The last thing Alya heard her mother say before she disappeared up the dungeon stairs was enough to make her stay with the strange girl, guilt and curiosity pulling endless tears out of her eyes.
'Make it be so that no one knows that the girl exists.'
She shudders through a sob, wondering how she got here. How this girl got here, or who she was, or why she was here.
"I'm sorry," She breathed through the thick lob of guilt in her throat, hands disappearing under her veil to smear the tears onto her face before they tracked down her cheeks. "I-I'm sorry."
The girl had curled onto herself, head hidden between shaking arms and resting on top of her scabbed knees. Her crying bounced along the walls, ringing in Alya's ears and thrumming down her spine.
Alya had never seen the tower dungeon before; a narrow, damp, tunnel-infested fortress with more guards than the princess had ever seen in one place. At the edge of her vision, with a brush of her blood-eyes, she could feel the presence of archers, poised at the ready with needle-thin bows.
This fortress is new , she thought, running her eyes on the shiny brass hinges and firm wood doors, yet to rot and rust with the dungeon's climate. Very new, and very secure . The cobblestone walls were a rare sight, an expensive and unfriendly Trixxan resource that was scarce to her motherland. Most fortresses were built of bricks, clay and reinforced with steel.
These kind of walls are meant for murderers and Nurian spies, not… Her thoughts dwindled to a stop, eyeing the place where the girl's ruby earrings once were. How her shackles, thick steel and impenetrable, were melted and shattered. She hardly had any fat on her body, let alone muscles.
Alya was on her mother's side, in politics and ruling, as soon as she finished her first few years of studies. She followed her mother through meetings and councils, treaties and declarations, wars her mother avoided and ones she never lose, only could draw out.
She knew the Tikki miraculous was dangerous; a powerful, manipulative, volatile force that made the castle historian stand a little straighter, whenever teaching about the kwami and its' history. How it's great nation, a superpower that nearly held half the continent, fell in barely a decade. How the Tikkian wielder, a wild young general, had sacrificed herself to stop the Tikkian bloodline from expanding into madness. She had heard of the cacophony, the tragedy and the scramble that the remaining nations, Trixx included, had to fix to restore a semblance of peace to the continent.
Then Tikki went into hiding, and they had spent decades searching for any leftover blood, any sign of the kwami of creation.
They murdered all of House of Tikki, her bloodline, and every living soul in her capital.
Trixx and Nuruu had built their century-old alliance on that tragedy, a rickety and weak neutrality agreement under the fear of Tikki's reemergence. It was the same ghost of an alliance that her mother held with the King of Nuruu.
This girl , Alya tossed her veil over her thick hair and down her back, leaning forward to peer at the girl's bright eyes. This girl, is the next Tikkian.
"What is… What's your name?" Alya tried, in commoner's tongue. Her grasp of the language was weak, and her mother would scold her for tripping over the harsh sounds and hard curls, but she knew that the girl was from the bordertown of neutral land.
The girl's eyes snapped to Alya, and she stared owlishly, blinking once, twice.
"Marinette…" She murmured, the dryness of her throat scratching along her accent.
"Ma-rinette?" The strange princess tried, twisting her tongue around Marinette's name.
It was sharp and foreign, unlike the warm, musical flow of her name off her mother's tongue, or the lilt and soft consonants of her father's smooth voice. It was nothing like the ringing baritone of her neighbor, or the honeyed, accented rasp of her grandmother…
Where were they? Where were Tom, and Sabine?
The Queen of Trixx had been little help. Her golden, all-seeing eyes blazed behind Marinette's eyelids, the memory of the Queen's soft hands against her face sent a new wave of goosebumps dancing across her skin, the phantom sensation lingering in whispers of touch.
She tossed her head to the side, reminiscent of the cool metal kiss of her earrings, feeling empty without them.
I still exist with you, Marinette. Tikki's voice commanded her thoughts away, warm and encompassing her mind. Do not fear for your jewelry, it does little to bind us anymore.
