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marimeetsmischief · 1 year

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Wishes & Wands (and other miraculous adventures) - Part II

A (mildly) late chapter two update! I really loved writing this one.

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Tags: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Fantasy, Summoned Heroes, Magic Powers, Fluff, Mildly Sarcastic Narractor, Rivals to friends to lovers (eventually), Plagg is a book, Tikki is also a book, Actual Cat Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Slow burn, Ladynoir, ML Big Bang 2022

Summary: Wishing upon a star has been something Adrien grew up doing, but he never imagined it would end up like this. Sucked into a world of fairy tales that need to be brought to completion, he faces stories that are far more different than he's ever heard them told, and the endings aren't always quite what he expects. He'll have help along the way, though, with his trusty (and lazy) magic storybook, and a mysterious girl who seems to always be one step ahead of him.

Part II: Pumpkins, Mice, and Magic Wands

In which Adrien learns about the importance of alarms, a little faith, and the magic of a good make-over.

Careening backward, Adrien could feel nothing but wind all around him. The rushing air tore through his hair and clothes and he couldn’t help but flail his arms, trying to catch at anything until the ground suddenly came rushing up at him and he landed with a quiet thump. Somehow, the crash was cushioned and he felt no pain, only lush grass underneath him and warm sunlight above.

“-power…” he finished, staring up at the suddenly open sky; all of the trees that had been surrounding him were now replaced with open air. “Huh. Hey, Plagg?”

“Yeah, kid?”

“Am I… inside the book?” he asked, trying to figure out how this all worked, even though he’d probably be better off not knowing and trying would only worry him further.

“Well, it’s kind of a pocket dimension that’s part of a web of connections to the rest of the stories. The book acts as a gateway and connects them to the source power of all of the stories, which…” Plagg trailed off, pausing for a second as he sensed, rather than saw, his chosen’s confusion. “On second thought, it’ll just give you a headache.”

“I think you’re right,” Adrien mumbled awkwardly as he started to push himself onto his feet, brushing his hands over the back of his pants and looking around. “Well, where are we supposed to go?”

Just as he asked the question, his eyes searching the horizon and the setting sun, he heard a sound from the distance behind him. Whipping around, he saw a carriage thundering down a road worn into the fields, a modest trail of deep ruts from old-fashioned wheels carved into the dirt just meters from where he stood. Only having a few moments to decide, he started to walk towards the carriage, trying to get a closer look at the riders. As he did, he was struck with an overwhelming feeling of familiarity, and as they approached he began to sense why.

The carriage held three women, with a driver sitting at the front. One of the women faced away from him, and all he could see was her hair, piled high and elaborately styled and ornamented. The two ladies sitting across from her seemed young, maybe his age if he had to take a guess. Their hair was just as carefully curled and pooled at the top of their heads, both with ridiculous feather ornaments pinned to the front. He frowned as an idea formed in his head, reaching for his storybook.

“Hey, Plagg?”

“What do you need now, kid?” the book asked, stretched out in the grass in the rays of the setting sun.

Adrien turned to him and knelt, picking the book up. “Can you show me the Cinderella pages again?” he asked, looking between the book and the carriage that was almost at his location. The pages fluttered even though the air was still and landed on the first page of Cinderella, a sound almost like a yawn escaping from between the pages.

“Beautiful of face, but vile and black of heart…” Adrien murmured to himself, looking back up at the carriage that was now passing him. Its occupants didn't even spare him a glance, though he could swear he felt sharp eyes on his back as he continued to walk along the road and headed back the way they had come from. He could make out small snippets of their conversation, superficial talk about outfits, namely whose looked better, and a quick mention of a prince. “I’d call those evil step-sisters if I’ve ever seen any, Plagg.”

The possessed book didn't really answer, only letting out a quiet noise that almost sounded like a purr.

Adrien kept his eyes on the pages as he walked next to the road, reading over the sentences that had already filled it. It seemed like whatever had happened before, the story had been left incomplete at the first night of the King’s Ball, and Cinderella was supposed to be getting her magic makeover any moment now.

He finally reached the end of the road, where it turned into a tree-lined path that was more overgrown than the road he’d walked along. Branches hung over everywhere and he found himself having to duck down quite frequently to avoid them. After just a few minutes more of walking, he found what he was looking for: an ivy-covered and poorly kept chateau that had seen better days. The yard was weed-ridden and uneven, vines of ivy climbing up everything in sight. It looked as if one person was trying to take care of it all, a small garden maintained enough that he could see trellises with flowering plants twined around them.

He carefully crept into the yard, slipping over the low stone wall and glancing around, looking for any sign of the soon-to-be princess he was supposed to be assisting. After circling the front yard and edging his way into the back, he had almost given up hope when he heard soft murmurs coming from an open window.

Peering in, he saw blonde curls spilling over the shoulders of a figure kneeling in front of the hearth. She seemed to be leaning forward and speaking to something small in front of her. He crept closer to the window, trying to get a better look at what she was talking to. As he started to get close enough, something cracked under his foot and he froze, watching the blonde inside turn around. He dropped down, trying to get out of view of the window.

“Hello?” she asked, glancing around the kitchen surrounding her. “Is someone there?”

Adrien could hear her get to her feet, moving around the table and going to the window. He crept to the side, moving around a corner and praying that he was not visible to her as she peeked out. The last thing he wanted was to be caught sneaking around her garden at sunset.

She hummed softly, seeming to have given up and going back to what she was doing. This time, he could hear faint chirps answering her murmurs, and he narrowed his eyes in confusion. It almost sounded like she was having a conversation with a bird, somehow.

Trying to put the strangeness out of his mind, he reached for Plagg, where the book was hidden against his hip and flipped to the latest pages of the story. Skimming the paragraphs, he read about how Cinderella had called birds to help her sort the lentils from the ashes of the fireplace. As he got to the last words that had appeared in the book, he noticed that what it described next hadn’t seemed to have happened yet. Left behind by her step-mother and sisters even after she’d completed their menial tasks, the book detailed how she fled to the large tree behind her home and spoke to her mother.

Just as he started to wonder if he'd gotten the right house after all, he could hear her mumbling to her bird about visiting mother’s tree. He whipped his head around and tried to spot the tree, finally letting his eyes stop on a large willow tree that overshadowed most of the yard.

Adrien hurried to the tree, not quite sure what his plan was but having the distinct feeling that he needed to reach the tree before she did. He climbed its branches nimbly and found a spot high among them that was covered by leafy foliage. Before too long he could hear a door open and shut in the distance, and he hoped he was hidden well enough in the branches of the tree.

Cinderella, or at least the girl he was assuming was her, knelt at the roots of the tree, pressing her hands into fists in her lap. At first she was silent, but the more his ears adjusted to the sounds of the wood, he could hear soft sniffles and stuttered breathing.

“Mother… I’m sorry. I know you asked me to be gracious and kind, always, but it is so hard. My step-sisters are awful, and I don’t know if I can handle any more of their taunts.” She shuddered, her arms curling tightly around her chest. Looking down at her from his perch, Adrien noticed how tattered and dirty her clothes were compared to the manicured perfection that had adorned the three ladies who had left in the carriage.

“All I wanted… all I still want is to feel different for one night. To feel human, and worthwhile, not just an outlet for their cruel words and coldness.”

Adrien flinched a little as her words resonated with him, drawing his mind back to the thought that had brought him here in the first place. Wherever here was, dream or even real magic, he had wished for an escape the same way.

He opened his book up, seeking out guidance on what he could do next. “Plagg,” he whispered, hoping the weeping girl below him wouldn’t hear. “What are we supposed to do?”

He knew from most versions of the story that some form of assistance came to the protagonist, usually in the form of magical transformation. But as far as he could tell, there was no one in sight, and it didn’t appear that help was coming to her at all. He frowned and looked around, stretching up to see through the leaves and waited anxiously for something to happen.

“You heard what the old man said,” Plagg grouched quietly, floating out of Adrien’s hands and resting midair. The book opened wide as if it was some kind of lounge chair and Adrien was struck with the distinct feeling that if the spirit within it was physical, he’d be stretched out on top of it. “You might not always be playing the support role you expect. Are you just gonna wait to see if someone saves her, or are you going to do something, kid?”

“But what am I supposed to do? I’m not a fairy godmother, and I don’t exactly have magic, now do I?” Adrien questioned, struggling to keep his voice low against the helpless frustration building in his chest.

Plagg snickered, the book snapping shut and landing back in Adrien’s open hands. “Oh please. You’re anything here, kid, as far as your mind can imagine. Did you really think you’d be closing these stories without any kind of powers?”

Adrien shook his head slightly, thinking the question through. “I mean, I guess not, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to do anything. It’s not like anyone taught me how to use these magic powers or whatever they are.”

“Well, I hope you can stop overthinking it before the story decides for itself. The ending won’t wait forever, not while you’re in the story. Time has to move forward somehow, so do something fast.”

Not sure what that meant, Adrien struggled to think of how exactly he was supposed to interfere in the progression of this story without messing it all up. His mind reeled with versions he had heard or seen before and finally the obvious solution hit him. He couldn’t wait forever to see if a fairy godmother showed up to fix everything with a magic wand, so maybe, if Plagg was telling the truth, he could just be one himself.

Closing his eyes, he focused on the weight of the book in his hand and thought about every time he’d seen magic in movies and comics. Maybe if he just pictured in his mind what he wanted, wished for it hard enough like he had when he’d been brought here…

Before he could doubt himself further, he began to form the idea in his mind, following the train of thought until he had pictured a wand, dark wood shaped carefully and practically aglow with magic power. He could feel the leather cover of the book warm in his hands, growing hotter until the heat almost burned, his hands peeling away from it and tingling with power even after they’d been separated.

He opened his eyes, thinking he’d just dropped the book down on the head of the girl he was supposed to be saving. Instead, the book hovered in the air right where it had been in his hands, and the cover parted, pages moving with invisible wind. He saw light in the cracks between them, and at first he thought the binding of the book was glowing until the pages stopped moving and he could see a picture had appeared on the pages of Cinderella’s story, a wand laid flat across the width of the page. It seemed to shimmer when the moonlight above hit it, and the shadows were so in-depth that it was like he could reach out and touch it.

Curiosity getting the better of him, he did exactly that, and felt his fingertips pass through the page and curl around the wooden wand.

“Woah,” he murmured, remarking on the odd sensation of his fingers being partially inside of the page. It almost started to get uncomfortable, and he quickly pulled back, but was surprised to feel the wand pull free with his hand.

It grew larger once pulled from the pages, expanding to fit his hand properly. It was almost 10in long, and more ornate than he had pictured it, decorated with curling silver tendrils and small green gems. He wrapped his fingers more tightly around it and gave it a tentative flick, and felt the leaves around him shudder as a harsh gust of wind passed through them. Eyes narrowing in thought, he swirled the wand in a circle over his own head and felt a warm weight settle on his shoulders. Looking down at his arms, he could see he was now covered with a green cloak and hood, and grinned.

“This is easier than I thought,” he murmured, pinching the soft fabric over his body and pulling it away from his chest to get a better look at it. He let the wand hover again over his face, a black mask appearing over it, obscuring the upper half of his face.

“Yeah, yeah, kid. Now that you’ve gotten your costume change, maybe it’s time to do what we’re here for?” Plagg said, yawning. His voice almost seemed quieter than before and Adrien wondered how exactly taking the wand from the pages had affected the spirit.

“Right, sorry,” he finally mumbled, shaking his head and resolving to ask Plagg about it later. “Let’s go be a fairy godparent, I suppose,” he added with a shrug.

With a little more magic, he conjured a holster of sorts for the storybook, with a black leather strap that he slung over his shoulder so that he could carry – and hide – the book a tad more discretely. Once Plagg was securely tucked into it with some minor complaining, Adrien began his descent.

He slipped down from the branch he was seated on, trying to make as little noise as possible as he watched below them carefully. The girl had wrapped her arms around her knees, curling up and hiding her face, which was perfect for Adrien’s intentions. He finally made it to the lowest branches without her looking up, and with almost cat-like grace, slipped down and landed on the roots of the great tree.

This finally made the girl look up and he smiled as warmly as he could when their eyes met, seeing the fear and desperation appear in her own.

“Who are you?” she asked, caution lacing her tone as she started to uncurl her limbs, struggling to stand up with the way that her legs shook under her. Still, she seemed to grit her jaw with determination and he couldn’t help but admire it.

“I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. I’m just here to help,” he explained, frowning a little as he tried to figure out what to say to explain this without making her more nervous. “What’s your name?”

She hesitated before seeming to give into her own curiosity, holding a hand out to him. “I’m Aurore,” she answered, and he grasped her hand in his own, giving it a soft shake. “You haven’t answered my question though.”

Adrien flushed a little, pulling his hand back to rub the back of his neck as he gave her an awkward smile. “Consider me a fairy godparent. I’m here to help make sure you get your wish.”

“My wish?” she questioned, her eyes narrowing again as she looked at him more carefully.

“You wanted a night of freedom, right? I want to make that happen.”

“Really?” she said, surprise flickering across her features, and he wasn’t sure if it was because he’d known her wish, or because he was offering to make it come true. “But how? I’m not exactly dressed for a ball, and I don’t even own anything that would be considered nice enough.”

He held up the wand in his hand, giving it a dramatic flourish as he bowed forward, a grin on his lips. “At your service, my lady,” he said, laying the charm onto his tone a bit overly thick for someone who was supposed to be making sure that she fell in love with the prince.

“Oh, I’m not a lady,” she murmured quietly, looking down at her messy clothing and callused hands. “I’m just a servant at this point.”

“Not tonight, you aren’t. Tonight, you’re going to be the most beautiful lady at that ball, and you’ll have the night of freedom and magic that you wished for, alright?” He grinned at her, his eyes reflecting the genuine care behind the words despite the cheeky expression.

She hesitated for a moment but finally nodded, her spine straightening as she tilted her chin up. Smiling back at him finally, she placed her hands on her hips. “Alright then, what do we need to do?” she asked, looking at the wand in his hand curiously.

At the reminder that he had to figure out how to get her dressed up and to the ball, he frowned again. “Hmm, well, let’s see if I can remember how this goes. First things first,” he said, looking around the yard until he spotted what he was looking for, in a patch of overgrown garden.

He walked over to it, picking up a large, orange pumpkin, humming to himself as he carried it back to the open part of the yard. “Transportation!” he exclaimed, giving her a conspiratorial grin and setting it down between them. “And if I give it just a little…” he murmured to himself, trailing off as he circled the pumpkin with the wand outstretched in his hand, making small circles over the orange vegetable.

Before his eyes, flecks of light fell from the tip of the wand and shimmered down to land on the rind of the pumpkin. A quiet creaking started, coming from deep inside and he took a step back, pushing Aurore back with him. The whole thing glowed with golden light for a moment and then it began to grow, first to their knees, and then hips, up and up and up until it towered over their heads. The vines attached to its stem twined and curled outward, forming wheels and ornaments as they morphed from green to gold. A delicate pattern of gold circled the pumpkin that was now a carriage, complete with a door, windows, and seats inside, as well as at the front and back for a driver and a footman.

He looked over at Aurore and grinned. “Not bad, huh? This is my first time turning any vegetables into carriages, and frankly, I think it went quite well.”

The girl didn’t really seem to know what to say at all and stood there in obviously stunned silence. “You know, for a minute there I was so sure that you were just crazy,” she remarked after a long moment.

He immediately whipped around to face her. “Well that’s just rude. Such little faith in your fairy godparent,” he murmured, clicking his tongue disapprovingly. He glanced around again, still piecing together the tasks ahead of him.

“The carriage is nice, but how is it going to move?” came a hissed whisper from his side, and he was suddenly reminded that Plagg was still there.

“What did you say?” Aurore asked, tearing her eyes away from the gleaming gold and white carriage to look at him with concern.

