Gauche woke up with a groan and a pounding in his head that was guaranteed to put him in a bad mood for at least half the day. He looked around himself groggily, confused—he most definitely was not in his own room. It took him another second or two to piece things together and remember, but the thing that ended up jogging his memory was, oddly enough, the sight of the dresses hanging up by the window.

That's right, Gauche thought to himself as he stood with a painful stretch from the chair he'd slept in. I slept in Marie's room last night.

The thought made Gauche's face flush, which was annoying for several reasons— not least of all for the fact that he was alone in the room. Something he was grateful for at first, then concerned about as the rest of the day before came flooding back. He looked around the room again, then stopped himself with a scowl and a reminder that the room was about the size of a shoebox and there wasn't exactly anywhere for a grown woman to be hiding. The quick glance around the room did confirm two things for him, however. Firstly, that his damn pillow had fallen off the chair at the awkward angle he'd spent the night sleeping in— which was why his neck was killing him right now. Secondly, and somehow even more aggravating than the first revelation, was that Marie was a tidy enough person (or a person with few enough things, it isn't like I know her well enough to know, Gauche reminded himself quickly) that her things were all neatly organized in the small space— and the three dresses hanging next to the window definitely meant that she was wearing the exact clothes he should have thrown into a fire the second he got back to the hideout, before she had a chance to even remember them.

Mumbling violent curses at Asta that meant the runt should feel lucky that Gauche didn't work with curse magic, he ran a hand through his hair and stalked out of the room.

"Watch this!"

Mariela hadn't even looked away; she'd been watching Asta, Magna, and Luck train since she and Asta had finished cleaning earlier in the morning, and she hadn't stopped being amazed since she'd started. Training didn't even seem to be the right word for it. Magna and Luck had been sparing when Mariela and Asta had come out front, so Asta had spent a little bit of time doing pushups and pullups, but the second they were done it turned into a game of… well, baseball. But with fire.

Magna was gearing up to throw another ball of flaming magic at Asta, who was hefting that giant black sword of his and preparing for it. A burst of warmth flooded the area briefly as Magna flared up and the fire condensed immediately into a ball in his hand.

"Here we go!" He shouted with a grin, winding up and whipping the ball so quickly that, even with magic, it was difficult for Mariela to understand how the flames managed to just get bigger and brighter as they careened toward Asta. Right before Asta swung the sword, however, a bolt of lightning blasted right over his shoulder and went straight through the fireball, cancelling it out, then continued on to hit Magna directly in his face.

"God DAMMIT," Magna howled, dropping to the ground with his gloved hands over his face. Mariela's hand went to her face immediately to cover her mouth and hide the grin she couldn't help, before standing from her seat on the ground and walking over to kneel next to Magna. He had stopped rolling on the ground and had moved his hands from his singed face to glare at Luck, who was laughing as he bolted from tree to tree at lightning speed, the trail of crackling light behind him lasting in any one place longer than he himself did. "I'm gonna get you for that, Luck!"

"Not if you can't catch me," Luck called back in his happy, singsong voice. He'd finally stopped in the tree directly over Magna to look down with a huge grin and wide blue eyes. "C'mon, how are you supposed to do anything still on the ground?" Luck pointed at Magna and a small bolt of lightning flashed directly over Mariela's shoulder to zap Magna directly on the nose.

With a yelp, followed by a frustrated growl, Magna tried to jump to his feet and was interrupted by Mariela putting her hands gently on either side of his face. Suddenly totally distracted, he yanked back and away from her with wide eyes and a flushed face. "Hey, hey, hey! What are you doing?"

Mariela pulled her hands back, a blush blooming on her face. "I'm sorry," she said immediately, her hands held up in front of herself, palms out. "I guess I thought I was here as a healer. Don't you guys need a healer when you do things like this?"

Magna, Luck, and Asta all looked around at each other before bursting out laughing. Mariela, suddenly feeling like she'd missed some kind of obvious joke, asked uncomfortably, "What? What did I miss?"

