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worddevdealswithml · 5 years

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The Prince’s Bride

Chapter 16: Miracle Workers

“Whoof,” said Plagg, “I’ve never worked for so little, except for once, and that was only because…” he grimaced, “put it this way, it was a noble cause.”

“Oh, this is noble,” said Alya, desperate to speed things up, and willing to try channeling a bit of Lila. She pointed down. “She’s a… single mother. Her children are starving, and—

Plagg put up his hand. “Yeah, you’re an awful liar.”

They’d taken the wheelbarrow; neither of them wanted to carry a body, and the man hadn’t exactly tried very hard to hold onto it.

It had been back to the river, and then… north.

To Alya’s surprise, there was, in fact, a small footpath, which, while not built for a wheelbarrow, was still useable.

And then, as the sun was beginning to go down…

She caught sight of a light in the distance. There was a small hovel, and coming through… A window? A gap in the wall? There was the light of a fire.

They stopped, mere feet from the door.

They looked at each other, neither of them entirely certain how to proceed.

“It doesn’t look like somewhere a miracle worker would live,” said Alya, uncertainly.

“Well, according to the guy I met in the bar, there are two of them here,” said Nino, shrugging.

Then, with a sudden motion, Alya stepped forward, and rapped on the door.

No response.

She knocked again.

“Go away!” came a voice from inside, nasal, grating, and… old.

That seemed to be all the response that was coming, so Alya knocked again.

There was a groan, and a sound of footsteps.

“What, what?” came the voice again, and a small panel in the door slid aside revealing the speaker’s face.

He was old, wrinkled, and deathly pale, but his eyes were sharp, and annoyed.

“Are you a miracle worker?”

His expression twisted in distaste.

“I’m retired, and more to the point, discredited as far as anyone around here’s concerned, but thanks for reminding me; I’ll just go and give myself a paper cut and pour some lemon juice on it so I won’t have to think about it.”

The window shut.

Alya knocked again, and the man let out a sound that was less a groan, and more a shout of annoyance.

The window opened again, to reveal the same face, now incensed.

“How about you leave now, before I call the brute squad?”

“Oh,” said Nino, “I’m on the brute squad. So you are that Plagg guy I heard about?”

The man’s focus shifted away from Alya, and he looked Nino up and down. The anger faded slightly, and he gave an almost impressed shrug.

“At least you got the name right.”

“Listen,” said Alya, pushing herself forward slightly, “we need a miracle. It’s urgent.”

“Well, I’m retired,” said the man, “and if you’d paid any attention, you’d know that the last time I tried to do a miracle, she still died, and Gabriel proceeded to destroy my reputation. You sure you want your friend dead?”

“There’s nothing left to kill,” said Alya.

Plagg raised his eyebrows, for the first time seeming to feel something other than aggravation. “Nothing left, huh? I’ll take a look. Bring her in.”

With an effort, Nino pulled her out of the wheelbarrow, and hauled her bodily through the door as it opened.

“On the table,” he said, stepping out of the way.

They put her on the table, and, for a second, she started moving away.

“Stay put,” said the man, snapping his fingers, and to their surprise, she did.

“Oh yeah, I see what you mean,” he said, “this was, what, Nathalie, right? That’s her name?”

“I… I don’t know,” said Alya, “the woman who did this… She was blue?”

He paused, and then, suddenly, nodded. “Right, I remember that.” He started prodding at his new patient, “Originally, it just drained your life away over time. We got it so that…” Still poking, he seemed to consider. “So that it drained your emotions away, and, there was some other stuff. It turns you blue, obviously, and, the bit that we didn’t realize,” he pressed his eye up close to hers, seeming to look for something. “It does this to people now.”

He pulled away, frowning.

“No kidding,” he muttered, “that shouldn’t…”

He pulled away, and his head slowly turned towards her hand.

He easily lifted her wrist, and took a wondering look at her ring.

“Well,” he said, “aren’t you the lucky one.”

“We really are in a terrible rush, here,” said Alya.

Still looking at the ring, the man scoffed. “You rush a miracle worker, you get rotten miracles. You got money?”

Alya held up the little they’d managed to gather.

“Whoof,” said Plagg, “I’ve never worked for so little, except for once, and that was only because…” he grimaced, “put it this way, it was a noble cause.”

“Oh, this is noble,” said Alya, desperate to speed things up, and willing to try channeling a bit of Lila. She pointed down. “She’s a… single mother. Her children are starving, and—

Plagg put up his hand. “Yeah, you’re an awful liar.”

“I’ve been tracking down the woman who did this to her for years so that I can help my father who also ended up like this.”

“Your first story was better.” He sighed. “She probably owes you money, huh? Tell you what, I’ll ask her.”

