Archive of Our Own

The rain drummed hard against the top of the carriage as it meandered its way up the treacherous roads towards Briançon.

These mountain passes were dangerous in such weather, Marinette knew that very well — but she also knew that her guardians could not be dissuaded. Lord André and Lady Audrey, the nobles who had taken her in after the fire that killed both her parents, would rather see her dead than unmarried. Furthermore, she was not entirely unconvinced that they would rather see her dead than married.

She looked aside at her keeper, the erstwhile soldier Armand. He kept his sword next to him in the carriage, with one hand always holding the scabbard just below the hilt, so that his thumb rested on the grip of the sword. His eyes were watching her suspiciously, as they had done throughout their journey.

He, too, was an element of uncertainty: either he was there to protect her in case of highway robbers, or he was there to stop her from running away. His gammy leg made him a poor choice for defence, that much was true — but he might just be there as a dummy protector because they truly did not care if she died.

It was said there were robbers in these hills. Armand could, perhaps, handle one robber, if that robber were inexperienced. If there were multiple, he would not stand a chance.

The horses whinnied. In the distance, lightning flashed. The weather, it seemed, would last a good while. At least until they reached Briançon, and likely for a while longer.

The rain didn’t bother her, however. What bothered her was the journey in the first place. Being betrothed to a man she had never met, and whom she would marry tomorrow morning irrespective of that fact, was never what she wanted from life. The only thing she knew about her soon-to-be-husband was his first name — Kim.

Two days ago, she had been packaged off with some minor possessions, a small sum of money to sustain her for the journey, and a nice though impractical dress that made her look presentable. The Lord and Lady’s personal tailor, Monsieur Agreste, had assured her she looked beautiful in it.

She knew he was correct, at least as far as her attire was concerned. He was a masterful craftsman. But browns so dark they were nearly black… she preferred colour and pizazz, and she preferred clothes she could move around in without needing to physically lift the skirts. Right now, she was dolled up for no one, made pretty just to sit in a closed wagon, only so she could be observed to be beautiful as she stepped out of the carriage and into another cage.

She also had a wedding dress, which hung like a curtain over the window on the right hand side of the carriage. Her window. It was gorgeously made, weaved together from bright damask and a slightly darker silk, with Monsieur Agreste’s trademark intricate lace adorning the front. The materials alone must have cost a fortune, and the handiwork could not have taken less than two full moons even with Monsieur Agreste’s practised hand. If Marinette were to try and replicate it, she would likely need twice that long, and she would not do it nearly as well.

If Marinette were less cynical, she might have thought that a dress so valuable meant that the Lord and Lady cared about her. But she knew it was to support their reputation and draw attention from the south of France. A ploy for attention and status. They could spare a thousand francs or two for that, and if she were to die along the way they would have the dress repaid in condolences from their peers.

She had been treated like a servant by the Bourgeois. In a way, that was a point of pride, because she liked the servants better than the Lord and Lady — but it also told her that they didn’t care for her at all. She was a charity case, and they expected her to be pathetically grateful. She had often wondered why they housed her, if they cared so little about her. She had never found an answer to that, however.

But the worst thing was her sleeping accommodations. For ten years, she had slept in a cellar bedroom with adjoining washroom. It was a small room, which ventilated into the laundry room, and the air was therefore oppressive and hot at most times of day. They frequently locked her inside it, too, especially when they hosted guests. For the past two weeks, the doors had only been unlocked to admit servants who brought food and took away her laundry and dirty dishes. The only consolation about her marriage was that hopefully, her husband would want to keep her in his own bedroom.

Armand looked at his pocket watch with a stern expression, which didn’t get any better when he then looked at her; his long and thin moustache frowned along with his lips. “We will arrive in an hour,” he said. “Then we will finally be rid of you.”

Marinette sighed and leant back, pushing the dress away from the window to look outside. It was hard to see much of anything, only boulders and trees and a wet and soggy road. Everything seemed cast in grey. And she wished she could be out there in it, the rain running down her face and soaking her clothes, because even if she’d be cold and miserable she’d at least be free.

The coach arrived at a flat and straight piece of road, but Marinette did not pull away from the back wall. She just stared down at her hands, and imagined the wedding ring that would soon adorn the left one, like a single link in the chain of a shackles.

There was a sudden snapping noise from outside — then a ‘Whoah’ from the carriage driver, as something massive creaked and crackled; there was a lot of whinnying from the horses, and then a sound of something heavy colliding with the ground. Armand had already pulled the sword and scabbard close, and as the carriage crawled to a halt he pulled himself out of his seat and approached the door. By the time he had opened it, the sword was unsheathed in his right hand.

The wind howled, but Armand howled louder. “What is going on?” she heard him ask the driver, but she did not hear the answer. Again she pulled the dress aside to look out, but the angle was wrong; all she could see was the muddy side of the road and the scattered trees that grew on the nearby hillsides. But if she pushed herself all the way into the side, she thought she could see… upturned roots?

“Release the horses,” Armand boomed, at the end of a brief argument with the driver. “We will pull it off the road.”

