The pair of witches smiled peacefully as they carefully tended to the plants. Usually, Marinette would use magic to grow back everything she took, but right now? No, the town was complacent, assured in the fact that one of the two people they had executed was the witch, and that simply wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t be fun.

It wouldn’t do them much good, either. They would eventually realize that they were still losing resources at the same, steady rate they had been before. There were already talks of sending people back to their old houses, and there was no guarantee that they would get the same ‘buddy’ the second time around. If they even chose the same system.

And neither Marinette nor Duke wanted to lose their newfound partner in crime quite yet. What if their next buddy was the noble sort, willing to be killed if it meant their village would survive? They didn’t want to be caught yet! Not when the fun had just begun.

Duke toyed with an aloe leaf, eyeing the plant thoughtfully.

His fingertip began to glow a bright, fiery orange.

He pressed it to the wall, carving a blackened message into the wood:

Wrong.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The town was quiet the next morning, confused. They stood in the middle of the square. They were much more kind than they had been the day before, whispering among themselves, standing far closer together. It seemed as if all worries have been alleviated, all grudges forgotten. They wondered aloud. What have they been called together for, this time?

It is because no one was on guard that Marinette and Duke didn’t even have to actively incriminate anyone.

The town merchant took a little tumble on the way there, after all, and the little pieces of dirt on her hands and knees were more than enough to convince people of her guilt.

Her buddy tried to argue that, no, she had been with him all night, and there was no way she of all people would do anything even remotely close to gardening. Marinette and Duke were mildly impressed that he was standing up for her – the merchant wasn’t particularly well-liked, and it is always easier to simply go with the crowd with things like this, but the chimney sweep had always been one of the kinder people in town.

It didn’t save either of them. The townsfolk assumed he was ‘in cahoots’ with her, or perhaps that she was simply his lackey and he was the true witch. They join their fellow humans at the bottom of a lake.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The pair of witches sat in the shop. Marinette leaned back against the wall, Duke doing the same with a nearby desk, both of their legs splayed out in front of them. One of Marinette’s ankles rested over the top of his leg, but she couldn’t bring herself to care enough to move it quite yet. Gems lay discarded all around them, drained of all magic. A tiny sigh of relief left them in tandem. The town guardswoman had been working harder, as of late, staying up every night and running around, lantern in one hand, her buddy’s hand in the other. The light of her lamp and loud complaints of her buddy, who was not the particularly active sort, made them easier to avoid, but not easy.

They would only have a few moments to do this before they would pass by on patrols, and she would see that Duke had melted the doorknob in his haste to get them inside.

But the artificial calm provided by the use of magic after three whole days without it made it hard to even want to rush. Only barely coming back from starving twice in a week had understandably drained them of all motivation to leave the nice place full of ‘food’. It would be better if they could steal and stockpile it, but having anything magical on them could be damning evidence if anyone in the village ever bothered to search homes, and they were not going to risk it. Which meant their only option was to sit there, performing as many tiny magic tricks as they could dream up, and then leave.

Light began to poke around the corner.

Marinette and Duke looked at each other, eyes wide.

Well, that solved the motivation problem.

They sprung to their feet, immediately searching for something to do. They could, perhaps, kill them, but murder was risky business. There were two humans, what if one of them got away? What if they found a way to alert surrounding homes? What if they managed to scream before they could silence them?

No, that should be a last resort.

They cast their eyes around, looking for a spot that they could hide that wouldn’t immediately be checked. Which wasn’t an easy task, since any place they might have found within a few seconds was likely also going to get them found within a few seconds.

Marinette longed for the early days, when she could still shift forms without her body putting up much of a fuss. Things were so much easier when she could simply collapse herself to the size of a ladybug and tuck herself into a corner until the problem went away.

Now, though, she was too old.

And, while Duke might be able to manage it, that didn’t help her. Though, if he hadn’t thought of it, yet, he might not actually be able to shift, either.

Huh. Must be older than she’d been guessing.

Either way, that meant both of them needed a way out of here or they’d be more dead than that merchant and chimney swe –.

Her head swung around to the chimney.

She shoved Duke towards it.

“Climb.”

For a moment, he looked confused, but then he realized what she was trying to say, and his expression shifted from confused to incredulous. “I can’t fit up there!”

“Just – get up, break something if you have to. You can fix it later,” she hissed, grabbing his shoulder with both hands and pushing.

He gasped as his shoulder was forced out of place, and then shoved his good hand into his mouth to stifle a scream.

He shot her a dirty look, one she ignored since they might end up with far worse than an aching shoulder if they got caught, and shoved him towards the chimney again.

He managed to squeeze his way up, and she followed after him.

It was painfully silent. Painfully in that their bodies really weren’t meant for this much contortion. Neither of them was quite thin enough that the chimney was a comfortable fit, and that wasn’t even considering Duke’s out-of-place shoulder and the scrapes covering her unfortunately exposed arms and legs thanks to the haste with which she had clambered up the chimney walls.

If they got caught despite their efforts, Marinette was going to curse.

As in swear.

And also as in she was going to lunge for the nearest gem and make sure that the guard and musician’s bloodlines were unable to continue.

The witches were silent as they listened to the door getting forced open, to the guard’s cursing as she made her way around, looking for where they might have hidden. And then the door slammed and all was quiet.

Neither of them dared to move.

It wasn’t for another five minutes that the guard actually gave up and left in a huff, grumbling under her breath. The musician, now free to speak, started complaining again immediately. They listened to his voice, getting quieter and quieter, until they were finally alone.

Marinette tipped her head to rest against the outside of his knee, pressing a hand to her chest. It was an old, unneeded gesture, one that did nothing to relax a heart that had long-since gone still, and she was mildly surprised to find herself doing it, even after all of these years.

She giggled, closing her eyes. “I’m too old for this. Remind me why we don’t just burn this place to the ground?”