Alya blinked, as the man cracked his neck. “She’s… She’s an animal at this point, how’s she supposed to answer.”

“Ohh ho,” said the man, flexing his fingers, “look who knows so much. You see, it just so happens that your friend here is only mostly an animal, and there’s a big difference between mostly animal, and all animal.”

He started rubbing his hands together. “Now, mostly animal is still slightly human. If she was all animal, there’d really only be one thing to do.”

“What’s that?” said Nino.

“Well, either you get the Miraculous that did this to her, or you give up, go through her clothes for loose change, and turn her loose in the forest.”

“Alright,” he said, pulling his hands apart.

Their eyes widened simultaneously, at the crackling network of black lightning that had formed between his fingers.

“Hello in there!” he said, eyes gleaming green, hands steaming black, “What’s so important? Why do you need to come back!?”

And then his hands came down on her chest, and she convulsed, seemingly in pain.

“True love!” came the response, strangled, pained, almost unintelligible, as her back twisted.

Then, she flopped back down, and the old man looked like any other old man again.

Alya tried, with limited success to stifle the surprise she felt, and managed to rally.

“True love,” she said, “You heard her. You couldn’t ask for a more noble cause than that.”

His face was impassive.

“Well…” he said, and then turned to look behind him through the doorway to the back of the hovel. Satisfied, he turned.

“Fine, yes, true love is the greatest thing in the world,” he whispered, “Except…” he shrugged his shoulders back and forth as if considering it, “except maybe a nice MLC, a mutton, lettuce, and cheese sandwich, especially if you’ve got nice lean mutton, and the good, gooey kind of cheese, which—” he grinned at the thought of it, eyes closing in pleasure, “I love that.”

Then remembering his train of thought, his eyes opened again, and his voice raised.

“But! That’s not what she said. She very clearly said ‘To blave,’ which, as we all know, means ‘to bluff,’ so you were probably just playing cards, and then she cheated—

“You liar!” came a woman’s voice from the back, as a woman stormed in.

She was shorter than him, with dark brown, weather-beaten skin, and shining blue eyes. Judging by the wrinkles on her face, it looked like she spent most of her time smiling, but she wasn’t smiling now.

“Ohhh ho no you don’t,” said Plagg, his hand crackling with the same dark lightning. “Get away from me, witch.”

With a speed that belied her appearance, the woman’s hand snapped out, and wrapped around his wrist, strangling the lightning.

“I’m not a witch,” she said, less angry, and more… violently disappointed. “I’m your wife. But after what you just said, I’m not sure I want to be that anymore.”

“Oh, so you were listening in, then.”

“True love,” she said, “she said true love, Plagg, how dare you pretend otherwise, when we both know how much love means to you—

Plagg tried to pull away, and failed. “Shut up, Tikki.”

Her grip vicelike, Tikki turned to the two of them.

“He refuses to admit that he even knows what love is, since what happened with Roberts.”

“Tikki,” said Plagg, voice almost dangerous.

She spun to face him. “You gave your ring away without even consulting with me, Plagg! I think I get to do this!”

“He was charismatic, dashing, and in love!” said Plagg, “those were pretty much my top three qualifications! How was I supposed to know he wasn’t in love!?”

“Your first tip should have been the piracy!” said Tikki.

She turned back to them, rolling her eyes.

“As if that wasn’t enough, now he’s bitter because Gabriel decided to ruin our reputation, so any progress he’d made—

“Why’d you say that name? You promised me you’d never say that name!”

“What? Gabriel?” said Tikki.

Plagg groaned, cringing away from her.

“Gabriel? Is Gabriel the name you don’t want to hear?”

He managed to break away, and started walking rapidly away, shaking his head.

“There is a woman who needs our help, and you don’t even have the decency to say why you won’t help!”

He put his hands over his ears. “I’m not listening!”

“Gabriel.” Repeated Tikki, saying the name like it was a curse. “Gabriel!”

Alya, finally managing to recover her train of thought, cut in.

“The true love she’s talking about is Adrien! If you heal her, she’ll stop the wedding.”

“Gabriel!” said Tikki, one more time, before Plagg had a hand over her mouth.

“Wait,” he said, and turned to Alya.

“Wait. Wait, I heal her, Gabriel suffers?”

“Guaranteed,” said Alya.

“This is Marinette!?” said Tikki, eyes widening as she looked down. “I thought they'd let her go!”

"Adrien did,” said Plagg, bitterly, "as soon as they got out of the fire swamp."

“They would have killed him otherwise!” said Tikki.

Plagg groaned. “Yeah. That’s what he said.”

He turned away from them, fists clenched at his side.

"Wait... You... Know her? You know Adrien?"