Then he pulled back into the wagon, soaked to the bone on every part of him that had been outside the door. He fixed her with a severe glare as he holstered the sword again and attached it to his belt. “A tree has fallen onto the road. I will deal with the situation. You are not to leave the carriage under any circumstance.”

“... Sure,” she said, the word coming out more like a croak; she had not used her voice for several hours now.

He stepped outside and shut the door. She idly kicked at his seat a couple of times. It was the greatest resistance she could offer him without risking a backhand across her cheeks.

Then — a shout outside. The horses snorted nervously. Armand’s voice grew into a roar of aggression, and then, switched into an undignified shriek as blades clashed outside. The horses whinnied loudly, hooves galloped away.

Marinette shot to her feet. If there were thieves — if there were thieves, she could run away. She clambered towards the door and pushed it open, and looked forward —

— where she saw Armand, fallen to the ground in the downpour, blood oozing out from a hole through his chest. His sword lay on the ground next to him. In the distance beyond, a horse with a rider — the driver? — bolted away. Above Armand stood an unfamiliar figure with a wide-brimmed hat and a dark cape and a mask, dressed like a highwayman, with a rapier in her hand that still glinted red…

It was an impulse decision, and one Marinette honestly could not explain even if she tried. She threw herself forward through the rain, grasping her dress tightly with both hands so she could awkwardly run. That much was fine. But she ran towards the attacker, who watched her dispassionately. She would also struggle to explain why she picked up Armand’s sword and clutched it with both hands, carefree as to the mud on her hands and the water running down her back.

“Step back,” she hissed.

— she did not know how to fight with a sword. It sat awkwardly in her grip, weighed on her wrist in an unfamiliar way. That didn’t matter. All that mattered, was that she didn’t die. 

The caped attacker didn’t move. She was hard to read through her mask, but Marinette felt like she was being sized up.

“You wish to fight?” said the attacker.

Marinette took a deep breath. “... Yes. I do.”

“So be it.”

The rapier moved so quickly that Marinette didn’t have time to even register it. She heard the tearing of cloth and swish of the blade, but she didn’t feel any pain. All she could feel was — lighter. The heavy outer skirt slid partway off her, torn from her corset with a straight cut, leaving the lighter petticoat underneath intact. “... You!”

The attacker lifted her rapier straight and held it up in front of her face. “You will be able to move more freely now. That will make our duel more fair.”

“Don’t mock me!” snarled Marinette, grabbing hold of the back half of the skirt with one hand to tear it off, stepping out of the heap of muddy cloth to stand next to it. She was driven by pure force of will, and not in the slightest by her rational mind, which was shouting at her to surrender, to plead for her life; but she pushed it back down, because…

… because suddenly, she felt alive.

“I am not mocking you. I look forward to crossing blades with you, Marinette Bourgeois.”

“Have at you!” she yelled, and swung her sword in a flat arc, straight at the attacker’s torso — but the attacker simply lifted her rapier and blocked it, sweeping it down into the ground. 

“Your technique needs work,” said the attacker. “A swing is easy to parry.”

“I don’t need advice,” hissed Marinette, swinging diagonally upwards this time; but the attacker simply sidestepped, half turning away from the sword’s point.

“If you want to match up with me, you do,” said the attacker.

And there, in that simple motion, as Marinette saw a glint in the attacker’s eyes, and the reticence with which she held her sword — Marinette realised that this couldn’t be mockery. It was delivered far too bluntly, and yet there was a softness underneath it, like a wooden lid on a box of cotton cloth.

“... Why did you agree to a fight?” Marinette asked, letting her arms fall a little bit.

“I am here to kidnap you, Marinette Bourgeois.”

“You mean to hold me for ransom?”

The attacker’s mouth twisted into a tiny little smile for the briefest of moments. “Yes. That is the plan.”

Marinette couldn’t help but laugh. She had been brought up a mountainside in a carriage for a wedding she never asked for. She had been sought by a kidnapper for her connections to the Bourgeois, who did not care for her. And she was facing an opponent who clearly thought her to be hopeless, with a weapon she had never once before wielded.

And yet, despite that, despite the dead body at her feet, despite the rain running down her face and soaking her clothes, despite being cold, she wasn’t miserable. In some perverse, inexplicable way, she was enjoying this. In spite of herself, she smiled.

“Then I welcome it,” she said. “Have at you!”

And she raised the sword again, slashing it downwards towards the kidnapper — but when the kidnapper raised hers to block, Marinette stopped her swing and stepped to the side, stomped her foot into a puddle to splash water on her opponent, and when the kidnapper flinched away, Marinette lunged with her sword at the attacker’s thigh —

— but the attacker simply deflected the jab by pushing the blade aside with a leathered hand.

“That was a good try,” said the attacker. Again, the smile flashed below her mask. “I can see that I have to call this off quickly, before you learn how to actually wound me. I apologise.”

The attacker moved.

Before Marinette knew a word of it, the attacker was behind her.

The rapier’s hilt connected with the back of her skull, and the world went black.

