Heart of Black

Broken Deals

Marinette sat at the end of a dock, legs dangling from the edge as she let the water occasionally hit her feet. The scenery here was beautiful, though one thing was bugging her. Just where was she?

Her head turned as she heard a loud call coming from a nearby house. She couldn't quite make out what it’d said, though it definitely did sound like a male. Letting her eyes wander, she spotted two other figures standing by the pond, as well. One of them was a small boy, while the other with blue hair was…her?

She watched them gleefully play around with rocks and chat. Their words all merged together, making them incoherent. Marinette bent down, trying to get a better look at the boy’s face, only to find that he was simply a black figure with no features. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. Was she dreaming?

The blonde boy suddenly stood after hearing his father’s call. “I have to go,” he told his friend apologetically. She frowned as he turned away.

“Wait!” she called. He shot her a curious glance. “What’s your name?”

“My name? That’s…” his voice became one jumbled mess of sounds. Marinette felt herself gaining consciousness.

She internally screamed in frustration. She wanted to hear it. Who was that boy? Just who was he?

-o-

Marinette awoke with a shock. Sitting up in her bed, she placed a hand over her chest and took deep breaths. She had another dream about that boy. They were really starting to get to her. She knew that she knew him from somewhere. Although Marinette could only vaguely recall extremely clouded moments of her childhood, she knew he was somewhere in those memories. But of what significance she was still unsure.

Shaking her head, the girl stood, deciding a nice shower would help clear her head. Luckily, she'd woken up early, so she had plenty of spare time before their bakery had to to opened.

Peeling off her clothes and stepping into the shower, Marinette let out a content sigh as the warm water hit her bare skin. She felt as if it were washing away all her worries down the drain. Especially after being so paranoid all night about that scary handsome demon  boy—whom she didn't even know the name of yet—coming to kill her in her sleep for not bringing him food.

She finished up, wrapping her petite figure in a towel, deciding that she’d get dressed and get a headstart on baking. Digging through her closet, Marinette found a long-sleeved beige sweater dress and slipped it on over a pair of shorts.

She tied up a pigtail for her signature look. Pleased with how it looked, she gave it a satisfied little tap before grabbing another red hair tie and bunching up the rest of her hair...

...But that's when shrill scream from outside caused Marinette to go on alert.

“FIRE! EVACUATE YOUR HOMES!”

She felt a rush of panic stab through her. Marinette dropped the hair tie, leaving only one half of her hair up, the other down. She rushed out of her room, before her parents ran out of theirs as well. Her mother comfortingly placed a hand on the small of her back, ushering her out.

They shoved their way outside, finding that most of the village was already there, frantically passing along buckets of water and splashing the fire that started. Marinette joined the line, looking at the severity and finding that it was quickly spreading. It appeared to start as a burning tree. How did that even catch on fire in the first place?

“Don’t just stand there! Help us!”

She grabbed a bucket of water another villager shoved into her arms. She lowered it, before quickly raising it and throwing the liquid at the source of the fire. Unfortunately, it did nothing. No matter the amount of water people doused it with, the fire persisted stubbornly, only going down of a few seconds before popping up, even more powerful than before.