The Captain’s quarters were nearly double the size of any other soldier’s, and a good deal more luxurious.  But, the primary thing Ren noticed in the dark of that early-morning wake-up, was the feeling of those familiar sheets, in that familiar King-size bed, and the heat of a familiar naked body in front of her.  The room was still dark – she’d awoken on her own, much to her chagrin – but she held close to that broad back she’d been the big-spoon to for most of the night.


    She wanted to go back to sleep again.  She turned slightly, and lifted her right hand to slide against the warmth of the slumbering man’s side, wedging it a bit further under his prone arm so she could feel his chest, and buried her face between his shoulder and the pillow.  She was sure she spent 30 minutes that way before giving up.


    Her guilty conscience wouldn’t let her rest.


    Carefully, she peeled herself off the Captain’s frame, making sure not to wake him as she twisted off the side of the bed.  She used her overlay to brighten the room just-enough to her sights to find the material pieces of her uniform, put everything back on again, and quietly left through the door attached to his office.  Once the door had quietly hissed to a close behind her, she drew in a long breath, and reactivated her Fourth uniform jacket.


    I’m sorry, Furion…  Tonight was…lovely, but…I’m…not ready yet.  I have unfinished business.


    It was 03:28am, and nearly no one was awake.  The ship’s overnight skeleton-crew was located elsewhere, and that meant Ren had a clear path back to her own room.  Once inside, she threw herself onto her couch, kicked her boots off, pulled the throw-blanket over her crossed legs, and pulled up that same login screen as she’d attempted the day before.  Just before clicking to submit her information though, she hesitated…and reset her uniform to the blues of the Sixth, “Don’t need him being woken up to my trying this again with the wrong permissions…”  That done, access was granted as it always had been, and she went digging into the way-back archives.  Years back, 10, 20…22…


    She didn’t know the exact date of that ill-fated mission into the Exclusion Zone, but she did know that Captain Lequerion Rydell was one of the people who’d been a participant, so she was able to exclude a vast majority of the year’s logs.  The Captain rarely went out on grunt-missions himself, but this was a special case.  Once she’d found it, she could see the crew that had been on-site.


    In a way, it was a relief to realize it was Wing Team One that had been there; Donivan had been part of Wing Team Two for as long as he had been a Fafnir, which was why he was Wing Commander Two in the present day.  On the other hand, it meant that it was her own squad – even if it was her predecessors – who’d been responsible for the attack.  The Commander immediately prior to Furion’s own promotion had been the one to lead it, and it was only a three-year gap before Furion became a Fafnir at all.


    Ren leaned back against the couch-cushions, and looked up at the ceiling.  For a while, she was just grateful for that distinction; it meant no one on the current Fafnir team was involved in the massacre that upended her mentor’s life.  But, the video-logs for those who had been were right there, and she wrestled with whether or not she wanted to witness it.  She knew the former Captain had been there at the critical moment; only the Captain has a one-way line directly to the Eidolon, and she knew that both the First and the Fourth had been pulled to that location that day.  She hovered a finger over the archived footage of Captain Lequerion’s perspective.


    …I feel like I owe it to Gabe to know who did all this to him, she thought, and with a quick breath, she clicked it.  On her overlay, she witnessed the entire mission from start to finish.  It took two hours.  They tore through three different encampments before they finally found their man…and Gabriel had been found in the second.  It was surreal to see that Limitless glow from the eyes of a child so young, but there it was…proof beyond dispute.  No wonder they called Lord Rylen on him…  He’s the definition of what he worries about, and why the Fafnir exist at all.  But…Gabe was just a kid…  I guess Lord Rylen has the same problem with pedicide as I do.  Glad he’s got some scruples…


    She lowered down to her right side, and gestured with her fingers to the app that controlled the room’s brightness.  Lowering them down to near-darkness, she closed her eyes, and used what remained of the morning to get a little more sleep.