~⚔~🎕~⚔~🎕~⚔~🎕~⚔~🎕~

Marinette came to slowly and achingly, to the crackling of a campfire. Her senses seemed to turn on one at a time: first her hearing, then her blurry sight; then her sense of smell as the scent of burning wood came into her nostrils, and her sense of taste as she felt the uncomfortable dryness of her throat and the lousy coating on her tongue; and finally, her sense of touch telling her that she was lying on a thick mattress, but that mattress lay on a hard rocky surface that was still perceptible through it. There was a blanket draped over her, too, tickling her skin.

She gingerly felt on the back of her head, which was still sore. A jolt of pain sent her groaning; she winced together under the blanket, her bare thighs pushing against her stomach.

Her hand struck something as she pulled it back. A moment later, that something collided with the floor. It sounded like a metal bowl with some liquid in it.

“Hello,” said a voice — the attacker’s. It wasn’t loud, or demanding, like Marinette would have expected. “Are you awake?”

“H-hello,” croaked Marinette. 

“I apologise about your head. I will get a damp cloth for you, if you require it.”

The voice was coming from somewhere north of her head. She bent her neck slightly, trying to catch a glimpse of her attacker. “Am I kidnapped now?” she said, finding a certain excitement in the word, despite everything else.

“You are.” The kidnapper still wasn’t visible; there was a large boulder between them, several yards wide and taller than any human being. “Do not be concerned. You aren’t injured.”

“Other than my head,” said Marinette. She breathed in, pulled herself up into a sitting position. Other than the ache at the back of her head, she didn’t feel injured or ill in any way. She just felt slightly damp in the hair, and a little bit light, and —

— naked. The realisation struck her like a hammer as she sat up: she was completely undressed underneath the blanket. She yelped and pulled the blanket tightly around herself. “Where — where are my clothes!”

A moment passed. Then: “I could not leave you unconscious in drenched clothes. I did not look at you more than necessary.”

“That’s still too much!”

“I apologise. I didn’t anticipate that you would have preferred to get pneumonia.”

“I —” Marinette started, but… she couldn’t really argue the point, and the understanding crept over her again that the kidnapper wasn’t mocking her. It seemed like this strange masked woman behind the rock was sincerely confused and apologetic. She frowned. “I prefer not to show myself to others.”

“If it helps, I also undressed in front of the fire while you lay unconscious.”

The strange thing was that it did. Not because that specific undressing mattered, but because it felt like yet another point of honesty. Something that she wouldn’t have gotten from someone who meant her harm. It was bizarre and unusual and upsetting, but also… open, in a way she wasn’t used to. For a certain definition of the word… nice.

“Why did you kidnap me?” tried Marinette, giving the cave a proper look for the first time. 

Because it was a cave, or at least a tunnel; she could not see an exit to it, only rock walls on every side, but there was movement to the air with how the fire shifted. There was no decoration, only a rack near the fire, on which hung two sets of clothes — Marinette’s and the kidnapper’s. And on the ground near that rack, Armand’s sword and the kidnapper’s rapier, close enough that she could easily reach them with enough time…

Everything else was stone. This was a hollow and it must have been shaped with intention, because the mattress lay on a shelf that couldn’t be natural, as the mattress was almost perfectly fitted into a gap; and the floor was too flat and clean to have happened without human hands.

And… there was actually a carpet on the floor in front of her. She gingerly set her bare feet down on it and pushed herself into a standing position.

“I have a habit of kidnapping,” said the kidnapper. “I would gladly talk to you about it.”

“Why did you kidnap me specifically?” asked Marinette. It was perhaps a banal question, but the kidnapper had called her by name twice. There must have been some degree of planning for her in specific.

There was a thumping sound from around the boulder, like something hitting a wooden surface. “I know how wealthy your family is, Marinette Bourgeois.”

Marinette scoffed, as she shifted the blanket around her, tied a knot to turn it into a makeshift toga. It fell around halfway down her shins; her feet were chilly, but the rest of her felt the fire enough not to mind. “The Bourgeois family doesn’t care for me,” she said. “If I die or am lost, they will live well off the attention and prestige it earns them to have lost a ‘precious daughter’. If they truly cared for me, they would have treated me better.”

“What do you mean?”

“They will not pay you.” She could feel the daggers in her own voice as it echoed off the walls. “They have only held me as a prisoner.”

The kidnapper sighed. “I feared that might be the case. Are you decent?”

“I…” Marinette looked down at herself. Other than her feet, the only parts of her below the neck that were outside the blanket were a shoulder and an arm. “I suppose so.”

There was the sound of wood scraping against rock. Then, boot soles echoed against the floor. Perhaps a few seconds passed — and then the kidnapper came into view.

She wasn’t wearing a hat or a cape anymore, but the mask that covered the top half of her face was still there. She seemed to have changed into a replica of her previous outfit: an off-white short-fronted pinstriped tailcoat that reached almost down to her knees, with a black shirt and red neckcloth. Her buttoned black pantaloons were perfectly fitted, as were the legs on her brown Hessian boots. She was an image of sartorial elegance, and with all the details Marinette could see now she knew that the kidnapper’s tailor must be a master at their craft.

