#('though it falls ever fiercer and ever faster you and i both know eventually it will cease')

[neuxue]

THE THING IS. the thing is. Mei Changsu is a creature of the winter, always — fur-collared cloaks, high-necked robes — and the thing about ice is that if it stays up high on the mountains, where glaciers watch over eons passing by from lofty mountain peaks untrodden by the footsteps of living, warm-blooded things, it can survive. but if it comes down the mountain and into the noise and clangor of the human realm, then it will melt. ice, in its crystalline perfection, is only ever granted a stay of mortality; and only when the ice melts can spring come

'Tell me, how long do I have?'

'You tell me, how long do you need?'

'Two years.'

[guardiankarenterrier]

"How did you even get in here?" "You have a window, don't you?" for the ask game

(Send me 2 sentences and I’ll continue them like they’re lines from a fanfic.)

short answers, what are short answers, how did so much juleka happen in this one

technically not spoilers i think? a LOT of gleeful headcanoning, because #givejulekaamiraculous

EDIT: now with an AO3 link! because i have historically been bad about losing track of fics i leave only on tumblr

“How did you even get in here?” Juleka asks, even though she’s fairly certain that she both knows the answer and doesn’t want to hear the answer.

Chat Noir shrugs, averting his eyes and rubbing the back of his neck.  His tail flicks, once, and falls still. “You have a window, don’t you?”

“It’s a porthole,” Juleka says flatly.  “Unlike almost every other window in Paris, it’s a little tricky to get through.”

“…do you want a Miraculous or not?” Chat Noir asks. His tail flicks again, in agitation this time, she’s pretty sure, and Juleka freezes up.

Because that isn’t why she thought he was here.

Sure, she’d seen the box in his hands, and she’d had some idea what it was- because she may not have seen one before, but she knows that Ladybug had been out calling for other heroes periodically.  She knows, because while Juleka would never say anything her brother is her closest friend aside from Rose and he’s her oldest friend as well. Juleka knows the way Viperion plays his harp the way she knows how to read wind and water off the bow of the Liberty, the way she knows to read the sky for incoming inclement weather and the way she knows when Rose needs her.

But Juleka had assumed, then, that Viperion was why Chat Noir was here.  Her and Luka’s rooms aren’t that thoroughly divided, privacy is something they’ve long since learned to negotiate between them and she’d assumed-

She’d assumed that Chat Noir had chosen the wrong window, that she’d have to tell him Luka wasn’t home.

When Juleka looks at Chat Noir again, timidly brushing the hair from her face to take a better look at his expression, he’s giving her a worried look but he doesn’t look like someone who’s made a mistake. 

“Juleka?” he says uncertainly.  Then he winces.  “Sorry, I’m not great at this.  Ladybug, uh, has a speech or something I think, but- Juleka Couffaine, would you give us the honour of wielding the Goat Miraculous?” After a moment he adds hastily, “I’ll need it back after the fight, but that has nothing to do with you, I promise!  It’s just, it’s just a rule.”

Juleka had suspected that already from her brother’s distinct lack of new jewellery, but she finds herself nodding in a daze. 

It takes her a bit to figure out how to put on the Goat Miraculous, and while Chat Noir tries to help he seems just as uncertain as she is, and anxious and restless besides. Juleka wonders about that before realising with a bit of a shock that Chat Noir must have left Ladybug to deliver her Miraculous. 

She starts trying to hurry faster.

“I’m Ziggy and I’ll be your kwami,” a tiny floating goat fairy informs her happily moments later, and frankly Juleka’s life has gotten weird enough ever since Hawkmoth started terrorising the city that she nods and accepts that. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Ziggy, but-” She glances at Chat Noir.  “I think we’re in a hurry.”

The transformation is more than Juleka’s ever dreamed off.  She can feel her energy and strength surge as her outfit changes, as her mask spreads across her face and outward-facing horns sprout from her head, curling defensively back.

Chat Noir is more than willing to call advice to her as they sprint and leap to the battle, and she catches a proud twitch to his ears more than once when she quickly starts to catch the trick to their superhuman abilities.  Juleka’s always been a roughly equal fan of Chat Noir and Ladybug both but she thinks it might be tipping in Chat’s favour now. 

And when they do reach the battle, she has solid proof it was no mistake that Chat Noir came to fetch her. 

Because Viperion is already there, and he lights up to see them both, and when he laughs Ladybug whirls to see why and a proud smile cuts across her face as well. 

