Chapter Text
Bridgette hadn’t seen Marinette coming. Literally. She’d been gone for two days and then she was right there. Marinette caught her right before she entered her room, the soft glow of the magic seashells lining the walls revealing her hurried sister swimming towards her.
“Are you busy tomorrow?”
She was. But she wasn’t too keen on telling that to Marinette. If she needed her, it was important, and she’d had enough disappointments from her family already. Bridgette already felt like one too anyway.
“I can make time for you,” she said instead, nodding once. Then, motioning for Marinette to follow, she entered her room. Touching the wall to her right with a gentle swipe, Bridgette followed the soft light glimmering to life in flourishes that brightened as they spread all around her room.
Tikki had worked much on the lights. The magic was old, but the witch loved playing with everything she knew, loved creating more useful things out of it. More beautiful too. She'd made them brighter, but gentler, she played with the colours, and the shapes, and the shadows. Then she’d made sure it worked on more than the algae that would inevitably die at some point. She took the magic and made it last.
Now, Bridgette’s room, much like the palace’s corridors, came alight with swirls of magic carefully embedded in the walls, in designs so eye-catching, Bridgette still found herself stopping to admire them even after twenty one years of swimming among them.
Light could change a thing completely.
“Are you… sure?” Marinette hesitated. “I know it’s late and really out of nowhere, but I could really use your help.”
Bridgette kept looking at the lights for a little white longer as she considered her schedule for an opportunity. She had a history lesson in the morning, and she had to visit Tikki after that; then there was a council meeting planned for the afternoon, and she still had some preparations she had to take care of. But she could make it work.
“Do you need me at a specific time?”
Marinette shook her head. “Not really. Just-” she paused, hands waving around trying to make a point of their own. “Whenever you have a window.”
“Is tomorrow evening ok?” That was certainly the biggest window.
“It’s about the marriage,” Marinette continued. Bridgette had expected that. “I’m still trying to find an alternative solution.” She wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
So she nodded, “I know, I’ve been thinking about it too.”
Marinette’s lips stretched into a smile so bright it rivalled Tikki’s work.
“So you want to help find another way?”
She hummed a confirmation and darted forward, arms outstretched for a hug. Her twin met her halfway, clutching her so tightly Bridgette couldn’t help but relax. She was making the right decision.
“Would you come on land with me? I really think we need an outsider’s perspective, and believe me, my friends usually have really great ideas. But they need a good insider’s perspective, and I don’t know half the stuff you do,” Marinette explained, almost in a single breath, and Bridgette couldn’t help a small frown.
Marinette misinterpreted it.
“I know you don’t really like going on land, I’m sorry!” she hurried to say. “But it’d be safer than having the conversation on the beach in open view. Or giving all of them tails.”
Face scrunched up in a grimace, Marinette seemed to be bracing herself for a no.
“Sure,” Bridgette said instead. “Will they come to your house?”
She was careful to school her expression, her tone measured so it came off as nonchalant enough. But Marinette must have sensed her slight anxiety. She’d never been further than her sister’s house and the strip of beach that led to it; she wasn’t particularly eager to see more. Marinette had been beyond excited when she’d told her years before about how she’d gone exploring the city alone for the first time and almost got lost, but to Bridgette that image seemed terrifying. Even though she knew Marinette would be there with her all the way, she wasn’t particularly eager to even risk going in too deep.
“Yes, yes, yes, they’ll probably be there already, so you won’t have to wait.”
“I’m excited to finally meet your friends, Marinette, it’s going to be ok,” she tried to reassure her, a genuine smile playing on her lips. “Do I finally get to meet your boyfriend too?”
There was definitely a spark in her eyes that hadn’t been there before.
“Yeah, he’s gonna be there. I’m happy you finally get to meet them, too.”
There wasn’t much to talk about after that. Marinette left for her room, and she was left to hers.
Bridgette wanted to help. She wished that spark in Marinette’s eyes stayed there for good, but she knew they didn’t have many options, let alone one that they liked.
But if there was one thing she’d learned preparing for a future as queen, it was that a situation could always be turned, one way or another. She only needed to spin a story that would encourage other people to believe in it enough to help turn it so.
But she had a pretty good idea where to start.
And, after all, she really was excited to meet Marinette’s human family.
Bridgette thrummed with a confused kind of excitement all day. She was definitely anxious - for the meeting, for the official visit, for the future in general - but the more she thought about it, the more excited she was to meet the three people Marinette was always talking about.
Every time she’d tried before, something had to get in the way.
At first, her friends hadn’t known about Marinette and her life. Then, someone was simply too busy for a visit - or for them to meet Bridgette. When she wasn’t studying, or visiting foreign kingdoms, or taking parts in official meetings she’d have to later dissect with her father and grandfather, Marinette was the one studying, or taking exams, or taking part in all kinds of projects that involved too many human things for Bridgette to completely understand. And when both were, somehow, free, her friends had something else going on in their life that kept them away.
The only time she could’ve truly met all of them had been Marinette’s graduation. But she’d been stuck in a prolonged visit at the English court.
She enjoyed her studies, she liked being a princess, but she barely had time to swim through her own city; above, she hadn’t been in far too long.
She cautiously peeked out of the water, her eyes only briefly settled on Marinette. She swam towards her, but took in her surroundings. Nothing had really changed from what she remembered, but it still felt new to her.