“Less fun?” he offered.

She supposed that was true. She hadn’t felt this excited in… well, a while.

“Now, start climbing down before I kick you down,” he said, his voice slightly strained.

“You wouldn’t –.”

He, in fact, would. She scowled as she landed in a heap at the bottom, and the ashes she flattened immediately sought vengeance. When he crawled out and saw her soot-covered, visibly annoyed face, he merely raised an eyebrow.

“You broke my arm, I think it was warranted.”

“It’s not broken, it’s out of place.”

“The point still stands.”

She huffed. These were not equal crimes. He could fix his arm with a bit of magic, she couldn’t un-stain her clothes.

He seemed to think that he was the one who had been wronged, though, because he did not apologize for his misdeeds in the slightest. She huffed, her gaze sliding to the side, where several gems still lay. She was half tempted to fight him, but they really should be getting home, and soon, before the guard noticed that they were gone.

They snuck back into their house, careful not to track any soot inside, and only allowed themself to relax once they had reached their shared room.

Marinette ran a hand through her hair, huffing when a bit of ash fluttered to the floor. “I’m taking the first shower. Because it’s my shower. And because I hate you,” she said.

He didn’t deign to respond. Which only annoyed her more, but whatever.

Marinette stepped out of the bathroom a half hour later, toweling off her now-clean, healthy-ish hair. It was still a little thinner than it should be, but should be better by morning…

She looked to Duke, opening her mouth to say it was his turn, only to stop. He was sitting on his bed, gingerly touching his shoulder. He hadn’t yet snapped it back into place, apparently.

She hesitated.

“I… I can fix it for you.”

His head shot up to look at her. He eyed her, blatant distrust lining his features. She might have been offended by it, back when she was a human and her emotions still ran hot instead of cold, but it wasn’t like she didn’t understand. If he had offered to help her, she would have wondered whether he was planning a surprise attack, too.

Slowly, warily, he nodded.

She made her way over, just as slowly, in the way she might approach a wild cat she wanted to take as a familiar.

She took a seat beside him and rested a careful hand on his back.

“Can I use some of your energy?” she asked, because they didn’t have much they could channel with right now, and she wasn’t going to use her own life force to fix his shoulder.

He grimaced, but nodded.

She closed her eyes.

The first thing she noticed was that he was young. Perhaps not even a century old yet. Where her body was always eager to get back into the positions they had resided in for hundreds of years, his still fought her. She had expected it would be harder to alter his body than her own, she had suspected that she was older since their first meeting, but this? She was no longer sure whether she could fix this.

The second thing she noticed was that he had his Item on him, somehow. He had far too much power thrumming beneath his skin for anything different. But where could it be? He changed his clothes daily. Had he eaten it? She supposed that that might work, witches didn’t have digestive systems –.

She abruptly noticed a third thing. And almost second-guessed it, because it was so strange that it simply had to be untrue.

His body felt… alive. In a way that her own couldn’t be. Her own body was largely empty, with only magic thrumming beneath her skin to keep everything more or less where it was supposed to be. Once she had stopped needing to eat food, the bacteria in her stomach had turned on itself, desperate to eat, and had attacked everything that had once made her ‘alive’, until it had eventually run out of things to consume and died off itself.

She could still ‘bleed’. Magic was happy to spill out of her when her skin was torn, identical to human blood save for the fact that it was horrifically acidic. She still, kind of, had bones, in that her skin did not take kindly to being shoved out of place after so long. Her body, while inhuman, still behaved in a lot of the ways that a human’s might.

This, though?

This was a whole different thing entirely. There were bones. Muscles. Blood circulation. Lungs. A heart, even!

“What – what are you?” she asked.

He smiled. “A witch.”

She wasn’t sure she agreed. He had magic, sure, but this wasn’t right.

Still, it wasn’t as if she could compel him to tell her anything. She could barely compel humans, and even that was weak – a suggestion more than an order.

So, as frustrated as she might be, she couldn’t do anything.

(She did, however, maybe, push his shoulder back into place a little more forcefully than was entirely necessary.)

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

They stood in the town square. Everyone knew what had happened, but only two ‘people’ knew who had done it.

Of course, those two did not want to be caught.

Which was why the guard had to go. If there was something they didn’t need, it was someone who was patrolling the area every night. Marinette had had a few pleasant conversations with the woman, but sentiment wasn’t something she was prone to feeling, and even if it was she would probably care way more about not dying.

So, yeah, they needed to take her out of the equation.

Duke tightened his grip on her hand briefly.

Someone was paying attention to them.

Marinette made panic contort her features, briefly, before tamping it down in favor of an expression that seemed mildly concerned.

“Did – did you hear what they just said?” she ‘whispered’, pointing vaguely into the crowd. “They asked who would benefit the most from everyone being scared…”

She leaned into Duke slightly, as if for comfort. After spending several days on end in each other’s presence, they had somewhat gotten used to each other, but being quite this close made her hackles rise. Her discomfort was suddenly far more real. At least it might be more convincing.

Not that she really needed to be convincing, of course.

Paranoid as the townsfolk already were, planting the idea into their minds was easy.

Though, Marinette was annoyed to say, the guard wasn’t killed. Perhaps because no one wanted to take a trained guardsman in a fight. Especially if the woman was a witch.

At least she was exiled.

They watched the guard disappear into the woods with nothing but a backpack and the clothes on her back, never to be seen again. Duke squeezed Marinette's hand, tight enough that it might have hurt had she been a human.

Marinette looked over, expecting him to have something to show her. But he didn’t seem to be aware of what he was doing. Watching the woman leave, his eyes gleaming.

She, lightly, squeezed back.

And a few days later, the townsfolk celebrated, because the witches hadn’t stolen anything in days, and therefore they must have successfully driven out the true witch.

Marinette and Duke were the happiest of all.