Even though most of the face was hidden, the vague smile that curled her lips was still obvious. As were the soft lines of her jaw.

“Miss Bourgeois,” she said.

“I am,” Marinette replied. She had nothing else to be.

“Are you feeling well?”

“I feel about as good as a kidnapping victim who just woke from unconsciousness can feel.”

The kidnapper nodded. “Good. Do you require food? Water?”

“Clothes,” said Marinette. “I need to be clothed.”

“I will fetch your luggage,” said the kidnapper, bowing again.

As the kidnapper turned away, Marinette glanced back at the swords. They were only a few feet away — she could easily reach them. Store one under the mattress, and use the other to threaten the kidnapper into standing down.

She had no particular desire to return to her old life. It held no allure for her. But she wasn’t going to leave one form of captivity just to enter another, no matter how courteous this new captor was.

By the time the kidnapper returned a minute later, Marinette held the rapier under her blanket, ready to pull it out at an opportune moment. And she found it when the kidnapper placed the suitcase on the floor between them, only a little more than a shadow’s length away, which required her to bow with both her hands on the handle.

“I can retreat if you want to be alone to get clothed,” the kidnapper said.

Marinette drew the rapier and pointed it at the kidnapper’s chest. “No, you will not.”

The kidnapper looked up at her, but didn’t speak.

“You will let me go.”

“Do you plan to keep the sword pointed at me while you get dressed?” asked the kidnapper.

“I —” started Marinette. Then she stopped. She was practically nude, she had no shoes, she had no training with swords, and the kidnapper could easily overpower her at any point if she made even a single move. In her haste and foolishness, she had shown her hand too quickly.

But she couldn’t back down now.

“I might just kill you,” she said, poking the rapier forward only a little bit before pulling it back again. She was making a threat, not an attack. “Then I could change clothes in peace.”

The kidnapper nodded. “You do not need to kill me. I will step away and let you get changed, and then we can resume.”

“... No. I don’t trust you.” Marinette refocused her grip. “I will kill you, here and now, if you don’t stand down.”

For a few seconds, as Marinette stared down at the impassive face in front of her, she thought she had made a good threat. Then she had a flash where she realised, the kidnapper had already offered to do just that, and the threat was pointless — and then, as soon as the thought appeared, the kidnapper moved.

She moved like a snake, or a cat, and Marinette could no more prepare herself for it than she could have prepared herself for lightning from clear skies. Before she knew a word of it, the kidnapper had snatched the weapon out of her grip and taken hold of her wrist. Before she could shout her surprise, that arm was twisted behind her back, not painfully but enough to immobilise it, and the kidnapper wrapped her own arm around Marinette’s shoulder, her warm breath on Marinette’s ear and her mask touching the back of Marinette’s head.

“The only reason I could disarm you is your hesitation,” said the kidnapper, and her voice was far less harsh than Marinette would expect for the circumstances, her hands so much softer than Marinette could ever imagine from a captor. “I never hesitate. And neither should you.”

Then the grip relaxed, enough that Marinette could probably have pulled free if she wanted to. But she stayed there, with the kidnapper’s hand around her wrist and arm on her shoulder, absolutely transfixed. The air between them, as minimal as it was, was charged with excitement. “You — why aren’t you hurting me?”

“I mean you no harm,” said the kidnapper, and for but a terrible moment — Marinette wondered what it would feel like if the kidnapper kissed her, or ripped the blanket away so she could feel the kidnapper’s bare hands against her equally bare skin. She gritted her teeth to make the images go away.

“But you have kidnapped me. I’m just a means for you to get paid.”

“Marinette, I can’t begin to tell you how wrong that is.” Her hands let go entirely, and Marinette could feel her stepping back and away. “I will go back around that rock so you can get dressed, and I will leave the swords with you. When you’ve clothed yourself, come and join me, and we can talk as equals.” Without hesitation, she walked past Marinette, past the fire, and almost out of sight — and it was infuriating.

“You call us equals when you have captured me against my will? You hide me away in a cave and force your will upon me, you can put a blade to my throat any moment you want, and you call me by my name while you yourself are hiding behind a mask. How could we possibly be on equal footing?”

The kidnapper paused, putting her hand to the boulder, and looked halfway across to Marinette. “You are correct,” she said. “You are my prisoner… for now. But apart from that, I will treat you like my own sister. I will see to your needs, and I will not threaten you. Together, we can make this work.”

“Together,” scoffed Marinette. The suggestion was outlandish, unreasonable, monstrous, impossible… but as she saw the kidnapper standing there, not like a jailor but like a saviour, all those things felt less important than they should be. Because if nothing else, she had been saved from a marriage she didn’t want to be in.

She folded her arms under the blanket; the one that had been outside felt chilly against her chest. “At least tell me your name,” she said.

The kidnapper sighed and took off her mask. Her hair, previously held down with the mask’s strap, puffed out and surrounded a tan freckled face that looked far too young to be a kidnapper’s, glinting eyes that seemed far too deep for a criminal’s. Her expression was impossible to decipher, neutral but still charged with something inscrutable.

