Hey, everybody, lord Martiya here with the newest edition of the Lilanette Week. This time I'll be a bit more ambitious, as six of the stories will form a coherent plot just for you guys. Hope you'll like it.
Anyway, I'll start with one certain scene from "Chameleon", and go from what my personal experience tells me about Marinette and Lila's characters.
Day 1: Canon Machine Broke
Marinette had to admit she wasn't exactly rational whenever Lila was involved. In fact, even if she wouldn't admit out loud to anyone but Tikki, there was something in the Italian girl that scared her, and it had been there even before Volpina. Hence why she had been trying to expose her so stubbornly, why she had confronted her in the bathrooms… And why she had just let herself being physically intimidated by the girl who now had her backed to the wall with her hands at the side.
"You seem less dumb than the others, so I will give you one last chance: you are either with me, or against me." Lila threatened, almost casually.
"What's wrong with you?" Marinette let out.
And that got an unexpected reaction from the girl, who gave her a terrifyingly familiar glare and slipped for a moment in some dialect: "Nun facevo la bella vita. O cerchi 'a filastrocca?"
"Uh?" Marinette said as she translated the phrase.
"Well, I suppose I could give it. Not that you'd understand, what with having your little place in the world to feel safe, the parents you can trust, bullies that are easily deammolla! Ma che cazzo?!"
Much to both girls' (and Tikki's) surprise, Marinette had hugged Lila, and had no intention to let go for a while. For she had now realized what scared her so much: Lila had lost all, or almost, all trust in other people, exactly what had almost happened to her because of Chloe's bullying. And if it killed her, she'd make sure she could trust at least one person.
Alya following an Akuma villain around was something rather common. That she had almost the entire class with her, however, was not, nor was the fact they had collectively caused it.
It had started with Chloe's little comment as they returned to class after the lunch break. "I would have never expected to see Marinette sitting alone again", she had said. Reminding everyone, including their teacher, that Marinette had a very different reason than jealousy for reacting as she had to what they had done to help with Lila's tinnitus: they had volunteered the desk of a former bullying victim. Then, as they discussed how to resettle the seats, they had noticed Marinette and Lila were missing, and started fearing the worst: one of the two, most likely Marinette, had been Akumatized, and was now attacking the other.
As Alya metaphorically kicked herself for what she had done to the one who was supposed to be her best friend she had also remembered that Marinette had a very good reason for not trusting Lila in general: the day she had first come there she had been late, arriving in the nick of time, and had spent the entire lunch break working on homework that was due for that afternoon, so she had missed Rose vocally identifying Lila as prince Ali's girlfriend before anyone else but Chloe could even hear her voice, much to the Italian girl's bemusement ("For hopefully the last time, we're friends" she had said in a dangerously low voice after slapping her face), not noticed the newcomer at all during the lessons, and couldn't see her as she tried to downplay her relationships with famous people during the lunch break, and by the time she finally discovered Lila she only had a good-looking girl who had made a number of unlikely claims making moves on Adrien-the only way she could have got a worst first impression would have been seeing Ladybug's reaction at Lila endangering herself at revealing their closeness (what had reportedly caused Volpina) but not hearing what the heroine had said, something that could have well happened considering Marinette lived by the very park it had happened. Seriously, it was like some kind of demigod had decreed Marinette and Lila were to be mortal enemies.
The fear of one of the two having been Akumatized was quelled when Mme Bustier's phone, that she had produced to give the Akuma alert, was promptly infected by an Akuma (purple, meaning that Papillon hadn't managed to reproduce the trick for multiple Akuma at a time yet)… And replaced by the one coming from the realization Marinette and Lila were missing together. Marinette, who was the fittest girl and either the second or third strongest female student of the school, with the only one who clearly surpassed her being an older Savate practitioner, rather short-tempered, and alone with the one girl that irked her as much as Chloe. And Lila, Marinette's rival for the spot of second strongest girl who, for all her attempts to hide it, was a good amateur boxer, with a reputation in the relatively small female amateur boxing community because, when in London, she had won by knock-out against an older and larger girl. And of course Marinette was once again the one who didn't know: they knew because Nora, having just realized her sister's world-traveling classmate was that Lila Rossi, had barged in the class right after one of her calls to try and recruit her for her gym and revealed it, but Marinette had already left to calm down. And so she didn't know why they hadn't called Lila out when she had claimed her tinnitus was from saving Jagged Stone's kitten (as if he'd be able to keep one alongside the crocodile!) rather than a training accident like the sprained wrist, or her reflexes had made her catch the thrown napkin and she had said it was to protect Max' eyes from being gouged. God, the moment she thought back to those Lila was sure to convince herself everyone but Marinette was stupid.
