This was all Marinette's fault, and she knew it. If she hadn't tripped on that stupid black cat like a klutz, then she wouldn't have dropped her favourite bag.

Her favourite bag that always had Tikki in it.

The same favourite bag that was slowly drifting down La Seine with a sleeping red kwami snuggled up warmly inside it.

Marinette didn't know if magical guardians could drown, but she wasn't planning on finding out.

"Tikki!" Marinette hissed at the floating bag as loudly as she dared, trying not to draw attention to herself. She wanted to shout and scream, which was what it usually took to wake Tikki up from a cookie coma, but there was little she could do beyond frantically whispering. People were already giving her strange looks and she didn't want to put Tikki in any more danger than she was already in by making a scene. There was always a chance that a random bystander could be Hawk Moth or an Akuma, and it would be serious trouble if they realised that Ladybug was without her Kwami, well, shouting Tikki's name would key them in pretty quickly.

The bag meandered down the river, gradually getting further and further away and Mari could feel herself beginning to panic sweat. This wasn't how her day was supposed to go. She and Tikki had scheduled a whole girl's day out, seeing as most of their time together was either in Marinette's bedroom or as a supersuit, and together they'd planned everything perfectly: fabric shopping in the morning, homemade cookies in all their favourite flavours for lunch, and then together they were going to watch a movie, a rom-com Tikki had picked out the day before, under blankets and pillows galore.

But no, instead Marinette was chasing her wet, traitorous bag throughout the river map of Paris. Sometimes it felt like no amount of good luck magic could compete with the Dupain-Cheng patented bad luck. Mari was starting to think she'd gotten more than her fair share.

Seeing as her purse was out of arms reach, and she couldn't exactly jump into La Seine without something calling the authorities, Marinette resorted to jogging along the bank, hands cupped around her mouth as she whisper-yelled, watching in despair as the little pink bag bobbed steadily away from her. "Tikki!" She called desperately, trying to keep her volume low-but-not-too-low, "Would you please wake up before you drown? Oh my god, Tik—"

Marinette's voice cut off with a surprised shout as, for the second time that day, she fell flat on her face, nose hitting the concrete hard. She groaned as she tapped a finger to her nose, checking for blood. Inwardly, she wondered if she should consider getting her eyes checked, as apparently she could never see where she was going, maybe glasses would cure the clumsiness. At the rate she was going, soon enough she'd have a permanent bruise on her face.

Clearly, this was karma for dropping her living good luck charm in a river, like an idiot. Marinette almost wanted to laugh.

"Um, are you okay Marinette?" She heard a concerned and familiar voice ask.

Mari whipped her head round. Sure enough, beside her Adrien rubbed the back of his head, sitting up from where he was sprawled on the floor, having also fallen when they collided.

He smiled kindly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bump into you, I was rushing and didn't looking where I was going." He glanced behind her, "Are you on your own? Aren't you usually with Alya around this time? You two are nearly always together, right?"

Marinette blinked. Her brain took a second to process the questions, and then another as she registered that she needed to answer quickly before the conversation became awkward. Her face flooded with colour. Frantically, she waved her hands about, grasping at enough of a sentence to blurt out, "Oh no, Alya had to go to a... um, oh god I can't think of the word... a class! A writing, a journalist training class! Sh-She went for extra practice, y'know, she wants to be a journalist when she's older... o-or you didn't know, but now you do so-so you can... that's... um..." before she clamped her hand over her mouth, feeling her face turn another, deeper shade of red.

Adrien smiled warmly again, like he wasn't sure what he was supposed to say to that, and stood up, brushing the dirt off of his designer jeans. He held a hand out for Marinette, who took it gratefully, and he pulled her up. There was a single moment of comfortable silence, before the two teens realised they were still holding hands and shot apart, looking sheepish.

Adrien eventually opened his mouth like he was going to ask what on earth Marinette was doing screaming at a river so early on a Saturday mid-morning if she wasn't hanging out with her friend, when a sudden buzzing noise coming from his pocket interrupted him. He cursed under his breath.

Giving Marinette a half-smirk and double thumbs up as he began to walk away, he said, "Oh, okay, cool. I really have to go now, sorry Marinette, I've got somewhere I promised I'd be, but I'll see you at school Monday! Bye!"

He dashed off, opening his jacket slightly. Marinette sighed longingly, waving, before turning back to the river to gather her thoughts. Under her breath, she murmured, "Okay, where was I... right! Tikki fell in the river! Tik— oh no..."

She realised suddenly she'd been struck by her bad luck again; Marinette's run in with Adrien Agreste had meant she'd completely lost sight of her bag, and by extension, her spotted companion hidden inside. Marinette took a deep breath, opened her mouth and screamed bloody murder.

Her day could not get any worse.

—

"—ease wake up before you drown? Oh my god, Tik-"

Tikki's eyes shot open. That was Marinette's voice. She sounded like she was in trouble. Did she need her mask?

Tikki reached for the clasp of the bag and yanked it open. Instantly water started to fill the bag, soaking both Tikki and the few remaining cookies in there with her. With a small squeak, she quickly shut the bag back up again and, after taking a second to calm down and breathe, scrunched her face up in thought.

How did she end up in a river? She'd been with Marinette until just a minute ago and— Marinette! Where was Marinette? It was very unlikely that Mari had thrown her in the river, so something else must have happened, like a robber or an Akuma, or stars forbid, worse. Tikki had to get back to her immediately.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Tikki phased through the bag, shivering from the slightly uncomfortable feeling. You would think after thousands of years, a Kwami would get used to the feeling of their atoms dissipating and rearranging, but no, to Tikki it was still the weirdest sensation, like being ticked from the inside out.