“I am Ryūko,” said the kidnapper. For a moment, fire burnished the copper in her eyes. Then she turned away again, and walked back towards where she came from. And Marinette was left with her luggage, a blanket, and two useless swords.

~🎕~⚔~🎕~⚔~🎕~⚔~🎕~⚔~

When Marinette had clothed herself — she picked the least ostentatious out of all of Gabriel’s dresses, one that could be used for housework and therefore also for movement, along with warm undergarments — she walked around the large boulder, with the rapier and its scabbard in her hands.

Ryūko sat there at a small and round wooden table, on a wooden chair. There was another wooden chair on the opposite side, and sparsely any other decoration; it certainly didn’t look like a place to hide out in for long.

On the table, though, was a plate of food: bread, and fruit, and cheese, and a little slab of some kind of meat. There was also a simple cup that seemed to contain some kind of liquid. On the floor next to Ryūko was a woven basket with a lid on it. And a little bit further back, the wedding dress — technically, Marinette’s wedding dress — hung on a lone dumbwaiter.

“Here is food,” she said. “You should eat.”

Marinette moved slowly up to the table, and didn’t sit down. She tried to figure out what Ryūko was trying to do. The kidnapper sat there, straight-backed and entirely unbothered by the fact that Marinette still held her weapon; she watched intently, but her eyes never once dropped down to the rapier, and never once betrayed any worry.

“Where are we?” said Marinette.

“We are in a cave above Montbrison.” Ryūko nodded towards the chair. “Please, sit down.”

Marinette nodded, and put the sword down on Ryūko’s side. Ryūko made no sign to take it. “If I run, will you catch up with me and pull me back?”

There was a curious pause. Then: “I suppose I will.”

“Then we are not equals,” said Marinette, sitting down. “If you were to run, I would run in the opposite direction.”

Ryūko sighed again, the same as she did only a few minutes ago when she took off her mask. It was a sound that demanded attention, even though it was small and brief; Marinette couldn’t help but look her straight in the eye. “Tell me, Marinette. Were you looking forward to your wedding?”

“Why do you ask,” said Marinette, more than a little wary now. “You have just called it off by taking me prisoner.”

“Because you have not expressed any concern about missing it.”

Marinette frowned, and reached out for an apple from her plate. “I have been busy with other concerns.”

“Then you do wish to get back to your wedding?”

Something about the way Ryūko asked made it sound like she was genuinely concerned. But Marinette wasn’t going to give in — even though the attentiveness underneath the question was sorely tempting. She focused on the apple instead.

After a little while, Ryūko steepled her fingers. “You said your family has kept you as a prisoner. If that is how you feel, you should not want to go back with them.”

“Just because I come from one prison doesn’t mean I want to be put into another.” The fact that her jailor here hadn’t locked her in her room and starved her, like the Bourgeois had, was hardly a point in Ryūko’s favour.

“Then what if I offered you freedom?”

Marinette paused mid-bite on her apple. “Why would you do that?” she said, after taking the apple out again. “You said if I run, you will catch me. That is not freedom.”

A small smile broke out on Ryūko’s face. It was small, like her sighs, but it drew all of Marinette’s attention. She recognised that Ryūko was beautiful, even though she didn’t want to — compared to the mask from before, the uncovered and smiling face made her look the way her voice sounded: like she had a gentler core underneath her more hardened exterior. “I will answer your question indirectly.”

Marinette pursed her lips, let the food be for the moment. She nodded, to indicate for Ryūko to continue.

“Nine years ago, I myself was kidnapped by a pirate called Juleka the Bloody,” said Ryūko. Her hand landed on the table, but did not reach for the sword. “She took me aboard her ship and sailed it out to sea. I was fourteen at the time, and I was finally free from Mother, who had kept me under lock and key my whole life. She offered ransom to get me back, but I asked my abductor not to take it.

“She was not a wealthy woman, but she agreed to pretend that I had died. I think she took pity on me, for my young age. She let me go, and I have lived free ever since, in mountain passes where the law never dares to tread.”

“Without a house?” said Marinette. It wasn’t the most interesting part of the story — it was just the one thing she found it easy to formulate a question about.

“I have a house, too. But the caves make for a good temporary resting spot.”

Marinette tore loose a piece of bread and brought it towards her mouth. “I see…”

“Juleka inspired me to kidnap others,” said Ryūko. “I seek out women and children, and post letters of ransom to the cities. If they do not want to return, I take them under my wing. If they want to go back, and their families offer a ransom, I use the ransom to pay for a decent living. I can free people from terrible homes, and earn money with which to keep them.”

A certain excitement crept over Ryūko as she spoke, but Marinette felt a rising terror. “You run a — a forced orphanage?”

“No,” Ryūko replied. She sounded incredibly determined. “I liberate people from their oppressors.”

“How… how many people have you ‘liberated’?”

“Four women and two children. Two of the women have since departed, with my blessing.”

