The meadow she sat in was all but taken over by wildflowers of varying species. These plants twisted and mingled themselves at her feet, creating an eye-searing clash of color that almost took away some of their beauty. Lush trees of green and brown surrounded her meadow, just as she was surrounded by a black ring of death.
Tikki, the goddess of creation, bent down and hugged the head of Plagg, the god of destruction. Plagg lay with his body in a crescent moon around Tikki, killing all the flowers nearby besides the ones lucky enough to have direct contact to her body.
This current form of Tikki was human height, but with a face too smooth and round to ever be mortal. Her eyes were a shiny blue, the orbs filled with mirth and love. Two antennas fanned out from the top of her head, then drooped down her neck to lay on her back. Over time she had tweaked her beetle-like body to more closely resemble a female hourglass, with wings that formed down and about her like the skirts she had seen so many times. She was considering adjusting her wings, as they often got in the way when she sat in her preferred position atop her backward bending knees.
For now, she simply continued stroking Plagg who lay at her feet. Her hand looked an even brighter red against the black of Plagg's fur. Fur so black it looked to be starless night. His bright green eyes were often the only glowing difference in his form to offset the monochromatic dark hue.
Plagg had made changes to himself to be more human-like too, though he had difficulty caring about the aesthetics. The results were spines, limbs, and muscles that were all too happy to stretch, break, or bend in any way needed to be as jaguar or human as Plagg wished in the moment. No matter how grotesque or asymmetrical the outcome could be.
Plagg purred in Tikki's lap and licked her hardened beetle fingers lazily. Tikki giggled and rewarded him with a quick press of her head against his own.
But she had to ruin this moment, she knew that she did. Plagg was waiting for it too. No one but her could have seen the hidden stiffness of his normally liquid calm body. A small sigh came out of her lipless mouth. It was unfair how she always seemed to be the one to ruin these things. These moments of contentedness.
"Plagg, we cannot wait any longer," Tikki said giving her other half one last head squeeze. "We must get started."
Plagg only curled in tighter. Tikki resumed petting his head. "What is the matter my beautiful Darkness? We have done this before."
Plagg inaudibly grumbled his response, but Tikki doesn't hear with ears, her antennae's easily catch his word.
"Where did we go wrong?"
Tikki felt her eyes squinting in sadness. She could not cry here, not in this form. Her tiny body on Earth was capable of such a human feat, but this one was made of stiffer parts. Still, the habits of that world bled into this one. So, she squinted her eyes.
"I believe I know," she said. Plagg looked up. She smiled sadly, if a little serenely. "Yes, I know where we went wrong."
Plagg sat up, his ears straightened. "You know? You just know? Oh please Tikki, we've been trying to figure out why everything was going wrong for the last few years and you just know? Give me a break. It's because you say things like that, all kindly and confidently, that all our kids keep thinking you're the wise one."
The last part was said with playful mocking, but if the truth of the words didn't clue Tikki in that Plagg was actually angry, then the furred back he turned on her did.
Tikki hesitated, the first feeling that rose was her own anger. She knew she could be as priggish as Plagg could be dismissive. It wasn't her fault that this often meant their kids didn't respect them as equals until later in life. It was just a consequence of their personalities, which usually evened out in the end anyway. Sometimes in Plagg's favor, as his more knotted look at the world had appealed to a few of them with age.
But one doesn't love Plagg for long unless you love the way he challenged you, and, perhaps, she supposed that this time that respect never did equal out. She never really acknowledged that, did she?
Tikki reached out and pet along his spine. "I'm sorry she blamed you."
Plagg hunched in on himself and said nothing.
Tikki hummed a pleasant tune into the silence for a time, but she had a thought in her head and it was going to be said.
"What I'm guessing," she began, "is that we wanted too much." She turned her own back and rested it against Plagg's, while absentmindedly stroking the dead flowers around them back into plump health. "I wanted a child that would be perfect for me, sweet, courageous, proud, with a love of making things that wouldn't exist without her. And you, my Darkness, wanted a child perfect for you, someone who would love what's mine, yet was mischievous, rebellious, and fun enough to destroy some of her creations anyway."
Plagg straightened his back to better support her weight, an almost unconscious effort.
She smiled. "I think we forgot that humans grow into their own beings, beyond the basics of their core that we give them. I wanted someone perfect for me, but a me who goes through a human life might start deciding that she understands all rules for creation, and therefore anything she deems worthy deserves to stand forever. You wanted someone perfect for you, but a you who goes through a human life might base his destruction on what his peers tell him it is, and become as callous as others perceive him to be."
Plagg lifted her hand to his mouth and licked it.
Tikki squinted her eyes. "Humans are malleable creatures, and we, my Darkness, were selfish."
Plagg turned towards his Lightness. "Mewooow," he said grinning.
Tikki giggled, high-pitched and cutely. Plagg joined in with his own deep chuckling growls. With a pang Tikki could almost hear her last daughter as she scolded her for laughing at such an inappropriate time.
When they finished Plagg twisted just his upper half to turn around and hug her. "Remember our firsts?" he whispered.
"Yes," Tikki said, lifting a hand to the arms around her neck.
"Maybe we should do what we did then and add nothing. They were good enough."
Tikki smiled and leaned her head against his shoulder. "There's no need to go that far."
