#adrienaugreste

He stopped at a door and pushed the handle down, pushing the door open with his shoulder. The room was dim, but the bright sunshine still poked through the curtains. He pulled one open, letting the light shine in, the dust mites floating in the air as the area was disturbed. All along the walls were portraits of all the rulers of Narnia, from the couple past the barriers of Narnia who’s been chosen off the street, to his parents’ portrait. He stopped in front of one, of two nearly identical people. Narnia had lost its ruling family for 100 years thanks to the White Wizard, a creature who fell into Narnia the day it was created. Aslan had banished him but he reappeared when the Great Lion was gone. It was thought no one would remove him from power, until the prophecy was spoken, of two children of Adam and Eve would arrive to defeat the Wizard.

The most famed rulers of Narnia: Felix the Cunning and Adrien the Caring, the Twin Kings of Narnia.

They weren’t twins though, not like Nicola and Jasper. They were cousins, who’s mothers were twins; at least according to the stories. They came from the world past the barriers, won the Winter Rebellion and ruled over Narnia for nearly 20 years. They disappeared one day and 1000 years later, reappeared in time to help the newest king of Narnia retake the land again. Nicola looked at the king painted in greens, King Adrien. His many greats grandfather. When given the chance, Adrien stayed in Narnia while Felix returned to their home land, knowing he’d see his cousin again when they entered the final resting place. He and King Luka ruled over Narnia until their daughter took the throne. The line continued and now it was Nicola’s turn to lead the kingdom with his brother. Siblings within a decent age range ruled together, so Nicola wouldn’t be alone.

So why was he so scared?

“Being scared is a good thing.”

Nicola jumped, spinning around to see a lion sitting in the corner of the room. He stood, his tawny fur shining grey in the light. Nicola grew up around speaking animals, had seen them grow old, but the marks of age on this lion’s face seemed…wait.

“Aslan.” He breathed.

The Great Lion bowed his head. “Hello Nicola Couffaine, son of King Andreas, brother to Prince Jasper and descendant to King Adrien the Caring. You have a heavy burden on your shoulders. One that is shared, but you still carry it like it’s all your own.”

“I…how do I know I’m ready?” his father wasn’t nearly old, but the most recent war campaign had taken it out of him, revealing he felt the time of peace was best for the brothers to rule. It still didn’t help any.

Aslan walked up to him, looking up at the portrait. “They didn’t feel ready either. They had arrived and already, the sands of time were against them. They were separated and Adrien was the one forced to find the camp and ask for my help to save Felix.”

“I know the history lesson. King Felix had to betray his army when he was tricked by the Wizard, who threatened King Adrien’s life.” Nicola sighed.

“Do you know Adrien nearly had to find the entire camp all on his own, escaping from the Wizard’s moths and only the help of animals who’d never seen war? Given a quarterstaff he didn’t know how to use, hoping against all hope that I would believe Felix meant no harm and would help him? The young king had all hopes placed upon him and all he wanted when he arrived was to spend an afternoon with his newest friend, the faun.”

Nicola…hadn’t known that part. He knew the history, what he’d grown up being taught with King Felix’s betrayal and fighting for redemption on the battlefield with only his bow and a borrowed sword. King Adrien was said to be the healer, defence with his quarterstaff and dagger. He knew his grandfather had arrived at camp alone, but notes about doing so after his arrival hadn’t appeared in texts.

“The pressure was worse when the two came back. Both felt lost, losing their kingdom and sense of self and needed to decide if staying in Narnia was right for them not long after they helped save it from Talmerian rule.”

“My grandfather did.”

“Not until he arrived a third time. Felix was the one given the option the second time and he decided his place was back there. He’s quite happy in his final home with his cousin again, but his decision to leave was not as easy as Adrien’s decision to stay.”

Nicola looked at his grandfather’s portrait. He always assumed the famed ruler knew exactly what he was doing. It sounded like he was as lost as Nicola was.

“He was a great ruler though, both times.”

Aslan smiled like a lion would. “Yes. But not without mistakes and needing help. He was set to be a ruler of a place that was forced to become his home. This however, is home to you. You and your brother will protect this land as much as he did. The Twin Kings became embedded with Narnia’s magic, magic that runs through your veins. Even when he left, the magic never left him.”

Nicola knew what Aslan meant. Jasper was like the dryads of the forest, slipped between the shadows in the shade, and was fluid like the waves upon the shore. Nicola himself was firm like the earth, comfortable within the tunnels of the dwarves or within the air with the griffins. This was the only time he felt untethered. He wondered who his grandfather was more like, him or Jasper.