When she noticed her, Marinette sat up from her spot on the sand, and waved excitedly. Bridgette smiled. Even if the beach hadn’t been completely empty, Marinette would’ve been hard to miss.
When she got close enough to the shore, she put on the earrings she knew were identical to Marinette’s, but unlike with her sister, the transformation left her naked. On the few occasions she did visit Marinette, she made sure to return without clothes into the sea. That way, when she'd visit again, she wouldn't have to worry whether they fit her anymore or not.
The fluffy towel Marinette had ready for her was more than welcome, and the clothes she'd brought were comfortable and warm on her breeze-chilled skin.
The house wasn’t far, but the walk felt long to her inexperienced legs. Marinette didn’t say anything about her slow pace, though. She remained by her side and talked to her.
“Adrien, Alya and Nino are waiting for us in the living room,” she said as they finally reached her house. She could hear their voices the moment they opened the door, but when they got into the same room as them, everyone fell silent.
Except for Marinette.
“Bridgette, these are my friends, Adrien, Nino and Alya,” she told her, gesturing to each of them as she said their names. She continued as if they weren’t openly staring at her and Marinette. As if she wasn’t openly staring at Adrien herself. “Guys, this is Bridgette.”
She raised her hand awkwardly, eyes still fixed on her sister’s boyfriend.
The same blond hair and the same green eyes.
But his features were sharper than Félix’s, she noted. And he seemed lean rather than simply thin. His hair was longer too, messy and held back, out of his eyes, with colourful pins Bridgette could bet were Marinette’s; in his ears, she noticed light glint of black and silver piercings.
But what truly set him apart from Félix weren’t exactly the differences in appearance, but in the way he carried himself, in the way he let his emotions read on his face, in the way he simply let himself stare at her.
A coincidence, she told herself. An eerie, ironic coincidence.
She kept staring at him anyway.
He was the first to speak up, a cheerful note in his voice as he greeted her with a “Hi, Bridgette!” and an ever so slightly raised eyebrow. The cheerfulness didn’t leave his voice as he turned his eyes to her sister half a second later. “Marinette, why are there two of you?”
She turned to look at Marinette too.
“You never told them about me?!” she asked, very confused and a little hurt. The indignant expression that appeared on Marinette’s face instantly made her feel better though.
“I’m always talking about you!” she said, perplexed she’d even consider that option. “I always talk about Bridgette,” she repeated, looking at her friends with an even more indignant expression.
“But you never mentioned you were twins! Dude, there's literally two of you!” Nino pointed out, still looking surprised at the revelation.
They weren’t exactly identical. Marinette had a rounder face and bluer eyes, and now that they stood side by side, Bridgette’s slightly longer tail had become a slightly taller build.
In their mermaid form, the difference was far more striking. Their mother’s Chinese heritage shone through their tails, long and flowing in an elegant display of unicity and beauty everyone complimented them for. Although the general shape was the same for both - thin, with multiple large and flowy veil-like fins, their colours differed. Bridgette’s tail, mostly white, easily set her apart from Marinette, with her mostly black one. The faint streaks of each other’s colors and the dark-red they shared completed a memorable image, their parents would always say. But in the end, they liked to think, their scales were the same.
Marinette didn’t say anything for a second.
“Oh, really?” she asked, a lot quieter. Then, after another second- “Never?! I never mentioned it?! Not once?!”
She sounded so incredulous, Bridgette almost laughed. None of them said anything, but they shook their heads in unison.
“Huh. Well,” she shrugged, “I have a twin and her name is Bridgette, make her feel welcome or I’ll end all of you.”
This time, she couldn’t help but snort. It was a relief to know Marinette was a storm both in the water and on land.
“Nice to meet you,” she finally said, and was glad to see all of them smile welcomingly - and excitedly - at her.
“Hey, Bridgette, do you like human food?” Alya asked as she took a seat on the couch and Marinette sat down on the floor next to Adrien, on a fluffy-looking carpet.
She hesitated, trying to remember what she’d tried and what she’d liked during her last visit at Marinette’s. “I know I liked some stuff, but I don’t quite remember… what… it was...called?”
Her answer sounded more like a question and halfway through that she turned to look back at Marinette.
She hummed in consideration.
“The bread thing? Round?” she tried to continue, face scrunched up in a grimace of uncertainty. “And red? Ish?” she continued. “With… more stuff on it.”
They scared her when all of them said “pizza” at the same time. Then they started laughing.
“I see your sister is a woman of culture as well,” Adrien hummed, bumping shoulders with Marinette.
Although all of them seemed pretty relaxed, the air in the room shifted after a quick order was placed and they got down to business. She wouldn’t have needed Marinette to tell her that the whole situation weighed heavily on their minds; just being there and seeing the sheer worry in their eyes would’ve sufficed.
Marinette turned to her with a serious expression.
“I know you’ve tried to keep me as updated as possible every time you came back from an official visit there, but now it’s about more than just what Félix is like, and what they want, and what grandfather wants. Now we need to talk actual laws, actual loopholes we might find, and I don’t know nearly enough about that,” she said, and Bridgette nodded. She knew where her sister was coming from. And she knew she was probably holding off on the specific suggestion Bridgette had been bracing herself for. She knew what it would come down to since she’d seen the determined look on the king’s face as they returned from the English coastline, since she’d seen Marinette’s panicked look in the throne room, since she’d seen the way Adrien looked at her like she was the moon and he was the ocean worshipping her.