He coughed out a laugh and waved his hand, quickly trying to deflect away from any mention of the talking book attached to his side. Hearing a soft squeak, he noticed an upside down planter, turning it over and finding just what he’d expected: two small mice. “How do you guys feel about being horses for a night?” he said with a cheshire grin, ignoring the small squeaks of complaint as he picked the mice up in one hand.

Waving the wand over both, gold sparkles once again fell from the tip and coated the animals, and he set them down in front of the carriage. They sat still, sniffing the open air cautiously and Adrien couldn’t help but wonder what they were feeling of the transformation. Before even a few seconds had passed, they began to morph into stark white horses with twitching ears. Both animals looked around, then at each other, whinnying and shuffling their feet. He was sure the world looked a little different and more surprising from their new height.

“What am I missing?” he murmured to himself, pacing back and forth beside the carriage. Suddenly, the idea clicked in his head. “Do you have a dog? Or maybe a lizard?” he questioned, looking around.

Aurore suddenly looked nervous, as if concerned about what else he could possibly want to transfigure. “Well, we have a cat? He’s a bit old though, he mostly just sits around instead of chasing the mice.”

“That’ll work, bring him out,” Adrien said, nodding to himself as he continued to pace. He waited until she was inside, searching for the cat before talking out loud to himself. “Alright, carriage, horses, the cat will make an acceptable footman, but what else?”

He could feel that he was forgetting something, and it nagged at the back of his mind as he tried to remember all of the steps he’d seen in movies and other retellings of this story.

“Oh, a driver!” he finally said out loud. He looked around again but wasn’t exactly thrilled at the idea of leaving Aurore to be driven around by another animal turned human. He glanced down at himself instead, frowning and then shrugging.

Waving the wand once again over his own head, he felt the warm tingle of magic settle over his body and his cloak and plain clothes had been replaced with a white and gold uniform that looked reminiscent of the uniform he’d seen worn by guards in most fairy tale adaptations. Even the mask had turned white with gold accents.

“Ugh, kid, warn me next time you plan to cover me in magic dust,” he heard, remembering that Plagg was still attached. When he looked down, the book was coated in lingering gold flecks and he carefully removed the holster from himself, dusting it off and setting it on the bench of the carriage.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, his hand scratching at the back of his neck once again. “This will have to work,” he said looking down at himself once again, then turning as he heard footsteps and saw Aurore come up the stairs with an uncomfortable looking gray cat in her arms.

“This is Tom,” she said, scratching behind his ear and then holding the cat out.

Adrien smiled, reaching out to give the cat a few scratches of his own. “Well, Tom, it’s a pleasure to be working with you.”

Wasting no time, he swirled the wand in a quick circle over the cat’s head and let the gold dust shower onto the cat’s fur, then gesture to Aurore to set him down. The cat glowed brightly, shifting to stand on his back legs as he grew and grew until he was Aurore’s height, his feline face replace with human features. Where the cat had been now stood a gray haired man with a thin, whiskery mustache and white uniform that matched Adrien’s own.

“Perfect, we’re all set,” he said, pushing the former cat towards the door. “Tom, your only job is to open and close this door, and help your Lady in and out of her carriage. Got it?” he quizzed, and Tom nodded simply in response, licking the back of his hand and wiping it over his face. Adrien grimaced.

“All ready to go, Aurore?” he said, trying to ignore the footman grooming himself next to them. Aurore frowned and looked down at herself, then back at him with a raised brow. “Oh, obviously, I’m sorry.”

Adrien quickly pulled her a few steps away from the carriage, circling around her. “Well, I’m not as much of a fashion aficionado as my father, but I’ll try my best,” he said, trying to just picture the fancy dresses he’d seen in movies and fashion shows. He gave the wand a swirl over her head and a few flicks to shake some extra dust off for good measure. A soft wind swirled around them, picking up petals and leaves from the garden in its breeze as it curled around her. For a moment, she was almost completely obscured from his view by the rush of flowers, but with a bright flash of light, everything converged towards her and a beautiful ball gown began to form. Layers upon layers of glittering silver and blue fabric coated her form. The few remaining flowers and petals landed on the dress and melted into silver embroidery along the trim of the skirts and bodice.

Aurore looked down at her dress in awe, swishing the skirts around herself with a joyful laugh. “This is incredible. It’s more than I ever dreamed,” she said in an admiring sigh, smoothing her hands down over the skirts.

“One more thing,” Adrien said in a hum, touching the wand to her loose hair first, and then flicking it twice at the ground. Her hair coiled up into an intricate crown of braids complete with threads of silver twined into it and ornamented with almost lifelike looking glittering baby blue flowers. On the ground in front of her appeared a pair of delicate glass slippers that reflected every bit of starlight in the garden.

“Glass?” Aurore asked, looking cautious.

“It’s… traditional?” Adrien offered, not sure what other explanation to provide her with. “I made sure they’ll be sturdy and comfortable, please don’t worry.”

She hesitated for a moment more before slipping off her own worn flats and stepping into the glass slippers instead. She closed her eyes for a moment, wincing as if she was expecting the shoes to crumble but they held up perfectly, and the blinked in silence, taking a few steps in them. “Huh, they actually are fairly comfortable,” she said, amazement clear in her tone. You could even hear a faint clink as the heels hit the rocky ground, and she seemed to be more careful to avoid anything sharp even though Adrien seemed certain that nothing would shatter the shoes.

“Ready to go, my lady?” Adrien offered, bowing in the same way he had when he’d first introduced himself, gesturing to the carriage door that was waiting open for the cat-turned-footman standing and waiting for Aurore to take her place.

Everything was in place, and for some reason she still hesitated. “Can I… really do this?” she asked, her shoulders slumping down as she shrank into herself. “Pretend to be a real lady, in front of all of them? They’ll see right through me.”

Adrien could hear the hopelessness seeping into her voice and he immediately stepped forward to comfort her. He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and shook his head. “Not a chance. I’ll tell you a trick that I learned from… well, something I used to do. Keep your chin up, and a half smile on your face. It’s all the perception of confidence. They’ll only see whatever you project into the world. If you move with certainty and never look down, they won’t be able to see past their own motivations, I promise you.”

She nodded slowly, seeming to square her shoulders and meet his gaze finally. “What do fairy godparents do before they’re fairy godparents?” she asked, a small smile lifting the corners of her lips.

Adrien froze for a moment, looking back at her in dumb shock before laughing, linking his elbow with hers to lead her to the carriage. “Now that, sadly, is classified magical information,” he said simply, flashing her a wink as she took the footman’s hand to be lead into the carriage.

“Fine, fine, I won’t pry,” she pouted, seating herself as comfortably as she could in the carriage with the cloud of skirts surrounding her.

Adrien made sure the door was shut completely behind her, and then stepped around the front of the carriage, hopping into the driver’s seat. He knocked twice on the surface of the coach before picking up the reins and gently urging the horses forward. The former mice seemed a little over-excited to be such a size, and move so quickly, and they took over with a jolt, almost sending Adrien tumbling from his seat. Holding a little tighter to the reins once he’d gotten readjusted on the bench, he just shook his head and set off down the long road that led away from the property.

After a carriage ride that felt shorter than it was, night truly began to fall, and the carriage pulled to a stop in front of the grand front steps of the palace. He stepped down from the driver’s seat, eyeing the horses as if to silently tell them not to move a muscle. To his great relief, they stayed in place while he stepped around, where the cat-footman was already opening the door for Aurore. Adrien held his hand out to her, beating the footman to doing so and she smiled at him as she took it.

“There’s one more thing I forgot to mention,” he said as she gingerly stepped out of the carriage, leaning slightly on his arm. “The magic… as wonderful as it is, can only last so long. It will wear off at midnight, and we’ll need to be well on our way back by then, alright?”

She nodded, letting go of his hand as she moved to stand between the steps and the carriage she had just exited. “Until midnight is more than I’d ever thought I’d have. Truly, thank you,” she said with sincerity crystal clear in every word.

He nodded back and then gestured towards the steps, shaking his head. “Go on, have the night of your life, Aurore. Don’t keep the party waiting for its star,” he teased, smiling warmly at her.

She smiled back and turned, beginning the walk up the stairs. Adrien watched her the entire way until he saw the doors at the top open wide, bright light and echoes of waltzes pouring out of the opened doors. When they had safely shut behind her, he hopped back up into the seat of the carriage, leaning back in his seat comfortably to wait the night out.

Adrien had barely closed his eyes and felt like drifting off when he jumped upright with a start at the sound of a bell chiming, coming from a tower high above his head. A quick glance at the tower confirmed that it was seconds from midnight. His eyes widened and he bolted up from his seat, taking the stairs two at a time until he reached the doors and opened them for himself without bothering to wait for the guards positioned in front of them to do so.

He eyes scanned over the party, spotting a head of blonde hair dashing into the crowd from a doorway off to the side and pushing her way through the throng of people. “Hurry, Aurore,” he whispered to himself, watching as she barely made it through the dance floor before the second strike had echoed. She ascended the stairs toward him and out of the ballroom, turning back to watch a suited figure with chin-length dark hair follow behind from the doorway she’d run through. Aurore finally reached the top of the stairs, smiling brightly and flush with life from her run and from the night itself.

“I’m late, I’m sorry, I know you said we should already-”

“There’s no time.” He pushed her towards the doorway as the third chime cut them both off. “I’m going to tell you to do something, and you’re going to think it’s odd, but just trust me,” he said, letting her walk ahead of him as she left the ballroom.

He turned back once more, now identifying the figure that he’d seen following Aurore as the prince, judging by the guards that now circled around the suited figure. One in particular caught his eye, and as if feeling his gaze, they turned and met his eyes, frowning slightly. He was struck immediately by how blue those eyes were, locked onto his own, and how much life blazed within them. He stood frozen under their gaze, even when the prince and the guards started to force their own way through the crowd. It wasn’t until Aurore tugged on his arm that he shook himself out of it.

“What were you saying?” she asked, pulling him out of the doors as he followed in a stupor, still picturing bluebell eyes in his mind.

“What?” he asked, finally looking at Aurore as they descended the overly-long stair case to the sound of the fourth chime. “Oh, a shoe!” he quickly said, stopping in place and jerking Aurore back with him.

She turned back, wide eyed and her brows raised. “A shoe?”

“You have to leave one behind, on the steps,” he said quickly, pointing down at their feet and gesturing wildly. “Don’t question it, we’re not going to even make it back to your home if we don’t leave right now.”

“Alright, I’ll do it. Let’s just hurry,” she said, her eyes darting quickly back to the doorway above them. She delicately stepped out of one of the glass slippers, leaving it on the very last stair before picking the other up and holding it as they walked back to the carriage.

Barely a second had passed before noise sounded from the top of the stairs and the bell tower simultaneously. The doors burst open once more, a dozen guards piling out of them and rushing down the steps. Adrien and Aurore took one glance at each other before starting to run. They wasted no time as they reached the carriage and she threw the door open and threw herself in, jostling the whole vehicle. Shutting the door behind her, Adrien moved around to the front of the carriage, hopping up onto the bench and flicking the reins immediately. The horses pulled forward with a lurch, their slow trot becoming a rapid gallop within moments as they sped away from the steps of the palace.

Turning the corner to exit the gates while the bell was struck again, Adrien risked a glance back and saw that some of the guards had already found horses and were mounting them as quickly as they could. He spurred the horses faster as the first of the guards swung their leg into the stirrups. It was the same girl from before, her bright blue eyes digging into him as he tried to get as much ground between them as possible. Soon, they passed beyond the border of the gates and out of sight.

“Plagg,” Adrien hissed, leaning to his side to address the book still laid on the bench seat next to him. “How many chimes was that?”

“Six,” Plagg’s voice said disinterestedly, propped against the back of the bench.

Adrien groaned, shaking his head as he snapped the reins again to try anything to get the carriage to move faster. They were quite a bit away from the gates of the palace at least, but not even halfway back yet, and he didn’t know if they could cross that distance fast enough.

Seven.

The bell rang again, the sound still loud enough to reach them even as they raced away from the tower. Adrien glanced around the side of the carriage, making sure they weren’t being actively pursued yet and almost relaxed with relief when he saw no one behind them. He wasn’t sure how long the horses could keep this paces but the answer was certainly not indefinitely.

They passed over bridges and under towering trees, and every chime of the bell tower made Adrien wince.

Eight.

The carriage tore through the small town near the castle. It was blissfully empty and abandoned with everyone at the festivities.

Nine.

Adrien felt the carriage begin to shudder and he knew what was coming, taking another glance behind them to see if the palace guards were catching up yet.

Ten.

The horses in front of him sprouted round ears, their tails twisting together until it was a single pointed cord of skin instead of horse hair. The carriage shuddered even more now, and sparing a glance down at his hands, he could see the gold leather reins turning into green vine under his fingertips. He didn’t even need to look back to know that the white of the carriage was turning orange, and he could feel the bench he was sat upon shrinking.

Eleven.

“Aurore, we’re not going to make it!” he said, raising his voice over the din of clattering hooves and rattling wheels. They were at least passing out of the town now, which meant they had passed the halfway mark and would be left with grassy road through the field and forest.

Aurore leaned out of the window behind him, her brow furrowed and her knuckles white from her grip on the edge of the shrinking window. “What do we do?”

“We get ready to jump,” he said back, gritting his jaw and steering the carriage towards the edge of the road. “When the final toll sounds, jump.”

If she had complaints, he didn’t hear or see them, busying himself immediately with strapping his storybook back against his side securely and holding the wand inside of his hand. Then, it happened.

Twelve.

He threw himself off of the side of the bench, tucking into a roll as he hit the soft ground of the meadow surrounding the road. Landing on his back with a grunt, he heard a loud creak and then a crash, sitting up in time to watch the now normal sized pumpkin smash into a rock. Looking around, he spotted the cat looking around in confusion, his nose turned up and sniffing the air before running off and then Aurore not too far from his own landing spot, sprawled on her side with the slipper tucked in against her stomach. Her dramatic ball gown had turned back into the worn slip it was before he’d transformed it at the start of the night. He took a deep breath and forced himself to his feet, wincing at the slight ache from standing up.

Adrien moved to Aurore’s side as quickly as he was able, gently shaking her shoulder. “Are you alright?” he said.

She groaned but nodded slowly after a moment, rolling onto her back with a sharp inhale. “I can’t believe that just happened.”

He laughed, nodding back at her with a slight grin. “Honestly, me either,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

The sound of hoofbeats echoed from down the road before either of them could say anything more and they both whipped their gazes in that direction, seeing the group of guards from the palace finally approach. Adrien held his hand out to her and pulled her into a seated position from where she’d been laying down. He crouched down next to her, putting his finger to his lip as he looked at Aurore.

“Stay low and stay quiet,” he whispered. The grass was tall enough that he could only hope it covered them well enough for the moment, but the crushed grass from their landing would be too obvious from the road.

He led her forward in the field, trying to move quickly but carefully enough to avoid too much movement from the grass around them. A glance behind him showed Aurore following his steps as much as she could, moving on her hands and knees through the grass. They worked their way to the edge of the forest in good time, and he ducked behind a tree, watching Aurore take cover behind a bush across from him. Just as they’d both hidden themselves, the guards reached the spot where they had jumped from the crashing carriage.

He could see a few of them slow down, noticing the remnants of the pumpkin and the patches of smushed grass. The same guard from the ball knelt at the edge of the field and he could finally get a clear look at her.

Her eyes still stood out the most, startlingly bright blue under the moonlight to the point he almost thought they were glowing. Once he was able to tear his gaze away from them though, he looked at the rest of her. She was dressed in a guard’s uniform that matched the others almost exactly, but instead of the black and gold that the other guards wore, her coat was bright red with gold trim, and black pants with a gold band down the side of the leg. Her hair was plaited back away from her face in twin braids, and he could clearly see the calculating expression on her face in the bright light of the open field, her brow tensed and her eyes scanning the distance.

Her gaze swept over their location and he could feel his heart beating rapidly against his throat. The sound was loud enough in his own ears that he almost worried it would give away their hiding spot.

