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With a slight shrug of his shoulders, Yami sighed as he leaned against the doorframe to the now empty room he had offered to Vanessa the previous evening. She had lasted longer than he had thought she would before being scared off by them, and in all honesty, he couldn’t blame her for leaving. It was nice of her to clean up before she left though, he thought as he glanced around at the perfectly made bed and pristine room—by far the cleanest of all the rooms in the house which were currently or ever had been in use. The Hideout was a mess—no place for a lady so it was probably for the best she had left.
He couldn’t help but wonder what had finally done it—Finral portaling in front of her out of nowhere and practically drowning her in red roses was a likely culprit though her turning around only to find Gordon whispering mere inches away from her face definitely couldn’t have helped matters. She was startled enough to have hid behind him of all people, clutching onto his cape like a frightened child. Yami shook his head. For all he knew, it could’ve been his fault given the way she had trembled when he told off his knuckleheads for scaring her. He supposed it didn’t make much a difference now. She was better off without them.
Yami didn’t want to know what had happened to her in that cage that had made her attach herself to him and follow him back to their base in the first place. Clearly, she was extremely sheltered and a bad judge of character—maybe not so bad now that she had actually decided to leave but still far too trusting for Yami’s taste. It would have been far too easy for her to latch onto someone even more terrible than he was, someone who would take advantage of her trust and naivety. Yami sighed again—almost wishing he had been able to warn her that the outside world was full of such people before she had taken off. He hoped she would be okay out there and wouldn’t fall in with the wrong sort. Even if he and his ragtag Bulls were bad for her, at least he could’ve made sure she was safe, if she had stuck around. But she was gone now so there was no point in thinking about it anymore. Or so Yami thought anyway—until he groggily made his way downstairs to rummage around for something for breakfast and found a pair of small, flat shoes by the front door.
His brow furrowed as he glanced out a nearby window. In the dim light which had just begun to turn a pastel pink and purple with the soon to be arriving dawn, Yami could see Vanessa standing barefoot in the grass in front of the hideout and staring off into the forest of trees. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed so he decided instead not to think about it.
“Hey there, little birdie,” he said walking out into the crisp morning air. Vanessa jumped but turned to face him with a sheepish smile.
“Good morning, Captain. I’m sorry”—she stared down at her shuffling feet—“I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
Yami waved his hand flippantly. “None of that apologizing sh—” He stopped as Vanessa’s big, innocent eyes blinked at him. He cleared his throat, “ stuff . I was up anyway.” His eyes narrowed, and he quirked an eyebrow at her. “Though you’re up pretty early. What are you doing out here?”
“I’m sor—” Vanessa began, but Yami tilted his head pointedly at her. She began to twist the skirt of her dress in her hands. “It’s silly…We can just go back inside…”
“Hey, you can stay out here as long as you want and you don’t have to tell me why unless you want to.” Yami shrugged his shoulders. “I had honestly thought you left so I was just surprised is all.”
Vanessa fidgeted. “Oh, no. I wasn’t leaving I was just…well…I wanted to watch the sunrise.”
“The sunrise, huh?”
Vanessa’s cheeks flushed pink, but she nodded. “I’ve never really seen one before…” Her voice grew quiet and trailed as she spoke as if she was confessing a deep secret, and Yami wondered if perhaps to her she was. “At least not from the outside. It was something…I always wanted to do if I ever got to leave the tower…watch the sunrise on my very first day of—” She stopped abruptly and didn’t finish her sentence, but she didn’t have to. Yami clenched his hands into fists, suddenly wishing he had gotten a few good punches in on Her Majesty the Queen of Witches, but his face softened.
“Well, I really hate to tell you this but you’re facing the wrong direction.” Vanessa gasped as he placed his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her around so she was facing the east which was blocked not only by a cluster of forest but also by part of their hideout. “And you won’t really be able to see it from here.”
“Oh,” answered Vanessa as her face fell. “Well, I guess that’s okay. It was just silly anyway…”
“You could probably get a pretty view from the roof though,” Yami cut her off with a shrug of his shoulders and a tilt of his head.