And no one noticed the blood caked beneath their fingernails.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The townsfolk, of course, knew that they were being baited, that every person they sent to the bottom of the river was likely framed…

But they couldn’t seem to ignore that needling voice in the back of their mind:

What if it was real? What if it was a genuine slip up on the witch’s part? What if this was their one chance to get rid of the witch?

And the witches, of course, sunk their claws deeper into the town.

They might, one day, sink in too deep, and draw blood.

They couldn’t wait.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Marinette and Duke laid on the ground, both grinning widely at the ceiling. Even now, faint shivers still ran through her from time to time, relief and magic washing over her over and over again. She hadn’t felt this content in what felt like ages.

“Think this is what humans feel like after they’re full?” Duke asked. “You know, that sleepy-full feeling they always talk about?”

“What? Did you turn so long ago that you can’t remember?” she teased.

“I never turned.”

She blinked. If she wasn’t so artificially calm, she might have jolted, sat upright, started demanding an answer. As it was, she simply turned onto her side and sent him a mildly curious look.

He gave her a smile. It wasn’t tired, they couldn’t really be tired, but it was about as close as they could get. “I was born a witch. My dad was a demon, I guess it didn’t fully transfer.”

She struggled to wrap her mind around the idea. She, like every other witch – outside of him, apparently – had become a witch through a deal with a demon. Power, but at the price of your soul. At the price of your very humanity.

She didn’t know if she missed it. She couldn’t really miss anything at all.

Still, dully, she thought that it was kind of messed up that Duke had never gotten the choice as to whether he would lose his soul. It had simply never existed to begin with.

She was feeling… something. It wasn’t fear or anger, nor manic glee. She didn’t know what it was, she only knew one thing for sure:

She hated it.

She would do anything to wipe that look off of his face.

Hesitantly, she reached up and pulled out her earrings. Marinette knew that, if she gave them to him, he could make her leave forever, could tell her to walk right out of town and she would have no choice but to obey…

At least she wouldn’t have to look at his annoying, confusing face anymore.

She held them out for him to take.

He looked confused, mumbled about how his ears weren’t even pierced, but he accepted.

The second he touched them, he jolted, his fingers instantly curling around the offering and dragging it back into his chest, more than aware of what it was and what it meant. He gave her a wide-eyed stare.

“This is…”

“My Item,” she agreed, though the way she said it was slightly stilted, as if she were in pain. She wasn’t, not really, but there was a part of her mind that was screaming at her for giving up something that would make her so vulnerable. Some part of her that wanted to jump him, to try and wrestle them out of his grip. “Please accept it.”

Duke looked down at her Item for just a moment longer, before looking back at her. He smiled so brightly that she wondered how she had never noticed that he was partially human before this, because there was so much warmth there. He was living.

Distantly, she thought that she wanted it.

The next morning, she caught him piercing his ears with sewing needles.

For a moment, she swore she could feel her heart beat in her chest.

She didn't have a heart anymore, so this wasn’t the case, of course, but she couldn’t help but smile regardless.

She still chided him for using her good sewing needles, though.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The town gossip being sent to the bottom of the lake was… a surprise.

Marinette and Duke hadn’t arranged for that to happen, actually. They hadn’t even thought the gardener would notice that some of the branches of his plants were a little thinner than they had been the previous day. Even if he had, they had assumed he’d blame the musician who had recently joined him and his buddy, or his original buddy. Who else would have access to his shop, after all?

But, no, they were pretty sure it was a simple personal vendetta.

Humans are so fascinating when they’re at their worst.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Duke slowly pulled his shirt over his head. This wasn’t particularly shocking, considering they lived together – it’s pretty much inevitable that you’re going to see a roommate naked at least once by accident – but he had never done so in a way that had felt so intimate before, his eyes firmly locked on her own.

And then, carefully, he slid his hand into his chest, and plucked out his own heart, presenting it for her to see.

She took it in her hands, and was surprised to find that it was still beating, though in a way that was far more muted than the human hearts she had touched in the past. Of course, those people had been scared out of their minds and screaming over the hand in their chest, so perhaps her perception of a normal heart rate was incorrect, but…

Either way, she smiled and pressed a kiss to the offering. Blood painted her lips red.

Duke didn’t seem to mind. He still took her chin in his hand, pulling her face up to meet his own.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The door opened.

Marinette and Duke could only look up, eyes wide, at the poor store owner and his buddy, who had made the grave mistake of deciding to check on the shop that night.

They must have been quite the sight, considering Duke’s heart was still clutched in her hands, which was a far cry from being inside of his body like it was supposed to be.

His heart seemed to spring to life in her palms, beating faster and faster.

“I guess you’ve caught me,” Duke said, gentle even as he pushed her off. He got to his feet, dusting imaginary dirt from himself. He held his hands up in a kind of surrender, but she could see his eyes flicking around the floor, searching for a crystal he could use to escape. He must not have found one, because his jaw set. He sent the humans a smirk. “And here I thought I would get away with seducing her into silence.”

Oh, that bastard was trying to take all the blame.

“Wait,” she said, trying to scramble to her feet.

He sent her a cutting look, and instantly she was forced back to the ground, an invisible pressure holding her down, her forehead against the floor.

Her earrings.

She squeezed the heart in her palm, but every time she tried to think of a command to give him, her mind went blank. The words ‘I am a witch, too’ never seemed to leave her tongue.

Of course, the fact that she had been forced to the floor by something they couldn’t see only solidified the truth of Duke’s claims in their minds.

Funny, because it actually confirmed that Marinette was a witch, not Duke, but since when had humans ever taken the time to actually understand those that they feared?

“You – you – you come with us! We will put you to a fair trial, so long as you promise not to hurt anyone!”

Duke’s head tipped back in a laugh, but there was nothing genuinely amused about it. “Ah, yeah, a fair trial. If you’re innocent, you die, and if you’re a witch, you’re left to rot. How fun.”

