Chapter Text
“Maman! Maman!” Marinette called out as she finished settling into bed, big bluebell eyes full of wonder as she wiggled excitedly.
“Yes?” Sabine said as she came up to her young daughter’s bed.
“Can you tell me the story of Liang Zhu?”
“But you’ve already heard that one,” Sabine smiled as she brushed a lock of hair from her young daughter’s face. Marinette pouted as she looked at her mother pleadingly.
“Please?” she asked.
“Of course,” Sabine kissed her daughter’s forehead and started, “Zhu Yingtai was the ninth child and only daughter of the Zhu family. She was expected to take a hand in marriage in her youth but she wanted to become a scholar, so she put on a disguise as a man and with her father’s approval headed off.” Marinette happily bundled under the blankets as she listened to the start of the story.
While Papa’s stories were always fun with dragons, magic, and adventure, Maman’s were about love and the beautiful tragedy that could arise from it. How love could be as strong as steel and then as frail as a butterfly’s wings.
Her favorite story she loved to hear was the Butterfly Lovers, or Liang Zhu. Two lovers that cared for one another yet couldn’t be with one another and in the end dying and becoming butterflies, fluttering off into the sky together forever. Marinette remembered first crying when she heard the story, but Maman had told her how in the end they were together even though it wasn’t the way you would expect. Butterflies represented life and immortality, Maman had told her, even if love did seem weak and fragile like a butterfly, it was everlasting.
Now whenever Maman told her the story, Marinette held these thoughts in her heart and hoped that she would find this love herself, decorating her room in butterflies and with the help of her parents planted a garden in hopes to lure some over as a sign of good luck. Butterflies became a symbol of comfort for Marinette.
If only she had known how important they would become for her later on.