    Then the distinctive, soft bing-bong from her door sounded, and she woke up again, hair messy and sticking in every direction.  With a palpitation, she realized she’d left her clip in Furion’s room, and for an instant, she forgot her left arm was in a state; she tried to use that hand to re-brighten the room, but felt a resistance…and had to pause.  With a grumble, she pushed herself back up to sit normally, used her working hand to gesture at her HUD, and finally went over to the door.  The only thing that stopped her then was the fact that she had to look down a little bit to activate the side-panel to get a preview of who she was about to see, and out the corner of her eye, she saw she still had her blues on.  She quickly shook her head, restored her reds, ran her fingers through her hair, and skipped the preview.


    “Ah!  Oh.  You’re actually here.” Gabriel’s voice was surprised to see her, “That’s great; you weren’t answering my messages.”


    She blinked at him in a haze, “You sent messages?”


    “Yeah.” He stared awkwardly, “When you never came back from that little meeting with the Captain, I tried to check on you.”


    “Wha?” Ren was still confused, “Hang on.”  She turned slightly and saw on her overlay that her DND status was still active.  Once she disabled it, she saw the notifications, “Oh.  Sorry.  My do not disturb goes on around 20:00 hours and I only get messages from the folks I’ve put on the push-through list.”


    “I’m not on the list?” He teased cautiously.


    “You’ve never messaged me before.  I guess it didn’t occur to me to add you to it.”


    He could feel his left eye twitch slightly, “…Right.”  That awkward feeling only increased when Ren stepped into his bubble and hugged him, “Oh.  Uhm.  Yes.  Hi…hello.  Good morning.”


    “I have something for you.  Come inside for a minute.” She suggested, and stepped back to clear the way.


    Skeptical, Gabriel went within, and the door hissed close behind them, “What’s going on…?”


    “The reason Fu-…er…Captain Rydell came for me yesterday-“


    “You can drop the pretenses.  I get it; first-name basis.”


    She made a face at him, “I don’t want you thinking I’m a hypocrite.”


    “I don’t.”


    Her brows crinkled, and she shook her head, “…He came because he got-wind of my attempts to access the Fafnir archives.  He…gave me everything back.  My status, my rank…everything…”


    A weird pit grew in the mediator’s stomach, but he managed a nod, “…I see…”


    Ren clicked her fingers and the red on her uniform changed once-more to royal blue; the tails of her coat extended down.  They stood now as equals, not mentor and student, and she cast a worried look at him, “I don’t…know how much longer I’m going to be allowed to work with you.  It won’t go beyond Lord Rylen’s notice that my clearance levels have gone up, and I have no doubt whatsoever that Furion will spill the beans about it pretty-much-immediately…”


    “…Right…” He looked clearly disappointed.


    “But before I get to all that…the thing I have for you.” She diverted, and with her one good hand, manufactured a data-node to hover above her palm.  She offered it to him, “…I…don’t do this because I want you to think about having a ‘get revenge on the Fafnir who ruined your life’ arc.  They were just doing their job, finishing a mission, and getting a really bad guy out of the way.  You were an unfortunate consequence of that, and I’m sure if you talked to him about it, this man would have regrets about what happened that day.” She nudged her palm up for emphasis, “If you want to know who it was – to see his face – I found out who actually pulled the trigger on your mom.”


    Gabriel stared at that glimmering orb of data; the temptation was real, but after a few moments of consideration, he took a step back, “…No…”


    Ren stayed put, wordless.


    “I may still have some feelings about what happened back then, but...I’ve mostly put it behind me.  I…don’t want to go back to being that angry kid that Xanarken sent away.” He explained, and stepped forward only to close Ren’s fingers so the nodule would go away, “But…thank you, Ren.  I do appreciate it.”


    Those green eyes watched carefully, but Ren understood, and nodded, “You can always change your mind later.”


    Gabriel held there for a moment longer, but eventually let the woman’s hand go, and crossed his arms, “…I guess the state of things means that, to get access to that information I just rejected, you got yourself suckered back into the Fafnir.  So, in a sad way, ultimately, it was still me who sent you away in the end.”This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    “Gabe…” She stepped forward and put a hand on his arm, “It…turns out that’s all a bit more complicated than that.  Furion didn’t exactly hold up that information like a carrot on a stick, or propose some ultimatum; forcing me accept this uniform back in exchange for the access.  He said he would’ve given it to me either way, he just wanted to know what I was looking for.


