Darkness seethed, the air boiling around the form of a large dark cat. It's great paws paced at the death beneath it. Death that was so complete the dirt itself crackled and split, and died. Tikki watched her Darkness fume from scant feet away. Sitting in her own bed of lush grass and white spring red blossoms. It was good for him to pace, to power away his upsets, but she had a time limit on him before she expected back his competence.
"Careful my Darkness, I think some of the dust yet lives," she teased in a low voice. Her flat bug face smiled serenely as Plagg hissed at her. His hisses could mean many things, based on tone, inflection, known perspective. This hiss was pointless and not filled with anger towards her. Tikki ignored the hiss.
"Why doesn't this ever happen to you, huh?" Plagg said furrowing his cat's brow. He pushed himself from four legs to two, the transition flawless.
Tikki put out a placating hand, touching the tip to Plagg's hip, "It has, I have simply been... Shall I say, lucky."
"Yeah," Plagg snorted, the joke of her luck easing him and bringing him down to his haunches and to her level. He nuzzled her armored cheek, eliciting a giggle from the bug.
Tikki words hung true, but not because of her power. In the past some of her lesser gods have tried unsavory stunts, plots against her. Her lesser gods, or at least their children, had simply managed to be discovered quickly and stopped faster than Plagg's lot. She had a feeling that the gods and children of the Darkness who planned to rebel survived longer in their deceit through their habit of sticking to the shadows, while hers bathed in the positivity of humanity and their fellow Light siblings. However, such a spotlight also meant that their deeds were uncovered faster once they started acting strange, and often dealt with by their own kind. The scheming children of Light who made it the farthest were those who did not try to mimic the children of Darkness's shadowy ways, but instead made use their fame as a coverage. However, theirs was not the human world, were money and human laws could protect the famous. Personality, a reputation of character, these are the weapons the children of Light can wield. For it is their fellow Light siblings that they must trick. In the end though, the distrust of other Light brothers and sisters are their downfall. The children of Light are close, they are kinder to each other than the children of Darkness are to their kin, but they lack the loyalty that the children of Darkness accumulate towards each other. One child of Light is often reluctantly willing to out another Light for wrongdoing. While a child of Dark accepts these mistakes from others, keeps them secret, and hopes for redemption.
The children of Darkness wish for security and comfort from one another before they move on. The children of Light wish for friends and connections that will allow them control over their threats.
How have they let this difference become so encompassing?
"I never expected this from Duusu," Plagg said as his hot cat breath pushed out his nose.
"I know," Tikki replied, and she did know. Duusu was one of the older ones, one that had never tried to rebel before. The first rebellion was always the hardest.
"She wouldn't even make a very good me," Plagg protested. "She's to precise, her nature would organize the chaos of bad luck. If she had it her way energy itself would simply turn around and reknit itself. It would ruin your half, all halves."
"There are only two halves my cat," Tikki reminded him.
Plagg growled a groan at her teasing. "Tikkiiiii," he whined, eyes gone all kitty and woebegone. She smiled and hugged him to her, willfully killing her flowers as she did so.
"I know my Darkness," she answered, "but really would any of them be as good as us in our position?"
Plagg licked her stomach, "No."
Tikki looked up to a sky that wasn't a sky. "Perhaps we should be humbler, admit to the possibility of successors. What if someone could do better?" Tikki said. The thought didn't last, and she shook her head, "But we aren't humble, are we?" she tells her Darkness.
Plagg licked her again. "No," he admitted, "we aren't, and we shouldn't be. Because what all those lesser gods that just pop themselves into existence don't understand is that the world only needs one thing." Plagg gracefully spun his long frame around, looking a little more human each moment as he moved to sit himself comfortable onto Tikki's hard lap. "The world only needs balance, two beings to make it so everyday is just like the next. Forever and ever."
The two kissed. Tikki having to stretch her long neck out and around to reach her Darkness's muzzle. Their shifting blurry forms don't get in each other's way, instead the shape of their faces blend into each other. Red and black twist together, becoming a swirl against their fuzzed faces. "We don't need them Tikki, the world doesn't need them, or us. And that's something we understand."