Then Juleka sees her brother and Ladybug forced to leap apart as a blue bolt sears between them, and although Juleka can’t know what it does she’s already lowered her head to charge into the battle herself, sensing more than seeing Chat Noir go racing ahead of her. 

Juleka had never expected to be worthy of a Miraculous.  She’s been happy for her brother, but not that envious when she knows how much Luka deserves a chance to be the hero she knows he always has been.

But Juleka herself is- quiet, and timid, in a way that Luka generally isn’t.  He’s very laid back, yes, but he’s also more than willing to put himself in danger for the sake of others. Although some of Juleka’s friends know that she isn’t truly timid, only shy, she had never thought that anyone who hadn’t gotten to know her better in some way (through school, or Kitty Section, or at least being someone she was comfortable talking to) would see hero potential in her. 

The fight goes amazingly well with all of them there- because Chat Noir and Ladybug are already pros at fighting like a well-oiled machine, and whether or not Viperion can tell who Arapawa is she knows his style well enough to fight alongside him as though they’ve been doing so forever.  In a way they have, just considerably less literally than this.

At the end of their battle, when their four-way chorus of fist bumps and cries of “Pound it!” only barely covers the beeping of their Miraculous, she catches a thoughtful look from Viperion that makes her think maybe she isn’t the only one who’d recognise her own family anywhere. 

It is kind of hilarious when Chat Noir takes off with her and Ladybug takes off with Viperion and their paths keep veering distressingly close to each other, forcing the two more experienced heroes to constantly adjust their routes. 

In the end, Juleka catches the barest glimpse of Ladybug and Viperion dropping into the wheelhouse while she and Chat Noir scramble back through her window. Her lips twitch with a hastily suppressed style as she wonders if Luka noticed them, as well.  Frankly, it’s a good thing their mother isn’t home, because she probably would have noticed four heroes clambering onto her boat.  Probably.

Juleka gives her Miraculous back to Chat Noir without protest.  The heroes have come back for Luka more than once, after all.  Even if they don’t come back for her again, this day has definitely been enough to fulfil all her idle daydreams of being a hero herself.

And it’s not long at all after Chat Noir leaves before she hears quiet guitar notes from Luka’s room. 

Juleka is content to stay in her own space, idly sketching in a notebook as she tries to recall her superhero outfit from memory, so it’s Luka who pushes their curtain aside eventually. 

He doesn’t say anything right away, opting instead to settle on the beanbag she keeps for Rose and play for a little longer.  His song wavers more than usual, notes going from a sense of pride and determination, to creeping fear, to a fiercer bout of pride interwoven with relief and happiness.

“New hero,” Luka says finally, the first of them to break the silence. 

Juleka lifts her head and blows her hair out her face, tucking it behind her ear and willing it to stay there for a bit this time.  “So I’ve heard.  Arapawa, right?”

Luka plucks out a few more chords, reiterating the pride and joy from his earlier playing.  “Yep, Arapawa.  She was amazing- and she worked really well with Viperion.  Almost like she already knew how to collaborate with him.“ 

Juleka’s lips curve in a tiny smile.  "Maybe she did.”

Her brother sets his guitar down gently and gives her the kind of grin usually reserved for late night jam sessions when neither of them can sleep. “Well, I think she might be my new favourite hero.  How about you, Jule?”

Lips twitching as she considers his expression, Juleka deadpans, “Nope, my favourite is actually Chat Noir,” and can’t repress a tiny snicker at the mock-hurt look Luka gives her.

Snickering, Juleka assures him, “But Viperion is cooler.”

“And I bet he looks forward to working with Arapawa again,” Luka tells her, his guitar already back in his hands as his fingers dance over a few more proud notes.  “Because they make a great team.”

[neuxue]

我这双手以前也是挽过大弓、降过烈马的。可是现在只能在这阴诡地狱里搅弄风云了。// These hands of mine once drew great bows and tamed fierce horses. But now, they can only stir up the storm in this scheming hell. (Mei Changsu, episode 11)

The way he reaches into the coals until the heat forces him to flinch back, and as he does so you can't entirely tell whether he's laughing or sobbing...

The way he says this whilst looking at his own unrecognisable hands...

The way this feels like the first time in the show--after seeing him in brief moments seem to mourn those who are lost or places that have changed or people he still walks among but can never stand beside in the same way--that you see him mourn himself.