Prologue


Panic stuttered Marinette's heart. It fluttered with all the anxiety of a humming bird locked in a cage. The tell tale signs were all there. Hyperventilation on the edge of each gasping breath where she could never get enough oxygen into her lungs. Sweat and nerves and cold jarring with hot blood racing down to her appendages and back. Marinette could catalogue the curves of each fingerprint from how attuned she was. Her senses spiked into overdrive as what was once paranoia became tangible hysteria. By now her voice had gone hoarse from all the shouting but no one came to her aid.

Where did everyone go?

"M—nette?" he slurred the words, drunk and unfocused from the pain. A terrible gash cut just above his left eye oozed out a slow trickle of red. Marinette would rather focus on that than what he looked like from the neck down.

"It's, it's okay Nino. They'll be here any minute. Any minute now they'll be here. It's okay," she spoke softly. There was a lurching croak to her words, but Nino was too deep into his own worries to have care about hers.

"Hurts."

"Hang in there, Nino. It'll be okay. Please be okay." There was that same sound in the distance. Sinister. Close. Dangerous. It wasn't the sound of trees or meadows or trickster foxes. Nor was it the sound of strangers or sadness or indifferent sprites. It wasn't even the sound of darkness, a sound her grandmother made sure to teach her at a very young age. She had got it wrong, her grandmother, but then, so did this creature.

It slithered past her, curling up a tree and lessening the distance between them and it. Marinette huddled closer to Nino. Her name was too tricky for his speech. Syllables jostled into one another on Nino's tongue, thick and chunky like trying to eat half-baked dough. "Scared," he choked out. Marinette squeezed Nino's hand harder, firmer. Help wasn't coming; but it was.

"Nino? Nino, I'm here. Look, I'm here. I'll keep you safe, okay?" He squeezed her hand back just as firm.

Twilight made everything darker. Shadows shifted. Creatures awoke as the sun went down. Twin pinpricks of crimson and the bone white of a canine stared down the girl. Marinette held its gaze and unconsciously hardened her heart for things to come.

"I'll protect you."