"Mr. Stainless and the Muffin Maiden, it sounds like a comic book." - a line from "The Chat Righting Reflex" Chapter 7 by Freedom_Shamrock on AO3
- Story behind the story. The first few years of Adrien being on his own he'd ask the Muffin Maiden (Marinette) how her day had gone and she'd ask Mister Stainless (Adrien) what adventures his day had brought. Shortly after Marinette and Adrien became engaged Adrien approached Marc and Nathaniel about doing a children's book series starring the Muffin Maiden, and why it was meaningful. Without his knowledge Marinette had also approached them about doing a comic book starring Mister Stainless, and why she thought Adrien would like it. Marc and Nathaniel decided to mix the ideas and made a children's comic book series starring The Muffin Maiden and Mister Stainless. It's sold very well and has as many volumes as Emma has years of life.
The Muffin Maiden and Mister Stainless
Written by Marc Anciel
Illustrations [Image Description] by Nathaniel Kurtzberg
Dedication: To our good friends the Muffin Maiden and Mister Stainless on their wedding day. Congratulations! May your coming adventures together be met with love and laughter.
Once upon a time in the land of Bakeree there lived a lovely girl known as the Muffin Maiden. Every morning she baked muffins for the people of her town.
[Picture of Marinette as the Muffin Maiden in her house, surrounded by piles of different muffins, handing one of them out the top half of a Dutch door to a smiling man holding a little boy on his shoulder.]
One morning the Muffin Maiden noticed something was wrong with her muffins. They all had burned spots on them! She was very sad. She couldn't give burned muffins to people to eat! Now what would they have for breakfast?
[Picture of distraught Muffin Maiden surrounded by piles of muffins with burned spots, some almost spotless others nearly covered in black.]
"I will go to the queen and tell her about my burned muffins," the maiden thought. So she packed up examples of her poor burned muffins and headed to the palace.
[Picture of the Muffin Maiden packing a picnic basket with very burned muffins as well as slightly burned muffins.]
When she got to the palace there was a long line of people. All of the bakers in Bakeree had burned spots on their food! Every cake, pie, cookie, and muffin came out of the oven with burned spots.
[Picture of palace with a long line of people with various baked goods all of which have a black burns on them.]
The queen made an announcement. "You bakers have got to stop burning all the food!"
"It's not our fault," the bakers cried. "Suddenly our ovens have hot spots and cold spots. They change all the time. We can't bake in sick ovens."
[Picture of a queen looking a lot like Chloe giving announcement from balcony with disgruntled bakers, the bakers closest to the palace look like Tom and Sabine, replying by waving burned bread. Picture of sick brick ovens with red and blue spots all over them]
While everyone was yelling about sick ovens and burned food the court jester suggested they ask the wizard to fix the ovens.
[Picture of court jester who looks like Alix, pointing to a far away place saying, "Why not ask the wizard?"]
The Muffin Maiden was the only one who heard the jester and asked her where the wizard lived. The jester told her that the wizard lived in a tall tower in the Sugar Shard Mountains in the far north. The Muffin Maiden gave the jester her least burnt muffin and headed toward the mountains.
[Picture of the Muffin Maiden and jester looking at a map. And then another of the Muffin Maiden leaving, jester holding a muffin with a burned spot is waving her off.]
As the Muffin Maiden walked along the road she met a sad man at the crossroads. When she asked him why he was crying the man answered that he was far from home and hadn't had anything to eat for many days.
[Picture of Adrien's character holding his stomach as he cries by the road.]
The Muffin Maiden hated that the man was hungry. She told him that all she had was burned muffins, but that he was welcome to eat any of them that he wanted.
[Picture of the Muffin Maiden handing the sniffing man a muffin with the words "Sorry, it's a little burned" coming out of her mouth.]
The man stopped being sad after he ate the food the Muffin Maiden shared with him.