Aurore tensed across from him as well, and he turned his face to her, trying to reassure her. He gave her his best confident smile, trying to soften the tension in his brow and jaw for just a moment to at least give her the illusion of confidence.

She seemed to accept it for a moment before she looked back at the road and her eyes widened, flicking wildly back and forth between him and the group of guards. He looked back himself and saw the same guard slowly walking towards them and he felt the panic rise in his own chest.

Just when he thought they were going to be caught for sure, he heard a horse in the distance and the guard snapped toward the sound at the same time he did. She rushed back to her horse, swinging up into the saddle with ease.

“That way!” she called out, her voice sounding lighter than he’d thought it would.

The guards took off in the direction she pointed ahead of her, but she stalled for a moment. Her eyes ghosted over their location once more before she mouthed something silently. She frowned, slipping something he hadn’t noticed she’d even been holding back into a sleeve on her saddle. She shook her head and urged her own horse forward, finally following after the guards who were now nearing the edge of the woods.

Adrien heaved out a sigh of relief, slumping back against the tree behind him. Silently, he thanked whatever force of fate or luck had distracted the guards, knowing that without it, there was no chance they’d have stayed hidden for long. He took a moment to catch his breath before turning to Aurore.

“Ready to get home?” he said, slowly starting to stand up. He held a hand out to her to help her up.

She accepted the hand with a grateful nod. “More than ready. I think that’s enough excitement for one lifetime,” she said with a quiet laugh.

She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering slightly and he frowned, giving the wand a little flick and covering her with a dark blue cloak. She looked over at him, nearly tripping in shock as the warm fabric wrapped around her shoulders. “Thank you.”

He nodded in response, giving the wand a wave over his own head to revert the white uniform to the more relaxed outfit he’d had before, and then pulling his dark green cloak over his own shoulders.

“I hope you’re alright walking back. I don’t think transfiguring any more forest animals would be advisable for tonight,” he said, starting to walk along the edge of the treeline parallel to the road.

She shrugged, her arms swinging lightly at her sides while they walked through the woods. “Yes, it’s not a problem for me. I walk most places.”

Nodding his head at her slowly, he looked over at the glass slipper cradled in her hands. Even though he’d known from reading iterations of the story, he was still surprised to see it in her hands after they’d landed, when everything else he’d done had worn off right at the last stroke of midnight. It meant that at least something about the story was going right so far, and maybe he’d be able to end it the way it should be.

Adrien curled his hands around the storybook in them, wishing he could see for his own eyes if the story was writing itself the way it was supposed to. He knew without being told, though, that looking at the pages in front of the story’s main character would not be advisable under any circumstances. It felt like something he’d always known somehow.

After a short, silent walk, they reached the edges of the property and passed over the wall. Aurore’s step family’s carriage hadn’t pulled into the drive yet, and he could see the tension in her shoulders melt away at that fact. She turned to face him.

“Thank you for everything. This night was more than I ever imagined. The dancing, the dress, the prince…” she said, trailing off in quiet reverence.

“The prince?” he questioned, a smile on his lips as he prodded her for more details.

She blushed, her cheeks turning faintly pink as she turned to look at the willow tree in the far back of the yard. “The prince was wonderful… and kind, and gentle, and charming. Everything people described and more. We danced for what felt like hours,” she said. Even with her back partially turned to him, he could see the shy smile on her lips.

“It sounds like you really had chemistry,” Adrien said, moving to stand at her side. “Do you think anything will come of it? They seemed fairly determined to catch up with you.”

“It’s… a little unlikely.” Aurore paused, humming slightly and crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“Why? What prince would give up a chance at love?”

Aurore sighed, her hands curling around the edges of her cloak as she pulled it taut around herself. “Her name is Mireille. She’s the oldest of her siblings and fought her family and the court to be called prince instead of princess, since the throne is her birthright, not any of her brothers.”

Adrien couldn’t help but grin widely at this information, enjoying the little twists that the fairy tale continued to throw his way. “She sounds amazing, then. It sounds to me like she’s someone who would go to great lengths for the things – and people – she cares about,” he said with a pointed look.

Aurore flushed. “It’s not that simple. She’s supposed to marry someone titled to strengthen the whole kingdom.”

“Why do they have to be titled to give strength? You seem plenty strong to me,” Adrien said. He glanced at her, brows furrowed in concern even if she was faced away and couldn’t see it.

“Not that kind of strong. I can’t provide armies or money, and I’m definitely not what her parents have in mind. They want a successor, heirs. Someone with the right knowledge and skills to make the whole country better. Not a plain, country girl.”

Frowning, Adrien sighed and looked away from Aurore and out at the road they walked. “What does Mireille want?”

She shrugged quietly, not daring to voice the answer she hoped was true.

“It’s not like I’ll ever see her again, so does it really matter?”

“Don’t be so sure of that,” he said, not explaining anything beyond the simple statement.

They ended their walk in silence, each contemplating the events that lie before – and in Adrien’s case, still ahead of – them. When they reached Aurore’s home, they sequestered themselves in the ash covered kitchen that he’d first seen her in.

After settling a sack of grain against a corner, Aurore frowned at him. “Are you sure you’ll be alright hiding out in here? You don’t have to stay here for me anymore, I’m sure there’s someone else who deserves your magic,” she said quietly.

He glanced at the dark stone corner behind him and nodded resolutely. “Entirely sure, Aurore. I have a feeling that your story isn’t over. I won’t leave you before then.”

Smiling at her, he sat down on the floor of the small storage space in the kitchen, drawing his cloak around his shoulders as he leaned into the sack. Aurore sighed, and knowing she could not argue with him, drew the curtain closed in front of him. For a moment, she could have almost sworn that she heard hushed whispers coming from where Adrien was hidden by the curtain, and not just his own. She listened for a moment, but whatever she heard didn’t make itself known again, so she stepped away and moved to her own bed near the fireplace.

She had taken to sleeping down in the kitchen for warmth, and eventually gone as far to simply move her flattened cot with her. Now the kitchen simply felt safe to her, and she stared in slight awe at the glass slipper resting on her worn bed. She felt as thought every time she blinked, it would be gone when she opened her eyes, but the slipper continued to defy that reality. It glittered in the firelight, the dancing flames reflecting against her skin. Picking it up in her hands, she curled up in the thin cot and clutched it close to her chest, staring into the flames as darkness seeped into the edges of her vision and she drifted into sleep.

#miraculous ladybug #ml fanfic #lovesquare #ml fairy tale au #fantasy au #ml fic #ml au #adrien agreste #miraculous ladybug fic #miraculous ladybug au #miraculous ladybug fanfic #marimeetswriting #wishes and wands #ml big bang #ml big bang 2022 #mwg

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daniwolf9005 · 4 months

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Sorry this came so late- but Merry Christmas @part-time-pixie !! I was your secret Santa for the @mlsecretsanta 2023 event! This piece went through a lot of complications because I was so unsure about a lot of things! Let me run down the process!

I knew it had to be your AU since that’s a lot more personal and I myself am a big fan of personalized stuff! So I actually never knew anything about Winx before this so I researched- about 6 episodes for context of the fairy and specialist relations- so that’s one reason why the startup was slow but then!! I needed to figure out a setting- originally I was going with Magix City- but the color palette was more green and I wanted a more warm palette- but for the life of me I couldn’t find a place that screamed romance- eventually I gave in and just looked up “date in Winx” or something like that- and boom!! This place showed up- so heavy inspiration of the setting from this screen shot (lots of details were forgotten waaah-)

And then it was little things- from my research I realized they only transformed when battling so I needed a casual outfit (note for some reason I forgot to apply this logic to Luka’s fit I’m sorry 😭) for Adrien that wasn’t his powered up form for a casual setting- I ended up just asking- and I hope that didn’t clue you in but nonetheless I hope it was still somewhat a surprise! I’m so glad I did though because at that point I could finally finish the sketch- which was around the end of December so I was stuck on that for a while 😭

I finished the line art and coloring in a rush and man you can tell ;v; I went through a lot in coloring stage- I tried finishing this piece during a family outing and my markers (about 80+) fell out of their holders and went everywhere- also learned coloring over my white pen did not in fact keep it solid and the white began to get washed away from the marker on top, revealing the line art I messed up on beneath- one of the things that made me glad I was late is when you made this piece and I realized his gem clasp was teal- I was gonna make it yellow since that was the last red fountain specialist color not used and I assumed he’d just take it lmao! Though in short I went through all the stages of grief when doing the coloring ;v;

All to say though I hope despite all the flaws you still like it! I was really happy with this around the line art stage and even now- I’m just harsh on my own work but this is actually the biggest piece in my art book (I’ve been working on this book since Summer 2022!) so I suppose that is to say I’m glad I was able to try something new with this one!

(Also small note but I realized the quality turned out really fuzzy on here- if you want @part-time-pixie I can send a zip file to you in dms?)

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burningstarfishqueen · 1 year

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Princess Adrien x Dragon Marinette inspired by Valentine’s Day

A creak of aged hinges, and Adrien stopped struggling to keep his attention on his etiquette book. Nathalie stood tall in the doorway, blocking a small figure.

“The painter has arrived, my prince.”

“My portrait, again?” Père could at least try to vary his schedule.

The stranger darted forward, curtsying. A lamp crashed over behind her. “Eep! So sorry.” She knelt, trying to piece shattered glass fragments together in her gloved hands.

“Are you alright, Lady…”

“Clumsy, I am so clumsy. Why are castles teeny tiny?”

He wasn’t sure what she was on about, but she was the most exciting thing to happen since Kim flew out the window and smashed Chloé’s harp.

Nathalie cut in. “Don’t trouble yourself. The maids will clean it up, and you only have a few hours of light.”

Hours. Hours of light, to stand for a portrait.

The unnamed lady spun about. Was she looking for a background?

“Where do you want me?”

Intense eyes locked on him. “My cave.”

Um. “There isn’t one around here. The dungeons are similar?”

“I mean the gardens. Great for natural lighting!”

Nathalie left them outdoors by the pond, and Adrien prepared for muscle stiffness and tedium.

“The angle.” The painter chewed on her glove, scowling at him.

He shifted. “Are you gonna tell me where to stand?”

“Ahaha, you’re distracting. I mean, sit there.”

He sat on the rock she’d pointed out and tried to look regal.

“No, no, bend your knees more. And your arms, like.” Her hands twirled in incomprehensible gestures.

He tried a pose his father liked.

“Nooo.” She darted close. “Arm here.” Her fingers trailed through the air. “Tilt your head.”

He tried to follow her. She reached out, but hesitated. “Can I touch you? Gak! Not like that. I just. Fingers, arm.”

His lips quirked. “You can position me for your painting.”

Her fingers were warm on his knee, even through two layers of fabric. She leaned in, hair trailing against his face as she arranged him. Sea salt and wildflowers flooded his senses. Too soon, she was satisfied.

Her canvas was as tall as she was. He expected her to paint quietly.

“Green is pretty,” she mumbled, “So fluffy. A background of gray rock thingies. Make his legs swoopy.”

She was back in his space, dragging his heel back and turning his palm up. Her head lowered. Faces inches apart, she spun a lock of his hair about her finger.

He swallowed. “Can I know your name, at least?”

“Huh?” Her tongue flicked over her lower lip. “This is inappropriate!” She ran and hid behind the painting.

“M’lady, are you alright?”

“Stupid pretty princess hair.” She peeked out at him. “You didn’t hear that!”

“You think I’m pretty?”

He hated to let her leave when the sun set, but she could hardly paint in the dark. He bowed, and she managed to curtsy without knocking anything over.

“Maybe we’ll see each other sooner than you think, princess.”

“You do know I’m a boy?”

“Boys can be princesses, too.”

“I don’t think Père would agree.”

“Would you agree, though?” She turned and walked away, and whatever she said he knew he’d never see her again.

“At least give me your name.”

“When you’re standing in my home it’s yours!” She laughed and ran.

He chased after her, but he was alone.

—

Père was late to the evening meal. When he did show up, he scolded Adrien for his terrible posture and for not paying attention. He was sent to bed with no dinner, except he’d already eaten. Was he glad the punishment was so lame, or upset his father hadn’t even noticed his plate was empty? He groaned, rolling over in bed and staring out the window at huge, dark wings.

What? He was up in a moment, hands pressed to the sil.

The creature was long, too long to see the end of, scaled in a patchwork of reds and blacks. Leathery wings blocked out the stars. It hovered with an eerie grace.

“Adrien, jump!”

That was her voice.

His bedroom was in a turret. There was no way he was jumping. If he somehow survived the fall Père would most definitely kill him. “Where are you?”

“Right here. Trust me!”

All he could see was the dragon. But if he let this chance go, would she give him another? He was ready to risk his life.

“Catch me.” Shutting his eyes, Adrien jumped.

He didn’t fall, not even for a moment. He was caught in burning scales, flying along in the wind. Père’s castle shrunk away in the distance. The ground was so far.

“Are you there?”

“I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

He didn’t think safety went with being captured by a dragon, but apparently this was all in her plan. He’d chosen to trust her. No going back.

He tried to stay still. Few things would be worse than being dropped from this height. They soared into the clouds. Everything went white. There was something terrifying about it, and he hid his face against the dragon’s hide. It was comforting how warm and stable it was. He smelled strange flowers, fish and salt.

It would’ve been easy to doze off, but he stayed awake as they dove down. The sea salt was overpowering, and the clouds parted. A giant lake stretched out below, with rougher waves than anything he could’ve imagined. Was that the ocean?

An island jutted out of the dark waters. It was a beautiful contradiction: jagged rock walls, pale sand dunes, steep hillsides covered in foliage. The dragon landed on stone.

Coils unwound, and Adrien tumbled onto a driftwood log. His knees shook, but he got up. He’d stand proud, even weaponless on unfamiliar ground against a monster twenty times his size. He could die. He was probably going to.

The dragon arched around. She was beautiful, in a deadly way. Eerie eyes held the pink of a sea glass. She flowed with serpentine elegance, scales shifting tones and mixing colors.

She was the artist who’d painted him.

His mouth worked, but his throat couldn’t make a sound. He’d been helpless against the dragon. Knowing it was her left him lost.

“You asked where I wanted you,” she said, voice unmistakably hers, “In my cave.” She gestured with her full arm, and his eyes traced down its scales to her bare, clawed hand.

“You were the dragon.”

“I wouldn’t have told you to jump if I couldn’t catch you.”

He wanted to be angry, but how could he? His arms folded. “Did you kidnap me?”

“There’s a boat. You can take it; I won’t stop you. I’d row you to the mainland, or I could just fly you back to your castle.”

“No!” He’d shouted before he thought at all.

“I won’t take you back there.” She smiled at him, eyes soft.

He hated to ruin it. “No, I have to go back to the castle.”

She blinked. “Come sleep, first.”

Past her was a sloping cave entrance. Firelight danced on the walls. “Is that your home?”

She nodded.

It wasn’t like he could get back to the castle before they missed him, and resting sounded wonderful. His head ached. Everything was blurry around the edges, and he thought it’d be clearer in the morning. He followed her into the warmth.

She walked past the fireplace into the shadows.

“M’lady, wait!” He caught her hand in both his own. “You promised. I’m here in your home.”

She turned to him, flickering light dancing red and orange on her cheeks. “My name’s Marinette.”

—

Adrien lay still for a long time that morning. He could feel he wasn’t in his bed, but he didn’t trust things not to disappear when he opened his eyes. Baking bread slowly permeated the room, dulling the smell of fish and salt and greens.

His stomach growled. It’d be stupid to keep pretending he was asleep. He sat up, and the world lurched, shaking. He definitely wasn’t in his bed. It was lucky he had good balance, sitting there in the hammock Marinette had strung up for him. How was he supposed to get down?

In tiny increments he shifted sideways. Cloth tipped, and he spilled onto the floor. There was a little giggle from the entrance. He squeezed his eyes shut. Of course she’d seen that.

