A/N: Two of two tiny tryouts for @KandyKate 's zine. Enjoy.
Marinette was taking a few days off from everything. She had just bought a ticket for the train, and had packed some things, to then take a four hour train ride, and was now somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
She knew, she had landed in Germany, in an area they called 'Schwarzwald', but that was mainly all, she knew.
The young woman had somehow managed, to get a hotel room, though nobody here seemed to be able to understand at least a little French, and even her usually really good English, didn't help her very much. So either the people in the area were really stupid or really stubborn.
Anyway, after several attempts, she had gotten a small room for one person in a, what the Germans called it, 'Gasthof mit Fremdenzimmer'. (Inn and guest room or rather stranger's room)
Who needed so many words to describe the establishment? Because, the sign didn't just end there, it went on with things like: 'Zimmer zu vermieten' (room for rent), 'ganzjährig geöffnet' (opened throughout the year), 'Biergarten im Herbst und Winter geschlossen' (Biergarten closed in autumn and winter) and 'Mahlzeiten nicht im Preis pro Zimmer und Person inbegriffen'(prices per room and person do not include meals)
Marinette had been lucky, and met a teenage boy, who spoke a rather good English and even a little French, and he was coincidentally the son of the owners of that Inn. That had a funny name by the way. 'Zur glücklichen Kuhweide' (At the happy cow pasture)
But at least nobody knew her here. Here she wasn't Ladybug, here she wasn't the former girlfriend of the famous guitar player Luka Couffaine, and most of all, here she wasn't Gabriel Agreste's latest intern, his protegee, his rising star on the fashion horizon. Or as the yellow press used to call her: The homewrecker, the girl that had come between Adrien Agreste and his fiancee, Kagami Tsurugi.
Yes, Adrien had split up with Kagami, after he had found out, that she was Ladybug. But if Marinette hadn't had the guts and asked him out, he would probably still stutter around her, like she herself did for so many time.
And yes, she had broken up with Luka, because Adrien had admitted, that he had feelings for her, not only for Ladybug, but for Marinette too. She hadn't believed him, until he himself had revealed his identity in front of her, and had asked her, if he wouldn't like her as Marinette, then why would he have visited her as Chat for so many evenings and nights. Even when he was officially dating Kagami, he had spent at least our nights a week at her balcony, in her room or even down with her and her parents.
So it was no big thing, when they decided, to give their feelings a chance, let them bloom, instead of suppressing them. Marinette had been working for Gabriel for more than six months when they pronounced the news, but still, she was called a slut, a whore, she was the one who had slept not only with the model, but as well with the designer, to get that job, she was the reason, that the young Miss Tsurugi got akumatized for the now fifth time.
Yeah okay, she had taken part of the fault for that, but it was just as much Adrien's fault. Marinette had asked him to tell her the truth, to tell her, that they had feelings for each other long before he had even met the Japanese fencer, and she really thought, he had done so, when she called Kagami and tried to apologise, because she didn't want to ruin the friendship between them. When she now looked back, it wouldn't have gone any better, if she hadn't delivered the news of her actual break-up to the other woman. But maybe she wouldn't have been so hurt, if Adrien had at least mentioned anything before.
The akumatizations had increased as well. Even after Gabriel and Nathalie had given up the miraculous' and had returned them to Ladybug, who had been overrun by some remote controlled quadrocopter, and the one who was controlling that thing, had somehow taken the purple pin from her, while she was struggling to not crash into the ground after a thirty yards fall. Luckily she had been able, to save herself and the remaining miraculous' and make it into the safety of her home, before the attacker could do any more harm.
That was the night, when Chat Noir found out about her identity, because she had gotten hurt, and she didn't know, who else she might call.
Marinette sighed. She really hoped, that her boyfriend, and fiance, was able, to protect Paris on his own for a couple of days. She had left the earrings with Nathalie, just in case. Since both Villains had stopped doing evil, right after Gabriel Agreste had given in to his feelings for his assistant, Nathalie Sancoeur-Agreste was the one person. she trusted with that. And Adrien of course, but he couldn't be Chat Noir and Mister Bug at once.
Now all she wanted to do was sleeping, eating, hiking, and maybe, if she found something nearby, and was able to make them understand her needs, spent a day in a nice Spa, to get spoilt for just some hours.
Today she ha just left the 'Happy cow pasture' to take a long walk through the, so it seemed to her, never ending fields of dark green firs and spruces.
After about an hour taking this or that dirt road or small path, she walked over a tiny wooden bridge, rather a big board, that led above a creek. There was even a small place at the shore, where the grass had been trampled down, and a brown, muddy place showed, where somebody fetched water on a regular base.
To prove that, the bucket, a greyish-silver old fashioned tin bucket, was sitting next to that place, upside down, waiting for the next time to be used.
Marinette barely noticed all of that, when she walked by, deep within her own thoughts.
But only moments later, she saw a small wooden shack at the end of the path she was on. And then she noticed...
Smoke! Big clouds of smoke came out of an open window and covered the free place around the cabin in mist.
Marinette gasped.
"FIRE", she thought. "Something is burning! What if there is still somebody inside?"
And suddenly she remembers the bucket. And the creek.
As fast as she can, she runs back along the path, that led her here. Her foot trips over a loose root from a fir and she falls, head first into the mud.
A greyish-green, smelly mud.
She looks down on what she wiped of her face and can barely avoid to puke. Cowpat. And a fresh one. Yelling out a few not so ladylike words, the young woman suddenly remembers, why she was in such a hurry, and gets back on her feet, to fill that bucket with water, and extinguish that fire.
She quickly reaches her destination, and though she is really worried about any possible people in that shack, she at least throws three hands full of water into her face, to wash off the most of the dung.
Then she grabs the full bucket and runs back into the direction, she just came from, spilling at least a quarter of the wate on her way.
Finally she approaches the window. She covers her mouth with her sweater and gets as close as she dares to.
Then she lunges out and pours the water as far as she can through the open window inside of the cabin. The smoke immediately vanishes.
Instead a man appears in the window frame, shouting and sputtering, dripping with water.
In his hand he held the newest model of a powerful E-cigarette, and yelled at Marinette:
"Jo Herrschaftszeiten, sag mal Madle, hascht noch nie versucht, Rauch un' Dompf aus'nanderzuhalt'n. Bischt du denn wirklich so deppert?" (Well, for goodness sake, lassie, have't ya ever tried to differ between smoke and steam? You really that thick?)
Of course she didn't understand a single word, of all the things that man yelled at her. And she didn't have to. She had seen enough, to come to her own conclusion, and knew, she had instead of saving somebody from the fire, poured water over him, and probably even ruined his smoking thingy for good.
Typical Marinette. Whenever she tried to help, something had to go wrong. Why did she always have to be so clumsy?
No matter how many times people called her their everyday Ladybug, she would always be the one, tripping over a root, asking her crush or medicine against flatulence, soaking people with water or just standing with both feet in a cake, when she finds the courage, to give her crush a thank you kiss on the cheek.
Stupid, clumsy Marinette. Or as Adrien had said back then: "You're our everyday Ladybug, have a good evening, Super-Marinette!"