"I've spent... More food at her parents' bakery than I should, and Adrien... Well, he went out riding a lot, I think. He happened to pass by once or twice, and I invited him in to talk."

"Yeah," said Plagg, "and he definitely talked long enough. Kept chattering on about... Well, apparently about her," he gestured down at... At the woman who was apparently Marinette. "I swear, he was here for an hour, just talking about her."

"You say that like you didn't cry yourself to sleep that night because it was so beautiful!" said Tikki.

"I told you! I stayed inside so long that the dust got buried in my eye! I wasn't crying."

He turned away, and started for the back of the hovel.

“Come on, Plagg," called Tikki, "you can give love one more chance, right?”

He stopped, dead, and seemed to sag, as if there was a weight on his back.

There was a long silence.

“And…” said Tikki, “if nothing else… you’ll get to mess with Gabriel.”

Another few seconds passed, in relative silence.

“Well…” Said Plagg, eventually. “What did I say? For a noble cause? And… That is certainly a noble cause."

He spun around. "Give me the money, I’m on the job.”

Tikki practically cheered.

#ML #Miraculous Ladybug #ML Fanfic #Miraculous Fanfic #Plagg #Tikki #Alya Cesaire #Nino Lahiffe #The Princess Bride #The Prince's Bride

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theolddarkmachine · 7 years

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Must Love Cats- Chapter 9

Levy hadn’t planned on being a pet sitter when she’d moved into the city. She also hadn’t planned on pet sitting for a sex god either, but here she was.

AKA the one where Levy is a pet sitter, Gajeel is her client, and Lily is the glue that binds them together.

WOO ONLY ONE DAY LATE! Lol I don’t even have an excuse this time, I just forgot yesterday was Wednesday. My bad. This one is a touch shorter. We’re actually coming up on the end of things! We got one chapter and an epilogue left! Anyway, thank you guys so much for reading and I hope you’ll stick around for when I kick off my next one after MLC. But if not, it really does mean a lot that you guys have put so much time into reading what I have to write. Y’all the true MVPs for sticking around and putting up with my inability to update on time lol Anyway, here’s chapter nine!

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“Levy, it has been three weeks,” Erza deadpanned, standing next to the couch with her arms crossed over her national parks polo. Levy stared up from her, a pair of hazel eyes tucked into a blanket cocoon with that movie on for the umpteenth time and a pint of melting ice cream on the side table. Her scarlet haired roommate understood that she was still upset about the incident with the kitty sex god, but it was just getting out of hand now. The roommates had all agreed not to say anything during that first week, opting to let Levy go through her grieving period. By the second week, Levy had claimed the couch as her own domain whenever she wasn’t working, and had watched Almost Famous more times than any one person should watch a movie in that amount of time, and turned their freezer into their own personal ice cream parlor. Even then, the friends had agreed to not push her, the group voting on having Juvia speak with her since she was the most soft spoken of the bunch when it came to matters of the heart. Now it was week three, and the trio had plans to stage an intervention, which had been a great plan until Erza had returned home after one of the hottest days of the year looking forward to the pint of strawberry shortcake ice cream she’d claimed in their ice cream collection, just to find the carton disposed of in the trash. And that, well, that was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“Did the cat die?” Erza asked, a bit more forcefully than she’d intended, but there was no going back now. There was a gasp from Levy and Lucy’s room before the door flew open.

“Erza!” Lucy hissed, standing in their doorway. The bluenette who was at the heart of the matter just looked between the two, watching them warily with defeated, tired eyes. Erza ignored Lucy, eyes still trained on Levy and waiting for an answer.

“Did the cat die?” She asked again with what the rest of the apartment had dubbed her mom voice. Levy had never been on the receiving end, and if she hadn’t been so down about everything, she probably would have made a quip about how great of a mom Erza would be. Unfortunately, Levy was feeling down, and instead she just wrapped her blanket around her tighter.

“No,” she huffed into the fabric, turning away from her friend.

“And was kitty sex god mad about it?” The red head continued, still fixing Levy with that stern look. The answer was no. In fact, Gajeel had been great about the situation. After Levy had snuck out the next morning, leaving nothing but a note, he’d texted her to let her know Lily was okay and wondering how she was doing. All she’d said in return was “I’m fine” and she hadn’t responded to anything he’d sent since. Was she aware that she was acting cowardly in avoiding him? Very much so. She gave the cowardly lion a run for his money, but she couldn’t help it.

