Chapter Text
Her name is Marinette. This is all Plagg knows of her when he emerges into the world.
In truth, he doesn’t even care for that much. The mortals are ugly, stupid creatures, with ugly, stupid lives. If he were in charge, he would simply cataclysm Paris altogether – a quick, easy solution to stopping this so-called supervillain. After all, the loss of a few million humans was nothing in the scheme of things. He’s killed many, many more over the millennia, and all of them have been swiftly forgotten by the passage of time, their lives, hopes and dreams overwritten by the hordes of other humans which are spawned to take their place.
Humans are like rodents and insects, differing only in that they believe they are somehow different, better, special, worthy of some sort of individual attention. Their self-questioning, their doubt, their anxiety – it is nauseating. He tries to explain it to them again and again and again, but they are so stupid, they never seem to understand… they refuse to understand.
“Oh, Plagg, you’re so silly. All you care about is cheese,” Alexander once said.
“Yeah,” he affirmed emphatically, “and look how much happier I am than you, you dumb pile of sod. You’ve got sixty measly years on this planet, and you want to spend it trying to horde land. News flash, Al, this land doesn’t give a ram’s horn about you. Not now, and not after you’re dead and rotting in a ditch somewhere.”
“You simply don’t understand. One day, people will remember me as Alexander the Great.”
“Oh yeah? Well I’ll remember you as Alexander the Great Big Idiot. Now be a good holder and pass me the feta.”
They never listen, and Plagg has stopped trying in any meaningful sense. Now, when he speaks about it, he does so in a mocking tone that they are incapable of understanding. It is easier for them to believe that he cannot be right rather than facing the truth of their existence. Time and experience have proven that it is better to dissociate from the lives of his holders. It is less effort on his part, and would be, in any case, futile to try.
At first, Marinette is no different. She has the same dopey, wide-eyed gawk that everyone else has, and Plagg dismisses her immediately in favour of exploring her room and, of infinitely greater importance, setting the terms of their relationship. Namely, that he does whatever he wants, and she learns to live with it. To her credit, she does not seem to be interested in what his power can do for her personally. There is, however, an appalling amount of self-doubt, which Plagg needs to cataclysm as soon as possible. A holder who doesn’t rise to greatness is a holder who can’t buy him limitless quantities of cheese.
“I – I can’t be a superhero,” she says, quaking at the rumble of the earth by the giant stone golem rampaging outside.
Plagg is having none of that. “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. I’m the God of destruction. You wanna reduce Paris to a pile of ash? No problem. You wanna reduce Europe to a pile of ash? No problem. You wanna go out there and reduce big and ugly out there to a pile of ash?” He floats up and burns her with his acid green gaze. “No problem. You’re seriously telling me that you can’t just go out there and touch the bad guy? Is that what you’re saying? You’re seriously that fucking incompetent?”
“No, I mean, yes? I don’t know-“
He cuts off the babbling with a small bleed of his power, which makes the room perceptibly darken. “Kid, the hard part ain’t stopping the monster. The hard part is stopping. You wanna find someone else, go right ahead, but just to let you know, the last holder I had caused a little thing called the Black Death – you might’ve heard of it. So the real question you gotta be asking yourself is, who out there do you trust to not have one bad day.”
Thankfully she shuts up after that, speaking only to get the details on his power before transforming.
#
There is something wrong with Marinette. It takes Plagg an embarrassingly long time to realize this, and he doesn’t like the feelings that well up inside when he finally does.
“Did I ask to hear about your day? Jeez, if you’re going to make me suffer through your tedious bleating then the least you can do is get me a wheel of camembert.”
Plagg does not even bother looking up from where he curled on a patch of fabric. He doesn’t notice the sudden silence, the quiet, gentle, “Okay.”
He does notice when she slips out through the trapdoor, probably to go get the cheese. She is very accommodating in this regard, and the thought that she has never denied him anything flits through his brain before vanishing. That is the way it should be. They are partners. She has access to powers mortals can only dream of, and it is her prerogative whether to use them to gain fame and fortune. The fact she is skulking in the shadows, afraid of everything save for her partner, and the fact she is being lambasted in the media and amongst the vermin who pose as her friends is immaterial. If she’s some sort of masochist, it’s not his problem.