Still, she held the faintest gleam of hope that she’d missed something too. So she went over everything she knew. She went over everything she’d heard and talked about with Félix, over every advice she’d received about dealing with other kingdoms.
They listened intently. Alya interrupted her every so often to ask for even more details, her questions creating trail after trail they could follow, and Nino had a knack for spotting patterns along the way. That went perfectly with Marinette’s own knack for thinking outside the box and breaking patterns. But Adrien? He had a special talent for noticing the details in their potential plans that would lead to failure once too many people started going against them. And Bridgette hated that he was right every time.
In the end they were left with too many ideas about everything that wouldn’t work and too little energy to keep trying.
“I think we should stop for tonight,” Marinette said when Bridgette stifled a second yawn. “We’re all tired.”
Adrien and Marinette had shifted closer to one another until, at one point, he’d leaned into her and her head nestled into the crook of his neck. Their height difference was obvious in the comically large gap between their bodies that allowed them to stay like that and still be comfortable. Marinette’s hands were fiddling with one of Adrien’s, twisting a ring he was wearing and occasionally lacing their fingers together.
Bridgette couldn't imagine two people looking closer to one another than they did in that moment.
“When I talked with her last night, mom said they’ll probably be here tomorrow. Any news about that?” she continued, and Bridgette shook her head.
“No, no messengers yet to announce their arrival, but I don’t think they’ll come earlier than noon. At least,” she reassured Marinette. Her eyes were a little unfocused, but her fingers never stopped playing with Adrien’s ring. Her head moved in an almost imperceptible nod.
“I don’t want to miss their arrival. The earlier we can talk to Félix, the better.”
She stood up, stretching her legs. “It’s pretty late, I should leave,” she trailed off.
Marinette didn’t hesitate to move away from Adrien.
“You’re staying here tonight, then, right?” he asked, looking up at her.
At her affirmative hum, he stood up too. “I should come with you then. I don’t like letting you walk alone in the dark if I can help it.”
His brows were slightly furrowed with worry and Marinette raised herself on her tiptoes to peck his frown away. “Thank you,” she said, eyes lingering just a moment on his. Then, she turned to Alya and Nino.
“We won’t be long. Wanna come with us, wanna wait up…?”
They both shook their heads, Alya’s nose all scrunched up and Nino bringing a hand up to rub an eye.
“It’s past midnight,” he said, “I think we’ll go home too.”
They left together, parting ways at the entrance door. The walk to their transformation spot was spent doing small talk and getting lost in stray lights, though in the end they circled back to the topic weighing heaviest on their minds. In an attempt to lighten the mood as much as she could. Bridgette brought up her own surprise of the day.
“You know, you actually look a lot like Félix,” she told Adrien. With Marinette in the middle, she had to lean a bit forward to see him. The flashlight she held cast them in too dim a light, but it was enough for her to see him rapidly shaking his head, steps faltering for a second. And enough to see that he and Marinette threw her the same funny look.
“I swear,” she felt compelled to emphasize. “It’s mostly the hair and the eyes, but you’re both thin and tall, so that helps too.”
Marinette grimaced. “I… don’t know how to feel about that,” she confessed, then turned her head to Adrien only to see his growing smirk. He winked.
“Told you I’m your Prince Charming.”
Marinette gave him a light punch in the arm, but his expression brightened even more.
“Oh my god, he’s the prince and I’m the pauper! We can switch places and solve this mess in a second,” he laughed. Marinette’s next punch was anything but light. Which was good. Because they were too distracted with one another to notice Bridgette tensing or her smile slipping for a second.
“Don’t even joke about that, that’s not even an idea! We need to be serious about this,” Marinette scolded him, and before he could say anything, started walking ahead of them with a huff.
They did need to be serious. But that was an idea. Except it involved her and Marinette instead of Adrien and Félix, and Bridgette had been dreading the moment it was brought up.
It was right there, on the tip of her tongue. She could just say it once and for all and be done with the overthinking and the worry. But she didn’t.
Instead, she told herself once again that her grandfather was too set on his ideas to change the plans he’d insisted on making. And simply doing it without anyone knowing was just impossible; they needed magic to hide who they were. Which made it even riskier; she didn’t even want to imagine what would happen if someone uncovered their ruse.
Still, with guilt gnawing at her, she kept silent and walked faster to catch up with Marinette. She left behind the faint outline of an Adrien rubbing the arm Marinette had hit.
The delegation arrived an hour after the messenger did.
Bridgette could feel Marinette thrum with nervousness beside her as they watched the guardians followed by nobles, then the Queen, and the prince - all swimming inside the Throne Room in a procession as elegant and somber as it was small.
“You weren’t kidding, huh?” she whispered, almost inaudibly, “They really do look alike.”
Félix was the epitome of poise as he took his place by his mother’s side, tail tail waving just enough to keep him straight in front of the Northern French royal family. His eye caught Bridgette’s as the King delivered his welcoming speech.
It had been a long time since they visited their kingdom. Not since before they stopped pretending there was no hostility between them; before the negotiations began in earnest. Since before Félix was old enough to start participating.
Peace. Understanding. Contentedness, that’s what the King was preaching, hoping to foreshadow a pleasant ending to their discussions. They would reach an understanding. It was decided.
Félix’s face didn’t betray anything other than seriousness, but his gaze belied an unspoken voice of its own. And by the subtle, barely there smile on his mother’s lips, it had to do with her agenda for the visit.