The sky, that wasn't a sky, turned the colour of their love. Not everyone who looked up at it smiled.
"Tikki's reads stories the bestest. Cause she changes her voices just like Papa, but she can sound like a girl," Marinette informed her fellow pre-school friend Nino. The little boy squeezed a small fountain of droplets out of the soaking wet shirt he was holding, before plunging it back into the basin. He scraped it along the pretend washboard that sat within the large container of water. Their teacher watched on, amused as the children 'washed' her ex-husband's favorite shirts. She had explained to them earlier in the day that this was how people used to wash clothes, in ancient times. Ancient, now that's a words word. It meant old, like older than adults old, so old that it isn't actually a chore because it isn't done by maman or papa, old! The children were ecstatic to give it a go. Their teacher smirked.
"My dad does voices too," said Nino.
Little Marinette serenely picked out a pink male dress shirt from the pile behind them and made her way to the tub. "Yeah, but can your dad do the girl voices?"
"Ummm," Nino thinks.
"No, he can't, cause he's a boy see? Only a girl can do the girl voices," Marinette explained. She beamed as Nino let out a long 'ooooooh,' indicating that he finally saw that she was correct.
"But that means that Tikki can't be the best because she can't do the boy voices because she is a girl and only boys can do the boy voices," Nino pointed out, he scrubbed harder against his washboard. Enjoying the feeling of the rolling bits of wood rubbing against his shirt covered fingers.
Marinette froze, stumped at this new development, "Well uh, Tikki can do the boy voices too."
Nino nose scrunched up, "Nuh-uh."
"Yes-huh," Marinette snapped, then paused. "Well maybe not as well as Papa," she admitted, "but boy voices aren't as important because my stories has girlzes."
"Mine have boys," Nino tells her.
"Mine have girls," Marinette replied back.
"Alright kids, time to pack up, I have some towels for those who would like one. Back inside now. It's time for colour and cutting hour," the teacher called out with a pile of tiny white hand towels in her arms.
Nino and Marinette sat together during color and cutting hour too. Marinette was already a pro at using the small safety scissors and cut across all the lines on the papers given to her with relative ease. She only veered off if her conversation with Nino became too intense, it happened. Nino was still working on the straight part. The young boy had a habit of cutting corners or continuing to cut straight lines instead of following the curve.
"Tikki said I need to learn how to cuts good stuff cause it will helps me in the future. She said I'll have to be a accobate. Which means I am very strong and can do flips."
"Oooooh," said Nino mesmerized, "we can do flips tomorrow. I can do them too."
"Ummmm," Marinette pondered, her tiny face pinching, "I can only do rolls right now."
"I can do those too!" Nino declared.
"Yeah!" Marinette shouted, "Tikki will teach us lots."
The teacher froze behind Marinette, it wasn't her first time hearing about Marinette's all-encompassing imaginary friend. Whoever Tikki was to Marinette the pretend creature seemed to have a permanent presence in the girl's thoughts. She was hesitant to bring it up with the parents. Such conversations, she had found, are often construed as attacks against their child's creativity, and are usually looked back on with distaste as their children grow and turn out fine. Marinette would turn out fine, she'd seen enough children grow to know that, but this obsession with Tikki, while not alarming, was different. She supposed that, bad pre-school teacher rep aside, it was time to at least mention it to Mr. and Mrs. Dupain-Cheng. Hopefully her intentions wouldn't be misconstrued, or worse, the reason for rash action.
"Marinette sweetie," the teacher said, squatting herself down to the little girl's level. Marinette turned away from her friend Nino to look at her. "You're doing so well Marinette," the teacher began, smiling her patient grin. "Since you're done with all your cutting, can you draw me a picture?" the little girl nodded eagerly and supplied a chipper 'Oh yes!'
The teacher pulled a single sheet of blank paper from the middle of the table and dragged it before Marinette, "Could you draw Tikki for me?"
Parents respond well to physical evidence.
Marinette thought long and hard, finally she gave a very quiet, 'Ok.' The ok didn't sound nervous, almost as if she was concentrating so hard that answering was just an afterthought. After another moment Marinette picked up the red crayon and drew two red dots on her paper. The little girl put the crayon down. The teacher waited. "Is this Tikki?" she finally asked after a minute of red dot staring passed by.
