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Plagg is reintroduced to Paris in a whirlwind.
He’s been in the box, asleep and dormant, for many years now, under the care of Master Fu. Heh, Master Fu. He can still remember when Fu was just a snot nosed kid who didn’t know anything about anything, weepy and staring up at him in wonder. Well, shí bù wo dài as they say. Time and tide wait for no man. Anyway, Plagg doesn’t mind the napping in the box. He feels that he’s earned this rest after his last stint. That’s why the feeling of being pulled out of the box is not a totally welcome one. Noooo, five more minutes! He thinks and struggles against the pull, but to no avail. He lands gracelessly on a hard surface. He makes a disgruntled merp noise, and then opens his eyes. The first thing he sees is a human standing there, staring at him the old most new owners do when they first see him: in complete and utter shock. The boy (how old is he, 10? The universe should know better than to pair Plagg up with a kid, he is too corrupting, he needs at least some kind of challenge) is very, very Caucasian: blond hair, blue eyes, the works. Plagg thinks,* foreigner?* When it hits him. He’s not in China anymore. Didn’t Master Fu say something about moving the last time they spoke? Plagg tries to remember. Master Fu had gone on and on about some subject or other, in that self-important and -assured way that humans get when they’re over 60 and think that they’re old and wise. Something something Akuma, Plagg hadn’t really been listening, and anyway it’s always the same old story, but the place had been interesting… Wait. Europe. Master had said they were going to Europe.* Plagg is in the cheese capital!* The thought is enough to send him pin-balling around the room in ecstasy. Europe! Cheese!! He jumps from one end of the room to the other, biting anything and everything, while Blondie freaks out and chases him.
“No! Don’t touch that!” Blondie is pretty funny. Plagg plays dumb and pretends to try to eat everything he can see, while Blondie freaks and flails. Hmm, what kind of cheese can he eat? Well, judging by the look of the house, hxis new owner is pretty well off, so pretty much any cheese money can buy, but it would be better to get something locally sourced. He wants something that is readily available. Say, where in Europe is he, anyway? Plagg hovers for a second — high enough that he’s just frustratingly out of reach of Blondie’s flails — and focuses on what he’s actually saying. When someone speaks to him in a language he knows (and he knows almost all of them), he automatically replies in the same, but he doesn’t necessarily realize what it is that he’s saying.
“Ca brille. Ca se mange?” Plagg says. Shiny. Can I eat it? “Non, pas du tout.” It’s on the tip of his tongue. Spanish? No, no, they roll their r’s. Only one language he knows of has a raspy r sound… “Et c’est quoi, ca?” Yup, that’s French. Parisian, too. Huh.
Interesting.
Blondie catches him. Bouncing around was getting boring anyway. Plagg explains briefly about the whole powers and miraculous thing, when Blondie — who turns out to be dummy — lights up and immediately says the incantation.
“No, wait, I didn’t finish-!” Plagg sputters, but it’s too late. He’s zooming into the ring not a second later.
Ah, well. Let the boy handle the situation. Plagg could some extra time to think about all the ways he was going to make up for the years he had been deprived of his cheese.
* * *
Plagg was in China for a long time. And they just didn’t make cheese in China. Well, that’s an oversimplification. Sure, there was the occasional niunai li when he was in Taiwan (the Sky Lantern Festival was just gorgeous there), and some kinds from Yunnan, or even the modest niuru — but it just wasn’t the same. Mind you, he is going to miss dim sum. And no one can pickle crab like the Chinese.
While Blondie jumps around Paris (and yup, there’s the Eiffel Tower and everything) Plagg wonders what cheese he should demand as tribute. It’s a policy of his: if people want to use his amazing powers of destruction, then they have to feed him. It’s a simple trade, really. Shall he ask for the rich and pungent blue cheese? The sharp and tangy cheddar? Gouda is, of course, always a favorite. Ah, the choices.
Blondie (who’s calling himself Chat Noir — how incredibly original) passes by a storefront, and Plagg gets his lightning bolt of inspiration. Camembert! Yes, that’s what he’s craving: the rich, nutty flavor; that soft, gooey texture! Yes, that’s the one.
After that, Plagg gets distracted, because the fight goes south very, very fast.
Chat Noir and Ladybug defeat the evil and manage to get through it, though. They always do, in the end. Plagg has had … smoother transitions, but he’s had worse too. Now, if he could just get his racing heart to get with the program and remember that they’ve done this a million times, and will continue to do so for another million times, that would be great.
Blondie gets back to his room in record time to collapse onto the floor just as his transformation runs out. Plagg shoot out of the ring, and leaves the kid to fall to the floor.
“Well, that was fun, eh?” Plagg jokes.
