To yellow 14: Chloe definitely needs more good parental figures in her life!
To Butterfly: I am definitely glad I included that chapter! The character development for Chloe has been one of the best parts of this series for me.
To StarDaPanda225: Considering how neglectful her mother is, I can definitely see Chloe being drawn to a maternal figure like Emilie, especially given her longstanding friendship with Adrien.
Emilie chuckled to herself as the electric kettle sang on its side table and she poured the boiling water into the teapot sitting next to it. When they had first built this house and Gabriel suggested including a "mother-in-law suite" in the family wing of the house, she had simply smiled and rolled her eyes. After all, his parents were perfectly content out in the country, and her parents had no intention of leaving England, especially with Ammie's recent marriage. Then her parents had been killed in a car accident when Adrien was ten, and she had figured this suite would go to waste except on the rare occasions that Amelie's family came to visit.
Never in a million years had she thought she would be moving into the mother-in-law suite. Certainly not before she turned 40, and absolutely not before she was even technically a mother-in-law!
And yet, the idea of sleeping in the same room that she and Gabriel had shared since the Mansion was completed, knowing everything he had done in her name and with her family legacy for two years… she couldn't face the man who had given her his name and a son. She certainly couldn't face the daily reminders of him that would come from using his bedroom. For that matter, she could hardly stand the reminders that came with simply living in the same house they had built together.
She supposed that was probably why Adrien only spent about half his nights at the Mansion.
The first time Adrien had spent the night with the Dupain-Chengs, Emilie had been a little surprised, but now it didn't phase her at all to find that Adrien wasn't home in the morning – or else that Marinette was waiting for her at the breakfast table. As far as prospective daughters-in-law were concerned, Emilie knew she could do far worse than Marinette. And almost certainly could not ask for any better.
If only the girl didn't panic whenever Emilie entered the room…
She poured two cups of tea and placed them on the sitting room's coffee table just as she heard a knock on the suite door. Casting out her empathic net she sensed nervousness and a touch of fear… but also something familiar. She placed two plates of cookies on the table – one human-sized and the other Kwami-sized – and sat down in the armchair. Duusu grabbed a Kwami-sized cookie off the table and let out a contented sigh as he swallowed it whole. "It's open," Emilie called.
The door creaked open, and she recognized Sabrina standing in the doorway, Nooroo sitting on her shoulder with his wings fluttering against her hair. Emilie indicated for her to take a seat on the settee across from her. Sabrina sat down, her back ramrod straight, and cautiously picked up the teacup in front of her. Even without her miraculous to confirm it, Emilie could feel the nervousness rolling off of the girl in waves.
"Miss Sabrina!" squealed Duusu, fluttering away from the plate of cookies and hugging the girl's cheek. Sabrina hesitantly hugged him back, stroking his feathers with one finger. "It's so amazing to see you! And it's so amazing to have Miss Emilie back! Everything is so amazing!" His face fell. "Unless it isn't amazing… What if things don't go well? What if–?"
Nooroo hissed at him, his narrowed eyes darting from Duusu to Sabrina to Emilie and back again. Duusu fell silent, his feathers drooping, and dropped down to return to the plate of Kwami-sized cookies, shoving another into his mouth, while Nooroo nuzzled further into Sabrina's shoulder.
"Why are you so nervous?" asked Emilie, sipping her tea. "You've never been nervous around me before – or at least not when Chloe wasn't around!" She stifled a gasp as she sensed a jolt of fear shoot through Sabrina. That was concerning: what did she have to be afraid of in here? Sabrina's fear shifted to dread and shame. Was she upset with Emilie already? Suddenly she sensed embarrassment and guilt. What had the girl done!?
Wait…
Emilie laughed in embarrassment. "I apologize, dear," she finally confessed, taking a slow, calming breath and allowing her own calm and excitement for the visit to shine through in her emotions. In response, Sabrina's emotions shifted to confusion, tinged with traces of hope. "It's been so long since I had a conversation with another empath that I forgot how easy it is for us to fall into an emotional spiral."
Sabrina swallowed hard, and Emilie sensed her confusion deepening. "What do you mean?"
"Our miraculous allow us to sense each other's emotions, but not the thoughts accompanying them," explained Emilie. "You can see how that can become a benefit to us, of course: when we know each other well – how the other one thinks – we will be able to communicate wordlessly based solely on our emotions." Sabrina nodded. "But – and this can happen even without a miraculous – negative emotions can become contagious. When I sensed your fear and nervousness, I responded with my own confusion and fear, which you picked up on and reflected back to me. And suddenly a small twinge of nervousness spiraled into the end of the world. So perhaps we should try actually talking about why we are feeling what we are feeling for now!"
