before stopping at an orangey yellow color that reminded her of a sunset, and then glowed. The light flew to the mouse on her shoulder, who wiggled as his coat became a tawny orange, and also let out a sigh."Thank you, miss.""Ah, the Monarch. I believe you chose a very nice candidate, Nooroo.""I think I did too.""What do you mean?" Magnolia furrowed her brow.Master Fu smiled again. "The Miraculous of the Butterfly is special. He represents change, and depending on his wielder, he changes with them. I was afraid Nooroo would end up purple again, with a bad owner, but you are a lovely candidate.""What does the Monarch Butterfly mean?""The Butterfly holders that achieve the Monarch's abilities are special; along with their normal abilities, they wield the magic to bring back the dead."Magnolia's eyes went wide and she felt her heart clench tightly. "I-It... what?""The Monarch can revive the souls of the ones lost to this world. Does that mean something to you?"Magnolia swayed with uncertainty, looking down at the little mouse on her shoulder. "Y-Yes...""The Monarch is generally discouraged to use this ability. If I tell you not to use this, and if Nooroo tells you not to use it, will you still do so?"Magnolia hesitated again. She took a moment to actually think through the consequences of doing what she had just thought of, then let out a shaky, almost tear-jerking sigh. "No. I- I won't."Master Fu smiled. "Good. Now, pick up the gemstones to get started."Luka and Juleka looked at one another, then placed their fingers over the pale blue stone. The jewel glowed for a moment before turning into a brooch. At first, it looked like a green and blue fan, then it looked like a peacock. Luka blinked at it and picked it up, and Juleka leaned over his shoulder to look at it more closely. Magnolia swallowed thickly and looked down at her own jewel. She then grabbed it and let it sit in her palm. It glowed for a moment before turning into a brooch as well, a small, oval jewel that was orange and had intricate black lines and white spots inside the lines. The three all looked at each other. Master Fu smiled. "Put them on, and say the name of your Kwami, then say 'exonero.' Couffaine siblings, that cat's name is Duusu." He smiled.Juleka looked at her brother, then Magnolia. "Do you want us to go first?"Magnolia only nodded in response, too nervous to really talk.Luka put the brooch on his shirt, under his jacket, then looked at the cat. Duusu jumped out of Juleka's arms onto the floor, then sat with her front paws tucked neatly between her back ones, then her tail around her paws.Luka tilted his head curiously at the cat. "Duusu, exonero."Dusuu purred before glowing bright blue, getting taller and taller until the light shattered away like glass. It left a pale woman there with a single red jewel on her forehead, her long black hair shining blue in spots and green in others. The whites of her eyes were pitch black, not white, and her irises were a sunset of colors. She had on a dress that hugged her body, with a coat on over it. The dress itself was a beautiful blue that faded into a rich green. It had a golden collar that sat below her collarbone, intricate with its golden swirls and gems, several other golden appliques decorating to torso like polka dots, only more oval. The waist gave out to another set of golden curls and gems, then flared out around her legs all the way to her ankles, the blue turning into that rich green at the bottom with more golden curls around the border of the dress. Her coat was almost as stunning. It was completely green, and at the end it started turning into peacock feathers that were only stopped by the white fur that lined the whole dress coat, almost looking like down feathers.On her feat were golden heels, tall and elegant and thin, and decorated with topaz. She was beautiful, and it looked like she knew it."Hello, Luka, Juleka. My name is Duusu." She smiled, putting her hand on her supple cheek. "My how you've grown since the last time I saw you.""I knew I had seen you somewhere before." Juleka said and smiled. "You were the stray that used to visit the boat all the time before father passed away.""That I was. I'm surprised you remembered." Her voice trilled like a bird's, soft and beautiful, but there was something eerie about her presence. Like she was just waiting until someone let their guard down. Her strange eyes didn't really help at all, they were just as creepy. But they made her stand out, that was for sure."Child, you're so tense. Do you need some help loosening up?"Magnolia flinched before shaking her head quickly. "N-No ma'am! I'm... f-fine." She took in a deep breath and tried to brush off the woman's magic from hers. She was- wait, what?Magnolia muttered something under her breath and her eyes went wide when she saw the woman's magic spread out almost throughout the whole boat, and it didn't even look strained. Magnolia felt chills run through her and felt her skin go stiff with goosebumps. The bright red magic all over the boat was extremely alarming, and Magnolia felt her own magic cowering.Luka put his hand on her shoulder. "Don't be afraid of her, it'll be alright." He smiled. "She's very tense right now. She was tense around my friends when they came by the other day. She's just weary around strangers.""U-Uh-huh." She mumbled nervously, then took in a deep breath, and let it back out. She took the brooch and attached it to her collar, then took another deep breath just to make sure she didn't freak out again. "N-Nooroo, exonero." She said quickly, biting her lip. The mouse jumped from her shoulder and onto the wooden boards. He glowed orange for a moment before growing taller like Duusu had, the only difference was that Nooroo hadn't jumped as far away from her as he thought he had.When the orange light shattered, he was standing right over her, and Magnolia felt her brain go blank and her heart stutter and then start beating wildly as her adrenaline started picking up, and she felt like running to the very end of the boat where Duusu's and Nooroo's magic wasn't surrounding her.Where Duusu looked Indian, Nooroo looked Japanese. He had a very symmetrical face and soft brown eyes, and he had olive skin. He had neat orange hair with strands of black running through it, and a couple bobby pins pinning back a strand of hair in the very front. He was wearing a Gi - it was white with orange trim around it, a symbol on the front, and a black belt wrapped around his waist. He was barefoot."W-Well hello there." She stuttered nervously and took a step back from him. He just looked concerned for her. "Hello. I am Nooroo, your Kwami. It's nice to finally meet you, Magnolia.""R-Right, and you're going to tell me you've been stalking me for a while now, too, right?"Nooroo shook his head. "I stuck with Duusu. Mice don't exactly have the best defenses, and my magic was limited in that form. Shifting my form was out of the question. I'll be sure to become an owl next time." He smiled sweetly before tilting his head again. "I sense you have another question.""Y-Yeah, what's your, uh...""Gi?""Yeah! Gi. What's your Gi s-say?""It's pronounced 'Ga,' and it means Moth in your language." He smiled. "I'm glad I picked you as my holder. My last holder was a purple, and I hated him.""H-Him?""Yes. But that was a few decades ago." He waved his hand dismissively.Magnolia looked him up and down. His aura was so strange. One moment it was blue, then the next is was brown, then pink, then yellow. Sometimes there was swirls, sometimes there was stars or lines. The only thing that was consistent was the shine, the sign that this was his true magic."S-So, um... mind telling me what a Kwami is?" She said timidly."I think that's best talked about on the way back." He closed his eyes and took in a breath, then let it out, and his clothes turned into a turtleneck and a pea coat with dress pants and shoes, and a beanie appeared over his hair, only letting a strand of black out and some of the orange hair along his neck to show. He opened his eyes again and smiled at her. "Come on, Magnolia. You have a portrait to finish, don't you?"Magnolia gaped at him as she let him grab her hand and pull her back out of the bottom of the ship so they could get on the street.By the time she got back to her little workshop, she was significantly more calm and just nodding as he finished his story, and looked down at her."Did you get all of that?""Yeah. I did. That's... amazing, Nooroo.""Yes. I know."Magnolia unlocked the workshop and sauntered in, plopping down on her stool. Nooroo closed the door behind him and smiled at her as he pushed his pea coat off and slid his shoes off, leaving him in the sweater and pants he had willed his Gi to change into.He walked over, pulling up the other stool and sitting down, looking over the portrait. "You're a very good painter, I wish I could have told you that yesterday." He chuckled a little, beginning to mess with a brush but being careful not to paint anything on accident or smash the brush against something."Thank you... do you... paint at all?""With ink, and it's more writing than painting." He chuckled and shrugged. Magnolia smiled. "Well, I can teach you if you want." Nooroo blinked and looked up at her. "You... will?""Yeah, of course. I'm probably not the best teacher, but if you want to learn, I'll teach you everything I know."Nooroo stared for a moment before smiling, getting up and lifting her chin, pressing his lips to her forehead for a brief moment before letting go. He pulled out a wrist watch, smiling gently at her. "I want to give this to you."Magnolia tilted her head at the watch, taking it when offered, and quietly securing it to her wrist. "A watch?""Open it."Magnolia looked at the face of the watch. There was a cover over the face, like on a pocket watch. The face had a beautiful flower decorating the front but she didn't take long to look at it. She pressed a button and watched as it slowly lifted open. The inside was truly odd. The golden watch had a pale yellow face, and bubble of glass over it. The watch had no numbers, instead it had twelve hands all of different, muted colors, and colorful planets moved around on the inside in place of numbers. Magnolia held in a gasp, and Nooroo leaned down and smiled at it. "Good, it wasn't damaged. Press the button again."Magnolia did as told, and as soon as she did, a flurry of colors flew up from the watch. It made the room disappear in a haze of color, creating a plane of light shines of red, pink, purples, greens, blues, yellows — that somehow weren't bright. Magnolia looked around, her eyes wide in wonder, before they stopped on a flickering image. A voice rang out around her that sounded a lot like Nooroo's."Welcome, Magnolia De La Fontaine, descendant of the Kwami of Transmission, Nooroo. Would you like to see the Tree of the Ancestors?""Um... Yes?""Very well." The flickering image became opaque, shaped like a grand tree with red leaves. Or were they flowers?Dozens of pictures covered the tree the next instance, all with a different faces on each photo. She stood and walked over, studying each and every picture, before spotting Nooroo's at the bottom. She gestured in front of it and it expanded slowly."Nooroo, Kwami of Transmission. Age, 3500 cycles. Can grant the power to transform or give power to an ally. Expert martial artist. Birthplace:" The voice cut off and it sounded like a scrambled tape, before returning to normal. "Nooroo is one of nineteen Kwamis made by the Kwami of Creation, Tikki, before she and the Kwami of Destruction, Plagg, disappeared. Rumors said that they went to Earth, one of the few planets that Tikki made that had life. Nooroo followed her when she did not respond to their calls during a battle, and got stuck on Earth in the process, along with the rest of the Kwami. Death, the offspring of Plagg's existence, took pity on the Kwami when their immortality was taken from them, and sealed their souls inside special gemstones and enchanted them to respond to their offspring, and sealed them all into their animal forms."Magnolia blinked at the description before glancing up. Along with about twenty or thirty other pictures, hers was at the very top. She gestured to her photo and blinked as a picture of her as a child popped up. The little girl had hair close to white, and her bright blue eyes were almost blinding. She blinked. "Did I really look like that?" She whispered before flinching as the photo updated. It was a professional photo of her, but it look painted. The single streak of lilac in her hair was pronounced in a way that made her feel subconscious about it and grab it."Magnolia Lorelei De La Fontaine, the painter. Age, 18. Occupation, Teacher Assistant and part time student at the Beauxbaton Academy of Magic. Course of study, Fine Arts and Magic. Blonde hair with a purple accent, blue eyes. Aura color; pale green." Magnolia blinked at the fact about her magic and licked her lips anxiously. "Currently the holder of the Butterfly Miraculous of the Kwami of Transmission. Miscellaneous; Magnolia is a type of flowering tree, and is derived from the surname "Magnol" when a French man decided to name a tree after his good friend. Magnolia means "Great Beauty" and Lorelei means "Siren." Her name can be read as 'The Beautiful Siren of the Fountain.' Magnolia is known for her meekness at her school, but many of her paintings are hung around the halls and classrooms. She mostly paints portraits or full body pictures of people, and many of her works have been used as enchanted art throughout Hogwarts and Beauxbaton."Magnolia blinked. "Oh wow. This is detailed.""Thank you."Magnolia flinched before giggling, standing up slowly and looking around."Would you like to exit the Tree of the Ancestors?""Yes please.""Very well."Slowly, the colorful plain around her disappeared, all getting sucked back up into her watch, before abruptly shutting. She inhaled sharply as she was greeted with the sight of her simple, messy workshop. She smiled at the familiar sight, then turned to Nooroo, who was smiling at her. "Well, what do you think?""It was beautiful.""I'm glad you liked it. Keep it. It's my gift to you, Magnolia." He smiled."What is it?""It's called a Family Keeper. It's indestructible, and it has the information of all the Kwami families on it. Pollen, the Bee Kwami of Subjection, made it. She said that if we didn't document any of this, we may lose our descendents. It only shows the Tree belonging to the person who pushed the button.""How do you read it?""That watch shows cycles, not human hours. Unfortunately, you will never be able to read it. Pollen also made separate lockets that contain smaller versions of the trees, if you would prefer that?""No! No. I... I love this. I want to keep it."Nooroo smiled. "Good, because I would feel pretty silly if I changed that for no reason." He rubbed the back of his neck shyly."What?""The cover."Magnolia looked down at the watch and looked at the cover again. The flower engraved into the dull gold was simple but really pretty. She tilted her head at it slowly before beginning to giggle. "It's- It's-""A magnolia?" Nooroo smiled brightly as the girl laughed, looking happier than she had since yesterday.