“You’re not hurt or anything,” she checked between snickers.

“Just my pride.”

“You’re worried after the first impression I made? I smashed that lamp with my tail.”

“Tail?”

In the clear daylight, all her inhumanity was on display. How had he missed her scaly skin, or the webbed edges of her ears? Flicking about her ankles was a deep red tail.

“You’re staring.” She smiled nervously with an edge of fang.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. You’re letting me stay here and I’m just freaking out all the time.”

“It’s fine, Adrien. Breakfast?”

She’d baked bread and quiche. Eating grounded him. He hadn’t had a proper meal with someone in a while, not counting painful experiences where Père ignored or scolded him the entire time. Food tasted better with Marinette.

“Walk with me?” The tension in her shoulders made him wonder if it was a request or a command.

He fell in step beside her. The sand’s texture was bizarre on his bare feet, gentle and gritty.

She nudged him. “You look kind of glum.”

“Where are we going?”

“This cove.”

Wet sand was even grittier and mushy. Was she asking him to leave by showing him a rowboat?

“You could take this boat wherever you wanted. I won’t keep you here.”

He tried to swallow and his throat closed up. “You’re sending me away. You don’t want me.”

“What? No, no, no.” She seized his wrist, dragging him up the shore. “You’re staying.”

“M’lady, I don’t understand.”

“Nooo.” She dragged her hands down her face. Straightening, she met his eyes with a scorching intensity. “That boat is for if you want to leave. I want you. If you want to be here on this island then you are staying. Understood?”

He nodded dumbly.

“Good.” She crossed her arms and scowled.

He wasn’t sure if she was mad at him or not. He did know he liked being with her better than living in his father’s castle. “I want to be here.”

Her jaw hardened. “I’ll never let anyone take you away.”

—

He rested with her in their meadow. She’d curled around him and fallen asleep, her head in a bed of sea thrift. Everything seemed so small around her. She’d made him a tent under her wing once, when it rained. Her coiled body could fill a whole room.

Sometimes he wondered if he should be afraid. Maybe sometimes he even felt that tinge of fear. He’d started to wonder if he’d ever not been scared in his life.

He threw his book down unopened. Turning to the open sea, he saw a ship. He hadn’t been with her long enough to know if that was normal. He shoved his shoulder against her to wake her.

She huffed a cute little noise, flopping over and pinning his legs.

“M’lady!” He squirmed. A sleeping dragon’s weight was far too much to shift. “Wake up!”

She snored. He stared, indignant. His full effort went into rousing her and she didn’t care in the least.

“Marinette. Wake. Up.”

Her sleepy breaths bent a lantana. He groaned and flopped back against the wildflowers.

“M’lady…” He ran a gentle hand along her fiery scales.

A muffled laugh, and she rolled over, wings pulling tight to her back. He blinked. Was she ticklish? Her breaths kept the slow, easy rhythm of a dreamless rest.

His foot tugged out from under her, and he stood. He walked out to the cliff edge, but he didn’t need to to see it.

The ship was much closer, near enough to make out the sail. It was a flag he knew. He’d seen it everyday until Marinette took him. His father’s flag.

Seeing it should’ve brought hope, comfort, or at least nostalgia. He might not want to live as Père’s heir anymore, but that didn’t mean he didn’t look back fondly on his childhood. His stomach twisted in knots and his hands curled into fists.

Père wasn’t on that ship. It was his one comfort. That was so wrong of him to think. Of course Père would go himself to rescue his own child! And if he didn’t, that just meant he was busy, dealing with things at the castle. Adrien wasn’t there to help, and if he’d mattered there’d be a difference when he left. If he mattered…

“Marinette?”

“Adrien?” Her response was immediate, her voice thick with sleep.

He didn’t know what to say.

She slithered close enough beside him he could feel her body heat. He leaned in, soft human skin against the warmth of dragon’s scales. She hugged him with her wing.

“That’s Père’s flag.”

“Do you want to talk to them?”

“It’s Père’s flag.”

“Adrien, you’re my princess. This is your island. I can sink their boat before they can land on our shores.”

He took a breath. “I don’t want anyone to die, but if they won’t leave and it’s them or you…”

“They’ll leave,” she promised, a cold glint in her eye. “Hide in the cave?”

He nodded.

She flew him to the base of the cliff. He retreated to an alcove far back where nobody would find him if they did slip past her. He hated it. Pacing restlessly, he made up his mind and marched through to the entrance.

The beach was in flames. In the midst of the burning reeds, Chloé brandished her sword at Marinette. That wasn’t good. Chloé wasn’t the best fighter, but she wouldn’t be intimidated.

Marinette flared her wings, setting the sky ablaze with fire. Adrien’s breath stuttered out, but Chloé took it as an opening. Her sword stabbed at a wing. Marinette dodged. Chloé slashed down, piercing through scales on her neck.

“No!”

Chloé startled. Their eyes met for a heartbeat, and Marinette swung her wing into Chloé’s skull. She collapsed.

Marinette ducked her head, coughing. Red dripped along her scales.

Adrien ran across the field of fallen soldiers. “M’lady, your neck-” He reached for her and she flinched away.

“Dragons bleed fire, Adrien.”

Flames licked along the wound. He wasn’t sure if it was better or worse than a human injury. Worse. Marinette hurting was always worse.

A half-submerged soldier dared raise his head.

“Kim, stay down.”

He struggled to his feet, sword in hand. “We’ve got orders to kill a dragon and bring you back, my prince. I’m not giving up that quick.”

Marinette turned to fight again.

Adrien snatched the charred sword from Chloé’s limp hand. “M’lady, you’re hurt. Let me fight for you.”

“Alright.” She slithered aside.

He stalked down the beach. “You’re going to leave these shores without me. I’m never going back. Tell Gabriel I’m not his prince anymore. I’m Marinette’s princess!”

“The king won’t care.”

That stung. It rang true, and he wished it wouldn’t hurt.

Kim took advantage of his distraction, but he only aimed to knock Adrien out. Adrien ducked. It was hard to slash at someone in a real fight. Kim attacked. Adrien blocked. He tried to retreat and stumbled. He was on the sand.

Kim slashed down. Adrien blocked two-handed, the charred sword shattering. Kim raised his sword. Adrien cast sand at his face and kicked his legs out from under him. A pommel to the back of the head and Kim was down.

Adrien ran back to Marinette. “Are you alright?”

“We did it.”

He looked around the beach. The fires had burned out before any of them could reach the grassy fields. All Gabriel’s soldiers were down to stay. “We did it.”

Her wound had scabbed over, the fire gone, so he could hug her. Wrapped in her wings, safe on their shores that they protected together, his heart soared.

#a princess and his dragon au #ml fanfic #i came up with this today #blame gooey valentine’s stuff #romance #dragons #dragon marinette #adrinette #adrienette #adrien agreste #marinette dupain-cheng #marinette dupain cheng #miraculous ladybug #fairy tale #princess adrien #gabriel agreste’s a+ parenting

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mintaka14 · 2 years

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This is the last chapter of Don’t Go Down By Carter Hall, my ML/Tam Lin Scottish ballad faery AU. For anyone avoiding such things, things get a little sexy, but in a fadeout kind of a way. Enjoy!

Don’t Go Down By Carter Hall

A Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction

By Mintaka14

Chapter Three – Among the roses red

Luka slumped a little in relief when he finally caught a flash of green, and he stepped into the gap between the buildings before the garden could change its mind. He could only hope that it was because Marinette wanted him there, and not because he’d been staring forlornly at the empty gap for so long, his mind full of Marinette’s song and the scent of roses, that the garden had given way.

Marinette watched him from the other side of the garden as he came towards her, instead of coming to greet him as she usually did.

The rose hedges seemed to crowd him as he crossed the garden, and he wondered idly if they had always been so snarled, or full of thorns. He’d already been scored across the back of his hand by a stray runner, and thorny branches caught at him as he drew closer to Marinette.

His sleeve snagged in the barbs, and there was a nasty ripping sound as he pulled it free. Luka held up his arm, eyeing the tear that now ran the length of his threadbare jumper. Bits of grey thread clung to the thorns, but the rose hedge was unscathed.

He said, “I don’t think your roses like my hoodie much.”

“I could understand why,” Marinette sniffed, and Luka let out a breath that he hadn’t realised he was holding when she spoke to him. “That garment is atrocious.”

“It’s my favourite,” he protested mildly.

Marinette sighed. “At least that’s one thing I can do to repay you.”

He raised an eyebrow, and she nodded impatiently at his hoodie.

“Oh, give it here,” she sighed, holding out a hand, until he’d stripped off his hoodie and handed it to her.

“Is this an excuse to get me out of my clothes?” he teased.

Marinette blushed as rosily as the wild flowers around her. “I’m trying to make sure that it doesn’t fall apart on you.”

He couldn’t tell where she’d drawn the sewing materials from, but she sank down and started stitching at the lapful of frayed material. Luka sat beside her and pulled out his guitar, eyeing the roses, but they didn’t seem inclined to draw his blood anymore.

“Marinette,” he said, and she looked up in surprise at the intensity in his voice. “You know I’m not here for the food, right?”

The answering smile was small, but genuine, in spite of the clouds that still lingered in her eyes. “I know.”

Luka settled down to play every song that he knew she liked best, hoping that she would hear them for the apology they were. He always spoke more eloquently with music than words.

He had no idea how long he’d been sitting there, wrapped up in music and the flash of Marinette’s silver needle, but his fingers were starting to feel a little stiff on the guitar strings when she finally shook out the hoodie and held it up to examine her progress critically. And then he got a proper look at her work, and lost his breath.

“It’ll do,” Marinette said disparagingly, rethreading her needle to stitch closed another ripped seam. “At least it won’t disintegrate now.”

“Marinette, it’s a work of art,” Luka choked.

“Any mortal seamstress could have done as much.”

He looked down at the wild roses that she’d embroidered over the invisible repairs to his hoodie, so delicate and life-like that he could almost smell them. She’d turned the grey fabric into a riotous garden, as pink and red and green as the tangled hedge around them.

“I don’t think so. This is a lot, for just a little music.”

She lifted her eyes to his. ““You really don’t know what a priceless gift your music is to me, do you?” she said a little wonderingly. “It’s worth anything I could give you.” The glance of her blue eyes from under the dark sweep of her lashes was devastating. “Except the roses, not that you want those.”

Oh, he wanted the roses alright, but they were nothing to be bartered or bought or taken.

“What gars ye pull the rose, Jennet?” Luka sang softly, and his fingers plucked out the old Scottish melody on his guitar. “What gars ye break the tree? What gars ye down by Carterhaugh without the leave of me?”

Marinette’s needle had stilled, and she was regarding him seriously.

“That’s a chancy song to sing here,” she said quietly. “Things don’t end well for mortals who sing the old songs in faery places.”

Luka smiled at that, but changed the melody nonetheless, and settled back into the grass to play her anything she asked for.

~~~~~

“You’re here again,” Luka said mildly, flicking a quick glance up at his sister, but he didn’t stop playing.

Juleka was fidgeting in the doorway, but eventually she came in. Her face was turning an interesting shade of red behind the curtain of her dark hair, and she mumbled, “I’ve got a date.”

“Rose?” he asked. The way that she ducked her head was all the answer he needed. “Do I need to give her the big brother speech? Ask her what her intentions are?”

“Don’t you dare,” Juleka growled.

He grinned, but didn’t tease her any more about it. Instead, he turned his attention back to his guitar, wandering from one idle tune into another. He found himself drifting into the chording for the old ballad that had disturbed Marinette, and after a few bars, he looked up to find Juleka still there, frowning at him.

“I haven’t heard you play Tam Lin in a while, not since we were kids. What brought that on?”

“Just… thinking.”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Juleka snorted, and frowned as something caught her eye. Her hand shot out to snag his arm, bringing the ballad to a halt in a jangle of misplayed chords.

“Hey!” he complained, but his sister was staring at the embroidered flowers winding their way around his newly repaired sleeve.

“Oh, wow, who the hell did that?”

“None of your business.” He prised her fingers off his arm, but Juleka wasn’t letting it go.

“Oh my god, it’s serious, isn’t it? She fed you, and now she’s fixed up your hoodie for you. You let her! I’ve been trying to get you to do something with that godawful thing for ages, and whoever this girl is, she’s covered it in roses, and you don’t even seem to mind.”

“I like them,” he muttered, and his sister pointed an accusing finger at him.

“And you were giving me shit. At least you’ve met Rose, and I don’t even know who this girl is. Please tell me it’s not that bitch in the drama club who’s been telling everyone that you’re desperate for her.”

Luka rolled his eyes. “Give me some credit.”

“Your mystery girl must be really something to knock you on your ass like this.”

“She’s…” Kind and creative, fascinating, complicated and sincere. Fey. The way her mind worked had him spellbound, but no words that Luka could come up with could ever do Marinette justice.

“I look into her eyes, and… I hear music,” he said helplessly.

“Jeez, you may be a genius when it comes to music, but you are not a lyricist, are you?”

Somewhere out in the hallway, Rose called Juleka’s name, and his sister’s head whipped around. An uncharacteristically beatific smile swept over her face at the sound of Rose’s voice. Luka raised an eyebrow at her reaction, and the heat crept up Juleka’s cheeks again.

She muttered, “At least I’m not going to spend the whole night alone with my guitar and a repertoire of sappy songs,” and disappeared out the door to meet Rose before Luka could respond.

She wasn’t entirely wrong, Luka reflected wryly. He went back to tinkering with the ballad, humming the melody under his breath.

Thomas the Rhymer… Tam Lin… All the old ballads he’d grown up with, especially when his Ma had been feeling homesick, were full of dire warnings about what befell mortal men who caught the eye of a faery woman, but seven years in fair elfland with Marinette didn’t sound like such a bad thing, and try as he might, he could not imagine Marinette offering him, or anyone else, up as a tithe to hell. For the sake of those blue eyes of hers, and that glorious smile, he’d be willing to risk it, if she’d have him.

He found himself singing softly about the meeting among the roses between mortal and fey, and what it had led to.

“And he laid the lady down among the roses red –“ Luka broke off, and after a moment he set aside his guitar and the song. These were not wise thoughts to be dwelling on.

In spite of his best intentions, though, he lay awake a long time that night with fantasies of roses and blue eyes teasing at him, and when he finally fell asleep, the melody followed him down into his dreams and left him wrecked by the morning.

~~~~~

Marinette was distracted, chewing on her lip. Her conversation had grown steadily more disjointed, and Luka was fairly sure that she hadn’t heard much of what he’d said.

Eventually, he glanced up at her, and said, “If you need to talk about whatever’s on your mind, I’m here. Or we don’t have to say anything, if you prefer.”

Her blue eyes met his hesitantly at that, and she drew in a slow breath, letting it out again.

Finally, she said, “What…” but the word trailed off. She tried again. “What did you mean when you said the roses were fine where they are? Why don’t you want to pick them? Don’t you find… them… desirable?”

Luka looked up from the tune he’d been playing and raised an eyebrow.

“Because you asked me not to. And I know the stories, Ma sang me those songs in my cradle. I know what picking those roses means. That’s not something I’ll take or force from you, not ever.”

Marinette’s lips parted at that, those impossibly long dark lashes of hers sweeping up with heart-stopping effect as he put aside his guitar and came to his feet. There was something like a breathless kind of hope in the endless blue of her eyes.

“And what if you have my leave to gather the roses? What if I want you to?” she asked softly.

Luka felt his breath catch in his throat at the thought, but he managed to say lightly, “Then that’s an entirely different matter.”

Marinette reached out and touched her fingertips to the back of his hand. Slowly, carefully, with her eyes on him the whole time as if she was waiting for him to pull away, she slid her fingers between his, and lifted them towards the green tangle of the hedge. He let her curl his hand around one of the roses.

Luka felt a tiny thorn bite into his palm as the stem broke.