He does notice when she stays up all night, weeping in near silence in her bed, stifling each and every sob in the vain attempt that he does not hear. Foolish girl. Of course he hears. Still, it’s not like she’s asking him for anything, and the fact she doesn’t want him to know is enough reason for him not to intercede. Yet he is aware enough to know that he has been the one to discourage any attempts at meaningful dialogue between them, knows that he is the one dictating the rules of their relationship.
He wonders briefly what the old man was thinking giving him to her. She is not a fit holder for the black cat. She is too soft, like camembert.
He jolts at that thought. No way. She’s nothing like camembert. That analogy is ridiculous. But the metaphor constructs itself without his permission in his own mind. She is soft with a delicate flavour, and a firm exterior that is supple yet solid and which can keep the gooey, creamy goodness that lies within safe and unspoiled by all the ills of the outside world.
It's crazy talk, he tells himself. This is all just indigestion or something.
Plagg forces himself back to an uneasy sleep, and in the morning, he has mostly forgotten the events which transpired during the witching hour. He is further relieved that the tears have stopped. There is not even any sign of redness or puffiness in her eyes, which is good. Marinette has very blue eyes. Bluer than any he’s seen. Bluer even than those of Sugar Cube. And when she is happy, they sparkle like little blue diamonds, like sun glimmering on the surface of the deep blue sea.
When Plagg does finally notice something is wrong, it has to do with that blasted blue fabric monstrosity.
#
“What the heck are you making, anyway?” he asks. She’s been sitting there on the chaise – right in his special spot – for days now. Right where the sun slants in from the windows overhead at just the right angle to warm the tips of his hair so he feels like he’s floating on a cloud of sunshine.
“It’s a surprise,” is all she’ll say on the subject.
That in and of itself is weird. She’s never been so cagey before. It’s enough to pull him from her fabric box and have him float all the way over to inspect. “Ugh that blue’s an eyesore.”
“you don’t like it?” Her fingers slow to a halt, and her voice is sharp like cheddar.
His instinct is to affirm that “Yes, I hate the colour. Your sense of style is atrocious, and you should focus your efforts on making cheese.”
But he doesn’t say that. He doesn’t say anything at all, in fact. It is the first time in a long time he holds his tongue for any reason. Rather, he peers at the colour. It is bright but soft, and it makes him think of the sky and the sea, of a vastness and a nothing he hasn’t felt in a long time.
“It’s not a terrible colour,” he says finally, before settling in her lap, where the sun peaks around her arms and needles and yarn to dapple upon his body. The warmth which seeps up from her limbs is new and uncomfortable, but not unwelcome.
She resumes her work.
This is the new routine for several more days, and Plagg finds he is reluctant to see it change again. There is something soothing and lulling about the susurrations through Marinette’s body as she works quietly with him resting on her. It is something he’s never known he’s craved until he’s found it.
But the blue ball of yarn slowly, inexorably, ravels into a shape, and even though he doesn’t know what that final product is going to be, or who it’s going to be for – probably that dumb blonde ape who sits in front of her, the one who keeps making cow eyes at her when she’s not looking - he does know that if he wants this moment of time to continue, he’ll have to work for it.
But all those thoughts are cataclysmed by the single, world-shattering, God-breaking revelation – the blue abomination is for him. He listens to her babble about a pocket to snooze in, and a pocket for his cheese, and a little zipper on the underside so he can seal himself in if necessary, and the dozen other little things she has woven into the gift.
All the while, he stares up at her blue, blue eyes; sees her fear coiled tightly behind a wall of hope. He hears what she is not saying – the meaning which is conveyed in the dozens of hours spent thinking about him, his needs, his wants, and the dozen more hours taking those ephemeral, transient thoughts and materializing them in the fabric of the world. He thinks about the fact that this is the first gift he’s ever received in all the 13.7719 billion years in existence, and then he finally, finally confronts the fact that she’s never said no. She’s never turned him down. She’s never begrudged him his wants, his needs, his demands, no matter how exigent. And that too, he realizes, is a gift she’s been giving him all this time – a gift unlike any other, because no one, not even the richest and most powerful of his holders, have ever been so generous, for they all contributed only from their surplus wealth, but this young girl, this Marinette Dupain-Cheng, has been contributing her whole livelihood.