"You aren't here as a healer," Asta said with a smile as he walked over to the rest of them. "I didn't even know you could heal. I just brought you out here so you could hang out with your friends."

Mariela's eyes went wide at that, her face flushing even darker as she stuttered out, "F-f-friends?"

"Yeah," Magna laughed at her, all the anger he'd had at Luck suddenly gone. He grabbed her hands, still up in front of her, and put them back on his face gently. "We're friends. So, if you're wanting to heal me, I'm not about to say no."

Mariela blinked, still a bit stunned, before looking up at Luck's big smile and then at Asta's matching one. She nodded once slowly, then again, this time more confidently. "Okay," she said with a small smile. "I. Have friends." And, before she had to confront just how awkward she was, Mariela closed her eyes and started chanting. Her grimoire appeared at her side with a soft green flash and glow, and the pages flipped briefly before stopping abruptly as thin green vines flowed from one wrist to the other, framing Magna's chin. Gently, with her eyes still closed, Mariela put her left hand to the ground and the vines lengthened to keep her wrists attached. As her fingertips touched the ground, both her hands and the vines between them started to glow the same soft green as her grimoire. A few seconds passed, and Magna let out a soft sigh as the black singe marks all over his face slowly faded, then disappeared. As soon as they were gone, Mariela opened her eyes and, as she stopped chanting, the vines withered and disappeared into whisps of mana. She looked at Magna with a smile. "Feel better?"

"Yeah!" Magna shouted happily as he jumped to his feet. He looked down at her with a huge grin and offered Mariela his hand to help her up. "Thanks a ton, man!"

"She obviously isn't a man," a prim, haughty voice called from the other side of the patch of grass they'd all been hanging out in. Mariela looked over and smiled widely as she saw first Gauche, then Noelle right behind him. Noelle's face was tinged pink, and her arms were crossed, but she kept up with Gauche, who seemed to be almost charging over from the direction of the hideout. As he got closer, however, he stopped abruptly with his eyes set firmly on Mariela. Noelle didn't stop as he did, moving past him to stand directly next to Asta with a huff.

Magna rolled his eyes at her. "Yeah, yeah, Miss Royal. What are you doing out here?"

Noelle's face flushed deeper at that, and she looked away from Magna. Before she could answer, Gauche had come up to them all. His eyes still focused on Mariela, he said, a bit haltingly, "I, uhh. I wasn't sure if you were okay or not."

Mariela blushed at that and tried to sink into herself. She had no idea how, but she'd managed to forget just what had happened yesterday. She couldn't even remember getting back to the hideout; in fact, she was positive that Gauche had carried her while she'd been too weak to walk or think… or stay conscious. When she'd woken up that morning, she'd almost screamed at the strange room and the unconscious man in it with her. It had taken her a second—thankfully it had been a quiet second, at least— to remember where she was and who the man in the chair next to her was. She'd then covered Gauche with a blanket before immediately running out the door to avoid having this exact conversation. Now that she was in the middle of a group of people and suddenly needing to have it, however, she was rethinking the choice.

"I'm fine." She tried to say it as cheerily as possible with a smile that hopefully didn't look too forced. Clearing her throat, she added, "Thank you for taking care of things yesterday. I obviously wouldn't have been able to, umm. Get back. Without you there." Turning quickly to look at Noelle, Mariela added with a smile that felt a lot more genuine, "And thank you so much for letting me borrow your clothes, Noelle. I'll be sure to wash this as soon as I can to give them back to you."

Noelle looked at her with an awkward smile. "Oh, um, it's no problem. Don't worry about it, I just. Didn't think anyone should have to wear Dorksta's rags."

"Hey!" Asta looked at Noelle with his mouth hanging open. "Rags?"

"Yes," Noelle snapped at him. "Rags. And don't stand so close to me!" Noelle pulled her wand out before immediately blasting Asta with a huge jet of water that sent him flying across the patch of grass directly into a tree with a heavy thud and a loud snap as the tree bent back and broke under the force.