“Well – do you know a better solution?” the store owner asked.

“Sure. But I’m not going to tell you it.”

Was he refusing to say for her sake?

She might as well return the favor…

And, though it was embarrassing to admit, she was more than a little fond of him. Sure, she used to want him to leave her town, had struggled to stop herself from sinking her teeth into the skin of his neck in hopes that she might spill enough magic for the townsfolk to take notice and subsequently take his life. But, now, having spent quite a while living with him...

Well, she had grown used to his presence. She wasn’t sure what she would do if he was gone.

Marinette squeezed the heart in her hand just a little tighter, drawing upon his life source.

A gem crept its way up into his pocket.

That night, Duke was flung into the lake.

Or, rather, toward the lake. He didn’t step foot inside of it, his nose scrunching in mild disgust at the mere thought of touching the algae below, opting to float less than a meter above the waters.

The chains around him started to glow red hot, melting off of him in sloughs. The hot iron met the water in a hiss of acrid-smelling steam.

He floated back over to the stunned townsfolk, slowly, as if he had all the time in the world.

They would not have the same luxury.

“I’ve always wondered what you humans would do if a witch managed to get free,” he said. “I think your methods for dealing with witches need work. Not that you’ll get much time to fix them, I guess.”

The town continued to stare at him in muted horror.

“Run,” Marinette advised.

The townsfolk went scurrying like mice, leaving the two witches in the dust. Rushing towards their homes, hoping to grab a few things before they could ditch town. One or two smart ones disappeared into the woods. Their reward would be the few extra days-worth of survival before they were hunted down.

The two witches watched them all go for a moment.

And then Marinette knelt, picking a small dandelion, twirling the small flower between her fingers. She smiled as she tucked it behind her ear.

For a moment, she looked like just a normal woman, enjoying the simple pleasures in life.

The wicked gleam in her eyes ruined this effect.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The witches stood in the middle of a town – or what had once been one. Now, there was simply the carcasses of buildings, the stench of burning bodies, and dying flames licking at their heels.

Marinette skipped over, flowers blooming at her feet, only to get eaten by the flames within seconds.

Duke beamed at her. A sunshiny thing that made the air around it seem brighter in comparison. Or perhaps that was just the fire.

“I think we got everyone,” she reported, dutifully. “There should be no one left alive to reveal our secret.”

“Sweet,” he said, stretching his arms above his head, sighing contentedly. “Think we should leave now?”

“Yeah, the next town over might come investigating in the morning. A huge fire is kind of hard to miss, especially on a starless night.”

He nodded along. “That checks out.”

“Well, yeah, everything I say checks out. I’m always right.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Then why didn’t you just… use your own magic to help me?”

Marinette couldn’t blush, for she didn’t have blood, but she still felt remarkably warm. Probably because of the fire. She fought to keep her expression neutral. “Honestly? I’d never thought of that.”

His head tipped back in a laugh. “Holy – what, so the centuries old witch forgot she had magic?”

“I’m not that old,” she said, even though she was. She pouted lightly. “I was panicking. Give me a break.”

His laughter petered off, until he was smiling at her, something soft in his eyes. Almost human.

(She needed it.)

He leaned in to press a chaste kiss to her lips.

And then laced his fingers through his. “Ready to move on to the next town?”

Many things in this world are beyond human comprehension.

Vampires were tall, gangly things with too much pallor to their skin and wicked sharp teeth. The undead were visibly crumbling into ash, and gave off a horrible smell that warned you of their existence well before they were in striking distance. Sprites were tiny, glowing beings that, like an angler fish, would lead the unwary to an untimely death.

But these aren’t what people fear the most. Because, though the chances of surviving an encounter with such a creature were slim, at least you would know what was going to happen the moment you saw it.

No, the things people fear most are the things that look like them. The faerie are perfect facsimiles of humans, unless you peer too closely at their teeth or count how many fingers they have. Nixie will lure you into the water with them with beautiful songs and even more beautiful bodies, and you won’t realize that they’re not normal until they grab you with their ungodly strength and pull you under.

There was no warning. No chance to run. For why would you run from what you think was just another person?

And then there were witches.

Perhaps witches disturbed humans the most.

Because faerie and nixie usually stick to themselves. They’re willing to leave humans be, as long as they themselves are left alone. If you don't stumble into a faerie's circle, or come close to a nixie's lake, you could go your entire life without seeing one.

Witches, however, will join human society, and humans will never be any the wiser – or rather, not until the witch got bored.

In which case, their problem really isn't the fact that there is a witch in their village, and more the fact that there is a magical being set on razing everything they've ever known and loved to the ground.

Until then, though, witches are perfectly willing to be just yet another human. They're model citizens, really.

After all, gathering all those ingredients for their potions and spells was difficult. Who wants to spend all of their time gardening and hunting when you can simply go into town with a couple of coins and buy most of what you need? Witches need to perform magic to survive, and if they’re spending all of their time doing other things they start to…

Well.

They rot, for lack of a better word.

So, witches hide among humans. Tolerate humans. They’re willing to have symbiotic – or, at the very least, parasitic – relationships with them.

But, like other magical creatures, they are also very territorial.

Which is why, when Marinette looked up from her sewing and her gaze landed upon a ‘man’ with dark skin, her smile strained.

She could feel the magic radiating off of him. The humans wouldn’t notice, she knew. Her entire shop was practically overflowing with magic after all of her years living there, to the point where the floorboards glimmered with glittering gold that she could never quite get out, but the humans’ eyes glazed over it like it wasn’t there at all. So, no, they wouldn’t notice the way that the air around the man seemed to brighten just slightly. As if he was so happy that the world itself had lightened to give that perfect, sunny feeling right back to him.

Not that he actually looked all that happy. His hands curled into fists where they hung out of his traveler’s cloak.