“Oh no!” she said, her eyes widening in disingenuous dismay. “You picked a rose, and now you have to pay the forfeit.”

Luka laughed. “And what forfeit would that be?”

She bit her lip. “Your songs.”

“I can’t give you those – they’re already yours.”

She glanced down at his hand. “Your ring.”

He looked down at the cheap ring he’d picked up at the student markets one day, because he’d kind of liked it.

“No,” he said slowly, “I can’t give you that.”

“Then… yourself,” she whispered, moving closer until her breath was soft on his mouth.

“That you can have, body and soul,” he agreed, and closed the gap to finally kiss her.

The rose fell from their hands, unheeded, as her other hand caught in his hair, and everything faded away but the feel of Marinette in his arms and the taste of her kiss, sweeter than strawberries, sweeter than roses. When her hands slid down to push the old grey hoodie from his shoulders, he helped her, and the rest of their clothes were stripped away eagerly as they tumbled down into the waiting grass, among the wild red roses. The sounds she made were the sweetest music he’d ever heard.

They lay together a long time afterwards, his bare skin stained by the grass they’d crushed under them, and Marinette in his arms. He brushed back a lock of silky dark hair and pressed his lips to the top of her head.

She lifted her head to look at him, but when he leaned in to kiss her, she pulled back slightly.

“Be careful,” she teased, but there was a note of warning in her laugh. “Kiss me again, and you’re mine for seven years.”

Luka answered her by pushing himself up on one elbow to kiss her again, his fingers tangling in her dark hair.

“Marinette,” he breathed against her parted lips, “I’ve been yours from the moment I saw you. You can have a lot more than seven years from me.”

They were both dazed and rather breathless by the time they came up for air.

“You know,” Luka said speculatively, and his voice was still a little ragged. “There are a lot of roses in this garden.”

Marinette giggled softly, and propped herself up on his chest. Those devastating blue eyes of hers blinked at him.

“And what do you plan to do about that?” she challenged.

Luka reached out his free arm blindly until he felt soft petals under his fingertips, and he gently broke the stem beneath them.

“Oh no, I picked another rose. I’ll just have to pay the forfeit.”

Marinette’s giggle became a full-blown laugh.

“There are always more, you know.”

“I certainly hope so,” he said fervently.

~~~~~

Juleka looked up at the unexpected knock, and frowned at her brother leaning against the doorframe of her dorm room, his guitar slung across his back. He didn’t seem phased by her expression.

“What are you doing here?”

“Missing my baby sister,” he teased.

“Bite me.”

She saw his eyes flicker to her neck, and, before she could stop herself, she self-consciously tugged her collar up over the red mark there and waited for him to say something about bites and Rose, at which point she would have to kill him. He gave her a soft, pensive smile, which was almost more disconcerting.

“I just wanted to let you know, I may be away for a while.”

Juleka was a Couffaine, and so she eyed her brother narrowly, and simply asked, “How long is a while?”

Luka shrugged. “Don’t know yet. I just wanted to let you know I wouldn’t be around for a while. Might be a long while.”

“What have you got yourself into now, dumbass?”

“Your faith in me is touching.”

“Is it that girl?”

Instead of answering, he bent and engulfed her in a quick, warm hug. “Love you, you pain the ass. I’ll be back when I can, but don’t look for me.”

Juleka sat there, frowning at the doorway for a long moment after he’d gone, and then she swung herself to her feet just as her roommate came in.

“Was that your brother in the hall?” the girl asked. “Why didn’t you tell me he was a hottie? You have to introduce me.”

Juleka ignored the twit, and snatched up her coat, flinging it on as she strode out the door and headed for Carter Hall.

She rounded the corner just in time to see a flash of green, and her brother striding with the ease of familiarity between the narrow gap between the engineering faculty and the concert hall into a garden that she knew hadn’t been there a moment ago. She reached the gap just as he lifted a hand in greeting to someone in the garden.

The dark-haired woman who came forward to meet him in response could have been formed of the blue sky and wild roses. She moved across the grasses with a light tread and a smile that was brighter than the stars, and her eyes were all for Juleka’s brother.

“What are you doing, dumbass?” Juleka called out, and her voice sounded unexpectedly loud and sharp in the enchanted tranquillity. “Didn’t Ma teach you better than to just wander into a faery circle?”

The fey woman met her eyes across the wild span of the garden, and Juleka suddenly got what her brother had meant.

“You’re his sister,” the faery said softly, then, a little wistfully, “Are you here to claim him back?”

Luka glared at his sister. “Don’t you dare!”

“You think I want to claim you?” Juleka shot back. She met the faery’s eyes again, and shrugged. “You fed him, you’re stuck with him now.”

Luka bent to say something softly to the faery, and Juleka saw the way her blue eyes lifted to his as she reached up to touch her fingertips to his cheek. Luka’s hand came up to cover hers as he turned his head and pressed his lips to her palm.

Juleka was starting to feel uncomfortably like a voyeur, before he turned and strode back across the garden to his sister.

Yeah, he wasn’t coming back to the university again.

“Are you really going to do this?” Juleka asked when he drew close enough.

She felt her brother’s arms tighten around her, and she leaned into the hug.

“If Rose actually was a manic pixie instead of just acting like one, wouldn’t you?”

“In a heartbeat,” Juleka muttered into his shoulder, and hugged him harder for one moment before she let him go. “I guess it’s not any weirder than some of the places Ma’s been. At least you’re technically still on campus.”

Another thought occurred to her. “Can I have your dorm room?”

Luka grinned at her, and said, “You don’t want to move into Rose’s dorm? Look after yourself, monster child. And tell Ma, when she comes back from… wherever it is she went.”

“I don’t think she’s going to be that surprised,” Juleka told him, “when I tell her you finally got yourself abducted by the fair folk.”

Luka shot a look over his shoulder to where Marinette was waiting for him, and Juleka watched his grin melt into an expression of dopey besottedness.

“The fairest,” he sighed happily.

With that, Luka shouldered his guitar, reached out a hand to his faery love, and stepped out of the mortal world.

~~~~~

From time to time after that, Luka would turn up out of the blue, his guitar slung across his back and looking not a day older, except for his deep blue eyes full of laughter and secrets. There would be strange gifts for his sister and Rose and their daughters, exquisitely stitched and wonderfully embroidered, and stranger songs that pulled at the heart long after he was gone again.

And every time Juleka’s daughters begged her for their favourite bedtime story, Juleka would tell them about their dumbass Uncle Luka who stepped into a fey circle for a free meal, and followed his music and his heart into faeryland.

#lukanette #pro lukamari #ML AU #music student Luka #faery Marinette #tam lin #fairy tales #if you give a Couffaine a pastry #he's yours for life #pick the roses entirely at your own discretion #don't go down by carter hall

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survivalistghost · 11 months

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What to watch next?

kdrama edition

hey! just got done with a mainstream drama and looking for some drama with the same feels? got it!

comment the drama below if it’s not in this list

1. weightlifting fairy kim bok joo

lighthearted, funny, strong fl with simp male

watch next : strong woman do bong soon

where : bilibili.com

2. business proposal

office romance, strong second couple chemistry, savage fl and a bit airheaded ml

watch next : what’s wrong with secretary kim?, descendants of the sun, love to hate you (the misandry is a bit high for the first eps, bear with it if you can), romance is a bonus book, king the land

where : netflix, bilibili.com

3. vincenzo

ACTION!!! good looking men in suits, strong fl with senti dad arc, men with questionable morals

watch next : my name (contains triggering themes, watch at own discretion), the k2

where : netflix, bilibili

4. guardian : the lonely and great god

fantasy, meant-to-be pairings, AMAZING second lead romances

watch next : touch your heart (sort of like a grim reaper sunny au), the king - eternal monarch, tale of the nine tailed, doom at your service, my demon

where : netflix, bilibili

5. reply 1988

feel good, group of friends, slice of life, AMAZING platonic chemistry

watch next : hospital playlist

where : netflix, bilibili

6. true beauty

bromance, love triangle with happy ending

watch next : the heirs, boys over flowers (if you can handle lee min ho’s horrendous perm), f4 thailand (if youre interested in thai dramas)

where : netflix, bilibili

7. all of us are dead

zombie, romance, political/military questionable

watch next : happiness

8. crash course in romance

(requested by @starryalpacasstuff )

famous ml, headstrong and self reliant fl, both place value in their work and respect each other (at the end)

watch next : love to hate you, or if you want a mockumentary-style romance, lovestruck in the city is my go to!

9. bad and crazy

(requested by @hyeon-yi )

crackhead duo, bromance~, MENtal issues, crime crime, stabby stabby

watch next : the worst of evil, dp, the devil judge, beyond evil

10. hometown cha cha cha

feel good vibes, seaside town, sappy romance, CUTEST couple

watch next : welcome to samdalri

tell me other kdramas youve seen in the comments and ill add recommendations!

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mlbigbang · 1 year

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2022 Marichat Fic Rec List

It's the end of the year which means it's finally time for the ML Big Bang's yearly fic rec lists! We're really excited to bring you our contributors' favourite fics from this year to supply you with plenty of reading material while you're waiting for the Big Bang fics' publication in January.

Asking the important questions by @ultrakart 1,397 words, General, 1/1 chapter

After having returned home from Shanghai, Marinette and Chat Noir have some important questions for each other.

"Platonic Marichat shenanigans, resoundingly reminiscent of canon in the absolute best way."

final girl by @picayunearts 41,310 words, Teen, 10/10 chapters

Marinette has ninety-nine problems, and the superhero trio of Paris counts for a hundred. [AU where Marinette follows through on giving up her earrings after Stoneheart, but becomes the Guardian to protect her replacement.]

"This one floored me. Characterization is on point. I love the premise of Marinette giving up the miraculous and being guardian. Wonderfully executed in my opinion. And the writing. THE WRITING. :chefskiss:"

"Another amazing au. I love the take on "Marinette gives up on being Ladybug" and teh way it's written is chef's kiss."

Everything's Not Fine by @flightfoot 976 words, Teen, 1/1 chapter

"Why’s mother down here? What- what is this?” “Still committing to the bit?” Gabriel snorted. “Really now, I thought you were smarter than that. Adrien was compelled to obey the order Nathalie gave via his amok - you would not have been.” “My WHAT?!” -------------- After the events of Risk, Adrien makes his way down to his father's secret lair. Gabriel catches him. Unfortunately, he cares even less about Felix than he does about Adrien.

"An alternative follow-up to 'Strike Back' that packs twist after twist after twist into a very short space, leaving you a little breathless as you read it and sorry that it didn't happen this way in the show."

The Dating App by leadernovaandthemacabre 14,960 words, Teen, 1/1 chapter

Chat Noir and Marinette cross paths on Paris’ newest dating app and keep crossing paths until secrets slip. - [MDC]: why are you here [OfficialChatNoir]: we matched! shall we go out for sweethearts ice cream? [MDC]: i’m blocking you [OfficialChatNoir]: wait wait marinette wait *[MDC] has blocked you*

"I loved the bonding between these too and how naturally everything flowed and how open they became with each other and aaaaa"

NSFW works

Patient is the night by @mostlymoony 72,243 words, Mature, 31/31 chapters

Beware the Cat Knight, he demands a price For this fallen prince, gold shall not suffice Fear the Cat Knight, as he trades life for life Cry pretty girls, for the cat needs a wife. When Marinette's small farming town is attacked by Hawkmoth's army of night creatures, Marinette rides for the dread Butterfly Castle, seeking aid from the mysterious Black Cat Knight and his band of masked fighters. She's determined to save her town, even if that means handing herself over to a strange man with wild, green eyes and a penchant for cat-related puns. There will be smut, and this is my first time writing smut. I'm so sorry.

"Such a good gothic romance/fairy tale vibe to it and I just found the plot/progression very enjoyable. The magic and world building is unique and vague enough to make it important but not overwhelming. They also made some great artwork for it!"

Pink Really is Your Color by @inkmousey 2,811 words, Explicit, 1/1 chapter

Marinette really hates that dumb Cat. Until he's pressing her against a wall and making her forget Adrien Agreste ever existed.

"It's amazing!!! So very amazing and it has a great dynamic that's great for Marichat!"

I’d Never Forget About You by @inkmousey 3,400 words, Explicit, 1/1 chapter

Adrien thinks everyone forgot about him on his birthday, and by everyone— he means the only person who ever remembers it anyway, Marinette.

"MariBlanc is such an interesting pairing and the fic handles them so amazingly!!!"

#miraculous #miraculous ladybug #marichat #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #chat noir #ml fic recs #fic recs #ml big bang #ml big bang 2022

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rosie-b · 1 year

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My Fanfics

Listed in chronological publication order:

On Her Last Legs (Ladynoir, pre-reveal, surprise kissing)

A Shocking Turn of Events (Adrien + Gabriel, Ladrien-flavored crack and nonsense)

Darkest Before Dawn (Ladrien, pre-reveal, what-if)

A Leap of Faith and Time (Ladynoir, pre-reveal, time travel)

Growing Fangs (unfinished, future fic, future kids)

La Vie Dans les Roses (Adrienette/Adrinette, fairy tale au)

A Catching Sickness (Gabriel + Adrien, crack, identity reveal, first part of ACS series)

A Blessed Curse (Catdrien, identity reveal, lovesquare)

Stealing Freedom (Adrienette/Adrinette, identity reveal, senti-Adrien, "enemies" au-ish, Adrien never went to public school)

Shelltering Others (Nino + Adrien, eventual identity reveal)

Love, Soft as Wings (Wing AU, Ladynoir, fluff/angst, identity reveal)

Married in Black (know that she loves you back) (lovesquare, post-Elation, identity reveal)

Erinnerungn't (ladynoir, pre-reveal, post-Elation, crack)

Delicious Delirium (ladrien, sickfic, second part of ACS series)

How Marinette Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ball (marichat, fairies, soulmates, royalty au)

Familiar Faces (Sabine Cheng & Amélie Graham de Vanily)

For the Sake of a Ring (multiverse akuma, adrinette, identity reveal)

True Blue (ongoing multichapter, peacock!Marinette, enemies AU) (you can find this under my "bluewing au" tag on tumblr)

"Camembert" and Other Magic Words (soulmate AU, identity reveal)

The Mer-Human Race (mermaid au, marichat and adrinette, boat race, identity reveal)

The Overheating of Adrien's Brain (ladrien june day 3, one-sided reveal)

jealous of my friends (sometimes) (ladrien june days 5&6, pre-reveal, established relationship)

home is where the fight is (ladrien june day 7, one-sided reveal, enemies au)

Cat Island (ladrien june day 9, pre-reveal, established relationship, fluff)

Tough Luck, Tender Love (ladrien june days 17&20, identity reveal, accidental love confession)

Hide the Words I Want to Say (hanahaki, ladynoir)

Guilty by Association (adrinette, Adrien never went to public school, post-HM defeat, pre-reveal)

Smashing Pumpkins (MWG collab fic, drabbles, Halloween, identity reveal)

Fill This Empty Space (Marinette-centric, future, amnesia, introspection, angst, hopeful ending)

I Can Hear the Bells (you didn't hear the chimes) (adrinette, magic, witches, ladrien, childhood friends)

The Bedbug Problem (ladrien, shrine reveal, fluff and crack)

Centuries Overdue (love square, historical & modern au with magic, no miraculous) (the catacombs one)

Between Twilight (ladrien, aged-up, established relationship, mwg march prompts)

Follow the Red Wooly String (adrinette april, soulmates, pre-reveal, crack and fluff)

Your Lies (Tell the Truth) (adrinette april, soulmate marks, identity reveal, angst, crack + fluff)

#ml fanfic #my writing #rosie-b writing #fanfiction #miraculous ladybug #lovesquare #love square

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vynegar · 2 years

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Vyn and Fairy Tales and Stories

This is theme I’ve been noticing in Vyn’s cards and story for over a year: an emphasis on fairy tales and if, or how, Vyn views his life as a story. I was finally motivated to write this post after seeing one of the Revisiting Youth event interactions, which felt like a microcosm of what I’d been noticing and helped make things click for me – that interaction will be the introduction of the analysis. I’m finishing and posting this analysis in celebration for Vyn’s birthday.

