The last few days had been pretty rotten and today took the cake topping them all off with a big fat cherry on top. Of all people to see her scars it of course just had to be the queen bee herself. She had been getting changed in the girls locker room after everyone else left after gym class when Chloe had burst in to avoid getting caught by Alya having done something to Marinette that caused Alya to go on a rampage.
Chloe being Chloe had made a run for it and left Sabrina to fend for herself. Ducking into the seemingly empty locker room had been her attempt to avoid getting caught. Of course she didn't know that one particular senior had stayed behind after class waiting for everyone else to leave before getting undressed like she had done at the start of the class earlier.
Chloe had seen her with no shirt on and only a small hand towel within reach to cover her chest with. It wasn't her chest she was trying to hide by avoiding undressing in front of others though. It was her whole entire back which had been on full display for Chloe to see. At first the younger girl had been shocked at what she saw but then she had started to laugh cruelly and even snapped a few pictures.
She had laughed at her and made some cruel mean comments about her back and how no one would like her once they saw the pictures. She knew full well that Chloe intended to send them to everyone in her contacts. She had grown used to being treated differently by others who saw her back and she had grown used to the horrified gasps and looks she got when they saw.
But it didn't hurt any less and having been bullied over it had caused her to become self-conscious not over her back itself but what other people thought how they reacted and how they treated her afterwards. It was part of her social anxiety the councilors said. All the therapists she had seen had said that she was afraid of being embarrassed being treated differently then before because of it.
Back home in London everyone had been warned when she was a young child not to mention anything about it and to respect her privacy. But apparently in Tokyo being in high school meant they believed she could just learn to deal with it and all the attention it gathered. That's part of what caused her to develop the social anxiety she had.
Now it was about to start all over again all her hard work into getting better all those visits to the dreaded councilor and talking about how she felt and letting all her fears and anxieties out to a strange adult even when she didn't want to. All of it undone because of the ego on one selfish girl who thought she was better then everyone.
Lupine sat on the edge of the roof top her gold eyes red tinged from crying and her cheeks streaked with tear stains. Her nose was long since stuffed up to the point that she had to breath through her mouth in short gaps of breath. At least she had stopped sneezing in between sobs. A rooftop garden may not have been the best place to cry her eyes out in when it had lilies in pots in the corners and she was allergic to lilies.
Besides a few minor food allergies which were easy enough to handle by just avoiding those foods she had an allergy to flowers or rather certain types of flowers. Lilies in particular made her sneeze alot and often made it hard to breath. Her poor partner on her birthday the first year they worked together. He got her a giant bouquet of star gazer lilies only to have her immediately start sneezing and damn near fall off the Tokyo Tower.
He had just been trying to do something nice for her since she never got much in the way of presents outside her family and she mentioned her birthday had been coming up in the next few days. He regretted it for the next couple days when she had trouble breathing during their routine patrols and dealing with disturbances. The flowers had accidentally gotten crushed between them when he grabbed her to keep her from falling and had apparently embedded their scent and pollen into their suits until they figured out they could remove their suits but not their masks while transformed and washed them in secret.
Her hearing was still as sharp as always even if her sense of smell wasn't. That's how she knew Chat Noir and Ladybug had found her. She heard them land on the rooftop behind her. She didn't turn around not wanting them to see her like this. "Lupine are you okay?You hung up just after answering when we called you to see if you wanted to meet up to patrol." Ladybug questions softly feeling that something was bothering the wolf.
Lupine glanced down at her whip which she had set beside her after hanging up. Her whip acted like a communicator just like their weapons did all she had to do was pull on the tassel hanging from the end of the handle and a insert slide down to act as her communicator. She breathed in a deep breath to try and calm herself as best she could. She was the older one she was supposed to be the more mature one.
Hardly the calm level headed one even though she was the leader of her team she could be free and open and confident behind her mask and not have to deal with any of the worries of her anxiety. Her partner despite being the one who was in fact calm and level headed was the more even tempered and patient one who always had some trick up his sleeve to get them out of a sticky situation her bold brashness had gotten them into. (She blamed Accalia for that one)
"I'm fine just stuffed up. I'm allergic to lilies." She replies aware her voice sounded like she was in fact stuffed up hoping they would believe that little half truth and not try and see her face. She should have known better after the past few days getting to know Paris's heroes better and avoiding Alya like the plague whenever she caught sight of them and tried to get in an interview.
