Going back about twenty minutes, Noelle, Luck and Magna burst back through the front door
“Charmy, we need a cake!” the trio of snoops shouted, the cotton mage not even questioning why and making her sheep chefs start the process. The other Bulls looked at them in confusion, as Luck bounced around, Magna had a deadly serious look on his face and Noelle was still flustered.
“How big?” the diminutive mage said, a gleam in her eye.
“As big as you can make it!” Luck shouted, still picturing how to make Astrid and Noelle fight later. “And with Asta’s favourite things!”
‘Shit did we forget his birthday?’ the Bulls who didn't know what was going on thought, even Gauche.
“I’m on it! la!” Charmy shouted, seemingly getting taller by a bit at the task of making food. The rest of the bulls looked at the trio with suspicion.
“All right, what’s up with the shrimp?” Zora sighed, the group flinching a bit as he walked towards them. “...he didn’t have something spicy in there did he?”
“What no!” Noelle blurted out, her face turning red as she pictured the dress on Astrid. Other ideas coming with it, like doing each other's hair, and holding hands. “A-A-A-Dorksta is uh, fine! I just want to have a cake! For Dorksta!” her nickname would keep Astrid’s secret a secret for a bit. Even if Zora didn’t buy it.
“Riiiight,” The ash mage sighed, looking at all three of the other knights standing nervously. “So you saw something and won’t tell us?”
“We didn’t see anything!” Magna blurted out, his lack of a poker face showing as he tried to avoid any eye contact.
‘We’re so screwed’ the trio thought as they spent twenty minutes dodging every question they possibly could. The aroma of baked cake slowly filling the base as the heavy footfalls of Yami post shitting approached.
“All right, who’s making a cake!?” Yami shouted, catching all of them off guard. He’d normally tell them all to shut their traps and smash a wall. “Oh. right. Good on ya Charmy.”
‘Who is he and what has he done with the captain?’ everyone present thought. The sudden lack of invasive questions letting Vanessa and Nero sneak into the common room. Astrid, to no one’s notice thanks to her lack of mana, was now just out of view. Only the hem of her dress peeking into the doorway.
‘It’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay,’ she was thinking, her hands tense and gripping the fabric. ‘Nero and Miss Vanessa are here, Captain accepted me, it’ll be fine.’ she took a deep breath, moved her leg forward with a slow shaky step.
“HI EVERYONE I'M A GIRL NICE TO MEET YOU ALL AGAIN!” she blurted out, refusing to use any tact or subtlety at coming out.
There was a beat, Astrid slowly opened her eyes to see everyone's reactions. Noelle was beat red and she could feel her ki going all over the place. Luck was grinning, nothing unusual in his reaction, the same was true with Magna, both of his friends were smiling. Grey, surprisingly, was looking almost excited. With their eyes wide and their mouth fighting itself to smile, Gauche was uninterested. Zora had an eyebrow raised but seemed nonplussed, Gordon was furiously moving his hands with a needle in thread that really no one was sure where he pulled it from. Henry was in his safety box and already knew, so there was no worry about him, he did give a slow wave and the biggest smile he could muster. Charmy was too absorbed in making the cake to really do anything more than give a big thumbs up. Finral however was visibly excited, then seemed to fight himself, and sat down trying, and failing, to look cool.
There was silence, aside from the furious whipping of icing, as everyone paused. Nothing was being said, they were all processing and likely thinking of how to respond.
“So uh…” Astrid started, now feeling anxiety start to come back. “Yeah. I'm a girl.”
“H-H-How long have you known?” Grey asked, Astrid wondering if they were shaking from nerves or excitement.
“I… think I’ve known for a long time, but i couldn’t really do anything about it until i came here!” Astrid responded, anxiety melting away with her smile. “Yuno’s known too! And he wanted me to tell him when I was going to tell all of you in case… well.”
The silence spoke volumes as she looked down, everyone getting the message of what Yuno might’ve had to do.
“But since I think it’s going well he won’t have too-” She was cut off by a knock at the door, with Charmy dropping the whisk she was ravenously cleaning off unused frosting.
“If you don’t accept my sister I’ll be taking her,” Yuno said through the door. His magic poured in through the wood and stone as he chose to not wait for a response. “Captain Vangeance already has forms in place.”
“It’s fine, Yuno!” Astrid shouted back, her brother’s mana receding. “Charmy’s making cake! Do you want in?”
There was another pause as various thuds could be heard outside, the clanging of metal on stone, the clack of something wooden hitting metal, and the door opened revealing a nonchalant Yuno, with an armory's worth of weapons and protective gear flying away with wind magic into the horizon.
“Sure,” he said, not convincing anyone his character wasn't that of a caring sibling. Charmy was now not paying nearly as much attention to her food nearly as much now that Yuno was in the building. "So. You all accept her. Right."
It wasn't a question.
"Of course I do!" Noelle blurted out as she stood up and moved right behind Astrid. "A-after all, i'm royalty! So it's up to me to accept everyone!"
'How can she be even less subtle than Astrid…?' everyone with a sense for romance thought, as well as Yuno.
"Thanks Noelle!" Astrid said, grinning and completely oblivious to the princesses' crush.
"And the rest of you?" The Golden Dawn member said with a raised eyebrow. The response was, of course, unanimous support. "Good"
And with that the cake was done, decorated in as much frosting and fruit as possible and placed in the middle of the sitting area for the base.
And for the first time in ten years, Astrid let out a sigh and felt a level of stress she didn't know was really there fade away.
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