"I am Alya," The Trixxan princess went on, leaning forward with the palm of her hands. Marinette stared at her face, her red and puffy eyes, wondering what she was crying for.
Marinette tuned out Alya, enamored in the images of her mother, father, posessively spinning their voices through her mind. Their bakery, her bedroom, the garden…
Where were they? Were they okay? Why was Marinette alone?
Suddenly the tears she had fought so hard to breathe away came rolling back, blurring the young princess's distressed face. It was better that way, free from her eyes of pure gold and liquid pity.
'Marinette', Tikki's voice came, a tassel of strength in the young girl's tumultuous thoughts. ' Marinette, Marinette'. Warmth curled at her fingers and pooled in her chest, enveloping her in the artificial embrace of her kwami's powers.
'These tears are for naught, my child. Wear yourself strong, and steadfast. I am here, to protect you and give to you whatever it is you may need.' Tikki's voice was unusually riveting. Was this more of the god's seemingly endless powers?
"Tikki," Marinette murmured, burying her face in the damp skin of her knees. Curled up like this, power lazily swimming through her limbs and sitting tepidly at her fingertips, Marinette could not verbalize the foreign feeling that sat in her. A push, a stir, a shiver…
Rather, it was pull. Her fingers thrummed and trembled as she unwrapped her body, sitting and staring at her hands. Forgotten was the onlooking Trixxian princess, her thick accent and pitiful eyes long lost as Marinette's world came down to her hands. Small, dirtied and cold, and overflowing. They were alive with Tikki's power, bubbling and bursting at her fingertips and she was full, so uncomfortably full of power she needed to let it go—
She drew her fingers together, tears crusting ruby in her eyes as she pressed and pulled at the scarlet between her fingers, meddling with the pure energy that buzzed and crackled with the stimulation.
It thickened, bright red molasses that hardened and sharpened as she worked it. Her breathing eased, fears and cries forgotten to the humid, encompassing mass of energy that was Tikki's power.
'There you go, child'. Tikki's maternal voice resonated with her strength. ' Let your fears fade, let them crumble. No one owns you, Marinette, or this power you possess. No mundane jewelry can keep this from you, my girl.'
It had not been nary a minute, before the ruby mass between her hands solidified, warm with her work and sparkling in the dim light. It was a trinket, winged and heavy in the palm of her hand.
The bird was delicate, fluttering wings carved sharply in the solid form of Tikki's power. Its beak was tucked in and neck tapered, curled into an figure of ultimate submission. Marinette's throat clogged as she marveled at the replica swan in her hands, turning it around in her palms with a shuddering tenderness.
It was gorgeous, undeniably striking in its royal rouge.
But how could it beat the original?
"Papa…" Marinette choked, overwhelmed with the resurging loneliness, and smiling faces of her father. Baking was what his heart called for, but his hands were deft in their size. He whittled woods and shaped steels, crafting trinkets, household items and Marinette's toys. He made her dolls wood who stood stock still, boats and sails to throw across fields and rivers, and her desk, bed and chairs for her room. When she turned ten, nary a year under Tikki's influence, he had gifted her a swan of glass.
In testimony to who she was, the first thing Marinette had done in her joy, was drop the seemingly delicate figurine. It kissed the cobblestone and rolled to face her, detailed wings and soft beak intact. Her father had laughed at her frantic antics and rolling apologies, assuring her that her strength of ten years was not enough to crumble the bird.
'Its neck may be curled into submission, my girl, but this swan will not break. It will not accept defeat that easily.'
Now it sat in her scarred and shaking palms, a fleshy dahlia hue that hummed with its power. Long gone was her father, or his baker's hands, or his crinkled, kind eyes or his mischievous, clandestine smile—
"What is that?" The Trixxian princess shook Marinette out of her stupor. She was a breath away from the baker girl, fingers near brushing the tip of Marinette's trinket. Instinctively, she started, torn between bringing it closer to her chest or drawing it out of the Princess's reach. The swan slid through Marinette's indecisive fingers, careening to the cobblestone floors.