Magna looked at Noelle with his mouth open before backing away from her. Before he could say anything, however, Luck had come up behind him and shouted "Boo!" before grabbing both of Magna's shoulders and zapping him with a loud laugh. Magna immediately took off after him as Luck bolted in the other direction and started zigzagging through trees, throwing taunts at Magna over his shoulder in between his peals of laughter.

"Either way," Mariela said with a laugh, and looked at Noelle to smile. "I really appreciate your letting me borrow some clothes for the day. I washed both of my work dresses this morning, so I'll be sure to wash this and give it back to you as soon as possible." Mariela tilted her head to the side, a finger to her chin. "Actually, I think that they might be dry by now. I'll go check; if they are, I'll change and wash this now."

Noelle held her hands up in front of herself, looking surprised. "No, you don't have to do all that right now if you don't want to, it's not like I lent you my entire wardrobe or anything, I just let you borrow an old dress."

Mariela smiled softly, looking down at the pale blue shift that Noelle had let her borrow. As she'd been on her way down to clean up the living area this morning, Mariela had run into Noelle. The other girl had been grabbing her own laundry, apparently, and she'd offered to let Mariela borrow the dress that she'd gone to grab. Mariela still felt badly about it; there had to have been a reason why she'd been up so early to grab the thing, but Noelle had still been so sweet and offered it. Mariela hadn't realized just how uncomfortable she must have looked wearing pants, but apparently, she'd been obvious about her dislike of them. "It's a very pretty dress, and either way, it's your dress. I'll be sure to get it back to you." Mariela laughed awkwardly before adding, "I would offer to share my own clothes, but I highly doubt you want that. If there's ever anything I can maybe do for you, though, please let me know." Mariela hesitated before adding, a little less confidently, "That's what friends are for, right?"

Noelle's eyes widened briefly in surprise before she blushed again. "I…" she cleared her throat before turning her head to look off to the side and trying again, "I suppose you're right."

"Of course that's what friends are for!" Asta boomed, having recovered from slamming into the tree. Mariela had noticed how durable he seemed to be but was still impressed by just how quickly he had bounced back from that one. He was on his way back over, shaking himself like a dog to get as much water off himself as possible. When he'd finally gotten over to them, he slung his arm around Mariela's shoulders with a huge smile. A smile that disappeared the second a mirror appeared in front of his face out of nowhere and shot a blast of magic at him. "Hey!" Asta shouted indignantly and looked at Gauche with his mouth open. "What was that for? While we're talking about friendship? Really?"

"We aren't friends," Gauche snapped, his eye narrowed on Asta. The mirror still hadn't disappeared. When he glanced at Mariela, however, Gauche cleared his throat and the mirror vanished. As Asta stood up, hesitant and still visibly paranoid, Gauche looked at Mariela and nodded back toward the hideout. "If you wanted to change, I, uhh, was headed back that way." He glanced at Noelle, who caught his eye for a brief second before turning her head with a huff and recrossing her arms across her chest.

"I was coming out here to train," she said primly. "That's why I'm here. So. I'm going to stay here. And train."

"If you're sure," Gauche said, but he'd already grabbed Mariela's wrist and turned to walk back toward the hideout. "Bye, then."

And, with a harried wave behind herself, Mariela hurried to keep up with Gauche as he pulled them both back to the building.

"You're joking."

"Do I look like I'm joking?"

Yami and Gauche were currently in a standoff, and Mariela was just trying to get away from it without drawing any attention to herself. Unfortunately, that was rather difficult with Gauche still holding firmly onto her wrist. As if Yami had just noticed that as well, he grunted with exasperation before grabbing Gauche's wrist and squeezing until Gauche, with a look of extreme reluctance, slowly let go of Mariela. "Why don't we go talk in here," Yami mumbled around the cigarette in his mouth as he dragged Gauche through a door and down a hallway that Mariela was almost positive led to the sweet magical beasts that Asta had said belonged to the captain. The things were scary, there was no denying that, but they'd been so surprisingly sweet when she'd been feeding them.