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Luka stared at Duusu curiously as she paced his room, looking at all the Rock and Roll posters with a fond smile on her face. Her heels clicked steadily against the wood and the fur from her coat dragging across the floor boards made a sliding sound as she walked."This is a nice place you have here, this boat. I like it." She smiled and looked at Luka and his sister. "So, which one of you is going to be my Miraculous holder?""You'll take either of us?" Luka asked and tilted his head at the woman."Of course. It's not like one of you is qualified and the other isn't. As far as the Miraculous is concerned, the only difference is your genders."The two looked at each other, then back at her."The old man, Master Fu. He said there was another Kwami that was coming?""Ah, yes, I forgot this line was the one that Snazz's mixed with." She touched her cheek and sighed."Snazz?""Mhm. Such a tricky creature, that damned snake." Duusu snorted softly. "His family line comes from your mother, there isn't a doubt about that. Your father was so docile, like you two. I'm surprised she chose your father, of all people." She chuckled. "If his family was going to breed with another Kwami family's, I would have expected it would have been the energetic Kaalki's, not mine. We Peafowls are very... composed, compared to the Snakes." She shrugged. "Unless, of course, we get angry." She smiled at Luka and tilted her head.The two looked at one another again."Master Fu mentioned that you had a special power, but didn't seem to want to mention it. He seemed uncomfortable."Duusu frowned a little and sighed, running her fingers through her silky hair. "Yeah, yeah. I know." She sighed. "Once per release, Kwami can give power boosts to their holders, and some of us have a little extra kick to our step."The siblings looked at her expectantly, and she rolled her eyes. "I can target one person's rage or despair and turn those emotions into a protector, using that person's energy as a power source. If they have a Kwami, it's even more powerful. I..." She placed her hand on the back of her neck, gripping her elbow quietly. "The temple we used to call home, the temple I used to call home, was under attack. I possessed one of the monks, and out from him came a giant squid. He was from a fishing village, I believe. The kraken did wipe out the attackers, but in the process, it also smashed the temple to pieces. Master Fu just barely got our Miraculous out from the temple. Up until the 1920s when Wizards did a excavation of the site, my Miraculous and Nooroo's were both lost to the temple. After Master Fu found out, he demanded the Miraculous back from them. He had to fight for them, and the obliviate them to make them forget about him, and the newspaper people to forget about the Miraculous, but it was too late at that point, it was already public knowledge what had come of that excavation. A lot of people in the London area already knew of our existence. We can't be sure who so we didn't look." She looked away, rubbing her arms, looking almost mournful. "But, there's nothing we can do about it right now. If someone comes around asking about it, we'll just obliviate them."”You seem kind of torn up about it.”Duusu didn’t respond to that comment, simply sank into a chair and smiled serenely at them. “How’s your winter break been?”Luka frowned. “It’s been fine, but you’re avoiding the topic.””I’m glad you’ve been enjoying the break. It was unusually warm the other day, but I think it’s starting to get really chilly.””Duusu.””Yes?” “Who are you, really?” Duuse went silent for a moment, then blacks of her eyes flashing white for just a moment. “Someone who misses her adoptive family very much, a coward who now hides most everything, and a skittish feathered freak who is only comfortable around my twin and my family.””You’re twin?” Juleka asked, her big brown eyes staring at the Indian woman.”We aren’t technically brother and sister, but because we were born at the same moment in time with similar magic, we were considered twin beings.” She hugged herself and rubbed her arms. “Nooroo. He left so abruptly with Magnolia that I didn’t even bid him a farewell.” Juleka and Luka looked at one another, and Luka was the one who stood, walked over to her, then held his hand out to her. “Come on. You mentioned in the hull that you wanted to speak with Creation and Destruction. Will you be able to detect them if we go close by?” Duusu nodded, and took his hand, standing up. “Oui.””Then let’s go find them.” Luka began to lead her out of the cabin, but she stopped them rather suddenly. He looked back at her again and she fidgeted for a moment. “Duusu?””I have a gift.””What?””I wasn’t sure who to give it to because you hadn’t decided on who was holding my Miraculous, but if you’re the one who’s going to take me to Creation, then it has to be you.” She held out her other pale hand and inside of her palm, a golden ball with intricate carvings formed, covered in an icy mist. She looked up at him as he hesitantly took it and looked it over.“... a snitch?”The snitch’s wings unfolded from its body and went from gold to white. “It isn’t an ordinary snitch. It is completely indestructible, and can act as a patronus in the case of those unable to summon one. My special power is considered as a last resort at all costs, but not even that is full proof. I don’t always work.” She gripped his hand tightly. “My family isn’t allowed to die, on my terms or on the terms of the agreement with Death. If I don’t work, that is the next thing you use in any case of emergency, and you send it to someone who can help. Do you understand?”Luka looked at the woman. Her black and red-orange eyes almost looked desperate. The only other emotion he had seen there up until now was pure sadness. He wondered if before she started hiding “like a coward,” as she put it, if she used to be much more expressive, maybe even free-spirited. This version that he saw of her right now was reserved and cut off from others, but she seemed to have a soft spot for him and his sister. “... of course.” He said, putting the snitch in his coat pocket next to the brooch, then gripped her hand in return. “I won’t die. I have you by my side, don’t I?” He smiled. But she just looked uneasy.Luka wandered the streets of Paris with Duusu walking beside him. Strangely, despite the fact that she was wearing a dress probably better suited for fall, she didn’t seem cold at all. In fact, she seemed perfectly fine. After her coat changed into a little half coat that lined up with the waist line of her dress, she had told him she was ready to go, and they headed out into the cold.And it was cold. Really cold. The temperature had dropped quite suddenly and it left Luka shivering on their walk.They had been walking around for nearly an hour before Luka looked around and noticed where they were. “How about we go get something to eat? There’s a little bakery nearby, run but a magical couple. People say they’re the best bakery in Paris, both on the muggle and wizarding sides. I’m sure they make pretty wicked brioche.” Duusu lit up at the mention of the favored treat and grinned a small, adorable grin, that reminded Luka of a child. He chuckled and began to lead her down the block to the bakery. They hadn’t even gotten to the door before Duusu froze, her eyes wide.He looked at her again. “Duusu?””I-I...”Luka heard some voices from the other side of the bakery and furrowed his brow. He slowly walked around to see a blonde girl he recognized as the Mayor’s daughter and Magnolia, with Nooroo standing by in the turtleneck he had on earlier, talking with a woman who was also in a dress, one that she also should have been freezing in but didn’t seem too phased by the chilly weather. They were talking pretty energetically, but the two blondes were just standing there kind of awkwardly.”And you would NOT believe what that boy did-""Luka?"Magnolia perked up when she saw him and the other three looked over as well."Luka? Weren't you Marinette's boyfriend in third year?""Oh, hey, Luka! Is Duusu with you?""Duusu?! He's Duusu's holder?" The woman looked up at Luka and she looked strangely hopeful."Uh... hi everybody." He said and stood up straight, looking at them. "Yeah, Duusu's with me. She's," He glanced over against where he saw the peahen frozen in the same spot as before, "frozen. Uh. What are you all doing here, and, I guess, I don't know you?" He looked at the woman in the black and yellow dress, raising a brow at her. The woman straightened a little, then smiled gently, her perfect set of white teeth startling him. "Hello. My name is Pollen. I'm the Kwami of Subjection. It's nice to meet you, Luka." She held her hand out, and Luka took it, blinking in surprise as she shivered."Geez! Your hands are cold. Why are you so cold, dear?""Why are you so warm?" He asked, just blinking again. She came closer and grabbed both of his hands, holding both of them between her hands before blowing onto his hands, her breath producing a golden mist that went over his hands, and suddenly they felt as warm as if he had been inside the bakery for the past few hours. He looked at his hands, utterly confused."There you go, dear. Wear mittens next time.""... Right." He mumbled and rose a brow at her as she walked past him to look down the street they had come in at.Pollen locked eyes with Duusu, who flinched when she saw her. Pollen bit her lip and grinned adorably, walking over."Duusu?""... Pollen?""Where have you been all this time? I thought we lost you to the temple. You mourned there for nearly half a century.""I've been right here in Paris... looking after my family." Duusu glanced away. "Because I don't want to lose another family.""Duusu... you know it wasn't like that. You were just trying to protect them.""I killed them.""Dusuu, it's been over a century. Do you seriously still think that?""I don't know how you still like me.""I'll always like you, Duusu, because you're a good person. Why are you so tense?""I...""Loosen up, it's just me. I'm not mad at you, you know that. It's just little ol' Pollen." She walked forward and cupped Duusu's jaw with both hands, and bright yellow marks flaked with black sparkles appeared on Duusu's neck and part of her face, and Luka felt something in his stomach turn pleasantly. Chloe, Nooroo, and Magnolia had all come to watch as well. Nooroo had a proud grin on his face, and the two girls looked shocked.Duusu seemed to melt under the contact, though, relaxing so completely that she nearly fell into the shorter girl. Pollen was grinning, and her hands were covered with purples and icy blues. "There you go, good girl. Just relax. Come here." She pulled Duusu close to her in a hug, kissing her cheek, coloring her own lips with a deep purple and Duusu's cheek with an imprint of gold on her face in the shape of a pair of lips. Duusu soon got a near dorky grin on her face, and the blacks of her eyes turned white and stayed like that."I hate you.""I love you too. Come on, there's brioche inside with blueberry filling."Duusu's eyes went wide and sparkled like a child's. "Really?""Yes, it's their special today. Come on, my new Queen is rich." She grinned and pulled her into the bakery with Duusu laughing, the most free thing he had seen her do yet.The three teens stood there, just blinking at their backs as they left."...What just happened?" Chloe said, her typical demanding tone non-existent. "A reunion! Come on, let's go see Tikki and Plagg." He chirped and went into the bakery, taking off his hat and revealing his very orange hair as he did.The three looked at one another before resigning themselves to following the strange persons they had to call family.Inside, the three were simply... waiting in line. Pollen was quietly gushing over Duusu while she sat there with a wide smile, Nooroo was chuckling and teasing his twin about how happy she looked, and some of the patrons were staring at them like they were the strangest things they had ever seen. Which, admittedly, probably was correct. Diversity wasn't much of an issue, seeing as they all appeared to be of very different ethnicities, it was that, one, they weren't even bundled up and it was cold as all hell outside, and that same-sex relationships were well... not... as accepted in the muggle world as they were in the wizarding world. Even muggles who were soulmates that had a same sex partner wouldn't go with their soulmates. It was a little sad. So several middle aged women were glaring, and little kids were staring at them curiously, and others were either uninterested or just staring. But Pollen didn't care for them, and Duusu was blushing so much and smiling so wide, she probably didn't even notice or hear much else other than Pollen.Soon they got up to the front, and that was the first time Luka had noticed that Marinette was the one running the register, with her mother standing nearby and her father in the back baking. Marinette just giggled at the couple and shook her head, looking over at Nooroo. "Would you like to order for them? I think they're a little busy."The male nodded and sort of shimmied past them, letting out a little laugh. "Sorry about them, they haven't seen each other in a while. Um..." He glanced the display case over. "I need some of today's special, the blueberry brioche, some gourmet popcorn, the honey and lavender madeleines, and then whatever they want." Nooroo gestured back to the three teens.Marinette shifted and blinked in shock at Chloe, Luka, and Magnolia. She stared for a moment before licking her lips slowly, anxiously. "Uh... come on up, I guess." Magnolia was the only one to shuffle forward, and she looked back at the other two as she did. They both looked hesitant."