This is 4.2k words by the way. (*facepalm*) So essay is under the cut.

( https://tot.wiki/wiki/Revisiting_Youth_Event

Task Cell Jobs > "Supernatural Laboratory" encounter with a Student Selling Novels.)

Vyn's response is remarkably different from the other MLs (can be viewed at the link above). Each of the other MLs takes the initiative to purchase the books and seems quite open to reading about the story's protagonist (whose occupation changes in each scenario to reflect the respective ML), while Vyn is disinterested and dismissive of it.

I think his behavior is also a bit more complicated than just simple disinterest; when Vyn doesn't care for something, he'll still show a willingness to try it if MC appears interested. For example, the chat bubble encounter for the divination classroom:

You: Dr. Richter, up ahead is the divination classroom. Shall we...

Vyn: If you want, we can go in and take a look.

You: I thought you wouldn't believe in this kind of thing...

Vyn: Divination is just to fool people, but I am willing to give it a try, for you.

But MC was the one who gave in to buying the student's books and was curious about them, yet Vyn was still dismissive of the matter. This is a sign that Vyn has conflicted feelings when it comes to viewing his own life in the framework of a story (and often, specifically a fairy tale). It ties into the main theme of his card for this event, Eternal Whispers, and to a pattern of this theme appearing in his cards and stories.

Vyn’s background as a noble from Svart often leads to the idea of fairy tales being evoked in his cards. However, the surface-level similarities only serve to highlight the ways that life isn’t a simple fantasy at all. Vyn’s cynicism makes him well aware of this, and he rejects fairy tales as foolish and impossible.

That cynicism, along with other character traits such as perfectionism and rationality, begin to change as Vyn’s relationship with MC deepens. This is a major theme of his romance route, and one way it is reinforced is through Vyn’s change in attitude toward viewing his life as a story. Initially, Vyn’s perspective regarding stories are above it and in control, or detached and outside the events. Slowly, he shifts toward acceptance of being the protagonist, then feeling fully immersed in and part of the story. The change in attitude reflects the ways Vyn’s relationship with MC is changing him to be someone who is more hopeful, emotional, and willing to accept uncertainty.

Comparison to the other boys

First, I want to clarify how the theme of stories and fairy tales is unique to Vyn compared to the other boys.

A major aspect of Luke is actually also seeing himself as a main character of a story, but it contrasts with Vyn in that Luke sees it as something to aspire to. He has MC play the Watson to his Sherlock; he’s MC’s loyal knight, in both dreams (Looming Nightmare, though it’s MC’s dream) and reality (how he describes himself in the engagement card); he said he “grew up dreaming of being a hero, a knight” (personal story 3-11) and that is the exact kind of character role he longed to (and finally did) play in the ancient China AU; in the amusement park card, he pretends to be the park’s mascot prince welcoming in MC as the princess, and they continue to play as prince and princess in the video game. Basically, this theme of classic stories comes up just as often, if not more often, for Luke, but Luke differs from Vyn in that he wholeheartedly welcomes being the protagonist and always has. It’s something aspirational for Luke, while Vyn sees it more as something to avoid.

Marius can be similar to Vyn in that sometimes he describes painful parts of his past with extreme calmness (amusement park card), but he can also be noticeably shaken or saddened when telling the story (In The Darkness, All Through the Night, Vibrant Graffiti). Telling his life as a story also comes up for Marius, including in ways that are quite fairy tale-like; but his are markedly more whimsical, and he also deliberately invokes the connection. The best example of this is his character intro PV, where Marius (adorably!) thinks of himself as a cat who wants to reveal his true self to MC and “seal a happily-ever-after with a kiss, like all those fairytales”. Other examples include him as a child writing a story about the “devil” in his family’s forest who turned out to be him (All Through the Night); imagining himself and MC as a snake and flower in the kidnapping card; and making up a story about two animals going on an adventure for a magic ring, then remixing the story during his proposal to make the ring the protagonist. But again, unlike Vyn, Marius deliberately imagines himself as a character and protagonist, and the overall way he imagines these stories does not undergo major change.

Artem… doesn’t have as many moments like these. Of course stories interest him; we know his love of movies and sci-fi, he could have considered studying drama (Thin Veil), and he acted in a play with MC (Two Hearts as One). However, he doesn’t go out of his way to think of himself as the protagonist of a story; when he talks about parts of his past, he’ll simply state what happened without any particular framing. A main conflict in Two Hearts as One was even that it was difficult for them to imagine themselves in the roles of the characters. I think this is another way that Artem is a straightforward person – when he is thinking about things or wants to tell someone something, he’ll do it directly, without filtering it through the lens of a story. So there’s not much comparison that needs to be made between Vyn and Artem when it comes to this particular theme.

So now if we consider the theme of stories for Vyn, we’ll see that compared to the other love interests, there is a particular emphasis on fairy tales. He is also the only one whose attitude toward stories undergoes significant change, from detached to immersed.

I’ll be focusing on instances of when Vyn considers his own life in the framework of a story and connections to fairy tales since those are the epitome of classic stories. Therefore, I won’t go into detail about every time there is a story parallel for Vyn if it doesn’t fit one of those categories (for example, The Phantom of the Opera or random local legends made up for fictional locations). Discussion on cards before Revisiting Youth are divided into the theme of fairy tales or stories; discussion about and after Revisiting Youth (i.e. how Vyn has changed) will just follow chronological card order.

The use of fairy tales to show Vyn’s cynicism

Vyn is implicitly linked to fairy tales from the beginning, as he’s the one who is closest to being a fairy tale prince. One of his first SSRs, Medieval Suspense, shows him quite at ease in an antiquated setting with nobles and castles; it signals to us that such seemingly unrealistic scenarios are actually possible in Vyn’s world. We see more hints of his aristocratic upbringing through his charming gentlemanly demeanor and refined tastes and interests, then see just how elite his social circles are as he invites MC to attend more events with him. When he finally explains his full backstory, we learn that he’s nobility in Svart and practically royalty-adjacent. However, his distaste for everything he experienced as a Svartian noble leaves him unable to see his life as a happy story.

In A Star in the Night, we get to see more of that world of Vyn’s, attending an extravagant birthday of the upper crust. It’s one of the major appearances of the fairy tale theme: the NPC couple in the story are a boy of a much lower social status and a girl whose father’s approval they want to earn, and the story of Cinderella is important to their relationship. Here we can see how Vyn’s attitude toward the fairy tale stands in stark contrast to the others’: While MC uses the Cinderella story to reaffirm her advice for the young man (go to her directly, she's waiting for her own glass slippers), Vyn uses it as a cautionary tale (the prince and Cinderella's indirectness delayed their reunion). Vyn clearly sees “Cinderella” in a more negative light and focuses on the flaws in their actions.

Yet, we also see the signs that MC will be the one to change his opinion: after the clock strikes midnight, Vyn kneels down to fix MC’s shoe, reminiscent of Cinderella, and he says, “I suddenly feel that fairy tale and ballroom fantasies are not all that unbelievable. […] Now, even I am close to believing that this is magic right out of a fairy tale.” It’s a step toward his change in attitude, but it’s still only one event compared to a deeply-rooted worldview that he has. We’ll see the next major step of progress in Endless Whispers.

Although, there is one classic story that Vyn voluntarily draws a parallel to: “The Little Match Girl”. In Between Good and Evil, he sees his (and MC’s) work as similar to lighting a match, fighting to bringing the smallest bit of comfort to people in the face of larger forces they are powerless against. The only reason Vyn can accept this kind of story is because it’s not a simple, happy fairy tale ending; it still fits in with his deeply cynical view that the world is a harsh place, and that dreams “are still only dreams in the end.”

Snowy Fairy Tales reinforces the presence of the theme with the title, and with MC and Vyn giving and reading a book of fairytales to the NPC child at the end of the card.

Fairy tales are a useful motif for Vyn because the classic fairy tale represents extreme idealism. Vyn’s life may have similarities with fairy tales when viewed from its gilded exterior, but his actual reality and personality are a complete opposite from the “happily ever after” one might expect. Fairy tales provide him a target of criticism and a contrast to his worldview.

Attitude toward stories: wary, detached, control

Medieval Suspense introduces the tension of whether to view Vyn’s life as a story when he heavily implies that he wasn’t just acting during the game. If it’s a story, however, it wouldn’t just be a simple fairy tale. He knows that love does not conquer all; he personally saw the downfall of the love-at-first-sight whirlwind romance between opposites that his parents had. As he puts it, it was “not a nice story” (Food For Thought).

So at best, he responds with deep wariness towards the possibility of fairy tales or any kind of idealistic romance for himself. When he starts to suspect that he himself has also fallen in love at first sight, he acts with caution, observing himself and MC like experimental subjects throughout the PUA case in his personal story. Even after he’s accepted that he’s in love with MC, that possible “ending” of their “story” looms over him and weighs on his mind. At the end of chapter 3 and 4 (respectively), he muses to himself “I promise that I will bring us a happy ending” and “The current story has come to an end. But the future… Still has a long way to go, right?” Both of these scenes are set in his study at the end of a story section and accompanied by a shift from MC’s second-person perspective to Vyn’s, which is a familiar setup that is closely associated with him assessing what has transpired. This contributes to the idea that Vyn is intent on being in control of the story.

In Medieval Suspense, Vyn also shows a high degree of control over the story. His actions essentially determine the possible outcomes of the game, since Vyn suggests framing the doctor to protect MC, but also deliberately shows the key clue to the truth. After the game, Vyn offers the alternative ending where Vyn’s character succeeds in framing the doctor so their characters can live out a luxurious lie, and asks if MC would have accepted such an ending. It’s both a test of MC’s morals and convictions, which shows up often in Vyn stories, and an instance of Vyn being concerned with the “ending” of a story. He explains the ending with a distinct certainty; although he and MC were both participants in the game, Vyn was somehow afforded the knowledge of how the alternative ending would have played out. The in-universe explanation could be that as the culprit, he was privy to more information at the end of the game. The effect this has on readers, though, is that Vyn appears to have more knowledge and control over the story than the other characters. He does not interact with his story as a protagonist, but more like an orchestrator.

There’s an even stronger example of this in Food For Thought. He asks, “Do you trust me then? That I will make sure our story gets the ending we desire?” Not only does he declare to MC his intent to be in control of the story’s ending, the context of the line also emphasizes how much Vyn is orchestrating things to go as he wants: he proposed an honesty game so that he and MC have an excuse to speak what’s really on their minds, he uses his tipsiness to allow himself to be more openly seductive and needy, and this is all happening on a trip that he carefully planned down to the exact timing of the plants. Like his views on grape vines, he will accept any method that brings about the ending he wants, but he still believes that meticulous control is more reliable. His philosophy is challenged by MC, but it’ll be a while before we truly see that change.

Whenever Vyn narrates part of his past, his tone is extraordinarily calm, to the point that it can feel like an outsider is telling the story instead of someone who is directly involved. In Food For Thought, “He sounded cold and indifferent when telling the story, as though he was entirely unmoved by it all, yet you feel sad for some reason.”

In Fetters of the Past, MC is even more noticeably bothered by Vyn's detachedness when speaking about his past. (Note that originally in the CN server, his birthday was before Revisiting Youth.) His emotions don’t fluctuate at all, and it’s like he’s telling someone else’s story. MC wonders why or how he’s like this; if his tone is just to reassure her, or if he really isn’t bothered by the dangers he was describing. Later, the card reiterates that his tone is light and easy, as if those memories were insignificant to him. MC, however, feels nervous because she knows the protagonist of the story is Vyn, and tells him so. The exchange intensifies the earlier idea that Vyn appears unaffected when narrating his past; it also strengthens MC’s role by detailing her reactions and having her point out that Vyn is indeed the protagonist, so she is concerned. This will help transition to Endless Whispers, when a similar situation comes up again but MC will take the initiative in helping Vyn reach some closure.

During the board game portion of the Revisiting Youth event, we have the encounter that I used to introduce the post. Vyn is noticeably dismissive of the stand-in for his own life story.

Endless Whispers as the start of his change

Every portrayal of the themes that have been mentioned above will rear its head again in Endless Whispers. As a card where Vyn is forced to confront his past, and also where Vyn and MC have been together long enough that we might start seeing some changes in Vyn’s behavior, it’s a story that is well positioned to be a turning point for Vyn’s attitude toward stories.

Both MC and Vyn try to draw on their own experiences to create a life for the protagonist, but it doesn’t go as smoothly as what’s typical for Vyn; he has little in common with her and continually emphasizes that the child is alone. When MC asks him about this, Vyn says that for people like him, finding someone who is kind and genuine to them can only exist in fairy tales. “No emotions can be read in his golden eyes” as he says this. These kinds of reactions are extremely similar to what we’ve seen from him before when he talks about his childhood, so Vyn initially has the attitude he has had before.

We can see the cracks, though – Vyn wistfully says that he “like[s] the way [MC] tell[s] stories. It is like… Like everything in the story has really happened.” Despite that, Vyn suggests ending the story there while the protagonist is still alone and unhappy at school, but MC wants to continue so she can make up for some of their regrets. Then, the two of them use both words and actions to imagine a better scenario; and even when Vyn echoes MC’s question of whether they’re “still playing the storytelling game”, even when he knows and confirms it’s a story, he still uses his honest desires to continue storytelling. He even reaches out his hand to accept the offer that the girl in the story made to the boy, but stops and almost apologizes. This seems like a subconscious reaction, like he couldn’t help but become so immersed into the protagonist’s role. As the card ends, the line between their storytelling and reality blurs further for them until it’s both a fairy tale and a confession.

We have a scenario that’s reminiscent of what happened in A Star in the Night – Vyn initially denounces the existence of fairytales, but through his interactions with MC, his faith is slightly restored. The effect is much more pronounced this time though. Some reasons are just natural with the passage of time: Vyn has had more time for his character to develop, and they are more open and direct with their emotions now that they’re officially together. But there are also specific dynamics in this card story that indicate and/or contribute to a more lasting change in Vyn. Vyn’s unfamiliarity with a typical person’s campus life leave him rather at a loss in multiple instances of the story. This isn’t just him being surprised by MC’s outstanding responses to a situation or hiding his gaps in practical knowledge, which we’ve seen before, but his blind spots are being exposed right in front of her. He recovers and adapts quickly, but he was forced into a position of vulnerability that he typically doesn’t face. This is a change from previous cards, where he knows how to solve the (other people’s) problems, how to continue the story, how to get the outcome he desires.

However, this is precisely the reason that MC has the opportunity to continue the story for Vyn. She saw all that he never had the chance to experience in his school days, then created their campus love story to try to make up for some of that. In doing this, she demonstrates to Vyn the joys of creating a story and being part of it with someone else. Just like how she continuously opens his eyes to new perspectives and experiences during their relationship, she shows him a different way to respond to the idea of stories.

Continued change in later cards

In his Snowfallen Secrets card, Vyn is once more noted to be like a “prince from a fairy tale” when holding a bow and arrow, continuing the fairy tale connection. Vyn chooses to compete in Svart’s traditional hunting festival so that he can give the prize to MC as a symbolic gift. The winners themselves are also symbolic – historically, the game obtained by the hunters helped feed Svartians through the winter, so the most talented hunter is seen as a “hero” by Svartians. Although Vyn can clearly see this as an example of transference of feelings, MC can tell that he doesn’t reject it and has clear respect and recognition for the tradition. Here Vyn takes the initiative by not just imagining himself in the role of the hero, but even competing for it. Despite this being a Svart tradition and something he dissects as a psychological phenomenon, it’s still something he has an overall positive response toward.

