ROYAL REWARD: Marinette’s Miraculous Bath (Inanimate TF, Miraculous Ladybug)

Tap water filled the bathtub with a hiss. Hurrying out of her sweat-soaked lingerie, Marinette threw it to the floor and spun the tap to stop the flow. The bath was practically overflowing with bubbles, and it took every ounce of strength she had not to throw herself straight into it. 

Taking a deep breath, she raised a leg, wiggled her toes, and dipped them into the froth. She had to wrench it out immediately–Ow! Hot! Giving the water a few more seconds to cool down, she slipped her foot back into the froth. 

Sliding slowly into the tub, Marinette released a sigh as the water washed over her tired, sweaty body. She’d had a long day chasing Akuma over the rooftops of Paris, and now she wanted nothing more in the world than to lie here and relax till she was as wrinkled as a prune. She had no intention of leaving this bath for the next several hours, and if she could get away with it, she’d be staying in here all the way till morning. 

Closing her eyes, she let herself slip a little deeper. Ah, there was nothing better than a nice relaxing bath after a long day of work~. 

As she slipped into something approaching slumber, however, she felt a strange tingling in her toes, as if she’d been sitting in one position for too long, and all the blood had pooled in her feet. 

Frowning, she lay back and raised them, her feet emerging from the bubbles like a pair of icebergs. Bright, yellow icebergs. 

…What?

Blinking, Marinette stared. “Wh-what’s wrong with my feet?” They’d turned the same color as cheese! As she watched, struggling to believe what she was seeing, the change rolled down her legs and left them just as bright and yellow. Heart pounding, she reached out to squeeze one and released a gasp when it squeaked. 

Marinette’s heart thudded painfully hard. “Wh-what’s going on?” she cried, trying and failing to push herself out of the bath. “Is this some kind of Akuma?” Her arms had gone weak, and when she raised them she found the answer. She squealed. 

Her fingers, like her toes, had turned the same bright shade of yellow. As sweat dripped from her brow, the color rolled down her arms and made a spirited assault on her elbows. She tried to speak, but she didn’t know what to say. What was happening to her?! 

The beating of her heart became painful. “Okay, Marinette. Try to calm down. You’ve seen lots of transformations–there’s nothing otherworldly about this. All you have to do is figure out what’s happening and find a way to stop it.” 

Closing her eyes, she took a deep, deep breath, and allow herself to slip back into the water. Only when she could feel its warmth around her neck did she allow her eyes to open again. The color had spread past her elbows and was rapidly approaching her shoulders now, but she refused to allow it to scare her. 

As a matter of fact, now she was over her initial shock, it was actually felt kind of good…? The warmth of the water against her squeaky new skin was shockingly good. Far better than it had any right to be. In fact, it actually felt a little… 

Biting her lip, Marinette slammed her legs together. 

Refusing to let her fear rise out of her gut, she watched as the change in her flesh passed her shoulders and started work on her chest. Swiftly smoothing out her breasts, it flowed down to her stomach and filled her with a shocking sense of lightness, as if her belly had been pumped full of helium. It should have made her feel even weirder, like she wanted to throw up, but instead it only filled her with a strange sense of calm, as if she were in a place she’d long sought but never been able to find. She wanted nothing more than to lie here and bathe in the warm water forever. 

With a sigh of delight, Marinette pushed herself onto the front, sighing in delight as the water caressed her breasts and her stomach. Lying there, she felt more comfortable than she ever had in her life. It was wonderful.

As Marinette closed her eyes and allowed herself to relax, the change in her skin finished washing over her buttocks, completing her change in complexion. An instant later, her legs curled upward, feet poking out of the water, and squeezed together, so tight they were almost inseparable. Though Marinette no longer cared to notice, they soon fused into a single lump of what now seemed a lot less like flesh and a lot more like plastic. Together, conjoined, they looked a lot like a duck’s tailfeathers. 

Even as her feet finished fusing, Marinette’s arms squeezed her sides and flattened out, hands growing to absorb her arms while her fingers stretched into long feathers themselves. Between them, her torso bulked, growing rounder and rounder, plumper and plumper, even as her body as a whole shrank, compressed. 

For several seconds, she simply sat there atop the water, a tiny human head attached to a rubber duck’s body, bobbing up and down on the little waves of her own bath without a care in the world. It felt shockingly relaxing. 

On a whim, Marinette stuck out her lips, and they stretched as it pinched. Expanding, they formed a large beak–orange, unlike the rest of her body–and hardened till she could no longer move them at all. Nor could she move any other part of her form; in an instant, she’d gone from a living creature to an inanimate object, a mere rubber duck, distinguishable from countless millions of others only by her large, blue eyes.

Marinette didn’t care in the slightest. Floating there atop the water, bobbing with the occasional wave left over from her disappearance, she felt more relaxed than she ever had in her life. Who cared if she was a rubber duck now? She’d never felt better! 

Closing her eyes, Marinette allowed herself to drift into a peaceful slumber. After all her hard work, she deserved a little rest.