thenearshore | (no subject)

Entry tags:

suzaku kururugi | code geass

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Who: Marinette, Adrien, Snake, Shin, Dust, whoever else would be likely to be around Fortuna's temple/Bast's temple.
When: the entire month of December
Where: the area surrounding Fortuna's temple/what will later become the combined temples of Fortuna and Bast.
What: Stuff and things.

December had always been a happy time, at least for Marinette. But December here brought with it a handful of changes to her already topsy-turvy life that she hadn't seen coming. Adrien had become a god, Bast specifically, and his temple had popped up right next to hers.

She'd named a third shinki shortly after naming Snake, and wasn't quite sure how to feel about that just yet. At least he seemed to be settling in well enough.

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Moving into this temple sure had been an experience. Like night and day from his old one, and Dust was wondering if he could find a way to fit in.

His room looked close to unlived-in just because he didn't have many things, but a deeper look offered a little insight -- almost all of his possessions were souvenirs of some sort. A bundle of arcade tickets, a photo from the roller coaster in Capyba Land and a pair of the capybara ears for some bizarre reason, a few to-go menus scattered about...

When he was in the temple, he could be found there often enough -- or otherwise, exploring the grounds to find a spot he could use for a training area. He couldn't always go off to Bishamon's temple, after all, and he had a new student now.

Having heard Adrien's half of things, Celestia knew she really ought to check in on Marinette. And though at this point only duty and obligation compelled her to stir, those were powerful forces inside her indeed.

And thoughtfully, she sent a text ahead, advising Marinette she was on her way. Much less of a chance of running into Adrien that way, which would have been awkward when she was trying to tease information out of the other half of that trouble spot. Or possibly third?

It had been a few days since Suzaku had been reassigned as Kija's shinki, he hadn't taken Kotetsu with him at first as he had wanted to get to know his new god and check that having a kitten wouldn't be a problem.

Luckily it wasn't and so Suzaku was heading back over to Fortuna's temple to collect him. He could have just text Adrien but he wanted to thank Marinette properly for the kindness she had shown in letting him stay a few days and also to check she was alright. Adrien becoming a god was probably very strange for her.

He knocked on the door, a little more confidently than he had the first time he had come here.

The first day Dust had moved in Snake was following him around the house, staring. He would stop whenever he noticed Dust looking, at least trying to be polite. It takes a few hours, but Snake does finally actually approach Dust to speak. "'Do you ever feel awkward about your fur?' says Martin," making the ball python in his shirt suddenly turn to look up at snake. He almost winces, "'I don't mean that in a bad way,' says Ayn."

That's... quite a question to start a conversation out with. Dust hesitated a moment, between the question itself and the curious way it was asked, before deciding to skip the latter and handle just the former.

"Sometimes," Dust said. "There are times when I'm -- very, very aware that I'm the only person here like myself, and I feel isolated. But honestly... no one treats me different because of it. So there are times I forget myself."

Snake lets out a soft sigh, "So I'm not the only one." There's a brief pause before he adds, "Says Ayn." It was a relief in some ways to not be alone in that fear. "'Marinette and Adrien have been the kindest about it,' says Ayn," Snake says proudly. Welcome to the household of one of the best gods ever, at least in Snake's biased opinion.

The text wasn't a huge surprise, but she was still kind of dreading the conversation she assumed was coming. Marinette had been in the middle of making another batch of macarons when it had come in and she'd just put another tray into the oven, so the kitchen was where Celestia would likely find her. With that thought in mind, she went to put some tea on while she waited.

"Hello, Marinette." Celestia announced herself with that greeting as she paced in, looking at the young mare with gentle warmth and concern. "I hope I'm not interrupting."

With everything else that had happened, Marinette hadn't even been keeping track of how long Kotetsu had been with them. He was a good kitten and, aside from a brief stand off with Fleur over her part of the sofa, it was pretty easy to forget he was around.

She'd still made a point to show him a little extra attention because she didn't want him to be upset over being separated from Suzaku.

As it happened, she was sitting on the floor and playing with Kotetsu when there was a knock on the door. Adrien and Snake were elsewhere, and she hadn't really stopped them to ask where they were off to. So she just blinked and glanced over at the door. "It's open!" she called out, not really wanting to get up and leave Kotetsu long enough to answer it.

"Hi Celestia!" It was easy to be cheerful despite the way she was feeling, because she'd come to think of Celestia as a really good friend. And honestly, they didn't see enough of one another, so she was going to think of this as a good thing.

It was strange just entering but it had been Marinette's voice who had called him inside so he entered smiling as he saw Marinette playing with Kotetsu on the floor. He had definitely made the right choice in people to look after him, he seemed to be thriving.

"Hello lady Marinette, I'm sorry to disturb you." Maybe he should have called ahead after all.

"I think everyone here has been good about it, honestly. Maybe people are curious, but no one's acted like I'm weird or a freak. I have friends and people I trust, so... Mostly, I don't think it matters."

That wasn't entirely true. On the one hand, he did sometimes still feel apart from others, as he said. For the other, some things were still a burden that wouldn't be a problem if he were human. But on the majority... yeah. Everyone is good to him.

She'll take that as a no, even though it might possibly be a yes.