[Picture of the man smiling saying "Thank you" and standing up]
The man asked the Muffin Maiden if he could travel with her on her way to the wizard's house. He promised to help the Muffin Maiden since she had helped him. The Muffin Maiden thought for a moment and then agreed that he could come along.
[Picture of both of them shaking hands.]
The man told the Muffin Maiden that he couldn't remember much about his life before the days he found himself wandering down the road. In fact he couldn't even remember his name!
[Picture of the man talking with bubbles over his head showing him wandering down a road at different times of day and one with him scratching his head with several question marks around him.]
They were coming to the town of Stainlessville so the Muffin Maiden asked if he would like to be called Mister Stainless. The man thought for a moment and then agreed that he would like to have the name the Muffin Maiden had suggested.
[Picture of them passing a Welcome to Stainlessville sign]
In the town the Muffin Maiden talked to many people. All of them were having trouble with their ovens burning their food. They all wished the Muffin Maiden and Mister Stainless good luck with the wizard.
[Picture of the Muffin Maiden and Mister Stainless talking to different people and seeing their burned food. Some are saying "Good luck!"]
Soon the Muffin Maiden and Mister Stainless were at the foot of the mountain. There was a very winding path they had to climb to get to the wizard's tower.
[Picture of them looking up the path to the tower in the distance. Mister Stainless is in front and helping pull the Muffin Maiden up the path]
The Muffin Maiden and Mister Stainless climbed, and climbed, and climbed up the steep path. The closer they got to the wizard's tower, the itchier Mister Stainless became.
[Picture of Mister Stainless going up the path with 1 itch, next 2 itches, then 3 places itching.]
As soon as the Muffin Maiden knocked on the wizard's tower door, Mister Stainless started itching all over until suddenly there was a black cat in his place!
[Picture of the Muffin Maiden knocking on the tower door while being shocked at the sight of a black cat next to her surrounded by smoke and the word "Poof!".]
When the wizard answered his door he was very surprised to have the Muffin Maiden ask him if he knew what was wrong with Bakeree's ovens. She showed him one of the muffins in her basket and asked the wizard for help.
[Picture of wizard that looks exactly like Max talking to the Muffin Maiden who is showing him one of her muffins with a black cat curling around her ankle]
The wizard took the muffin and put it on his crystal ball. He sprinkled a blue powder over it and shot a bolt of lightning from his fingers. The crystal ball changed colors and the wizard consulted his big book.
[Picture of Wizard Max shooting lightning at the muffin while a concerned Muffin Maiden looks on and the black cat has an arched back with his fur fluffed up hissing in the direction of the wizard.]
"This is some kind of curse spell," the wizard told the Muffin Maiden. "I will get to work on a spell to reverse it right away."
The Muffin Maiden thanked the wizard and asked him what had made Mister Stainless change into a cat.
[Picture of Wizard Max saying, "I'll fix it." The Muffin Maiden is saying "Thank you! Do you know about my cat?"]
The wizard knelt down and examined Mister Stainless. He ran a hand down the cat's back then stood up. "He's allergic to magic. He'll be fine once you are far away from my tower." The Muffin Maiden thanked the wizard again and then headed home.
[Picture of Wizard Max petting the cat while peering closely at him as the cat sneezes. The Muffin Maiden is saying "allergic?" as she looks at the cat.]
The Muffin Maiden hurried home to see what the wizard could come up with as a cure for her sick oven. Mister Stainless was glad once they were down the mountain, away from the tower and he could stop itching.
[Several small pictures show Mister Stainless morphing back from his cat form to his human one.]
The next day a thunder cloud formed around the wizard's tower then flowed out to cover the land of Bakeree. Pink and blue rain fell down over the houses and the people hoped that their ovens would be cured of their hot and cold spots.
[Picture from inside the Muffin Maiden's house where the Muffin Maiden and Mister Stainless are eating burned muffins and watching the multi-colored rain come down .]