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callmeakumatized · 6 years

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Fish Funk - ch. 3

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Mermay Day Three - Prompt: Silky

Marinette reached up and softly touched the little orbs she kept in as earrings at all times. Her good luck charms.

"No," she finally responded to the waiting nursery maid. "No, I'd like to keep them in, if you don't mind."

The older woman huffed a little, but smiled resignedly.

"'Tis not my place to say what a princess should or should not wear to her coming-out party, Your Highness." Gathering up her things, Sra. Abaroa turned to leave, muttering something under her breath that Marinette knew was something about how she did know the proper way to dress for parties. The little princess resisted the urge to laugh out loud, and had to snap the smile off her face when Abaroa turned around again.

"Oh, Your Majesty," she started, then sighed, then rolled her eyes, then sighed again. "Your new lady's maid will be here any moment to take you down to dinner." Marinette nodded, but Abaroa looked like she wasn't done. Several times she opened her mouth, changed her mind, and turned to go. With another huff and shrug, Abaora turned to face Marinette full on. "Forgive me for saying this, Princess, but it needs to be said." Another deep breath. "Please - please - be kind to the poor girl."

Abaora really did leave this time, but not before an obvious silent prayer.

Marinette honestly had no idea what the woman was talking about. Kind to her new lady's maid? Of course she would be kind to her! Marinette was everything in this world except for unkind! Why, she had never done anything to Abaora that would cause her former nursery maid to -

Marinette stopped swirling in her dress to stare accusingly back at herself in the mirror. Mirror Marinette suddenly looked appropriately abashed, as scenes upon scenes of a Marinette right here in front of her mirror kindly harangued her attending nursery maid. One right after the other.

Abaora was number fifteen. Number fifteen in her now thirteen years of life.

Puffing up her cheeks, Marinette blew out a labored breath of air. So she was a bit…high maintenance when getting ready for…well, getting ready for anything. It wasn't her fault princesses were "required" to wear stiff, uncomfortable dresses everywhere instead of clothes that were actually comfortable! So she might have thrown a few fits. Every other moment of the day, she did everything she needed to do and more without complaint. When she was ten, she had even tried making her own clothes so no one would have to worry about such-and-such dress from so-and-so and how she needed to wear because of reasons. She would wear her own dresses. Then, not only would the people in the kingdom see her as some sort of "beauty" with no brain, they would see her as a girl with real personality.

Her parents, loving and supportive as they were, were also quite conscious of the image a young princess in handmade clothes would present to not only their own kingdom, but to kingdoms around her, and had affectionately shut her down.

But Marinette, as had been told of her for ages, was a fighter. And when her reputation alone didn't work to scare her nursery maids into letting out the sides of her dress enough so she could breathe comfortably, Marinette would fight. Some nursery maids had left crying. Some had left with needles in their fingers. She was punished each time, given grueling chores like mucking the stables or washing dishes, and Marinette would grump and groan about it the entire time.

The truth, however, was that she actually enjoyed the hard labor. Feeling active, and useful, building muscle in her little frame…Marinette cherished everything about being out in the fields or in the kitchens.

(Sometimes her parents would even make a comment, like they knew her secret. But both Marinette and her parents tended to ignore this little fact.)

With another twirl, Marinette really looked at herself in the mirror. The pink silk dress she wore was fitted just right to her frame, like always, but this time, the cut of the dress itself was different. The waist was cinched in still, but there was no bow in the back, nothing to draw the eyes away from the curve that was starting to form there. The sleeves were slim, fitted right down to her fingertips. Skirts overlayed with some type of chiffon billowed out a little more fully than they would have just yesterday. Worst out of everything, though, wasn't the additional fabric at the bottom of her dress; it was the complete lack of fabric at the top.

Suddenly Marinette felt like she would trade all the handmade dresses just to be able to wear a stiff collar one more time.

Another exasperated puff of air came out of Marinette and she turned one way and then the other, checking herself over from all angles. Just as she placing her open palms over her now-exposed chest (she was still modest, for goodness' sake…it was just less) when the door burst open, and Marinette, at war temporarily with flinging herself backward and attacking, promptly fell off her pedestal.

"Hi!" a cheery voice said from the doorway. "I'm Alya! I'm your new lady's maid!"

Marinette had given up every fight she had ever put toward her parents (or, rather, her nursery maids) about the personal uselessness of a lady's maid the night Alya had come into her life. For, as much as Marinette still didn't need someone to help her dress, she hadn't realized how much she needed a friend. Alya was her closest companion in many ways, but only a small portion of that was due to professional expectations. It wasn't to say the caramel-color skinned girl didn't know what her responsibilities were or ever slack on them in the least. It was the way she would level the princess with a look when Marinette suggested something she knew she couldn't do, or laughed with her when she tripped just to be there to pick her up, or how she talked to her like a real human being. Really, the only downfall to having Alya as her lady's maid was when she had to leave her while at sea.

