ADRIEN, MARINETTE ET LA REINE DES NEIGES

I. L'éclat de miroir

Marinette and Adrien were two great friends who loved one another very much. Since both of them lived in the same village, so close to one another that from their bedroom windows they could almost join hands, and since both of them were the same age, and moreover since both of them were only children, it came as no surprise. They sat next to one another at class; they usually took strolls together through the woods, played together in the village square after school, and they both loved to read beautiful illustrated books.
But one day misfortune took them by surprise. One day in late springtime, they were both reading fairytales in the garden at Adrien's place, sitting down in a lovely shrubbery covered in roses and narcissi, and the young girl was watering those flowers, when suddenly Adrien winced and shouted, clutching the left side of his chest in response to a stabbing pain:
"Owww! I feel like something stabbed me in the heart...! And the breeze has blown dust into my eyes," he kept on wincing, rubbing his peridot orbs.
Marinette, looking into his eyes, could not see anything, as he blinked and both of them took for granted that it had been an eyelash, but the truth was something far more sinister.
What the boy had got inside his eyes, and furthermore inside his heart (having just breathed it in), was powdered crystal glass from an enchanted mirror that distorted everything that was beautiful, and true, and good; and made it appear as hideous, and false, and wicked, in its reflection; while wicked things seemed to grow and acquired a wonderful appearance. One day, this mirror fell to the ground and shattered into thousands of shards, that scattered all over the Earth's atmosphere. Those unfortunate people who received a shard in one of their eyes began to see everything good as evil, and those who breathed one in and had it sink down into the heart became real scoundrels.
The pain went away quite quickly, but the mirror shards were there, and it did not take much time for the lad's heart to gradually turn to ice. Now, the splinters in his eyes spoiled everthing he saw, and the splinter in his heart turned it icy cold.
"This is a stupid pastime," he said crossly, kicking over the watering can.
"Let's go tell one another stories," Marinette suggested.
"That's boring," replied Adrien listlessly. "I don't want even to talk to you anymore. I'm going to play in the market square with the big boys and with Alix..."
Marinette was so upset she couldn't think what to say. She just stood still and watched Adrien leave without even waving her goodbye. This wasn't the boy she knew.
Ever since, Adrien began to behave himself in a very strange manner, finding only the flaws and faults in everyone and everything, even in dear Marinette who still loved him with all her heart, without anyone being able to understand what had happened to him. He mocked the villagers and never lost a chance to laugh even at Marinette herself. No longer did he want to read fairytales with her, and he felt only drawn towards the cold, towards frost and snow. Adrien's heart seemed to harden more the colder the air turned, throughout the bleak autumn, and he became the harshest and the most ironic when, after autumn, a white winter descended upon the lands. Gradually the power of the shards had grown and grown. Nothing pleased Adrien the way it used to. He was restless and listless, detached and deeply unhappy.
One day, he showed Marinette a snowflake under a magnifying lens: it looked like a six-pointed star or a six-petalled crystal flower:
"Just look at the perfection of these fractals! This is so much lovelier than a flower. I wish it never would liquify...!"
Shortly afterwards, he took French leave of her and went forth to cross the snowy hills on his little sled.