Chameliona || A Miraculous Fanfiction

Chapter 1

Hello there, I'd like to dedicate this book to my dear friend sstylesmoon, the inspiration for my OC main character. Happy 18th Birthday <3

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Sandra's P.O.V.

Maybe she didn't have a sixth sense after all. She didn't see it coming - no inner bell had alerted her that morning, no instinct suggested that this ordinary sunny day would swirl up and turn around her life so drastically.

Walking in through the slide-doors of the main entrance to her parents' Italian restaurant, Sandra led her best friend by the hand and ushered her into a slightly hidden doorway. A stream of stressed waiters constantly passed by. Having arrived safely in the small room connecting the kitchen and the restaurant, Sandra and Marinette flattened themselves against the whitewashed wall of the room, letting out a breath none of them had noticed they were holding.

A furiously cursing Italian waiter hurried across the room, mumbling something to the likes of: "These kids nowadays... always late and in the way." As soon as he had passed through the door, the two teenagers collapsed on the floor in a fit of giggles, barely able to catch their breath. But the door quickly opened again and Sandra's Papa came in, wiping sweat from his brow in an absentminded manner, until he nearly stumbled over Marinette's long legs in pink jeans, that were sprawled across the floor. They quickly stopped laughing as Marinette retracted her legs, just as Papa was able to steady himself by catching hold of the door frame.

The best friends scrambled up to their legs while Papas angry stare fixed on Sandra. "Sandra! You are late, and the restaurant is extra busy today because of an unexpected Birthday Party. You need to get to work now!"

Indeed, the girl had immediately noticed the raucous laughter coming from the long brown bench in the far left corner, caused by a group of burly men toasting to a rather red-nosed man in his late 50s. "Trust my luck, Sandra thought, for something like that to happen the one day I missed my bus..."

She and Marinette had met up in their lunch break at a coffee shop that was located between their colleges. They did this quite often to catch up and enjoy their lunch together, eating cheese toasties and drinking lemonade. And usually, Sandra made it to work in time, but today they had gotten so carried away talking about Marinette's new boyfriend Luka Couffaine, that she'd completely lost track of time and was forced to sprint to the restaurant, accompanied by Marinette, who wanted to pick up Antipasti for her parents' dinner.

They had hoped to sneak in unnoticed, but of course, Papa had spotted them with his hawk eyes. There was never anything going on in the "Desire for Italy" that he was unaware of. He was the owner of this renowned restaurant that was famous throughout Paris after all.

Sandra looked down at her shoes and apologised shyly. Her Papa only nodded, smiled briefly at Marinette and bade them both farewell as he made his way to the kitchen, to inquire what was taking the cook so long to finish the Lasagna for table 5.

"I'm sorry Mari... look at us, we're all tousled from the long run and you've got a class in 20 minutes!" Sandra exclaimed frantically, turning to the rack of aprons that hung on the opposite wall. Marinette walked over to her childhood best friend automatically to tie the apron behind her back and neck. Sandra held up her long brown locks so they wouldn't get tangled, turned around and smiled gratefully.

"Don't worry about it. I'll call a cab and be back at the IFA in no time, and my hair's nothing a short bathroom break can't fix," Marinette replied good-naturedly while trying to comb through her pigtails with her fingers.

The IFA was the International Fashion Academy of Paris for which the young designer had won a scholarship after mastering multiple design contests. The University was not far away from Sandras, where the young girl studied at Paris' School of Architecture. The two girls had been inseparable since first grade and had made this conscious decision after they graduated, so they would never be far apart.