Ladybug and Chat Noir saw a blinding flash and before they knew what had happened they were walking through a curtain of water. They sputtered as a steady stream surged down upon them, and the waterfall cast them forward into the small turquoise fairy pool below.
Only moments before they had leapt from the two monolyth peaks in another series of Miraculous trials around the world. Purhaps being magically transported here was what the legends spoke of when they referred to the reward for making the leap; the "Freedom of Tryfon" Ember had called it. Their trip to Wales had already been surreal...but now...in this place...they wondered if they were still in Wales at all!
"Am I dreaming?" Ladybug asked in a dazed voice.
"I don't...know..." Chat Noir tried to answer, but second guessed himself. A thick fog clung to the shallow slopes of the land, clouding forms in an indiscernible haze. It indeed had a dream-like quality...but then again the entire place seemed to be charged with the prick of magical energy...the same buzz the weilders had always felt while transforming. It was other-worldly, and at the same time familiar.
The green slopes sweeping into the crystal cool pools were silent, until a rhythmic pounding in the distance broke the peace. The beats drew rapidly closer like a army rushed into battle. Ladybug and Chat Noir drew near each other, and stepped back prepared for a fight.
Suddenly through the brush and the fog Chat Noir caught a glimpse of a pure white flank and tail. Moving swiftly through the trees it was hard to see at first, but Ladybug saw it flash through the trees a second later. Like a ghost it seemed to weave through the mist of Avalon.
They barely dared breathe, but one name escaped their lips..."Unicorn?"
A whiny of a chuckle came through the low laying clouds. "You might think we're similar...but I am a far cry from a unicorn," a plucky voice laughed merrily. A small ivory pony broke through the mist, and bowed his head towards Chat Noir and Ladybug. "As you can see," he continued, "I lack the iconic singular horn!"
"My apologies!" Chat Noir spoke up. "We just thought..."
"Please, don't apologize. I don't think I've ever been quite so flattered," the wild pony tossed his mane. "It's not every day one of small stature like myself gets mistaken for a powerful majestic mythical creature!"
"So unicorns are...mythical," Ladybug said slowly studying the pony.
The pony looked back with an amused sparkle in his eyes. "I'm sure you've already found on your journey that myth and fact are often strangely intertwined."
Ladybug and Chat Noir exchanged a confused glance.
"But come, we can speak more of such things later. There is a reason I drew you both here," the pony turned on its delicate hooves, and trotted away. He turned back only a second to motion them to follow.
Ladybug and Chat Noir didn't waste any time in chasing after him, fearing he'd quickly be lost again in the cool fog.
"You said you drew us here?" Ladybug asked, bearly keeping pace with the swift stocky creature.
"Aye" he nodded. "Unlike a horse kwami I can't create a portal anywhere, but I can create doorways to draw weilders through if a place has enough concentrated magic lingering from the early days. These doorways spead out among the trial checkpoints all over the world. Kaalki calls my portals "pony traps" because I don't always have completely have control of them , and weilders fall through them without knowing they are there."
"Why did you want to trap us here?" Chat Noir confronted the pony as he came to a stop.
"You're not trapped anywhere. You could walk back up that slope and end up right back where I plucked you from...but I led you here so that you could see the growth of your partnership and look forward to where you are headed," the pony took his foreleg, and tapped it twice on the surface of the still fairy pool before him. Within the pool images started to emerge. Within the pool was them! Ladybug and Chat Noir! Meeting for the first time, getting strung up together in Ladybug's yoyo upside down and then taking on their first akumatized victim; Ivan as Stoneheart.
Each pool they walked past led to another event where they had to work together to overcome a challenge. Some showed moments of them working with their allies, their friends, the people of Paris. Other pools it was just the two of them against the world.
They finally reached their first Miraculous trial in Tibet; Wisdom. It was here they were first introduced to their Phoenix kwami guide, Ember. Ladybug shook her head, it had taken them so much time to get through that first simple trial..all they had needed to do was to ask for help!