... Are you two okay?"Luka looked up and met Marinette's eyes, who smiled and shrugged a little. Chloe was fidgeting uncomfortably beside him, and eventually just walked up and set a small stack of Franc notes down. "Just let them order whatever, keep the change. I just want a croissant." She turned back to the other two. "I'm gonna go wait over there." She mumbled, then walked off to the side by one of the cafe tables and stayed standing, fidgeting.Marinette blinked, looking bewildered. She picked up the stack of Francs and inhaled sharply. She looked at Magnolia and Luka. "What would you two like?""Oh, I don't need anything." Luka said quietly and Magnolia sighed at him. "I want a slice of that opera cake you have back there, it looks good. Hey, I have a question, though.""What is it?" She asked with a smile, putting the Franc notes in the cash register."You wouldn't happen to know of an owl named Tikki around these parts, would you?"Marinette's head whipped up to look at Magnolia, and then her eyes narrowed. "No. Why?""Oh. I see. Sorry, we've just been looking for her. You're from Beauxbaton, right? I feel like I know you.""I am.""That's great. Could you tell us if you find her? She's apparently friends with this groups of dorks with us." She nodded to the group of Kwami. "And they've been searching for her and a cat named Plagg."Marinette looked to her mother, who looked back at her pointedly. The girl came out from around the counter, sighing as she took off her apron. "I may be able to help you. I didn't..." She looked at the other customers and narrowed her eyes again. "You get Chloe, please, she won't listen to me. I would like to invite you all upstairs." She smiled, then walked over to the Kwamis, brushing her hand over their shoulders and nodding to the stairs. She then walked up and they followed her, while Luka and Magnolia went and got Chloe and followed. Up in the apartment, they couldn't really see much, save for a mop of blonde hair laying on the shoulder of a pale girl with messy, curly red hair, her fingers half buried in a black cat's fur, which had turned white wherever she touched. All three of them were dead asleep.Duusu inhaled sharply at the sight of them all, and Luka felt the Miraculous attached to his shirt quiver. He placed his hand over the brooch and saw her relax significantly. Nooroo lit up and walked around, then crouched in front of the red-haired girl and the black cat. Chloe stood by, staring at the girl like she couldn't believe it was a girl sitting there. Pollen was smiling gently and sighing. "Children in love never really do change, do they?""You haven't." Duusu nudged her, and Pollen snorted softly."Yeah, because I haven't seen you in a hundred twenty-seven (127) years." Pollen leaned on her gently. "I missed you, blue.""I missed you too, stripes."Marinette finally got upstairs and sighed, closing the door behind her. "Sorry." She said, dusting some flour off the sides of her jeans. "I got caught up with Nadja." She walked past everyone. "I wasn't aware that your kind went out in their human forms, Tikki and Plagg don't seem to enjoy doing so." She sat next to Adrien and smiled at him for a moment before nudging him gently, spreading silver all over his arm. The boy stirred, yawning tiredly as he did, looking at Marinette with sleepy green eyes, glazed over and smiling a little. He shifted and leaned over, kissing her slowly, and Luka felt a strange pang in his chest, and Chloe blinked in surprise.Marinette was laughing and pushing him away, rolling her eyes. "Not now, kitty.""But milady-""No, we have company.""Mmm?" Adrien turned his head and looked at the people there in the living room, and instead of even pretending to look like he cared, he burrowed closer to Marinette and hugged her.Marinette sighed and smiled, running her fingers through his hair slowly. "Sorry about him. I think Plagg has rubbed off on him since he got his Miraculous." She said gently, then reached her foot over and tapped the red-haired girl. The girl flinched slightly before opened her eyes, yawning hugely and shifting on the couch, which made the cat open his eyes. He murred in protest and curled up more in the girl's lap, while she rubbed her big blue eyes with her free hand. "Ngh... what time is it?" She murmured, yawning again before picking up Plagg and holding him close, covering him in white and herself in pitch darkness. She then looked around slowly, and her eyes went wide, suddenly very awake and bright."Plagg." She cooed at him and nudged him, earning her a stripe of black going down her cheek. "Plagg, wake up."The cat chirped and snuggled into neck, purring deeply, and Luka looked between the two couples and understood what Marinette was talking about. They looked pretty much identical, what with the boys curled against them refusing to wake up."Other kwami are here, and they have Miraculous holders!" Plagg opened two big green eyes and Luka's own eyes went wide. Plagg's eyes looked almost exactly like Adrien's, aside from the slit pupil, and it was amazing how bright they were.Plagg just closed his eyes again and purred deeply as he nuzzled against her more. The girl sighed, then got another grin on her face. She leaned over and nudged his ear with her nose. "Adrien bought a wheel of camembert just for you, and it's in the fridge if you want me to get it for you. But you're going to have to get up for me."The cat opened an eye at her with his narrowed pupils, staring at her for a minute, then shifted. He glowed grey for a moment before a man appeared in place of the cat, leaning over her, his skin covered in white marks. "Fine, but you owe me more than camembert after this." He growled, and the girl began to giggle, leaning up and kissing his cheek. "Of course, my lion. You know I would never leave my kitty hanging around, especially during this time." She pat his shoulder and made him sit down next to her, and the two shook off their respective soulmarks, leaving Adrien grumbling a little. "You've yet to show me how you even do that.""Plagg hasn't shown you how to release a soulmark?""He wants to cheat for photoshoots.""I don't blame him!" The girl kicked his ankle gently and rolled her eyes, looking at Adrien. "I'll show you how to release a soulmark.""Tikki, he's my kid.""And my kid by proxy, since I doubt these two will break up for very long and that's assuming that they do at one point." She shot him a sidelong glance. "And it's not like you're going to teach him anytime soon.""Touche, princess.""Hey, no stealing nicknames!" Adrien glared at Plagg, and Luka briefly wondered how had he missed him waking up."Kid, I've been calling her princess since we were young furballs floating around in the emptiness of space. Just because you've never heard me call her that doesn't mean that I don't.""Whatever."Nooroo giggled a little and shook his head. "Still fighting with your kittens, Black Cat?"Tikki and Plagg slowly turned their heads to look at Nooroo, studying him for a moment. Tikki was the first to jump, getting up only to tackle the boy in a hug. "Nooroo! You're orange!" She cried and snuggled up against him, wrapping all her limbs around the man. Nooroo began to laugh, hugging her back and grinning. "Who did you think I was, silly?" He murmured."Orikko? I mean, that would sort of make sense, with Luka being here-"Nooroo laughed again and shook his head.Tikki then lifted her head. "Where are they? Who are they-" Tikki looked around quickly before spotting Magnolia. She got back up and walked over, circling around the girl who went stiff as a board, her hands clenched tightly next to her.Tikki stopped in front of her again and smiled brightly as she looked at her face. "Why, you're Magnolia, aren't you? Your paintings are all over Hogwarts. I didn't get to see the inside of Beauxbaton that much, but as long as I don't cause too much trouble, they let me fly around Hogwarts. And let me tell you, the portraits you've done for some of those souls are absolutely amazing! I'm astonished that human art has progressed this much. Back in Egypt, their drawings of people were little more than shapes pushed together, stiff models of humans with straight backs and rectangles for legs." She giggled, then smiled gently at Magnolia. "I'm glad Nooroo found a monarch." She pat her shoulder, and Magnolia seemed to relax, looking a little lost as she stared at the girl. Luka watched and could tell you the exact moment it clicked in the blonde's head, and her jaw dropped slightly."Y-You're the owl-"Tikki began to laugh and glowed white, turning into the red bespeckled owl again, floating around the room before glowing again, landing in Plagg's lap as a girl, grinning happily. "I am.""I-I knew there was something strange about you! Y-You... actually listened to people when they talked, and you even tried to respond sometimes but all that came out was hooting."Tikki sighed and swung her legs a little. "Yeah, that was a very long, very depressing time in my life. But I can talk now! So I'll get to freak people out at Hogwarts who come to the owlery to talk to creatures who they think don't understand." She winked.Magnolia just stared and looked at Nooroo, who only rolled his eyes and stood up. "She spends too much time around Plagg, don't worry about her." He smiled, straightening his clothes out. Plagg stared at them all with his scarily green eyes, then tilted his head back, his eyes landing on Pollen and Duusu. He stared at them for a moment before his eyes went wide and he turned his head as far as he could, staring up at her. "Duusu?"The peahen smiled shyly and waved a little. "H-Hi... Plagg."The man blinked up at her and Tikki got up, sitting beside him on her knees and staring at Duusu with big blue eyes. "Duusu! When'd you get here?!" She exclaimed, shooting up and hugging Duusu around the neck, and the girl looked mildly shocked.Pollen poked Tikki. "Hands off, girly, she's mine." She murmured and smirked at Tikki, who grinned back. "Pollen, you know I only have eyes for my kitty now, stop teasing." She giggled, looking up at Duusu again with sparkling eyes. "When'd you get back?"Duusu laughed nervously, placing her hands on Tikki's arms. "I-It isn't important, Tikki.""I made you Duusu, it's always important!" She glared at the girl and wiggled a little. Duusu sighed. "Yes, mom." She groaned playfully, smiling afterwards. "I got back with Nooroo and our jewels about 15 years ago. I'm sorry I never told you."Tikki groaned and let go of her, shifting her weight and falling onto the length of the white couch, her arms spreading out over the cushions.Pollen was giggling and the five teenagers just watched as Tikki showed a mild display of dramatism. It was strange how the conversations went from there. The five Kwami spent almost the next two hours just talking and trying to catch up, while their holders all sat there awkwardly.Marinette had a currently awkward relationship with Luka and Chloe, Adrien had an awkward relationship with Chloe, and the only person who really knew Magnolia was Luka, so they all just sat there in silence. Marinette and Adrien would occasionally whisper to each other, but other than that, they would just sort of glance at one another.When the Kwamis and their excitement died down, they looked at their holders, all with smiles on their faces with the exception of Plagg.Tikki was smiling. "We're only missing Wayzz and Trixx.""Who are they?" Adrien asked, gripping Marinette's hand gently."The Turtle Kwami of Protection and the Fox Kwami of Illusions. Their Miraculous have always been with us, but they never lived in the temple with us, especially since the temple didn't have any water for Wayzz. We don't know where they are, but we hear Trixx is in America, and Wayzz would be somewhere in the water.""Somewhere in the water? But that's more than half the planet - don't you guys have something more specific?" Chloe frowned and Marinette had flinched when she suddenly began to talk.Pollen shook her head. "No. When Wayzz took on a human identity, he went with the Atlanteans, and someone sank Atlantis." All the Kwami looked at Plagg and he just hummed."I didn't know that Thera was like two seconds away from exploding, it isn't my fault." He rolled his eyes.Pollen sighed and looked back up at her holder. "He wouldn't have died, obviously, but we don't know where he is. Somewhere in the water."All of the teenagers let out exasperated sighs and Nooroo snorted softly. "What about Trixx?" Magnolia asked, shifting closer to look at them."Trixx went with the Native Americans in America, and helped behind the scenes with the establishment of Ilvermorny. She's been reported several times over the centuries in the wizarding world, but no one has been able to actually talk to her or catch her. She's very finicky about who she interacts with, unless she's causing mischief, which is pretty much... all the time." Nooroo chuckled and sighed, shaking his head.Adrien and Marinette looked at each other and just sighed. "We don't have time to go looking all over America, at least not now. We'll have to wait until the summer."The Kwami nodded. "We agree, and we can't leave your sides, so we can't go look."Marinette leaned against Adrien and smiled. "That's okay. There's no rush."The other teens nodded and they all sat there as Sabine came up and gave everyone their food along with other treats to pass around, their conversations quiet as they devised a plan to get to Trixx and narrow down where Wayzz might be.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