Marinette had to be formally introduced to the royals and the nobles accompanying them, but Bridgette made sure not to leave her alone. At least as long as she could.
Queen Amelie and Félix were intimidating, but Marinette held her head high and didn’t betray her nervousness to them. Her tail didn’t swish in agitation, her hands didn’t fidget. Her voice remained steady as she responded to the Queen’s inquiries. Her smile even seemed sincere, but to Bridgette, it was clear Marinette was deeply uncomfortable with the tenseness and the thinly veiled condescendence.
They were both all too aware that everyone was taking Marinette in and analyzing her like she was the piece easiest to win in a game they were close to beating anyway. She was an interesting target they needed to form an opinion on quickly and efficiently.
They’d anticipated she’d be the center of interest, but only after the start of the final discussions. It hadn’t been supposed to happen until after their grandfather proposed the idea of an union between their kingdoms.
The early interest made Bridgette suspect she knew what Félix wanted to talk to them about.
But they knew what the ideal puppet bride looked like, and neither of them could even try to fit that set of expectations. Bridgette was known to have firm opinions and a voice that carried far, but they would learn soon enough she and Marinette weren’t any different in that respect. Marinette especially, had a certain kind of exuberance that made her as unpredictable as she was interesting.
And Marinette’s exuberance shone brightest when she was determined.
So the easiest way to take their esteemed guests aback, they’d agreed, was by being as much of themselves as they could.
But Bridgette still needed a way to learn more inside information. The more she thought about it, the more confident she was that their grandfather had already made his proposal known to the Queen.
She needed to get Félix alone.
Her mother practically handed her the perfect opportunity on a silver platter.
She came as they were entertaining a pair of lesser nobles, their smiles polite, but their interests shallow and vain. Her gentle hand rested on Bridgette’s shoulder as she told her she should accompany Félix and give him a proper tour of the royal gardens. So leaving her with Marinette, she swam towards the prince.
He was beside the Queen, with her grandparents and father, but it was clear he wasn’t paying much attention to whatever was being discussed. Instead, she saw his eyes subtly take in the room and the guests, ever so often fixing on someone and following their moves.
He spotted her before she was even close. The idea of presenting him the gardens and a small part of the castle was received with as much enthusiasm as expected from a couple of royals that needed to constantly impose respect.
They didn’t converse much as they swam through the halls and towards the garden. Their guardians were far too close to say anything other than generic things about the history of the castle and the magic that kept it safe and comfortable. But when they arrived , the guards were content to watch from a distance, allowing them the freedom to explore the collection of anemones, and corals, and algae, grouped in mini-ecosystems sustained with magic.
It was just enough to talk unheard.
“Mother is planning to secure a wedding,” Félix started, blunt and straight to the point. She spied him from the corner of her eye, turning her head just enough to see him frowning as he looked straight ahead.
“What a coincidence,” she settled on. “How much did she tell you?”
They stopped in front of a particularly eye-catching bundle of corals, the water around them warmer with the magic Tikki’d cast to keep them alive. To anyone watching from afar they were just two young people admiring their beauty and the fish swimming around.
“Just enough to brace myself for this visit. We discussed this matter exactly twice and both times it’s been made clear who I’d marry and how benefic it’d be,” he almost spat out. “But I noticed an increased number of messengers coming from your kingdom in the past months. I bet they have most of the details figured out already.”
Bridgette didn’t want to let her shoulders drop at the news. She’d suspected this. She’d expected this. But it was still worse than what she’d thought.
“They’ve been planning this together.”
She saw him turning his head towards her and she met his eyes. His expression was somehow even graver than in the throne room.
“When did they tell you?”
She let out a bitter laugh. “A couple of days ago. A marriage had been brought up, but it was supposed to be a last resort. My parents always opposed the idea. We always opposed the idea!”
“But none of you have the crown yet.”
They fell quiet as they resumed swimming. Bridgette stopped again and stretched her arm to the side, playing with tall strings of dark-green algae, coiling and uncoiling them around her fingers.
“Months? They’ve been toying with this idea for months?!” she finally said again, a bitter kind of incredulity in her voice.
His nod was hesitant, but had a crushing effect nonetheless.
“I doubt your mother knows, but Marinette has absolutely no intention of marrying anyone but her boyfriend.”
That seemed to take him slightly aback.
“She’s in a relationship?” he asked, a bit of surprise seeping in his tone.
“Yes, because our family has always found it important that we marry for love, not duty,” she said again, wanting Félix to understand it wasn’t Marinette’s fault.
He hummed thoughtfully. “At least mother has always made it clear I’d marry someone who’d be beneficial to us.”
At least his mom had been honest. At least he was judging their family, not Marinette.
“We’ve been trying to think of ways to stop this from happening,” she told him, trying to stuff the hurt away in a corner of her mind she wouldn’t have to look at again until much later.
“Any good ideas?”
She hesitated.
“Not exactly. None of our laws prohibit a marriage out of duty, not even those in my mother’s kingdom. I tried to look into it, but nothing other than making your mother back down would work.”
He didn’t say anything, just hummed, but she felt the question he didn’t ask, and that, combined with the guilt that’d been eating at her for too long, made her continue. She wondered if he would understand.
“Or I could just take Marinette's place.”
“But you don’t want that either,” he guessed. He said it like a fact, a simple observation.
“I don’t want you to think it’s because of you,” she hurried to explain, turning her head to him a little too fast. She hoped the guards hadn’t noticed. To her surprise, he laughed.