    “But?”


    “He begged me for five minutes of my time, and showed me that…everything I thought I knew for these last several months…was a lie.” She explained, and rubbed her thumb there soothingly, though it still hurt to have to retell the story, “Apparently, on my last mission, I walked into a Limitless trap, and nothing I saw was real.  I got myself all worked-up about a mirage.  The transfer out, being partnered with you…it was…all just Furion and Lord Rylen finding some way to placate me until they figured out how to fix things, so I wouldn’t have to rot in a cell that whole time instead.”


    “…So that was the joke.”


    “Seems so…”


    “And the Captain’s the only one who knows so far that you’ve been restored.”


    “…For now, yeah.” She nodded, “When he wakes up though, it’s anyone’s guess.”


    “Okay…”


    “So…in the meantime, you wanna get something to eat?  As far as the official record goes, I’m still with you.” She suggested, and gestured to change her uniform-colors back to red again, and set the length to her knees as before, “I’ve more-or-less been up for a few hours already.  I’m starving.”


    “…Yeah, sure.”


    .


    When Furion finally awoke, he wasn’t entirely surprised that Ren was already gone.  Still, he was disappointed anyway, and reached up to rub his face with both hands, “Back to this same routine already…  Sneaking out before the night-crew switches out for the morning…  Sorry to do this to you again, Ren…”


    He got himself ready for the day and waded out into his office, yawning as he crossed the threshold of private quarters to public space.  He barely had a chance to sit down and put in a request for coffee before his Eidolon manifested in front of him, and he immediately bolted up again to salute, “Lord Rylen, sir!”


    “At ease, Captain.” Rylen waved a hand dismissively, and walked up to the front of the desk, a bit of a spring in his step, “I saw that you worked your magic.  Great job!”


    “My…what?”


    “Dame Ren!” He answered easily, “I may or may not have been checking her dossier once or twice a day to see if there were any changes since she was brought aboard the Aegis…  Lo and behold, it was updated late last night!  So, how did it go?  What did you say?”


    Furion shook his head to clear the mental whiplash, “…Sir, I just…showed her what happened.  I had to restore her rank so she could see the footage on my display.”


    “Oh.” The dark-elf-looking Eidolon seemed confused and had a disappointed edge in his voice, “So she’s not back?”


    “Oh, no, she definitely is, sir.  We just need to get Lord Xanarken to release her.”


    “That’s easy, then.” Rylen was all-smiles again, and put out a request for his brother to come.  When it went unanswered, however, he grumbled, “It must be too early, still.  He’s asleep.”  He waved his hands, “I’ll get back to this when he’s up.  You’ve done the Fafnir a great service, Captain.  It’s good to have the whole team back together again.”


    “…Sir, about that.” Furion interjected, and the First hesitated to dissolve his mantle, “What about Sir Ianori?  Is he dead or is he…just gone?  Do we need to arrange a memorial service for him?  Alert his next of kin…?”


    Rylen hesitated, and put a finger on his chin for a moment, “…Hold off on all that for now.”


    “It’s been a week, sir.”


    “Mhm?”


    Furion balked internally, but on the outside, he just looked on, and lowered his eyes, “Yessir.”


    .


    “…You’re kidding me.” Ren whispered, a tray with breakfast balancing on her good hand.  She looked inside Gabriel’s temporary room – the same one he’d awoken in after the incident – and spotted the Himalayan snoozing on his bed, “That’s Lord Xanarken?”


    “Yeah.  When I called them ‘jackass Eidolon,’ it’s cuz him and Rylen sometimes prank me by showing up as cats, and it’s really embarrassing.” Gabriel answered.


    The duo moved inside quietly and closed the door, careful to avoid waking up the feline.  Ren could hardly keep a straight face; the whole thing was extremely entertaining, “What kind of cat does Lord Rylen turn into?”


