Did you that Gabriel Agreste, shameless as he is, is selling copies of the various Miraculouses? That is how Lila was able to procure a pendant identical to the Fox Miraculous so easily: just walk to a jewel shop and use some of her apparently immense allowance. And I'll take advantage of that right now.

I am not a fashion expert. At all. I know martial arts and combat sports equipment brands (well enough I can give you the exact brand of Nora's handwraps), I know comedy, I know history and classical mythology, I know how to make a good cotoletta from scraps, but I don't know fashion. So please be utterly ruthless when you dissect this chapter, I can take the criticism and get better.

Day 3: Formalwear

The last few weeks had been "interesting" for Marinette. While she was glad to have a good relationship with Lila, even as Ladybug, the fact the girl was not only in love with her but also, differently from Nathaniel and others, willing to fight for her had complicated things.

Also, Chloe's latest effort to prove she was reformed had been to throw the class another party-inviting the Japanese exchange student that had been keeping her in line before having to follow her father to London, even paying her plane ticket, and the fact she was nicknamed "Minefield" for a reason and her personality made Alya seem timid had of course made things crazier than usual.

On the other hand, the girl was a romantic at heart and a good friend, and the combination of having twice as much hair as Lila, not enough money to see a hairdresser as often as she'd need, and absolutely no sense of measure meant she had taught herself to care for hair well enough she could get hired by Hollywood's greatest stars, so she had done a fantastic job styling her and Alya's hair.

So there she was at Le Grand Paris, with the crazy visitor wearing a seafoam cheongsam and earrings decorated with the Tiger's Eye stone (both acquired during a brief and disastrous voyage to China) and Alya dressed in a turtleneck LBD and no jewelry aside for the actual Fox Miraculous (altered in such a way to appear activated and thus being mistaken for one of the Gabriel copies, such as the one that had served as Lila's first Akumatized object), while she wore a low short-sleeved light pink mermaid dress with a thigh-high slit on the left, with white evening gloves and black shoes and her hair tied in two buns and held by an orange ribbon on the left and a dark grey one on the right-the Minefield had been rather insisting on that. She said it was about coordination, and knowing her she could well know something about Adrien's outfit. Now it was only a matter of locating Adrien and, as her two insane friends had put it, "dazzle your partner with your gorgeousness second only to your personality".

"Target detected." the Minefield said.

Marinette turned to follow her eyes, ready to totally-not-seduce Adrien, but the sight was unexpected: it was Lila. Who, as Marinette was slowly processing and admiring, was wearing an orange turtleneck backless dress with an ankle-length skirt open on the front (and covering just enough of the waist to not be a proper showgirl skirt), dark grey opera gloves, black shoes, Gabriel copies of the Ladybug Miraculous, and her fox-like side locks tied not by the usual orange ribbons but the left one by a pink one and the right one by a white ribbon. And she was apparently rather taken in by Marinette's looks as well, even having to visibly gulp not to drool-mirroring Marinette herself, she n0ted.

That was when Marinette felt herself pushed into Lila's arms and was promptly dragged away-and not putting nowhere near as much resistance as she could. As she turned back to watch she saw that Alya was looking at them with a shocked look, while Minefield was giving a cat-like smile. That was when she realized why she had been wearing Tiger's Eye earrings. Or who had talked Lila into wearing those earrings.

After realizing that the girl known as Minefield was also Lila's mysterious best friend the Tiger, Alya gave her a rather annoyed look, calling her a traitor.

"Improper term, dear-after all, when it comes to shipping I was never on your side." the Japanese girl replied smugly.

"And so you throw Marinette in the arms of someone she was an enemy with until a few weeks ago, rather than helping her with Adrien?" Alya replied.

"I understand how you see it, really. But now, let's examine my point of view: on one side we have Adrien Agreste, nice, kind, fit, intelligent, strong-willed whenever his father isn't involved, who just irritates me on a visceral level due his utter inability to realize he has a crush on Marinette and she, and I'm quoting Lila's description, has been flinging it at him with a slingshot; on the other we have Lila, one of my dearest friends, who's always been tethering dangerously close to go full gumiho but Marinette's has single-handedly turned into a zenko. Who should I help?"

As Trixx (who had been hiding in her hair) translated the Tiger's comparison, Alya had to admit that she was making a good point. Maybe she would help Lila… If she actually started earning Marinette's affection. But until then… Well, she and her boyfriend were quite invested in that pairing. That, and Alya wasn't too amused by Trixx pointing out her manipulative streak (especially as it was quite obvious in hindsight. Was that the reason Marinette hadn't liked Lila at the start? Having noticed it immediately?) and hinting she should take example from her.

What Does the Tiger Say About Lila

My dear OC compared Lila to fox spirits: the gumiho (in Korean, "nine-tailed fox") is the Korean take on the far-eastern legend of the fox spirit, and, likely as a cultural backlash against the invasions from the fox-loving Japanese (there's a reason you can find loads of small and large fox statues in Japan), is usually portrayed as a malevolent entity after human hearts and livers; zenko (in Japanese, "good fox") is instead a subset of the kitsune, often associated with the widely worshiped god of rice and commerce Inari (itself often represented as a fox) and thought that, if found in service of a samurai, would use their magic, cunning and wisdom to protect them in exchange for housing.