“We’re not even together and you’re already giving me the ‘it’s me, not you’ speech,” he managed after a couple of seconds, seemingly sincerely amused. A smile did wonders to his face, she’d known that, but it was still nice to see him more at ease. It didn’t happen often, but it was nice to know she could make him smile like that.
She couldn’t help but smile herself, giving him a nudge.
“That’s because I just don’t like having decisions taken away from me. I actually consider you a good friend,” she explained. “I don’t want you to think I don’t like you or anything like that.”
“That’s good because I think of you as a good friend too.”
They hadn’t had that many opportunities to talk. There’d been few visits, and far in-between. But every time they met, they could understand each other. At first they’d only talked about their lessons and responsibilities - two teens caught in a fight they didn’t want to participate in but had to. But a visit, two, three, and all the talk in the counsel room felt enough - too much - to bring up again when they had a moment to breathe. So they found other things to talk about - their kingdoms, their castles, their passions. The few friends they’d managed to make.
He knew everything about Bridgette’s poor attempts at magic, and she knew how he’d started getting better at it as his mother insisted more and more that he had to. He knew about how much she loved to make mosaics from shards of glass and shells she found around, and she knew he quite enjoyed his science lessons too. They knew little things about each other, but every visit to his kingdom was made a little more enjoyable by the time they managed to spend together and learn more.
And it mattered just as much to both, it seemed.
And prompted her to finally take action in some way.
“But there is a choice we can make. If you want to, of course.”
He looked at her with a raised eyebrow, head slightly tilted to the side.
“Would you go on a date with me?”
“I thought you just said you don’t want to marry me…?” he asked, taken aback.
“I said I don’t want to have to marry you. But I would not be… opposed to going on a date. If you want to. You don’t have to.”
She felt a little shy. It wasn’t quite traditional in any way; it wasn’t exactly a romantic confession, but it wasn’t quite an arranged marriage either. She didn’t even know if she liked him romantically, but she knew she liked him enough as a friend to see the possibility of a romance. And she knew that they’d need much more than a couple of days spent together once or twice a year.
In the couple of seconds she waited for his response, she watched his face go from pale to a surprisingly bright red. Which was a pretty encouraging response in itself.
He tried to say something, but had to clear his throat first. “I would really like to go on a date with you, yeah,” he smiled, and she felt it was more than duty speaking. She liked how that particular thought made her feel.
“Cool, that’s cool,” she nodded, her lips stretching into a smile of her own. “Tomorrow?”
“Before the meeting?”
"Yes," she started, but stopped abruptly. "No, wait. Might be hard to sneak you out then. And it’d probably be good to talk with Mari before the meeting too. She'll probably go on land after the festivities today."
"We can work with that. Tonight? Think you can sneak me out tonight?" he grinned at her, eyes gleaming with a mischievousness she hadn't seen since they were 19 and he took her to swim with the dolphins. She’d seen dolphins before, but never really swam with them. It’d been the most fun she’d had with him.
She grinned right back. "We can work with that."
“Cool, cool, cool,” he repeated, uncharacteristically flustered. “So… where are you taking me?” he finally asked as they kept swimming, the reef and the forest of algae fading into anemones.
She didn’t respond immediately. At night they couldn’t quite repeat the dolphins experience, but she remembered certain trips with Tikki that made for quite the exciting date. And with another trip to Tikki, she could easily recreate it.
“I have an idea,” she started, then let herself smirk at his expression, his eyes sparkling with barely refrained curiosity. “But I’m not telling you.”
He opened his mouth to say something in response, but got startled by something behind her. And yelped.
Bridgette turned around so fast she got whiplash. Especially when she figured the culprits were a bunch of clownfish poking their heads out of some waving anemones. She started laughing so hard she felt herself turn as red as he was.
“They’re just fish!” she told him between guffaws and he crossed his arms, too proud to admit he got scared by the cutest little things.
“They’re just fish that should absolutely not exist here!”
“Well, they very much exist,” she beamed at him, crossing her own arms. She could burst with pride for Tikki. “Our witch did a pretty good job of taking care of their home, didn’t she?”
He came closer to her and leaned as close as he could without getting stung. A clownfish got out of his hiding place and swam right in front of his nose. From where she stood, on the side, Bridgette could see his eyes crossing as he watched it, a display cute enough to make her giggle.
He took that as his cue to straighten back up and make himself look presentable again. The blush he still sported and his still quite awed expression made that pretty impossible, but Bridgette wasn’t all that eager to point it out.
When they returned to the throne room, it didn’t take her long to find Marinette, a different pair of nobles in front of her, but the same polite smile on her lips and carefully controlled fire in her eyes.
She had the faint impression it didn’t quite matter what Marinette said anymore. All they saw was just a princess anyway.
And princesses either took a crown for themselves, or obeyed one.
The guard at Félix’s door wasn’t much work. For Félix. She wouldn’t have been able to pull that spell if she were in front of him, let alone through a door like he did. But Félix made good use of the sleeping spell Tikki got Bridgette and Bridgette sneaked to him at dinner.
When she got to his room, stuffy bag slung over a shoulder and lamp with glowing shells in hand, he was already there, looking over his sleeping guard, a pensive expression on his face. The hall’s yellow lights made the water feel warmer than it was.
“You’d say they’d be more prepared for magical attacks,” he said when he saw her and she couldn’t help but snort.
