Chapter Text
The last thing she remembered was reading Miraculous Tales by Chat Noir.
Her eyes scanned the page, devouring each word with guilty joy. The book lay open against her knees. Prince Adrien was finally nearing his happy ending, a proper one, not the cold, tragic conclusions so many stories seemed to love giving him. After everything he has been through she’s happy he is finally getting one.
At least this time, he would be loved. Even if she wasn’t particularly fond of the protagonist.
She frowned slightly, eyes flicking back over the lines describing the heroine’s reactions, her perfectly timed comfort, her uncanny ability to know exactly what Adrien was feeling before he ever said a word.
Seriously, she thought. Does she read minds or something? She knew it was fictional, the author’s indulgence bleeding through the prose, but still How??
It was always like that. The heroine would murmur exactly the right words, and somehow unravel the prince’s heart as if she had a direct line into his thoughts. No misunderstandings. No missteps. No awkward pauses. It felt unfair and more than a little creepy. Yet also somehow took multiple books for them close to getting together.
Still… she exhaled and turned the page.
It was better than the alternatives. Better than the cold political marriage, which nearly happened due to a war. Better than the endless loneliness. Better than
Better than the villainess.
Her gaze lingered on a passage describing the prince’s former fiancée, already painted as obsessive and cruel when it comes to people the prince is close with. She grimaced.
The villainess had been executed just in the last chapter.
Dragged before the court in chains, accusations were read aloud as she knelt on the cold stone floor. Her once-fine dress hung in tatters, the fabric darkened with grime and frayed at the hem. Strands of her carefully styled hair had come loose, clinging to her face in dull, uneven locks, her appearance stripped of all dignity she had once been afforded.
The narration lingered on her terror on the way her hands shook as the charges were recited, on the hollow disbelief etched into her face as if she couldn’t quite accept that this was truly the end. Dirt stained her palms, her wrists raw beneath the weight of iron, yet she did not struggle. There was nowhere left to run. Still, she looked up.
Her gaze searched the court until it found him. Prince Adrien stood where he always did, Regal. She simply accepted her faith no more use in fighting it, but to see his eyes one more time is all she wished for.
The sentence was delivered without ceremony. Guillotine, the text said. The story refused to dwell on the walk that followed, only noting the chains again, the murmurs of the crowd. In her final moments, she lifted her head.
Bluebell eyes met green eyes.
The same familiar color she had known all her life, something the narration would later call sympathy. Not enough to save her. Only enough to regret her, quietly, once it was already too late. And with that the story moves on, uncaring for what just happened. It must simply continue.
She swallowed, fingers tightening around the edge of the book.
“…Wow,” she murmured under her breath. With that she went into gentle slumber.
Marinette woke up surrounded by silk.
For a long moment, she didn’t open her eyes. The sensation alone was enough to pull her from sleep, the cool slide of fabric against her arms. It wrapped around her in layers, too smooth, too fine to be familiar. Almost sending her back to slumber with how comfortable they were. That was an issue, This wasn’t her bed. Her eyes shot open with that revelation.
When she opened her eyes fully, the ceiling above her was framed by a canopy, sheer curtains draped like clouds and embroidered with thread that she could only dream about. Gold and white and soft rose hues filled her vision, elegant to the point of excess. It looks expensive, worth more than everything she owned.
She lay very still. The air smelled different like lavender and soap and something faintly sweet. Instead of her usual coffee, and home feels. Her heart began to beat faster. Marinette shifted, intending to sit up, and the bed answered with a gentle rustle. Silk slid over her skin. Nothing is making sense.
She pushed herself upright. She looked down. Her hands rested in her lap, half-curled in the sheets. They were small, delicate, and smooth skin, narrow fingers, nails neatly trimmed. No signs of late nights hunched over homework or sewing machines.
Slowly, she swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her feet disappeared into thick carpet, warm beneath her soles. The nightgown she wore brushed against her knees, soft and finely made, the fabric far too luxurious to be something she owned. Her breath came shallow.
The room was enormous. Sunlight poured in through tall windows. A vanity stood against one wall, its mirror framed in white and gold. Everything was immaculate. Sparkly. Shiny. Out of her reach. A faint, unsettled feeling crawled up her spine.
Marinette stood, unsteady on her feet, and took a cautious step forward. The carpet muffled the sound completely. Her gaze drifted to the mirror. The girl reflected there and stared back at her with wide, startled eyes.
This was wrong. All of it was wrong. She had fallen asleep with a book in her hands. She had been safe. Ordinary. She looked down at herself again, at the silk pooled around her fingers.
“I’ve reincarnated as the villainess Marinette”
“No,” Marinette said softly, then again, louder. “No, no, no!”
She pressed her hands against her chest, feeling her heartbeat racing beneath her palms. The room felt like it was closing in despite its size, all that space suddenly suffocating.
Think, she told herself. Just think. This had to be a dream or a stress-induced hallucination. She had fallen asleep reading, her mind must have latched onto the story. That happened and people dreamed in detail all the time. She squeezed her eyes shut and counted her breaths. In. Out. Over and Over until she feels fine opening her eyes once more.
Opening them didn’t change a thing. Still in an oversized bedroom surrounded by things that aren’t hers.
“Okay,” she whispered. She looked around and named things, the way she’d once read to do during panic attacks.