Then there was the long journey in Western Australia where the wild kwami tried to discourage them in the Endurance trials. They realized that kwamis and humans had a complicated past, and that the wild kwami could be unpredictable and downright dangerous at times.
There were the tests in the Philippines of Will Power. They discovered Hawkmoth had found a way to track down the location of some of the trials without a guide. Then Ladybug and Chat Noir had each been tempted by the flying dragon to find out each other's identities, but they each refused to cave to the incising offer. Ladybug wondered if things would have worked out differently if she had snuck a peak at her partner's true identity before the time had been right.
The Creativity tests in the United States led to rescuing each other as usual...but somehow there had been something more between them...even if neither of them quite realized what it was yet. They found that their inspiration centred around each other.
They then moved to the next pool where they watched as they were rescued by Lady Justice with her ostrich kwami,Maat in Egypt from the one she had called "The Accuser"; the deceptive shapeshifting mosquito kwami. On that trip Ladybug had been willing to sacrifice her own life-force to save Chat Noir's life. Chat Noir and Ladybug's eyes met.
Chat Noir couldn't forget the Peace trials in Canada. They had nearly succeeded in passing each challenge, but because of the guilt still tied up in Chat Noir's failure to stop his own father sooner, they had stalled on this one. They had to leave defeated...Adrien's own inner peace unattainable...at least for the time being.
Ember had taken it upon himself to throw them into a "forced vacation" from the trials in the isolated mountainous country of Bhutan. Not that it was absolutely restful with the ghost of the mountain, the snow leopard kwami, taking it upon himself to challenge the threat he perceived in Chat Noir...or rather the foresight of a Chat Blanc.
India had been truly amazing! They had their values tested, and Chat Noir had realized how much Marinette had meant to him. Chat Noir chuckled to himself. How blind had he been not to realize that he had just fallen in love with the same girl twice!
In South Korea they had met up with Lady Justice again their their tests of Honor, and had recited their pledge to the Miraculous. Ladybug linked her arm into Chat Noir's affectionately. At the temple where they had been granted their zodiac powers Ladybug had finally kissed Chat Noir! Then it was in the rain, beneath a umbrella, that Ladybug accidentally let slip a vital clue that only the one beneath the black cat's mask could have ever deciphered.
They had the hard work making it through the trials of Germany. Taking a momentary stop to encounter the Swan Knight who revealed the three generations of kwami. Chat Noir realized without a shadow of a doubt that Ladybug was Marinette.
Mexico, the trial of Tenacity, where they retraced the steps of a previous Ladybug and Chat Noir, and Ladybug had finally confessed her love to Chat Noir.
In South Africa they both showed their courage. Dispite their near brush with death pursued by the relentless akumatized Lightningbird, they had never given up. It was there in the mountains of the dragons that Ladybug had finally seen just how blind she had been when she found out who was behind the mask of Chat Noir.
Trinidad and Tobago, where timing was everything. The two had finally arrived at equal footing in their partnership in their first trial in which they each knew exactly who stood by their side. Ladybug had to admit that Chat Noir had been right years before that their partnership was only strengthened by the reveal.
And finally their return to Canada where Adrien had finally faced his demons, and they had finally found some peace. Well at least some peace of mind until they happen by chance upon a mysterious miraculous box with only one lone jewel hidden inside. Yet if what Ember cautioned was true their discovery might have been more of a curse than a blessing. The tierra with a round white gem at its centre would supposedly channel the kwami of forgetfulness upon mere contact...it's counterpart, the dolphin kwami of remembrance...the only way to restore what had been lost...well... it had been lost many cycles before!
"You wouldn't by any chance know if the kwami of forgetfulness actually was a unicorn would you?" Ladybug asked, looking back from the pool to the wild pony kwami. "Or if Galahad was her weilder?"
"Or where the dolphin kwami might have ended up?" added Chat Noir, shifting his weight to his right-leaning, and putting a gloved paw on his hip.
