brief thing (well. 802 words) i wrote today, may or may not turn it into a full fic eventually
Alya had expected a lot of things when she set foot inside Collège Françoise Dupont for the first time.
She had made a whole list of things to expect, in fact, on her blog: that she would meet new friends, that there would be some cute boys in her class, that the teacher (whom she had talked to on the phone) would be kind and welcoming. She had expected to find some interesting rooms and that the caféteria food would be nice, because the collège looked super nice on the website. She had expected to find out who the class bully was, and she had expected to be very nervous, and she always got thirsty when she was nervous so she had brought a big bottle of water and also some aspirins.
All of that kind of flew out the window as soon as she saw her class, though. She didn't register whether Miss Bustier was particularly kind, or whether any of the boys were particularly cute. Because sitting in front of her, alone and on the foremost desk to her left, was a pale and translucent and blue shape. Humanoid, with tones to the blue that seemed to delineate hair and eyes and maybe even clothes further down — but the shape had a watery texture, like it was dripping onto its surroundings.
And it was moving. Turning its head, as though it was paying attention.
"You can sit with Marinette," said Miss Bustier, once Alya had introduced herself to the teacher.
"That's her in the front row," said Miss Bustier. The girl who sat immediately behind the ghostly figure, a pudgy white girl with her hair in dreadlocks, pointed vigorously to indicate the empty seat.
No one else said anything. No one seemed even the slightly bit bothered by the fact they had a... a water elemental, or whatever it was... in their class. Everyone in the room was staring at her, at Alya Césaire and not at the bizarre apparition that sat alongside them.
It was just too unexpected. Alya did as she'd been told, gingerly inched her way up to the desk and put her bag down the side. "He-hello," she said, feeling a little stupid. Then she shoved herself onto the bench.
Um, hi, said (?????) the thing, the shape. I'm Marinette. Nice to meet you... I think...
Alya felt her eyes bulge like inflating balloons. "You... you talk?"
Yes. Er, shouldn't I talk? Do you want me to be quiet?
"No! No, you can talk if you want, I just... why do you look like that? What are you?" Alya followed a droplet of water as it fell from — Marinette's elbow towards the bench. The droplet disappeared as soon as it detached from the elbow, though; there wasn't a pool of water anywhere, either on the desk or the bench or the floor. That was simultaneously revealing and even more horrifying.
Oh, 'said' Marinette. It didn't sound like speaking, even though her lips moved. It sounded like gurgling, splashing water, but nonetheless the sound coalesced into words in Alya's ears. I'm a ghost.
"A... ghost," said Alya. Her reporter hindbrain tingled: this could be a Story. "For real? For real-real?"
Ayup. I've been a ghost for a few months. Somehow, Marinette seemed more comfortable with this topic than with the previous greetings and introductions.
"Did you... drown at sea?" said Alya. "Is that why your name is Marinette?"
Marinette sighed. It sounded like a faint wind. No. My parents named me that. I wasn't born drowned.
"Ah. Yeah. No. Obviously not," said Alya, hesitant.
I drowned in a pool, actually. Marinette pointed over her shoulder, at a tall Asian boy with a dyed-blonde quiff. That's Kim. He killed me. Also Chloé and Sabrina killed me, she pointed further to the second-to-front row on the other side, where two white girls sat with half an eye aimed in Marinette's direction: one was a skinny blonde with a ponytail and a taste for yellow clothes, while the other was a redhead with glasses and a knitted pullover. They were playing a prank on me on the high diving board, and I fell into the water and broke my neck and then drowned before anyone could rescue me. It's fine, though, it doesn't hurt anymore.
Alya stared — at Marinette, at Kim, at Chloé and Sabrina, at the teacher, at everyone else who seemed so completely unbothered by this whole thing. She had dozens of questions lining up to be asked but she didn't even know where to start.
And then Miss Bustier said, "Okay, class! It's time to start our first lesson of the year! Take out your history textbooks," and the dozens became hundreds as Alya suffered through the most irrelevant lesson she had ever attended.