Blondie jolts because, as Plagg suspected, he forgot that Plagg was even here. Whatever. Boy gains powers — it’s fair enough for him to get tunnel vision and forget everything else.
“That was … terrifying.” Well, that’s to be expected. Being Chat Noir might seem exciting at first, but really, it’s quite– “It was amazing!” Plagg blinks at him. Oh dear. One of those kids. It figures. His last owner was very cautious when transformed. It took her weeks to really get comfortable with fighting and dangerous situations. Well, it figures. The world must be in balance, yin and yang, all that.
Plagg was thinking of giving him some words of encouragement if he was shaken, but now he just deflates. Kids. They learn through trial and error. They also love to put their lives at risk. It’s healthy.
“I was a bit nervous at first, but I kept trying,” the boy starts explaining very fast, pacing along the floor and not really looking at Plagg, “and I figured out how to use the stick pretty quickly — did you know that it shrinks and lengthens? — and then I used it to walk across, and then I realized I could just vault with it-”
“Really?” Plagg deadpans. “Fascinating. Who knew?”
“And then I thought I could use my fencing skills to fight with the staff, but the staff isn’t exactly like a rapier, so…”
“Blondie,” Plagg cuts in. “You know I could see everything that was happening, right?”
“Blondie..? Wait, you can?”
“Yes, my very observant kitten.” Plagg taps him on the nose, making the boy jump. “Everything you do while in costume, I can see, more or less. I just have no way of communicating with you until you detransform.”
“Oh… I guess I should have waited a bit before transforming, huh?” The boy looks away, looking chastened.
Plagg frowns and then sighs. “It’s fine. You survived, and that’s the important part.” Truth be told, Plagg prefers the foolhardy ones. They catch on quickly — even though they are often the most frustrating. “Let’s try introductions again, eh?”
The boy rubs his neck in the embarrassment and then holds out his hand. “Yeah, sounds good. I’m Adrien Agreste. Uh, son of Gabriel Agreste?”
That’s a lot of ‘r’s. The transition from language to language is always quick, but leaves him with a headache for the first few days. “Mon fils, I’ve been napping for a few decades. I’m a bit out of the loop.” Plagg takes his hand and shakes it. “I’ve never heard of the name Agreste in my life.”
Interestingly, this fact does not bother Adrien - au contraire, it seems to make him happy. God, Plagg can just smell the daddy issues coming off of him. The boy is a lot more calm now that they’re not running around Paris trying to fight monsters.
“How old are you? Eight?” Plagg asks. He guesses on the lower side because he’s sure it’ll annoy Adrien. He can’t be older than sixteen, Plagg’s previous owner.
“Wh- I’m not eight! I’m fourteen!” Adrien sputters. Yup, bingo. This boy is going to be a lot of fun to tease. “And, uh… you-” Adrien hesitates, looking embarrassed again.
It takes Plagg a moment to guess. Adrien forgot his name. Ah. Heh, no way is he going to make it easy for him. “What?”
“You, um… you said you were, uh … the cat of destruction? Or something?”
“Or something,” Plagg says, amused. “What, are you trying to say you forgot?”
Adrien looks away, blushing. It takes everything in Plagg not to snort.
Plagg lays on the innocent act on thick. “After all I did to explain to you, and you weren’t even paying attention?!” He laments. He leans back and puts a paw to his forehead, as if he feels faint.
“Ok, I get it! Look, I’m sorry, ok? I would never be that rude, but you said I could transform into someone else, and I just thought… I mean, I could finally get out of this house, you know? Without Dad knowing and everything… I was worried if I didn’t do it as soon as possible, the possibility would go away. You know?”
Well, way to make Plagg feel like trash. He takes it back, teasing might not be that fun. Plagg loves to torment people, but kicking puppies is not that rewarding. His previous owner wouldn’t have felt an any guilt for forgetting his name. She usually saw right through him and rarely took any shit — his or anyone else’s. She was kind of great that way, and also frustrating.
“…Well, fine. Like I said, the important thing is that we survived right? Here, I’m Plagg.” Plagg flies up and puffs out his chest, and speaks with booming importance, “Kwami of destruction, guardian of the Black Cat Miraculous!” He points at Adrien’s new ring. “That thing. You should feel pretty lucky, because I’m the most fun Kwami, not to mention that the powers are pretty sweet.”
“Nice to meet you, Plagg.” Adrien grins, and the light filters through the window in such a way to make him look like a saint on a stained glass window in a church, like he used to see in Russia all the time.* Damn, so much white.* White skin, white teeth, and, as the Arabs would say, white heart. Such a white yang definitely needed a black spot of yin to balance him out. Which was a fancy way of saying: corrupting him would be fun.
“Yeah, we’re going to get along just fine,” Plagg says.