"Well," answered Marinette. She was thinking very hard. Tikki had talked her into grabbing one of the chairs from the kitchen and using them to get the earrings a while ago. When she held them Tikki's voice became clearer, smoother, like honey. Tikki told her to hide them in a little plastic pocket built inside of her diary. One day Papa asked her if she knew where the tiny stones went, Tikki had told her to lie. She had forgotten about that lie, it made her sad to think about it. But those were very special stones, they felt like…. Tikki.
"Tikki can't just be two dots," her teacher said with a smile and a little chuckle.
'She can't?' wondered Marinette, amazed.
"Oh," Marinette said. So, she tried again. She drew a little girl in a light blue dress with two stick like pigtails, black hair, and blue eyes. Her teacher eyed her, taking in her light blue dress, black hair, and blue eyes.
"Marinette are you drawing yourself?" the teacher asked.
"Well," Marinette said again, emphasizing the 'e'. Nino had stopped cutting at this point, this much one-on-one teacher attention was rare, and usually meant something.
"Does Tikki look like you?" her teacher asked.
Marinette frowned. This was getting crazy. She was going to need some help.
'Tikki,' Marinette whispered into her mind just like Tikki taught her to do. It was kind of like talking without speaking, but it was more like speaking with another mouth. One that you had to think about to open, one that someone else had more power of moving than you did.
'Yes, my child?' Tikki answered.
'What do you look like?' she asked.
'Oh my, what a question, but fear not you will be able to see me soon,' promised Tikki. It wasn't the first time she had made this promise.
Marinette frowned, as did her teacher. The young girl didn't acknowledge the woman as she called her name. 'But I need to know now.'
'Why?' asked Tikki.
'Just cause,' said Marinette.
"Marinette? Marinette are you there?"
'I suppose I look most like a beetle,' Tikki confessed.
"Oh okay!" said Marinette in her outside voice. Her teacher startled beside her from where she had just been about to try and shake Marinette out of whatever daze she had been in. With renewed vigor Marinette grabbed one black and one green crayon in each hand. She drew a black round body, a green head with two antennas, and more than six stick-legs coming out of the base. At the bottom of one antenna was a shape that was vaguely, but clearly, meant to represent a large pink bow.
"It's Tikki!" Marinette shouted in glee.
Within her head Tikki laughed. 'Oh, my lovely sweet it's perfect, it's perfect. Just look at that black, it's just right. Oh, my Darkness just look at that black!' Marinette laughed loud and long with the squeaky sweet voice in her mind, and distantly she heard another, odder, boy-ier, voice laughing too.
It took time for the teacher to take the picture and get Marinette to stop laughing. Longer than it should have, longer than was healthy for the very obedient Marinette. When asked later why she was laughing Marinette shrugged and said, "Tikki just really liked the black."
Mr. and Mrs. Duepin-Cheng were called in for a parent-teacher meeting that day.
Ameile was worried, but it was a small thing, made when to many small coincidences built up until paranoia formed. It was easily ignored. She looked at her husband lying on his back on their bed. He was scrutinizing the latest designs sent in by his staff. From his face you would think that all of them had lost whatever small respect or expectations Gabriel had for them, but Ameile knew better, he always looked like that.
She wondered if she should bother him with this. About the black dots that sometimes appeared on the pieces of paper she gave her three-year-old son to practice his letters on, or about the black spots that have started to appear on the toys at the 'homeschool children's club' that she took her son to. Mostly though, she was wondering about the small black dot on her neck. It felt like nothing, her skin wasn't raised in the area, there was no pain when she pushed on it like one would expect from a bruise, which was what people had been assuming it was all day. A bruise, a hickey, but it wasn't. Her husband wasn't fond of leaving marks, never had been, to messy. The spot didn't look quite like a bruise either. It was too black, no purples or yellows, a complete black. Yet it had a faded quality to it, almost unsolid. Research showed her that sometimes a very hard pinch to one concentrated area could form an injury similar to this, but she didn't remember getting pinched, and the articles she found said that it should be hurting at the touch.
She decided to tell. "Gabriel, I have this strange spot," she told her husband.