Vanessa’s brow furrowed in confusion. “The roof?”
“You’re not afraid of heights are you?” he asked, realizing only afterwards that it might be a bit insensitive given the fact that she had been locked up in a tower but it was too late to worry about that now.
“Well…no…But…” Vanessa frowned thoughtfully, and her nose wrinkled. “But how would we…get up there?”
“I think I might know someone who can help us with that,” he replied with a lopsided grin. He watched Vanessa’s brow furrow in confusion as he waited about five seconds for Finral in his pyjamas and his fidgety, panicky ki Yami had been able to sense from floors away to burst through the front door.
“Vanessa! Vanessa! Please don’t go!” he exclaimed, flushed and breathless. Yami rolled his eyes. He had clearly run all the way down the stairs when he could have easily made a portal, the dummy .
Finral began to ramble—words tumbling out of his mouth in an almost panicked, flustered apology as he tried to catch his breath, “If there was something that I said that made you uncomfortable or scared you away or made you want to leave, I’m really sorry. I didn’t want to scare you or upset you. I just thought you were really nice and really pretty, and you have great magic. And I’m really, really sorry, and I really want you to stay with our squad so please, please don’t go!” He reached out and took her hands causing her eyes to widen in shock and confusion.
Her face flushed as Finral, having clearly learned nothing, gave her even more flowers from one of his spatial portals. “Um…uh…thank you…?” she stumbled unsurely until Finral cut her off again.
“You can be a Black Bull just like the rest of us—we can get you a cape and everything. We don’t want you to go. You can stay forever!” Finral paused as if he suddenly remembered something before turning towards him sheepishly yet expectantly, “Right, Captain Yami?”
Yami sighed, rolling his eyes again but placing a comforting hand on Finral’s shaking shoulder. “Calm down, kid. She’s not going anywhere. But yes, she is more than welcome to stay as long as she wants.” He paused glancing over at Vanessa. “Though no one would blame you if you wanted to leave—especially after all that.”
Finral frowned at him, though his face blushed a deep red. When he turned to Vanessa, seemingly to apologize again, however, she was stifling a giggle behind her hand.
Finral smiled and visibly calmed before shrugging his shoulders sheepishly and rubbing his hand across the nape of his neck. “Sorry about that. I’m glad you’re going to stay, but what are doing out here so early in the morning then?”
“Well…I wanted to watch the sunrise…but I didn’t want to be any trouble…”
“That’s no trouble at all,” Finral reassured her.
“I was telling her she won’t be able to see it from the ground, but she could see it pretty well from the roof,” said Yami with a pointed tilt of his head in Finral’s general direction.
“Oh yeah, I bet it would look really pretty from the roof.”
After a long pause of Finral blinking at him, Yami continued through his teeth, “Too bad we can’t get up there…”
“Yeah…” sighed Finral with a thoughtful nod. He tilted his head almost confused at the pointed stare Yami was currently giving him until he gasped and said, “Oh, I know! What about brooms?”
Yami resisted the urge to slap his face against the palm of his hand. “I hate brooms,” he muttered bitterly.
“I’m afraid I never learned to fly one…” confessed Vanessa quietly, that flush of embarrassed rose returning to her cheeks. A witch who couldn’t fly? Yami’s brow furrowed. The very idea didn’t make sense until he realized she must have never been taught only to prevent her from leaving . As Yami fumed, he made a mental note to remedy that as soon as possible or at least to find someone else who could. After all, he really did hate brooms and the last thing he wanted to be was a flying instructor.
“Well that’s okay—I can fly one and can take you…” Finral’s voice trailed as Yami’s eyes narrowed and he frowned, letting out a long sigh.
“What about a portal to the roof?” he suggested emphasizing every word so hopefully, finally even that knucklehead would catch on.
