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"𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚜𝚎𝚎𝚒𝚗𝚐
𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚜 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗 𝚖𝚢 𝚜𝚘𝚞𝚕
𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚒 𝚜𝚊𝚠 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚙𝚊𝚒𝚗
𝚜𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚍𝚊𝚛𝚔𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜"

-𝚛.𝚑. 𝚂𝚒𝚗, 𝚊 𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎., 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚜𝚔𝚎𝚢 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚜 & 𝚊 𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚕𝚕 𝚒𝚒 𝚙𝚐. 𝟷𝟶𝟻

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Being aware of your surroundings as an infant was not the most entertaining thing in the world. Unfortunately, this had been Marianne's predicament as a baby for the last few months, seeing as her mind was still intact along with memories from a previous life that she would rather forget.

Which begs the question; how did she still have her memories?

She'd been reborn. Reincarnated. It's usually believed that one does not retain the memories from their past life. It's the worst part of this whole situation because she wanted to forget. She remembers her death.

No one should remember their death.

Not because of the improbability, but because of how awful it is to recall it.

Marinette had said that she hadn't died- she had offered her place. She had volunteered to swap her life for another, and Marianne couldn't fathom why.

Marinette's- her- parents were one of the loveliest couples she had ever encountered. Their ethnicities made quite a curious pair as she had never actually seen a Chinese and French couple. Not that she could explore the world enough from her hospital bed, and her use of the internet was minimal.

Sabine was a small woman compared to Tom. She had long midnight hair that shone blue in certain lighting. It also came to Marianne's attention that Sabine would slip into two different languages as she spoke to her. Rather than make baby noises, she would speak in full sentences. Though, she was still having a difficult time understanding since the languages were, she assumes, French and Chinese (which dialect, she wasn't sure yet), she was picking up on the French a little quicker as it was the main language they spoke at home.

Sabine was Chinese, but by the looks of the view outside the windows, they definitely lived in France. If the Eiffel Tower didn't give away the fact that they were in Paris, she's sure it would have taken much longer to figure it out.

Marianne was normally left in her crib or a bouncer, always in the doorway of the large kitchen that they bustled around in in the early hours of the morning. Many ovens liked the walls, and the counter space was wide and covered in flour and colorful splotches. She followed their movements curiously as they worked in tandem, the flow of their work easy with each other.

They were baking.

She never knew the scent of fresh bread, paste, batter and frosting could be so...captivating. Especially when she watched Tom make desserts. Not once did he ever lose his smile as he hemmed a tune while he worked. It was incredible to watch, so enamored that she had nearly ignored her stomach grumbling.

Another setback about being a baby is that she was incapable of speaking. She had no form of open communication other than smiling, frowning, kicking, flailing her arms and crying. Until she went through teething and learned more of the language native to where she lived now, she was stuck with these limited options.

So she took a moment to compose herself (her pride, really), let out a whimper and forced herself to cry.

Sabine immediately cooed and excused herself from the front, where she had been ringing someone up (three baguettes, her mind supplied, to the nice elderly woman who lives across the street) and was by her side within seconds. She was in a portable bassinet this time so that they could keep her near at all times. Not that she minded. Again, she enjoys watching Tom in his element.

"What's wrong, Marinette?" Sabine asks, a pleasant smile on her face. She stopped crying and grunted a few times, which had Sabine checking the clock and nodding. "Let me go heat up your bottle, okay?" She calms her efforts now that she's getting what she needs and watches her movements instead. Sabine smiles and pinches her check as bustles around gather the needed items, "You're so beautiful, Marinette. I wonder how you'll grow up, hm?" she sighed, setting her down in the bouncer in the doorway and strapped her in. She was only gone for a few moments before she came back with a bottle filled with warm water, and went to where she had set the tub of formula and quickly added the right amount of scoops and shook the bottle. She tested the temperature on the back of her hand before finally bringing the bottle into the awaiting hands of Marinette.

Who was not making grabby hands, thank you very much.

Sabine had learned quickly that Mariann-nette, Marinette is her name now- was not going to breastfeed. She did the first few times, but could not continue to force herself. She had repeatedly thrown up after and Sabine picked up on the pattern and consulted her doctor before coming home with formula one day.

As she drank, Sabine began to busy herself with customers once again, glancing back at her every now and then to check how she was. Eventually she couldn't hold the bottle up anymore, but she had drunk enough. Her eyes fluttered, the warmth that came after finishing a bottle was always too soothing and had her drifting off. The best part of being baby, she realized, was that the naps were the best.

She had never been able to sleep so easily.

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The next time she came to, she was in Sabine's arms and Tom was to her right and both speaking to someone. She began stretching, rubbing her eyes before blinking them open to meet Sabin and Tom's loving smiles.

"Good afternoon, Marinette, how was your nap?" Sabine asked.

'It was pretty nice,' she wanted to say, but instead she let out a grunt and leaned her head on the woman's shoulder.

"Oh, isn't she just precious," a new, though familiar, voice awed. She had often heard this voice while she was in the bassinet or bouncer and in the doorway with Tom in the kitchen. She turned to see who the owner of the voice was, and there she was met with a gorgeous, blonde woman standing before her family. She herself was holding a bundle in her arms, green eyes shining like emeralds.

She had thought that Marinette and Sabine had been beautiful, but this woman was on a whole new level.

"Hi there, Marinette!" she greeted, smiling at her and adjusting the baby in her arms so that she could them better.

She was met with the same emerald green eyes as the woman, though perhaps a tad lighter, speckled with light blue and gold near his pupil, so light that unless one wasn't looking as closely as she was, it would have gone unnoticed. His hair was blond, just like the woman as well, and the moment he looked at- at Marinette, he broke out into a gummy smile.

He was probably as fascinated by her as she was with him.

No, perhaps she was the most awed as the one with coherent thoughts.

"Marinette, this is my son, Adrien," she introduced, "you have to be nice to each other because we'll be coming to get pastries together from now on, so you two have to be friends, okay?"

Adrien gurgled a laugh, seeming to reach for her, waving his little arm. She reached out as well, their hands hitting a few times before she managed to grab his little fingers with her own.

'My hand is bigger,' she thought as Adrien waved their arms around in excitement.

"Look at that," Sabine's smile was wide and relieved, "she likes him. She usually doesn't like other people or babies."

"They could be fated lovers," the woman jokes, making Tom splutter and only growing more stressed when Sabine went along with it.

But Mari...Marinette was entranced by watching Adrien as she closed his eyes, already exhausted from all the excitement, still hand-in-hand. She couldn't help but wonder how he grow into himself and if she would be around to see.

'Would he be as beautiful as his mother?'

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Edited: September 13, 2023