I let out a deep breath as I opened my eyes to the forest around me. Green, green, green. Everything was so green. Sun rays rushed down to the ground like a speedy creek, calm in nature and completely soundless unlike the moving forest. The light would shift as the wind above the trees made the leaves sway.

It was any other summer day in the forest. It hadn't rained in a while so the ground was solid and not muddy, thank god, since these were my nice pants.

I became hyper aware of my surroundings as I glanced over to the tree right beside me. I watched as the ants crawled up the moss-covered trunk, not realizing they had quite the hike if they wanted anything from the tall, tall trees, I suppose. I turned my head to the other side and threw my hand out beside me, catching a glimpse of the tan leather shirt I had on, a stark contrast to the bright green grass and brown dirt under my fingertips. My tan flesh matched the color of some of hen-of-the-wood that grew on the tree to my immediate left. I looked up as the leaves swayed and watched as some birds fluttered by, causing a disruption in the sun rays as they beat down on me, warming my whole body down to the core.

I looked up further, tilting my head back to look behind me, and saw a little red fox, sitting there and staring at me. I turned over onto my stomach and stared back into its big brown eyes. It let out a little yip and flicked its tail quickly, sitting perfectly still.

"What?" I asked, and the fox flicked its tail again, then got up, turning, lifting one paw up and motioning out to the rest of the forest, where the leaves were already starting to turn yellow and orange as a sign of Autumn's inevitability. I tilted my head but got up on request, and began to follow the fox as it pranced through the tall grass of the forest. It went up to my mid-calf, but it wasn't hard to walk through. It was thin grass that my steps easily crushed out of the way.

The forest floor had rocks and bumps and roots, of course, so I occasionally stepped on something hard, but I generally ignored it. The fox was prancing and jumping around eagerly as it led me to its den, a little hole in the ground that had rollie pollies and ants all over it and had the occasional Pale Sulfur land nearby. The fox went into its den and didn't come back out. I looked up and saw a carving in the tree, a carving of foxglove that had been covered with white moss.