"Whoah whoah! Hold your horses!" the pony chuckled. "You are inquisitive young weilders aren't you! I don't know that even other kwami's know the identity of the forgetfulness gem, as her power prevents any memory of her...and after the golden age of Arthur the dolphin kwami supposedly choose exile."
"Supposedly?" Chat Noir asked.
"Well, the last I remember it was Galihad who pleaded with his father, Lancelot to hide the dolphin kwami using Kaalki before unleashing the power of the forgetfulness on the mosquito kwami. Lancealot refused. He had already lost Galahad's mother Guinevere over battles of the miraculous, and he could not bare the thought of loosing his only son. Instead, against his father's wishes Galihad had Merlin seek me out to ricochet the kwami through a series of portals so no one would ever be able to trace it. Not even I know where it ended up!" the pony blew out a heavy breath of air.
"So no one knows," sighed Ladybug.
"No one except Merlin," the pony shrugged, "but after a falling out with Lady Justice, he's been lost too."
"Well lost, found, and then lost again," muttered Chat Noir.
"What's that?!" the pony perked up his ears.
"Oh...we may have already had a run in with Merlin," Ladybug admitted. "But he slipped through our fingers."
"Merlin has escaped! But who but Lady Justice could have possibly known..." the pony's nostrils flared.
"But it was Lady Justice who gave us the means to free him to stop the coming disaster that the mosquito kwami," Chat Noir said surprised. "...Not that we were probably meant to loose him," Chat Noir hastily added.
"Did she!" the pony kwami seemed genuinely surprised. "Did she indeed...so she believes it is time for Myrddin to finally rise again...Nime and Myrddin always did have a complicated past," the wild pony kwami said quietly, deep in thought.
"So this really is a dead end," Ladybug hung her head. "Even after everything we have seen, we are still no closer to finding a way to defeat the new butterfly weilder, Falfalla...or how she and the mosquito kwami is somehow connected to the recent attacks on wild kwami."
"Mi'Lady," Chat Noir put an arm around her shoulders, "Have you missed each of these blasts from the past? Together look how far we have come. We are going to figure this out."
The pony kwami tilted his head and his eyes softened, watching the two weilders together. He passed them a smooth, flat stone. These rocks they had been given in Wales were not sparkles jewels like some of the others. They looked so ordinary in comparison to the others. The pony did not elaborate on the token itself, and instead nodded his head for them to take it. "You have indeed come a long way in your partnership and are a well balanced team." Then the pony paused, and added, "You know, it might be that you're looking for your mystery kwami in all the wrong spots," the pony kwami mused. "You just have to pay attention to the trail of clues."
"Clues!" Chat Noir straightened in realization. "Mi'Lady! Myrddin...I mean Merlin...he said he had unfinished business in Shanghai! Do you think he went looking for what he had lost...what we need to find?"
Ladybug claspt Chat Noir's hand excitedly, but then looked toward the pony kwami with her face paling. "The clues you spoke of...there could be a warning in the story Myrddin told us as well, and the last journal of Galahad we were led to as well...must we sacrifice our memories like Galahad to bring a end to the mosquito kwami's plans?"
"lost memories make an impact." nodded the pony to a murky pool that was muddy and still amidst their many early battles with Hawkmoth.
"What is wrong with that pool?" Chat Noir asked. "That isn't...it's not a memory like these ones is it?"
"It's a moment captured within the water that solidified your teamwork..." the pony glanced away from the water off into the distance through the mist.
"But there is nothing there!" Ladybug puzzled squinting into the swampy water. "Unless..."
Chat Noir and Ladybug suddenly looked at each other, and gasped in unison, "Oblivio!"
"The waters may be cloudy now...but water has a way of letting things settle over time. Maybe your memories will get clarified in time," the pony kwami flicked his tail. "And maybe your fate and the decisions you must make will become clearer as well."
"Water...it's the dolphin kwami...that is the one we've got to find!" Ladybug stood determinedly. "And to find him, we've got to get Lady Justice to help us retrieve Merlin! Then we will be able to use the unicorn kwami to make the mosquito kwami fall into forgetfulness once more!"
