#glamm

✨ Hi: Glamm ✨

“Thank you so much!... Again, sorry… yeah… See you tomorrow” Lila ended the call and sighed sadly.

“So, how did it go?” asked Glamm, with one eye in the tv and another on Lila.

“Surprisingly well. I learned a new swear word from Alya.” Glamm did what Lila guessed was raising an eyebrow at her with their creepy eyes. “Ok, maybe I’m not that bad at lying without an elder god doing the persuasion for me.” She added, avoiding both of Glamm’s eyes.

“I prefer the term eldritch abomination, but go on.”

“Yeah…” Lila avoided Glamm’s gaze and picked up a magazine, pretending interest. “That’s why I told her via a call… She wasn’t happy about having to delete the interview because my mom had found out and was furious at me for ‘exposing us like that’… Y’know, in hindsight, It’s a relief that no shady criminal, let alone Hawk Moth himself tried to do something when everyone thought I was Ladybug’s best friend”

“Bad writing” said Glamm matter-of-factly, floating towards Lila.

“Uh?”

“The magazine you’re pretending to read. It has bad writing on all their articles.”

“… Oh…” she put the magazine away. “Anyway, ready for our literature homework?”

“You mean your literature homework” Glamm teased Lila. She just stuck her tongue at her kwami.

“You know what I mean. We… I have to make an analysis on Cinderella”

“Cinder… OH! Ye Xian! It’s amazing how her story has evolved over time. One of my first holders”

“… you knew the original Cinderella?”

“One of many. Miraculous and Miraculous holders are part of a LOT of fairy tales and folklore worldwide. C’mon, making a common peasant girl look like the most beautiful noblewoman? That was me!”

“So she did marry the prince and became a queen?”

“What? No, she just went out for a night of fun, but her step family recognized her – my bad- and we had to flee, and long story short, she lost my Miraculous.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Nah, the King of another Island found my Miraculous and asked me what was going on, and I told her about good ol’ Ye Xian. He went to search for her and married her. It was very romantic.”

“I guess the story of this book is nothing like you just told me Fairy GodKwami”

Glamm shrugged.

-

It has been almost a month since Lila’s debut as a super hero. Thanks to Alya uploading her fights with the other heroes, her popularity had been on the rise, with people praising the group of “Ladybug, Chat Noir and Chameleon”…. She wasn’t happy that Alya had named her that, as everyone latched on the name, and she thought it was way too basic for her tastes.

But, as Glamm had pointed out, the other heroes were literally named “Ladybug” and “Black Cat”, so her name actually made it feel like she was a part of the team, unlike the more elaborate “Rena Rouge” or “Queen Bee”, much to her annoyance, Lila had to concede the point. And feel strangely giddy at the thought of herself truly belonging to a team. Not that she would admit it.

It didn’t help… or it did, that people immediately latched on the name and Glamm pointed out, even if she tried to name herself something different now, people would still call her Chameleon, so it would be better on the long run to accept the name and own it.

She had fought another akumas in that time, and had made a good synergy with Chat Noir and with Ladybug. Sometimes she copied Cataclysm, sometimes she copied Lucky Charm. Sometimes she didn’t need to do either, and instead got ice cream when she helped defeat Mr. Pigeon. Again.

She felt oddly proud when she heard her classmates talk about her hero persona, some of them, of course, still liked Ladybug better, and Chat Noir had her own fans too. She was surprised to hear Alya telling Ella and Etta now liked Chameleon better, because she looked more fun, which prompted Sabrina to confess she actually liked her too. People started to talk about the new hero and Lila had to excuse herself when she heard Marinette, of all people, commenting that it was hard to imagine a time before Chameleon was with Ladybug and Chat Noir. Marinette.

She didn’t know how to feel about that.

And then things got worse… or better… she didn’t know anymore, after arriving at school one day, and finding Alya making an interview with that Gabriella girl, the one that had became Dollmaker and was, technically, the first person Lila helped save. She totally didn’t count Mister Pigeon.

Curious, she approached in silence and saw some of her friends (err… classmates?... she felt weird that her first thought was “friends”, but shrugged it) around them. And what she saw almost made her cry on the spot.

Gabriella had very nicely posed, a doll of Ladybug, a doll of Chat Noir and… a doll of Chameleon. All in nice poses and much better done than the official merchandise from the movie (That Ladybug had told her one day that they weren’t consulted on those). “Her” doll was very nicely done, and was posed with her tongue whip.

“She’s my favorite” Gabriella’s voice snapped Lila back to reality.

“Really?” asked Alya, whose favorite was still Ladybug.

“Yeah, I mean, I know Ladybug and Chat Noir work hard, but I was the first akuma that Chameleon battled and…”

“Wasn’t that Mister Pigeon?” asked one of the students. Lila glared at him, as did Alya and Gabriella.

“I mean, she only arrived when Ladybug had practically won already… and it’s Mister Pigeon… he attacks the city every other week… No offense to Mister Raimier.”

“Anyway, yeah, Chameleon’s design is a bit more intricate than the others, and I plan to eventually do the others too, like Rena Rouge, I already ordered the hair and I have the base dolls for her”

“Dolls? Plural?”

“Yep. Well, the reason I asked you for this interview, apart to show off, is that I actually made two of each hero, and I would LOVE if this interview reached our heroes. It’s not much, but I would love to give them their own mini-me. “

Lila was… emotional for the rest of the day. She tried to justify Gabriella’s actions as just wanting to gain the favor of the heroes, but she felt so sincere.

“She is what she is” said Glamm after class, when they were going home. “I didn’t perceive any ill intentions from her.

Lila just nodded. She felt a knot in her stomach. If it had been her, she would have commissioned someone like Marinette to do the dolls and then give them to the heroes. But this girl… she had spent money and time and her talent on being grateful to them, as a sort of reward that she sincerely didn’t expect…

She wouldn’t call it a “waste”, and it wouldn’t be the first time something like this happened, not even to her, like the Ice cream she received from Mister Raimier, or the hug she got from August, but she wasn’t saving them to get something… wait…

“Lila?” Glamm called as Lila had stopped on her tracks, having a bit of an existential crisis.

Wait… hadn’t she become a hero in the first place to get the love and adoration of the people of Paris? Why was she feeling weird that one of those people actually wanted to reward her?

They were very close to reach home, where Lila could have a very nice existential crisis in the comfort of her own home. Glamm was so busy trying to get Lila to snap out of it that neither he nor Lila noticed that someone had reached them.

“Lila? Is… is that a Kwami?”