To be fair, she wasn’t all that happy herself.

She fought the urge to reach up and check that her earrings were still in place. That they hadn't popped out of their own accord and rolled right over to him. It was a stupid thought, perhaps, but one that poked at her regardless. If she lost her earrings, she would be ruined. Which was exactly why she couldn't risk drawing any attention to them whatsoever.

She discreetly tied off her most recent sewing project underneath the table before slowly pushing herself to her feet.

She cast a glance around her store. She was the town seamstress. She was good at sewing, could make lace so intricate you would think a spider had woven it. People liked her work, and she liked having something to busy her hands with in the long hours before nightfall. It was mutually beneficial.

And, unfortunately, business was booming.

Which meant that there were several people around to watch as the man glared her down for seemingly no reason.

She set her jaw, forcing her expression to remain as cheerful as she could make it. “Oh, you must be new in town!” She glanced him up and down, and couldn’t quite hide the way her lips tried to curl in disgust. “Come into the back with me, I’ll get your sizes and everything so I can start on something for you.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “When did I say I wanted to commission new clothes from you?”

“Oh, I just assumed. Because…” She made a vague motion to him and his current clothes, and then tipped her head to the side with a smile that was more passive-aggressive than true. “Well, you’re here, aren’t you? Is there any other reason you’d come to a fabrics shop?”

His annoyance faded just slightly, replaced by the barest traces of amusement.

She jutted her chin out, silently daring him to say something that would get them both thrown out of town. After all, the only way someone can sense magic is if they themselves are magic as well, and humans don’t care about honoring the wishes of even the most well-intentioned whistleblowers.

He held her gaze for just a few moments longer before sighing and giving a small shrug of his shoulders. He brought a hand up to steady the backpack slung there, beneath his cloak, making him look like he had a posture that even Quasimodo from Notre Dame would pity.

Quietly, she led him into a backroom. Her tape measures lay there, yes, but that wasn’t at all what she was aiming for.

The moment the door clicked closed, the sigil carved into the door and the wall were joined. A human might see the swirling designs and colorful shapes on her walls as a design choice. But, when she reached into her pocket for a couple of stray flowers and then pressed a hand to the design, channeling enough magic to make the soundproofing rune glimmer her signature deep red color, it became unmistakable. This was the house of a witch.

Not that the man was surprised.

His hand jerked towards the flower vase not that far away, but she knew the intricacies of her house's layout, and he stumbled over a rune. It was harmless, something that stuck his foot to the floor, but it was enough to trip him up regardless. He hissed a curse as his chin slammed against the ground.

She only paid him enough mind to purposefully step on one of his legs on the way to the vase. Her fingers looped around the stems delicately. Water dripped over the floor, but she didn't seem to care.

She almost looked pleasant like that, holding a small bouquet to her chest, smiling with so much ease it almost bled into him. It would look domestic, pretty, sweet…

If he didn't know that living things were extremely powerful channeling tools, and that she could use them to drain the life right out of him with a few simple words.

"Scared of a couple of flowers?" she teased.

She made no moves to stop him while he dispelled the rune binding him to the ground, nor when he pushed himself to his feet. She had the upper hand and she knew it.

Not that he cared to back down. He sneered at her. “Not really. But I can't say that I’m all too fond of the idea of fighting both of you at once.”

She laughed, but there was no real humor there. “Then don’t force me to fight you.”

He tipped his head to the side, seemingly considering it, before humming and stepping around her. Brown eyes scanned the place as he walked around her tiny little abode but, really, he was watching her. Trying to gauge her reactions.

“So,” he said in a light tone. “Where is your Item? Is it a book? Or a sewing needle? That sounds like something you’d do, you seem to like sewing quite a lot, if you chose that to be your job.”

He grabbed a nearby set of knitting needles suddenly, but she didn’t do much more than raise an eyebrow at him.

And then she snorted and started forward.

“You want to play that game, huh? I mean, if you want to find my Item, then surely I’m allowed to have a little looksie for yours as well, right?” Her grin turned sharp. Her heels clicked loudly on the floor with every step she took in his direction, getting louder and louder, faster and faster as she advanced on him. “It’s got to be on you, right? I mean, you wouldn’t leave it out for the werewolves to find, and you aren’t set up in any of the houses in town yet, so it’s got to be in your bag somewhere… I’m sure that, if I just up and grabbed it I’d have it, and I don’t think you’d want me to own you, now, would you?”

She stepped into his personal space, leaning in and smiling in a way that could only ever be described as creepy.

“Don’t start fights you can’t win,” she warned. And, for just a second, she didn't look like an innocent little seamstress. Blue eyes swirled with something Wild, as if nature itself was contained within her tiny frame. Held at bay, but only just.

He grinned and brought a hand up to tap her on the nose.

She opened her mouth to curse (either at him, or to simply curse him), but her voice quickly died in her throat.

A tiny flower poked itself out of his palm, the roots curling around his finger.

She jerked back.

“I don’t.”

Her head spun on a swivel, jerking this way and that, searching for any hint of movement. She wasn’t going to be seen, she knew that, and if she was then it wouldn’t be that big of a deal because everyone that should know about this was a meta like her, and yet she couldn’t seem to relax.

Which was fair. After all, people like her had been turning up missing or dead for the past few months.

Hell, that was why she had shown up to this shady warehouse in the first place.

She eyed the building nervously. It wasn’t abandoned, that much was obvious. The roar of machines was almost deafening. It had probably been chosen because no one would be able to overhear their conversations.

Or they were being lured here to be murdered where no one would hear their screams.

She touched the mask on her face, checking that it wasn’t going to come off easily, and then – after a quick glance at her holopad to make sure she had gotten the address right – she slipped inside.

Machines whirred and steamed, heating up the air around her so much she started to wish she hadn’t opted for the varsity jacket. She ran her fingers over a pipe as she passed. Her fingers burned where she touched it. She didn’t mind.