I stared at it as the sun began to set, filling the forest with oranges and yellows and pinks as night began to settle on my home.
Alya woke up gasping, her breath uneven and ragged, her heart beating loudly in her ears as the adrenaline ran through her veins. She stared up at her white ceiling, and didn’t recognize immediately. When she did, she instantly felt herself relax.She sat up and looked around her bedroom. It was her same bedroom that she had since she was 11; her trunk still at the end of her bed, her walls were still green and still had all her newspaper clippings and magazine cut-outs. Her father’s old desk still sat in the corner with her blue-feather pen and glass inkwell, with piles of history books from different cultures sitting on the upper shelf. She still had her Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stones posters on her closet, she still had all her pictures of her friends on her bedside table.She was in her room, and she was safe.Alya briefly wondered what she was even scared of. She remembered very little from her nightmare, and even less of whatever she had been scared of. All she could see in her head was a fox den and the sun setting when she thought about it. And white foxglove, of all things. Why was white foxglove in her dream? She couldn’t recall why it was stuck in her head, but it was.Alya got up and got dressed for the day, some jeans and a bright blue t-shirt. Blue flashed in her mind as she did but she quickly shook it off, grabbing a plaid jacket with a fur lining and pulling it over herself, then slid on her walking shoes. She went and had breakfast with her family before heading out to run some errands.Go to the grocery store, go to the library, get the twins some markers from the arts & crafts store, get big sis new gloves, get dad some replacement strings for his guitar - blah blah blah blah. Why was all this her responsibility? Her big sister was also on break. She was just lazy! This was infuriating.She hated to say it, but one of the reasons she got herself transferred to Hogwarts was that, since her family was so close to Ilvermorny, they would constantly firecall her up to have her come babysit the twins, or can you go get something for us. She wasn’t a nanny. Now that she was at Hogwarts, her elder sister was made to do the babysitting and the errand running. Not that she didn’t like her baby sisters, she just couldn’t babysit them every weekend, especially when she wasn’t even supposed to leave school grounds.Alya abruptly stopped, and her feet felt glued in place. She stared at the snowy road in front of her, gripping her bag tightly, and just... felt like she shouldn’t continue on.She slowly looked over to the forest, and sitting there in the snow underneath the dead trees was a little white fox, staring at her with its big brown eyes, looking calm and relaxed. She stared back at it as it got up on its feet, tuned around, then lifted a perfectly white paw with little black pads and turned it’s head to look back at her, nodding into the forest.Alya felt her legs become unstuck and she found herself moving towards the fox without even thinking about it. The snow disappeared around her feet as she stepped, and it disappeared around the fox, too. She ran for the fox. When she began to ran, the fox ran with her, always managing to stay a couple feet in front of her. As they ran the snow evaporated into thin air, leaving bright green grass and trees full of green and yellow leaves. Butterflies fluttered past her, squirrels crawled from the burrows and birds flew overhead. A bespeckled owl sat on it's branches and the colors of the sunset poured past the trees and shined in her peripheral vision. The fox was no longer white. It was a red, white, and black beauty, jumping and running over the terrain.Alya was careful not to step on the roots, and avoided landing on decent sized pebbles, but the ground was hard. Not hard as in covered in ice, hard as in packed in dirt that hadn't been rained on in weeks. An orange leaf fell in front of her eyes and Alya's brain vaguely gave the answer of "autumn" before it flew from her mind again, enveloped with the chase of this little creature.The run lasted maybe twenty minutes, or maybe more, before the fox suddenly stopped and scrambled into a burrow. Alya barely stopped herself, panting as she moved to stand in front of the den, staring down into it.As she stared, she watched as the snow came back into view, the leaves disappeared and the insects all vanished. The birds stopped chirpping, and it was no longer sunset. Now it was just noon, with the harsh sun shining down on her threw the empty branches of the trees, and a little den surrounded by ice and snow was dug out, leading into the Earth.Alya expected the fox to come back out, but she waited nearly twenty minutes, and he never did. She vaguely registered she was still holding the cloth bag she was using to hold everything.Her eyes slowly dragged up and there on the tree was an intricate carving of a foxglove. She furrowed her brow as she panted, her foggy breath clouding her vision a little, but she still recognized it."What the fuck." She breathed. "What the actual fuck."She reached out and touched it, and some snow fell away. She remembered it being covered in white moss, now it was covered in crystal clear snow. Her finger ran over the carving and it glowed a little in response, then began to shine orange.The little white fox came back out and yipped at her, jumping up into her arms. Alya barely caught the small thing. Its tail was swaying like a dogs and its eyes were lit up like a child's as it nuzzled into her hold. Alya let out a little laugh, hugging the fox. "Was that all you? No... I..."The fox yipped again and crawled up onto her shoulders, laying across the width of them and settling in for the long haul. Alya sighed, looking at the pup. "I'm not going to get rid of you easily, am I?"The fox chirped in agreement, snuggling against her neck. Alya walked back to her home, and as soon as she walked in, her little sisters were on her. Asking about this, and that, did you get our markers, did you get cookies for us, did you see anyone you knew, hey what's that on your neck?Alya just smiled at her sisters and gently pat their heads, then pulled put their new markers, handing them to the small children. "Here you go, my little sapotis. Go play now, okay?" The twins looked at each other before nodding and running off to their room, giggling as they went.Marlena waked over and smiled, tilting her head. “Whatcha got there, little sapoti?”Alya giggled and rubbed the little fox’s head. “She jumped on me while I was walking home and made me carry her all the way here. I was expecting her to jump off when I got here, but she stayed on. I think she wants to keep me.” She giggled more.Otis moved around and smiled. “Well, as long as you take care of her, I don’t see why the little vixen can’t stay.” He remarked, putting a hand on his wife’s shoulder, who was already rolling her eyes with a smile on her face.“He just wants you to be like him and get a weird familiar like that tiger he has out back.” She giggled.“And why can’t she? The vixen chose her, like the tiger chose me. It’s about time anyway, let her have the little guy.”Marlena rolled her eyes again and smiled, looking at her daughter. “Do you want the vixen, sweetheart?”Alya looked down at the little fox and they stared at each other for a moment, then she turned back to her parents and gave a firm nod, a smile on her face.Her parents just smiled at her as she set the bag down and ran to her room.Marlena looked up at her husband. “Do you think it’s her?”Otis shrugged. “It has to be, right? No animal just lures you out into the woods and then hops on your shoulders and takes a ride, even if she decided not to tell us that.” He looked out onto the path his daughter just took home, and he could still see her footprints from where she had run into the forest. His wife sighed and hugged herself.“I just didn’t think she’d come to her so soon.”“I didn’t either, but if she’s come for Alya, it has to be important.”“I know, I know, but I can’t help but worry. She’s just a teenager, not even an adult yet. I mean, Roaar came to you when we were 25. She’s 16!”“I understand, love, but it’s out of our hands now. Roaar mentioned that she was going to go off soon to find one of her other cubs, since she didn’t think Nora would be suited for the job in her currently violent and demanding state. There might be a revolution happening.”“What do you think is wrong?”“I’m not sure. We’ll just have to sit by and wait.”Alya sat in her room and watched as the vixen went around looking and sniffing at everything in her room, and even hopped up onto her desk and sniffed at the ink well, made a pretty hilarious face before she moved on and looked at all the books.When she was done, she sat very neatly in the middle of her floor, almost like a cat. Alya shook her head at the little creature and grinned. “Like my room? I need to update it. I’m not a fan of some of the stuff in here anymore.” She giggled as the fox flicked her tail, then hopped up onto the bed and curled up, laying down so her fluffy tail curled in front of her face, staring at Alya over her fluffy white fur.Alya leaned down on her elbows, looking back at the little fox as she put her chin in her hands. “Hey, how’d you do that in the forest? With the leaves and the grass and stuff. It was like it was actually September all over again.” She murmured and frowned a little. The fox just flicked her tail quickly, staring at the red-haired human and it made her let out an exasperated sigh.“You aren’t going to tell me, are you?”The fox just flicked her tail again and lifted her head up, seeming to grin at Alya. The girl let out a groan and flopped back down onto the bed. Walking around with a fox following you everywhere was definitely a different experience, but not an unpleasant one. The fox seemed to understand everything she said perfectly and obeyed when she asked for something, even if she did like to play keep-away from time to time.The vixen was... playful, easy-going, not very affected by much that would typically make humans upset or unhappy. She wasn’t really sure what to call the little fox, so she hadn’t named her. But it was hard for Alya to just constantly say “little fox” or “vixen” or just “fox.” Those weren’t very “yell-able” names.Her dad’s... euuuhhh... cat had a name. It was Roaar. An odd name, for sure, and kind of literal. She stared at her fox before just sighing, rolling out of bed, gathering the little white creature in her arms, and carrying her out to the living room. She sat down on the couch, placing the fox in her lap and beginning to pet the fox’s soft but thick, thick fur.“Dad?”“Yes, cub?” He asked, turning the page in his book.“What should I name her?”Otis paused, looking down at her and the fox. He looked at his daughter curiously before turning back to his book. “I don’t know. What do you want to name her?”“I’m not sure. She’s really odd, you know? The only other animal a I know they behaves like it understands what’s being said to it is Marinette’s owl.”Otis seemed shocked by that, but just smiled instead, looking at her. “You want to know what I would name her?”“What?”“I would name her Trixx.” Alya sat there for a moment before beginning to smile, picking up her fox and holding the vixen in front of her, giggling as the fox tilted her head. “Trixx. I like it.” She murmured and rubbed her nose against the fox’s, who yipped happily and began to snuggle against Alya.Alya watched Trixx prance around in the snow, yipping and chirping loudly before stopping in the middle of a snow bank, staring up at Alya. The only thing she could see were her big brown eyes. Alya began to giggle, but suddenly the snow began to disappear again, leaving a little red fox staring up at Alya with her tail flicking quickly.Alya could only stare at the fox. She reached forward and placed her fingers where the snow had once been. At first, it still felt like snow, despite her seeing grass. Cold, soft, something to sink her fingers into and feel the cold surround her flesh. But then it didn’t feel like snow; suddenly it felt like soft dirt, with blades of grass brushing against her fingers. It felt warm, and gentle, and she could even feel the little ant crawling up her fingers and onto her arm. But when she touched the ant, it disappeared in a puff of orange wisps. She looked at the fox, and felt her breath leave her in a rush.“This is an illusion.”The fox chirped in agreement and the illusion disappeared, leaving the snow and the little white fox that she could barely see.Trixx bounded up to her and then hopped into her lap, curling her tail over her back paws and staring up at her.Alya pet the fox gently and smiled, pushing her glasses up onto her forehead to lean down and nuzzle the fox without getting her glasses dirty. “Such a clever little fox. Do you want to come to Hogwarts with me? I’m sure my mom can arrange something.” She cooed, scratching behind Trixx’s ear. The fox purred strangely and leaned into her, relaxing slowly. Alya smiled.“I’ll take that as a yes.”Nino looked around the common room that was not his, his friend nearby just chuckling at him.“Are you creeped out or something?”“Well, I don’t know! Why is it so dark?”“Because we’re in the dungeons and not Gryffindor Tower?” He chuckled and sighed. “We’re underneath the Black Lake, so it’s always dark, while the Hufflepuffs use plants to create natural light to make it homey and stuff.” The Slytherin shrugged.“Why are you letting me in here, again?”“Because you’re Ladybug’s friend, and even though we all act like we don’t like her, she’s the best thing that’s happened to Slytherin in a long time, and she’s constantly promoting inter-house relationships. I’m willing to conform to that belief, as long as no one else is here.”Nino kept himself from rolling his eyes and instead looked out into the glass window that looked out into the lake. It was very beautiful. The sun shining onto the ice and making giant patches of sun here and there was a sight Nino was confident that most people deserved to see at least once in their life. The plant life wasn’t too fantastical, it was mostly green and brown or partially frozen, but the light shining in like from a magnifying glass was very beautiful. So Nino moved closer, staring into the dormant waters. Not even the giant squid was out, it was hiding somewhere warm despite Nino being completely confident that it could survive the cold.But as he watched, the water moved in front of the glass, along with a flash of something. He tilted his head and pressed a little closer but avoided putting his face against the glass. The figure flashed across the waterscape once more and Nino flinched backwards. He could almost hear the sarcasm in his Slytherin friend’s voice.“What’s the matter, Gryffindor, scared of a little shadow?”“You saw it, too? Come here, help me figure out-“ he gasped as the shadow sped much closer to the window this time before stopping. It was just this strange mass of dark smoke, like the clouds of ink octopodes and squids would release when in danger. Nino blinked at it and looked at it closer, his brow furrowed, but it didn’t matter. Getting closer just resulted in the cloud looking bigger.“What the...?” As soon as he spoke, the cloud dispersed and faded like it hadn’t even been there to begin with, leaving a... turtle?The Slytherin came and stood by him, also looking at the turtle. “Oh wow.” He mumbled, glancing it over. “That’s an Olive Ridley. They’re sometimes imported to England from India, but I think Dumbledore would have told us if there was a turtle here. It’s way too cold for-“ Both of them watched with wide eyes as the turtle began to glow bright green, taking a different shape before turning into a person.The person was almost like looking at a human who really looked like a fish with human features, unlike the merpeople. He had a thin chest and it looked like the muscles on his arms and legs were built for swimming, not what people usually thought of when they thought of a person having “muscle.” He had these strange fins that came out from his calves, his triceps, his back, and it looked like he had gills on his neck and the sides of his chest. His skin was a multitude of cool colors, but it was mostly blue, with his fins highlighted in purples and greens. He had markings of orange and pink that almost looked like tattoos. The only clothes he had looked like minimal, ancient armor. But, for some reason, it wasn’t rusted over. In fact it looked as new as the day it was probably made, and it had gems that glowed in the water. The man’s eyes were a strange bluish-purple color, surrounded by black, like a fish’s eyes. His hair almost looked like it was made out of seaweed, bright green hair that would probably rest around his shoulders if he wasn’t in the water.This strange man was staring right at them and Nino and his friend just looked at each other, then back at the man.The man smiled at them before pointing a clawed hand up to the surface, then began to swim up.Nino and his friend looked at each other once more before scrambling to grab their coats and run up to the main floor to get to the Black Lake. Upon getting to the lake, the man was sitting with his upper half above the water, his arms folded on the ground where the snow was, and one could already see the ice forming over his triceps and fins.“Bloody hell, man! Are you not cold? I thought fish were more sensitive to the cold?!” Nino yelled as he ran over, sliding onto his knees in front of him and casting a heating charm.The man laughed, a hearty sound that Nino really wasn’t expecting. “Being what I am, no, I’m not cold. But being Atlantean would be enough to not be affected by temperature drops.”The Slytherin’s eyes went wide. “Atlantean? But all the supposed Atlanteans would have died out thousands of years ago, there’s no way you’re Atlantean, and that’s assuming that race was even real!”“Oh, we’re real. There are about a thousand others like me, somewhere in the Aegean Sea.” He pulled himself up and out of the water, and as he did, his colorful skin faded and shifted until it was a deep brown, similar to Nino’s color, with the pink and yellow all turning into blue markings that glowed in place of the gems that was on his armor. He didn’t have a shirt, but his armor did transform into some sort of skirt with a strip of cloth going down the middle, and he had strange jewelry on his neck and arms. The fins disappeared and his green hair turned platinum white, his eyes a deep blue and the sclera were white once more.The man stood up and straightened himself out a little, then smiled. “Hello, my name is Wayzz. Before I was separated from my tribe and brought here by the Greeks - or was it the Mauryas? Doesn’t matter - I was the captain of the guard for the Atlantean Empire and a part of the two thousand or so people that survived the initial flooding of my home. We preserved the castle, of course, but a lot of people died...” He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “As you can tell, we sort of had to... adapt to living underground and in the water.” He shrugged again, looking at his hands, then back up at the two of them.Nino was just staring at him. “So, what, you’re like an animagus, or something?”“Is that what you humans are calling my kind these days? No, I’m a Kwami.”“What the fuck is a Kwami?” The Slytherin sneered, staring at the man like he was absolutely insane, and Nino glared at him. But Wayzz just chuckled.“Very good question, but.” He looked the boy over quietly. “You aren’t a part of a Kwami family, so I’m not allowed to tell you. This boy, though.” He looked to Nino and smiled, standing up and stretching slowly, several loud pops sounding off as he did. “Is a part of my family. Come with me, let’s go into the castle. I would like to speak with you.” “So I’m like... your great, great, great grandson, or something, turtle-dude?”“Something like that. I can’t be sure of how many generations have passed, but you’re definitely mine.” Wayzz hummed as he shifted so his back was to the fire. “Pollen would probably know. Actually, maybe Nooroo would be better. I don’t know, one of those two.” He shrugged.“Who’s Pollen? And Nooroo?”“Oh, okay. So, I’m like, the Turtle Kwami of Protection, right?” He asked and Nino nodded, and then he continued. “So Pollen is the Bee Kwami of Subjection, and then Nooroo is the Butterfly-slash-Moth Kwami of Transmission.”“Why are you not sure if he’s a moth or a butterfly?”“It changes depending on his owner. Moths and Butterflies are sort of interchangeable and it really just depends on what he’s being used for. I mean like, you know how wands with Dragon Heartstrings are easier to turn to the dark arts, but not always? It’s sort of like that. Moths are typically kind of bad, but it’s not like, a rule of thumb. Nooroo’s weird like that.” He shrugged.Nino put his head in his hand and tried to process this for a moment before perking up. “Wait. I thought you said all the Kwami were sealed into jewels, and that they were stuck in their animal form. Why are you able to become human?”“I already have a holder. Though, he’s just a human, and he’s becoming a bit of an old fart.” He grinned at Nino. “Ah... Master Fu. He treated me well as a holder when I’ve been able to get to him. I’m very grateful for him. Master Fu doesn’t know where I am. I managed to get out of this place for a short while to go visit him in Paris about 30 years ago, but the magic field around this place eventually noticed the imbalance of magic on the inside, and I got transported back here.”“Did you say Paris?”“Yeah, why?”“That’s where my friend Ladybug lives! Maybe I could mail her, asked her to get your jewel here to Hogwarts.”“Hey, not a bad idea. I like how you think, little pollywog.” Wayzz fist-bumped Nino with a grin, and Nino tilted his head.“Pollywog?”“Have you ever crossed the Equator of the planet on a ship?”“Uhh... no?”“That’s what Americans call sailors who haven’t crossed yet. Pollywog.” He snickered. “I heard a couple American students in the past make comment on it. I quite like it.” He grinned and Nino let out a playful groan. He then looked a little alarmed, looking around quickly.“What is it, Nino?”“I thought I heard something - and I just realized that I have nowhere for you to stay, if you’re going to stay here in the castle. Turtles are not one of the animals we can keep as familiars, and I’m pretty sure people will notice if they saw a guy with bleach white hair and glowing skin walking around like it was the most normal thing ever.”“Oh, that’s fixed pretty easily.” He got up and dusted himself off. “Duusu had to change her animal form when people started finding it strange that her holder had a peacock following him around some thousands of years ago, but she can reverse the spell at any time.” He looked up at Nino. “Just depends on if you want me to be a cat, a mouse, or a frog, because I am not becoming an owl.”Nino dropped the cattail into the potion and rose a brow at the strange green color the mixture turned, continuing to stir. “Are you sure this is going to work?”“Yeah. What’s up?”“I’m just concerned it’ll hurt you.”“Nah, it should be fine. Okay, now the thyme.”“Why thyme?”“Spiritual properties. Just dump it, worst case scenario I’ll stay the same as I am now, and I just haunt the lake like I always have.”“Okay dude, if you say so.” Nino hummed when he was done. He watched as Wayzz poured some into a vile, humming to himself as well. Nino shifted uneasily. “So, uh, what do I have to say?”“Ad mutare feles.”“Oh. Okay. Uh...” Nino lifted his wand and tapped the vile, muttering the words under his breath and watching the potion turn blue. Wayzz smiled and sniffed it a little.“Ah, yes, I remember it smelling quite a bit like this.” He said with a smile, looking up at Nino. “Good job, Pollywog.” He nudged Nino playfully, causing the boy to laugh. Wayzz then downed the potion, licking his lips a little and humming a bit.“It’s a little bitter, but, I think it worked.”“Really? Can I see?”Wayzz nodded and closed, his eyes, willing his transformation to come.Nino watched as Wayzz glowed green, then shrunk down. And then the light disappeared. Nino blinked at the sight before him.In front of him was a mostly black tortoiseshell cat with an actual tortoise shell.Wayzz stood up and turned slowly. “Aw crap. Oh well.” He said nudging the shell a little.“What? What went wrong?”“Nothing went wrong. Duusu had the same problem when she first did this, where she still had tail feathers. I’ll just need another dose of that stuff in about a week and I should be good to go.”“In a week? Winter break will be over by then, how am I supposed to explain to the other students that my cat as a carapace?”“I got stuck and we’re working on removing it without hurting me?”“... you know what, you’re right. That sounds exactly like something a cat would do.”“Thank you.”
Do you ever look at your home and wonder how it became so beautiful?

