Title: Relieved
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 1000 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Post-canon by several years. Eagle/Lantis, Eagle&Geo
Summary: Eagle is finally done with his duty, and Cephiro is getting close.

oOo


Eagle yawned for the fifth time, failing to hide it yet again, and felt almost every member of crew currently on the NSX’s bridge focus sharply on him. He might have hoped that was his imagination, but the spike in volume and brightness of every alert and screen around the bridge as that many of the people connected to it all looked up and around.

He didn’t flush – he had long years of practise at not anything show. It was just, since the long time sleeping in Cephiro… he had healed, mostly, but he tired easily, and he could no longer hide it as he’d once been able to do.

Not that he’d always managed to hide things from the man sighing beside him.

“You should go rest,” Geo said. “It’s not going to vanish just because you’re not here to watch it getting closer.”

“No, but-“

“If you’re worn out before we get back, how’re you going to appreciate the reunion? Lantis might be content for you to just fall asleep on his shoulder, but-“

“I am not going to fall asleep the moment we reach Cephiro!” Eagle snapped.

“Not if you go sleep now, no,” Geo told him, rolling his eyes, unimpressed at the indignance. “Look, it’s at least another fifteen hours before we arrive. You need to sleep. Get it over with now and I won’t chase you off the bridge as we start getting close enough to really see the place.”

“You wouldn’t-“

“Hey, it’s my bridge now,” Geo tapped the insignia on his chest, grinning. “I don’t have to let you up here at all, you know that, right? We don’t need you up here making any paths for us either. Not with our new engines.” He patted the instrument panel on his chair, and behind them the tone of the engines that sang through the ship seemed to change, just a fraction – the vibrations deepening, almost like the ship was purring back at him.

The still-experimental mix of Cephiro and Autozam’s technologies was capable of building a path about them even in hostile space. If it were also capable of responding to emotions – well, everyone who worked on a ship had always known they were alive in some way. It was maybe a little more obvious with the NSX, right now. And while they might get that side-effect… softened, for the next ships, Zazu wasn’t the only one who would mutiny at the drop of a hat to stop them changing the NSX back now.

Meanwhile, Eagle sat on the bridge in almost his usual seat, but his clothes were unadorned – civilian clothes, for a very privileged civilian allowed on the bridge because of his ‘expertise on the matter of the route to Cephiro’ – that was how Geo had lodged it in the books, at least.

Eagle’s chest still felt bare without his insigna. Not that he’d worn it all the time – but it had been with him somehow, all the same.

He’d handed it over when he formally took his retirement, and a weight had gone from him that he’d barely noticed all the years he’d carried it. Now it was Geo’s turn to carry it – and after him would come another captain, and another. Eagle’s duty was done; the impossible task he’d set himself, to save his land and bring it hope, was done. The first plants were growing again, coaxed from once-barren soil with the help of Cephiro’s mages, and a complete restructuring of the way Autozam’s technology worked was well underway.

“I just-“ he started, and then shook his head. “I’m not sure I could sleep if I tried.”

“Humour me, and try at least lying down?” Geo looked at him, voice wry. “I don’t want to see Lantis disappointed at you having exhausted yourself for no reason any more than you do.”

“Not for no reason-“

“Watching Cephiro get closer because you don’t trust you’re really on your way back to stay isn’t a good reason, anyway.”

Taking a breath to retort, Eagle found himself yawning again, hard enough that his eyes watered, and when he managed to open them again Geo was just watching him, pointedly.
“Fine. But it’s not because I’m afraid Cephiro will disappear if I look away for ten minutes – not anymore, anyway, I’m sure we’d have been told if there was any trouble.”

“No?”

“…It might be the last time we share this bridge,” Eagle said, voice quiet now.

Geo paused, then reached out, resting a warm hand on Eagle’s shoulder, his voice gruff. “We aren’t going anywhere, either. You won’t be getting away without seeing us on the regular – what, do you think Zazu’s going to not keep finding new reasons to come back here and see what extra mischief he can get up to with the engines all a half-sanctioned experiment like they are? Besides, we’re not letting anyone else carry you back to visit. I know Lantis is already planning to find cause to go inspect the work of the Cephiran research division back home – you bet we’re going to be the ones to take you and return you afterwards. You’ve not seen the last of this.” He waved a hand about the bridge – the dozen crew members working away, the vast viewscreens, the faint hum of all the infoscreens hanging open in the air. “Except in the short term – go sleep, Eagle. You’ll see all this again, that’s a promise.”

“Very well.” Eagle stood, and if his legs were achingly heavy with how tired he felt, well, they still held him up. Just as Geo had, so many times. “…Thank you.”

“You can thank me by resting so you don’t look half a ghost by the time we arrive,” Geo shot back, but he was flushing hard as he said it, and Eagle smiled at him.

“Wake me when we’ve five hours to go?”

“I will,” Geo promised, and Eagle left the bridge of the NSX for his quarters – not for the last time, not really.