"How are you doing?" she asked, with just the right amount of inflection to make it clear that the question wasn't the shallow social kind. She actually wanted an answer.

"Don't worry, you're not interrupting," Marinette insisted, because she realized she hadn't actually answered her before. Oops~

That question gave her pause, though. Because on the one hand, she was generally okay. But on the other, she felt like it might be nice to actually be able to talk about how she felt with someone who wasn't so close to the situation.

"The short answer is not really?" Which probably made it sound a lot worse than it actually was, but such was life.

"Well, I'm glad for your honesty," Celestia said, smile still gentle. Unconsciously echoing Marinette's thoughts, she added, "I thought you might want a sympathetic ear, after everything I've heard."

Marinette was nothing, if not honest. Except with Adrien, it seemed. Part of that couldn't be helped before, and she honestly had no idea how she'd managed to go so long without accidentally telling him something she shouldn't. But she'd spent so much time having to keep things from him that it had pretty much become a habit. She was good at it, and she couldn't decide how to feel about that.

"I'm not sure what I want."

Celestia could understand that very well indeed.

"I will certainly not force you to talk about anything. But I do not think it would hurt." She wasn't a mother, of course, but she knew how to be a little motherly, and that was what she brought to bear -- a gentle and supportive presence.

She glanced up in time to see Suzaku making his way inside, and gave him a bright smile. "Kotetsu, look who it is!" The comment was mostly for Suzaku's benefit, because Kotetsu had already started to pounce his way over to Suzaku as soon as he'd heard his voice.

"Don't be silly, Suzaku! I promise you're not disturbing us. It's okay."

Snake nods, "I keep expecting it to upset someone," he admits. "I didn't know if it was just me, says Martin." He lets out a little sigh, glad that he's not alone in feeling out of place sometimes, even though he had no reason to have that fear since he arrived.

"if it does upset someone, that's on them, not you. We are who we are." That was the closest Dust had ever come to accepting his own personal nature, though he had a much better handle on his species.

"I know," Marinette told her. "I wasn't worried about you doing that. And I do want to tell someone." Just because she couldn't really say anything to Adrien or Snake didn't mean she didn't want to say something. "I guess I'm just... not sure where to start?"

"If it helps, I have already heard Adrien's side of the story -- that he was badly injured, possibly dead, only to come back as a god, and that in the course of that process he confessed feelings to both you and Snake."

How Marinette managed to get entangled in all this drama is beyond her.

That wasn't terribly surprising.

"See, we're from the same place. I had a crush on him back at home but I wasn't ever able to speak to him normally. But I only found out he was Chat Noir when we came here... because I watched him die. And I guess that made it easier to be around him?" Honestly, Marinette had no idea, but she wasn't questioning it.

"And obviously I couldn't tell him any of that because he didn't remember me, or anything, and I didn't want to accidentally say something that might turn him into an ayakashi. So I had to lie to him every single day, and I hated it." She realized what she probably sounded like, but once she'd started talking it was difficult to stop.

"I told him I liked someone from back home, which wasn't technically a lie but I still feel stupid for even saying anything at all. But I couldn't really say 'Oh, yea, I'm in love with you. Isn't that hilarious?' because then he'd think I'm a crazy person." By this point, she was pacing from one end of the room to the other, not really paying much attention to Celestia.

"And then I named Snake without really thinking about if things would get weird. And they didn't, but then they started liking each other... so I figured... whatever. I didn't have to say anything to Adrien. It would be fine!" Or something.

"But then he got hurt and told us that he loved us, and I don't even know if he died again or not. And now he's a god, and remembers everything and I don't know how to feel about any of it. So I've just been... not talking about it at all!"

There we go. Start her talking and it would all come out, as it needed to. Much like an infection, it needed to be lanced and drained.

Celestia listened to this speech with patient sympathy, and when it was finished, she gave Marinette a moment to breathe before she spoke.

"I don't blame you for not knowing how to feel. It must be very confusing to you. However, I must say one thing first."

She reached out with one foreleg, to gently rest it on Marinette's shoulder. The size difference between them was vast, though it would have been something still had she assumed a human form; now Celestia used her greater mass to add weight and gravity to her words.

"Absolve yourself of guilt for lying to him," she said. "It is all right to dislike having to do it, but do not blame yourself. You did the right thing for his sake, even though it felt terrible, and that is something commendable about you."

As much as she'd been avoiding talking about it, she supposed she did feel a little better after she'd finished. Maybe.

Marinette blinked and glanced over at Celestia as she spoke up, because honestly, she'd take whatever advice she could give her at this point.

"I'm just... tired," she said softly. This time last year, her biggest worry had been figuring out how to not act like a freak in front of Adrien and how to balance being Ladybug with being Marinette. Compared to this, it had been a cake walk. Tired of lying, tired of pretending everything was fine so the boys wouldn't worry, tired of being away from her parents and her home and a world in which things made sense.

So when she felt Celestia's leg on her shoulder, she released a breath and leaned into it. "If it was that simple, I'd have done it already. But I was lying to him before we got here," she protested. "Only I didn't know about it at the time." Maybe if she kept reminding herself of that, she wouldn't feel so bad about it. "I miss my maman..."

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The Dust Top-Level

Hunting Marinette

Visiting Marinette sometime between Intro log and event log

Curious fellow Shinki~

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