[[ Warning: Depictions of death in this chapter. ]]

Mermay Day Five – Prompt: Moon

After Adrien discovered a set of handholds that ran the length of almost every ship – somewhere – his trips into the open air exploded into life. His world was suddenly full of colorful seafarers, people speaking in a language he recognized, some speaking in languages that almost got him discovered for his gasping. Sometimes there was "music", where sailors would bring out tools that replicated sounds Adrien had only heard through singing. Sometimes there was dancing.

It was the first time Adrien had seen a "woman", which Plagg only described as the female version of a human. She was softer, but more playful, expressive. And when a man danced with her, she came alive.

Sometimes they told stories. On dark nights, seamen of all types – the mean ones with ugly scars and uglier language, a captain to his crew, a woman to a child – retold histories that Adrien wondered if any could possibly true. Occasionally stories of mermaids and sirens would surface, which always made him laugh inwardly at their varying descriptions, none of which ever came close. His favorite stories, though, were the ones of Ladybug. Unlike the others, these all seemed to revolved around the same events and same descriptions. Unlike a description of Neptune, which some say was a merman and some a blue human, to say the least, Ladybug was universally characterized in the same way: small, black haired, spotted, wickedly happy, undeniably deadly. Her stories varied only as much as the voice describing it; sailors would idolize her, pirates would curse her. She wore a mask of red with black spots, and, as the years went on, the stories came of the flag on her ship was colored the same way.

Adrien supposed that was must intrigue him the most about her was how her name and deeds were spoken of like a myth, but she herself seemed to be anything but a mere sailor's tale.

Not all trips to the surface were pleasant, though.

The first time he broke the surface to rolling waves and a sky that was black instead of blue, Adrien learned first-hand what had to have been the cause for the shipwrecks under the sea. The air swirled with agitation, waves pitching and crashing in haphazard directions, growing to frightening sizes. In a flash of light that illuminate his home in a way that made him fear it for the first time, the sight of a ship on one of the mountainous waves met his eyes.

It wouldn't make it.

It was tipping over.

Another flash of light confirmed Adrien's fears: there was nothing left on the surface.

Adrien hadn't visiting the wrecks for months after that. Not now…not anymore. Not after knowing what it took to bring the vessels and the treasures inside to the bottom of the sea.

Adrien swam as fast as he could against the pull of the currents. What he could do wasn't a question. That he needed to – had to – do…something…

Their eyes were closed…they were floating…unmoving… And Plagg was trying to pull him away.

"What happened? Wh-Why are they so still, Plagg?"

"A fish can't live out of water, Adrien. Humans can't live in it."

A sharp tail slap to the face pulled Adrien out of his unwanted daydream.

They had arrived at the shipwreck sight. Adrien wasn't sure of the exact words Plagg had said to convince him of how this was a good idea. In the end, Adrien summed it up to his own physical need to see and feel the sunlight through the sea again – to know that it was still there, and that this hadn't all been a cruel dream – than Plagg's insistence that there would be nothing he would regret seeing. This place had once been a place of discovery, of hidden treasures. Now, though, it was only symbols of death and destruction, and ignorance toward them both.

"Look closer, Adrien."

He didn't want to, didn't want to see, to have more hellish memories to fall back on in the quiet dark…but Adrien did as he was instructed.

They were in a dark room, something flat and willowy, a built structure, in the corner. Nearby, attached to a wall, was a chest not yet decayed like many of the others. With a clawed hand, Adrien lifted the lid of the box carefully, appreciating for the first time that this had been important to somebody at some time. It was, like many of the others he had seen, full of different – mostly unrecognizable – objects, each with a purpose or a story to which Adrien would never been privy. He didn't want to see any more.

Look closer, Plagg had said.

Softly, Adrien closed the lid to the chest and began to drag his fingers across the walls of the room.

The "hurricane" had wiped out fathoms of homes to fish and shark and whale alike. Even the Merpeople, buried in the hidden depths below, had felt the effects of it. But here, amid the once eerie carnage and resulting desolation…

…life…thrived.

Plagg had tried to explain…this before, but Adrien hadn't known, hadn't really understood. An octopus tentacle reached out from the chest. Coral, anemones, and kelp seemed to transform the place, the off-put creatures who had lost their home now finding new refuge in something that had once been a symbol of death, of beauty lost. A school of brightly colored fish swam passed his face. Not that he was looking for it, there were nestles of eggs, colonies of sea horses…

The entire vessel had become a home to those who had none, scores of creatures who would have died themselves if not for this…blessing.

Adrien reached above him without really looking and grabbed onto the frame directly over his head. He hadn't understood, hadn't known how this great power of destruction was able, in its way, to support life. Adrien blinked his eyes, a warmth made of his own volition, a result stemming from dual emotions of sadness and hope.

A spongy texture touches his finger, and Adrien looks up without moving his hand to see a starfish nudging his clawed digit with a strange fervor. Something slid from one of the arms of the starfish onto his own finger, the starfish releasing him directly afterward. The merboy pulled his hand down to his face to examine the strange item. It was snug around his finger, but not in an uncomfortable way. Black and shiny, the surface seemed to be unmarred like the rest of the things that fell below the ocean. In the middle was a design of bright green; four ovals fanned around something like a disfigured circle. When his focus returned, Plagg was staring intently at him. It was the permission he didn't realize he needed to keep this treasure. For the first time in his life, Adrien thanked whoever it was who was the means of bringing this gift to him.

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The ring felt stiff and heavy on his finger as if hanging on by magic as Adrien raced through the tossing currents as fast as he had gone in his life.

