"Uh…" he added, looking embarrassed, "I don't suppose… you know who I am?"
Marinette looked confusedly at Cat Noir. "Uh…yes?" she said. "I mean, the cat costume kind of made it obvious."
"Cat costume…" he said, sounding distracted. He leaned up and looked down his blanket-clad form. "I… think I remember a cat costume?"
Marinette blinked. What in the Almighty's holy name is he…
Suddenly it clicked. "You… don't remember who you are, do you?" she said, voice instinctively dropping to a whisper. "You don't remember rescuing me in the forest, or… or anything!"
Cat smiled sheepishly. "Pretty much, yeah," he said. "There's bits and pieces floating around in my head, but they're all mixed up. I remember a couple of names, 'Alex' and 'Nino', those both feel important somehow. Is one of those my name?"
Marinette felt herself blush slightly. "I… don't know."
"You don't?" Cat said. "I thought you said you knew who I am?"
"I do!" Marinette replied promptly. "I mean, I don't know who you are, but I know who you are… it's complicated!"
She was interrupted by a rumble from Cat Noir's midriff.
"I'll bust jet you some geckfast… I mean just yet gou some breakfast… I mean… food!" Marinette sputtered, and dashed down the stairs before she could make any more of a fool of herself. She stopped in the second floor landing and closed her eyes.
Stop it, girl, she thought. Sure, he's built like a warrior and has beautiful golden hair and perfect skin and the most gorgeous green eyes and he literally saved your life…
No, no! You have a suitor, remember? Even if you only see Luka one day in three on the best days, and he disappears for weeks at a time…
STOP, she thought in her mother's voice. Whatever else he is, that boy is your patient, and you are a healer. You will not let your flittering stop you from tending him properly.
She snapped her eyes open and tip-toed down the stairs into the kitchen. She'd set aside some fruit and bread for Cat Noir, and even made him a small bowl of scrambled eggs. She didn't like heavy breakfasts herself, but Cat Noir would need richer fare to renew the blood he'd lost.
Marinette scrambled back upstairs. Cat Noir was sitting up in her bed now, leaning up against the wall. His eyes lit up as he saw her come in, and Marinette felt her heart flutter.
"That smells delicious," he said.
"Thank you," Marinette replied, feeling herself blush slightly.
She settled the tray in Cat Noir's lap, trying to ignore his mostly-naked chest, then hastily retreated to the stool beside the bed. For a few moments, she watched him wolf down the food, then she shook her head. She still had a lot to explain to him.
"Ok," she said. "Let's start at the top. The nation you're in right now is called Paree, and for the past six and a bit years we've been at war with our northern neighbor, Franeaux."
Cat Noir nodded his head, mouth full of eggs.
"I'm a little too young to remember this part clearly," Marinette continued, "but according to the stories Franeaux's king, Gabriel Agreste, was talking about a marriage alliance between our two kingdoms. His son, Prince Adrien, was betrothed to Princess Chloe Bourgeois of Paree, and he was coming down to Paree City – that's where you are right now – on a state visit, to spend a year or so getting to know his fiancé and her courtiers. And then he vanished, disappeared without a trace. King Agreste accused King Bourgeois of kidnapping him and demanded his return, but of course King Bourgeois didn't know where he'd gone either, and when he couldn't produce Prince Adrien Franeaux went to war."
Cat Noir's face twisted. "I feel like… Plagg's claws, I know I know something important about that war, but I can't dig it out!"
"Let me keep going," Marinette said. "See, the war isn't the most important thing, not right now and not for you."
She took a deep breath, trying to get her thoughts in order. "See, not long after the war started, there began to be attacks, on both sides of the battlelines, by forces nobody recognized. A small group, slipping in and out, striking at various targets. Mostly nobles, particularly corrupt ones, or officers who were using their powers against civilians. They call themselves the Miraculous, use titles based on animals. Turtle, Rabbit, Fox…",
"…Cat Noir," she added, pausing carefully. Cat gave her an odd look from where he sat on the bed.
"That ring any bells?" she asked.
"Kind of?" he said. "Those names you mentioned certainly sound familiar, but I'm still not getting anything more than fragments. I remember a young man with brownish skin and hair, and dark eyes. I think. And a woman, with platinum hair and almost snow-white skin. She's older than I am, though. A lot older, I'm pretty sure."
