The next day, Adrien and Marinette went to the photoshoot. Marinette was quite tired, as she hadn't been used to waking up as early as she had. She felt as if she'd pass out at any moment if it weren't for the bitter cold biting at her face and hands.
After Adrien had multiple shots taken of him, he walked over to Marinette and sat down for a break while the photographer checked the pictures for any flaws.
"How can you handle the cold so well?" Marinette asked, rubbing her hands together. being a mermaid, she was used to cold temperatures, but today was really cold, even for her, yet Adrien was able to do many poses at a time in nothing but a fairly thin fabric jacket.

"What do you mean? It's not too bad out today?" Adrien furrowed his eyebrows in concern.

Marinette looked around and realized that most people didn't have very thick jackets on unless they were little kids.

"Huh... I must not be used to the snow then. It doesn't exactly snow underwater?" Marrinette suggested.

Adrien took off one of his gloves and placed it on her forehead, causing marinettes face to turn a bright red.

a felt her temperature, and noticed she was fairly warm. She wasn't too back at the moment, but he figured he should bring her back to his house as soon as possible.

"Adrien! The camera is waiting for you!" The camera man beckoned Adrien towards the fountain.

Adrien knew he couldn't say no, so he quickly left Alya a text to pick up marrinette.

She didn't have to wait too long before the bubbly friend appeared at the park entrance.

"Hey girl! You feeling ok?" Alya asked, putting a hand on marinette's forehead, just as Adrien did.

"Yikes, we should get you home!" Alya adjusted her glasses before grabbing marrinettes hand and leading her towards her house.

It wasn't too long of a walk, but marrinette started to get really sore. She wasn't used to walking around, as she hitched a ride with Adrien to the park.

Adrien told her before hand to just play along with what he said, and she had to act like she came From around the corner and just saw him leaving.

"Ok, let's get you some soup! Here, lay down on my bed." Alya pointed at the bed in her room. Marrinette layed down on the bed and pulled the blankets up to her chin. It barely helped her feel any less cold.

Alya returned with some soup on a dinnertray.

"So how bad is it?" Alya asked no one in particular as she put the soup down on her bedside table. She put her hand on marinette's head again.

" You are definitely warm, but I don't think your necessarily sick. Or at least not yet." Alya said as she placed the soup on marinette's legs.

"You should eat so you don't get sick" Alya stated. "And get some rest too."

Marrinette did not know how that would help her, but she decided to humour her new friend. She ate the soup, then she curled up under the blankets with her knees as close to her chest as possible in order to keep herself warm.

Shortly after laying down, Alya walked into the room again. She was holding a wet cloth.

"What's that for?" Marinette asked. "It's to keep your temperature down. You feel like your freezing, but your body is fairly warm. I brought the rag to help with that"

Marinette wince at the cold, wet touch of the rag. She wasn't expecting it to be that cold!

Instantly, Marinette felt her legs begin to merge together. She knew they were turning back into her tail that she was so familiar with.

Alya jumped back in suprised at first. Then she remembered what she saw at the beach the other day.

Alya readjusted the cloth on marinettes forehead and put the blanket in such a way that it would fit over her tail properly.

"You can take the cloth off whenever. But you should probably do it for sure if you hear two little girls approaching the room or my parents. I'll do my best to keep them out, so you shouldn't have to worry. It's just me and you anyways for the time being."

Marinette managed to fall asleep shortly after.

Marinette woke up to an excruciating pain in her tail. She felt like a knife was being driven through her tail, separating it into two halves. She didnt make a sound, instead she clenched her teeth as hard as she could.

She gripped the blanket with her hands tightly and stayed as still as possible while her tail morphed into human legs.

When it was finally done, all that was left of pain was a feeling of sunburn towards the inner legs, all the way down to her feet.

The wet cloth Alya had given her had fallen off while she was sleeping, and once her forehead dried up again, she must've turned back into her human form.

Now that Marinette was forcefully woken up in pain, she decided to look around.

Alya had left a note pinned to the inside of her door for Marinette, which explained that she was at school and was going to be home at (hopefully) four. She gave Marinette permission to raid the fridge if she wanted, and she could leave whenever she felt like it.
Marinette looked at the clock beside Alya's bed and saw that is read 12:06. Marinette didn't know what time she fell asleep, but she felt so well rested so she assume a few hours.
Not wanting to sit around doing nothing, marinette began to look around the room. she saw multiple posters of ladybug, Rena Rouge, and Chat Noir, along with a turtle person and a strange insect woman.
on Alya's dresser, she spotted a small black box. it looked identical to the one that she had the other day. she felt like the box was compelling her to open it. she couldn't fight her curiosity of what was inside.
her hand was shaking as she reached for the box for some reason. she felt like she didn't want to know what was inside, but she also felt she absolutely had to.
she stood there with her hand shakily holding onto the box for what? seconds? minutes? she couldn't tell.
eventually, she reached the box with her other hand and slowly opened the lid.
She didn't know what to expect inside. she had prepared herself for anything but one thing.
Nothing.
(A/N)
Sorry about this short chapter after such a long wait. I normally would post authors notes, as I know 9/10 people either don't read it or they will gloss over them, so I'll keep it short and simple.
The story is still gonna keep going unless I actually post a page saying it's discontinued. I will attempt to update regularly, but I wont promise anything.
I guess this is the point where I post an excuse and hope for the best, but I figure there's no point. you've probably heard all of them by now so you can just chalk it up to pure laziness on my part. anyways, I'm done the chapter for now and I'm about to go to bed, so good night/morning/afternoon to all of you.