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Marinette is an exile. Well, Marinette Dupain-Cheng wasn’t the one exiled, but her parents were, so she was born an exile. She suspects that if she were to enter the kingdom, it would be fine, but she doesn’t legally exist, so even if she wanted to, she couldn’t.
But she doesn’t mind. The forest is far from lonely, after all.
She’s grown up with the fae. They all treat her as one of their own because they were rejected from humanity too.
She can’t become like them, but she has her own magic. There are all sorts of magic, and they all have different sorts of limits.
But then Rose stumbles back into their camp. She’s usually walking through the woods, foraging for resources in her own magical projects.
The prince has found their woods.
“I’ll talk to him first,” she says, after Rose and Luka talk and Luka tells them all.“I’m human, he’s more likely to trust another human than one of the fae.”
“What if he thinks you’re an illusion?” Alya asks. Considering her magical specialty is, in fact, illusions…
“He can verify that I’m not,” Marinette answers. “I’ll be okay, and I’ll return shortly. Where’d he show up?”
“Thirty paces west,” Rose answers. “That’s where I found him.”
Marinette closes her eyes, and nods. She has to look at the sky to know where west is — she doesn’t have the same internal sense of direction as the fae — but she does find it, and walks thirty paces that way.
And sure enough someone — presumably the prince — is there, lying prone on the ground probably in order to not crush his backpack. He seems to either be asleep or unconscious — she hopes it’s the former, so that he will easily awaken.
She rolls him over, and a cat spills out of his backpack.
“O...kay?”
“He’s not going to awaken for a while, child,” the cat says to her.
“I…see. Where did he find you?”
Talking animals aren’t exactly foreign to her, but they’re not exactly familiar either.
“Familiar spell,” the cat answers, licking its paw, and Marinette sighs. Of course he’s a sorcerer.
Probably specializes in life magic, then.
But weren’t her parents exiled because the king disapproved of magic? (Disapproves?) The memories of them are foggy. Everything she knows about magic she learned from the fae — her friends.
“I’ll get you both somewhere safe, then.” She gently lifts him into the most efficient way of carrying him. “Follow me.”
The cat hisses. “Are you taking us to the fae, girl?”
“They are my family,” she responds, “and I will not tolerate your slander against them.”
And she knows that the cat is caught between wanting his Bonded to be safe and a hatred of the fae that Marinette frankly believes is unfounded.
“Fine.”
And so they walk back to Marinette’s home — their commune.
Marinette sets the runaway prince down gently onto a bed.
“Is he injured?” Rose asks, with a gasp as she sees that he is not awake.
“He’s a life-specialist with a familiar. He’ll be fine,” Marinette answers. “And he’ll heal faster for it.”
Marinette’s specialty is not life. It is…well, she does not know the specific words, but she is more well-attuned to objects. Non-living things.
They all nod.
“We need to get another bed made up,” Luka says. “To accommodate all of us.”
“We…have a free one.” Juleka flushes. “Rose and I have been in the same bed for a long time.”
Luka smiles. “Well, that problem is solved.”
(It makes a lot of sense, really.)
Marinette is there when Adrien wakes up.
“Am…am I out?”
The cat had been laying on top of Adrien, but when Adrien sat up, he must have jostled it.
“You are,” the cat responds, licking Adrien’s cheek, and Marinette feels strangely awkward.
“This isn’t your father’s prison,” she says. “This is a commune.”
“A…commune?” He says the word as though it’s foreign to him, and it probably is.
“Ah, a place that we all live in together. My family and I live here,” Marinette explains. “You’ll be safe here. I’m an exile because my parents were, and I’d probably be exiled now for being myself if my parents hadn’t been.”
“What’s your name?”
“A dangerous question,” she responds with a wry smile. “But…call me Marinette.”
“Marinette. I’m sure you already know who I am.” He laughs, but it seems to be at his own expense. “Everyone does.”
She lets out a little hum. “A lot of people. But I don’t think people outside your kingdom and the immediate outskirts would.”
“It’s not…it’s not my kingdom anymore,” Adrien says. “Wow. That was weird to say.”
“I assume you awoke your magic, and then you were chased off for it.”
He nods, shoulders slumped more than she’d expect someone raised as royalty to hunch. “I…I didn’t mean to disappoint.”
“You’re not a disappointment to me. In fact, I think you’re brave for trying it, even when you knew it was forbidden.”
Adrien smiles. “Thanks. Who else is here?”
“Well, there’s Luka and Juleka, they’re brother and sister. Then there’s Juleka’s girlfriend Rose. Then there’s Alya, my best friend, and occasionally her boyfriend Nino comes to visit but Nino’s more of a wanderer so he doesn’t stop by often.” And she keeps describing all the parts of her little family, and remembers why she loves them with every word.
She hopes that Adrien will, too.
Adrien recovers well over the next few days. She gets to know the cat while Adrien sleeps — his name is Plagg, and he lived in an alley before the summoning drew him in with the smell of cheese.
“I thought cats couldn’t do anything related to milk,” Marinette points out.
If cats could shrug, Plagg would be doing it.
“I don’t know. I’ve always been fond of cheese. It is what it is. I love seeing the looks on merchants’ faces when they realise they’ve been outsmarted by a cat.”
They both laugh at that or at least as close as Plagg’s vocal chords can get to laughing.
“I don’t know why I disliked you,” they both say in unison, and then look at each other with surprise.
“Friends?” Marinette offers, willing to let Plagg climb into her arms.
“Sure.” Plagg makes the jump into her arms and lets Marinette hold and pet him for a bit.
It’s nice.
Adrien recovers well. He talks to some of the others, and Plagg is constantly on guard, but eventually everyone relaxes.
Adrien’s part of the family now, and Marinette is happy for him.
(Even if some distinctly non-familial feelings are being felt inside of her. That doesn’t matter. It’d be unhealthy anyways, because she’s the only other human out here, and it feels like some kind of ridiculous isolation.)
“Plagg,” she asks one night, while Adrien is asleep (he falls asleep so easily, how does he do it?) and they are stargazing outside, “is it okay to love him?”
“Oh. No. I am not doing this, pigtails,” he says, but she knows he’s fond of her and is perfectly willing to exploit that. “Nope. Anything but that.”
Well. Okay. Guess she’ll just have to talk to someone else.
“Luka,” she says, “is it okay if I were to…”
“You’re in love with Adrien, aren’t you.” Luka sighs, and it sounds vaguely wistful — almost as though he wanted her instead.
“I feel weird about it. Because we’re the only two humans here, and he wasn’t very well socialized before, and I don’t want to box him into anything—”
“Marinette. Breathe with me.” She matches breathing with him, and eventually relaxes. “Adrien’s interacting with all of us. There’s nothing…there’s nothing wrong with loving him. You’re both around the same age, and he’s not isolated like he was before. There are plenty of other people, and no one is stopping him from leaving if he wants to. He’s not trapped, and he isn’t beholden to you.”
It’s…exactly what she needs to hear. Bless Luka and his gift for knowing.
“Thank you,” she answers.
She knows what she needs to do.
It’s a lot easier than she initially thought.
Really, it’s almost natural to slip into a relationship, almost as though it wasn’t happening at all. But she knows (or at least hopes) that it is.
As it turns out, when Marinette asks Adrien if she can kiss him, he responds with a simple yes.
Happily ever after isn’t a guarantee, but they’re happy for now and the foreseeable future.