My home was beautiful. We took up an island of over three thousand miles. Rolling hills of grass all over, and the only place that was interrupted was when you got to the soft yellow beaches where the crabs scuttled and the fishermen fished.

My people built palaces and houses that had three, maybe even four floors. They farmed and rose cattle and sheep, and the children played and rolled around in the grass every day. There was never a time when my people went without. We all prospered, we never even had a drought.

It was most beautiful, though, when all the soldiers were out on the ketaks and flying through the air, playing, and when the leviathans and golems would watch like they were somehow amused.

We weren't sure how it happened, but one day, this loud explosion sounded off from the island nearby, Thera. We hadn't really thought much of it at the time, but then we saw the waves. The huge, towering waves that were so much bigger than any building we had.

Everyone was screaming.

Everyone was dropping all their belongings, grabbing their children. Everyone was running to the castle. I could only watch as they ran to me. It's not like I could make them run faster. All the ketaks and leviathans were flying to us, too, trying to escape the waves.

I just watched as the emergency shields were activated, though, and it formed above me. People were running to the barrier, banging on it desperately with their children in their arms, then turning and screaming as the water slammed into their bodies. I felt the ground below me shake and slowly we were lowered into the Earth, disappearing. We were disappearing from the world and would never come back up to the surface. Not ever again.
Nino woke up with a start, his heart beating wildly as he sat straight up. He stared at the curtains in front of him. He looked down at the cat laying next to him on the bed, who had his head up and was staring at him. Nino pet the shell on his back slowly."Wayzz, how did Atlantis disappear?""A flood.""No, I mean, the castle."The cat hesitated for a moment, then narrowed his eyes at him. "How did you know the castle survived the initial floor? I only told you we preserved it."Nino bit his lip. "Can you just tell me, please?"The cat sighed and rubbed his face over with his paw. "The king and I put up a barrier and sunk it into an underground cavern, where it would be safe from the flood. A lot of Atlanteans died.""... Oh. I see. I'm sorry, dude.""Don't be." He laid his head down. "I wouldn't have been able to protect them all, anyway... it's all in the past." He sighed, closing his eyes.Nino stared up at the ceiling for a while, just thinking back on everything. He eventually fell back asleep, but his dreams were not pleasant.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