"You sounded upset before you hung up. You smell like you've been crying and fur-ankly like a whole mishmash of flowers which might explain the patch over there that looks like someone rolled in it. If you're feeling clawful you can tell us we're your fur-ends." Chat Noir says moving closer to her to wrap his arms around her from behind in a tentative hug unsure how she might react to the physical affection but he felt she needed it right then.
"You can smell the fact that I've been crying?" She asks turning in his hold to peer up at him. "Your tears smell like salt puppy." Chat teases gently as Ladybug came up along side them to give their new friend a hug as well since she hadn't rejected Chats and he had more courage then Ladybug did at that moment having felt unsure how to approach the older girl without making her even more upset.
After a moments hesitation Lupine choose to given them at least part of the story. "I have problems around other people especially in crowds and I don't like being stared at. That's why I choose to wait till everyone else leaves after gym class to get dressed. Someone, someone especially mean caught me while undressing and made fun of me and did something really cruel. It triggered everything I've been working hard to push past and I kind of broke down. I just needed to get away from it all so I transformed and took off and ended up here. It seems nice and rather peaceful here other then the lilies."
Lupine gave them a watery sharp toothed grin turning her head to look up at the Eiffel Tower that they had a nice view of from that roof top. She was brought out of her rather peaceful dream state by Chat giving a hiss. "They didn't take pictures of you naked did they? That's just really cruel and horrible of them." He growls a rumble coming from his chest that was not a purr. Ladybug couldn't help but agree if that was the case but she wanted more details first.
"Chat calm down and let Lupine speak okay?" She asks laying a hand on his shoulder to try and calm him down. Lupine gave Ladybug a grateful smile no matter how much she would like to see Chat tear into Chloe it wasn't worth it she was going to have to confront her herself sometime. Lupine took a deep breath to calm herself down before speaking.
"While she did take pictures it was only of my back. I had a hand towel covering my front and my back was what was turned towards her. " Lupine explains patiently so as to calm the kitty down before he did something he would regret. Her answer puzzled both her companions. If she wasn't naked and it was only her back that a picture had been taken of what was the big deal what had made her this upset?
Lupine gave her friends especially Chat whose embrace was starting to become a bit too suffocating a gentle shove back so they would give her some space. Both got up and backed off a bit like Lupine wanted. She gave a sigh of relief at that before tuning back towards the city before her. Reaching around in back of her head she drew her loose hanging hair over her shoulder pulling it out of the way. Tugging on the zipper that went up her back she drew it down about half way so it showed most of her upper back.
Ladybug and Chat Noir starred in open mouth horror at the sight of the girls back. Her entire back and it was literally almost the entire backside of what they could see, was completely covered in a series of scars. Slash like scars, cut scars, various scars of various size, texture and depth covered her back. They went all the way up to her neck and across most of her shoulders. They stopped withe wise an inch or two short of her sides and the full withe of her shoulders stretched in some places more so then others.
The pattern of the scars showed where the most damage had been down right along the center along her spine as well as the fact that they were old scars from how many faded at the edges and didn't reach all the way completely across her back suggesting she had grown since she acquired the scars so there was a few bits of skin free of any marring along her sides.
"What...?What happened?" Ladybug finally manages to choke out unable to believe that the girl had suffered so much trauma from receiving those scars and still lived and not just lived but didn't seem to have any spinal problems from it. With that much damage centered around the spine where most of the nerves were it was a miracle if she had escaped without any damage down to either her spine or nerves.
Chat was quiet unable to think of anything to say. The band of the girls sports bra that came with her suit covered but a small section of the skin that was visible. Chat didn't know if he wanted to see just how far down those scars stretched he felt like he was going to be sick just seeing them and imagining the amount of pain she had to have gone through receiving them and then healing from them.
"I was ... I had an accident. There was an accident that I was involved in many years ago. I was the only one to survive. I had curled myself up when it happened and the glass and metal that showered over me hit mainly along my back. The doctors said it was amazing I could still walk and wasn't paralyzed from it. They didn't know how with the depth of some of my wounds that none actually hit the spinal cord or the nerves. I had to have bandages wrapped all around my torso for a long time before they all finished healing. I had to have stitches to close almost all of them."
Lupine Alpha murmurs in a soft voice zipping up her suit once more and brushing her hair back into place. "And they took pictures of it?!" Chat whispers horrified and angry at the same time. This girl was still alive after a horrifying accident that only she survived from and someone had the nerve to take pictures of and make fun of the fact that she had scars still from it.