To the surprise of both girls, however, instead of striking the stone and bouncing off of it, the swan oozed and melted into the touch of the cold floor. Disregarding its figure, it settled into a lazy, liquid form.
"What… Is that?" The princess breathed again. She reached for the liquid, curiosity wound into her every joint and movement. To her surprise, the blood-coloured fluid slid out of her range, settling into the cobblestone. When she rested her hand on its surface, the remains of the swan crumbled into persimmon ashes.
A thick moment sat between the two girls, staring at each other with dried tears and wide eyes. The guards at the door, unaware of the interaction, filled the silence with hardly a shuffle of the armour, or a twitch of the sword.
It was Alya who broke first, excitement doing little to stop the barrier of language between the two girls. Her words were a frantic mess of Trixxan and commoner's tongue, rapid-fire and loud. "What was– t hat was so spectacular– Where did it – I can't believe it!" She effervesced, hands moving to reminisce the shape. "How did you– that bird was so beautiful and you just made it, out of nothing!" Marinette, unfamiliar with her foreign words, blinked and stared at her hands.
The warmth was… Not gone. Settled, perhaps, evident in her thick pulse and warm thighs against the too-cold stone. She could pinpoint the current of power, track its melodical trance, and the lull she felt after focusing on it for too long. Her hands, as she examined them, were no longer dripping and sparking with the too-full feeling of Tikki's power, but warmed with the exertion. She felt a foreign feeling of satisfaction.
"Marinette," The princess startled the commoner out of her thoughts, hands reaching out to grab the other girls, wrapping their fingers together. The innocent intimacy of the action frightened Marinette, especially when she found herself unwilling to pull her hands away.
"That was... Oh, what's the word… Ama...Amazing!" Alya struggled to wrap her tongue around the word, never breaking eye contact. "How did you… How?"
"...I don't know…" Marinette hiccuped, voice hoarse. "I just… Did it?"
"It was amazing! You were– It just– Amazing!" The closer guard turned to look at the girls, and Marinette swallowed loudly. Alya shot them a quick glance and a pinched facial expression, and they rolled their eyes at the girls. Alya's next words were notably quieter, leaning in close as if to share a secret.
"Can you… Show me? Show me?" Marinette glanced away from the princess's heavy golden gaze, squinting at her hands as if to will it to happen again. Or perhaps, to will it away.
"Your … Your mother would find out, and she…" Marinette looked back up, shaking her head slightly. She moved to pull her hands out of Alya's and was notably surprised when the princess held on, firmer than before.
"I don't talk," She whispered, unveiled eyes projecting her feelings as far as she could. She understood little of Marinette's muttering, but the commoner's word for mother was too close to Trixxan for her to miss.
She was no master wielder of her nation's illusions yet, unable to craft full immersive optic and mental phantasms like her mother could with Trixx, but if she could send a message…
Marinette's thoughts were flowing, rampant and rambling, when she felt the kiss of gold in the corner of her mind. She froze, unable to process the slow, rolling warmth, pressing shadow-touches over her conscious and unfurling in a thick blanket of kindness. Of peace. Of safety.
The imagery revealed itself, settling into the space behind her eyelids and rendering her attention. Her hands were still bound with the foreign princesses's, and Tikki's power still weighed in her bones, but she was captive of the mirage.
Safety. Protection. Warmth.
Marinette opened her eyes, unaware she'd closed them.
Friendship.
She looked at the girl in front of her, really, truly trying to understand. The illusion was not absolute; it flickered, weakening and swaying when Marinette focused her attention to it. It was like Marlena's words, the same way they sat at the forefront of her mind, commanding all of her absolute attention.
But it was different. Softer, kinder, a gentle haze that sat over her fears and protected her from the chilling memory of Marlena's gaze. Her swan, she saw it wrapped in the film of the illusion, wings unfurled and neck straightened with pride.
This was Alya's power, it seemed.
Don't tell anyone.
Marinette squeezed the hands in front of her, the swan scintillating before becoming more lustrous than before.
Promise .