He looked to her and grunted, "Ok, let me see."
She moved to him, climbing into the bed on her side. She turned her neck to show the mark in better lighting. Her husband scrutinized the spot appropriately.
"It's very circular, that's a good sign," he felt along the mark, "no rough edges, that's good."
Ameile smiled at him knowing all this already, but glad her husband took her seriously enough to check for cancer when she was concerned. "My diagnosis my wife, is that we," he paused staring at her deadpanned, "are getting old."
She laughed and scooted back, slipping her daytime shirt over her head and reaching into her drawers for silk golden pajamas. Ameile turned to Gabriel smiling wonderfully in nothing but her bra, Gabriel studied her bra-ed breasts as he would a piece of designer cloth. With glaring eyes and everything he had. She smirked at him, inching closer to his person, breasts first.
Gabriel grabbed her by the shoulders and held her back from him in a firm grip. He kept her there, continuing to stare at her breasts. Ameile wiggled a bit but couldn't break free. She blew her bangs out of her face in annoyance, staring contests weren't exactly her biggest turn on, but she supposed if it brought Gabriel's boy to the yard she'd play along.
Gabriel poked a spot right below her right breast. "You didn't tell me you had more," he said.
Ameile gapped wide eyed, "What?" she gasped. She hopped out of bed and went back to her vanity, and there, right where her husband poked, was another faded black spot. "I had no idea."
She watched Gabriel fiddle with his hands through the mirror, his thumbs twisted around each other over and over. He stared straight at her, blank faced and nervous. She turned back to him, "What do you think?" she asked.
The man didn't say a word, instead, slowly and with reluctance, he lifted his left hand, his non dominant hand. Right in the middle, right on the palm, was a faded black dot.
"No way," Ameile breathed.
"It appears so," Gabriel said, "two I accepted, but three is a… special coincidence."
They sat down and talked about the spots. How odd they were. Ameile tentatively explained the dots on the less animated things she had seen. She could tell she wasn't taken seriously, but she wasn't taking herself seriously either, so that was ok.
The conversation had almost winded down to nothing when Gabriel, tired and now clad in silk royal purple pajamas, said "You know, my dominant hand is very important to my work. I've become very protective of it."
Ameile nodded, smiling encouragingly at her man to continue the abstract thought.
He continued, "So when I do hold Adrien's hand or touch his forehead, it's always with my left."
They turned out the lights, but Ameile had trouble sleeping through the phantom touch of her son's arm gripping the back of her neck as she holds him, while his elbow pushes into the spot right below her breast.
Alone in his room, when he should've been napping, three-year-old Adrien sat on his bed, wide awake and hugging his bear to his chest. He stared at the baby monitor beside him. Knowing exactly what it was for because Plagg told him so a long, long, time ago. Not that Adrien remembered when that was, but it was long ago for sure. He picked up the device and pushed it underneath his heavy comforter.
Spying wasn't nice maman.
"Finally," a nasally voice echoed throughout his large room. Adrien beamed at the pixie-like black cat now hovering lazily above him. "Plagg!" he shouted in glee.
The tiny form of Plagg gave the boy a smirk, "Hey kid, how has your day been. Oops, wait, I already know."
Adrien giggled at this joke because it was true. Plagg was always inside his head. But Adrien told him anyways. "I had lots of fun today Plagg! I did arts and crafts with Maman, and I made a lion from a plate. And I made it really good Plagg. Really super-duper good."
Plagg knew that the kid did not, in fact, make it super-duper good. The lion looked atrocious. With an uneven mane and too much glitter on the paper lion's… everything. Plagg had paid attention for the finished project, giving encouragement to his kid, while he watched the boy's human parents try and hid their dismay, or in the father's case, disgust. Their child after all, was the son of artists.
They succeeded in hiding their feelings from the three-year-old. Plagg didn't count this as a win.
"Well I know it was the best lion that I've ever seen. I mean all that glitter and extra stickers made it much more exciting that any 'ol lion in Africa. You improved it."
Adrien nodded his head, hanging onto the god's every word. "I impooved it!" he repeated.