"I never used to care about them I came to terms with the scars a long time ago and I personally don't care its what other people think that bothers me now." Lupine explains with a sigh turning around to face them. She was almost afraid to look but was surprised when she did instead of seeing disgust and horror on their faces she saw a pained sympathy and outrage at what had been done to her.
"That's horrible!It's completely outrageous and uncalled for for them to have taken pictures to spread around to others.!" Chat hisses his tail lashing about. Ladybug looked pretty peeved herself her face growing to be pretty red almost as red as her suit. "I plan on confronting them myself. I don't care right now if they spread those pictures around I'm going to explain to her and to everyone what happened. Make them see and understand why I have these scars. I'm just glad she didn't see my other scars." Lupine mutters that last part rubbing her wrists.
Chat unfortunately for her caught what she muttered with a twitch of his ears. He reached out and gently snagged her wrist in one hand tilting his head to look at her gloved hand for a moment before looking back at her. "What do you mean other scars?" He asks almost afraid of the answer if his suspicion was correct.
After a moment's hesitation Lupine pulled her wrist free of Chat's grasp and removed her glove showing not only the talon tipped fingers on her hand but the scars that marked the insides of her wrist. "I used to cut. I had a hard time with being bullied and everything had suddenly changed for me. I felt like the gaze of one person who saw my scars was that of guilt and pain. It made me feel guilty seeing them looking like that whenever they saw my scars and everything mixed together became to much. The only thing that helped it feel any better was if I punished myself in some way. It felt good in a way it felt like I was free of the problems it was a distraction. I got help shortly after I got Accalia. She was the one who truly made me stop made me see I wasn't at fault. She didn't give me a choice. Between her and my partner, Corvus I was saved from the dark path I was heading down."
Lupine blushed at the mention of her partner's name slightly her cheeks dusting with a hint of pink. The mention of Lupine Alpha having a partner was what snapped Ladybug out of her own depressing thoughts about her own anxiety. "You have a partner?" She asks curiously as Lupine pulled on her glove once more. It was interesting that Lupine could remove parts of her suit at will she would have to try it herself sometime.
Lupine Alpha blushed again her face darkening slightly. "Yeah his name is Corvus he is the Crow Miraculous Holder and he has the power of Chaos to balance out my powers of Protection. He can literally cause Mayhem with a sweep of his wing. He is really nice despite his dark forbidding looks. He is really kind and truthfully the more level headed one. He has saved my tail I don't know how many times. He is amazing and I couldn't do it with out him. Even if he can be a pain in the butt at times with his 'I told you so's' "
Lupine grumbled out the last little bit but her face was still slightly red and she had a dreamy look in her eyes and the expression on her face was almost exactly the same as the one Ladybug often saw on Chat's face when he was mooning over her. Ladybug couldn't help but laugh as she realized something. Lupine and her partner Corvus sounded like the exact opposites of her and Chat Noir. Including the fact that Lupine Alpha had a crush on her own partner.
"You wound me Hime. And just think I flew all this way just to visit you. And this is how I'm received with insults being said behind my back?" A low voice drawls from behind them. All three turn towards the voice. On the ledge of the roof on the far side across from them stood a tall young man dressed in mostly black with long feathers extending off a set of gloves that went almost all the way up to his shoulders. A black mask covered most of his face and his almost beak like nose. His eyes all black no pupils or whites visible. A metallic black bangle like bracelet hung on his wrist with five purple crows feet marks decorating it. He flashed a playful smug smile at them all before shrieks filled the air.
"Crovus!" Lupine Alpha shouts gleefully throwing herself at her partner damn near tackling him and almost knocking them both off the roof if he hadn't stepped down off the edge and moved to intercept his partner. His arms wrap around the Wolf Miraculous Holder with a good natured laugh as he returned the hug. Lupine buried her face against his neck inhaling his unique scent making sure it really was her partner. Lupine pulled back from the hug a look of delight on her face.
"What on earth are you doing here? I left you in charge of Tokyo while I was away." She laughs still smiling before her smile fell and a hard look took its place. "Corvus." She growls deep in her throat her voice low and threatening. "Oh crap." The tall male mutters dropping his arms from around her and taking a few steps back. "Corvus!" She howls as he turns and makes a run for it leaping across the gap between roofs using the feathers on his arms as wings. Lupine gave chase after him shouting and howling and snarling at him as she hunted down her partner chasing him along the Parisian rooftops. "You get back here!"