“Or maybe you’re just that good.”
He rolled his eyes good-naturedly and swam to her side. “Good thing no one’s planning to kidnap me tonight.”
“Here goes my evil plan,” she sighed, playing his game. Then she grinned, eyeing him without fully turning her head, “Although, I am taking you outside the city.”
He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “You are?”
She hummed in response, feeling the smugness seep through. She hoped her idea worked.
The city glowed with multicolored lights under them as they swam, a spectacle that never failed to leave her breathless. But the real thrill came when they’d finally swam far enough for Tikki’s protective magic to kick in. The sudden darkness took Félix by surprise and Bridgette couldn’t help but laugh.
“I expected that.”
“You absolutely did not.”
Félix huffed. “I did expect that, I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon.”
The light in her hand was strong enough for her to be able to see his expression clearly, even though the world around them was a world of darkness. And the sight of him pouting did nothing but fuel Bridgette’s amusement.
“Come on, grumpy boy, we have a bit of a swim ahead.”
“I suddenly don’t think this idea is good anymore,” he stated, a note of hesitancy in his voice.
“Are you scared,” she teased, turning to him and swimming backwards. With the light trapped between them, the water was even darker.
“I am just very realistic, how will we find our way back?”
She debated over teasing him more or reassuring him, but in the end, she decided his concerns were valid. Worrying him was of no help to either of them. So she turned to rummage briefly through her bag and brought out another one of Tikki’s gifts.
“Magic compass,” she told him, hand stretched forward and compass proudly displayed on it. “Always points home.”
However subtle he’d probably tried to be, she still heard the breath he let out in relief, not quite a sigh, but not quite as natural as a normal breath either.
“Where are we going, though,” he changed tactics, and she laughed again, taking the compass from him and putting it back. She didn’t tell him until a quarter of an hour and a lot of small talk later. When they almost collided with the object of their visit.
She took great delight in Félix’s screech at the sight of the giant jellyfish.
“That thing is as big as me,” he turned to her, an expression so betrayed and alarmed on his face she wondered what scared him more - the sheer size of the jellyfish, or the fact that it passed right in front of them with no care in the world.
“I know,” she beamed at him. “We’re lucky we didn’t have to go further, we found them fast.”
His expression was just as gobsmacked.
“Believe me,” she insisted, “It’ll be fun, it’s an entire smack of them. Not all of them are this big, but this is one of my favourites and it just so happens that around this place they find their favourite food.”
She handed him the lamp and started rummaging through her bag. A couple of seconds later she turned to him again, a thin, little stone plaque in hand.
“I’ll need your magic for a bit though,” she said, feeling a bit sheepish.
“I… am scared of what you have in mind.” But he wasn’t as hesitant as she’d expected. He almost looked curious as he gave her back the lamp and took the plaque from her, eyes scanning the spell written on it by Tikki earlier that day.
“Your royal witch gave you this?” he asked, eyes only briefly leaving the spell to look at her.
“Yep,” she confirmed, eager to praise Tikki some more. “She’s been playing with this for a really long while, but the last time I saw her use it, it was magnificent.”
“It seems pretty complex,” he hummed. “Is this part of a hiding spell too,” he asked, pointing to a certain bit of the spell. Bridgette nodded vigorously.
“Yes! She figured it would look best at night, but we don’t want any stray boat to see anything suspicious. We’re in a pretty shallow area right now.”
“That makes sense. Ok, let me just…” he trailed off, raising his eyes from the plaque and looking at the void around them. Every now and then, a jellyfish would enter their circle of light or would be seen gleaming just outside of it. His eyes lingered on another particularly big one before he shook his head and looked at the spell again.
The first few words came out hesitant, as if he was trying them out, but the further in he got, the more confident he began. Bridgette felt herself vibe with excitement as he neared the end, and he seemed just as curious to see exactly what the spell would do.
She suspected he had a faint idea already. If he recognized the hiding part of the spell, he must’ve recognized the other main part too.
The moment he said the last world, he raised his eyes to look around. The confusion was visible on his face when, for the first couple of seconds, nothing happened.
Then, one by one, the jellyfish around them started thrumming with light, at first faint, hesitant, then flickering with more and more confidence. Much like the way he’d said the spell.
Instead of watching the spectacle of lights coming alive, she looked at him. He seemed enthralled by everything that happened around them, his eyes sparkling with the reflected lights of tens of jellyfish decorating the water like shooting stars, their tentacles trailing behind them in a show of flickering light in different nuances of a same color. His eyes came alight with tones of green, and blue, and purple, with warm flickers of yellow and orange, with fiery bursts of red and pink.
When she finally took his eyes off him, the world around them had metamorphosed into a dream landscape. The glow of the jellyfish spread far into the sea, equally mesmerizing on the sand beneath, the water around, and the waves above. Their shimmering bodies reflected bits of colors from around them and the whole spectacle of lights mingled with the faint traces of the moon’s own white light coming from above.
The giant jellyfish that’d startled him was of a comically neon kind of pink. Looking at it - thinking about it, made her giggle as she came to his side and scanned the spell.
“Now say it again, but replace this world with what’s written in the left bottom corner,” she told him, pointing at a word towards the beginning of the spell and momentarily distracting him from the jellyfish. He raised an eyebrow at her, eyes sparkling with more than just the lights around them. His smile was infectious, but she couldn’t tell if she’d got it from him or the other way round.
