This was all Marinette's fault, and she knew it. If she hadn't tripped on that stupid black cat like a klutz, then she wouldn't have dropped her favourite bag.
Her favourite bag that always had Tikki in it.
The same favourite bag that was slowly drifting down La Seine with a sleeping red kwami snuggled up warmly inside it.
Marinette didn't know if magical guardians could drown, but she wasn't planning on finding out.
"Tikki!" Marinette hissed at the floating bag as loudly as she dared, not wanting to draw attention to herself. It was irritating that she couldn't shout and scream, which was what it usually took to wake Tikki up from a cookie coma, but there was little else she could do. People were already giving her strange looks and she didn't want to put Tikki in any more danger than she was already in by causing a massive fuss. There was always a chance that one of them could be Hawk Moth, and it could be serious trouble if he realised that Ladybug was without her Kwami.
The bag was getting further and further away and Mari could feel herself beginning to panic. Seeing as her purse was out of arms reach, Marinette resorted to jogging along the bank, hands cupped around her mouth as she whisper-yelled, watching in despair as the little pink bag meandered its way down the river.
"Tikki!" She hissed, "Would you please wake up before you actually start sleeping with the fishes? Tik-"
Marinette's voice cut off with a surprised shout as, for the second time that day, she fell flat on her face, nose hitting the concrete hard. She groaned, more at her bad luck than in pain. Inwardly, she wondered if she should consider getting her eyes checked, as apparently she could never see where she was going, and at this rate she was going to get a permanent bruise on her face. If she didn't know any better, she'd say this was karma for dropping her living good luck charm in a river like an idiot. She almost wanted to laugh at her misfortune, when she heard a concerned and familiar voice ask her a question.
"Um, are you OK Marinette?"
Adrien smiled awkwardly at his classmate from where he was sprawled on the floor next to her, having also fallen over when they collided, and tried to be a gentleman by not laughing at her shocked expression. He wasn't doing very well; especially since the blush spreading across Marinette's face was kind of reminding him of a ripe tomato, though he didn't plan on sharing that thought out loud. Instead, he smiled kindly.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to bump into you, I was in a bit of a rush and wasn't looking where I was going." He looked around, "Aren't you usually with Alya around this time? You two are nearly always together, right?."
Marinette blinked. Her brain took a second to process the question, and then another as she registered that she needed to answer quickly before it became awkward. Frantically, Marinette waved her hands about, grasping enough at a sentence to just about blurt, "Oh yeah...um... no Alya had to go tooooooo a... um... CLASS! A JOURNALIST CLASS! S-She went for extra practice, y'know, she wants to be a journalist...o-or you didn't know, but now you do so... that's... um yeah..." before she clamped her hand over her mouth, feeling her face turn another, deeper shade of red.
Adrien smiled warmly again (tomatotomatotomato) and stood up, brushing the dirt off of his designer jeans. He held a hand out for Marinette, who took it gratefully, and he pulled her up. There was a single moment of comfortable silence, before the two teens realised they were still holding hands and shot apart, looking sheepish.
Adrien went to ask Marinette what she was doing by the river then if she wasn't hanging out with her friend, when a sudden buzzing noise coming from his pocket interrupted his thoughts. He cursed under his breath. According to the message, the Gorilla had told Nathalie of his escape. He had to get moving. Giving Marinette an awkward double thumbs up as he began to walk away, he said, "Oh, OK, that's cool. I... er guess I'll see you around then! Bye!"
He dashed off, opening his jacket slightly. Marinette sighed and waved. She turned back around and murmured, "OK, where was I... Oh right! Tikki! Tik- oh no..."
She realised suddenly she'd been struck by her bad luck again; Marinette's run in with Adrien Agreste had meant she'd completely lost sight of her bag, and by extension, her spotted companion. Marinette took a deep breath, opened her mouth and screamed.
Her day could not get any worse.
...
"-ease wake up before you actually start sleeping with the fishes? Tik-"
Tikki's eyes shot open. That was Marinette's voice. She sounded like she was in trouble. Did she need her mask? Tikki reached for the clasp of the bag and yanked it open. Instantly water started to fill the bag, soaking both Tikki and her few remaining cookies. With a small squeak, the tiny Kwami quickly shut the bag back up again and, after taking a second to calm down, frowned.
How did she end up in a river? She'd been with Marinette just a minute ago and- Marinette! Where was Marinette? It was very unlikely that Mari had thrown her in the river, so something must have happened. What if she'd been kidnapped by Hawk Moth or an Akuma had attacked her or... or... worse! Tikki had to get to Marinette immediately.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Tikki phased through the bag, shivering from the slightly uncomfortable feeling. You would think after thousands of years, a Kwami would get used to the feeling of their atoms dissipating and rearranging, but no, it was still the weirdest sensation, like being ticked from the inside out.
