Eleven year-old Marinette woke up to find her cheek pressed into cold cobblestone.

The floor was foreign, since the bakery was all brick and the floor was never cold from the heat rolling through the building.

Slowly she regained her senses, awareness tingling in her limbs, rolling her wrists—bound by icy metal behind her back—and twisting her ankles. The thin cotton of her nightgown billowed before her, rips and tears in places they hadn't been when she fell asleep. Her lips were chapped and dry when she breathed hotly against the floor, hair spilling over her face and obscuring her vision.

Where was she?

Where were Sabine, and Tom?

Where was Tikki?

"Nngh…" Her voice rasped around her, throat parched. She tried to move, pushing herself off the floor with her shoulders until she sat on folded, heavy legs and peered around the place she was. Her heart thudded, painfully slowly, in her ears. Her hands faintly trembled from their shackles.

The room she was bound to was dark, with an impossibly high curved ceiling. At the top of the ceiling sat windows, gated and allowing for daylight to stream through. There weren't any buildings like this near the farm, and the bakery was nowhere near the lord's precinct. So where….

"Where…?" So she wasn't home.

Marinette could feel the cold sweat of dread curdling in her empty stomach. She knew she was in trouble, but her clouded mind and heavy limbs kept her from feeling and facing the fear of the dungeon-like room she sat in. Why couldn't she feel scared? What was she supposed to do in this dark room, by herself? Why was she bound? Where was Tikki? Her eyes burned with tears.

Seeking an audience, she inhaled deeply, counting to three in her head before throwing her head back and screaming.

It came out as a pitiful wail, warbling slightly before sharply cutting off and sending the young girl into a coughing fit. As she hacked and wheezed, tears tracking down her cheeks and pooling into the thin fabric of her night dress, she registered a noise other than her ragged breathing.

'…Marinette?' A familiar voice rang weakly in her head. She flinched at the sound.

"Tikki," she mumbled hoarsely. A tinkling laugh echoed in her head, swelling in her stomach with sudden comfort.

'Marinette, are you okay?' The god's voice was thick with concern. Marinette tried to slide her legs out from underneath her, before tipping over and careening onto the cold stone floor. 'Can you hear me?'

"Kind of," Marinette croaked weakly. She rolled onto her back, ignoring the icy metal that pressed into her back from her shackled hands. "...Where am I?"

'You're in the castle of Trixx, dear. How do you feel?'

"Foggy…" She offered, closing her eyes and attempting to settle comfortably. "My head feels… thick," she cleared her throat, and rubbed her chapped lips together, "and heavy."

'You must have been drugged…' Tikki's voice ebbed in and out of clarity. 'Or maybe this isn't real… The Trixx are the masters of illusion, after all. Marinette,' She murmured in acknowledgement, 'Can you break the chains, Marinette?'

Could she? Marinette didn't even know if she could move her arms.

The girl fumbled with her hands behind her back for a moment, searching for a leverage point to catch onto. She twisted and wrung her wrists until she found a groove in the chains, before pushing herself upright again, blinking to bat the tears off her heavy eyelashes.

She flexed her hands, feeling her cheeks warm with the sensation of Tikki's power flaring in her small earrings and coursing through her body. Flooded with the sensation of power she yanked her hands apart with familiar ease, hearing the shackles fall. Bringing her hands forward, she admired the bright bruising along her wrists before reaching over and snapping the chain wrapped around her left foot.

Slowly, Tikki drew her power back, leaving a chill in Marinette's limbs where the addictive warmth of her god's power once ran. She slumped forward, feeling whiplash. However, the weight that clung to her body was dissipating.

'Do you feel better darling?' TIkki's voice mused.

"More… awake." Marinette's voice was still scratchy and sore, but her limbs were free from their bindings and the fog that had settled in the forefront of her mind was thinning. "What should I do, Tikki?"