Plagg chuckled again and flew just out of the boy's reach. As Plagg predicted Adrien tried to grip the flying cat, but he just wasn't quick enough. He tried again until the chase led the boy and cat off the bed and around his room. The tiny unlucky god twisted and twirled around his laughing charge, taking delight in the headaches Adrien was going to give his parents later for not taking his nap. Or maybe the kid wouldn't be much different, Plagg personally thought Adrien was a little too old for naps anyways. Either case was a win.
Plagg landed in the kid's golden hair and allowed Adrien to slap his hands-on top of his head, holding him in place. "Gotchu!" the boy shouted.
Plagg settled into the boy's scalp, kneaded his paws into his skin. The god sighed happily, "Oh kid, can you believe that Tikki says it's too early for you to see us in this form? Just look at what she is missing."
"Tikki?" Adrien asked as he walked them both around his room.
"Yeah Tikki. My other half."
"Huh?" said Adrien.
"Our better half."
"Huh?" he repeated.
Plagg snickered, "Never mind kid."
"I gothu!" Adrien shouted again, deciding that there was a more fun direction for this conversation to be going. Plagg grinned out his fangs, "You sure did kid."
"Hehe," giggled Adrien, as was his usual response to most of life. It made things easier on Plagg, made his kid more willing when it was time to do this…
"Hey Adrien," Plagg said. He waited patiently for the toddler's full attention, repeating himself a few times until the boy was glued to his words. "Want to practice?" he asked.
The boy's eyes lit up predictively, "Yeah, I wanna practice, I'm good at prac'icing!" Adrien declared. Plagg agreed with one of these statements.
"Ok then kid you know what to do. Go grab your toy."
With a nod that shook Plagg just as badly as the boy's brain Adrien walked over to his bed and reached one short stubby arm under it. He easily pulled out a fluffy rainbow cat, one that Adrien couldn't remember how he got anymore. The thing looked crisp and new, unused. That is if one ignored the splattering of black dots covering the stuffed creature's fur. The spots look to appear in unpredictable patterns around the toy. With some places, mostly around the cat's legs and armpits, looking so cluttered with spots that there was more black than rainbow in the area, while other locations, such as its head, only displayed one or two. Adrien held the toy by one of his favorite handles, it's leg, and put a look of concentration on his chubby baby face.
The face was pointless, and the concentration not real. Plagg sighed as he already felt the toddler's attention waning inside his mind. Most likely moving onto the softness or color of the cat than what he was supposed to be doing. He had to help the kid focus, at least until Adrien was old enough to do so on his own.
"Ok kid, listen to my voice okay," Plagg said. Adrien chirped an 'Okay,' back. "Good, now do you feel what you're doing there? Your leaking the darkness out again. It feels good right? That's why it happens sometimes?"
"Uh-huh," Adrien agreed. Plagg nodded sagely, happy with the grip of reality that he could feel setting inside the boy's thoughts. "Good, but even though it feels good we don't let the darkness escape into people or things, right?"
"Right!" Adrien shouted, happy to know this answer. Plagg waited as the boy brought the dark energy back into himself. A few times Adrien's attention started to wonder, started to give in to that nice feeling of releasing his energy in slow amounts. When that happened Plagg gave the boy's forehead a firm tap, reminding him to 'focus.' It worked every time. After Adrien became more stable in his control Plagg started to try and bug the little guy, tickling him here, kneading him with clawless paws there. Adrien giggled and writhed, but he had played this game before, and did his best to keep the darkness in. Adrien was bored after an hour of this, Plagg could feel a whine coming on if he didn't end the game soon. He gave the boy one last praise for his work before telling Adrien to read to him until his maman got back. Adrien agreed and picked out what he had decided was Plagg's favorite book from the bookshelf beside his bed. The book was titled, "Meowlody, The Great Singing Cat."
After Adrien was settled into bed with his book Plagg allowed the toddler's high pitched, and sometimes incorrect, reading to wash over him as the peaceful background noise it was. Almost lazily the tiny god examined the cat toy while he listened. The toy's leg only spotted two more new markings, not bad considering it's a game that was meant to make the child think about his energy. With a headbutt any Pokémon would be ashamed of Plagg gently forced the toy back underneath the bed, were no adults would see it.