This time there was no hesitancy in his voice as he did what she’d told him to. The bottom of the ocean came alive much like the jellyfish, anemones and algae glowing in a spectacle of their own. Their waving forms gave the impression of a dance beneath them, the rocks some were attached to now looked like walls encrusted with jewels.
He turned to her with an awed expression on his face. She debated over telling him that he was the one to actually do all the magic or just go with it.
In the end she did neither.
“There’s another little trick you can do later. For the aesthetic,” she winked and hurried to leave her bag beside a certain rock she’d spotted since the spell started to work its magic. Then, swimming just as fast back to him, she grabbed his hand and pulled.
“Come on!” she laughed, looking back at him for a second. She was swimming through them like they were obstacles and they were in a race. “The spell won’t last more than an hour, let’s make the most of it!”
It soon became a game. He chased her, and she chased him, and the only thing they caught was fits of laughter and occasional stings that tickled more than anything else. It was truly a blessing, being immune to most of the sea’s dangers. And it could provide moments of fun like that.
When they got too tired, she caught his hand in hers and led him beside the rock where her bag waited. There wasn’t anything truly spectacular about it, but it was just a little less flooded with light - just enough to be comfortable as a picnic spot.
“What are we doing?” he asked, touching the uncharacteristically soothing neon seaweed that framed the chosen rock. Bridgette noticed she was the first to let go of his hands.
“We’re taking a midnight snack,” she chirped, taking off her bag and putting it down beside the rock. She hadn’t taken much with her, it was really just a snack. She had three small boxes with all kinds of tasty things she could get from the kitchen right after dinner. She’d told the cook she had been too busy talking at the table to eat enough. The old woman saw through her lie, but only raised an eyebrow at her and left her to pack and arrange neatly more food than she could possibly eat alone anyway.
Now, she got those out of her bag and couldn’t help but laugh as she looked at them.
“The purple light really doesn’t make these look flattering, does it? I swear they’re as delicious as they were at dinner, though.”
Félix sat down and looked at them. Bringing a finger to his chin, he hummed in consideration.
“Yes, yes, I see them in an entirely new light now,” he said after a moment.
Bridgette laughed so hard she almost hit her head against the rock. When she looked at Félix again, she met his sparkling eyes and her laughter faded into giggles.
“You still have the plaque right?” she asked and he nodded, stretching his hand to give it to her.
“No, no, no,” she shook her head. “Turn it around and say that.”
“What more surprises can you possibly have for tonight?”
“That’s the last one, I promise.”
As he said the couple of words scratched on the other side of the plaque, the light above them began to change. Soon enough, all the jellyfish floating around glowed in warm, yellow and orange tones, and Bridgette sighed, leaning against the rock behind her and looking up at them. While the sand and the rocks were still aglow in different colors from the algae and the anemones, the atmosphere shifted to a much more cozy one. It made Bridgette feel comfortable.
“Now we have a picnic under the stars,” she preened, revelling in her smugness. She loved the atmosphere, she loved the lighting and the way it shifted with the water and the jellyfish and the movement of the anemones.
“This is really amazing, Bridgette,” Félix said after a moment, and turning her head to him, she saw that his head was tilted upwards and that there was a soft smile playing on his lips. He caught her watching from the corner of his eyes, and shifting just slightly, the sole object of his attention was now her. His smile turned, somehow, even softer. Then he opened his mouth.
“We have our own full moon too,” he sighed, so realistically Bridgette just lost it. The now-yellow giant jellyfish waved her tentacles somewhere above without a care in the world.
For a while, they ate accompanied by each other’s stories of home, and games, and life. A comfortable sort of talk, relaxing, fun.
She took great pride in almost making him choke once with a joke he hadn’t expected.
She’d never seen him laugh so much. And with every pun he came up with, and every little story he recounted, she wondered more why he only ever let glimpses of that side of him show through, but never the whole picture.
Although she had the feeling, she’d only just made him trust her enough to be fully relaxed around her.
Somehow, she took even greater pride in that.
“I’m really enjoying this date,” she said at some point, holding his gaze with confidence. There was no trace of hesitation or doubt in his eyes as he answered her.
“Me too, I really hope you’ll want to do this again.”
She beamed at him, but his face soured and he groaned, tail lashing once at the sand in what she could only think of as frustration.
“My mom will be beyond angry,” he said, and Bridgette understood quite well his change of mood.
She frowned and looked at her lap. The black scales that glittered brighter in the colorful light than the white and red ones, color streaking them and making them stand out.
“I’m sorry I didn't say anything earlier. I knew marriage was getting more likely by the year, I shouldn’t have let them dump everything on Marinette.”
“Hey,” he started, his tone gentle and as warm as the light above them. “You and Marinette are roughly in the same position, and if anything, it’s understandable that they thought she’d be better suited for the role.”
She rolled her eyes.
“It’s not a talent to stay and study. A few years of preparations with father and grandfather and she would’ve been just as prepared as me for the role of future queen. There was no hurry in this respect. She would’ve had to spend a lot less time on land, but less is better than none.”
Félix didn’t interrupt her, but when she finished, he shook his head.
“That too,” he said. “But that’s not what I meant and we both know what it is.”
They did, but it didn’t feel quite right to accuse her date’s mother of wanting a puppet to control and not picking the queen-in-training for the role.
He saved her the pain and said it himself.