"Hey, Nooroo?""Yeah, Magnolia?"Nooroo looked up from where he was watching Marinette knit, looking over at the blonde that had vaguely called out to him. She was sitting with Duusu, the two of them snacking on some brioche, but she looked confused. The ginger tilted his head, a strand of black hair falling in front of his eyes as he looked at her.Magnolia swallowed the bite and put a hand over her mouth to make sure she didn't accidentally spit any out, then looked at her Kwami questioningly. "You mentioned that you guys did something like... boost our magical abilities. What did you mean by that?"Nooroo's eyes lit up and he got up. "Excellent question, little caterpillar! Lady Creation, are you at a point where you can pause?"Marinette looked up at him with a questioning stare and a smile, finishing a couple more loops in the scarf she was knitting before setting her work down. "Now I am." She murmured, straightening herself out."Great! Everyone, get your coats on, we need to train our Miraculous holders!" He cheered and the other Kwami laughed at Nooroo's trademark enthusiasm. But Duusu shifted uneasily. "Don't we need to go get Plagg and Pollen and their holders, though?""On the way, my gemini." Nooroo nudged her playfully and smiled. "Don't worry, Des. You don't have to train, we can teach Luka how to use Snazz when he decides to show up.""But Luka needs to know how to use me, and Snazz will be going to Juleka. Juleka can learn how to use him. Luka needs to know how to use my powers, lest he do it wrong and ends up hurting more people than saving them."Nooroo smiled sadly at her and hugged Duusu gently. "You're so wise, little sister. Come on, we have to find the mangy cat and your lovebug."Duusu began to blush profusely at his comment and kicked him in the shin before he walked away, making him gasp and grip his leg. She just crossed her arms and looked away, whistling innocently. Nooroo snorted at her and rolled his eyes. "Seriously? After I complimented you and everything?""Hm? Sorry, couldn't hear you.""Duusu!" Nooroo laughed.The Peafowl turned her head and stuck her tongue out at him playfully, willing her jacket into existence on her shoulders, smiling at him. "You should really wear something over your Gi, dear brother. The last time you got sick you were bedridden until Master Fu came to save you.""So were you.""Not the same.""Yes it was! We only get sick from one thing!""But you were in bed moaning and whining. Oh I feel like Death himself, dear gods someone just kill me!" Duusu cried and fell back onto the couch with her forearm laying over her forehead, her dress laying over her legs and over the couch like a corpse laid to rest as beautifully as physically possible.But Nooroo was just rolling his eyes at his twin's dramatic antics. "I swear, you see Pollen once after thirty years and you go from a depressed Nightmare to a dramatic angel.""Hey! Do not compare me to that Scandinavian bastard! She tried to kill me!""Norwegian.""She could have been Aztec and somehow have been in the Red Sea for all I care, she was a-" She stopped herself when she remember there were kids in the room, all three of which were staring at the two bantering Kwami, not looking really interested but not seeming disinterested either. She looked back at Nooroo and crossed her arms. "Don't compare me to that she-demon."Nooroo snorted. "Okay. C'mon, we have to teach them how to not kill people." He murmured and held his hand out to her.She reluctantly took his offered hand, standing up next to him, nearly tumbling over but he caught her quickly and helped her stand upright."Oh yeah, and guys, bring things you have little attachment to or would be willing to transform into something else. We're going to give you some proper tools." Tikki called before they got done getting dressed appropriately for the weather.Nooroo hummed as he looked around the open area, nodding a little, then kicking some snow off his foot. "Okay, this should work." He looked back at them and smiled. Adrien was hovering near Marinette and Chloe was standing off to the side, with Duusu and Pollen standing hand-in-hand between her and Luka. "Who wants to go first?"The teenagers all looked at each other uneasily for a moment, before Marinette just sighed and stepped forward. "I'll go first. Tikki, what do I have to do?""Oh, good!" The owl chirped and flew from her shoulder and landed on the ground, glowing and turning back into her human form. "Okay! So, the Ladybug holder actually has a lot of powers-""I'm sorry, can we talk about how Marinette just happened to get the Ladybug Miraculous and her nickname at school just happens to be Ladybug?" Chloe chimed in, raising a brow at the other teenagers.Adrien just snorted and shook his head. "Later, okay?""Anyway. As I was saying, the Ladybug holder has a lot of powers, but your basic three and most powerful are Lucky Charm, the Miraculous Cleansing, and the Miraculous Cure. You have to learn these three and get a basis for other Kwami-induced magic before you can learn everything else. The Miraculous Cure and the Miraculous Cleansing are unique to Ladybug, and everyone else just has one base spell, for the exception of Nooroo, depending on his holder.""What do the Miraculous Cure and Cleansing do?""The Miraculous Cure will heal any and all physical damage to an environment during an attack of a force of negative energy that you identify, capture, and cleanse with the Cleansing. In past cases, the negative energy that was being targeted were Akumas, things made by Nooroo under the influence of a bad holder, but that shouldn't be a problem considering Magnolia's pure heart and the fact that she's already vowed to never make an akuma, and only make tenshi.""What's a tenshi?" Marinette tilted her head curiously, and Tikki smiled at the fact that her holder was actually asking questions. "A tenshi is the opposite of an akuma. Akuma are the build up a bunch of negative emotions, made with the intent to reek havoc on someone or something and give an individual the powers to do just that. A tenshi is the build up of positive emotions, meant to do good. Jeanne made good use of that in her Blue Morpho friend." Tikki smiled happily, and Nooroo smiled fondly at those memories."Jeanne? Jeanne who?""Jeanne d'Arc, duh, who else?" Pollen murmured from her spot, grinning playfully. "You know, the girl who got crucified for this beautiful country you live in?"Marinette's jaw dropped, looking up at Tikki, the flowers on the vine in her hair blooming brightly. "You mean- You aren't saying- I'm related to Jeanne d'Arc? The Jeanne d'Arc?""Mildly distantly, yes. She is a distant aunt of yours. Her... bloodline obviously didn't continue." Tikki suddenly frowned and her bright blue eyes looked dark, and distant. "Your bloodline is the result of Jaques d'Arc du Lys. He was the eldest son and child of Jeanne's parents. He never took up the title of the Ladybug holder, despite me asking him several times, and neither did their sister, Catherine. Pierre was a bit of a disappointment, so I never asked him, and Jehan was unreachable by the time I could even consider him a suitable holder, so I had to go back to the temple." Plagg shifted and walked over to her, grabbing her and pulling her into a hug, which Tikki fell into gracefully, burying her face in his shoulder.Marinette furrowed her brow in concern, watching them. "Tikki? I'm sorry, I didn't upset you, did I?"Plagg looked over at Marinette and glanced away for a moment, then back at her. "We... try not to talk about Jeanne. Everyone was there the day she... and, of course, Tikki had been really close to Jeanne, so we just... don't talk about her." Plagg looked back down at the ground and looked just about as distant as Tikki had earlier. The other Kwami also lowered their heads, and the atmosphere became heavy and thick, almost unbearable. Marinette almost felt like sobbing when she finally remembered how Jeanne d'Arc had died, even though Pollen had said it pretty blatantly. Tikki hadn't had to... watch that, did she?It was few heartbreaking minutes before Tikki emerged from Plagg's chest, her usual smile on her face. "Okay! First, let's teach you how to use Lucky Charm, and then after Plagg teaches Adrien Cataclysm, I'll show you how the Cure works, and we'll see if we can show you the Cleansing or not.""So after I call for you... I just throw the bandalore up and say Lucky Charm and I get a thing?""Correct.""Okay, let's do this, I guess."Tikki shifted and steadied herself, smiling brightly, nodding a little. Marinette licked her lips. "Okay, Tikki, Spots On!" She yelled, and suddenly felt a rush of magic flow over her, and Tikki disappeared from sight.Her clothing glowed pink, and changed all together. Her shirt transformed into something close to a cheongsam, deep red with black snaps to hold it in place, with black spots following the line where it folded over. Instead of continuing on into a restrictive dress, the shirt split into two parts, laying over her legs comfortably, with patterns of black spots all over the red design, and her pants were now pitch black tights, and tai chi shoes. Marinette felt her hair shift until it was in two neat pigtails that trailed off down to the ground, going red at the tips, both tied back with a simple red ribbon. She then felt something form over her face, and she reached her hand up and touched it, recognizing it almost immediately."A... mask?"
Most new Ladybugs will have this, sorry. It's an insecurity thing, when they're nervous about people find out about their new abilities. You aren't an exception.
Ladybug jumped and looked around herself quickly, then looked at her friends. "Did... did you guys hear that?"At the shake of their heads, Ladybug shivered. "Tikki, are you- are you talking inside my head?"
The spell for me to give you my powers, Spots On, is a spell that temporarily fuses my soul with yours! So, yes, I did kind of talk to you in your head, but you hear me all over because my very being has fused with you, including our magic, which makes your magic increase tenfold!
"Oh. Okay." Ladybug grinned a little and lifted up her yo-yo. The old Chinese toy that had been wooden and unusable just a moment ago was now sleek and shiny, bright red with black spots, and a wire that felt like nothing could snap it. She messed with it for a moment. "Okay, so, confession time."
What is it?
"I have no idea how to use a yo-yo."
Oh, don't worry about that. Your bandalore is more or less an extension of your soul, as well. It will do whatever you want it to do, it just depends on how wild your imagination is.
"Oh, like..." Ladybug glanced around for a minute before suddenly throwing the yo-yo right at Adrien, who's eyes went wide and he squeaked and tried to duck out of the way, but the yo-yo wrapped around him and pulled tight, pulling him forward until he was standing right in front of her. She grinned at her suddenly very flustered boyfriend and tilted her head playfully."What is it? Cat got your tongue? Or, would a ladybug be more appropriate?"Adrien's jaw dropped and he stared at her, completely dumbfounded, and Ladybug blinked as well before turning beet red."Tikki what the hell was that." Ladybug asked, sounding just slightly panicked."Ladybugs typically get a lot more confident in themselves, especially if they have a partner." Plagg called, snickering a little at the two. "Side effect of Tikki's ~encouraging~ nature. Sometimes it borderlines on cocky, other times it just makes them smooth as all heck." "NO DUH, SHERLOCK." Adrien squeaked out, blushing furiously until Ladybug released him from the hold she had him in. ("I'm sorry Adrien." "It's okay but please warn me next time so I don't accidentally pass out from blood loss." "What do you mean? Wait, is your nose bleeding?")Tikki was giggling inside her head and Ladybug rolled her eyes. "So... up?"
Yep!
Ladybug nodded before throwing the yo-yo up. "Lucky Charm." She called softly. The bandalore glowed pink for a moment before it separated from the pink light, and the light grew bigger before shrinking into a small shape, dropping down into her open palm. The item was a small crystal ladybug, sitting neatly in the center of her palm, shining in the sunlight. Ladybug shivered a little, feeling the magic surrounding it.
Good job, Mari! Okay, now, if Nooroo is comfortable, to do a cleansing we have to summon an akuma to do an impromptu negative energy focus.
Marinette nodded and looked over. "Nooroo.""... let me guess.""Tikki says it's only if you're comfortable. You don't have to do it if you don't want to."Nooroo sighed and looked at Magnolia, looking her over for a moment before smiling. "I can do it. Once. We only need it once, anyway." He shrugged and looked away again.Magnolia nodded, walking over. "You need to teach me how to use tenshi anyway, right? It'll be okay. I won't let it get to my head." She smiled reassuringly at her Kwami, who smiled back and nodded."It's Wings Rise to call on me, and Wings Fall to dismiss."Magnolia nodded. "Okay - Nooroo, Wings Rise."An orange light enveloped her, just as the pink light had enveloped Marinette. This time when the light vanished, it wasn't a dress she was left in. Magnolia was left in a dark grey, skin-tight suit that covered all of her body for the exception of her arms and from her neck, up. She had short sleeves that covered her shoulders and half of her bicep, lined in a soft, cream fur that formed a cuff over her sleeve. Magnolia instinctively leaned down and graced her fingers over her ankles, then around her hips. a pair of black leather boots with the same fur lining at the top formed over her feet, and a tight-looking skirt formed around her hips. The light around her torso disappeared, and it looked a bit like she was wearing a short-sleeved pea coat with fur lining. The purple streak in her hair changed to orange, and the glowing moved from her body to behind her, creating a cloak that settled over her shoulders that looked exactly like a monarch butterfly's wings.Magnolia then lifted up her hand, holding the paintbrush she had brung, one that was old and that she honestly needed to throw away. It glowed for a moment before extending, forming... a staff? Magnolia lifted it up and looked it over for a moment, a frown on her face. The damn thing was taller than her! It was the same cream color as the fur on her outfit, with intricate, shiny orange designs running up it, and a sort of curled up like a crescent moon, and at the tip, an orb dangled from it on a golden chain. An orange crystal, with black lead running through it to create simple butterfly designs, like a mosaic, with two thick lines of led going through the equator of the orb and a sort of hinge on one side.. It didn't move from its spot no matter how much she shook the staff. Everyone around her looked confused as well. She touches her face when a mask formed over it. 
You okay, Magnolia?
Magnolia jumped and turned around quickly, looking around for a moment, then touched her head. "Nooroo?"
Sorry, I should have warned you. I can talk inside your head. I just wanted to make sure you're okay?
"Yeah, yeah, I... Um, so, what do I do with this... uh... staff... thingy?"
Aside from being your main weapon, it also is the thing that allows you to make and store akumas and tenshi. Some holders have been powerful enough to use their hands instead, but you're just a newbie, so don't get too ahead of yourself. Okay, so your most basic spell is to summon butterflies, and in order to do this we're going to need some butterflies.
"Summon... butterflies. Nooroo, are you just messing with me?"
What? No, of course not. Okay, to summon your butterflies, you say 'Gather Wings' and hold up your staff.
"Okay... I trust you." She murmured, lifting her staff a couple inches off the ground. "Gather Wings." She said calmly.Nothing happened, not at first. The staff didn't even glow like Ladybug's yo-yo had.Everyone looked around, expecting something to happen, but then Chloe groaned from off to the side. "is that snow? There's no way it's snowing again."Everyone turned to look as well, and Magnolia blinked, then squinted. "I don't... think that's snow. What-?" Her eyes went wide as she recognized the flutter of wings, and gradually, everyone else did too.A practical swarm of white butterflies was racing to them, and soon had surrounded them, but not in a bad way. They were all over, fluttering this way and that, but never landing on anyone. Just... existing, as if the people around them didn't bother them in the slightest.
Good! We have our butterflies. Ready?
"I... I guess?"
I need a volunteer.
"... For what?"
Akumatization. If we're doing this, I would prefer to show them how akumatization works and how it affects people.
"Um... Okay." She looked at the other Miraculous holders and rubbed the back of her neck. "Nooroo says we need someone to volunteer to get akumatized."Everyone stayed silent, just looking at each other. They had already heard stories of akumatization from the other Kwami, and had even seen it happen through legilimency that the Kwamis willingly let happen. It... wasn't something any of them wanted to experience, and had admitted that very readily to one another.But after two minutes of full silence, a scoff came from the side. "Fine! If you guys aren't going to step up, then I will." Chloe huffed, and walked up to Magnolia, giving her a bored look, her arms crossed over her chest.Magnolia stared at her for a moment before smiling, shifting her grip on her staff. "Thank you, Mademoiselle Bourgeois." She said as politely as possible, then lifted her staff. A butterfly fluttered close to them, then flew into the orb dangling from her staff. As soon as it fluttered inside, Magnolia took in a deep breath."Akuma." She whispered.The orb flooded with an icky purple gas before clearing away, leaving an evil looking butterfly resting inside the orange sphere. Magnolia cringed at the sight of it, almost instinctively, like her body somehow knew what the creature was and instantly hated it. She dragged the staff close, and the orb snapped open like a capsule, releasing the butterfly. The butterfly fluttered to Chloe, and Magnolia watched as she sucked in a breath and closed her eyes tightly.The akuma fluttered into the necklace wrapped around her neck, and the area around her eyes turned red, as if being pressed down on. A purple halo in the shape of a butterfly appeared in front of her face, and Chloe sneered in a disgusted manner. The same halo appeared around Magnolia's eyes and she began to talk almost instinctively."Greetings, Decoy. I am the Lady Monarch. You're an impatient child who has been trying so hard to redeem yourself for your past behavior, but you find it hard to do so surrounded by people you have bad history with and others that you don't know. Prove to them you're a better person by becoming a villain to aid in the demonstration of the powers of the Miraculous.""I will, Lady Monarch." Chloe declared, then was surrounded by the same disgusting purple smoke. When the smoke disappeared, Chloe's whole body had been covered in a strange greenish cloth with stitches all over, like the maker of a doll had had to restitch their creation multiple times. Two slits of stitches opened up where her eyes had been, showing solid, red gems that, despite there being no pupil, seemed to stare right at Lady Monarch. The only thing decorating her whole body was the necklace that the akuma had infected.Decoy jumped away, practically over Lady Monarch's head and turned towards Ladybug, getting into a fighting stance and shifting from one foot to the other, looking almost like she was waiting for instructions.Ladybug almost shrieked at the rag-doll looking form in front of her and jumped back, staring at it up and down incredulously. "What the fuck is that?!"
