Chapter Text
Violet & Indigo
Let’s begin our tale with a bit of context. Or a lot of it.
Many moons ago, 2 married nobles from the country of Britain, known from the family Graham de Vanily, were expecting an heir. They had been in such a position of power for so long, it only seemed fitting to ensure their bloodlines would keep it. But what was surprising for these royals was that they didn’t end up having a child, but 2. A pair of twin daughters, which the nobles decided to name Emilie and Amelie.
Amelie was the more obedient and quiet of the two, listening to near every order and responsibility she was given. Meanwhile, Emilie was the adventurous one, getting into all sorts of mischief and shenanigans and would rather explore the woods near their manor rather than pay attention to her parents. Nobody knows for sure how they ended up behaving in such a way, but Emilie always thought it was due to dealing with their father’s… short temper, and them learning different lessons.
Being the older twin, Emilie was raised to follow in their parents’ noble footsteps, owning land and… keeping land. It was what she called the most boring, selfish, weird job in the world. Emilie herself dreamt of being a famous actress when she grew up. Still, her dad insisted, even gifting her the family heirloom, a set of twin rings, when she was just 15 as some way to secure her opinion. As if these rings could actually mind control someone.
A few years later, the Graham de Vanily family was invited to an event in northern France (the father nearly having an aneurysm because of it) to meet up with some family friends and business associates. Emilie, predictably, couldn’t care less about anything of the nonsense that was going on in that party, and so snuck out about halfway through.
Eventually, she ended up at a city centre with a bunch of low-class food trucks. Call her low-class, but the smell of that place was like heaven. After messing her hair up and hiding her jewellery in her purse, she decided to order something at one of those trucks, this particular one she approached, labelled ‘Grassette’ at the top, having no other customers present. The young man at the stall was currently turned around, cooking something.
“Pardon, may I please order a hamburger and chips- uh, fries? With a side of ketchup.”
The young man turned around. “Sure, that’ll be-“ he stopped mid-word to stare at her, and so she stared right back. The man had dirty, brown hair, wore a grey apron over his rebellious stylings, and had a set of glasses perched right atop his head. His pale face held a hard blush. “Uh… €5.75, please.”
Emilie fiddled around with her purse for a bit. “Uh, if I don’t have any Euros, is British Pounds alright?”
“Yeah, sure. Hehe…” he awkwardly chuckled. Emilie was amused by his attitude as she put the cash on the counter, paying extra for the sake of it. The man handed her a pre-made meal, her taking it and heading off to the chairs and tables.
“Thank you, sir-“
“Wait.” The young man suddenly said, holding his hands out for a moment. “Sorry, it’s just, my parents are busy something else right now, but nobody’s here to order anything, so I was wondering if I could… maybe join you?”
“…and you promise not to rob me?”
“What? Why would I do that?”
“No reason. It’s just something I can prove my dad wrong about.” Emilie gestured the man to her, him jumping through the small window of the burger car to join her at a table, his glasses sliding onto his eyes. “What’s your name, by the way?”
The young man looked nervous to speak for a few moments, he must have had an embarrassing name. “…Gabriel …Agreste!”
“As in, the butterfly breed?” Emilie chewed on a chip after asking.
“Yes.”
“And I presume that ‘Grassette’ is just a brand thing.”
“Of course. Hahaha…” Gabriel gave a fake laugh. Lier. “Anyways, what shall I call you?”
“Emilie. Emilie Graham de Vanily.”
And thus began their story. For the few days after that Emilie stayed in France, she met up with Gabriel as much as she could. They talked about everything they could, Emilie revealing her dreams of becoming an actress, Gabriel showing her his love of high-class fashion, they even gained a common interest in exploration. Emilie almost missed her flight back home because of a little adventure she was having with Gabe. And even when she arrived back home, she was desperate to see him again. Like, a genuine friend that wasn’t the selected child of a fellow elite? The only one of those she had before was her own sister!
So, after a few days of deliberation, Emilie decided to head out on her own.
Emilie herself didn’t know whether to classify it as a ‘moving out’ or a ‘running away’. While she did officially and rather openly pack up and move to France, the only person she told that much about it was Amelie. Her parents did try calling her when she got to France, but she never answered. Gabriel was rather surprised to see her when she got there, but they embraced each-other’s presence as often as they could.
One thing led to another, and they soon fell in love. And the rest snowballed from there.
First, her father once tried giving her an invitation to Amelie’s wedding, she was arranged with some random cowboy-looking army man from the USA, Folt Cathom or something, as a way to coerce her into coming home, but she just used that as an excuse not to share the rings with them.
