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Lila Rossi had been around for a long, long time.
So long, in fact, that they really didn't remember what they were supposed to be doing anymore.
They were adrift, without purpose, a feather in the wind.
They remembered- vaguely- a woman who was once, maybe, her friend.
She remembered the piercing pain in her neck as her vision went dark- and her friend, swooping in moments too late.
She could recall the shock of waking up, the relief of seeing a spotted mask, the growing ache of thirst as it grew all-encompassing- and the feeling of utter betrayal as the miraculous was ripped from around their throat.
She doesn't remember, but she knows the way she was cast out, as some monster, some diseased thing.
She knows that no one came to help them.
They remember lying to survive.
To bite, and drain, and lie, and bite some more.
They remember, after so long, wondering what even is the point anymore?
And then- Then-
After all this time, her.
It was familiar. It ached. She longed to be reunited, towrap her hands around her neck. She fought with the urge to spit bitter vitriol and loving praise within the same breath. They wrestled the compulsion to fight, to bite, to hug--
They waited with baited breath for that first meeting. To know, once and for all, if their closest companion had truly abandoned them.
They tried not to, but they couldn't help the endless hope that it was a mistake, a misunderstanding, a choice brought on by ignorance and followed by regret.
They were so excited, so lonely, that they were willing to forgive everything if it just meant they got their friend back.
...They never even thought that their friend might hate her still.
The thrill, the flutter in her heart at seeing her after all this time was rapidly smothered by her fierce glare, all hope dismembered by cold, cutting words.
Her friend hated her. More than ever, it seemed.
"We'll never be friends."
... Are you sure of that, Ladybug?
'Cause soon, we'll have an eternity to talk it out.