Am I Being Punished?
She'd forgotten how long this took.
Emilie sat tied to a chair, listening to the sound of one of the Guardians chanting- it was really starting to grate on her nerves. She didn't think it would; she'd done this more than almost all of the kwamis, but this time, she might actually kill someone over it. It wouldn't be difficult to tear the rope binding her to shreds and escape, but if she did, they'd go after Adrien and Gabriel again.
A sigh escaped her at the thought. Two years, she'd been gone, and Paris was run amok by her own husband, the man who she trusted to keep Adrien safe. And the Guardians ruined him. Ruined them both, really- Gabriel with the apathy spell and Adrien with the abusive behavior that followed. They had a long road ahead of them to get back to any semblance of normal. She just hoped they would work on that rather than fixate on her.
"What do we do about Fu?"
Emilie turned her attention to the remaining Guardians, all standing around save one at the door. They tried to keep their voices hushed, but that wasn't a very good defense against the hearing of a goddess.
"We can't bring him in on this; he's the reason the Order is working out of this place."
Ah, Fu. She remembered him; surely he'd be somewhere in his 180s by now. He'd barely been twenty when he chose someone for her. If she recalled correctly (she did), the chosen was greedy for power and stole the butterfly brooch and tome of secrets before razing the temple and killing nearly everyone in it. Fu hadn't even known the secondary reason for Guardians when all this happened.
It was nice to know he made it out.
"How else are we going to get the other miraculous back?"
So that's how Ladybug and Chat Noir came into the picture.
"We'll track him down later," the leader of the group declared. "For now, we've got bigger things to worry about."
"Hey, that's me!" Emilie added in with false cheer, smirking at her captors.
One of the Guardians, a younger man, leaned in towards the leader. "Are you sure we can't kill her?"
The leader sighed and shook his head. "Trust me, if it was possible and in our best interest, I would. In fact, I would've done it last time."
Emilie kept that fake grin pasted on her face. "We're all stuck here together, hun. Might as well get used to it." She blinked, letting her precognition take over. None of them had much of a future ahead of them, it seemed, and she couldn't help but take pride in that fact.
A slap on the face snapped her out of it, but she didn't move her head and follow through with the motion like she might otherwise. As the world came back into focus, she looked up at the man who'd done it, clutching his hand and moaning in pain.
The leader sighed and shook his head. "I told you not to do that."
Emilie pouted and tilted her head. "Aw, did I hurt you?" she asked. When the Guardian looked at her, she immediately snapped, "Tough shit!"
"She's getting restless; let's just get this over with," one of the other Guardians said. He walked up to her, a knife in hand, and grabbed her arm. She stayed still as he cut the rope and pushed her to her feet, leading her toward the portal that had finally finished forming.
Before they could push her in, she turned back around. "You know, I'm gonna enjoy remembering next time," she said. "And when I do, I am going to give you as much shit as humanly possible, and then some. The oldest person here is... what? Fifty? Without the elixir, none of you will live longer or be more durable than a normal human, and I will take pleasure in completely destroying your lives like you did mine. And you won't even have time to recover."
She turned back around and stepped through the portal; she didn't want to give them the satisfaction of pushing her.
As always, it took a few seconds for Emilie to orient herself. She looked around, seeing nothing but white for a moment. Gradually, the temple took shape around her, like it hadn't been expecting visitors.
"Welcome home."
Emilie turned, seeing a tall man in ancient Sumerian clothing. "Enlil," she greeted coldly. "How are you liking your punishment?"
"How are you liking yours?"
Emilie scoffed and shook her head. "At least I didn't try to murder my children." She looked the other way, seeing a long hallway waiting for her. "Why the hell did they make Ekur so long in the first place?"
Without turning back, Emilie knew Enlil was smirking at her. "Well, it was once the home of 3,600 gods. You need a lot of space to fit that many people."
"And now there's twenty of us, one of whom can't even leave." She turned back around and gave Enlil the same look he'd given her, smarmy grin and all. "It must suck."
Enlil sighed and shook his head. "You always were the pettiest of your siblings," he said. "The youth these days, no respect for their parents."
"I lost any and all respect for you the day you killed Mom and all the others." Emilie started walking down the hall, away from Enlil. She blinked, and suddenly he was standing in front of her again. Before he could say anything, she added in, "You know, people have been talking shit about 'the youth these days' for five thousand years, probably longer. So your self-righteousness doesn't exactly leave an impact."
"Like I said: petty." Emilie rolled her eyes. "You've done this a hundred times before; what's so important that you aren't readily doing it now?" He looked her over. "And didn't you have all your memories last time, too? I've never had one of you come back twice in a row with everything there."