After years of listening to stories, and hoping, yearning, the flag that Adrien had dreamed of seeing was finally spotted at the edge of the horizon. His initial excitement propelled him forward without explanation to Plagg, the catfish not even bothering to follow his fast pace. When Adrien paused to surface once again, if just to gaze at the ship before the sun faded into darkness, the sight just beyond caused the blond-haired fish-boy's stomach to churn as much as the ocean would be soon.

It was a monster clawing toward Ladybug's ship. And from the looks of it, they had no idea it was coming.

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Marinette watches the moon peek through the clouds. At the creaking of the ladder rope behind her, she hastily swiped at the tears on her cheeks, pinching her nose to hide all evidence of tears there.

"Should've known you'd be up here."

Chloé pulled one leg over the edge of the crow's nest and then the other, coming to stand by her friend.

"It was my shift," Marinette replied easily.

Chloé scoffed. Marinette sighed heavily.

"I needed a break," she finally conceded, leaning to rest her forearms on the rough edge, fingers tracing the edges of her spotted mask.

"From your own party?" There was a smile in Chloé's voice that made Marinette's lips twitch upward as well.

"From your party, of which my name is thrown around as freely as the rum."

"Rum?" Chloé huffed in fake indignance, arms crossing over her chest. "Please. That is the finest diluted wine I could get my hands on."

"So…rum."

Marinette laughed at the affronted look on Chloé's face, and Chloé, in turn, smirked victoriously.

"So…" Chloé continued when the resulting quiet stretched on. "No better place than the crow's nest for Ladybug to think of her impending demise? Seriously, Marinette. Marriage isn't a death sentence."

Leave it to Chloé to get straight to the point.

"It is for Ladybug," Marinette mumbled sullenly. The reminder that Marinette's good deeds as Ladybug would suddenly stop, and how, in just a few years' time the ocean would be riddled again with filth was enough to send Marinette back to tears. The fear for the innocents she wouldn't be able to reach was nearly unbearable.

Conveniently, the fact that the Ladybug ships would be continuing their work slipped her mind.

Thinking of it like this also helped her avoid marinating in her own personal woes.

"Says who?" Chloé said accusingly.

"Says my future h-h-heaugh-!" Marinette literally gagged on the word, making Chloé roll her eyes. "Er, future husband."

"Since when have you been dictated by anyone? And don't say the time I put you in the boat!" she added when Marinette opened her mouth, making the black-haired girl scowl at her companion. "We both know you could have gotten out of that easily. And I can't see any of this changing by adding a husband."

"But I'll be hopelessly in love, Chlo!"

Chloé blanched, her expression diving into one of complete surprise. But Marinette didn't seem to notice; her sky-blue eyes went soft and starry-eyed to a point that made Chloé almost slap her to wipe the look off her face.

"I won't want to leave him!" Marinette continued, missing the horrified look on Chloé's face. "I'll want to be by him all the time, him and his heart of gold… Or maybe he won't love me at all! And then I'll live in a world of sadness and despair and pining for what could have been and stuck in a place I'll never escape and I'll never want to get on a boat again simply from being too depressed! And then, in just a few more years, I'll be queen, and my entire future will be laid out before me. Oh my gosh! I don't know how to run a kingdom!"

This time Chloé did slap Marinette soundly across the face.

Marinette looked shocked for a moment, then crumbled in on herself, groaning loudly. Her next words came out muffled by her arms.

"Are you sure you don't want to be the princess instead?"

"I thought we both agreed how much of a disaster that would be."

"I don't care. I abdicate."

"Ugh!" Chloé grabbed Marinette and hoisted her up to stand and look at her. "Marinette, quit being a basket case about this and use your Ladybug brain and think of a solution!"

"I did! I abdicated! Throne is all yours, and no take-backsies!"

"Oh my gosh – "

"On threat of death!" Marinette mimicked taking out her sword before dropping into a classic swordplay pose, one hand behind her head and a closed fist held taut at Chloé's navel.

Chloé looked at her, quite unamused.

The two girls stared at each other for a moment before Marinette, without losing eye contact, started poking her fist repeatedly into Chloé's belly. With each touch, Marinette would cry out in pain in an idiotic way. After the fifth time, Chloé smacked her hand away.

"My sword!" Marinette yelped, then leapt off the edge of the crow's nest as if to go after her "fallen" weapon.

Chloé's shocked face appeared immediately over the edge, eyes dancing wildly as she searched for a moment…before catching Marinette's eye. She smacked the wood rim of the nest and grunted angrily.

"I hate you," Chloé's voice drifted from inside the crow's nest.

"I know," Marinette laughed in reply, hanging comfortably from the rigging just below the lookout spot.

A sudden shout sounded from below from an unfamiliar voice, the same word repeated over and over. After a moment, there were frantic shouts and a stampede of moment on deck. Marinette shot Chloé a look.

"Gall, Chloé. How much rum have they had?"

"Not enough…" Chloé said breathlessly. Her tone surprised her companion. Marinette looked up to see her ashen-faced, looking out at sea with wide, fearful eyes.

A shiver of dread ran through Marinette. They were alone out here, and while they could handle themselves alone well enough, they weren't exactly prepared to do…so…

Marinette, who had climbed back into the nest to see what Chloé was still gazing at, felt her breath catch in her throat. The sight of the moon disappeared into the thickness of the clouds. Suddenly the word shouted from below formed eerily – though belatedly – into her mind.

"HURRICANE!"

[[ Welp!

I don't think they were quite prepared for this…

Are you!? ]]

[[ *waggles eyebrows* ]]

[[ Okay, so, I need to add a warning that there IS, uh, nudity in…oh. It's not for another 6 chapters. But yeah. It's what you'd expect, especially if you've seen 'The Little Mermaid.'

Unlike the movie, though, our heroes get to met and talk IN THE NEXT CHAPTER. IT'S FINALLY HERE. :3 ]]

[[ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THAT MOVIE, YOU SHOULD! ]]