“Having to refit himself into a body he didn’t feel like was his anymore, trying to control the magic he left with was hard, but he did it. Even when scared, Adrien wouldn’t let himself back down. Even when he felt like he wouldn’t win. I believe Felix taught him that.”

Jasper would always remind him to lean him when he felt like panicking. He wondered how many times his great uncle would have to remind his own cousin to do the same during their rein.

“Can I do this?” he turned to ask Aslan.

“Only you can answer that. But I have as much confidence in you and your brother as I did in Felix and Adrien.”

“Even when they had no idea what they were doing?”

“Of course. That’s how I knew the desire to get it right was real.”

The sound of the door opening, pulled Nicola away from Aslan and the portrait of the Twin Kings. Jasper looked relieved to find him, dressed in his favourite yellow, compared to Nicola’s black.

“There you are, Nikki. Haku was about to send out a search party and Father is trying not to panic Starlight.” The names for their parents and the person who was about to become their advisor reminded Nicola of how long he’d been missing.

“Jaz, look! This – ” Nicola turned to show his brother the Great Lion when he saw he was alone, except for his brother making a confused noise.

“What am I looking at?” he asked, walking into the room.

Nicola looked around. Had he imagined Aslan? He looked up at the portrait of his grandfather and great uncle and in one of the flags behind them, the one with the mark of Narnia, the lion adjusted himself into place before rising on his hindlegs and roaring in place. Maybe not. Aslan was a wild lion, he came and went as he pleased, leaving behind people who would protect the land he created and strive to follow their principals. People like the ones Nicola and Jasper were related to.

“Them.” he said, deciding to tell his brother after the coronation. Their first shared secret as kings. “We’ll be as good as they were.”

Jasper smiled knowingly at him. “Obviously. Our grandfather ruled Narnia twice. King Adrien the Caring, the King of Sun and Stars, Healer and Protecter of the Isles of Narnia. I think Uncle Felix would have our heads if we didn’t at least try to be as good.”

“We’ll try.”

N: I will miss your father too Adrien, but you must remember that his greatest wish was for you to be happy, and you know what we should do?

A: What?

N: Make a pool in the backyard and invite all of your friends over to a pool party.

“Hey, Plagg,” Adrien called, looking at a video on his computer. “This ghost thing kinda looks like you.”

Plagg peered over Adrien’s shoulder as he relished the taste of a particularly delicious wheel of camembert. Huh, that was a cat spirit, a decently strong one too, from the looks of it. It wasn’t quite as well formed as him. Its tiny black body was mostly a head with tiny little bat wings, and its eyes were purple instead of his ravishing green, but he could see the resemblance. 

Then, having fed off enough fear from the civilians nearby, it transformed. Its wings grew to massive lengths and grew to four. Its face morphed from a simple fear to a pig nosed muzzle, and its main body became long and sleek like a panther’s.

“Oh,” Adrien said, frowning. “It doesn’t anymore.”

“Puh-lease,” Plagg remarked, lifting his nose up away from that pathetic transformation, “my true form is much cooler than that. 

Immediately, Adrien sat up straight, looking at Plagg in undisguised awe. “You have a true form?” Adrien asked.

“Of course I do,” Plagg said, grinning smugly as he revealed in the attention his chosen was giving him. He nonchalantly swallowed a roll of camembert whole as he smugly asked, “What, did you think those ghosts could be cooler than me? Trust me,” Plagg swept his paw through the air in a dismissive gesture, “compared to me, those ghosts are just the very beginnings of curdled milk. It would take them millenia to even be a fraction as smart or as powerful as I am.”

“Wait,” Adrien cocked his head, looking at Plagg in an adorable level of confusion, “why don’t you ever use it then?”

“Because it’s huge,” Plagg said, rolling his eyes. “And if you think my powers are tricky in this size, it’s nothing compared to my true self. Honestly, I could probably destroy the entire Milky Way on accident like that.” 

“Oh,” Adrien said softly. “I guess that makes sense.” 

Plagg hummed, eyeing Adrien carefully. It didn’t take a genius to see Adrien’s disappointment. His wielder wasn’t subtle about his emotions. How anyone could miss them was beyond Plagg, but showing someone his true form was a big deal. Most people only ever wanted to see it before they demanded that he fuse with Tikki to make reality bend to whatever stupid wish they wanted. Adrien though…

Plagg genuinely believed that Adrien might just want to see it. He was curious like that, always grabbing and reaching for whatever scraps of knowledge Plagg handed out to him, and his wielder was clever too. 