And that just ain’t right. That’s not a human thing to do. And if it’s not right, it’s wrong, and if it’s wrong, then Marinette is wrong. He just doesn’t know how or why. But he’s damned sure he’s going to figure it out, if for no other reason than to make sure she follows the right script, because if she doesn’t, if she follows the wrong script, that might mean there’s the teensiest chance it might interfere with his cheese supply.
At least, that’s what Plagg tells himself to justify his new and sudden interest in his holder’s activities.
#
“Why are you running for class president?” Plagg is honestly baffled. “I mean, do you get paid? Are there privileges?”
“No,” Marinette replies. “I have to run for class president to stop Chloé.”
This statement may as well have been uttered in Eclyptian for all the sense it makes.
“Stop… Chloé?” Plagg wonders. “Who’s Chloé?”
Plagg half-expects some exasperation or irritation from Marinette. He is searching for it, but she just calmly explains about how Chloé is the mayor’s daughter, and wants the position, and if she gets it, she’ll use the position to terrorize her classmates even more.
“Wait, wait, wait.” He puts up both paws to forestall her madness. “This Chloé actually wants this crap. I heard that right, didn’t I? And you don’t want it, right?”
“It’s a lot of responsibility,” she says, slumping a little at the thought of the added work, but then she perks up again, “but if I do get it, I’ll be able to do so much more for my classmates, and they won’t have to put up with another year of pointless Chloé worship. Nathaniel won’t have to draw another life-sized poster of Chloé, and Kim won’t have to carry around Chloé’s things everywhere like a servant.”
Multiple things simultaneously become obvious to Plagg from this short conversation. Chloé, if she becomes class president, will reap benefit after benefit without doing a lick of work, whereas Marinette, if she becomes class president, will turn into a slave for all those other dumb apes in her dumb class.
“Make someone else do it,” he says. “You’re too busy to be taking this on, but if you can prop some other schmuck up as the class patsy, then it’s a win-win. Chloé gets neutered, and you’re not bogged down with this garbage.”
“Thank you for thinking of me, Plagg.” Her face softens with tenderness as she looks down at where he’s curled on her lap. “But I can’t. Chloé’s threatened everyone else so that no one’s willing to go against her.”
“Has she threatened you?”
Marinette seems to sense something dangerous in the question, because she hastens to say, “No, no. She hasn’t. And before you ask, Alya’s way too busy with the blog-“
“And slandering you,” Plagg grumbles.
“Hush, you, she’s just doing what she thinks is right. And anyway, she’s not invested in the class like I am. She hasn’t seen Chloé menace people before with her power the way I have. In a way, the akumas have been a good thing. Don’t look at me like that. I just mean that when people get upset, the akumas seem to let them expel their pain. Whenever they come back from being akumatized, they seem happier and more at peace, even if whatever caused it in the first place hasn’t been fixed.”
Plagg lifted his head to stare at his charge. Did she just say that? Did she seriously just see the good in these akuma attacks?
“You can’t possibly see the world that way,” he mutters. “You’re like, I don’t know, not human or something.”
If anything, she reminds him of Tikki, who has always been incapable of not seeing the positives, the creatives, the solutions. It is a characteristic Plagg has never seen in humans, and he doesn’t believe he is seeing it now – doesn’t want to believe, despite the evidence. Humans are only kind when they have the luxury to be so. Their baser nature burns through whatever fog of conceit whenever it truly matters.
Still, Plagg wonders, and watches.
#
Most of Plagg’s holders throughout history have turned to him at some point and asked something like, “Can you sense anything while transformed?”
Plagg’s responses to this query are as numerous as the types of cheeses out there. All of his answers have been true, but they have also all been false. His holders have all, without fail, accepted his answer, using their own biases to fill in the blanks.
He is content with this manner of affairs, even if it leaves him convince that humans are, both collectively and individually, so fucking stupid.