“You have been too active a part in everything related to leading a kingdom and solving problems. Marinette is smart and creative, but it’s not exactly a secret that she’s been spending most of her time on land. Especially since it’s one of the points on why your royal witch’s spell is such a revolutionary experiment.”
She nodded. It wasn’t a secret indeed.
“You would come into our kingdom and be the next queen. Marinette would come and be the princess. I bet my mom thinks she could shut her up and reap the benefits of the union with no real consequences. And I’m not saying Marinette is not a force to be reckoned with,” he amended, noticing her prepare to intervene. With a finger up signaling he wasn’t quite done yet, he continued, “We’ve both seen her today facing everyone like a true royal, but you have to admit she doesn’t have your practice with all of this. Plus, it makes sense from your point of view too, I’ve been thinking about it. If Marinette does a better job of facing off my mom in our Kingdom than expected, then that’d be perfect for you. But whether that happens or not, you’d still be here, ready to take over at any moment. And you’d know how to make sure your kingdom was perfectly safe whatever happened. You’ve been working towards becoming a queen and it shows, Bridgette.”
He was right, of course he was. They were the points her grandfather made, they were the arguments her father used. She’d heard them all, though more often than not, they’d been said to Marinette, not to her. It was part of what’d made her hesitate so much in spite of the sadness and frustration she’d seen growing in Marinette as possibility became inevitability.
“Ok, first,” she tried brightening the mood a little, “I’d come into your Kingdom and take you to mine, so jot that down, that’s the main problem.” She’d wanted to continue, but his laughter burst out with such force she couldn’t stop herself from bursting into giggles too. He’d pretty much figured the political part anyway. So her point had been forgotten in fits of laughter and failed attempts at speaking, and when Félix finally managed to control his laughter, he looked at her. And promptly started again.
“You are absolutely right,” he managed in the end. “If we do get married, we’re absolutely using your castle as our home. Mom is young anyway, she can take care of everything for a good while longer. And the company is better too,” he finished, smiling with all his teeth.
He said it like it was nothing, like it was the most natural thing in the world. She hadn't expected him to consider her family better company than his own. To hear that he would even consider living in her kingdom instead of his was even more surprising. But her thoughts, though, kept going back to the way he’d phrased everything.
And what she got was that he cared.
He hadn’t said when. He’d said if. He respected the fact that she didn’t want to be pressured into a marriage enough to treat it as a fact, not just a wish. Not even in the context of a joke.
Her heart skipped a beat, and she was probably gaping like a fish. He didn’t fail to notice her reaction, but by the way he cringed, he didn’t really get why she reacted in the way she did.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “That was too much, wasn’t it?”
She didn’t know how to reassure him faster.
“No,” she hurried to say. “Really, no, it wasn’t too much, it was just the right amount of much!” After she processed that, she had to stop for a second. “Wow, that really didn’t make any sense,” she said. The little things, it was always the little things she had in common with Marinette. Big things like their face too. But really, the little things counted for more.
“Your mom would have an excuse to visit often too,” she continued. “Bet she’d like that.”
He frowned. “Yeah, maybe we'll figure out what her motivation really is too like this.”
She reeled back, quite surprised.
“You don’t know why she’s so set on having access to this part of the Channel? Power? Magic?” she supplied, confused at his own confusion. She’d thought he of all people would know best what his mother actually wanted, even if he didn’t go around revealing it. And by the way he shook his head at both magic and power, she was pretty sure he wasn’t just covering the truth.
“Power is definitely a motive,” he supplied. “And probably magic too. Or rather your Royal Witch. But I’m confident it’s more complicated than that.”
“Then,” she said, stretching her hand to catch his and lacing their fingers together, “we’ll get to the bottom of it.”
The lights above them had begun to fade, some of them already so weak, they barely stood out against the darkness. Their full moon had floated away, but its light still shone bright among all the other lasting ones.
“We should probably return to the castle,” she said, glancing around and noticing that some of the algae barely had their tops glowing anymore. As funny a sight as it would have normally been, it signaled that their time was over, and became bitter-sweet to Bridgette.
Félix gathered the now almost empty boxes and tried to put them inside her bag, but no matter what he did, it didn’t seem to work. She found his struggle very entertaining.
“How did you make these fit in here?!” he finally asked, half of the third box peeking out of the bag especially to mock him.
“With talent,” she whispered, taking the bag from him and removing all three boxes. “But they’re empty now, so just do this,” she laughed, putting the leftovers in the smallest box and staking all three together. The bag felt almost empty as she put them in all at once.
“That’s cheating,” Félix grumbled, picking up the lamp from where he’d put it when they first sat down. He threw the bag a look like it had personally offended him. Bridgette just shook her head with a smile and got the compass out of the bag. More lights had begun to fade, and its needle was barely visible in the dim lighting, but it didn’t take her long to find the right direction.
It took them half an hour to get back to the castle, neither of them eager for their date to end.
Félix’s guard was still sleeping like a rock when they got there, his snores raising swarms of bubbles. The sight almost sent them into another fit of giggles.
Before she could go and Félix could enter his room, he caught her hand in his and stopped her. Then slowly, ever so gently, he brought it to his lips, the lightest touch of his smile grazing her knuckles. It sent shivers down her spine and made her flowing fins quiver.
“Goodnight,” he whispered, and she almost protested out loud as he let her hand go. Instead, she blew him a kiss and turned around, but not before she caught a glimpse of his grin. It was almost as giddy as hers.