Quickly, Tikki grabbed the strap of Marinette's bag. She tried to drag the purse under the bridge she'd just passed, but she underestimated the strength of the current pulling her along. The soaked bag was too heavy for her to lift, and what with both the water in and outside of the bag, the Chocolate Chip Triple Deluxe cookies and Marinette's phone, it was like an ant trying to move a concrete brick— pointless unless you had help.

But, that didn't mean she could just leave it there. She was determined to save it; it was Marinette's favourite.

Gripping the chain tighter between her paws, Tikki tugged the bag strap as hard as she could. She grunted from the effort, breathing fast through her clenched teeth. Though it moved a little in the right direction, it slowly started to move back into the main current, so Tikki forced herself to steel her jaw, and pull it the bag clean out of the water and fly it over to a small alcove under another, closer bridge.

Instead, once that didn't work and she nearly drowned herself and sank her cargo in one fell swoop, she tried a hopping method, bouncing the bag off the water to give it some more lift, and she finally reached the alcove after a few minutes of desperate, soggy struggling. Tentatively, Tikki opened the bag in hope of a cookie. Her shoulders dropped in disappointment; all that was left was a depressing pile of wet mush. Tikki instead pulled out Marinette's phone to clean it, needing to do something with her paws while she thought of a plan.

She considered her options. One idea could be she leave the bag here and come back for it later with Marinette in tow, freeing herself up to fly back to there bakery without any heavy baggage. However, she could forget where she'd put it, or the weight of the water, phone and cookie mush inside it could cause the little bag to fall back into the river. She wasn't the safest plan either, what with Tikki being notoriously bad with directions— she was already lost enough. Tikki pouted, frustrated. After all the effort she'd already put in to keep the purse from sinking, she didn't want to just leave it to the elements.

Sure, she could try to pull the bag out of the alcove by herself and then go find Marinette while carrying it, but she wouldn't be able to hold it up for very long, and the added luggage would increase the chance of being spotted, or being captured by an Akuma, or even being discovered by a civilian. She shivered as a memory of the 'Ali Incident' popped up in her head. She wouldn't be able to move through town very fast like that either— a floating bag was pretty suspicious.

That didn't leave her with many other options, at least none that were worthwhile. She couldn't exactly stay where she was, and she wouldn't be any help to Marinette so far away from her. With a jolt, Tikki suddenly realised she didn't actually know where she was. She hadn't exactly been keeping track of how far she'd drifted down the river, and who could say how far she'd gone before she woke up.

Pushing the bag as far into the alcove as it would go and carefully slipping the phone on top, Tikki zipped up to peer over the bridge. She let out a relieved breath. Thankfully, she knew where she was, but she was still pretty far from Marinette's house, if memory served. Flying all the way back would take a long while if she had to stay out of sight, and waiting until night-time had its own risks as a plan. Besides, Paris was like a maze, she could very easily get lost in the alleys and backstreets. It wouldn't be smart to keep to the main roads either, what with so many people around.

While she looked around for somewhere to hide the bag at least, Tikki suddenly noticed Alya about to turn and walk down the bridge, presumably coming back from her journalism lesson. Seeing her gave Tikki an idea, and she grinned mischievously. Finally, she had some semblance of a plan.

As fast as she could manage, she emptied the remaining cookie mush into the river, put the phone back inside and closed the bag clasp securely. She carefully raised the bag above her head, holding it safely inbetween her antennas, and began to float upwards, wobbling a little as she tried to keep her cargo balanced. Holding the bag up alongside the bridge, she waited, and just as Alya walked past, she half-pushed-half-threw the little purse hard as she could towards her, shooting back under the bridge immediately afterwards to avoid being seen.

The purse landed in front of Alya's feet with a satisfying wet 'thump'. Alya stopped and looked down in surprise.

"Oh!" She lent down to pick it up, looking around in confusion, "Mari's bag? What? Marinette? You here, girl?"

No one answered, though a passerby did give her a weird look for talking to herself. Tikki held her breath.

Alya frowned, putting her hand on her hip. "Nino, if this is some kinda prank, cut it out. I do not have time for your jokes today."

Still, no one answered. Alya, after a tense moment, hummed in an unconvinced tone, then sighed, mumbling something about time wasting under her breath. She pulled a carrier bag out of her satchel and tentatively placed Marinette's soaked bag in it and, after a quick check that there was nothing else that mysteriously belonged to her friends around, Alya carried on walking down the bridge.

Tikki let out a relieved sigh. Now the bag would get back to Marinette's house without Tikki struggling to haul it back to the bakery. Granted, Alya-mail was not the ideal way to get it there, but it was better than someone seeing her and causing a mass panic.

In the meantime, Tikki needed to find Marinette and quick, except she wasn't sure how she was going to make it to her. For all she knew, Marinette could be anywhere in Paris by now, so where was she supposed to start looking? Either way, Tikki couldn't stay away from Marinette for too long or it could end up in trouble for the both of them. Tikki sighed sadly, already missing her chosen.

Another idea popped into Tikki's head as quickly as the first and she gasped.

Alya was going to get to Marinette, or at least Marinette's house, eventually, so why didn't she just follow Alya? She could probably hide somewhere nearby until Alya went to see Marinette of her own accord, or at least until Monday at school. If Tikki was as lucky as history claimed, Alya might even go to see Marinette today, which would solve the separation problem quicker than she ever could've hoped.

Tikki suppressed a shaky laugh as she zipped back up to the topside of the bridge. She looked back and forth a couple of times before spotting Alya walking down the path parallel to the river. She immediately shot after her, making sure to keep out of sight as she did so. Hopefully, she would be back with her Marinette before she even realised her Kwami had been missing, and the whole incident could be forgotten like it never happened.

Hopefully, everything would all be okay.