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"I'm counting on you, Nathalie. I know he's as stubborn as they come and, it won't be easy to convince him to stop chasing the Miraculous. But you have to, for Adrien."
But you have to, so easily said when there's nothing left to gain. I'm counting on you, when there's nobody left.
She tried, dammit! She tried so many times, even before Emilie asked! Countless days and nights, begging and bargaining and reckoning, hypotheticals springing forth like blooms in Emilie's garden. Gabriel, on that final trip to Tibet, the last time they returned after the sickness revealed itself, looking not for Miraculouses but for Cures. White snow blinding, temperature dropping, Nathalie tried.
His voice rose. His hand rose higher.
Silence, bought by way of a stinging cheek.
As if in shock, Gabriel fell back the moment he realized it happened. Nathalie stood still, eyes blown wide and mouth clamped shut; she took the punishment the way she was taught innumerable times in her youth to. Gabriel at her side in an instant, half-mad mutterings that she knew better, that she shouldn't have pushed him, that he would have never-.
Silence for the rest of the trip, punctuated by the depression of failure.
Gabriel didn't offer a cure to Emilie when they returned. Nathalie didn't offer a retelling of events.
His passion sweeps everything away.
Emilie always explained Gabriel in such poetic terms. Her valiant stable boy, not a prince but still beloved by the princess. Nathalie understood him, his desperation, his love. She thought him a twin flame, before she realized he loved only the flame keeper.
She was always jealous of Emilie.
Gabriel's heart was never Nathalie's deepest desire. Rather, she longed for what Emilie had - love. A heart so overflowing with love that it caused her death. A poetic end to a storybook life. Abstracted beauty in death, her body entombed in glass. No corpse was ever pretty, and yet no corpse ever looked prettier.
But you have to, Emilie pleaded, before she realized the depths of his obsession. And, oh, how she didn't even know what was yet to come! Once upon a time, none of them thought anything could ever place higher than his love for Emilie. Once upon a time, he did it all for her.
Had he changed when he married Emilie, when power suddenly met him? Or had he changed when Adrien was planted, when power suddenly was given form?
God, Nathalie had tried. In so many ways, and so many words, and so many expressions, she tried. It was never enough. How could she fall in love with a madman? And then, how could she not? Everything Emilie loved about him, Nathalie loved, too. Everything Emilie spurned about him, Nathalie had been taught was strength. If ever she had a chance, it was in the soft arms of Gabriel's beloved, birdlike bones encased by smooth skin, Emilie's gentle hands caressing a gaping maw with a muzzle on it, her loyal dog soothed only by its master.
His kindness had hurt more than the slap ever had. False hopes, false pretenses, false feelings. She believed once she had a chance, and the guilt nearly ate her alive. It was almost a relief to realize that he was using her. It was almost a comfort to know if he held any love for her, he would never realize or admit it.
For someone without a heart, she was impossibly weak to love. Perhaps she should've been starved of it more. Perhaps she should have had none at all.
But you have to, echoed in her mind even in her lowest moments. The Peacock Miraculous, cold metal stinging with broken magic. The needle broke skin, red blood dripping, before she fastened it to herself; perhaps that was all it ever took. There was no forethought before it was donned, only the persistent, aching fear of a hope being pulled out of reach. The deal was signed the minute she learned the passcode to the safe behind the painting all those years ago. Ichor filled her veins, miasma filled her lungs, and her organs began to wither and decay. Even so, she thought it was worth it at the time.
If Emilie had been the one in danger by that point, Nathalie would have still done the same. Love was funny like that.
Nathalie had tried to convince Gabriel, right up until the day Emilie died. By that point, they were still friends, confidantes. She never pushed as hard as she had that day in the snow, but she did still try. She never told Emilie, but Emilie always knew. Maybe that was why she was so kind, in spite of Nathalie's feelings - for both of them. The hardest thing to swallow about Emilie was that it was never pity that made her look after Nathalie. The hardest thing for Nathalie to swallow about herself was that someone could truly care for her.
Hand raised to the sky, fingers barren of both polish and jewelry; it was never worth the effort, the upkeep. Nathalie should have known better than to let herself be swept up in madness. The thing They never told her was that a loyal dog left without a master would be that much more desperate for a command to follow. A trained dog would do what it thought it should, even at cost to itself; she would've run into a burning fire, dove into a raging sea... worn a broken miraculous, time and time again.
When she realized he couldn't be reasoned with, it had been too late. Perhaps it had been too late the second the idea entered his head.
"You could’ve chosen to save Emilie! You could’ve chosen to save me! But instead, you chose your obsession with Ladybug and Cat Noir. You're insane, Gabriel! You don’t deserve my help. You don't deserve anyone's help!"
And then,
"You used to do this out of love for Emilie, but now, you're only doing it out of madness, and the only reason I'm still here is to protect Adrien from you!"
She'd told herself Emilie would be proud of her, but it was a fool's lie. Even without being inclined to pessimism, she knew it was too late to take back the things she'd already done. Needles in her spine connected to a metal skeleton holding her up, at least the constant pain served as a temporary punishment, only until she could receive a more fitting one.
"Falling in love was… complicated."
The truest thing she ever said, all to a boy who should have known the truth about everything. No, worse - the truth told to a boy who should have never had anything to know about.
Lips pressed to glass, red lipstick leaving kiss marks. The evidence wiped away before the monarch descended. Apologies and pleas and promises, all of them dripping from makeup-smudged lips. She could never kiss Emilie's lips when she was down there; if Gabriel saw any hint of unexpected blood flow, any swelling or reddening, he would've been insatiable. Pushed to an even greater madness, his hope would've reached a new apex. He would've been unstoppable. Although... he already was. Even his own crumbling body couldn't hold him back, ever the hero of his own story.
It made Nathalie laugh to think about how he never once thought about who would take Emilie's place. She'd known it from the instant he put on the Butterfly Miraculous, but he hadn't a clue. It was, like so many other things, something he refused to ever admit. The truth hurt him most of all, time and time again.
"But you have to," the most painful, difficult task of all, too quickly discarded and too slowly picked up again. At least karmic justice was there for her, rapidly descending. Chest rising, chest falling, heart speeding, heart slowing. At least she knew, which was something Gabriel could never say for himself. A pathetic reassurance, when she had so little else.
"I'm sorry, I failed you. But I promise you, I will get the Miraculous before he does. I won't let him recreate the world in the image of his madness!"
And the bitter knowledge that if she had the Miraculous in her hand, she would've thought about using them. Who was to say she learned her lesson? Who was to say she wouldn't wish for exactly what he wanted.
Even human sacrifices were sometimes willing.
She tried, so desperately hard, pathetic body pushed to its limits time and time again. She was never built for love, and that fact should've branded itself on her body, rather than imprinted itself on her name; maybe then she would've remembered, stayed separate, not gotten her hopes up.
Instead, she lay in bed, four sets of green eyes in her memory and the pain of knowing it would all end soon, one way or the other.
"I tried, Emilie," she said aloud with all of the pitiful strength she could muster.
I'm sorry, she couldn't finish, sleep stealing her before she could.