'Can you stand?' Tikki nursed power into her limbs, trembling from the adrenaline dips and highs. Marinette's head spun as she braced her hands and pushed herself onto her feet, swaying with vertigo once she settled her weight upright. 'Good, good,' Tikki murmured.

"Why am I in the castle, Tikki?" Marinette asked, wrapping her hands around her small frame to retain her body heat. Trixx as a nation was always pretty warm, so where could she be that was this cold? She made her way away from the corner, pacing towards the center of the room where meager light spilt in from the high windows.

'Looks like you're going to find out dear. Someone else is coming.' Tikki's voice pulsed with warning. 'Sit back down, and hide your arms behind your back.' Obediently Marinette sat again, quaking with fear and anticipation as, lo and behold, the door whined and creaked as it swung open.

She blinked rapidly at the light that cast itself across the room, burning from torches carried by four soldiers who marched in wordlessly. Behind them stood two women who Marinette immediately recognized.

The queen of Trixx, Marlena Cesaire and her heir and daughter, Alya. The two entered the room followed by four more soldiers, each carrying both a torch and a sword cast to their sides. The queen entered first, billowing in thin layers of golden fabric that cascaded around her. The veil she normally wore was upturned, spilling over her dark hair and training behind her. To her side came her daughter, a girl of Marinette's age who wore similar swirling layers of fabric that hung away from her frame, a veil cast over her young face. The two came to stand in front of Marinette.

Marinette's head reeled. Why was the queen here? What had she done do deserve this? She refused to cast another look at the queen and her daughter as they spoke in a language foreign to Marinette's ears, regarding her with a gesture of the hand occasionally.

Marinette, Tikki's voice warned. You need to be extremely careful. Do not call for me, understand? Do not speak unless spoken to. Both Marlena and her daughter are strong enough to intercept your thoughts and warp your perception. Do not anger them. They will not kill you if you comply, darling. Please, be safe. And then, the tinkling voice of Marinette's deity washed out of her head, leaving her chilled from the loss of power.

She trembled from her spot on the floor, hands curling into one another as she was circled and watched by all ten pairs of eyes in the room.

"What is your name, dear." Her eyes snapped towards the queen, suddenly crouched down and wavering less than an arm's reach away from Marinette. Her gaze was powerful, light eyes capturing Marinette's attention and her presence swallowing all of Marinette's feelings and leaving her empty and dizzy.

Marinette hesitantly opened her mouth, croaking out her name.

"Marinette…" The queen raised an eyebrow at the young girl. "… Dupain-Cheng, your Majesty." The older woman smiled.

"Thank you, Marinette." The queen looked away and regarded the guard closest to her. "This girl is hardly of Alya's age. Are you sure this is the one?"

"She broke the shackles," The one behind Marinette said, language foreign to her ears. The young girl let out a squeak and immediately swerved to face the guard, holding up both the broken shackle and the ankle chain in each hands with a pinched expression on their face. "Most children cannot do that with their bare hands." Marinette's cheeks burned at the sudden attention shift, turning to face the queen with her head hung between her shoulders, tense in anticipation for punishment.

"Be still, young Marinette. No harm will come your way." The queen reassured. "I am not here to end your life. Just to ask you a few questions, okay?" Marinette nodded dizzily.

Be truthful. A voice quaked in her head, unlike the deity's voice she was so used to. She gave a start at the invasion of her mind, watching the queen's mouth curl into a smile. I take it you have not had many people do this before? Marinette shook her head. Well, except for your miraculous, I take it?

Her miraculous.

She knew.

"What…" Marinette's voice wavered and she turned her head to the side and coughed, curling away from the royal in front of her. The queen still stared down at her, nonmoving.

"Do not think us foolish, young Marinette." She spoke again, hazel eyes glowing in the poorly lit room. "We do not ensnare children on the regular."

"Huh?" Marinette wavered.

"Not all children are like you," Marlena mused, "Not all children inhabit the powers of a miraculous figure, a god who was destroyed centuries ago, bearing the full weight of the power with no blood." Marinette cast her eyes over to Alya, to see the young girl had her veil pinched between her fingers, raised over her eyes to meet Marinette's gaze.