Finral blinked at him before his eyes widened with realization. “Oh…a portal…yeah I can do that! I can make a portal to the roof!” Excitedly, he quickly pulled out his grimoire and made shimmery portal, big enough for them to pass through. Vanessa shrunk back behind Yami, staring at it curiously.
“Oh, um…it’s completely safe. You just walk through and it’ll take you somewhere else,” Finral explained.
Vanessa tilted her head unsurely and examined the portal and the area surrounding it pensively.
“Finral here is our squad’s wheels,” Yami explained giving him a pat on the back. “Our squad usually gets around with his portals rather than with brooms. I was out training near the Forest of Witches on our day off so he wasn’t around to portal me— us —then, but most of the time I’d be travelling through one of these. Gordon too.”
Vanessa nodded but pressed her lips together, still visibly unsure.
“Tell you what, I’ll go through first,” suggested Yami when Finral looked to him almost helplessly. “And you can follow behind me, alright? And then Finral will be right behind you.”
“Okay.” Vanessa bit her lip as Yami walked through the portal. As he waited for her on the other side, he watched her hand slip in and out of it almost curiously before he walked back through to reassure her. “See, nothing to worry about.”
Vanessa smiled and nodded though she clutched onto his arm as she stepped through after him onto a flat part of the Hideout’s roof. Vanessa gasped, seemingly making the mistake of looking down and held onto him even more tightly, but she peeked around his back when Finral joined them.
Yami’s mouth twitched in one corner as she turned to Finral with a bright smile and said, “Your magic is really amazing! Can it take you anywhere you want to go?”
Finral blushed a bright red and rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, but he couldn’t stop the smile that tugged at his mouth as he said, “Well, I don’t know if it’s amazing…it’s not really good for anything but transportation and even then, it’s limited. I can only go to places I can see or places I’ve been to before...”
“That’s a lot of places!” she interjected with wide, excited violet eyes.
Finral looked away abruptly and shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah I guess…but um…um…” Finral stopped as he glanced over Vanessa’s shoulder. “Oh wow! We made it just in time!”
Vanessa turned towards the horizon, and Yami followed her gaze as she gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. Her eyes widened in awestruck, captivated wonder as she watched the sun peeking through the clouds into the bright pink and purple dawn. She froze, seemingly stunned speechless before she dropped her hands to her sides—basking in the sun, in the fresh air, in the world outside of the tower where Yami had found her not a day prior.
“It’s beautiful…” she stumbled at last.
“Yeah…” Finral agreed though he wasn’t looking at the sunrise. Admittedly, Yami himself wasn’t either. How could they when Vanessa’s joy was so pure, so infectious? Her face positively beamed as she watched the sun begin to rise to its usual place in the sky, and even Yami couldn’t hold back the lopsided smile that tugged at his own mouth as she practically bounced up and down while the sunlight washed over her.
“Thank you both so much!” she cried, turning to them at last with joyful tears glistening in the corners of her eyes.
Finral sniffled a bit himself and mumbled, “It was nothing” with bright, rosy cheeks.
Vanessa shook her head and gently insisted, “No. It was wonderful! Thank you.”
“Is it everything you hoped it would be?” Yami asked with a slight shrug as she turned to him next, and Vanessa shook her head with an excited giggle, it seemed, she couldn’t contain.
“It’s better!”
“Well it’s not over yet so we should probably stop the chitchat and let you finish watching it.”
Vanessa’s cheeks flushed as she began to shuffle her feet again, and she twisted her hands around the fabric of her skirt. “Would you…the two of you…would you like to stay and watch it with me?”
Finral’s face somehow turned an even deeper shade of pink, but he nodded enthusiastically and managed a somewhat flustered, “Uh…um…sure!” He chuckled lightly before Vanessa turned towards Yami.
She fidgeted, almost nervous, but asked quietly with a tilt of her head, “Captain?”
Yami’s face softened with a slight shrug of his shoulders. “Alright. Not much else to do this early.”
And as they took their places beside her on the roof, Yami could have sworn that the biggest, most beautiful smile on her face was brighter than even the sunrise.