She came upon The Door. She didn’t know it yet, but her life would be set upon a new path the moment she stepped through. This was the turning point. The moment where it all went wrong.

She didn’t know it yet, and yet… she bit her lip as she looked at it, quiet, hesitating. She could feel the weight of it all coming to rest on her shoulders, which she hiked up to her ears to try and bear it easier.

She… wasn’t sure she wanted to do this.

Hands in her jacket pockets, she pushed the door open with her side and stepped inside.

The room felt strange. Even if a normal person were there, they could have immediately pegged the fact that at least a few of the people in there were metas. Everyone was standing still, making idle chatter or scrolling through their holopads or eyeing up the other people in the room. It seemed calm. And, if there were only one of them, it would be. The way the air around them would shift around people like them was largely unnoticeable to any non-metas, but when there were this many of them? She could feel all of their auras slamming against each other, pushing, trying to earn their own space or hold the others at bay. Her own presence probably didn’t help.

Eight sets of eyes landed on her as the door slammed shut behind her. Or, at least, she was pretty sure of that, because some of the masks they were wearing hid their eyes. She could feel plenty of attention pressing down on her, though.

One stood in the middle of the room. He smiled at her. “That should be our last member,” he said, straightening to his full height. The man had already been taller than average, but now he almost towered over them all.

This effect was ruined by the fact that his outfit was atrocious, though. Santa Claus looking ass. Especially with the bit, white, fake beard he had opted for to hide his identity. Did he just have that on hand or did he go out actively looking for it? Which was worse?

He motioned for everyone to circle up in the middle of the room and, with varying degrees of reluctance, they all did so. The circle was a little wide, a little egg-shaped because she had opted to hang back some, but no one pointed this out. They, too, were eyeing the people next to them with obvious caution, clearly wondering whether they could get away with backing up as well.

“Now, I’m assuming we all know why we’re here,” the man in the center said, smiling brightly. He looked far too cheery for someone who was dealing with the fact that someone was targeting people like them. “Which means we should all get down to business, yeah?”

She raised her hand. “I want proof that everyone here is a meta.”

There was a murmur of assent.

The man raised an eyebrow at her. “Is the agreement to cloak our identities not enough?”

A tall boy wearing what appeared to be a mascot's head shook his head. By grabbing the cat-themed head and shaking it back and forth with his hands, as it was too big to do the motion normally. “No. What if they’re here?”

There was more assent. Louder this time. They were all risking at least some level of their anonymity by coming here, risking people seeing them and knowing. They deserved to know that everyone was safe, that everyone was like them, that no one would betray them.

The man sighed but nodded. He pressed a hand to his chest. “I’m – uh, I don’t know… Hawkmoth.”

There was a collective snicker, and all of the people in the room cast amused glances at each other, all of them wordlessly making fun of the man for his dumb choice of names.

Hawkmoth’s face reddened behind his Santa Claus-style beard and he was quick to try and distract them: “I can sense and manipulate emotions.”

His attempts proved successful. The smiles slid off their faces. The glances exchanged were now far warier.

“Uh, Mr. Hawkmoth, sir, aren’t you supposed to –,” a woman wearing what seemed to be a Party City dragon mask began to say.

And then she almost fell to her knees with the force of the fear that washed over her. She felt like she had been pushed under the waves. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything, could only hope to wait it out so she could swim up to the surface. But wave after wave crashed into her, buffeting her around, and she couldn’t breathe –.

The man walked closer, his smile gone.

Blue eyes peered down at her. Cold and scrutinizing.

“Your emotions are wrong,” he informed her. He knelt down to be close to eye level. She strangled the scream that rose in her throat. She needed to keep hold of that air. There was so little of it as it was. “Why is that?”

“Please,” she begged, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. She didn’t want to die. Not here. Hell, she was here because she didn’t want to die. Pleasepleaseplease –.

And then he let her go.

She threw her hands out in front of her to stop herself from instantly collapsing, but it was really only delaying the inevitable. Her arms trembled so much that she knew she would fall flat on her face soon enough. She was given a moment of silence to catch her breath. No one said a word, just watched on as she struggled to remember exactly how to inhale without coughing all of the air up halfway through.

“So?” the man prompted, and she could feel the beginning of it crawling back.

“Nowaitwait!” It slowed to a trickle, just barely prickling at her skin and making goosebumps rise on her arms. She swallowed thickly. “I just… it’s…” She took a shaky breath. “I can heal. I can heal myself. So I’m not as scared as I probably ‘should’ be. It’s hard to kill me, y’know?”

There was a beat as this was considered.

And then the fear washed away, leaving her sweating and panting on the floor. She hadn’t even realized she’d fallen the rest of the way.

“Your turn!” The man said brightly, his smile back in place. She wasn’t stupid enough to trust it, especially not after that stunt, but she nodded and decided to go along with it regardless. It wasn’t like she had any choice in the matter.

“I’m Ladybug…” she began, deciding to follow his example with the animal theme.

Hands still shaking, she pulled a plasma gun from her pocket. A small one, she could never fit one of the larger ones in her pockets, she wasn’t nearly rich enough to get a Capsule to shrink it… but a plasma gun, even a small one like this, was perfectly lethal regardless of the size. Every person in the room tensed, but she ignored them. She pressed a hand to the floor and then pointed her gun at it.

She took a deep, steadying breath. It did little to help the nerves eating away at her.

She pulled the trigger.

A tiny disk made of light sliced off her finger.

She didn’t even feel it. She stared at the blood spilling out of her, at the scorch mark on the floor and the blackened edges of her skin, at the finger that had been separated from her hand in a neat line that would have been impossible to see if she hadn’t flinched at the sound of the plasma gun fizzling out. Instead, her finger laid a half-inch from the rest of her hand.