At first, Plagg had given Adrien the tiniest scraps of information to tease him, offering only a small taste of information to see his tiny little human mind get blown, but after a month or so, Adrien would surprise him by casually mentioning things to Plagg that he’d never even said out loud before, had never even needed to. 

For instance, after a few weeks of listening to Adrien drone on and on about his sickeningly sweet crush on Ladybug, Plagg had once again given his excellent cheese advice only for Adrien to counter that Plagg had never been in love. Or after Plagg had introduced the idea that he’d had many wielders before, it had only taken Adrien about 3 weeks to complain about how he couldn’t transform into a cat like Bast had.

From then on, it had become a game of sorts. Plagg would drop some little seed of information every so often, and Adrien would counter it by bringing up some surprisingly insightful tangential guesses about it with the surety of someone who’d known it for years. Sometimes he was wrong, hilariously wrong, like the time he’d thought Loki was a fox, but most of the time, his wielder was right on the money. 

Plagg had let a lot of secrets go this way. He knew he’d dropped far too many hints for his own good, but it was so satisfying to watch his little human grow and figure out things so quickly and easily. In fact, for the first time in a long time, Plagg felt like he trusted his wielder. So maybe, he could try something. 

“Do you want to see it?” Plagg asked cautiously. Immediately, Adrien lit up like a Christmas tree, but he hesitated. 

Biting his lip, Adrien hesitantly asked, “But didn’t you say it was dangerous?”

Plagg gave him an easy grin and waved his paw dismissively. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “We’ll just have to find someplace big enough to hold me without anyone seeing us, and I’ll just need to avoid using my powers. No big deal.” Then he paused before quickly adding, “But, just in case, I can’t stay in that form for too long.” As Adrien nodded, he quickly added, “and it’s just the one time.”

Adrien hummed, before he grinned. “I think I know a place. Plagg! Claws Out!” ~*~ As it turned out, Adrien’s place was one of the cisterns in the sewer. It was hardly conspicuous. Both Ladybug and Chat Noir had hidden near a number of these several times,but Plagg was a little worried he wouldn’t be able to fit. 

Apparently, Adrien had the same idea, because he looked at it nervously as he asked, “Is it big enough?”

As Plagg listened to Adrien’s voice, he cursed his soft heart. As soon as he heard that tone in Adrien’s voice, Plagg knew, as clearly as he knew that pasteurized cheese was a crime against humanity, that if it wasn’t big enough, his wielder would blame himself. He was weirdly self-conscious like that: eager to blame himself at the slightest opportunity. Plagg blamed his stupid father for that, and Ladybug’s stupid obsession with secrets hadn’t been helping. 

“Yeah, it’s big enough,” Plagg said, quickly to assuage Adrien’s doubt. For Adrien, Plagg would find a way for it to be big enough. 

Quickly, he coached Adrien through the spell. “In order to do this,” Plagg told him, “you’re going to have to say, ‘Plagg, reveal yourself’. It’ll be a bit like transforming, but the magic’s not going towards you, it’s going away, so you’re going to have to be forceful, but not too forceful or we’ll bring this place down.”

Adrien nodded before following Plagg’s instructions to a tee. Feeling the bindings on his smaller form loosen, Plagg stretched his form out very carefully, making sure not to touch the ceiling or the water. He’d only be a fraction of his normal size like this, but he figured that Adrien would still be able to see all of his features.

As soon as he was finished, Plagg looked back at Adrien with all three of his eyes to find Adrien with eyes the size of dinner plates and beaming like the cat who caught the canary. 

“You look so cool,” Adrien gushed. “And look at those wings! They look just like Astrocat’s. And that eye! Can I have an eye like that? Can you see out of it? What does it look like? Does it look like it does with only two eyes or can you see in other dimensions?” 

Smiling, Plagg stretched and flexed, a strange feeling coming from his chest as Adrien oohed and awed at every new thing he noticed about Plagg, asking dozens and dozens of questions in barely contained glee. Adrien delighted in everything:  from the realization that his body was covered in eyes, “can you see from all of them?” to Plagg’s disembodied joints “how far can they move?” to the giant hole in his chest, “can I touch it?” 

Plagg had to admit, he let time slip away from them as Adrien admired Plagg. At first from the ground, but after Adrien asked to be picked up, from up close. There was something so simple, so joyful in being marveled at instead of being used as just half of a battery. 

Together, he and Adrien spent a few hours down there until Adrien had started getting tired and -very reluctantly- suggested they go back. The next morning though, they paid for it. Adrien had come down with a cold, one of the nastiest that Nathalie had ever seen apparently, and Plagg had felt terrible. 

As soon as Plagg apologized though, in his own way, Adrien shook his head.