Marinette and Alya have a sleepover; Tikki continues to prove that despite her cutesy demeanor Creation is still terrifying.

"Thanks again for covering for me." Marinette breathed a sigh of relief as she tucked the worksheet into her binder before shutting the locker door.

"You know I have your back. It's only fair in return for letting me see that concert last night." Alya huffed a disbelieving laugh. "I've never actually been to one before - I think my ears are still ringing, but, like, in a good way!"

The pigtailed girl laughed as they walked through the hallway. "Right?"

As the crisp afternoon air hit their faces, both breathed in deep. Marinette shivered for a moment, the chill cutting through her jacket harder than usual.

"I'm actually really glad your mom said I could stay over tonight." Heaving a sigh, Alya rolled her eyes. "My sisters can be so annoying sometimes. Last night they got into my room and messed up a project I was working on."

The girl winced in sympathy. "Ouch. What did your mom say?"

"She told me not to get so mad about it. Maybe I wouldn't have gotten mad if they hadn't gotten into my room in the first place!" Throwing up her hands, she exclaimed, "They didn't even get into trouble! They weren't allowed to watch TV last night, but that doesn't fix the damage to the board!"

Marinette patted her shoulder.

"If only Ladybug's ladybug cure worked on everyday situations. That would've saved me a week's worth of time." Alya hummed in thought for a few moments. Then, turning to Marinette, her eyes widened. "Wait, do you think Ladybug could just cast her cure and fix things anytime she wants?"

She shrugged, smile tensing a bit. "I dunno... don't you think that would be a bit of a misuse? Somehow I don't think the Miraculous would appreciate that, if she even could."

"Nah, nah, you're right. It would be way too convenient if she could just fix whatever. People would depend on her too much."

A pause. Marinette discreetly let out a sigh of relief that the topic was dropped.

"Buuuuut... Cat could break anything he wanted, right? Surely the Cure would fix it then?"

As they stepped into the Dupain-Cheng bakery, she gave Alya a pointed look. "I don't think it works like that, Alya... Cat isn't an akuma."

"You don't know that," Alya teased back, bumping her side with an elbow as the parents looked up. "Hi, Mr. Dupain, Mrs. Cheng!"

"Hello," Sabine greeted with a smile.

"Hello, Alya," Tom smiled warmly as he dusted off his hands on the apron. "We'll be up as soon as everything's cleaned up. Have you had dinner yet?"

"No, sir." She shook her head.

"Well, then I'll get started as soon as I'm up." Turning, he headed for the display case.

"C'mon, show me your room!" Alya whispered in Marinette's ear. "I wanna see what you're working on!"

Grinning, the girl took her hand and led her upstairs.

"Prepare to be amazed!" She declared as they climbed up the trapdoor.

Alya adjusted her glasses, looking around. The room hadn't changed a bit, save for the spools of fabric lying on the chaise and a magazine lying, open, next to them.

"Huh," she wondered aloud, picking up the magazine and flipping through it. "I didn't know you were into gossip columns."

Whirling around, the dark-haired girl clapped a hand over her mouth. "Oh! We- well, y'know, I figured I should get more caught up on celebrity news since... y'know, since Adrien started school with us..." she laughed nervously, extending a hand to take the zine.

As she set it on her desk, Alya finally looked at the mannequin and gasped aloud. "'Nette! Whoa! That's what you've been trying to finish?"

"Does it look good yet?" She joked, adjusting some of the shimmering tulle pinned to the waist.

"Good? It looks amazing! What's it for? School dance? Wedding invite? A ball?"

"It's for Rose, actually." She picked up the sketchbook still open on the workbench, showing it to her friend. "She wanted something nice for the Valentine's dance in the spring, so I figured I'd make it as a birthday gift since it's so close."

Alya was beaming as she trailed a hand down the silky skirt. "And the rose motif is because...?"

Marinette's cheeks flushed a little, and she chuckled. "It's not just because of her name, but she wanted a flower theme and it was easiest."