So here they were, following Madame Poppins and her teen-tracking cellphone to find the missing girls, hoping they hadn't been trying to kill each other.
"The second row?! Really?!"
"Really. I think Mr Agreste did that on purpose to get revenge for what she had put him through in the past and hadn't thought about the possible consequences…"
Everyone stopped at the voices of Lila and Marinette coming from the bathroom… And not shouting at each other. Then Kim, reckless as usual, opened the door, and saw that, somehow, Marinette and Lila had become friends while everyone was worried they were trying to kill each other.
"Girls… Lunch break is over, and Mme Bustier's phone got Akumatized." Alya said.
Not even five seconds later, Marinette was running away with the Akumatized phone, with Madame Poppins giving chase after being apparently called out of her shock by Papillon. And Alya, having enough of that madness, decided to do as her older sister would have done and went to the Italian girl:
"Look, Lila, we already know of the boxing thing, my sister's the Nora Césaire and told everyone when she tried to get you on the phone and have you enroll at her same gym, and nobody in Paris would say anything when Ladybug is doing her thing, so you can stop with those attempts at covering up."
"Oh. And I who was starting doubting of your intelligence…" Lila admitted. "Say, Marinette's a strong girl, isn't she? In her heart, I mean."
"The strongest."
For a moment, Lila said nothing. Then, looking at Adrien that for some reason was running after Madame Poppins, she added: "S'er bionno nun move'r culo, Marinette me la fotto io."
Alya didn't understand Italian, let alone what was likely a dialect, but what she had just heard, and Lila "did I just make that pun?" snicker after she spoke, made her wonder if her fellow exchange student and Marinette becoming friends had been a good thing after all.
Note
When it comes to the class I work on a simple assumption: they aren't stupid. That of course begs the question, how did they believe her? And my answer is easy: she had been at Le Grand Paris to speak with prince Ali for whatever reason (are they friend-friend, or just friend as two teens in the diplomatic world from nations in good relationship are? That is for you to decide), and Rose, sweet romantic soul she is, took the utterly wrong conclusion and loudly announced it to the whole class, resulting in her being established as "Prince Ali's friend/star-crossed lover", and pretty much everything else sparked from there, convincing the girl from the very cunning-dependant diplomatic world she was surrounded by idiots and not normal teenagers. As for the boxing thing, her general nimbleness and the way she caught the napkin hint at that or another martial art/combat sport with a heavy emphasis on footwork and parrying, and I'm of the idea she had said the very transparent lies about Jagged Stone's kitten and the eye-gouging napkin planning to get caught and being "forced" to admit it… Except everyone but Marinette knew already, guessed she was trying to hide the boyish interest and was gentle enough to get along, further convincing Lila everyone but Marinette and Adrien were dumb.
What Does Lila Say
As you may know from my other stories, I imagine Lila as being from Rome, and her first language being not standard Italian but Romanesco, the local "colorful" dialect, for the simple fact I find amusing to have a classy girl suddenly speak in a way that outside Rome would be extremely crass. Marinette, given her grandmother, can understand it (it helps that in the end Romanesco isn't too different from standard Italian), but not all of you readers can, so, let me translate: the first phrase translates literally as "I didn't live the good life. Or do you want then list?"; the second is a demand that Marinette lets her go, with the general purpose Italian curse "cazzo" used as emphasis; the third, finally, translates as "If that blond doesn't get his ass moving, I'll steal Marinette", with the verb used here for "steal" actually meaning "have sex" (Lila didn't actually mean that double meaning).