Plagg snickered, "Controlling bug." He stood up, bipedal for now. "Alright my Lightness. Let's go make more munchkins."
Tikki stood as well. "Yes, we will be careful this time. It is every parent's dream to have a perfect child, but children are precious no matter what. We shall not forget again."
Plagg snorted, "How could we?"
Tikki paused, "We couldn't."
They walked together through the goddess's garden, perfectly in synch. Every lift of the leg from Plagg was a bend of a limb from Tikki. The world beneath their feet blackened where Plagg walked and bloomed were Tikki strode. They didn't hold hands as they moved. Even if they wanted to do such a human gesture Plagg's hands were still figuring out the change from paws to fingers.
They made it to a pond near the edge of the meadow. Its standing water rippled peacefully before a line of trees that were more decayed, and covered in air with less light, than the rest of the wooden foliage that circled the flower utopia. The darkened woods belonged to Plagg. Where Tikki ended, Plagg began.
Together Tikki and Plagg sat on their haunches near the pond. There were no fish in this pond, only eggs. Bright grey eggs that held bits of both of them. As one they both grabbed an egg. Plagg having the fingers to do so just in time. They didn't remove them from the water. Instead, they squeezed their eggs and focused on the potential inside. Shaping it into something that could be human.
Plagg smirked mischievously as he looked at Tikki's calm, but clearly concentrating, face. She looked so at peace.
He splashed her with water. With an indignant squeak Tikki swiped at her face, trying to remove the water from around her eyes. She glared at Plagg. Who was laughing.
She sniffed, "So immature."
Back to eggs.
Plagg chewed nervous holes into his cheeks, which healed the moment he pulled out black sharpened teeth. "I think," he chewed some more, "I think that this time mine needs to be resistant. Mine needs to be able to stay positive and, uh, kind."
Tikki tilted her head, wondering why this statement made her Darkness seem sad. Not that she was one to turn down kindness, so she simply smiled. "Yes, I think you're right. And mine needs to be confident, oh yes, just like before, but humble. I must give her a better chance of growing to be humble. She shall love to create, but also love thinking enough to not fear destruction."
Plagg closed his eyes, he could feel the life in his palm pulse. "Mine will still be fun. He must be fun."
Tikki laughed, "Oh yes, and mine will love your fun."
Tikki and Plagg awkwardly side hopped closer together and touched their eggs. They felt what the other created and morphed theirs in slight ways to suit what they found. When they were done Tikki didn't know how to feel. She almost wanted to keep going, for these weren't perfect babies. But Plagg covered her eyes with a slightly furred hand, blocking her egg from view.
"I was about to stop," huffed Tikki.
"They're good enough," Plagg shrugged and released her eyes.
They sent their children to Earth. Tikki placed her egg in the home of a Chinese woman who lived in Paris with a soul as sweet as creation. Plagg placed his in a woman with a soul of adventure and love who lived nearby.
Both killed every other egg in the women's wombs.
Each woman would carry their children and provide them with human DNA from both her and her lover. The children may even grow to have some personality traits of their birth parents. Humans in the same place tended to do that. But no matter what parts of the kids the human parents disillusion themselves into thinking came from them, their children were shaped long before their pregnancy tests read positive.
Tikki was more than happy with her daughter's family. Sabine was as kind and at peace with her world as Tikki had predicted. While Tom was a caring man with a love for his bakery and the things it created. She could not join her daughter yet, not until the girl held her stone. Tikki could feel her stone of creation, and she knew another child of gods would bring it to hers in time.
Until then, Tikki only caught glimpses of her baby's life. The girl was loved and happy. She learned just the right way to gurgle to get her way with Tom. She learned to crawl away from her maman when she brought out the sunscreen. Her first steps were taken surrounded by cheers and joyous laughter as she moved back and forth between her parents.
Sabine hugged the baby to her chest and cried when she learned she could have no more children. Tikki watched. For days after nearby bakeries had a little less luck, while the bread displayed in their windows looked just a little more appetizing.
Plagg was not entirely impressed with his son's family. Oh, he was at first, what with the wealth and the brave careers in fashion the parents pursued. Tikki had been reminding him of the phrase 'money couldn't buy happiness' since the moment she first heard it, but Plagg thought it sure helped.
It wasn't so bad though. The father, Gabriel, worked too much sure. Maybe he didn't interact with his son as much as he ought to. But he ran out of his office when his wife yelled that their baby was waddling across the living room, he let his son sit in his lap as he drew new designs, and he patiently replaced every bit of fabric or yarn his son got ahold of with a toy. He got so good at this last bit that he could distract his son without even having to look up from his work.
Their careers kept his son's maman, Ameile, busy too. She often traveled around to fashion shows and studios outside of Paris, only to return with fresh ideas and notes on their competitors. Between the two of them his son became very used to sitters.
Plagg admitted to Tikki that there was nothing particularly wrong with his son's world. Many families relied on sitters and nannies. "Something just keeps making me feel uneasy," Plagg said one day as the two of them raced through his darkened woods.
Tikki laughed, too high on adrenaline at the time to take anything said too seriously. "He is a baby my Darkness, and they are new parents. I'm sure things will get better. Now race me!"
Ameile didn't cry when she found out that she would be having no more children, neither did Gabriel. They were content. Plagg found that he liked that, when humans could just be content.