Marinette considered that for a moment, but failed to come to any conclusions. "Anyway," she said. "Yesterday, I was out in the woods, looking for some medical herbs – my mother's a healer and she's teaching me, most of the real healers have been taken away to the front lines – when I was attacked by a group of bandits." Marinette heard her voice speeding up, her mind trying to skip over the memories she did not wish to review. "They chased me to their camp, they were going to rape me, and then one of the Miraculous showed up. Cat Noir. He fought the bandits, killed all of them but got really badly hurt himself, so…"
"So you took him back to your home in secret, tended his wounds until he woke up, and only then found out that he didn't remember anything," Cat Noir finished for her.
"Exactly," Marinette said, pushing the memories back down with relief. "And, speaking of wounds, I should probably change those bandages. It looks like you're done with breakfast…"
She felt herself blush vividly as she unwound the first bandage from around Cat Noir's muscular chest, but her mother's training kept her hands steady and her mind clear.
"So," Cat Noir said casually, "I take it my presence here has to be kept a secret?"
"Oh yes," Marinette said distractedly. "There's a pretty hefty bounty on any of the Miraculous, and yours is the largest by a good deal. And quite aside from that, if the King found out I was hiding you, he'd probably have me drawn and quartered."
She felt Cat Noir's stomach muscles tense under her fingers. "I… see," he said, "and I'm sorry for putting you in danger."
Marinette felt herself blush. "You saved my life, and more," she said, keeping her gaze fixed on the gash in Cat Noir's side. "I had to save yours, whatever the risk. But it does mean that I have to keep you secret even from people I would trust with just about anything else."
"Maybe I could bring Alya in on it," she said, considering. "But even for her the reward would be a pretty big temptation. Not to mention that she like gossip, and I'm not completely sure I could trust her to bottle up a story this exciting. And I don't think there's anyone else I could trust with this, not even the people like Luka or Nathaniel who Mom and I trust with little secrets like unauthorized healing or helping smuggle deserters past the pressmen."
"I do hope you regain your memories soon," she added as she rewound the bandage. "I'm pretty sure I don't know any of the Miraculous, and I'm not at all sure how to get in touch with them."
Alya Cesaire grinned as she strode down the road towards the Dupain-Cheng boulangerie. She quickly sidestepped a patrol of watchmen, shooting a quick grin at them. While she wasn't technically castle staff herself, both her parents were, and that came with a certain level of status. It also came with access to the juiciest gossip, and that was half of what drove her to leave the castle walls and enter the city. The other half, of course, was breakfast pastries. She still maintained that her mother made the finest soups and roasts in the kingdom, but even she had to admit that the Dupain-Chengs quite literally took the cake in breads and pastries.
She paused momentarily to shoot another grin at a handsome stranger, one whose complexion and hair were a few shades darker than her own cinnamon features, as he passed her on the street, and then she was at the boulangerie and sweeping in the door. She took a step to the side and paused a moment to let her eyes adjust, surveying the interior.
"Hello, Mrs. Cheng," she said. "Is Marinette in?"
"She's upstairs," Marinette's mother said. "Marinette!" she added, raising her voice. "Alya is here to see you!"
There was a crash from above them, followed by a rapid clatter as Marinette dashed down the stairs, coming out the door in the rear of the main room with such force that she almost ran into the display trays.
"Alya!" Marinette gasped.
Alya grinned. "Hello, Marinette," she said. "Hope I'm not interrupting anything."
"Uh, what, I mean, no!" Marinette babbled. "I mean, what could you possibly be interrupting?"
Alya rolled her eyes. She really had thought Marinette was more composed than this, these days. "Good," she said. "Then you won't mind taking a bit to listen. You will not believe what I have to tell you!"
"Shall we head upstairs?" she added, already starting on her way towards the stairs.
"No!" Marinette blurted out. "I mean, uh, let's go outside and, uh… visit the pigeons!" she said quickly.
Oh ho, Alya thought. Something is Going On here. I haven't seen Marinette this shaken in years. 'Visit the pigeons', really? Better not ask about it here, though.
"Alright," Alya said out loud. "Let's go visit some pigeons. After I get some breakfast," she added, turning to survey the counter.
