Nathalie Sancoeur opened her eyes.

The first observations she made were that she was laying in her bed, still in her work clothes, and that it was dark outside. Her memories were hazy, but some of the blanks started to fill themselves in shortly thereafter. The collapse of Napoleon's Tomb hadn't seriously injured her, but moving those massive chunks of stone to escape had been incredibly taxing, even with the boost of the miraculous. She remembered emerging just in time to see Gabriel in danger, and then they escaped, and then… he must have put her here to rest, where she evidently had been sleeping for time.

Now having her mental bearings, Nathalie sat up, and it hurt. Everything hurt, and not just from the exhaustion of the day's events. Recovering from her usage of the broken Peacock was going to take as long, if not longer, than it took to receive it, and her use of the Butterfly instead today had not helped one bit.

The fact that Pride of Darkness lost made it feel even worse to her, especially because their plot could have been even more powerful if Gabriel had gone along with her idea for how to capitalize on the aftermath of the Miracle Queen plot. Her proposal was to create one last sentimonster that would be able to track and observe the revealed identities of Ladybug's allies, allowing them to identify weaknesses in both their decision-making and in Ladybug's miraculous distribution methods.

Gabriel terminated that discussion without a second thought; he absolutely refused to risk any more harm to her right when they had finally secured the means of reversing it. He said that having a sentimonster from the broken miraculous tied to her could impact her ability to recover from the damage at all, even after its fix.

Nathalie didn't care. She would do anything to restore Emilie and bring back the happiness in Gabriel's soul. Because it was she who found the miraculouses to begin with, their entire plight was her fault, and therefore it was her responsibility to fix it, regardless of how much Gabriel blamed himself for it. Like all of her responsibilities for the Agrestes, she would see it through no matter what she had to do to make happen.

She never expected that she would feel this strongly about anyone, or really, feel anything this strongly ever again. She had spent so much of her life locking away her emotions, constantly being reminded that they were signs of pain and weakness and only got in the way of the work she needed to do not to fail. That continual drive eventually led to her being hired by Gabriel Agreste, a man notorious for his high standards, as his personal assistant.

Since then, the Agrestes had become something of a surrogate family to her; she didn't think she would be capable of having a family of her own at any point in the near future. She knew the pressure and loneliness that Adrien felt, and she wanted to protect him from it, even if that meant going behind his parents' back at times.

Her mind returned to the real world, the throbbing throughout her body having subsided somewhat. On the nightstand next to her was her glasses case, and behind that… a small box? She had a guess as to what was in there, and it was confirmed when she opened it. As she adorned the Peacock Brooch, a sparkling indigo light appeared and transformed into the feathered kwami Duusu.

"Miss Nathalie? Are you feeling better?"

"Yes… relatively speaking."

Duusu frowned. Nathalie knew he felt guilty about the damage using his miraculous caused her and Emilie, even though he had no part in any of that.

"Is Mister Gabriel okay? You… akumatized him while he was using my miraculous."

"He was not harmed by our activities today, if that is what you are wondering."

She also knew that, despite Duusu understanding the emotional hardship that led to Gabriel's quest for a Wish, he did not particularly approve of the methods. Like Nooroo, he insisted that the miraculouses should be used for good and not their personal gain.

"Oh, I see…"

"On the subject, I require some answers from you about sentimonsters."

A small bit of magic washed over Duusu's form. Just as they could forbid the kwamis from saying or doing certain things, they could also compel them to do the same, and she had just spoken the activation phrase she set to, well, require him to answer. Why this was possible, she did not know.

"What information do you need, Miss Nathalie?"

"I want to know why Pride of Darkness's sentimonsters were unable to read the thoughts of the superheroes they were based off of, and why Chat Noir was able to Cataclysm one completely. These facts contradict my understanding of your power."

"Both of those seem to share a common misconception. That being that, despite appearances, sentimonsters are not truly alive."

Nathalie squinted an eye in skepticism. "How can that possibly be? I created a perfect clone of Ladybug. You can't get any more alive than that."

Duusu shook his head. "While defining life is… complicated, to say the least, the key difference in this case is that sentimonsters are entirely a product of my power. They are not born and do not age, grow, or die as regular lifeforms do, because their form and sustenance come directly from me."

"I do not see the relevance of that. If they are an extension of you, and you are alive, then that still makes them alive."

She didn't like the look she received from the indigo being. "… are you really about to tell me that you're not alive?"

The kwami briefly glanced away. "Like I said, defining life is complicated, and the truth is not always what appearances would suggest." He spun in a circle, his tailfeathers spreading to make the gesture seem grand. "The form you see here is not the real Duusu. It is only a minute fraction of a fraction. As you know, we kwami are based on universal concepts… so consequently, we are universal in scale. We do not – and cannot, if you know anything of the square-cube law – possess a physical form. Our thoughts, powers, and actions… to be blunt, are something far beyond the comprehension of mankind."

Nathalie was stunned. The grimoire had no mention of this. "Then… what is the being floating in front of me?"

"A channeling, of sorts. A Miraculous is an outlet that the greater kwami uses to condense some of its awareness and interact with those on planet Earth, which necessitates giving it a name and form recognizable by the peoples that the miraculous is being used with. The peacock best represents the concepts of emotion and instinct – biological drive – that I embody. Even this isn't exactly true, because there are many languages and cultures and they evolve over time, so there are multiple valid forms that I could take and many names that have described me over the ages."

As if in disbelief, Nathalie removed her glasses momentarily to clean the lenses. Such monumental description sounded even more incredulous in Duusu's squeaky voice. "And… how does that relate to the problems I described?"

"It is mainly relevant for Cataclysms. Sentimonsters are externally sustained through the amok and do not experience entropy as real beings do; in essence, they are magic. A regularly-applied Cataclysm will not be able to destroy them, because it will target the body and not its source and result in unpredictable behavior. Chat Noir was able to direct his Cataclysm to target the magic and cut the plant at its roots, so to speak."

"I… see. And what of the Shadows' connection to the heroes they were based off of?"

"A limitation of the miraculous and the sentimonsters. Creating any humanlike sentimonster is very difficult, because the concept being channeled does not include sentience and intelligence. There is a reason they're called monsters. Even the form of a human evokes those human qualities and requires a specific mindset to conform to this specification, as well as a sufficiently strong will to fuel the creation of a sentimonster of such complexity.

"Because a sentimonster is magic, it is not truly a human, only a simulation of one. The Shadows, as you call them, were mere simulacra, taking the form of those heroes and copying their general decision-making. They had no true connection, and they never will without amokizing the heroes themselves."

Nathalie closed her eyes in thought, and partially in exhaustion as well. This was taking a lot of brainpower to process. "And yet, I was still able to create a sentimonster sentient enough to possess morals and free will when given the choice."

Duusu looked over Nathalie as if in appraisal. "Your creation of the Ladybug sentimonster was an incredible circumstance born from your sustained and targeted hatred of Ladybug and analysis of her behaviors, and the intensity and determination you possessed in the moment when you created the amok. Banish any thought of amokizing your morning cup of coffee to make a human."

The woman sighed, coming out as more of a strong exhale from her tiredness. "Of course. I think I need to rest now so I can think about this more clearly. Thank you for answering my questions." Not that you had a choice.

"Yes… do rest."

With that, she removed the miraculous and returned it to the small box, setting it back on the table. She did likewise with her glasses and laid back under the covers to sleep.