Language!
"Well?! What did you expect me to say? That- that thing turned Chloe into a monster!"
That's the point! Akumas focus on the negative energies of the people they possess and the controller of the Butterfly Miraculous gives them a new name, a disguise, and a purpose. More often than not, their purpose is to take something or get revenge. In this case, Decoy's purpose is to prove to you that she's changed by being a dummy for you.
"A dummy?"
Yes. Now, we need Adrien. Get Plagg to sync with Adrien, and don't let him make any excuses! We don't have time!
Ladybug turned and looked right at Plagg, who immediately stiffened into attention, looking back at her. She narrowed her eyes at him. "Transform. Now."Plagg groaned and lazily dragged himself up from the snow, going over to Adrien."Okay, kid - Tikki needs us to transform. Ready?""Uh. I guess?""Okay. It's Claws Out to call on me, Claws In to dismiss."Adrien nodded firmly before closing his eyes. "Okay, Plagg - CLAWS OUT!" He yelled. The bright green light enveloped him all at once, and when it disappeared, it left him with steel-toed boots, dark jeans that actually stretched farther than they looked like they would, a leather jacket and a black t-shirt. His mask covered his eyes, and then ears lifted up from his hair and a long belt from his jeans dropped onto the ground near his feet, then flicked. He opened his eyes, and felt something on his head twitch. He reached his hand up and ran his fingers through his ridiculously messy hair, but stopped when it hit something that most definitely wasn't supposed to be there. They twitchd again, and he gasped. "PLAGG?!"
What is it?
"DID YOU PUT CAT EARS ON ME?"
You don't want the answer to that question. Come on, they probably want you to try using Cataclysm.
"... Wait, you called it what?" A grin broke out across his face, and the belt-tail flicked quickly with excitement.
Don't start now, I just want to get out of here as soon as possible. You use Cataclysm by calling on the power and then touching your target with your hand. You only get one chance. Usually, you either use this to put an obstacle in the way, or destroying an object that an evil source is in - in this case, the evil source is an akuma and it's in Decoy's necklace. Got it?
Chat Noir nodded. "Got it."Lady Monarch watched for a moment before looking to her akuma. "Okay, Decoy. Your goal is to give them a good fight."Decoy just nodded before springing into action. She ran right at Ladybug, and the red-and-black clad Miraculous wielder's eyes went wide, staring at her. But, instead of jumping out of the way, like her muscles were screaming at her to do, her hands shot out as soon as Decoy got close enough and she wrapped them around her middle, flipped her around, and body slammed her down into the snow, and jumped back. Decoy was only down for a second before she sprung back up, now running towards Chat. Chat's ears perked up and he growled, watching Decoy as she closed in on him. "Cataclysm!" He yelled, flowing blots of black surrounding his right hand. Just as Decoy was about to tackle him, he dodged over, his hand grabbing onto the necklace around her neck. He watched as it disintegrated in his palm and broke off her neck, and the akuma fluttered out from his palm. Decoy landed in the snow on her knees, and the black smoke surrounded her, leaving Chloe in her normal state there in the soft white field.Ladybug held up her yo-yo. "Um... Okay, Tikki, how does this work?"
Swipe your finger down the middle, it'll open up. Throw it towards the akuma to catch it and the yo-yo will purify it, and you can release it. That's the cleansing."
"Okay." Ladybug did as told, then threw her yo-yo up towards the akuma and the yo-yo captured it. She brought it back close to her, and the words just flowed out of her mouth, as if Tikki was making her say them."No more evil-doing for you, little akuma." She said, tapping the top of her yo-yo. It opened up and released the white insect. "Bye bye, little butterfly." She cooed and giggled a little.
Good job, Marinette! Okay, do you still have the ladybug?
"Yeah?"
Throw it up into the air, and yell Miraculous Ladybug, and activate the cure! It'll fix any damage that has happened while the akuma was active, including any Cataclysms performed by the Black Cat.
Ladybug did as asked, throwing the crystal into the air and casting her spell, watching the red light as it swirled down around them, swiping over the necklace. When it fled, it was like the necklace had never been broken. Ladybug heard a beeping in her hair and then suddenly the pink light was around her again, and she was back in her normal clothes. The light built up a pillar next to her, then it turned into Tikki, who was beaming proudly up at Marinette, wiggling eagerly. "Marinette! You did so well!" She cried before tackling her in a hug. Marinette laughed and hugged Tikki back, but quickly pushed her off and walked over. She picked up the necklace from the snow, going over to Chloe, who was just staring down at her knees. She knelt down in front of her, and lifted her head.Chloe looked at Marinette confused, and the ravenette smiled a little. "You are a better person, Chloe." She murmured and held up the necklace, smiling at her. "And I'm glad to have you as a teammate. Even if it's just until we go back to school."The blonde's eyes went wide and bright, and she sucked in a breath. She carefully took the necklace back, slipping it back onto her neck, the golden locket shining around her neck."I... thank you... I don't know what to say...""You don't have to say anything, Chloe. You don't even have to thank me. But, I'm sure you feel pretty gross from the akuma, right?"Chloe shuddered and hugged herself, nodding a little. "That was... not good."Marinette giggled. "Well, how about you do a tenshi next? Nooroo says they make you feel lighter than air." She grinned, standing up, holding her hand out to Chloe. She instantly took it and stood up, smiling brightly as she nodded, walking back with Marinette to their small circle. Marinette dropped her hand and went over to Chat, blushing a little as she looked him over."Looking good, Kit-Cat." "Didn't look too bad yourself, m'lady." He purred and grabbed her hand, kissing the back of it and watching as his mark spread over her fingers. Marinette giggled at him and rolled her eyes."Come on, we get to sit this one out." Lady Monarch smiled as Chloe walked near again. "Welcome back, Mademoiselle.""Hi."Lady Monarch giggled. "Ready for a tenshi?""I suppose..."Lady Monarch smiled a bit shakily and sighed, looking over and spotting a suitable butterfly. It floated close, slipping into the orb, which snapped shut upon getting the butterfly."Tenshi."The orb shined this time - shined a bright, bright orange, then fell open. The butterfly that flew out simply looked like a monarch butterfly. It went to Chloe again, this time circling her for a moment before slipping into her necklace. An orange halo in the shape of a butterfly appeared in front of her eyes, but the red pressure didn't appear this time. No, Chloe actually looked relaxed, and had a small smile on her face.Lady Monarch grinned as the orange halo appeared over her face. "Hello, Chloe. I am the Lady Monarch""Hello.""Have you ever dreamt of flying?""I have, actually.""Would you like to?"Chloe's eyes went wide behind the halo and her face broke out into a big grin. "You'd let me?""Of course I would. Do you, Chloe Bourgeois, want to fly?""Yes, Lady Monarch, I do. I want to fly."Chloe's necklace shined orange and the light graced up the necklace, turning the chain into a pair of wings that attached at the back. Her winter gear turned into a sleeveless white shirt, held up by her locket, and her jeans turned pure white and she was given white flats to replace her boots. Out from her back sprouted white, feathered wings that snapped open, broad and tall and proud. Soft feathers fell from the wings, and Chloe gasped, putting her hands over her mouth as she looked up at them.Lady Monarch stood back a little and smiled as her transformation ran out, leaving just Magnolia there, giggling at how happy Chloe looked. "Well? Go on, try them out!""Okay, okay!" Chloe giggling like a child before shooting up into the air, her giggles turning into laughter as she spun in the air, going up and up until almost touched a cloud. She decided then to flip over, swooping up and behind and beginning to dive back to the ground. She stopped well before she had any risk of hitting the ground, fluttering about fifteen feet in the air with a big smile on her face. She hugged herself, giggling slowly.She really did look like an angel.The four remaining teenagers and four kwamis stared up at her as Chloe looked at her wings, then down at Magnolia and Nooroo. "Hey! How does this one go away?""Land on the ground first - then willingly reject the Tenshi. It'll just fly out.""Oh. Okay!" Chloe carefully landed back on the ground. "Okay... how..." She blinked when the butterfly suddenly just flew out from the necklace, and her clothes went back to normal. The butterfly fluttered for a moment before the orange and black design simply faded away, leaving a white butterfly once more."Okay - so now it's just you two." Magnolia looked at Chloe and Luka. Duusu shied behind Pollen and a collective sigh from the other three Kwami could be heard, but Pollen just pat her head. "It's okay, love. You can go after me, okay?"Duusu nodded a little and reluctantly let her go and let her walk to her charge. Pollen smiled at Chloe and nudged her. "Well, flower bud, ready?""I guess. I feel better than I did after the akuma."Pollen shuddered. "Yeah, that wasn't fun to watch." She shook her head, and let out a low noise of disgust, then smiled a little."Okay - the phrase is Buzz On.""Buzz On?""Yeeeeep-" Pollen suddenly disappeared in a flash of yellow light, which then surrounded Chloe. The light dissipated, and Chloe's outfit had changed to a yellow v-neck, tied up high on her waist, with a high-waisted black shorts and black tights underneath, with black high heel boots that looked like they had a spiked sole, like a cleat, and a stiletto so sharp she could probably take it off and stab someone with it. A black streak formed in her hair and zipped through her ponytail. Her mask formed over her face and the trinket she had brought, an old wooden star puzzle, transformed into a spinning top.Queen Bee let out a sigh, her blue eyes fluttering open as the transformation settled over her skin. She looked at her hands, instantly beginning to play with the top, tilting her head at the fact that it somehow spun on the snow.
Okay, ready? 
"Yeah. What's the spell?"
Venom - you need a volunteer for it. It freezes people in place for 10 minutes, or whenever you decide to release them.
"Neat." Queen Bee said, looking to the other teens. "I need a-"Magnolia instantly stepped up, staring Queen Bee even as she flinched. "But-""No buts. You willingly suffered for the training at my own hands. I'll take the brunt of it."Queen Bee stared at her for a moment, seeing that determined gleam in her eyes and taking it as her answer to if she would try and fight this; the answer to that was yes, and Queen Bee didn't want to fight over this.She pulled her top back. "Venom." She recited, and the top engorged itself and began to throb with energy and potential. Magnolia gulped slowly and closed her eyes.Queen Bee walked up and pressed the tip of the barb right into Magnolia's bicep, and Magnolia froze mid-gasp, her eyes having gone wide and her mouth gaped open.Her top shrank back and Queen Bee blinked at Magnolia, waving a hand in front of her face, then circled her. She just... stood there, unmoving. Unreacting. "Oh, wow." The Miraculous wielder murmured. 
Too release her, tap the puncture point.
Queen Bee circled back to her bicep and gently tapped the black and yellow spot on her arm, and Magnolia suddenly stumbled forward, grabbing her bicep, catching herself quickly and looking back at the teen."... OW!!!" Magnolia suddenly yelled before beginning to laugh, falling back into the snow, gasping at the cold against her head and just laughing again. Queen Bee found herself giggling again, smiling a little. "Buzz off." She murmured, and she returned to normal. She walked over and helped Magnolia up from the snow, then stood back and began to wipe herself off, sighing softly.They all then turned to Luka and Duusu. Duusu sighed and hugged herself. "I... guess it's our turn now, huh." She mumbled, looking over at Luka.Luka smiled at her and placed his hand on her shoulder. "It's going to be okay. It probably won't be as bad as you think.""Yeah... I guess." She sighed."What's your call on phrase?""Fan Feathers.""And the dismissal?""Close Feathers.""Okay." Luka lifted his hand and gently pushed some of her hair from her face. "It's going to be alright. I promise."Duusu nodded quickly and shifted closer to him, smiling a little, the whites of her eyes flickering for a moment, but remained bright.Luka smiled back. "Duusu, Fan Feathers."Duusu disappeared on a flash of blue. Luka looked down and watched the glow of his clothes. The next thing he knew he was wearing dark blue dress pants, much nicer than anything he'd wear willingly, a light blue robe, and a dark red ascot tie. He tugged on the tie a little to give his neck some room, then lifted the hand that was holding the old guitar chip. The chip grew and grew until it formed a dark blue fan made of peacock feathers, all with a red center and the edges made of soft white feathers that looked easily removable. A mask formed over his face that he recognized as not feeling similar in shape to the others, who all had domino masks
Take one of the feathers out, and it will turn blue. Someone needs to volunteer. The guardian only stays for however long needed before going away. But you need to warn the person who volunteers - it will take all of their energy out of them. All of it. They may even faint. This person has to know what they're getting into.
Luka closed the fan and looked to the other teens. "Let me guess, another volunteer?" Chloe asked and crossed her arms.Luka nodded. "Yes. Duusu says that whoever volunteers needs to be careful. Getting a feather will take all of the energy out of them, and you could possibly faint. She doesn't want anyone to volunteer unless you're absolutely sure of what you're doing.""I'll do it." Everyone looked over to Magnolia, who had volunteered herself without hesitation. Luka immediately shook his head. "No, Mags, you just volunteered to get stung-""And it didn't do anything but hurt a little! I can take a little exhaustion. I'm an artist, I've had plenty of sleepless nights where I've literally crashed and burned because I had been up for three days without a wink of sleep. I can take it." She defended herself quickly, and Luka looked a little taken aback, but he didn't argue further.Luka spread the fan back out and plucked one of the soft feathers from its confines. Blue magic gathered into the feather and then he simply let it go. The feather drifted, then swept up into the air, fluttering through the cold breeze on over to Magnolia. The feather fluttered close, then flew down and slipped into her belt. A blue halo appeared in front of her face, and Magnolia shivered."Magnolia, you can reject this if you-""N-No, I-" Magnolia's honey brown eyes suddenly rolled back and she fell forward into the snow, a stream of orange magic pulling itself from her and forming a giant beast above her body.The orange swirled and turned dark red, looking like sand flying around in a sandstorm. Soon it formed something, but that something wasn't pretty. The something was a large, angry lizard that didn't have true arms. It's arms seemed to be attached to wings, wings that had large spots and lines on the underside, like a moth's wings. The dragon's eyes were orange and its pupil was slit, staring at nothing and roaring.A dragon. It was a dragon.The dragon roared again, flame spewing from its mouth and aimed at absolutely nothing, and it disappeared as quickly as it had come, dropping and fading completely, leaving a passed out Magnolia half-buried in snow.All back at Marinette's house with soup on the stove and hot cocoa on the table, the teenagers had rushed to get Magnolia out of the cold and somewhere safe and warm. They had gotten rid of her outer layers and had her all wrapped up in blankets, Nooroo on one side of her and Duusu on the other. Duusu had been apologizing at any moment she could and Nooroo was having to comfort her. Marinette was in the kitchen, helping her mother cook, and Adrien was making idle chatter with Chloe and Luka in the hopes of getting to know them better so he could work with them. He couldn't do team work with people he didn't know, after all.Not two minutes after the soup was done and the bread came out of the oven, Magnolia began to stir, a little groan coming from her as she burrowed further under the blankets, and Nooroo and Duusu both flinched."Magnolia!" They yelled and the poor blonde squeaked, jumping and nearly falling off the couch, but Nooroo caught her just in time. All the teenagers and the other Kwami also looked over, getting up and moving closer to surround her. Duusu looked the most worried."A-Are you okay? I didn't hurt you, did I? Gods I am soooo sorry-""M okay." Magnolia mumbled and curled up a little, holding the blankets closer. "Jus' sore." She shivered and yawned slowly, her eyes drifting shut."Hey, you can't sleep right now. You need to eat, it'll help your body heat back up." Nooroo said and gestured for someone to go get some soup. Marinette got back up to go get the food."Okaaaay." Magnolia yawned again as she talked, her sleepy eyes staring out in front of her blankly. Magnolia stayed over at Marinette's house after Sabine and Tom worried themselves sick over her, since she didn't have any family to stay with inside the city. Luka went home and Chloe stayed a spell longer to talk with Adrien before also departing. Adrien stayed over for the night after his father left to go stay in the mansion, and they both decided that, despite being excited about their new powers, they should give it a rest. After all, it wasn't like Hogwarts would know if they decided to go on a trip over the roof tops during their free periods.