Merman (Miraculous Ladybug AU)

Prologue

It was a beautiful day, the sky to blue and the sun too bright for the occasion of the day. Her parents funeral. Marinette wished the weather matched her mood but it didn't. It was the exact opposite. The few wispy clouds that floated across the sky were not the ones that Marinette wished for. The weather was much too cheerful for a funeral. If only the weather matched her emotions, things might be slightly easier to grasp.

The people gathered around her mourned for the bakers that had provided bread and pastries for them for so long, but none of them knew the real Tom and Sabine, the people that only Marinette knew. The rest were only grieving their source of bread. Nothing more.

They were all so selfish.

The funeral ended and everyone started to leave, only Marinette remaining behind, standing alone next to the two headstones. When she was sure everyone was gone, she collapsed to the ground, the flood of tears she had been holding back washing down her face. She gripped her mother's headstone as she sobbed, her entire body shaking. "I'm so sorry, Mama, Papa. I wish I could have done something."

Marinette had apologised over and over after her parents had died, even when their bodies had been taken away and no one could hear her. Even as she scrubbed their blood from the tiles, she had apologised for not being there, though there was nothing she could have done.

An attacker had broken into their little bakery, probably a pirate raiding as many buildings as he could before returning to his ship with the plundered goods, but Tom and Sabine had been in the bakery at the time, and had paid dearly for it. The police were still hunting for their killer, but nothing had turned up yet, after there were witness reports of the man, still nothing. The ship carrying him was probably already out on the open waters.

Marinette rested her head against the cool stone, wishing for a better life where everything was still happy. Her mind was filled with images of a new world, somewhere she was loved and accepted. Not a city by the sea that was filled with memories that were so hard to remember.

Marinette dropped her head and cried again. Since she got home a few days ago and found her parents dead in the middle of the bakery everything was a blur. Even though she had already cried, there were floods of tears still inside her. Now she could finally let all her tears out. No one was around to see, no one around to judge.

"I'm going to make a new life for myself, and I'll do it for you. Both of you, because I love you both and I want to make you proud. Please don't be mad. I'm not forgetting you, just moving onwards in my life. I promise," Marinette vowed, knowing what she had to do. There was going to be no vengeance for her parents, but she would be happy again, no matter how long it took. For them.

As she walked home, she noticed an ad posted in a window. It was for a real estate agent. Maybe moving away was what she needed. A change in scenery might do her some good. Marinette pushed the door open and walked inside.

[C]|||

A week later and everything was either packed into her few bags, sent to a charity or sold off. She had received an offer for the bakery almost the moment she said she wanted to sell it, even with its recent tragic events. She was to be moved out no more than a week after the sale, and that was exactly what she did. Everything was clean and it was time to leave.

She had the money in her purse from the bakery and everything she owned and she could finally get away. She hadn't put too much thought into where she was going, but with the money she had she could definitely pay someone to get on their boat and move to a different country. Then she could find work there and build her life back up.

The trip to the docks was daunting. The carriage ride was long and bumpy, and when Marinette arrived at the docks themselves, there were people everywhere calling out to each other, shouting, screaming, and there was a constant hum of white noise in the background. Marinette pushed through the crowds towards the board holding the list of ships in port.