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The day always brought along a whirlwind of feelings. What this meant for her, she did not know, nor cared. She was tired. All she wanted was a rest. But she could not, for it would limit her usefulness. She wanted to be a help, not a burden.
Her condition only made her dead weight. Nathalie could only stay in the bed for most days. The coughing made it hard for her to breathe, and the aches that shook her very bones with the littlest movements she made. Yet she persisted. She wanted to help him. It was the only way out of the darkness. Even when he managed to visit her, she was still weak, she was still too useless. Everything she did, for her, for Nathalie, it was never enough.
The Miraculous made her mind foggy. In her dreams, she could see herself, standing in front of a pond. It was the clearest blue her eyes ever saw, bluer than her eyes, and the sky itself. But the fog obscured it. It obscured everything. Across the pond were two silhouettes. Gabriel… No, Hawkmoth and Emilie. They were so far away, so distant, like stars that wouldn’t ever make themselves known on the sad planet below them.
“And yet, here we are.” Echoes the voice of Mayura. “You’ve played the game well, my dear. Now here we are, distant as ever from our goal.”
“I’m still useful… I’ve helped him figure out the grimoire, how to break the charms! He still needs me!”
“And when will our usefulness run out? When Emilie returns? Would you be the one to take her place?”
The voice of Mayura encompassed the fog, mocking her. Nathalie hated this feeling. She would wake up coughing on the worst of the nights, and they always ended the same. Nothing comes from within the darkness. Nothing breaks the shroud. She’s continuously trapped, even as she coughs her own blood from her throat.
“Nathalie!”
“Nathalie!”
“NATHALIE! PLEASE WAKE UP!”
And with his voice, she snaps awake, furiously coughing into the covers. The fog obscures his voice, making it fuzzy, raspy, softer. She could barely see him. Gabriel wraps his arms around her. She cries into his chest, shivering in his embrace. Why did it have to be like this? An affection so far out of reach? She did not know. And she hated it.
Why was she stuck inside this damnable fog?
“Are you alright?” He asks her.
“I’m fine.” The trickle of blood on her lip says otherwise.