Marinette's POV

"... She was one of my dearest little sisters and now she's gone. Nothing can replace her or ever will but her memory will live on."

By the end of it I was crying where I was sitting on my chaise and Alya seemed chocked up. She was practising her speech for the eulogy next week, and had asked me to listen to her and give her pointers. Not that I was much help every time she read it I started crying again.

There was a knock on the trap door and my mother pocked her head up.

"Hello girls, it looks like the two of you are in need of a hot chocolate." she set the tray down on my floor and climbed up, sitting beside me on the chaise and wrapping and arm around me before gesturing to Alya to come sit next to her, wrapping the other arm around her.

We cried into her and she soothingly rubbed our backs, making comforting noises all the while.

After we had calmed down she stood up and looked at us sternly fetching the hot chocolates from where they were still sitting on the ground and handing them to us.

"Now listen here girls, I know you have lots to discuss, but I don't want you staying up to late, it is school tomorrow after all and you to already looked sleep deprived."

We nodded along to what she was saying and when she asked if we wanted her to bring up the spare mattress, we shook her head. Alya and I always shared a bed when she came around, it was warmer that way and I was less likely to sleep in. We clambered up the staircase to my bed, as we were already in pyjamas and Alya once in there, our breathing calmed each other down.

"Mari, I'm scared." Alya suddenly whispered out of the blue.

"Why?" I asked concerned turning to face her from my side on the wall.

"I don't want to have to see my siblings faces at the funeral. I don't want to have to be strong."

I looked at her in the eye.

"Alya," I whispered holding eye contact, "You are the strongest person I know, but even you have your weak moments. Maybe by not being strong you show your siblings that it's okay to cry, it's okay to be vulnerable. Sometimes it's braver to be vulnerable. It's strong to show your emotions to the world when you don't think it deserves anything."

Alya sniffled a little and I hugged her when she started balling.

I had been so caught up in my own struggles I had completely forgotten hers, but I was here now and though the world had seemingly turned it's back on us I knew with a friend like her beside me I could face down hawkmoth everyday. With her beside me I could forget that my heart was hurting, because hers was hurting a thousand times more.

We drifted off to sleep and though I still dreamed of being an akuma, of hurting Chat and Alya, I no longer felt as much guilt, though I knew I would always feel it. As I watched Alya's sniffles slowly lesson and her eyes slowly droop, eventually succumbing to sleep I realised something.

People say that a guilt and grief was like a weight on your shoulders and time gradually makes it lighter. That's only partly true, sure grief and guilt are like a weight upon your shoulders but time doesn't lesson the weight. No the weight stay the same but you get stronger, over time you get accustomed to it and it doesn't feel quite so heavy, maybe you can even forget it's there.

Maybe we need to stop seeing grief as a tragedy but rather as a test. Something to overcome in the name of those who have lost someone. A reason to become stronger and not break, a reason to live rather than an excuse to morn and mope. Maybe then the world would be different.

Maybe it would teach people that good friends bore the load you were carrying as well. I helped Alya and she helped me. Maybe it was my job to make her realise this.

Maybe that's what friends were for.