"I'm Back."

"You're... beautiful."

The Parisian evening was always when Marinette's creativity flowed best. She she stared at the mannequin in the centre of her work space looking at the old design. She observed the old design sketch she had fished out of one of her old binders before she got a graphics tablet. The faint noise of her little portable speaker filled the atmosphere with songs from her productivity playlist, the only other sound being the blunt taps of contact of her digital pen on the tablet screen.

Tikki watched the human work from a shelf, admiring the concentration that sat between the blue haired artist's brows weighing them down and scrunching them slightly. The blue light filtering glasses on her nose bridge reflecting the light from her tablet screen blocking from Tikki's any view of the other's eyes. It was peaceful. Something that really contributed to this peace was her decision to stay in her parents house to create this dress. She couldn't find it in her to go all the way to her studio when she has a smaller studio at home with all she needed.

Until Marinette shot up from her seat at her desk and walked towards the far wall of her bedroom towards the storage area where all her fabric was stored, all sorted by colour, fabric, and texture, a job that took several hours to do. Tikki could clearly recall how cumbersome the task was, but thanks to Alya, Nino and Luka it got done. The sound of quiet mumbling from Marinette could be heard as she went through each colour of fabric. The Kwami concluded Marinette already had an idea of the type of fabric she wanted to use as she only lingered around the Crepe fabric section.

"YES BLACK!" Tikki jumped slightly at the sudden exclamation letting out a yelp snapping Marinette out of her thoughts. "Ah. Sorry Tikki." She apologised walking towards her work bench with a large roll of black fabric placing it on her desk before grabbing her phone off her desk, "Computer. Set a reminder for tomorrow to buy lace after work." She spoke into the phone. A robotic reply confirming the completion of her request.

Whilst searching for the main fabric for her dress she realised that she needed to buy some lace to go with it. Marinette headed towards an empty mannequin dragging it next to the one with the old version of the design, starting to craft the form of the dress using the material she had already. She worked methodically, her pinning and stitching material together onto the mannequin, her messy bun coming more undone each time she removed the pencil that she stuck in there earlier. Zoned into her craft Marinette did not notice the notification ping from her phone on the desk.

"Marinette you got a notification." Tikki flew down nudging the woman's cheek pulling her out of the zone, bringing her attention to her phone screen. She walked towards her desk picking her phone up to check the notification. It was an email from work.

It was simply the official invite. "Alya really did good job with this invite." It was quite visually appealing, all important information listed clearly and concisely. The colour pattern on the invite was black and white with gold accents. This was on brand as the renowned Audrey Bourgeois was most know for using these colours as her main pallet. This was better emphasised by the Dress code description. It simply said. "Audrey." This caused Marinette smile as he dress she was making was inspired by an Audrey Bourgeois piece from one of her early collections.

How lucky.

"This means I don'y need to change my design!" Marinette said to Tikki happily, looking at the swami in relief. The light glow from her dim lights illuminated her eyes, the white shine reflected by her eyes turning yellow in an instant causing both their eyes to widen. Eyes darting to see the source of the sudden blinding yellow light. "What the heck was that." Marinette whispered eyes fixed on her skylight that lead to the roof. She couldn't help but feel a sensation of deja vu, why was this so familiar    ?

She quickly scampered up her ladder to find the source of the light opening the hatch to the roof before peaking her head up. There she was greeted with the sight of a large wolf about six feet tall in stature. It wasn't a normal wolf the body was defined by lightening, the lightening constricted within the lines that defined the creatures features bursting and crackling. Marinette could feel her hairs stand on edge due to the static in the air.

Suddenly the silhouette of lightening imploded in a flash, Marinette shielded her eyes due to the overwhelming    light in that moment, though it only lasted a millisecond. She slowly brought her arms down from her face, slowly opening her eyes.

The wolf still stood before her though its silhouette no longer defined by lightning, it had materialise. The stark white fur of the wolf shone in the night swishing is the breeze. Thought was really stood out to her was the hollow skull in place of a face. Dark hollow eye holes of the skull staring at her. Though despite it having no eyes she could feel its piercing gaze upon her. She could it observe her, taking in her expression keenly. The furry ears of the wolf twitched slightly and could no longer feel the wolf's gaze. She noticed that the kwami had disappeared from her side and now floated before her.

'When did Tikki get there?'

The wolf sat down its gaze stuck on the kwami. "Tikki." The voice of the wolf almost reverberated cut the silence. "Ylva." The kwami spoke floating upwards to come face to face with being. They both bowed their heads down at one another raising their heads respect in the atmosphere. The designer stared at the wolf mesmerised. She felt the being's eyeless gaze fall upon her again.

"Hello human." The unearthly feminine voice of the wolf bellowed. Usually Marinette would have being shitting her pants but something about 'Ylva' was comforting, yet unnerving. She couldn't quite put a finger on it. She couldn't help but feel drawn to Ylva not realising how close she'd gotten until she could feel the white fluffy fur of Ylva's chest under her fingertips.

"Hello." Marinette answered automatically.

She looked up the the wolf who looked down at her too head tilted to the side like you would expect a dog to. Marinette smiled bring her hand up running her hand down its neck petting it. Ylva watched amused by the human before her, her eyes narrowed as she searched Marinette's eyes for her soul, 'How amusing.'

"You're beautiful." Marinette cooed.

Ylva's eye widened, though that fact wasn't visible on her face.

'How curious.'

_____________________________________________________________<3

Marinette meets Ylva. How lovely.