Marinette's bluebell eyes were intense on her paper, simply jotting down a small bit of poetry, reflecting the state of her mind.
Upon my head lies a broken crown,
As I sit upon a porcelain throne,
And there beneath my feet they lie,
My subjects, all but known.
She glanced around her, her eyes focused on the boy sitting in the seat before her, finding him focused, just as she previously was, and a small sigh escaped her parted lips, she had heard the murmurs of others in the halls in between classes, saying that she was a mess, and what's more, it was true, she felt like everything she had was slowly slipping out of her grasp, that the things she knew were slowly changing, aging her knowledge out.
Running a hand through the fringe of her hair, she closed her notebook and crossed her arms over her desk, laying her head against them, as if to form a small pillow. Nothing was the same since she was expelled. Things were different, people were treating her differently, and everyone seemed to have some sort of thoughts of her that...to be frank...conflicted with what they should have known about her as a person. It was almost like she was being phased out, and though strange as it was, she was thankful for one thing...that despite the others slowly phasing her out...one person was sure to always pull her back to everything.
A smile formed on her lips at the thought. Not so long ago she was chosen to become a guardian, the duties of her mentor Wang Fu thrust upon her...and since then it had been like watching disaster after disaster unfolds into her life, starting with Lila.
Everything that she had thought was good about her life had slowly become tainted, poisoned by the grasp of that horrid girl, and it all began with Alya. More and more Alya was hanging out with Lila, and because Alya was more involved with her, Nino went along with it, until the two of them had extended their flow out to Mylene and Ivan, and before long Juleka and Rose joined in, and Lila's friend circle had basically overthrown anything that Marinette had considered her own.
Soon she found herself without the ability to seek solace away from Lila, not wanting to cause a problem or dispute any of the lies the girl spouted, due to the promise that she'd made Adrien...and that left her mostly alone, even if it had been seemingly of her own volition, she couldn't help but feel uncomfortable around the girl that had threatened her...she just wished that the others didn't have to be so simple in their own dealings with her.
As she had learned, nobody wanted to be around someone that didn't want to talk about the most popular thing, and in this case, that was definitely Lila, but Marinette didn't really care. All she really could do was find something to busy herself with, so she had often found herself making her way to the art room, making new projects, or just...being alone in there. It wasn't private, of course, because anyone could go in and work on a project, as she'd known, but...it was enough for her at that time, until Lila and her entourage began to infiltrate it, then she just started to spend all of her spare alone time at home, working on new outfits inspired by her superhero partner, who...strangely, had become a godsend to her in these glowering times.
Every so often she would find herself making something for him, coats, accessories, shirts, pants, hats, anything she could think of really...but that left her with a pile of gifts that she knew she couldn't give to him...because all the plans for them had been in her sketchbook...and her sketchbook had been seen by others while she was in class. It had become the place she basically lived, stuck on paper, and out of the way.
She pursed her lips, hoping for the one thing that this class could bless her with...the sound of the bell that excused them from class...because more than anything she wanted to just...get away from it all, she wanted to don her mask and just feel the wind on her face, she wanted to scout from the Eiffel Tower, gaze down at the people below...but she knew she couldn't. She was Ladybug...and if she was seen then people would either assume it was for patrol or due to an akuma...and given the time of day that it was, they'd likely believe there was an akuma before anything else. As much as she loved the citizens of Paris...she had known that they would definitely assume the worst and work themselves into a panic, and probably cause an akuma...it had seemed as though she never could get the chance to be her real self...in or out of her mask.
An irritated grunt escaped her at the thought, her eyes squeezing shut as her body tensed up. She hated this. The isolation, the feeling of loneliness, the fact that the only person that she could confide in about anything in the class would have made her more of a target for Lila's crap, maybe even escalate it...and the other person in the mask...she couldn't find him as a civilian, especially now, when she wanted more than anything else to just rid themselves of that safety guard between the two of them, Hawkmoth be damned...but she couldn't do that to him just because she was under a bit of stress. It wouldn't be fair to any of the other times that he'd wanted to reveal himself, or for her to reveal herself, so she groaned in irritation as all the thoughts clouded her mind. She was sinking like a stone into the depths of the ocean, and without anything to help her float back up, like a keychain without a floating device...and she knew that she couldn't ask for help.
Her breathing was shallow as panic crept in, she couldn't move, she couldn't speak, and she didn't want to. She wanted to fade...she didn't want to be there in class, and she didn't want to be around the others. She wanted to be alone, without them around her...her eyes squeezed shut as she squeezed her hands into fists, trying to steel herself from allowing the panic to take over her sense of rationality. Her heart labored in her chest, going twice the normal rate.
'It's only five more minutes...five more minutes then I'm free, I can go home...I'll be okay.' she thought to herself, trying to push the subconscious intrusive thoughts out of her head as they spun around, telling her that she wasn't wanted, that she wasn't needed, that nobody would like her, that Lila's threat was ones he should have heeded, and that was when a hollow sob escaped her, her body tensed as the tears spilled, and she couldn't stop herself. Nothing could have stopped her, it was just a reaction to the words that she was trying to push away, but she tried to keep quiet, the words of people around her unable to get registered, she was there...yet she was so far away.