"Hey Marinette," Alix said before they both headed off to lunch. "Would you be willing to beta something for me?"
"Using your fanfic vocab again?" Marinette teased as she packed items into her bag.
"Shhhh! Keep it down," Alix growled. "No one was supposed to know about that."
Marinette frowned, "But you're one of my favorite authors."
Alix blushed, but the scowl remained on her face. "Thanks, but- I don't want them knowing that I write that kind of stuff."
Marinette laughed. "Afraid that they'll find out that you, the toughest demon on inline skates, are the sappiest romance writer to ever touch fluff?" she teased.
"Yes!" Alix hissed.
Marinette could sense her friend's growing anxiety and quickly schooled her face. "Okay, so what am I looking for here?" She'd helped Alix with her writing assignments before. "Besides spelling and grammar that your spell-check might have missed, I mean."
"Just make sure it isn't hopping around too much. I had to do a lot of time skips, and it all makes sense to me but- well, you know-"
Marinette nodded as she stuffed papers into her backpack.
"When do you need to hear back by?" she asked and followed Alix down the stairs to the classroom door.
"Our creative writing is due next week, so if you can get notes to me by-" she thought for a moment, "Friday, I can make any changes over the weekend."
"This is the one where we have to turn a real life event into a fantasy story, right?"
"Yup," the grin that broke out on Alix's face was a little disturbing.
"But, you can't use real names?"
"Yeah, to protect the innocent and all that jazz."
"Oh, fun," Marinette squealed. "Will I be able to recognize the real life event?"
This time Alix broke out into peals of laughter. "Count on it."
Marinette finally sat down to read Alix's writing assignment right before bed. She snuggled into her sheets and got her tablet out. She was prepared to write notes, underline unnecessary phrases, or add in the commas that Alix always forgot. She did not expect to be attacked in the very first sentence.
Once upon a time in the Queendom of Sirap there lived a young woman named Adrienne who was in love with Prince Marin.
She was going to kill Alix!
Still, she read on.
Adrienne was deeply in love with the prince as Marin was kind, intelligent, strong, talented and funny.
Well… Alix was right about one thing- Adrien did possess all those qualities. She wrote a note saying, "Marin sounds like a catch!"
Unfortunately Adrienne was under a curse from a wicked fairy so that any time she found a person her soul was drawn to, she would stutter horribly or mix up her words.
The fairy had tried to barter power to rule the Queendom for Adrienne's parents' firstborn child and when they refused, she cursed the child to get them to reconsider. The couple again refused and said that if the person was really their child's soul partner, they would love and appreciate her no matter how poorly she spoke.
How could she? Alix knew how embarrassed she got about mixing up her words in front of Adrien. She almost stopped reading there, but curiosity got the better of her. That and a gentle thought that she was right. It did feel like a curse sometimes, or maybe just bad luck she couldn't talk straight when she looked at Adrien.
Alix wasn't making fun of her, or er, Adrienne, she was giving her protagonist a backstory and an obstacle to overcome. And it was a good one. She wrote a note telling Alix she had come up with a very good, real world challenge for her make-believe character to overcome. Hopefully Ms. Bustier wouldn't recognize Marinette in all this, right?
As she continued to read it dawned on her- "This was that time the girls tried to help me-"
Oh no. She read the section again with horror and embarrassment. Yeah, there was no doubt. This was the time the girl squad had all tried to give her a moment with Adrien. At least that fiasco wasn't done directly in front of their teacher. Maybe Ms. Bustier would be too distracted by Alix's excellent story to find Marinette and her ginormous crush lurking inside?
She had to take several deep breaths before she continued on.
Marinette's anger softened and her embarrassment ebbed as she read about the flower fairies that offered to help Adrienne find a moment to be with Marin, to tell him how much she admired him. She read eagerly to the point where a monster was chasing after Marin but Adrienne bravely put herself between him and the beast so that Marin could get away. She even had a tear in the corner of her eye as the flower fairies used petals to cover the body of brave, nobel Adrienne. She had sacrificed herself for the person she loved. The moment when Marin returned riding on his black tiger to defeat the monster, Marinette couldn't help but give a triumphant shout. The final scene, held in a somber graveyard, had Marinette mad at Alix again as the crying Prince Marin laid a wreath of flowers in front of an ornate tomb inscribed with, "Here lies Adrienne. A very good friend of mine."
Marinette was early to class so that she could corner Alix at her desk to return her opinion on the fully edited story.
"Alix I can't believe you did this," Marinette whined as she slapped some papers on the desk.
"Did what? My assignment?" she tried to ask innocently. Noticing the papers had sketches of Adrienne and Prince Marin at different points in the story.
"I can't believe you wrote about that botched attempt to get time with Ad-" Alix pointed and she turned just as Nino and Adrien walked in, "-drien!"
The boy in question perked up at the sound of his name.
"Yes, Marinette?'
"Oh, uh, Mood Gorning. I mean, Good Morning," Marinette stumbled through the words even as her face heated up.
"Oh, Good moring Marinette, Alix. What are you talking about?"
"Nothing!"
"My creative writing paper," Alix cut across Marinette's words. "Marinette was looking it over for me." Alix's sly grin appeared and before Marinette could try to stop whatever scheme Alix had just hatched, she asked, "Do you wanna read it?"
Adrien looked a little stunned, but soon nodded. "Sure, sounds like fun."
"Cool! I'll text you the link." She smiled wider even as Marinette tried to slink back to her desk and put her head down. She fiddled with her phone and then looked up at Adrien. "You should be able to comment, but that's it. If you can't, let me know."
"Okay, thanks Alix. Marinette." Adrien had turned to put his bag on his desk as he pulled out his phone to check the text.
"Why are you th-th-thanking me?" Marinette asked as she looked up at him.
Adrien's smile lit up his face. "Because if you hadn't been here I never would've been asked to read something a friend wrote." He pulled his tablet from his bag. "And that's something I've hoped I'd get to do once I could come to school."
Marinette smiled up at Adrien. "Glad I could be of service."
When they all came back from lunch Adrien made sure to stop Alix as she passed his desk.
"Hey Alix," he said and then smiled at the girl, "I wanted to tell you how much I really liked your story."
"You read it already?" Marinette said from behind him.
"Well, I don't have much else to do all through lunch time," he said with a shrug. "Any way," he turned back to Alix, "I think it was really great, but-"
"But what?" Alix asked.
"Well, what was the real life event? I couldn't figure it out." His face paled. "It wasn't the ending was it?"
Alix laughed and patted his shoulder. "Oh no Sunshine it wasn't the ending."
Adrien sagged a bit and let out a deep breath. "Oh good."
"So other than my writing being so flawless you couldn't pick out the mundane from the fantasy, it was okay?" Marinette could detect the teeniest bit of doubt in her friend's voice.
Adrien nodded enthusiastically. "Oh yeah, I'm sure you'll get top marks."
Alix grinned and hurried to her seat.
"So you were impressed by the tragedy of Adrienne and the prince?" Marinette asked over his shoulder.
Adrien looked back at her and a gentle smile lit his face.
"Yeah. It's very well written, but there's one thing that I just don't understand."
"What's that?" Marinette asked even though Ms. Bustier had walked into the room.
"How could he not tell that girl was totally into him?"
Marinette's face went blank. All she could do was stare at him. And then at the back of his head when he was called on to turn around while Alix was asked to calm her laugher. Finally, she blinked.
...
...
...
...
...
Why do I love him? she thought.