Sabrina giggled sheepishly and helped herself to a cookie. "I guess I feel nervous right now because this miraculous was yours even before it was M. Agreste's," she admitted, indicating the brooch pinned to the front of her blouse. "So I'm worried that the reason you asked me over today was to take it back."
Emilie allowed her surprise to show as she looked over at Nooroo, who still hadn't moved from his position sitting protectively on Sabrina's shoulder, his wings fluttering against her hair. "Why would I do a thing like that?" she asked. She smiled as warmly as she could. "Nooroo looks quite content with you, and from what I've heard I take it that you have been treating him far better than Gabriel ever did. Nooroo, do you want to stay with Sabrina?"
Nooroo nodded emphatically. "Absolutely, Mistress Emilie! Sabrina has been an exceptional mistress," he assured her.
"If Nooroo is happy and you wish to continue with him, I see no reason to break up your partnership," Emilie told Sabrina, smiling. Sabrina let out a relieved breath, and Nooroo finally left her shoulder to join Duusu on the half-empty plate of cookies.
Emilie smiled fondly as she watched the Kwamis. She had so rarely activated both Miraculous at once, and the two had only been together a handful of times since her mother finally relinquished the Butterfly Miraculous to her care. It was refreshing to see them sharing the cookies together. "At some point I do plan to have a long conversation with Master Fu, but I have no desire to separate you from Nooroo. According to the Ladyblog, you have been quite the asset to Adrien and Marinette's team!" She raised her teacup in a toast.
Sabrina blushed. "It's not like I've done all that much," she objected. "I've only really used a couple dozen Akumas all year."
Emilie arched an eyebrow at her. "You and I both know there is far more to our miraculous than creating Akuma-helpers and sentimonster-protectors," she replied, "even if the rest of your team doesn't always recognize your usefulness."
Sabrina nodded. "I have noticed that meetings go more smoothly the more attuned I am to the group's emotions."
"Exactly!" Emilie smiled. "I can't begin to tell you how many of Gabriel's design meetings would have turned into shouting matches if I hadn't defused the situation before it could begin." She turned serious. "I actually asked you over today so I could offer to train you to better harness the Butterfly Miraculous' abilities, particularly with your empathy. Not because you aren't doing well already, but because I… do have a few more years of experience than you!"
"Really?" Sabrina asked, eyes lighting up. "I would love to learn more!"
"My first question," Emilie began. "Since you've had the miraculous for a year already and you weren't too young when you first received it, are you still getting headaches when you really tap into your empathic abilities?"
Sabrina shook her head. "It was really bad at first," she admitted, "but Chloe was abducted by the Lynchpin over Spring Break, and I spent every waking moment that week sifting through a city's-worth of emotions to find her. I was miserable the whole time, but that was the last time I actually got a headache. Since then the worst was on Heroes' Day when I activated the Peacock to extend my empathic range and had it on a little too long."
Emilie nodded. "That's good: it means you've acclimated to the miraculous. It will take some time before you can access some of the miraculous' stronger powers – eventually you'll be able to give limited abilities with a touch in addition to creating a true Akuma – but the full range of your untransformed empathic abilities is at least available to you now. We can start with understanding the emotions that you sense to get a better idea of the nuances the others are unaware of themselves."
"That would be super helpful!" Sabrina told her eagerly. "With those I'm closest to – Chloe and Max especially – it's like I can tell exactly what they are thinking just by paying attention to their emotions. But it's kind of hit-and-miss with everyone else."
Emilie smiled encouragingly. "That's a wonderful start! Since they can't sense your emotions, the communication can only really go one way with them, but as the two of us get to know each other better, we may eventually be able to have entire conversations through our emotions, regardless of how far apart we are just as long as we're in the same city. From there we can also work on methods for using your empathic ability to take your friends' negative emotions on yourself. Sometimes I would imagine that Marinette or Chloe can allow their fear or anger or anxiety to overwhelm them." Sabrina nodded ruefully. "Gabriel was the same way. While you can't force someone to feel a certain emotion, you can at least relieve some of an emotion they are already feeling by taking it on yourself."
Sabrina nodded in understanding. "There have been a few times I sensed Max or Marinette feeling upset or anxious, and I comforted them to help them calm down."
"That's a good first step," Emilie told her. "What we're talking about is like that, but taking it to a higher level. Think of the emotion like a box full of stones. What you have been doing is putting your arm around them to support them while they hold the box. But instead of supporting them while they hold the box, I can train you how to remove some of the stones from the box and hold onto them yourself."
Sabrina sat back in surprise.
"I don't think you're there just yet, dear," Emilie added quickly. "It takes a lot of discipline to do that. But for now I think we can work on improving a technique that I hope Nooroo has already taught you: how to process negative emotions – both your own and those in the air around you."
"That was one of the first things he taught me," Sabrina agreed, grinning. "But I can't wait to learn more!"