Mermay Day One - Prompt: Warm

Marinette's boots felt heavier than normal, her feet seeming to drag under her as if feeding off the reluctance set in her bones. They had done good work here, her and her crew. But instead of the usual want to return home pressing on her heart, Marinette instead felt all the dread she had suppressed their entire journey crashing down on her in one mighty wave.

For, though it warmed her heart just thinking of returning home to see the loving faces of her parents, Marinette would pass a certain benchmark while on her crossing of the sea: her 18th birthday.

When she returned home this time, there would be no more seafaring.

Marinette would be expected to marry.

A wet pressure suddenly touched her hand, pulling Marinette's attention downward. As if sensing her sudden cold feet (ha…a little early for that, isn't it?), Tikki, in all her red, long-haired glory, had nosed her hand. Marinette bent down and started rubbing her fingers vigorously through Tikki's tresses that seemed to be constantly damp, the action causing a burning in her heart that eased her pain in an almost physical way. Tikki pushed into Marinette further, causing the girl to fall over in unbridled laughter. It only spurned Tikki to keep at it, however, and the canine companion was soon lying on top of the young girl, licking heartily at her face.

Tikki always seemed to have a way of transforming Marinette into something brighter.

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The cold of the sea rushed around Adrien, the icy feeling tingling his skin in a way that was no longer foreign to him. For nearly his entire life, he had been unfamiliar to sensations like hot and cold, wet and dry, light and dark. In fact, his people lived the entirety of their lives in this same ignorance, never venturing far enough to really feel a difference, never even realizing that there could be something else out there they were missing out on.

But Adrien knew. And because of it, every day he craved more.

Adrien's dark tail flicked behind him, propelling him through the water faster as his mind wandered back to his first time feeling something…different.

Warmth.

It was a subtle current, one he barely felt on the tip of the fin on one of his arms. The class he had been following went on without him, his fellow students never realizing he was gone as they listened to their instructor drone on about things like squid and their tentacular appendages. Drawing a hand through the moving water, Adrien was frozen in pure wonder. He could feel whatever it was stir around his fingers like a piece of seaweed or anemone, swirling and moving with the sea as though it was an entity of its own. The path it cut through the water was easy enough to follow; though the curiosity to do so caused Adrien to almost shake with want, still he hesitated. Its path moved without thought to any direction, except it being away from Adrien's home, away from Atlantis, and, most importantly, away from his father's protective eyes. If he followed the current, it would be going against all of his father's wishes.

Which, admittedly, to a 13-year-old, wasn't an unattractive idea.

A sudden, more forceful stirring in the ocean caused Adrien to dart backward in the water. A mass, unafraid of its surroundings - though, as Adrien watched, was undoubtedly out of place in this part of the ocean - moved leisurely passed Adrien. A flick of its whiskered face, something resembling a lopsided smile, made the black fish look as if he was laughing at Adrien's predicament, though having no previous knowledge of the merman's inner musings. As it passed, Adrien realized it was lazily floating through the route he himself had been debating on. Once more, as the giant catfish turned back and look at Adrien through his beady eyes, that tilted grin appeared on his elongated mouth before turning on his way again.

Something of a smile appeared on Adrien's face then, but not one that he was used to. It seemed to mimic the mocking catfish; instead of the feeling of his eyes crinkling in the corners, or his cheeks raising up in just the right way - like Father liked it - Adrien felt just one side of his cheek edge upward, his lip curling to meet it, and eyes glancing to the side in a way that could possibly be considered sneaky, watching his class swim farther and farther away.

(Through the years, Adrien, though not having a true name for this particular facial feat (though in his mind, always calling it "catfish-like"), would become ever familiar with it, especially when he was thinking about doing something particularly naughty.)

There was no more deliberation.

Adrien swam into the unknown.

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It would be years later when Plagg, the black catfish who was as huge as he was misplaced in the open ocean, would take Adrien closer to his original home than ever before. Here, the water held more 'warmth', as Adrien learned to call the once-mysterious sensation. It also was shallower, lighter. Though Adrien had never beheld the source of the brightness yet, per Plagg's guidance, Adrien reveled in the way his eyes could soak in more of the world around him all at once.

It only made him feel more loathed to return home.

Adrien sighed before startling in the sight now before him. Great masses that seemed like ghosts of things once alive started to appear all around. They looked like underwater buildings, but constructed with a strange element. Instead of jagged rock, or movement from coral or anemones, the structures laid completely still. It didn't feel…natural. And though the picture they painted all together was breathtaking and eerily beautiful in its way, the place held a heavy feeling of death and destruction.

"What are they?" Adrien asked his companion.

"Ships," Plagg answered simply, as was his way. He seemed to be as knowledgeable as he was unhelpful, usually talking in detail about "food" that was dropped into the ocean (loving especially certain round things that smelled bad enough no other sea creatures would touch them, sometimes even filled with holes) while offering only one- or two-word answers to things Adrien was actually interested in.

"Ships?" Adrien pressed, swimming closer to one of the large things before looking back to Plagg expectantly.

"They built them."

"Who?" Who could create something like this? And why would they break it and leave it abandoned? As was part of the ocean, it was, as Adrien could clearly see, being repurposed from its original design. All manner of creatures lurked in and around the 'ships', as Plagg had called them, though all lurked in relative silence and stillness. It was if they, as Adrien did, felt the despair that tainted the water here.

As Adrien mused, he came to the sudden realization that his companion had stopped, and was now looking at him with that crooked grin that Adrien had come to associate with only him.

"You'll see."

[[ Thanks for reading! The next 2 ch. should be uploaded by tonight!

Seeing as how, you know, MerMay actually started on the FIRST of May...and...well...yeah. ;D ]]

[[ This will be a continuous story (drabble-esque chapters) built from the 2018 Mermay prompt list written by aliensfordomts on Tumblr!

(...Who I am having a hard time actually finding there? If y'all know who this is, let me know, and I'll edit this!) ]]

[[ Pffft. DUH IT'S GONNA BE BASED OFF LITTLE MERMAID.

Heh...kinda. 8) ]]

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