"You're so sure of yourselves...but are you even sure that the miraculous you found is guarded by a unicorn?!" the pony smiled.
When he caught the blank expressions of Ladybug and Chat Noir he chuckled. "In Life don't be surprised when everything you are so very sure of sometimes gets turned on it's head. What fun would our journey be without a few surprises!"
"But if the kwami isn't necessarily a unicorn what could it be. The journal said it was the "final battle of the unicorn."
"The Saola on the border of Vietnam and Laos, the Okapi in the Congo, Goblin spiders in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia. Then there is the Arabian oryx from Oman, Israel and Jordan...all of these have been connected to the term unicorn at one point or other," the pony kwami shook his mane. "Oh oh yes...also a rhino!"
"Rhino!?" Ladybug sputtered. "Why a rhino? We already met the rhino kwami, that can't be it!"
"Well a rhino is really just a chubby unicorn isn't it?!" the pony whinnied mischievously. "If not the rhino maybe there is another creature you've over looked...or maybe soon you will simply meet her face to face and see for yourself." With that the pony suddenly bucked, and kicked back making a flash of light spark out, and sending Ladybug and Chat Noir back to the peaks of Snowdinia.
At their sudden re-appearance Carapace, Rena Rouge, and Queen Bee stumbled back in surprise. Ember merely noted the stone clutched in Chat Noir's paws with a satisfied nod.
"Well, don't just stand up there on those stones! And you three stop gaping, let's put one foot in front of the other!" Ember chided them abruptly, jolting them from their frozen daze. "On to the next challenge. No team building exercise is complete without a "trust fall,"and this one will certainly test your trust in one another." He flew off, leaving the shaken group of teens trailing along behind him.
"Dude!" Carapace whispered to Chat Noir as they went. "At first we thought that you two had totally been vaporized or something crazy! So not cool! The Phoenix dude didn't even give us a heads up! Then you two just like vanished!"
"Yeah, it was a bit of a shock for us too," Chat Noir glanced over at Ladybug up ahead, who was summarizing their trial for Rena Rouge and Queen Bee.
"Do you ever get used to it?" Carapace asked quietly, looking over sideways at Chat Noir.
"Well the Miraculous Trials are pretty unpredictable, but I guess I've started to get used to being pushed to my limits," Chat Noir shrugged, continuing to stare up at Ladybug.
"No," Carapace stopped. "I don't mean the Miraculous Trials...or even being a super hero..."
Chat Noir stopped in his tracks and looked back to where Carapace had paused.
"I mean..." Carapace said in a hushed voice, "do you ever get used to having all these secrets from your family...your friends, when you're not wearing the mask?"
Chat Noir studied Carapace's earnest, but unflinching gaze. Chat Noir took a breath as if he was going to give a big speech, but there was something in Carapace's eyes that made him stop. "No," Chat Noir finally said, "it has never been easy to keep all these secrets...especially from my best friend."
Carapace walked back up beside Chat Noir and patted his shoulder. "Don't worry, you know I've always got my best bud's back!" Then Carapace kept walking, following the Phoenix guide and the girls down the trail, leaving a stunned Chat Noir to wonder exactly how much to read into the turtle's comment...and how much Nino truly knew...
Oooo
Thank you so much for your patience, encouragement, and continued following of my story. A shout out to Sapyrrha, Aria2006, KoalaWho, SaraDaniela2004, and GuenZhenXuan2020 for your reviews:) It has been a really difficult month in RL, but as always Ladybug and Chat Noir are always a great escape!
I was so thrilled (as I'm sure all of you were) at the release of the episode from season 4! I'm so excited to see what happens next for our heroes!
This chapter was my "Story Weather 2 brief review 'episode'" for all those who have been following this story over the past year. I hope it gives you some hints to where the heroes are headed. In my story I am looking forward to revealing more secrets to you all and having events start to really heat up and build to the final battle with Falfalla! I've still got stories to tell and destinations to visit before the end. Hope you enjoy and favorite/follow so you are in the loop;)