Marinette swallowed. “And… how many have you released for ransom?”

“Seven. Two were children.”

“But that’s terrible! You — you abduct people to extort money! Even if you free some people from bad homes, you —”

“Wealthy families have large sums of money,” interrupted Ryūko, folding her hands, her voice louder than Marinette had heard it before — though it faded to a normal tone as she went on. “They do not suffer from losing a small portion of it.”

Marinette looked down at the torn bread in front of her. “Your victims must still suffer if you make them your prisoners.”

“I free people,” said Ryūko. “I take them out of terrible homes and offer them a new life.”

“And the seven who had good homes, whom you took away and kept in your — in your caves?”

“Those I treated with the utmost respect, and made sure their needs were attended to. Just like I intend to do with you. But let me ask you this: do you truly wish to return to the Bourgeois family? Do you want to get to Briançon, to be married to a man you have never met?”

“... How did you know?”

Ryūko raised her eyebrows. “You are a lone woman travelling up these mountain roads, which lead either to Briançon or nowhere, with barely any possessions other than your wedding dress. You were guarded by a soldier whose abilities would only stop you from leaving the wagon, not defend you from thieves. I see this story often.”

Marinette frowned. Both of her hands were fists now, resting on the edge of the table. She wasn’t going to give Ryūko the satisfaction of an answer to her question, because that answer would only fuel her ideas.

“If you truly find this arrangement distasteful,” Ryūko went on after an aching silence, “then… I will not keep you. I will not ask your family for ransom. Once you have eaten, you may leave this cave and go back to the road.”

“Why?” said Marinette, suspicious.

But Ryūko just smiled that strange little smile again. “If you are so loath to be here, then it wouldn’t be treating you with the utmost respect to keep you. I truly do not want you to suffer, Marinette. If you want, I will even lead you to the road myself.”

“I can just… leave? And you will not chase after me and pull me back?”

“Indeed,” said Ryūko. Her tone was impassive — perhaps too impassive, unlike the milder one she had had before. “I would like to offer you freedom, but if you won’t take it I cannot force it on you.”

She nodded her head sideways, towards a downward slope in the cave that was straight ahead from the campfire. “If you go down there, you will emerge into Montbrison. The forest might seem difficult to navigate, but as long as you move downwards from the egress you will find the road. You can walk it for three hours until you reach the city, or wait for a passing carriage.”

Marinette wrung her hands. She followed the nod down the cavern with her eyes, trying to weigh the proposal against the possibility of being knocked out and undressed again. Ryūko seemed honourable, for a reprobate — but what if that was just an act?

She reached out for the sword again. Ryūko made no effort to grab it first, nor did she move when Marinette pulled it towards herself and got to her feet. When she pulled it and pointed it at Ryūko, the woman glanced down at the point of the blade, before looking back up to meet Marinette’s gaze.

“I will take this for my own protection,” she said. “You may keep the wedding dress as payment.”

It was a gamble. She was certain that Ryūko could disarm her and put her arm in a lock again, but that wasn’t the point. The point was to see how far Ryūko could be trusted.

“My offer to escort you still stands.”

“No. You will stay here. And if you try to catch up with me, then… then I won’t hesitate.”

“So be it. I will not follow you.”

“Good. That — that’s exactly what I want.”

Marinette took a handful of steps backwards, without turning around, and without pointing the rapier anywhere else. Then, once she was out of the space she was sure she remembered, she turned around and kept walking. She saw the incline going down, and the rocks and stones lining the uneven path towards the exit. There was light on the wall at the bottom; the cave’s mouth must be down there, around a corner.

She started on the way down, but she didn’t stop listening for footsteps behind her. There was no sound other than her own, her boots clicking against the stone and her breaths far too loud. When she turned around to look, there was nobody behind her.

And yet, every step she took got harder. She thought about the Lord and Lady Bourgeois, their harsh glares and their demanding voices. She thought about Briançon, a place she had never been — and Kim, the husband-to-be. She thought about the jail of a bedroom she couldn’t leave, and a house she could never escape.

Out there in the rain, she had pulled the sword on Ryūko, and she had made the first choice of her whole life: to fight. Would it still be raining now? No, there was no sound of rainfall; there were drips, and a scent of rain just past, but if there was weather right now it must be either overcast or a bare drizzle.

Somehow, that felt disappointing.

She reached the mouth of the cave. The weather had indeed cleared up. She could see down into a V-shaped valley, through the crowns of a thousand trees that stood all around her. There wasn’t a human or a building in sight. On the other side rose a tall mountain, cresting into a plateau surrounded by fractured stone. Above it all was a blanket of grey clouds, with the glow of the late-afternoon sun shining through the thinnest parts of it.

It was gorgeous. It was enticing, and it was free.

But at the same time, her stomach was grinding against her insides, a rough stone that weighed on her guts. It wasn’t truly free, because the only place she knew of was Briançon — where she would be put back into her unwanted marriage as soon as word got out of her presence. Or she might be put into actual prison on suspicion of complicity with thieves, because her dress was stolen from her and the carriage abandoned, while she was unscathed.