The brunette hummed, before turning and clasping her hands together. "Does she know it's a birthday gift?"

"Well, not really... I was kinda hoping I could casually mention it when I gave it to her in February."

"Got it, I won't tell a soul."

Marinette wrapped an arm around her. "You're the best, Alya. So! Before I forget, what's that project your sisters wrecked? It's not for school, right?"

"Heck no. Though maybe..." She trailed off thoughtfully, before shaking her head. "Nah, Miss Bustier probably wouldn't go for it."

The two girls went to the chaise, where Marinette put the spools of fabric on the floor and they sat down, huddled together. Alya pulled out her phone and tapped through her notes. "Aha! Luckily I kept spares on my phone. So y'know how I've been maintaining the Ladyblog, right?"

She nodded slowly. "Uh-huh...?"

"Well, Even though filming akuma fights is fun and all, you've got to wonder why we still don't know much about Ladybug and Cat Noir. I mean think about it! They save Paris like every single week and nobody even really knows what they look like!" Alya pushed up her glasses, and the light caught the lenses, momentarily obscuring her eyes. "So! I've been doing a little research of my own into them... just as an exercise in detective work, of course - and I've finally started narrowing down an age range."

Marinette's heart did a backflip in her chest.

"U- uh," she tried weakly, "isn't... that a horrible idea? Like, a really horrible idea?"

"Of course I'm not gonna post it on the blog yet, I'm not stupid!" She laughed. "I mean, what are the odds that someone's gonna see my stuff and start putting two and two together before I do, right? Not taking that chance. I'm doing this for myself."

"But why do you want to know so badly? Won't that put yourself in danger too? What if you get akumatized and Hawkmoth learns who Ladybug and Cat really are?"

Alya seemed to pause at this. Her excited smile faded, and her gaze dropped to the floor.

"I don't really know much about what it's like to be akumatized, but considering he can somehow communicate with his victims through the akuma he controls, don't you think he could read their minds?" She persuaded, staring at her friend long and hard. "I for one don't want to even think about the ways he could exploit them - what if he figured out who's closest to Ladybug and Cat? What if he purposefully put their families in danger? Their friends? Their loved ones?"

"Yeah..." Alya's voice was a murmur. "You're right. It's risky. But I feel so hopeless, you know? This is not the Paris my mom told me we were moving to. I don't want to spend all of my time here just waiting for some- some weirdo with butterflies to make me his next patsy of the week."

"I know it sounds stupid. I know I'm just asking for something bad to happen to me. But... but I want to feel like I'm doing something to help. If I had more information on them, maybe I could help somehow."

"Alya..." Marinette's eyes softened, and she placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "You already help them. Your blog. You recording akuma attacks and putting warnings out for people in areas they've been spotted in is helping Ladybug and Cat Noir a lot."

"But I feel like I should be doing more," she pressed, brow knit in frustration. "I'm tired of sitting around whenever an akuma attacks. I'm tired of not knowing if my family's gonna be attacked next! I'm tired, 'Nette!"

"I'm tired too," the pigtailed girl admitted quietly.

The two friends sat in silence, Alya's grip on her phone tight. Her latest note, "What We Know About Ladybug", stared back at them from the screen. It was blank.

"I hate not knowing," she suddenly admitted, eyes locked on the note. "All of a sudden someone turns into a monster one day, and then two actual superheroes come to save us? At least having a clue would be nice - a nickname, even. I know Ladybug calls Cat 'Kitty' a lot, but that doesn't say much about either of them. Are they friends? Strangers? Are they in love? What do they actually look like?"

She reached up to grip her forehead, fingers digging into her scalp. "Whenever I try to think about it, my head really hurts. It's weird. That shouldn't be happening, right? I'm probably getting sick or something. It's unsettling."