“Bed,” she murmured. “Window. Mirror. Carpet. Door.” Then what she can hear, touch, smell. It did calm her down enough for a logical part of her brain to kick in.
You’re safe, she told herself desperately. Nothing is happening. You’re just in a strange room. That’s all.
She crossed her arms over herself and took another breath, forcing her shoulders to lower. A knock at her door jolted her once more. Three measured taps against the door.
Marinette flinched so hard her breath left her in a gasp.
“Lady Marinette?” The voice from the other side was female. “Are you awake? It’s nearly time.”
Her blood went cold. The name echoed in her head, heavy and undeniable. Lady Marinette. She stared at the door, heart pounding, every instinct screaming at her to run, to hide, to pretend she wasn’t there. But the knock came again.
“His Highness will be arriving shortly.”
Marinette swallowed hard, hands curling into the silk at her sides. This wasn’t a dream.
Mom, Dad, Your daughter is going to die soon. She can only internally sob, she can’t disrespect his highness by not showing up, but she doesn’t want to die sooner.
With shaking hands, Marinette drew in one last breath and turned toward the door, fear heavy in her chest as she prepared to face the story that had already decided how she was meant to end.
Then an idea went off in her head. She had time. At least eight more years before the execution ever happened, before chains and judgment and a fate she refused to accept. Eight years wasn’t much, but it was something. Enough time to think. Enough time to hopefully change fate enough for her not to die.
Her thoughts latched onto the one thing that mattered most: the engagement. If she could annul it early, before resentment, before the story had a chance to set its teeth into her then maybe her ending can change too. She didn’t need to be loved. She didn’t need to win. Break the engagement, before anything can go wrong.
If she remembered correctly, this would be the first time His Highness would ever meet his fiancée.
The thought made her stomach twist. In the novel, this meeting had been unremarkable, barely worth a paragraph. Two children introduced for the sake of politics, with no real attachment. And yet, this was where it started.
Not with obsession or cruelty, but with a simple fondness. A spark the narrative treated as harmless childish admiration that slowly grew into something no one could expect, something that would later be called possessive and suffocating. This was the moment the villainess first became enamoured.
Marinette’s fingers curled at her sides. If she wasn’t careful, the story would take hold right here.
They brought her in and announced her name.
Prince Adrien turned at once, clearly startled, as if he hadn’t expected her to arrive so soon. He straightened himself, smoothed the front of his jacket with nervous fingers, then bowed.
“Ah! Lady Marinette,” he said. “Hello.”
He looked… nothing like the cold figure she remembered from the later chapters. Currently, he was just a boy. Bright green eyes, wide and curious. When he smiled, it wasn’t practiced or sharp, almost relieved, like he’d been worried about making a bad impression.
“I hope you weren’t waiting long,” he added quickly. “I was told you’d be here today, but I didn’t know what time, and-um-sorry. I’m rambling.” He stopped himself, cheeks faintly pink. Marinette blinked. Oh. She understood it immediately.
He wasn’t dazzling or commanding. He was charming in the simplest way. The kind of person who made you feel at ease just by talking to you. The kind of boy adults called “well-raised” and children wanted to stand next to.
“I-no,” she said, catching herself, then adjusting her posture. “I just arrived as well, Your Highness.”
He smiled again, visibly relaxing.
“That’s good. I mean not that it would’ve been bad if you had waited! Just-um-good.”
Marinette had to bite the inside of her cheek. So this is how it happened. Just how admiration wraps itself into devotion. Wanting his approval. Wanting to hear him laugh again. Wanting to be the person he looked at like that.
She could see how the villainess had mistaken this feeling for something more. How a child, praised and indulged by the court, might cling to it too tightly.
Adrien glanced at her, hesitant. “Do you… want to sit? We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. My tutor says meetings like this are supposed to be ‘comfortable.’”
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” Marinette replied, carefully warm but measured. His smile brightened, just a little and there it was, the hook. I get it now, she thought. Which only made her resolve firmer. This was where the villainess had begun to fall.
He shifted, then lifted a hand and patted the space beside him, trying to get her to sit next to him. The gesture was simple and shy to a fault. Marinette hesitated only a moment before moving to sit beside him, smoothing her skirts as she settled into the chair. The closeness gave her heart an uncomfortable little twist.
“T-thank you,” she managed, sitting as gracefully as she could, she never took etiquette class. “You’re… very kind, Your Highness.”
“You can call me Adrien,” he said quickly. “If you want. We’re… um. Engaged.” He glanced away, ears pink. “I think that means we’re allowed to be less formal.”
Marinette nodded. “Then you may call me Marinette.”
His face lit up, bright. “Really? That’s, I mean, thank you.”
They sat there for a moment, swinging their feet slightly, neither quite sure what came next. “My tutor says I should ask about your interests,” Adrien said after a beat. “But I don’t really like how he phrases it. So what do you like?”
She blinked. No one had ever asked her that so simply.
“I like… making things,” she said slowly. “With my hands.”
“That’s amazing,” he said at once. “I can’t make anything. I tried once and it turned into a disaster. Do you think you could teach me?”
She nodded before she remembered herself. “I could try.”
“I’d like that.”
Warmth spread through her chest sweet and almost dizzying. If only my fate wasn’t to be executed, she thought. I might call this heaven.
She plastered on a polite smile instead, even as something tender and treacherous began to take root. This was how it started.