Summary:
Wang Fu hadn’t realized, hadn’t stopped to think for even a moment about the power of the miraculous. The power behind it. The power of destruction. A cataclysm. What it could do to a person, to their soul.
Marinette sits at her desk with the miracle box next to her. If her parents come in, it’ll look to them like she’s just working on another design project, because to everyone’s eyes but her own, the miracle box looks like a sewing machine. It’s ingenious, and Tikki promised to explain more about the magic behind it once they’ve gotten her more settled as the guardian.
First, the old tongue.
She grabs one of her many empty notebooks, ready to take notes, as one does when learning a new language, but Tikki tells her she doesn’t need it.
She’s confused at first, but then soon finds that when Tikki speaks in the old tongue, she can understand it. She knows what Tikki is saying, and is able to respond in kind if she focuses.
The old tongue feels like a rumble going through her with a tinge of magic and something timeless, something unknowable, and as she speaks it she realizes that it sounds and feels unlike any language she’s ever heard or spoken in her entire life.
Tikki smiles at Marinette’s excitement after she realizes she is able to respond in kind (and it’s so telling of what kind of person Marinette is that her first instinct was to respond back in the old tongue. Her first instinct was to try to respond to Tikki in kind, in Tikki’s native language, and she succeeded on her first try. The knowledge is intrinsic, yes, but it has taken many guardians at least 3 tries to get it right, to focus completely. It brings tears to her eyes if she thinks of it too long) and explains. “The old tongue is known by all the Kwami, and it is passed onto the guardian so they are able to communicate and connect with us. It’s intrinsic, the knowledge just appears, and disappears once guardianship is passed.”
“That’s amazing! It’s so cool that I could understand you, does it work with other languages? You guys probably know all of them already, but would I be able to know them too? Is there a way for me to have that knowledge? It would be so great to be able to talk with everyone in their native language as Ladybug, I think that’s something that’s really important to make people feel more comfortable and safe.”
Tikki sits on the desk silently as Marinette continues. The girl is rambling now, scribbling in her notebook all the languages she’s heard spoken around Paris, which ones are more common, and in what parts of the city, etc.
And the thing is, Tikki knows how good Marinette is. She created her soul. But having the evidence here in front of her is almost too much.
Here is Marinette, a physically small 15 year old girl, fresh out of the hospital after dying no less than 5 times in one night, and her first thought is of how she can help others. How she can do better. Be better. She is always striving for greatness, and she’s never satisfied, which grates on her because the world is so cruel and she is so kind.
She wouldn’t have had to be if Chat had been a true destruction soul. It would have never devolved into this. The chaos of destruction would have tempered the chaos of creation and all of this would never have happened.
The imbalance has taken a toll on Marinette’s body, in ways she never even realized or thought to disclose because she’s so used to handling everything herself, of holding the weight of the world on her shoulders, which was only exacerbated by Chat not being a true soul of destruction.
She doesn’t think she’ll ever get over this. She won’t forget that Wayzz didn’t know. That even Plagg didn’t know. That he couldn’t tell, which means that Fu had done something to either Adrien or the miraculous in order for Plagg not to be able to tell that Adrien was not a true destruction soul.