The year of fluffy honeymoon-period dating cards was punctuated by a few cards where Vyn’s overwhelming love for MC caused him to be quite unlike himself, but his top-up card finally portrays it as a fear – that one day he might lose control and do something terrible out of his overwhelming love for her. His anxiety over this fear was triggered by reading the autobiography of the NPC in this story, who was a rational mal that fell in love at first sight but later took his own life. When he tells MC the story, she notes that at first it seems like a "fairy tale", but in the latter half just breaks down into delusion. Like with his parents’ story, Vyn’s greatest fears are embodied in a story outcome which begins similarly to his own relationship. But instead of being detached from it or feeling that he can ensure an ideal outcome, he’s so engrossed (read: frightened) by the story that our Vyn, who famously gets up late, can’t sleep at all that night. Vyn is no longer unaffected by stories; he’s immersed in them, he can’t help but draw the parallels, and he knows it’s not something he can control.

It takes MC using her brewed tea as a metaphor to resolve his concerns by showing him that the same process or story doesn't necessarily lead to the same outcome. She also reassures him that even in the worst ending where he does something terrible, she would still be an anchor he can return to. It’s so powerful because she specifically speaks his language, the metaphor of stories (and brewed drinks, a la Food For Thought), to help reassure him. With her, he doesn’t have to be in full control of the story; they are both characters in it, and they can face whatever ending and outcome together.

Vyn's proposal is the culmination in how much he has grown and changed from his original cynical, rational, perfectionist self – and this is echoed in the theme of "stories" as well. In his engagement card, he tells his mother that he feels like he's a book being carefully read by her, page-by-page, chapter-by-chapter. The feeling of being exposed makes him nervous because he anticipates the next section they will open up together. Here, he's finally taking the initiative to describe himself and his own life as a story, and in a positive sense. Not only that, but the feeling of anticipation and excitement he describes shows that he's coming at it from the perspective of a character inside the story, not as an observer or orchestrator. Previously, when reflecting on how a situation had developed, Vyn showed a sense of satisfaction in knowing that things were going according to his plan. This time, Vyn shows uncertainty, the way a protagonist wouldn't know what is coming next in the story. Although he looks forward to the future, he doesn’t make any statements that hint towards exerting control over the future he used to.

Vyn’s third birthday card heavily invokes the fairy tale theme again with Vyn having a wicked stepmother figure who tries to “curse” him. For most of the card, MC is left to imagine what happened when Vyn was a child. When Vyn finally narrates it himself, he imbues the story with his mental state at the time, painting such a vivid picture of both the events and his inner emotions that MC feels like she was in it. This kind of description, and more importantly, the lack of description noting an unemotional or detached tone, is a change from the previous times he’s talked about his past. It’s subtle, but I think this is also a sign of Vyn becoming more immersed in his own life as a story.

Conclusion

Vyn’s cards are fascinating in just how strong the recurring themes and motifs are, and fairy tales and stories are one of the most interesting ones among them. The development of his attitude towards them line up perfectly with how his relationship with MC changes him – as his cynicism is softened, fairy tales are no longer impossible; as he accepts imperfections and uncertainty, he allows himself to become part of and immersed in the story. I hope this analysis offered a new way to think about or appreciate Vyn’s cards and personal stories. Congrats on making it to the end of this post, and happy birthday Vyn!

#tears of themis #vyn richter #tot vyn #tears of themis analysis #mo yi #here it is... the Behemoth.....

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sunfoxfic · 1 year

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WIP Ask Game

@ultrakart tagged me, and I actually have some ducks in line regarding what is and is not a WIP, so here goes

Rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have wips. (You can make your own post or reblog this one!) I have deemed that this isn’t just for writing either. Sketch titles? Comics? Dnd campaigns? If you have an unfinished project, it counts!!

One-shots:

Caranoir chatfic

Ninogami Knight/Nobility

Post-Illusion Adrinette

beauty and the beast AU

Post-Strikeback Ladrien

Lukloe Vibe

Felya QPR

Lukanette Knitting Fairy

HM's Blog

Half Sibling Couffaines

Nino does NOT think Chat Noir is a slut

Neighbors AU

Hercules AU

yet ANOTHER document of a fic that i may or may not post A/N: I haven't yet)

45 minute DJWifi Strangers to Lovers

Half Vampire Adrien Agreste

More Ladrien Royal Bodyguard AU

Fei/Alya Body Swap

we may only have tonight

Valentine's Day Drabbles

Achilles Come Down Question Mark?

Ladybug and Cat DJWifi

Kagami and Alix

DJWifi Coffeeshop AU

24 goddamn fics. Would not have guessed it was that many

Of course, now we move onto

Longfics:

Fanfic AU

Ladynoir Pirate AU

Chlogami Angel/Demon AU

Tales of Sandboy

Miraculous Ladybug SMP

Two Diaries, Two Disappearances

Custody Battle AU

ML x TGT

Hadestown AU

Which is honestly less distressing to me than the 24 one-shots even though it's logically more

Anyway. I'm not gonna tag anyone but feel free to straight up lie and say I tagged you. No "oh Sunny challenged anyone to participate so I thought I'd throw my hat in the ring," just say I tagged you directly. Who's gonna tell you you're wrong, a cop?

#ask game

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princess-of-the-corner · 1 year

Note

I think there was the ML Fairy Tale AU but that hasn't been talked about for ages

Oh yeah that was ages ago. I remember like. A handful of things from it.

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aidanchaser · 28 days

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so i know its been uhhh ages since i started boulangerella but i need yall to know i have changed the beginning of the next chapter (currently titled Resolution) three times now. I KNOW what has to happen in the chapter but i can't quite get to it.

first it was going to pick up approximately where Indignation left off

Lila’s plan at the beginning of the month had been simple: make Prince Adrien fall in love with her and prove to King Gabriel that she was capable and trustworthy enough to become queen.

then it was like nah lets just pick up where indecision left off

A knock on the dressing room door made Alya, Nino, and Marinette alike jump. No one had mentioned Ladybug nor Scarabella by name for several minutes, and Tikki and Trixx alike immediately disappeared into their bondswomen’s pockets, but the fear that they may have been overheard pierced each of them suddenly and certainly.

Now we're trying something fully different

Luka and his sister had been born with magical gifts. His mother had traded renown and romantic happiness to ensure that her children were protected in a world that was unkind to bastards. Instead of being recognized for her musical talent, her son was granted the miraculous gift of intuition. Instead of the possibility of requited love, her daughter was granted the miraculous gift of elation.

anyway writing is... a thing. that happens. and sometimes it happens very very very slowly.

#hoping to have boulangerella updated uhhhh soon y'all #maybe after i catch up on grades #personal #writing #ml #boulangerella #ml fairy tale au

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marimeetsmischief · 1 year

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Wishes & Wands (and other miraculous adventures) - Part I

The first chapter of my fic for the @mlbigbang 2022 is ready! I'm so happy to finally share this with you all <3

Read on Ao3

Part I: Wish Upon a Star

The first chapter of our tale, in which Adrien finds himself in a strange place, with a strange man and an even stranger talking book.

“I wish… I wish I could have a real adventure. Be a real hero… be anywhere but here.”

And just like that, he was.

The forest that had appeared ahead of him was unfamiliar and open. He squinted, looking up at sunlight filtering through the trees. One second he’d been standing in his room, leaning over the windowsill and looking up at a starry night sky; the next second he was on his back in something soft, his lungs filled with the cleanest air he’d ever inhaled in his life.

Glancing downward, he could see that his clothes were different too. Designer quality items had been replaced by weathered but rough fabrics in a style he could only compare to something straight out of a fantasy movie, or a medieval history book. He pressed his hands against the ground below him and, feeling soft grass and moss, used them to push himself upright.

“Where am I?” he mused out loud, for plot convenience.

“You’re in the enchanted forest of Ever After, Adrien,” an aged voice said from behind him.

He whipped his head around, nearly breaking his neck as he faced the robed man behind him.

“Enchanted forest? How-what? Who are you?” he questioned, his spine straightening as he managed to get to his feet, overcome with confusion as he looked around further. It was true that the forest did look… magical, if he were to characterize it. In fact, upon a closer look, enchanted was about the only word that seemed to suit it. There were flowers and vines twining around everything, and they glowed with light. In fact, almost everything seemed to glow, even the air itself. “I don’t understand. How did I get here?”

The old man smiled, mirth in his eyes as he started to walk down one of the paths away from Adrien. “You wished for it.”

Adrien stiffened in place. “But that was just… talking to myself. It’s not like I could actually wish myself somewhere else.”

“No, not exactly. We heard your wish and brought you here. I am Master Fu, a member of the Order of Fates. And you, Adrien, have a quest to begin. Come along.”

Scrambling over his own feet to follow him, Adrien hurriedly caught up and walked just behind the cloaked figure. “A quest? What kind of quest? Do I get a sword? But I don’t know how to use a sword. Will I have to use it?” he said, nearly tripping over his own tongue.

“All of your questions will be answered in time.”

“That’s not really an answer,” he mumbled in a half pout, folding his arms over his chest.

The old man only chuckled and continued walking forward. Soon enough they came into a clearing occupied by a large, gnarled tree aglow with orbs of light and a mossy stone dais in front of it.

“Step up to the dais to receive the Storybook of Ages,” he said quietly, standing aside and gesturing Adrien forward. “If you’re worthy, you may yet save us all.”

Frowning, Adrien nudged his own feet forward, not even remembering when he’d frozen in place. A few short steps later he was standing upon the carved stone. As his hands came to rest on the edges of the podium, he closed his eyes, waiting in fear and anticipation.

And nothing happened. In fact, he thought he looked almost idiotic, standing silently and waiting for something to happen even though no one had activated the thing he was waiting for.

“Oh, right. Thank you!” the old man mumbled awkwardly, remembering that he was supposed to be doing something instead of just standing around like a lump on a log. “It’s been so long since we summoned a hero that I’d forgotten, old friend.”

He stepped forward, knocking in a particular rhythm on the stone of the podium. As soon as he finished he stepped back and…

Nothing happened.

“Fates be damned, did I get it wrong?” he whispered to himself. If he’d have some patience, however, and give it just a moment more…

Finally, a low thump sounded deep under the podium and the air began to sing with energy, the glowing lights of the tree condensing over the top of the podium. Adrien, unsure of what was happening and startled by the noise, picked the worst possible moment to open his eyes and was blinded by a flash of light centimeters from his face.

All at once, the lights disappeared again and in their place, he could only hear the faint ruffling of pages. Opening his eyes again tentatively, he glanced down at where a large leatherbound book lay atop the stone.

“Woah,” he said softly, reaching down to pick the volume up.

“Hey, hey, watch where you’re putting your hands, kid,” yawned a voice as the book fluttered open on its own, seeming to come to life and stretch itself out.

“Oh, fates. Not him. Take him back, do you hear me?” Fu called out, quite uselessly into the open air because no one was listening to him.

“It has been a looooong time since I’ve gotten to run free,” the voice spoke, and now Adrien was sure that it was the book, as if that hadn’t already been obvious. “What’s your name, Chosen?”

“Uh… Adrien?” he answered, not sure it was best to question why exactly a book was talking to him.

“Not a bad name, kid. Where are you from?” the book asked again, pages fluttering every time it spoke somehow.

Adrien, to his credit, didn’t hesitate nearly as much upon answering this time. “Paris, France.”

“Oh, France! They’ve got good cheese there, fancy stuff. I don’t suppose you’ve got any cheese on you? Camembert maybe?”

“But you can’t eat cheese, can you? You’re a book. I don’t really see how you could eat anything.

The book seemed confused by his confusion, ruffling as it spoke again. “Of course I can have cheese, I- wait. I’m a what?”

This time, Adrien paused and seemed to consider his options, not that he had many. “You’re… a book?”

“A book. A book?” All the sudden the book floated up into the air, spinning in circles and flipping through its pages from cover to cover. “Where’s my ears? And my beautiful tail? Fu, this was not the deal, you old badger!”

Fu blanched slightly, failing at hiding his guilty and perturbed look. The situation was surely not… ideal, but there was not much about it that could be helped now. “Plagg, I would not have brought you out by choice. It seems the fates have decided that you are needed.”

The book somehow looked… irritated, if that was possible. Even without a face, the crinkle of pages and bend of the cover suggested annoyance. Adrien seemed at least less surprised than before. “Plagg? Is that your name?” he questioned, head tilting towards the weathered black volume.

“The one and only, kid. Spirit of chaos and destruction, at your service against my will,” the book drawled, every drop of enthusiasm leeched from the words.

“At my service for… what, exactly?” Adrien asked, glancing between Fu and the talking book. So far, all he knew about what lay ahead of him was that it could be considered a quest, and unfortunately his brain could conjure up a vast number of possibilities that fell under that umbrella.

“Adrien Agreste, you have been brought to Ever After for the purpose of saving all happy endings. Plagg, your Storybook Spirit, will accompany you and serve as a guide as you navigate the tales ahead of you. His energy embodies the Storybook of Ages to help you along your quest. In the pages, you will find many tales, some familiar and some very much not so, and you must guide them all to their proper endings, whatever they are meant to be.”

Pausing to take it all in, Adrien stared silently at Fu, the gears of his mind visibly turning behind his eyes until the quiet became unbearably awkward.

Fu sighed slightly, frowning upwards at the sky. “Adrien, I know it sounds like a monumental task-”

“So what’s first?” Adrien cut in abruptly, as if his mind had just finished parsing through the information.

Stammering to a stop, Fu managed to quell his shock and stumble into an answer. “That choice is mostly yours, but I did have two pieces of advice for you, and a warning that I hope you will heed. I can tell the temptation to rush headfirst into this is great, but you must exercise caution and restraint.”

“What do you mean?”

It was something in his eyes that made Adrien listen. The concerned tilt of his brows, the way his pupils darted from side to side, looking for interlopers to the conversation.

“The stories may not end the way you think or remember. You must be ready to bring them to whatever ending the Storybook presents you with, or Ever After as we know it may fall apart. Listen to its pages.”

“I understand. How will I know what to do, to guide the stories to the right endings?” Adrien asked, uncertainty lacing his voice.

Humming quietly, Fu stroked his chin in consideration. “Follow your heart and I have the feeling that it will lead you best.”

Nodding, Adrien could only look over at his Storybook, still floating above the dais. “But which story do I start with?” he murmured to himself, gingerly plucking the book from the air, hoping not to annoy the spirit possessing it again.

“Well, kid, don’t you have a favorite fairy tale?” the spirit asked, his pages ruffling back and forth slowly.

“I’ve read plenty; I just don’t know if any of them are my favorite. I guess I just like anything that ended happily. I’ve always wanted to find my own true love.”

“Oh great, you’re that kind of sap,” Plagg grouched.

Adrien frowned, the insult obvious in the book’s words. “What’s wrong with wanting a true love?”

Plag huffed, pages fluttering as if real air had been released. “Nothing, nothing, kid. Let me just take a guess here though. Sleeping Beauty?” he questioned, flipping to a page labeled Little Brier-Rose.

“That one is a little questionable, isn’t it? I mean, the princess is asleep for most of it. And isn’t there a dragon? I don’t think I’m ready for that.”

“So picky. Snow White then? Oh, or maybe the Glass Coffin. Haven’t had anyone try that one in ages. Maybe even Allerleirauh, if you’re interested in sticking out, though that one is… odd.” Plagg rambled, flipping through pages faster than Adrien could read them. Suddenly, his eyes caught on one story in particular, the cursive C standing out before it flickered away in the rush of pages.

“Wait, that one, Plagg. That’s it. Cinderella,” he said with surety in his voice finally. “It’s simple, no magical evil to fight, just… a bad parent.”

“Hmm… that could work,” Plagg hummed, flipping back to the appropriate page. “And it looks like someone’s already started it for us and never finished. Probably got bored, ha.”

And so, filled with overconfidence and self-assuredness, Adrien and Plagg chose their first story. Though unfortunately for them, nothing about it was simple as it appeared.