Well. Except for maybe when they all tried to eat Asta, something she still couldn't quite understand. Maybe it was the lack of magic? But was that something that magical beasts could even sense?

Mariela looked down at her hands, singed and blackened across the palms. By the end of the day the wounds would be gone, and they didn't even really hurt. But they did remind her that, if a lack of mana was all it took to aggravate those beasts, they wouldn't have taken so readily to her.

"Hey," a familiar voice startled Mariela out of her thoughts as she looked up with a smile at Finral. He smiled brightly back at her. "I didn't get a chance to see you around yesterday. How have you been settling in?"

"Wonderfully," Mariela said emphatically, her smile genuine and huge. "I can't thank you all enough for letting me work and stay here."

Finral blushed and rubbed at the back of his neck. "Nah, you don't have to thank anyone. We're all glad that you're here, it's always so nice getting new faces around the hideout. Especially—"

"So I hear we're on a mission together," Gauche interrupted loudly, coming up behind Mariela and making her jump when he put a hand lightly on her shoulder. She turned to smile at him in greeting but couldn't understand the look on Finral's face when she turned back to face him. He looked almost… scared? Were the missions Magic Knights usually given really that bad? She supposed they did have to go all over the country; it's not like she would know what kind of scary things happen everywhere.

"I should go check with Yami on that," he said quickly. Giving Mariela an awkward smile, Finral said goodbye before disappearing into one of his portals as Mariela waved farewell.

Gauche's hand lingered on her shoulder for another second before he moved it and cleared his throat. "I guess I should go find them; Yami wanted me to grab him and come back for details on our mission." Gauche hesitated another moment before adding, "I'll, uhh, tell you goodbye. Before I go."

Mariela gave him a bright smile. "That's so sweet," she gushed, unable to help herself. Gauche had been so conscientious about making sure she didn't feel out of place or uncomfortable; how he even knew to make sure was a mystery to her, but she appreciated it beyond measure. "Thank you for being so nice to me."

Gauche blinked, his face surprised, before coughing into his hand and looking away. "Um, sure. Of course." And, with that, he disappeared down the hall.

"You must be something special." Mariela jumped and turned quickly to look at a beautiful woman in a black witch's hat and cape who had come up behind her. She had a scantily clad body that made Mariela's cheeks heat and a bottle hung from her fingertips, but the wink she gave Mariela assured her that the woman was far more sharp right now than she was letting on.

"Excuse me?" Mariela squeaked. The woman laughed and took a swig from her bottle before holding it out to Mariela. When she didn't take it, the woman shrugged and smiled again at her warmly.

"I'm Vanessa," she said, holding her empty hand out. When Mariela took it, Vanessa pulled her into a one-armed hug, her face flushed and happy. "Welcome to the Black Bulls!"

"I'm Mariela," Mariela said with a smile that she hoped didn't look uncomfortable. She really wasn't—in fact, she was amazed at how kind everyone was being to her. But that didn't change the fact that she was still amazed by it… kindness hadn't been a thing she'd expected from anyone in a long time.

As if she could hear Mariela's thoughts, Vanessa's face softened. She let Mariela go, but only long enough to put the bottle down on a table. Then, Vanessa wrapped her arms around Mariela's right arm and gave her a bright look. "Let's go to town! I need to go to the black market, anyway, to pick some stuff up. Why don't you come? I'll grab Noelle, too!" Vanessa paused, thinking. "I think Charmy might be with Asta's pretty-boy friend today, but maybe we'll see them out in town. Either way, why don't we get out of here? You finished all the cleaning you needed to do today, right?"

Mariela nodded hesitantly. "Yes, but I was also gone yesterday—"

"After you finished everything you needed to do," Vanessa pointed out. "Just like today. Come on! You're one of us now!"

"I…" Mariela trailed off, suddenly looking down at her feet. Quietly, she continued, "I'm not, though. I'm not a Black Bull."

Vanessa was quiet for a long second. Finally, she said, "If you really feel that way, you're definitely coming out with me today."