Not that Alya complained too much. Not since Nino arrived a year later.

Nino was the nephew of the head chef and had come to apprentice at the castle. With him, he brought an assortment of handmade instruments – some based off instruments from France, where he hailed, some completely of his own invention. One of Marinette's favorites was a type of flute made from a thick reed. It was held in front instead of the side, and was small and thin, which made it easy to conceal in a shirt sleeve. It became a something of a staple with seeing Marinette; when the princess was there, there was sure to be a song at some point. After Nino taught her the basics, Marinette had quickly surpassed him, and the flute – nicknamed Buginette for Lady Luck herself – became a pleasure to those who shared her company, especially her fellow shipmates on long voyages in later years.

(Marinette was not blind to Alya's clear preference of the classical guitar that Nino would gladly play and sing along with when it was brought out or suggested. Nor did Marinette miss Nino's clear preference to switch to love songs whenever Alya was around.)

When Chloé came, Marinete's life changed overnight.

Literally.

It was a quiet night, and Marinette had been all too happy to ditch Alya to a hopeful-looking Nino and take a walk on the beach in solitude. She relishes the feel of the sand in her toes, the cold waves coming to brush across her ankles high enough to dampen the edges of her dress. The view from the beach, lit from high above her through the palace windows, was breathtaking, the clear, moonless and cloudless night making the water seem like it was sparkling with magic in the dark. She brought her flute up to her lips, but as the first note cut through the stillness, everything went dark.

When Marinette woke, it was still dark, but her world rocked back and forth, pitching gently across…were those waves? Shaking her head – and regretting it immediately as the pain hit – Marinette made to stand. At the next small pitch to the side, the princess was sent sprawling onto the deck she now realized she had been "sleeping" on.

The structure was a tiny skiff, barely big enough to warrant a trip a few miles around the coast. A stiff-looking girl, long golden hair catching the little light like fireflies, was working the rigging in a way that made Marinette flinch in its awkwardness. Marinette rose, steadying herself with a hand on her head. She started to stomp the short distance to the girl, realizing that she must have been the one to kidnap her, when she stopped midstep.

She was wearing pants.

Marinette now was not only furious, she was insanely jealous. Why had she never thought of that!?

The following conversation (confrontation, more like) revealed Chloé's story of her wealthy merchant father's ship being taken by pirates. Not only was her father, who she loved dearly, on board, but an entire colony's worth of people and materials. They were holding them all hostage, hoping for more booty than they had already spoiled, holding out for a ransom from their mother country of France. Meanwhile, a blockade had formed by the flagship of the Pirates, their companion ship, and now the vessel the unmoored colonists were trapped on. In the Caribbean. Every day the situation got worse, and the people were suffering. There was only one thing that could be done: a miraculous rescue from Ladybug, or the luck Ladybug carried around with her seemingly by presence alone.

"What do you think kidnapping me will do for you, idiot girl?" Marinette yelled, ripping a scrap of fabric off the bottom of her dress to tie around her dampening hair. "You had best left me at home and searched the seedy pits for this 'Ladybug' of yours! Unless you plan to try to use me as a bartering chip for her assistance, which I would hope you would have a better sense than that. Even if she does exist – "

"The sailors said she was the one 'whose tiny frame belied her strength'," Chloé started, standing with resolve as she stared Princess Marinette in the eye, "who had 'bested 50 men at the age of 10', and who flitted from oppressor to oppressor with a hum on her lips as she leveled each one, like a ladybug, swinging from the rigging of the tallest mast, the embodiment of Lady Luck herself… Shall I continue?"

"No, I… That won't be necessary."

No, Marinette didn't need to hear any more. She, like Chloé seemed to have discovered the identity of this "Ladybug" through these descriptions alone. Marinette sat, thinking, letting everything sink in. She was startled to see her own hands were shaking slightly, but…it wasn't from fear. There was anticipation bubbling under her skin.

How many ships had she said? Three now? A flagship, a –

"Is it true?" Chloé said quietly, and Marinette looked to her companion almost in surprise that she was there. The blond girl had tears at the edges of her eyes, and Marinette, really looking at her now, could fully appreciate the desperation of Chloé's journey. In the small lantern hanging by the mast, Marinette could see double black eyes on what she thought had been fair skin. A badly-healing slash went from her right ear to her chin, cutting a groove through her lip that was, in turn, already nursing a bruise on the other side. Her golden hair looked as though it had been burned on one side – along with her shirt, that Marinette was just now realizing was the upper half of a dress, making the pants she wore a necessity for proprietorial modesty rather than a smart fashion choice. She wore no shoes, and had nothing of supplies with her but a few bottles of questionable rum and some molding bread and oranges.

It was in this moment, Marinette sizing up her unwanted shipmate who, though bruised and broken still held herself with grace and hope, when the princess changed her mind.

"It was 47 men, but that doesn't have as nice a ring to it as '50', does it?"

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