“Adrien,” Fu interjected, interrupting with more obvious foreshadowing. “You may not always find yourself playing the role you expect in these stories. They have a way of tricking Heroes. Above all else, never reveal to anyone your true, full name. There is power in possessing it.”

As he spoke, the wind in the forest picked up, and Adrien could feel himself drawn to the pages before him. Despite the gale around them, the paper was stone still, and it was almost as if the illustration under its title shimmered with movement.

“Time to go, kid. Hope you’re ready!”

“Wait, Master Fu, what did you mean by-”

Before Adrien could even start his next word, the ever-impatient Plagg had rushed forward to meet his grasp, and suddenly the pages under his fingers were not paper at all, but open air, and all at once he was free-falling through it.

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fantastic-nonsense · 2 years

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Eastern Sun for the WIP ask game? I love retold fairytales and identity reveals, so I’m very intrigued

I do as well; I'm a sucker for a good fairy tale retelling, and if there's ever a media premise that's well set-up for retelling a wide variety of tales, it's Miraculous Ladybug. Eastern Sky is my Marichat "East of the Sun and West of the Moon AU" that I keep adding bits and pieces onto as the years go by. It's currently somewhere around 7k with a long bullet point outline of where I want to take it and what points I want to adapt.

Three facts about this fic before moving on:

East of the Sun and West of the Moon is my favorite fairy tale (fun fact: I specifically constructed my undergrad thesis in a way that would allow me to talk about it) for a lot of reasons, one of which is how much the element of choice is emphasized (which I've talked about before here). While most Beauty and the Beast tales are tales of choice and female growth/agency, East highlights it explicitly and repeatedly. I see the same themes of choice, agency, and fate in ML with Marinette and Adrien, which is why I wanted to tell their story using East.

Adrien is a giant black panther in this AU. Chloe is the arranged marriage he's trying to escape by courting Marinette under the guise of a panther for a year. Originally, Gabriel was set up to be the Troll Stepmother equivalent, but now I kinda think it would be fun if it was Nathalie instead. Either way, that's the dynamic happening on that side of the drama.

I actually came up with this fic idea before the show ever premiered. There was a 'Countdown to ML' oneshot challenge going around the fandom and one of the prompts was "fairy tale." I did the basic story treatment before realizing that to write this fic the way I wanted to, it was going to be novella length and at least ten chapters. Then the show came out, and I kept thinking of three thousand different things I wanted to put in. So I largely set it aside, because I was a very very busy college student who didn't have much time to write for fun.

Also I especially love how the bear repeatedly asks the girl if she's afraid and she replies that she's not, so I incorporated that into my fic as a recurring motif. So as a treat, here's a very short excerpt of one of those conversations:

“Are you afraid?” He asked her, his green eyes solidly staring through her soul. He searched her frame for any reservation, for any hint of discomfort or fear.

She was not.

She smiled gently and laughed. “I am not afraid. Not of you,” she said.

It is enough for now.

I love every piece of the concept and what I want to do with it; I just stopped watching ML after Season 2 and so don't quite feel comfortable finishing it until I've rewatched at least those two seasons.

Ask me about one of my WIPs!

#my writing #miraculous ladybug #ask meme #asks #ladynoir #marichat #otp: failed spiderman kisses #queue

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mintaka14 · 2 years

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Welcome to my ML faery AU fic. It’s short on Miraculous powers, but long on Scottish balladry.

Don’t Go Down By Carter Hall

A Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction

By Mintaka14

Chapter One – O, I forbid you, maidens a’

The campus was full of odd corners and random commemorative gardens. Every time another wing got added, or another hall got built in some wealthy donor’s name, the scraps left over formed into odd little spaces where couples went to be alone, if they knew where to find them, or students went to study in peace. There were places where pale sunshine lit up the motes of dust that drifted in oddly silent pockets between the concrete walls. There were patches of grass and curious sculptures, and places that hid wild banks of flowers.

Luka was currently a little more concerned with the soft growl of his stomach than he was with the strange geography of the university. Breakfast had been the last scant few mouthfuls of cereal straight out of the packet, because he was pretty sure that the milk shouldn’t have been that colour, and he’d spent most of that month’s food budget on a new guitar amp. There had been a half a protein bar that someone had shared with him somewhere between composition class and musicology, but that had been a while ago now. Which was probably why he found himself following, without conscious thought, the delectable smell that wafted past.

It drew him down the path and around a turn, tucked between the corner of the engineering faculty and the high, blank wall of Carter Hall, the university’s concert building. Luka hitched his guitar case higher on his shoulder, holding it closer so that it didn’t bump against the walls as he stepped between them.

The narrow gap suddenly opened out into a garden that he was certain he’d never seen before, in all his three years as a music student at the university, and he thought he’d known every inch of the concert hall and the grounds around it. The garden was full of soft chatter and softer laughter, and oh, the smell of actual food!

Tables of twisted wood that looked almost as if they had grown out of the wildflower grass stood under the gently swaying branches of blossoming white and pink, but Luka was more interested in the platters and bowls and chargers that covered them, overflowing with pastries and ripe fruit and delicate little cakes and tarts of every kind.

His feet were moving towards the tables of their own volition.

Judging by the fluttering rainbow of gowns and fanciful robes around him, Luka guessed that there was some sort of performance going on. Perhaps one of the theatre clubs was putting on A Midsummer Night’s Dream again. The faces around him were painted with an outlandish artistry that would have left his sister green with envy, and their hair was woven with gems and flowers and feathers until they looked more like strange creatures than anything human. Gowns and robes shimmered with gold and silver in the sunlight, and he was impressed by the collection of costume jewellery that glittered in ropes and bands on every neck and hand like a dragon’s hoard.

Luka, with his scruffy blue-dyed hair and tattoos, and an old grey hoodie that had seen better days, was decidely out of place among them, but no one moved to stop him as he wandered into the garden. A few gave him enigmatic smiles. A few glances landed on the guitar slung across his back.

If Luka hadn’t been so distracted by the rumbling of his stomach, it might have occurred to him that the late summer tangle of wild roses blooming alongside sweeping boughs of cherry blossom and early spring snowdrops was unusual, to say the least. As it was, the heady perfume of the flowers was overwhelmed by the even more enticing smell of sugar and spices and rich butter.

He reached for a tart heaped with strawberries and dripping with a mouthwatering glaze, and no one stopped him as he bit into it. His mouth was meltingly full of the most delicate pastry he’d ever eaten when he turned to find himself facing the most celestially blue eyes he’d ever seen.

He knew most of the students in the music and performance faculties and clubs, at least by sight, and he had never met this girl before. She could have been just another student, until he looked into her eyes, and fell into the blue as bright as the morning sky and endless as forever.

The poets would have wept over this girl. And Luka…

… Luka heard music.

Even in the middle of the bright crowd in the garden, this girl was something else. Gossamer skirts drifted around her like mist, so daintily embellished that Luka couldn’t tell if the blossoms that seemed to be caught up in her skirts were embroidered or if they’d fallen from the cherry tree above them. Strands of gems glittered like stars in the blue-black waves of her hair, but she outshone them all.

And all of this was the least of what Luka saw when he met her eyes. He had never been much impressed by the conventionally attractive. He’d been surrounded by larger than life personalities all his life. Something real, something true, sang to him.

What he heard in her was a world of song.

Luka didn’t even realise that he still had a mouthful of pastry until he accidentally inhaled a crumb and started coughing. Before her face could do more than cloud with concern, Luka recovered.

She pressed fingertips to her mouth, smothering a giggle, as he swallowed quickly.

“I gather you were hungry,” she said, a laugh still hovering at the corners of her beautiful mouth.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said a little thickly, and swallowed again. He gave her a smile in return for hers. “A starving student never walks past food, and this is phenomenally good.”

“You’re welcome to eat as much as you like, although there’s no such thing as a free meal.” There was a flicker of blue as she glanced up at him. “Luka Couffaine.”

Luka’s eyebrows rose at that. “You know my name.”

“I’ve heard you play such beautiful music, practically on my doorstep,” she told him. “Of course I learned your name.”

“You have the advantage of me,” he pointed out, and that mischievous smile of hers grew brighter, but she didn’t say anything. “What do I owe you for your hospitality? Am I bound to you forever if I eat another strawberry tart?” he joked.

“You’ll be alright with the tarts,” she teased back, and glanced away at the banks of wild roses. When she turned back, the grave look in her eyes sat oddly with her tone. “The roses are another matter. As long as you don’t pick the roses, you’ll be fine.”

Oh, I forbid you, maidens a’ that wear gold in your hair, a memory sang slyly, to come or gae by Carterhaugh… The old Scottish ballad his Ma used to sing to him rose to his tongue. Why had he thought of Tam Lin now?

“What price do you ask for the pastries?” he asked, and those blue eyes lifted to meet his again. Her gaze slid to the guitar slung across his back.

“Would you play me a song?”

Luka laughed at that, already sliding his guitar from his shoulder. All he ever needed in exchange for a chance to play was an audience.

“If you ask it, a thousand songs.”

Other members of the colourful, fluttering crowd drifted closer as he lowered himself to the grass and settled his guitar in his arms. The girl sank down in a cloud of gossamer skirts to listen with flattering interest as he began to play.

When Luka glanced up from his guitar, he found figures clustered around him, listening with rapt attention. His focus, though, was entirely on the girl’s bright blue eyes, and when he sang about wild roses that grew in the garden and bloomed in her cheeks, he was only singing for her.

Colour rose in her face in response, but when the song came to an end, she reminded him with soft caution, “I wasn’t joking about the roses in this garden. They come with a high price.”

Don’t come or gae by Carterhaugh, something whispered in response at the back of his mind. Luka bowed his head over his guitar in acknowledgement of the odd warning, and let his finger drift into a different tune.

Luka had a reputation as an easygoing guy, and the kind of serious talent that everyone knew about and gravitated to whenever he played. He had a smile and friendly word for everyone, but it would have surprised a lot of people to know just how few people he considered true friends.

The problem was, he’d always been perceptive, and experience had taught him to trust his instincts about people, so as easygoing and tolerant as he was, he was too aware of the insincerity around him to let many people get close. His instincts were whispering to him about this girl, and it spilled into his guitar.

He’d been playing since he was old enough to hold an instrument, and he’d been surrounded by music long before that. Music was the language that spoke to him, and music was how he translated the way he observed the world and the people around him.

And now he let his guitar speak of what he heard in the girl watching him, enchantment and a strange sense of mystery, but deeper than that there was a sweetness and humour, and a sincerity that pulled at him. He was frustratingly aware of a whole glorious symphony in her eyes, if he only had the wit and skill to play it as it should be played.

She was a song he wanted to hear more of.

Luka’s hands finally stilled on the strings, and the last notes faded into the air. For a long moment, she remained there, her hands pressed over her heart, then she let out a soft gasp and blinked as if she was waking up from a spell.

“Oh, that was beautiful,” she breathed. “Where have I heard that before?”

He said apologetically, “It’s nothing more than a faint echo of the music I hear in you.”

“That was what you heard… from me?” she asked incredulously, and Luka couldn’t help smiling. “But, it was beautiful,” her words were a soft, wondering exhalation.

“So are you,” he said simply, and her eyes went wide. Once again, Luka found himself falling into the dizzying blue, before she looked around wildly at the tables full of food.

“It’s not enough,” she muttered. “Not enough, not enough –“

Luka touched a hand to her arm, and she spun back to stare up at him with wide eyes.

“You can’t just play like that, and then say things like that, and I don’t –“ she broke off, wringing her hands. “I owe you so much more than a few pastries for that,” she said in distress.

“I don’t know, have you tasted those tarts?” he laughed, his smile softening as her expression changed, and she turned a dry look on him. At least she wasn’t panicking any longer. “I was happy to play for you.”

“I owe you so much for your music today,” she insisted. “What would you ask of me in return?”

“Are you sure those strawberry tarts aren’t enough to cover it?”

She gave a shake of her head, and a tiny smile at that.

“I still don’t know your name,” he said, and her smile faded.

“Is that what you would ask for? It might be a dangerous thing to know, Luka Couffaine.”

“Couffaines aren’t exactly known for our caution, but I won’t ask it if you don’t want to give it.” He grinned at her. “Maybe I should just call you Melody. You sound like music to me.”

Her gorgeous eyes lit up like stars, bright above the hand that hid her smile. “Flatterer.”

“I speak nothing but the truth,” he responded, and reluctantly turned towards the way out of the garden. He’d already stayed longer than he’d intended, and there was a musicology paper he needed to write that afternoon.

“Luka!” He turned with alacrity at the sound of his name. “You can call me… Marinette.”

He pressed a hand to his heart in response, and couldn’t have helped the grin that broke over him if he’d tried. Dazed and smitten, and followed by Marinette’s sweet smile, he stumbled out of the garden.

His head full of her, it took him a while to realise that there was something strange about the quality of light.

He could have sworn that he’d only been in the garden for an hour at most, and the sun had been at its height, but already the sky over the university was thickening with twilight shadows. Lampposts were flickering to life across the campus, and when he glanced behind him he couldn’t see any sign of Marinette or the garden. There was only the narrow, dark concrete and brick cleft between the engineering buildings and the back of Carter Hall.

“Huh,” Luka said thoughtfully. “That’s interesting.”

~~~~~

Luka pushed open the door of his tiny dorm room, and stopped.

His sister looked up from where she was sitting on the floor, and she’d taken over the cramped space, scattering books and study notes all over his bed. He picked his way carefully through the minefield of empty coffee mugs and packets of snacks strewn around her. Thoughts of the strange garden and Marinette were briefly put aside.

“Is everything okay?” he asked in concern. He eyed her surreptitiously, but there didn’t seem to be any of the usual ravages that went along with a bad day. It didn’t look like he was going to need to break into the emergency chocolate stash.

Juleka’s laptop rested open on her black lace skirts, and she had her booted ankles crossed casually in front of her. She flipped back her long, purple-streaked hair to roll her eyes at him.

“Hello to you, too.”

“Is Ma okay?” he persisted.

“How should I know? Last I heard, she was camped out on Orkney, driving the locals crazy, but she might have moved on to Oslo by now. I think that’s where she was planning on going next.”

He slumped a little in relief.

“Not that I’m not happy to see you, Jules,” he sighed, sliding his guitar off his shoulder, “but what are you doing here? You’ve got a perfectly good dorm of your own, you know, and I’d really like to be able to use my bed right now.”

“My room mate keeps bringing guys back to our room, my final history paper’s due in two days, and you have this room all to yourself. It’s about the only quiet place left on campus. You’re hardly ever here… where were you, anyway, dumbass? You weren’t answering your phone, and I had to get someone to let me in.”

A quick glance at his mobile showed a string of texts and messages from Juleka. There was obviously no mobile coverage in that strange garden.

“I was down by Carter Hall,” he said.

There must have been something in his voice, because Juleka levelled a suspicious look at him.

“All afternoon? I thought your rehearsal finished hours ago.”

He and Juleka hadn’t grown up with a mother like Anarka Couffaine without dealing with their share of chaotic and eccentric, but even Jules might baulk at his growing suspicion that he’d spent the afternoon playing troubadour in a faery circle.

Instead of answering, he settled his guitar in its stand and asked, “Who let you in?”

“The RA a few doors down had a key,” Juleka said, dropping her gaze to focus on her laptop again. “The manic pixie girl. She let me in when I told her I was your sister.”

There was something a little too casual in her tone that caught Luka’s attention, and he eyed his sister thoughtfully.

“You mean Rose?”

He couldn’t make out what she mumbled at her laptop, but the red flush that crept up her face until it engulfed the tips of her ears spoke loud and clear. Apparently, he wasn’t the only Couffaine who had had an interesting time of it.

#lukanette #pro lukamari #ML AU #starving music student Luka #faery Marinette #fairy tales #tam lin #if you give a Couffaine a pastry #he's yours for life #music #roses #don't pick the roses

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