But even if they did try to peer past what their own puny powers of observation allowed, to try to understand the deeper connection forged between kwami and holder, they would ultimately fail. Their merely human capacity to interface with the world around them means there are concepts they cannot grasp without great time and effort, and even then, their understanding would only come in the form of an imperfect facsimile, a cheap imitation of the real bond.
All humans are capable of understanding is that there is power, and they can have it if they simply grab the jewels. And they switch between kwamis as one would switch between accessories in their wardrobe. He likens, in his darker moments, to their fumbling, wanting attempts as that of a toddler. “Me see, me want, me take.” He even joked about this once, and it turned into a slogan used throughout the ages – veni, vidi, vici. As though anyone could or should be proud of such a thing.
Marinette has not yet asked, and Plagg is not certain why. She seldom speaks of what goes on while transformed. Is she so presumptuous as to have assumed without question that Plagg experiences the world in the same manner when he is in the ring? He doesn’t want to think it of her, but he also doesn’t want her to ask. The question has only one end for Plagg – disappointment. She is, after all, only human, and confronting that fact grows less and less palatable as the days wear on.
#
“Seriously?”
“It’s only a couple of hours work,” Marinette says. “Besides, then you can come sit on my lap.”
Plagg wants to grumble about this, but the truth is, she’s not wrong. He floats over to where she’s perched on the chaise and settles in for a couple of hours. One hand tentatively begins to stroke his head, at first questioningly, a query for permission, and then more boldly as he leans into the touch.
It's a weird feeling, interacting with the world sometimes; especially interacting with humans. He knows Marinette in a way he will never know the multitudes of others, simply by virtue of the fact that a bond between them is forming. Yet the lines of connection between them are imperfect things, like square pegs in round holes. He is not a living being in the same way she is. He has no hair or fur or flesh or blood or bones. He does not feel the way she feels. He does not stress the way she stresses
He does not feel touch the way she feels touch. What he feels is both less and more. The physical experience is almost nonexistent; merely a sensation to be perceived and no more. The intention, on the other hand, shines through, like a pure tone which cuts through the crackle of static. A chink in the wall that separates them.
“So what’re you making this time?”
“It’s a banner for Alex’s race,” she says absently. Her hand vanishes periodically so she can do stuff he doesn’t care about. It’s annoying, but it also makes those moments when her hand comes back that much sweeter. “I’m doing it so I can support her.”
“A banner, you say?” Yes, right there, he thinks as her fingers walk down to the hollow in his throat. That feels so good. He takes a moment to indulge in the part of her that flows through the part of him here in this room before dragging himself back to the point he wants to make. “How long’s this race going to take?”
“I don’t know. Maybe five or ten minutes?”
“You’re spending two hours to cheer someone up for five or ten minutes.” He gives her a moment to let that sink in before pressing on. He knows well enough what she’s going to say and when she’s going to say it, and cuts her off just as he imagines her opening her mouth to respond. “Is this two hours of your work going to help Alex actually win this race? And even if she wins it, is she going to get anything out of it? And even if she gets anything out of it, is she going to share any of that with you?”
A sigh, which is both long and suffering, and which Plagg secretly likes drawing from her.
“You know it’s not like that. It’s a nice thing to do. And maybe there’s no material gain, but not everything is about that. There are more important things in life.”
Plagg knows this very well, knows how her mortal body is frail and fleeting, that she will be gone in the blink of an eye. He is not shy about pointing this out. “Your lives are already so painfully short. You’re helpless for the first ten years of your life – a period of time you’re barely even going to remember, and the last ten are spent withering away as you wait to die. You’ve got maybe fifty good years in you, and you spend a third of it sleeping. He opens one eye to see she has slowed in her movements, brows furrowed as she is considering his words. “All I’m saying is, your time is precious, Marinette. Don’t throw it away.”
A beat of silence passes, and then two. Concerned, Plagg looks fully up at her to see that she is… smiling?
“What’s so funny?” She better not be laughing at him.
“You said my name,” she replies. “You’ve never done that before.”
He frowns and mentally replays his last words. Well, damn. So he did.
“Don’t go reading anything into it,” he mutters.
“You do care.”
“I said, don’t go reading anything into it.”
He gets up and floats away, embarrassed.