Hearing her native tongue, seeing others with Kazanchi features, felt oddly surreal to Kagami now. Paree City was the primary trade point for the ships that crossed the sea from the far West, and the one city here in the East with a meaningful Kazanchi population. Elsewhere in Paree or Franeaux, Kagami's ethnicity was vanishingly rare, to the point where she'd seen people walk off the side of roads or into buildings because they were so busy staring at her. But here in Paree, she could walk down the street and nobody took much note.
Of course, the flip side of that was that this was the one place where she had to worry about running into family members. Not all of House Tsirugi agreed with what she'd done as the Miraculous Dragon, and even after all these years there was a risk of meeting someone who'd know her by sight.
She sighed internally as she walked along the flagstone path that wound through the park, though her training kept her face blank.
What am I doing here? she thought. She was a trained swordsmith, and one of the finest duelists in the world, but she was no infiltrator or spy. That had always been the work of others of the Miraculous. But… well, she couldn't stay back at the camp, not when her beloved was somewhere in this city, dead or a prisoner. Perhaps it would have been the wiser decision, but her soul simply wasn't strong enough for such a vigil. Whether or not she was ready, this was the trial Tikki and Plagg had set before her. She'd simply have to do her best to meet it.
She raised her eyes and glanced around, trying to figure out where to go from here. For a moment, her gaze snagged on a pair of young women about her own age who sat nearby on the grass. One had cinnamon-colored skin and hair, hinting at Achu heritage, while the other had a faintly Kazanchi element to her bright blue eyes and glossy black hair.
Kagami shook her head again, refocusing, and then spotted the complex sigil of worship enameled on a spire across the park.
As good a place to start as any, Kagami thought, starting to stride across the park as quickly as she could manage in her formal kimono. Besides, it's been far too long since I visited a cathedron.
The way people here in the East worshipped still felt horrifically disrespectful to her. Yes, of course the Almighty ruled over and created everything, but he'd created the kwamis to create and manage the world. You weren't supposed to pray to the Almighty directly, any more than you went to the Emperor with your problems instead of to your local governor. But Kagami, like most of her people, figured that if the kwamis (or the Almighty himself, for that matter) hadn't punished these god-botherers for their impudence it certainly wasn't her place to rebuke them. At least, that was how she'd put it to herself before she'd joined the Miraculous. These days… she wasn't quite sure what she thought.
In any case, it was good to visit a proper cathedron again. She stepped across the threshold into the building, and took a moment to let her eyes adjust. Around the perimeter of the building were dozens of stained-glass windows, each showing a different kwami and each with a small shrine beneath it to offer petition or devotion to that kwami. A few individuals in various colors of kimono stood or knelt around the perimeter of the temple. Several were congregated around Kaalki's shrine, presumably praying for safe voyages for ships or caravans.
After a moment's thought, Kagami decided to start by petitioning Plagg. If she was going to invoke one of the Regal Kwamis at all, it made sense to speak to him first.
Plagg's and Tikki's windows were placed on the front of the cathedron where they would catch the light from the park, so it only took Kagami a few steps to reach Plagg's shrine. She pulled a few gold coins out of her belt pouch and dropped them into a bowl, then lit a couple of sticks of incense and knelt before Plagg's window, head bowed and eyes closed.
"Plagg, bringer of the end," she whispered. "I ask for your mercy upon my beloved, he who bears your title and likeness. Let your touch bring confusion and disarray upon his enemies, and may you shield him from misfortune and bring him safely back to me at last." She paused for a moment, then continued. "I love him. I love him as you love Tikki. May our love call to your love, and may you show mercy upon us for the sake of that love. Please."
She knelt there for a moment longer, then rose. She turned to survey the cathedron further… and froze as a figure walked in the door. Tall, slender, with the same glossy black hair as Kagami, though hers was longer, tied back in a bun. She wore a formal kimono in red-trimmed white, over her eyes was a band of pale blue cloth embroidered with a pattern of stylized running rabbits, and she carried a bundled cane with which she tapped the floor before her.
Kagami stood motionless, barely daring to breath, as her mother walked past her and deeper into the cathedron, heading for the window dedicated to Sass.
As quickly as she dared, Kagami made her way back out the door and into the park.
I really should have seen that coming, she thought. Nice one, Plagg.
Now, where do I want to go next?