Later, she met back up with an old friend in France, the one she actually learned French from, Audrey Tissier. She herself had her own story-filled life up to that point, using her inheritance to start up a style magazine and brand, and beginning a relationship with some random politician’s son and novice filmmaker named André Bourgeois.
Lucky matchup of passions.
Gabriel soon sent his designs over to Audrey’s magazine, and Emilie then starred the lead in Andre’s film. Not long after this artistic-business foursome (yes, Emilie and Gabriel were both bisexual, but only told people that after getting drunk or during love making), their wealth, fame, and power utterly skyrocketed. Gabriel and Audrey’s brands became international luxuries, Emilie began her movie career with little to no slowing down, and André even married Audrey. Not the best couple by Emilie’s standards, but she wasn’t one to judge.
Using these riches, Emilie and Gabriel themselves got married, and Gabriel bought a large mansion out in the city of Paris. He insisted on Paris. Emilie felt it was a little cruel to go so far away from Gabriel’s parents, but she guessed they weren’t as appealing to Gabriel compared to her.
This new level of wealth Gabriel earned had gained him mild approval from Emilie’s parents (specifically dad) and major approval from their associates. ‘The Kingdom’ they called themselves, having dozens of higher-ups, elites, and business leaders from all over the world, Italy, Japan, Brazil, Senegal, the USA, and many many many more! Even Amelie’s husband was on the council. And also Audrey herself. Not André, for some reason.
Gabriel officially had earned his own place on this council, being known as ‘The Diamond’, and decided to take charge of any world decisions The Kingdom would make. Emilie began wondering if she fell in love with a class traitor. Gabriel took charge on numerous decisions within Paris, making André the mayor of Paris, promoting his old friend (and situationship) Harry as a world-famous entertainer, even getting Jagged Stone himself to play at his latest catwalk show. Said Mr Stone briefly disappeared an hour before the show started, but that was mainly Bob Roth’s issue.
Despite the crazy events of their life up to this point, Emilie always felt like she was missing something ever since she and Gabriel moved to Paris. And it wasn’t until staring in a production of ‘Into the Woods’ when she figured it out, confronting Gabriel about it after the last show.
“Sweetie, would you like us to have a child?”
“…actually, that would be a nice idea.”
They tried for about 2 weeks to conceive naturally, but nothing happened, because as is turned out, Emilie was genetically infertile. Dammit. But they weren’t gonna give up on completing their family (and sticking it to Emilie’s dad) so easy. They did consider doing adoption or surrogacy, but The Kingdom openly opposed this idea, spouting nonsense about bloodlines.
Luckily enough, the answer to their problems came to them rather easily. Essentially, one of the Kingdom members, the Japanese technology CEO named Tomoe Tsurugi (The Machine), had been researching old technological tools to implement into future projects of her enterprise, and had come across rumours of apparent ‘Magical Artefacts’ with ‘Magical Abilities’ in China of all places. She had called for an expedition to be made to Tibet to learn more about these myths, offering to cover all necessary expenses, which Emilie and Gabriel insisted on going on, giving the excuse of ‘getting new jewels to sell as luxury fashion products’. The Kingdom soon relented, but just to be safe, Camilo Pista (The Stalk) had included his overachieving, adventurer daughter on the mission, known as Nathalie Sancoeur. (Camilo never tells why their surnames are different, most people just assume there was some kind of divorce).
Soon, the trio were off on their journey, and following a week of talking to townsfolk for information, scaling the Tibetan mountains, mining into underground caverns, and a random threesome along the way (they were all consenting adults, don’t worry), they finally had found something worthwhile.
Right at the edge of the cavern they were exploring, in a particular hot area, the trio had encountered colourful sparkles edged right into the top of the stone wall.
“Ha! Finally, something interesting.” Gabriel barked out. “Only took forever.”
Emilie held her torch up to the sparkles in the wall. “Seem to be sapphire and amethyst gems, but do they even form in this part of the world?”
Nathalie pulled a small pick from her satchel. “Amethyst does at least, but normally a little lower underground. Then again, the heat in this cave is a bit higher than normal, so either there’s a magma pool nearby, or today just isn’t a very geologically accurate day.”
Nathalie and Gabriel slowly but surely picked and brushed around the blue and purple sparkles, revealing more and more of them until…
2 coloured brooches fell out from the wall, landing in Gabriel and Emilie’s hands. Gabriel caught the violet brooch, it being shaped vaguely like a butterfly with silver wings. Meanwhile, Emilie caught the indigo pin, it being shaped like a peacock’s tail, but curiously had cracks along the back of it.