“It sounds nice when you say it,” she calls after him, and he is certain she is making fun of him.
Stupid humans.
Plagg is so preoccupied with his griping that he barely registers zipping into her bag, barely feels the sensation of being jostled toward Alex’s big race. His next awareness is the screaming and the shouting, and the panicky, rushed voice of Marinette whispering, “Claws out.”
The outside world fades away, and now there is only him and her with neither flesh nor fur in-between. There is only his raw, endless power fractaling outward, and her fiery yet still finite little soul sputtering within his grip. She is so very small like this, a reminder of how delicate and transient her life is next to his – a reminder which is doubly served as she begins to fade from existence.
The shock of it jolts him. He is surprised to realize that her death is drawing all his attention from all parts of him across all the universe and from all dimensions through which his essence exists. Yet for all his vastness, he is powerless to do anything about it. He is trapped too, like ink on a page, or thread through a tapestry, the motion of his life predetermined in a way that is not so for his charge. It is the reciprocal pact made with the mage of long ago that has enabled Plagg to taste a semblance of the freedom that is otherwise denied him and his kind.
Soon she is gone, Plagg helpless to do anything other than watch, and even that withers as he is sundered from the mortal world. His miraculous is gone and with it his ability to perceive events at a human scale, to detect and understand and cogitate over them, and to impact them in any way whatsoever – all gone, the only trace an echo reverberating through him, the chords of plucked strings coming to rest.
And then he is back, the transition violent and jarring. Plagg’s first thought is to look for her. Yes, she is there. Whole, content, alive.
When they finally make it back to the bakery, Plagg is forced to suffer through a long and painful excoriation of all of Marinette’s failings as a daughter and, more generally, as a responsible human being. Apparently, she forgot to deliver someone’s cake.
Normally, he wouldn’t care about trivial human concerns, and he would be quick to cut his holder down if they so much as think to lament about the injustice of their lot in life. But this case is different somehow. Something about the way Marinette wilts under her parents’ collective disapprobation rubs him the wrong way. Where is the indignation? Where is the righteous rage? She is one of humanity’s chosen protectors, one of the rare few granted incredible power – the kind of power that has, in the past, elevated serfs to emperors. Her rights and duties transcend all these menial concerns… or at least, that is what she should be thinking. That is what all his other holders have thought.
When she is finally permitted to retreat upstairs, Plagg cannot help but ask.
“Why do you put up with all that?”
“Hmm?” Marinette is settling down to do some knitting, a habit that has the effect of calming her nerves.
“You weren’t wrong for forgetting the cake. You had a lot to be dealing with. Something had to give.”
She pauses and looks at him queerly. No doubt his comments are perceived as unusual, and he braces for her to point this out. But she does not, instead saying in a rueful tone, “I suppose you are right, both then and now. I shouldn’t have made the banner.”
That is not the takeaway message he is expecting her to latch onto, and he feels vaguely offended that she has done so. “You didn’t know there was going to be an akuma. You ain’t psychic.”
She stops, face scrunching a little in contemplation whenever he says something that confounds her. It is pleasant, he has to admit, that she takes such care in paying attention to his words, even when they are cryptic, or caustic, or both.
“I knew there’s a chance for one,” she says finally. “And in the end, the banner played a role in the akuma too. If I hadn’t been busy holding it up-“
“Stop right there,” Plagg growls. He will ruminate on his own vehemence later, but for now, he has a logic train to derail. “There’s a whole complex chain of actions that go into any event. Don’t delude yourself into thinking that yours matters more than anyone else’s.”
He scrutinizes her expression, but she is surprisingly hard to read when it comes to moments like this. Plagg is used to his holders conjuring up excuses to avoid responsibility. He has never had to deal with one who does the opposite.
“I failed my parents today,” she says, voice contemplative, “but what if tomorrow it’s you I fail?”
Several responses come to mind, each more absurd than the last, until he finds himself saying, “I’m not your parents.” He internally grimaces. He’s not even sure what he means by that statement, and he’s not sure how she will take it, or even how he wants her to take it.
But how she does so will remain a mystery, because her only reply is a fond smile, and the words, “I know.”