Emilie let out a dry laugh and started walking again. "You make me sound geriatric," she grumbled. "But it's not like you can ever leave here, so if you must know, yes, I remember everything. I was Helena for two years, but when I went back to Paris, I figured out too much. Ended up back where I spent my time as Emilie, and the Guardians didn't like that."
Enlil raised an eyebrow. "That's not enough to break the seal on your memories. I've seen you lot come through here with a million different names and no idea why you had to do this. So what changed?"
"I have a son." She cast a quick glance at him, gauging his reaction. No temper tantrum, so that was a good sign. "Helena met him, Gabriel too. When Helena started spending too much time with Gabriel, the Guardians stormed in thinking he would tell her the truth. They saw Adrien and connected the dots. Realized why I had been so cooperative last time. When they tried to hurt him, I got my memories back and my powers reawakened to protect him. The only reason I left is because they promised not to hurt either of them if I did."
For a moment, Enlil didn't respond, but finally, "What makes you think they won't turn right back around and do it once you're someone else?"
"Adrien is Plagg's latest chosen." She pursed her lips and looked down at her hands. "Anything they want to try will have to get through him first."
"Plagg is rather… protective." He let out a breathy laugh. "The two of you could have done so much better than serving humanity."
Emilie frowned and glared at Enlil. "You thinking that is exactly why we decided to help humans in the first place. If we leave them unprotected, someone like you will just come up again." She shook her head, knowing her father wouldn't understand. "Let's just get this over with."
She walked ahead, head held high in a last act of defiance, even if the Guardians couldn't see it. Finally, she made it around the corner and into another room containing nothing but a small, blue stone.
With a sigh, Emilie approached it and stooped down to pick it up. She rolled it in her fingers before letting it settle in the palm of her hand, and the world faded around her.
It wasn't Emilie this time, or even Helena. It was a woman in a colonial dress of a sapphire hue, her hair piled on top of her head with intricate ringlets pinned to it. She looked Enlil over, trying to reconcile her own lifestyle with his appearance with the temple's.
"Am I being punished?" she asked.
"Yes." He started walking down the hall and motioned for her to follow. "You've made many decisions, both good and bad, that led up to this. You've spent the past… what, five years in the colonies?"
The woman nodded. "Exactly," she replied. "I'm the governor's wife, you know. People will come looking for me."
"They won't find you. This is your last cycle. You're recharged enough to return to your miraculous."
The woman furrowed her eyebrows. "My miraculous?" she asked. "What's that?"
Enlil paused, wondering how best to word it. "A miraculous is… a conduit. You channel your powers through it to help a human being achieve their goals, whatever they may be. The Guardians exist to make sure the right person gets it."
"Is this the miraculous?"
"No. It's the Ekur, a sort of… way station. You'll understand once you go back."
The woman nodded slowly. "What about my husband?" she asked. "And the people who will be looking for me?"
"Eventually they will give up or die, such is the nature of their lives." Enlil stopped, then gestured to another room. "It is, in the end, your choice whether or not you return, but you won't be able to find your way back to your town regardless."
The woman looked from Enlil to the room, then took a deep breath. She walked inside.
"I figured it out."
"You wouldn't be the first to- or the last."
The woman looked up at Enlil. She was so much different from the one before, her hair a stringy mess and her clothes worn from years of use. "Can't say I understand how you fit in, though."
"You don't need to."
She looked down the hall. "I go through this more often than the others. My power is different than theirs, allows me insight they don't have."
Enlil sighed shifted on his feet, realizing they'd be there for a while. "The others last about seven years a cycle. It's strange when you get five."
"Then that's my goal for next time. Live there as long as possible with as few memory triggers as possible."
He scoffed. "Good luck with that."
She looked at her brother, a frown on her face. He wore a green shirt, she a blue dress. "Will we remember each other?"
"No," Enlil replied. "You won't even be together next time; it will just be you. Sass is returning to his miraculous, but you haven't recharged enough yet."
"Recharged?" her brother asked. "And look, I know I've got a bit of a tongue, but I have a name- we both do."
Enlil rolled his eyes. "You have identities. Sass is your true name, as Duusu is hers." He sighed and shook his head. "It's better not to get into semantics about this; you've both already made your choice, correct?"
The duo frowned, shoulders slumping. "Yes." Sass looked from his sister to Enlil. "My abilities… they're dangerous. And they put her in danger, too. People started to notice what she could do."
Slowly, Enlil nodded his head. The woman got the distinct sense he was ready to mock them.
"Can we just get this over with?" she demanded. "I have no desire to be here any longer than I have to. It's creepy, and so are you."
"Very well."
Happy new year, everyone! Here's to a great 2020!