Marinette suddenly locked eyes with a stonefaced Tikki from above on her bed. The little Kwami shook her head firmly. Swallowing, the girl patted Alya on the back. "Yeah, you're probably just coming down with something. Hopefully you didn't get a concert cold."

That seemed to bring some humor back to the air, because the brunette chuckled and shook her head. "Maybe. There was that one guy that kept coughing..."

"Girls!" Tom called from below, making them both perk up. "Dinner!"

"Coming, Papa!" Marinette called back. She stood from the chaise, smiling and extending a hand to her friend. "C'mon. Let's not worry about this anymore - Dad's pot-au-feu is the best!"

Later in the night, as Alya lay asleep, curled into a ball, Marinette crept through her skylight and carefully shut it behind her, before coming face-to-face with Tikki, who was hovering beside a potted flower.

"Marinette," she began, seriously, "I'm going to tell you something, and I want you to take it to heart: you cannot let Alya start looking into who Ladybug is."

"Yeah, I figured," she halfheartedly laughed as she took a seat on the lounge chair. "But why? I mean, I know why - but why?"

Tikki looked into the sky for several long seconds. A thick, tense aura hung about them like storm clouds, even despite the relatively-clear skies.

Finally, she answered. "Long, long ago, far before you were ever born - before even your grandparents and great-grandparents, when the human race was still new, the Miraculous were created. It wasn't by us alone - in order to create a more stable link between Kwami and Chosen, we sought out the help of human mystics who were adapted to the divine."

Marinette watched, enraptured, as she continued. "It was through human hands that the Miraculous were born, but it's through us that they have their power. The mystics responsible for the Miraculous granted them certain abilities that we did not - one of them would be considered... a charm, of sorts. Or perhaps a hex. To those chosen to wield the Miraculous artifacts, they are granted the ability to see through the veil of reality to an extent. You are able to sense when another User is nearby, and you can fight back against evil-spirited magic in ways normal humans cannot. You, as the chosen of the Ladybug, have a resistance against certain Miraculous, as does the Cat. Every Miraculous has its balance. Where the Ladybug has the Cat, the Pig has the Dog, for example; one can find Items, the other can fetch them."

"That... makes sense."

"Of course." The little Kwami smiled.

Then that pleasantness dimmed. "The same magic that grants you perception will achieve the opposite for normal humans. If it were easy to figure out who the person under the mask was, that would defeat the purpose of having such a powerful tool. Thus the Items have a charm on them that discourages any attempts at guessing a user's identity. First it starts as a disturbance of memory; someone intent on uncovering the identity of, say, Ladybug, will experience confusion, dizziness, and disorientation. Next comes memory loss entirely; that person may faint, and when they wake up they won't remember the events that led to the faint. Those fainting spells will become more and more intense and persist the deeper they go into the truth, where they may be unable to recall a Miraculous holder entirely, or even that the Items exist at all. And if they continue to try and uncover a user?"

Tikki paused, the weight of a thousand weighing down on the human before her as she looked her in the face. Her eyes were brewing with storms, their usual ocean blue a deep and intense color that made Marinette's chest clench painfully. She winced, grasping at the front of her pajama top, and then Tikki seemed to realize what was happening and reined in her power. "I don't want to frighten you too much. But it won't be pretty - not for her, or for you to watch. Alya is a naturally stubborn person, from what I've gathered in my time around her. I don't want to see another human death at my behest if I have ways to prevent it."

Another. A shock of a chill went down Marinette's back, and she swallowed hard. "... Another?"

"I'm what you might call a god, Marinette," the ancient being smiled wryly. "You could not fathom the number of your kind that I've felled. It's best you don't try."

Another zap of cold went through the teenager, and as she wrapped her arms around her shoulders and shivered, Tikki neared her and nuzzled against her cheek. "It's November, isn't it? You should get inside before you get sick."

A/N: I'm definitely retconning a few powers here, because I can. I also wanted the Kwami to be Eldritch beings, sort of like Old Ones who can and will end humanity if they have to.