She blinked once. Twice. It didn’t hurt. It would catch up to her, soon, though. The shock would wear off and she would start screaming.

Best if she didn’t let that happen.

She gritted her teeth and picked it up. Pressed it back to the wound. It wasn’t easy, the blood was trying to displace it. The skin at the edges was burned, blackened, and dead. They didn’t particularly want to mold to her will like they were supposed to, didn’t want to come back alive just for the sake of mitosis.

She forced her skin to heal around it. Her mouth went dry. There remained a tiny black band beneath her skin.

But it worked.

She looked up at him and used her newly attached finger to flip Hawkmoth the bird.

That earned a startled laugh from a guy wearing a bright yellow hoverbike helmet. At least he thought it was funny.

They continued going around the room without incident. People would list off their powers, and then give a short demonstration. There was someone who had an enhanced physique, someone with elemental control, teleportation, duplication, the ability to induce hallucinations…

It became abundantly clear as time went on that the only people present were the ones that were powerful enough to survive a direct attack.

No one wanted to wonder whether those were just the people that were confident enough to come to the meeting, or if this was all that was left.

And then… the second to last person, the one with the yellow motorbike helmet, stepped forward just slightly to greet them all:

“Hi! I’ll go by…” He gave a tiny shrug. “Uh. Cassandra.”

“... that’s a girl’s name,” someone pointed out. The one that duplicated themself. Poly, or something like that.

The boy gave another shrug. “It’s not like I’m going to be using the name for long.”

A chill crept into the room, and she wondered, idly, if Ryuuko was using her elemental powers to frost up the windows or something.

“I can see the future. It’s kinda hard to prove, but…” He cleared his throat nervously, his helmet tilting back as if he were looking skyward. “At least one of us will not be leaving here tonight.”

It went very still.

“We’re gonna die?!”

“Oh, you’d better be saying that one of us is sleeping here!”

“Shitshitshitshitshit –!”

“How far can you see into the future?” she asked.

A couple of people paused to send her Looks, their expressions a mix of pure disapproval and horror.

She gave an awkward little smile. At least most of the screaming had subsided, she had shocked it out of them.

Enough so that the last person, the boy with the cat head mask, could step up. Not literally, he stayed firmly in place, just barely leaning away from the circle, his hands in his hoodie pockets (probably clutching a weapon), with a kind of wariness that had only been proven correct by the apparent prophet’s prediction.

“Hi, I’m Chat Noir,” he said carefully. “I can do…”

He disappeared from view.

And that was when all hell broke loose.

Because there was a high whining sound and Hawkmoth’s eyes widened just before a hole tore itself through his torso.

Light flickered in the man’s eyes in the most literal sense before he crumpled in a heap.

It was silent for just a moment.

And then everyone leapt into action.

She stood among the chaos, her eyes wide as she stared at Hawkmoth’s prone form. Minute shivers ran up and down her spine. She knew she needed to move, but she didn’t. It wasn’t like a healer did too much good during a fight anyways.

As for everyone else… well, they weren’t faring too well, either. Fighting someone you couldn’t see was nigh impossible – and she suspected that was at least part of why Chat had gone for Hawkmoth, he couldn’t know if his ability to sense emotions would allow him to pinpoint him while he was invisible – and no one was particularly eager to try. They all just wanted to go. Rena Rouge disappeared in a puff of orange smoke. Pegasus dropped through a portal he created on the floor. Tigress was out the doors in seconds. Ryuuko used a blast of wind to jump onto a nearby machine in hopes of escaping that way. Polymouse split off into a bunch of avatars, allowing the real one to rush towards a nearby vent.

She took a hesitant step forward.

A hand reached out and locked around her wrist.

She looked up to find ‘Cassandra’. “Wha –?”

“You’re a healer, right?”

“How –?” She began, but he didn’t bother waiting for her to finish.

“Good. Come on,” he hissed, his expression impossible to see behind the visor of his helmet, and deciphering it was little more than a pipe dream, but she knew better than to disagree with someone this determined.

They used the fact that Chat Noir was, presumably, getting caught up dealing with Polymouse’s clones to escape, rushing out a nearby door. ‘Cassandra’ paused for just a second to pull a pipe free – the area it came from steamed and whistled in protest, a noxious-looking white gas spilling out – and then shoved it in front of the door to stop Chat from following them.

Marinette could only follow behind as he dragged her away. Out the door and into an alley.

It was here that she realized that, apparently, the helmet wasn’t for show.

She whistled lowly as he dragged her over to a hoverbike and started fumbling in his pockets for his keys. It was a nice model. Not new by any means, she could see quite a few scratches in the metal, but definitely tricked out.

He tugged at her arm insistently, and she grimaced before clambering on behind him.

Within seconds, they were gone.

They zipped about the city for a while. Aimless, it would seem. But, in reality, they were just trying to shake off an invisible tail.

Honestly, it was a little awkward. Neither of them could talk without screaming, everything else would be lost in the wind, so they simply went in silence. The only time the quiet was broken was so that she could relay her address to him, and that had taken all of two seconds.

He seemed kind of lost in thought, anyways, so she wasn’t sure whether he would have been the best conversation partner at the moment.

And, it really wasn’t that long of a trip to her house, so she didn’t mind too much.

He looked up at the location, and for a moment he was silent. And then he turned to look at her.

“You have an apartment?”

She gave a slight nod, not bothering to ask why he was so surprised. It wasn’t uncommon for people like them to be homeless, not when they were young. Whether because they got thrown out for being ‘freaks’ or because their parents tried to use them, they never seemed to last too long in their birth homes.

She wasn’t an exception.

“My dad was nice enough to adopt me.” Something soft crossed her face momentarily. “And my brother, but who cares about him?”

He gave a quiet laugh, but it sounded slightly forced.

She took that as her cue to slide off the bike.