She looked back over her shoulder. Ryūko still wasn’t there. She had kept her word and let Marinette go. She had offered a different type of freedom. And in the rain, over Armand’s dead body, she had allowed Marinette to make a choice for the first time, but clearly not for the last. She was a thief, and a criminal, and a murderer, and a kidnapper — but she was also the only person who had ever offered Marinette kindness since her parents died.

Clutching the sword more tightly in her hands, Marinette turned on her heel and looked into the cave. It was dark, perhaps; but she knew everything that was on the other side, and she knew she could trust it now. And she could make a choice, on her own, to go back and meet it.

She drew a deep breath, let it out, and walked back into Ryūko’s darkness.

~⚔~🎕~⚔~🎕~⚔~🎕~⚔~🎕~

Ryūko wasn’t sitting down when Marinette came back. Instead, she was rolling up the mattress and blanket by the campfire. Marinette approached her, rapier stuck back in its scabbard, clasped tightly in both hands.

“I have returned for my belongings,” she said. “And to return yours.”

Ryūko nodded. “They are yours to take. I will help you carry them if you want.”

Marinette shook her head, clutched the rapier tighter to her chest. “I have also come to return myself. I am not a belonging,” she added, at Ryūko’s surprised expression, “but if you can truly offer me freedom… you are my best alternative.”

“I would never consider you a belonging,” said Ryūko. She smiled, but this one was wider than her earlier smiles — it seemed more genuine, more happy. “You truly wish to come with me?”

“I…” said Marinette, intending to say no. But something stilled her tongue before she could get the words out. “It’s the best choice I have,” she finished feebly.

“Then you should eat. I left the food on the table, and you may eat as much as you want. I will pack up meanwhile.”

Marinette clutched the scabbard even tighter, looking into Ryūko’s eyes as the firelight flickered over them. She almost wanted to apologise for taking the rapier, for being so doubtful, but the dull pain at the back of her skull reminded her of the one thing that Ryūko had done wrong. “... Your sword,” she garbled, and deposited the weapon on the stone shelf. She turned around and walked back to the table before Ryūko could say anything.

Ryūko — a thief, but all she had taken was a dress Marinette didn’t want to wear. A murderer, but only of a man Marinette despised. A kidnapper, but of someone who was already imprisoned. A criminal, but… one that was kind, and honourable, with burning copper eyes. Even if she weren’t a gentlewoman who offered freedom, Marinette could have excused the ransom. The Bourgeois family definitely didn’t deserve their money.

She ate half of the bread, the piece of meat, and a few slices of cheese, and drank the water from the cup. The food was good: before, she had barely let herself register it. Now it felt like balm to her insides.

And meanwhile, around her, Ryūko packed everything together. The clothes hung to dry were wrapped together and put in a basket, along with the blanket. The mattress was rolled up and tied together with a rope. The fire was kicked out so it would extinguish naturally with time. Marinette, when she finished, put the food into the basket and wondered just how far they would have to travel.

“I will help you carry things,” she said, when Ryūko came to fetch the basket. She picked up one of the chairs and hefted it over her shoulders.

“Thank you,” said Ryūko. She had the clothes basket strapped to her back. “But you can leave the chairs and table. Take the food basket instead, and your luggage.”

“Where are we going?”

“Deeper.”

Ryūko draped the wedding dress over the basket on her back, and picked up the rolled-up mattress in both hands. Then she walked over to the cave wall — and pushed on a rock. A whole section of the wall gave in with her, and fell in to reveal a passage beyond, wide enough to admit two people at once.

“You — you live deeper inside the mountain?” said Marinette, her mouth hanging open even after she was done speaking.

“You will see.”

The passage was smoother than the cave, and must have been carved entirely by human hands. A single torch stood in a sconce; Ryūko took it back into the cave and carried it to the dispersed fire, where she lit it on a flaming piece of wood. She ushered Marinette into the passage ahead of her, and followed to close the entrance from the inside.

“Will you feel safer if you hold the torch,” said Ryūko. It sounded like a question, but then again it also did not.

“... I don’t know,” said Marinette honestly. Did Ryūko think Marinette imagined she’d be set fire to? Was it about seeing what was ahead? She reached out her hand. “I can take it,” she said.

Torch in hand, she set off down the passageway — which Ryūko assured her was a single track, which would end in a set of stone steps a few minutes in.

It was a strange walk, and it was chilly against her exposed skin, but it never got to freezing. The complete darkness beyond the torch’s reach also sent chills through her. But despite all that, she wasn’t really frightened. It was more like… nervous, now that she had committed herself to something she had no idea about. To live in — a cave? — with a kidnapper and her four… associates.

And the kidnapper was friendly, and seemed to want Marinette’s best, and there was something deeply compelling about her, and if the other rich people who got extorted were as bad as the Bourgeois then the ransom wasn’t really a bad thing, and, and, but, but, she was the only thing Marinette knew anything about in this situation.

Everything else… needed light shed on it.

