#process ladybug

Here’s a short fic I wrote for it. Behold!—

Lady Luck sat beside the young heroine Miss Terra and watched fondly as her companion Mattagot entertained Miss Terra’s even younger companion heroes. Of course Lady Luck had put him up to it—She smiled as he chased the nearly identical fox and bee holders around the room, shouting threats with no bite to them as they giggled and ran. 

“He does have a way with children,” she mused, entertained as he continued to pretend outrage as the little Ladybug girl caught him with her yo-yo. He growled and turned to run after her, and the little girl gave a terrified yelp and darted off towards the far wall, towards safety. Sabine herself had always struggled with younger kids, finding she was more well adapted to the teen years—hence her own self-assignment.

Beside her, Miss Terra looked on, her face taught with worry. “It’s alright,” Lady Luck reassured her, “he won’t hurt them. He’s just playing with them.”

Still Miss Terra said nothing, continuing to observe the children with alert focus. Lady Luck sighed. “You know, Terra, the reason I got my partner to watch them is so you could take a break from watching them yourself.”

“Well, yes, I know. I appreciate it, I mean—it’s just that I know how difficult these kids can be to manage. Cat Man always likes to go off on his own, and he’s easy to lose track of if you don’t know where he is.”

Lady Luck glanced at the young cat hero, who was standing a little ways off, imitating every move that Mattagot made. Occasionally Mattagot would glance at the boy with a faint smile on his face, but never pay enough overt attention for the boy to realize that his antics were noticed by Matagot.

“And Buzzy Bee and Fuzzy Fox are tricksters,” Miss Terra continued. “They like to play pranks on people, and they get away with all kinds of mischief when I’m not looking.”

The twin heroes tried a coordinated sneak attack on Mattagot, who pretended not to notice them until the last second, then turned on them, shouting after them and sending them running off again, squealing with laughter. 

“And Princess Ladybug is so sensitive.” Miss Terra waved her hands, somewhat frantically. “She’s got this temper and hates it when things don’t go her way.”

“Sounds like you have a lot on your plate,” Lady Luck said, turning her attention fully on Miss Terra and away from the playing children. “The heroes I work with can be difficult in their own ways, but I guess I wouldn’t trade places with you.”

“I just feel like I’m doing this all wrong,” Miss Terra said, putting her face in her hands. “I’m not cut out for this job.”

Lady Luck glanced at the children again, noticing Princess Ladybug hanging back a little, not fully joining in the game. “None of us are cut out to raise children.”

“What--No! I’m not--what do you mean RAISING? That’s not what this--”

Lady Luck smiled, leaning back. “It’s alright. I’ve been there. Never had to teach four children at once, but I still know something about the difficulties you're going through. And there’s something you need to know.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, a few things. The first is that it’s worth it, even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard. It may not feel like it most days, but what you're doing is important, and some day they might see that too.”

A sort of frantic laugh escaped Miss Terra. “You're right, it doesn’t feel worth it most days.”

“The second thing you need to know,” Lady Luck said, placing a hand on Miss Terra’s shoulder, “Is that it’s okay to ask for help.”

“But I CAN’T. I mean, my miraculous is the only one that works for adults—for me, I mean. The others are all age locked. These kids are all the help I have!”

“And their support probably means everything to you,” Lady Luck noted, gazing fondly at the kids.

“It means the world,” Miss Terra said, and Lady Luck could hear the smile in her words without having to look. 

“Regardless, I didn’t mean superpowered help. My greatest support as Lady Luck, for example, is my Husband, and he doesn’t have a miraculous or powers at all. Well,” she amended, “other than being the best man in the whole world. But the point is, you can find help from the people you trust, the people who love you and who want you to succeed.”

“Oh. Um… yeah. Right.” Terra nodded nervously, staring fixedly ahead of her at the children as they played. A hint of a blush had crept into her ears, and Lady Luck smiled. No doubt she was thinking of her own special someone back home.

“And of course, the last thing you need to know,” Lady Luck said, watching Matagot jump-scare the little Ladybug girl again, “is that it’s okay to make mistakes.” The little ladybug girl fell over in fright, bumping her knee, and started crying loudly. “Mistakes are a part of being human, but it’s not our mistakes that matter.” She smiled as Matagot bent down and scooped the girl up and lifted her in the air, spinning with her with enough energy to be exciting while not being aggressive enough to frighten her again. The girl started laughing. Lady Luck looked at Miss Terra, who had also been watching Matagot as he played. “What matters,” Lady Luck said, “is what we do after we make mistakes. How we fix them.”

Miss Terra was smiling too, now. “Your right. He really is doing a great job.” Then her face fell. “Better than me, even.”

“He’s only playing with them now. But that’s beside the point—what you need to know is that you don’t have to be perfect.” She placed her hand on Miss Terra’s knee, and waited for the girl to meet her eyes. “You just need to be the best hero you can be. Be someone these kids can look up to.” She retracted her hand and smiled. “And there’s one more thing you need to know.”

“What’s that?” Miss Terra asked, her mask hardly doing anything to hide the sleepless puffiness of her eyes, or the premature crease that had lined the space between her eyebrows—all the evidence of a caretaker doing everything she could to take on a job too big for her to handle.

Lady Luck pulled her into a hug. “You're doing an amazing job. Miss Terra, you're a wonderful woman, and the world is a better place because of you.”

—

Tada! Another entry for @nionom-art’s MAW multi-fic crossover! Been a while since I’ve done one of these. There was too much to explore here to do my usual one page comic, so I wrote a short story instead. Hope you guys like it—it took a while to finish.