She moved to walk into her apartment, to pretend that a large portion of this night hadn’t happened, but a hand clamped around her wrist again and she was forced to turn to look at him.

“I’ll contact you,” he told her.

She swallowed thickly. “Uh… okay, I’ll just give you my –.”

“I don’t need your number,” he said, waving her off absently. “Already have it.”

“How…?” She said, only to trail off when he tapped his finger to his head. “Right. Prophet.”

He nodded once. “I’ll call you later. It’s easier to deal with another meta if we all work together, right?”

“Of course, friendship is magic,” she deadpanned, rolling her eyes.

He gave a good-natured laugh. But it trailed off strangely, and she found herself shifting uncomfortably under his scrutiny.

His head tilted to the side just slightly. “You wanted to know how far into the future I can see.”

She nodded slightly, a blush rising to her cheeks as she looked at her feet. “I mean… yeah. I heard that the best way to get people to stop panicking was to shock them, so I decided to do something blatantly stupid. I don’t… like people being in distress. Makes me uncomfy.”

He hummed lightly, nodding his head in a way that seemed understanding.

“Do you still want to know?”

She gave a tiny, noncommittal shrug.

“As far as I want to. But, y’know, no matter what, my Vision always seems to stop sometime this year.”

She blinked at him. Did that mean…?

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

Marinette fought the urge to back up a step. She did, however, slide a hand into her pocket and grab her gun, her finger coming to rest over the trigger.

She didn’t care if trying to fight a prophet could only ever end terribly for her. From the tone of voice he was using, she suspected it wasn’t going to be something she could opt out of.

He chuckled a little, but it wasn’t nearly as warm as the other one had been. He lifted his hands in a mocking kind of surrender. “What? I’m not accusing you, I was just wondering if you could help. Y’know, with you being a healer and all.”

She glanced back, towards her apartment. And then turned back to him, their eyes meeting for just a second.

“Afraid I don’t know anything about healing metas’ powers. Not even sure if fixing malfunctions counts as healing.”

“Mm. Worth a shot, I guess.” He straightened again on his bike. “See you later.”

She nodded wordlessly.

She watched the pale blue glow of the bike disappear from sight, the colors still streaking in her vision a little, and then quietly head up into her apartment.

Her family wasn’t home, that much was obvious, so she didn’t bother calling out for them as she kicked her shoes off and headed into the living room. A couple of takeout boxes lay on the table, and she smiled as she picked up a box of fried rice. Her brother would be pissed once he realized she ate it all, therefore she would make sure to do so.

Her plan for the night set, she turned on the news and collapsed on the couch with her food.

Just over an hour later, the window slid open.

She didn’t even seem to notice as a person slipped inside, blood dripping down the front of his shirt, the fake fur of his mascot head matted.

And then the girl blinked once and looked over.

“Oh, Adrien, you’re back? Could you show yourself?”

There was a moment before he materialized out of thin air, his cheeks tinted pink as he tossed the cat head aside. “Sorry. Forgot.”

“It’s fine. How’d it go? The damn prophet made me leave, so I couldn’t help.”

He groaned a little, dropping onto the couch. “It’s fine. As long as he doesn’t know…” Marinette glanced away, but thankfully he was too tired to notice. He groaned again, louder this time, and stretched across her lap. “Whatever. Let me tell you, that Polymouse person is a bitch to fight. I’m not even sure if I actually killed her, or just her avatars...”

He continued to complain well into the night. She listened, her fingers just barely carding through his hair, her power just barely thrumming beneath her skin as she healed his bruises before they could fully form.

And the two of them were safe.

◎◎◎◎

A girl sat on a beam connecting two windows. The backpack she wore made her look even younger than she was, but even at the age of 16 no one would ever doubt that her family had enough money for her to work toward higher education. She was severely out of place in the dingy environment – her clothes were immaculately clean and her holopad was without cracks and her smile was just a little too bright for her to be anything other than a kept child. Her jacket was pooled around her, allowing her to bask in one of the few sunny days they will get this year. Her legs swung innocently as she typed away on the interface. The flowerpots on a balcony near her seemed to almost lean in her direction, as if she could provide them even more life than the sun would ever be able to.

She was the kind of person people just can’t seem to hate. The one who always seemed to know exactly what you need, when you need it. The person who can talk to anyone, who can immediately slip into a lighthearted banter with strangers that leaves them feeling warm and fuzzy inside hours later. The girl who loved life so much that it spilled over into everyone else, no matter how sad they are.

She was a liar.

◎◎◎◎

A boy trekked through the city, joining in on the foot traffic. He moved at a brisk pace. Not because he is in a hurry, but because that is what everyone else is doing. He had blond hair, green eyes, and a pleasant little smile gracing his features. His black sweater seemed to swamp him, leaving him looking thinner and smaller than he really was. His shadow stretched behind him, just a little too long, but no one ever looked at him long enough to see.

He was the kind of person that no one ever seemed to remember. The one who you swear you went to elementary school with, but his name never seemed to leave the tip of your tongue. The person who only ever seemed to be a face in the crowd. The boy who had his name misspelled in all of the yearbooks he was actually included in.

He, too, was a liar.

◎◎◎◎

An old man hobbled about a kitchen. His cane knocked on the wood with every step. The smell of garlic hung in the air. A tea kettle whistled for attention and he smiled as he slowly picked it up and set it on the table. Two screens hover near his head and, from time to time, he looked at them, watching the two people he lived with go about their days. And then he would go back to making dinner, back to tending to the steak he was frying up and the cookie dough that just didn’t seem to want to come together no matter how hard he tried.

He was the kind of person that seemed to radiate safety and love. The one who you run to for help when you notice someone following you. The person who always smiles at everyone, no matter how terrible they were to him. The old man who calls everyone sweetheart and honey and sweetie with that kind little smile that makes you relax instantly.

He, of course, was the biggest liar of them all.

◎◎◎◎

They were a family.