Ryūko was silent the whole time, even when Marinette occasionally scraped the basket or luggage against the hewn stone walls. The first sound that came out of her was hundreds of steps in, perhaps even thousands: “We’re almost here.”

And just like she said, within twenty more paces, they turned around a slight curve in the wall and the stone steps appeared. The space also widened a little bit; the roof above looked like solid stone, except above the steps where there was a wooden hatch.

“What’s up there?”

Ryūko moved past, and went up the stairs. On the way, her shoulder brushed against Marinette’s — and that sent a shiver down Marinette’s spine far more severe than what the chilly air could cause. “This is my house,” she said. “Put the torch into that sconce over there.”

As Marinette did that, Ryūko went to the stairs and pushed the hatch up. It flipped away and crashed into the floor with a heavy slapping noise. Marinette could see that the space up there was lit, though not lavishly so; there were wooden beams and a stone wall visible in the small frame she could see.

After placing her items on the floor up there, Ryūko reached her hand down, like an invitation. And Marinette grabbed it almost without thinking — and again, that chill went through her. It wasn’t uncomfortable, though, far more like the chill that comes from stepping into a warm house after being out in cold rain. She smiled, no longer in spite of herself. “Thank you.”

She emerged into an expansive cellar, with several alcoves going off in various distances. Above them was a wooden ceiling; below, the floor was flagstones. There was a small fireplace along one wall, which hosted a merry blaze. And on the far side was a set of steps leading up to the presumable ground floor.

Marinette put her own things down on the floor, next to what Ryūko had placed there, and turned to her — kidnapper, liberator, host; whichever one, or all three at once; or perhaps even something completely different.

“Welcome to le Maison des Miracles,” said Ryūko. She sounded a little stiff, like this was a predetermined greeting. “Please take the laundry basket to the laundry room.” She pointed with a finger.

Marinette handed the luggage over. “Um… okay,” she said. She kept from mentioning her frequent sleeping arrangements at the Bourgeois mansion. They were… irrelevant here. Even though they didn’t feel that way.

“I will take care of the other things.”

“Fine,” said Marinette.

She picked up the basket as Ryūko ascended the stairs, including her wedding dress atop it. The sizeable laundry room adjoined the space with the fireplace and seemed to borrow heat from it; there was also the heat from a special furnace for heating water, which wasn’t heating water at the moment but had clearly done so not too long ago. And there were a lot of tubs, one filled with water and soap and white cloth; two washboards, a long bench where half of it was taken by a two-tub wringer, a wooden rack, and a pile of assorted clothes in a barrel that must be dirty from the way they looked.

The air was heavy. It prickled against her skin, too damp and too dry all at once. She had felt this air too many times, had needed to sleep in it for far too many nights. But… it was less overwhelming here. She thought she could bear it, at least for as long as it took to put the laundry in its place.

She lay the wedding dress uncurled next to the wringer. She took Ryūko’s clothes, one by one, and threw them in with the other dirty clothes — though she placed the boots on the floor and hung the hat from the rack above. The air was getting heavier. She took the remnants of her own travel dress — the petticoat, the bodice and coat, the torn edges that had borne the outer skirts — and dumped them in carelessly. She found two towels, and the sheet she had slept on, and didn’t even brush off the debris before dropping them in.

And she reached her hand in for the last item, and her hands found… the blanket. It was prickly, but soft. Warm, in a way that was comfortable rather than heavy. She pulled it out and held it in her arms, forgetting the stifling room for a moment.

This blanket had kept her warm in a chilly cave. For a little while, it had been all she had to hold on to, a shred of modesty and protection in the flickering darkness. And Ryūko had respected it.

She thought back to that moment after Ryūko disarmed her, when her arm was pressed behind her back and Ryūko’s breath was on her ear. The words she heard then had calmed her even if she didn’t believe them at the time: ‘I mean you no harm’.

And she thought about Ryūko’s lips on her neck, and Ryūko’s hands stroking her back and shoulders, and that warm breath pushing heat like dragonfire down her throat as they both kissed intensely and deeply, and she felt like she had been slapped in the face.

“What am I doing …” she mumbled to herself, and folded the blanket up before placing it atop the laundry basket. She pushed the basket into a corner. Sure, she might have grown some sudden feelings for Ryūko. But she couldn’t act on them now. She needed to know more first, needed to know Ryūko better.

But as she left the pressing heat of the laundry room behind, she knew she had made a far better choice today than the Lord and Lady Bourgeois could ever have made for her.

When she got back to the hatch and the stairway, Ryūko was there, lifting the food basket off the floor. “Hello,” she said, and smiled.

“Hello,” said Marinette. “I have put the laundry away.”

“Thank you,” said Ryūko. The kidnapper. The murderer. The thief. The enigma. The kind-hearted. The woman who had offered Marinette a choice. Who had apparently done the same for several other women and children. In the light of the oil lamps down here, she looked all the more beautiful.

If the Lord and Lady would offer a ransom, despite everything… Marinette knew she would let Ryūko take it, and then immediately escape to be kidnapped by her again, so she could learn more about her mysterious but open-hearted captor.