Quickly, Tikki grabbed the strap of Marinette's bag. She tried to drag the purse under the bridge she'd just passed, but she underestimated the strength of the current. The soaked bag was too heavy for her to lift, and what with both the water in and outside of the bag, the Chocolate Chip Triple Deluxe cookies and Marinette's phone, it was like an ant trying to move a concrete brick.
But, that didn't mean she could just leave it there. She was determined to save it.
Gripping the chain tighter with her tiny hands, Tikki tugged at the bag strap as hard as she could. It moved a little in the right direction, but it was slowly moving back into the current, so Tikki gritted her teeth and tried to pull it out of the water and fly it over to a small alcove under another, closer bridge.
Instead, once that didn't work and she nearly sank her cargo, she tried a hopping method, bouncing the bag off the water to give it some more lift, and she finally reached the alcove after a few minutes of desperate struggling.
Tentatively, Tikki opened the bag in hope of a cookie. All that was left was a depressing pile of mush, so Tikki instead pulled out Marinette's phone to clean it.
Sadly pushing the biscuit remains off the phone into the river, Tikki considered her options. She could leave the bag here to come back for it later, but she could forget where she'd put it or the weight of it could cause it to fall back into the river. She could try to pull the bag out of the alcove and then try to find Marinette while carrying it, but she wouldn't be able to stand the weight of it for very long and there was a chance she could be spotted by someone (no pun intended) or captured. She shivered as a memory of the 'Ali Incident' popped up in her head. She wouldn't be able to move through town very fast either. With a start she realised she didn't know how far she'd drifted down the river before she woke up.
She pushed the bag as far into the alcove as it would go, slipping the phone on top and quickly zipped up to peer over the bridge. Tikki let out a relieved breath. She knew where she was, but she was still pretty far from Marinette's house. She looked around for anywhere to hide the bag when she suddenly noticed Alya about to turn and walk down the bridge, presumably coming back from her journalism class. A sudden idea occurred to Tikki and she grinned.
As fast as she could manage, she emptied the remaining cookie mush into the river, put the phone back inside and closed the bag clasp securely. She carefully raised the bag above her head, somehow managing to get it safely inbetween her antennas, and began to float upwards, wobbling a little as she tried to keep her cargo balanced. Tikki lifted the bag up alongside the bridge and, just as Alya walked past, half-pushed-half-threw the bag hard as she could towards the young journalist, shooting back under the bridge immediately after to avoid being seen.
The bag landed in front of Alya's feet with a satisfying 'thump'. Alya stopped and looked down in surprise.
"Oh!" She lent down to pick up the bag, looking around in confusion, "Mari's bag? What? Marinette? You here, girl?"
No one answered, though a passerby gave her a weird look for talking to herself. Tikki held her breath.
Alya frowned, putting her hand on her hip. "Nino, if this is some kinda prank, I will end your life right here, right now. I do not have time for your jokes today."
Still, no one answered. Alya, after a tense moment, hummed in an unconvinced tone, then sighed, mumbling something about 'time wasting' under her breath. She pulled a carrier bag out of her satchel and placed Marinette's soaked bag in it and, after a quick check that there was nothing else that mysteriously belonged to her friends around, Alya carried on walking down the bridge.
Tikki sighed in relief. Now the bag would get back to Marinette's house without Tikki struggling to haul it back to the bakery. Granted, Alya-mail was not an ideal way to get it there, but it was better than someone seeing her and causing a mass panic.
In the meantime, Tikki needed to find Marinette and quick, except she wasn't sure how she was going to make it to her. For all she knew, Marinette could be anywhere in Paris by now, so where was she supposed to start looking? Either way, Tikki couldn't stay away from Marinette for too long or it could end up in trouble for the both of them. Tikki sighed sadly. She already missed her chosen.
Another idea popped into Tikki's head as quickly as the first and she gasped. Alya was going to get to Marinette, or at least Marinette's house, eventually, so why didn't she just follow Alya? If Tikki was as lucky as history claimed, Alya might even go to see Marinette today, which would solve the separation problem quicker than she ever could've hoped. Tikki suppressed a shaky laugh as she zipped back up to the topside of the bridge. She looked back and forth a couple of times before spotting Alya walking down the path parallel to the river. She immediately shot after her, making sure to keep hidden as she did so. Hopefully, she would be back with her Marinette by the end of the day, and the whole incident would be forgotten like it never happened.
Hopefully, it would all be OK.