"How do you… know?" Marinette offered. Marlena smiled again, quick and thin.

"Do not worry about that, young Marinette." She pressed. "I do have a few questions for you, however." Marinette nodded again, dumbstruck. "Where did you get those earrings?"

Marinette jerked away from the queen at that, fear fizzing at her nerves. The queen only leaned closer, brushing a heavily ringed hand against the lobe of Marinette's ear where her ruby earrings sat.

"I know that there is no ruby production within miles of your home, and your family is far too poor to afford jewelry, let alone of this cut and quality." Her voice was sharper, devoid of any warmth that it had before. "So where did you manage to take these from?" The accusation was clear.

Marinette trembled. "I didn't…" She faltered. "…didn't steal them, your Majesty."

"Oh?" The queen did not remove her hand. "Were they a gift then, if you did not take them yourself?" Marinette tipped her face forward, hair cascading over her eyes to avoid the queen's piercing look.

"I wore them before I got…" She trailed off, unsure of what to say. Before she began hearing a voice in her head, ensuring her of supernatural abilities amongst the ruse that she told not a single soul? Before she was told the was the sole inhabitor of a power fought over for millennia, bearing the weight of it from the tender age of nine?

"Before you acquired your powers, no?" Marlena crooned. Marinette met her eye hesitantly, glancing at Alya for a moment before nodding. "How interesting,"

"My queen, are you sure she does not lie? She is shaking like a leaf," one of the guards grumbled in Trixxan. The older women glanced up at them.

"These earrings are not the ones worn by Tikkian royalty. I am certain that Ladii did not wear these before her passing. The gods must have chosen a new stone to inhabit," She ran her thumb over Marinette's earring again. "And it is a rather dull one, if I am allowed to say such." The guards huffed in laughter at that.

"...Ladii?" Marinette questioned, grasping onto a name she recognized. The conversation was increasingly difficult to follow; the Trixxan tongue a rapid-fire language, a a dialect of intellect and status. The few who spoke and understood it were the rich and powerful. She remembered her mother's friend owning a few volumes of Trixxan text, dense and nearly impossible to decode and translate.

"The last ruler of Tikki, and the woman who once held the power you now carry, dear. She destroyed the earrings she held with her own power and took her life. It is surprising to say the very least to see a poor child of barely legal age to tremble with the same power once used to move mountains." The queen flicked her gaze up to the guards, and Marinette felt the brush of cool leather against her bare arms as they suddenly hoisted her up into the air to meet the queen's level as she stood and dusted her dress.

Marinette's mind buzzed. What was she going to do?

"Now let us see these earrings," The queen rose both hands to Marinette's face, ignoring the violent flinch it inflicted on the young girl as she reached for her left earring, fiddling it with sharp nails until it landed in her palm. Next, she reached for her right ear. Marinette felt hot tears wash her face and hang from her chin, limp in the arms of the guards as Marlena drew away from her with her earrings catching the light and twinkling in her gloved palm. "I will tend to these, and bring them personally to Fu's temple to seek their legitimacy."

"And if they are real, my lady?" The guard holding Marinette's left arm called as the queen turned towards the door. "What shall we do then?"

"Then we have a weapon upon our hands, young and ready to be crafted." Marlena looked over her shoulder at her daughter who stood with her veil drawn back and fists clenched. "Alya, this girl is your age. Make nice with her, understood?" Alya nodded curtly, hazel eyes never leaving Marinette's dirty face.

Marlena's guards followed her out the door, dropping Marinette suddenly, shoulders turned as the eleven year old girl shuddered and curled in on herself. Alya stood, serene and curious as the baker's girl wept, red face wiping the cold stone and fists curling in her hair. Marinette sobbed, and sobbed and sobbed, long after Marlena's sharp footsteps faded down the prison corridor.