That entire first week after Lily had gotten sick, she’d been sick to her stomach waiting for the call from Makarov that Gajeel had asked for her to be terminated for what happened. In fact, that first week she’d been mourning the loss of her only income. After that first week, when she kept getting scheduled for work and hadn’t been fired, she’d started to wonder if Gajeel had something else up his sleeve. He’d continued to text her though, trying to start up conversation like they’d had while he was away, and she continued to not answer. If she did, it was with a one word answer, worried that if she continued into conversation, he would want to talk about what happened.

Levy had to face it, what ever it was they’d been doing and she’d been feeling had existed in a weird vacuum that came crashing down after Lily had gotten sick and he’d come home. Which was why, this third week, she was still in mourning.

“Well?” Erza prodded, her voice only lightening a little.

“Erza, c’mon, we agreed to talk to her together,” Lucy said lowly, still standing in their doorway.

“No.” The word was almost whispered but it was loud enough for them to hear it. Levy trained her eyes on the screen as Almost Famous continued to play.

“Then why are you letting yourself run away?” There it was. The question that all of her roommates had wanted to ask her, but wouldn’t. It was a question Levy often wondered, but allowed herself to dance around finding an answer. If she kept herself busy and focused on something else, she could pretend that she didn’t see what everyone could: That she was using this as an excuse to run away. If she was being honest, the city had broken her. Up until she’d found the job as a pet sitter, she’d faced so much rejection that she hadn’t even been sure she could continue staying in the city. Then she got this job, and continued to pedal her scripts around town, continuously facing more rejection. It was a hard area to break into, which she was never going to deny, but each time she was turned down was another chip into her self esteem. And now here was Gajeel, who she’d convinced herself she might have a chance with, when he was given a reason to reject her all the same. The thought was unbearable. So she did what anyone who was scared would do, and she ran, taking that chance away from him. Not that she could tell her friends that.

“I don’t know,” was all she mumbled into the blanket. She felt the tear roll down her cheek before she’d even realized she was crying.

“Oh Lev,” Lucy said, finally leaving the doorway and walking towards her, sitting next to her and wrapping her arms around her. She didn’t say a word, just let Levy cry as she hugged her. With a sigh, Erza sat on the other side of Levy and bumped her shoulder against her’s in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. The three of them sat together as Levy cried, as Almost Famous continued in the background.

***

Gajeel could take a hint. At least, that’s what he told himself as he stared at his laptop screen. He hadn’t really heard from Levy since Lily had been to the vet aside from an “I’m fine” and one word replies whenever he tried to start up conversation. So yes, he could take a hint. However, in the past three weeks he could get the image of her sleeping peacefully in his bed out of his mind. Almost as if he could send where Gajeel’s mind was, Lily hopped up onto the couch and rubbed himself against his owner’s arm. Purring softly, he continued to rub himself against his arm until Gajeel lifted it, allowing him to get into his lap.

“You miss her too, huh,” he said as he scratched the bombay’s ears. Though Lily’s fur was still stubbly around where his incision had been, he’d healed up nicely. Lisanna had said there had been no doubt in her mind that he would heal up well, and he hadn’t proven her wrong. In fact, Lily had been back to his old self within the week. That update had been the last one Levy had responded to. At least she knew he was okay. That had actually been what tipped him off to her radio silence being about something other than Lily. It may have started that way, but he recognized when someone ran away. He actually knew the feeling all too well. Running used to be one of his specialties. It was safer to run. At least, that’s how he’d felt until he’d seen a certain blue haired girl in his living room with his cat.

With one hand continuing to stroke Lily’s ears, he used his other to open his email and type up a quick message. Planting a kiss on top of his cat’s head, he pressed the send button.

“Let’s get our girl back.”

***

It had been a long afternoon. Once Juvia had returned home from work, Levy and her roommates had all curled up on the couch with three large pizzas and a romance movie marathon that topped all romance movie marathons. (“Anything to not see Almost Famous again,” Erza had joked, though Levy was certain it was only partially a joke.) They’d laughed, they’d cried, they’d stuffed their faces with food, but more importantly, they’d talked. While no one brought up Gajeel again, they’d caught up on life. Though they lived together, they hadn’t been able to just hangout together in quite some time.

It was now around midnight and they all had their respective jobs in the morning. Lucy was already tucked into bed, breathing heavily as she curled into a ball. Levy turned off the light and crawled into bed, grabbing her phone and opening up her email. A feeling of deja vu hit her as she found her schedule for the next day and opened it. Her hazel eyes scanned the visits, noting that it was pretty much the same schedule she’d had for the past couple days. All except one. The final one on the list, which caused her heart to to come to a complete halt before picking up in double time. Her final visit for the next day was Lily.

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#gajevy #Gajeel Redfox #Levy McGarden #Gajeel X Levy #Must Love Cats #fairy tail #fairy tail fanfiction #WE'RE GETTIN TO THE END Y'ALL

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