“Alright.” Nathalie spoke. “These are certainly ancient artefacts. Not sure why they’re so well-kept or what the animal theme means, but at least we have something to bring back. Let’s head to the Kingdom and see what they have to say about these.” She then began walking back.
“Hang on.” Emilie interrupted her, staring into the ceiling. “I think I see something else up there. There’s paper coming out from the ores.” Sure enough, with a fiddling demonstration at the hole they made, the paper revealed itself. “Hey, Nathalie dear, hold this please?” Emilie quickly tossed the pin to Nathalie and used her own little chisel to carve around the paper, eventually loosening it enough to pull out a large, ancient book with leather covering and a complicated pattern adorning the cover.
Before Emilie could open said book, the group felt a mild tremor in the cave.
“I believe this is the time to escape, Mr and Mrs Agreste?”
“…Oui.”
One daring escape of at least 2 dozen turns, they were out of the cave.
When they soon returned to Paris, the Kingdom allowed them to do a day of their own research on the items they had found on their journey. Nathalie took charge in this endeavour, thoroughly reading the book Emilie had found. Or at least, trying to. The book was hundreds, maybe thousands of pages long, each page being unnaturally thin yet not transparent or torn in any way. What was truly surprising was the contents of the page, the writing was in a language nobody of the trio recognised, but each and every page had at least one painted picture. The way each was structured was akin to a diagram but featured topics akin to mythological symbols and superhero comics. Force-fields? Portals? Mesmerising people? What did any of this mean?
But what was truly curious was when Gabriel and Emilie fastened the brooches on.
A coloured light shone from each of the brooches, flying out dramatically before settling mid-air. The lights soon faded, revealing to the group 2 mysterious sprites, a lavender one with butterfly wings, and another azure one with a peacock’s tail.
“Woohoo! Finally!” The azure one yelled, spinning about.
“Thank goodness we’re out.” The lavender one sighed, before spotting the group. “Oh, hi there, humans.”
The group of humans could only stare in shock.
“Alright,” the blue one butted in. “Seems like we have humans here that don’t know about the Miraculous. Lucky for you, I’ve spent the last 55 years stuck underground to compose a song to explode everything you’ll need to know. Nooroo?” It turned to its companion. “Gimme a beat.”
The lavender sprite began to beat-box.
“Yo-yo! Hello human nation!
I’m Duusu, the Kwami of Manifestation!
Here’s my bro, Nooroo, they do Transformation!
And we think it’s time for a celebration!
But we know there’s some questions on your minds.
Like: Who? What? How? And: When? Where? Why?
But worry not, we’ve made preparations,
Here’s our Kwami-Explanation!
It all started in Tibet many millennia ago,
With a nameless mage that was in-the-know,
About magical beings beyond reality,
So they called up high to us, the Kwami!
And with magical items and a magical mind,
He found a way to meet with Kwami-kind,
But bound us all to jewels that were simply the best,
Up to the test, the Miraculous! Yes!”
“So an order of guardians were set to defend us,
Discover our magic and even befriend us,
Create mighty heroes with power tremendous,
But the temple one day got broke by an apprentice!
Within all the carnage, we were lost in the snow,
The only survivors, far away they did go.
But now you have found us, our wish on a star,
But I say it’s time to describe who we are!
Nooroo’s the name, Transformation’s my game,
So keep this in your brain, certified least lame:
I give my targets their own custom power,
Either sweet maybe sour, help in your darkest hour!”
“I’m Duusu, the ability’s Manifestation!
I make monsters, for the simplest explanation.
I summon a creature from deep in your mind!
And control it in time to come up with a rhyme!
So that’s what we do, keeping it brief.
Not much to jot down, much to all your relief.”
“If you want, try our powers out for a spin!
To the max, to the min, Metamorphosis-ing!”
“Not to get Sentiment-al, but it’s been too long!
Wanna know if our magic is really that strong?
Open your mouth, and close your eyes,
Say ‘Spread my Feathers’!”
“Wings Rise!”
The song… rap really, ended, Nooroo and Duusu striking cool, back-touching poses mid-air. Nathalie gave a small clap at their performance.
“I say, good show! Am I right guys?” Nathalie finished clapping. “Guys?” Nathalie looked to Gabriel and Emilie, practically paralysed with shock. That was until both of them fainted down onto their bed. Nooroo and Duusu flew over to look.
“Are they gonna be alright?” Duusu whispered to Nathalie.
“Don’t worry, they get like this any time they get too confused. And after getting too… ‘physical’, let’s say. They’ll be up in about 20 minutes.”
“Okay then. We’ll just… wait.”