    “This grey short-haired thing.  You can tell it’s them though because they keep their same eyes with either mantle.” He set his own tray down, and moved to crouch at the side of the bed, eyeballing the creature just over the edge of the blankets.  Ren followed-suit on the other side.  Gabriel’s eyes got a mischievous look to them, “I’m gonna wake him up.”


    “Don’t you dare!  This is adorable!”


    The XanarCat just stretched in that moment, elongated those fuzzy legs, and spread its toe-beans widely before rolling slightly onto its back, one paw carefully set over its eyes.


    Ren squealed quietly with delight.


    That’s when Gabriel pounced; he stood up fully, grabbed the cat with both hands around its fluffy chest, and hoisted it up, with those salad-tongs it claimed as arms sticking straight out ahead of itself, “Xanarken.”  No response, so Gabriel swayed the creature from side to side, turning its lower half into a pendulum, “Xaaaanakareeeeeeen.”


    Ren smacked her forehead, “I can’t believe you’re doing this to him.  He was so peaceful.”


    One purple eye opened, closed again, then both opened halfway, and the voice of the Eidolon spoke from that unmoving mouth, “Why are you like this?”


    “We have a problem.  You were right there.  You have the answer to the problem.” The mediator answered, and allowed the fuzzbucket to hop back down to the bed-spread.


    That’s when Xanarken finally noticed Ren there, and he lifted his head, that dark triangular nose wiggling slightly as if the cat was actually sniffing at her.  Its vivid purple eyes gave away the truth of its identity – if the fact that it spoke already wasn’t enough – but Ren still couldn’t help herself, and took that glance as an invitation to pet it.  To her delight, the XanarCat actually leaned into the scritches, and rubbed up against her where she was closest to the edge of the bed.


    Gabriel just crossed his arms, “You’re enjoying that way too much.”


    They both gawked at him though, neither sure which one of them he was referring to, and continued with the pets right after.


    The mediator just waved his hands at them and went to sit down before his breakfast got cold(er.)


    “This is the second greatest day of my entire life.” Ren cooed, and actually got up onto the foot of the bed to sit cross-legged with the Himalayan.  When the XanarCat got into her lap to lay down though, that topped the charts, “BEST DAY EVER.”


    “Maybe I should make her High Negotiator.  She appreciates me.” Xanarken taunted, paws making biscuits against the blanket in front of Ren’s crossed ankles.


    “That’s kind of what we came to talk to you about,” Gabriel noted as he unpacked and uncovered his fare.


    Xanarken lifted his head, “…You want her to take your job?”


    “What?  No.  But…she wants to finish the program.”


    “…That was the intent?”


    “Change of plans.” Ren explained, even as she rubbed her fingers between the cat’s ears, “Last night, I found out the truth about my last mission.  Captain Rydell has taken my understanding of those circumstances to mean that I want to go back to the Fafnir right away.  But…Gabe and I have made some breakthroughs lately, and I…want to finish-out my training with him first.”


    The XanarCat listened contentedly, but when Ren got to the end of that statement, his eyes went wide.  His whole body fluffed-up like he had gotten startled, and in a quick shift, dissolved his cat-mantle and reformed a few feet away as his normal self…with an absolutely flabbergasted look on his face.  He wasn’t sure who to look at, and just repeatedly changed directions before finally settling on the blonde, “First name basis?  She’s using a nickname on you, even?”  He lifted a hand to his brow, and threaded his fingers through his hair, “What sorcery is this?”


    “He’s seen me naked, too.” She taunted.


    Gabriel’s face went bright red, “Don’t make it weird.” He gawked at his Eidolon, “She collapsed in her shower the other night!  I had no other options.  Also,” He pointed a fork around the Eidolon, at his trainee, “You are suddenly getting extremely comfortable around the Eidolon of the Fourth.”


    “He just sat in my lap and I rubbed his head.  How can I call him sir again so soon after?”


    Xanarken thumbed at her, “She’s got a point, you know.”


    “Are you gonna eat this stuff or not?”


    “Fine, fine…” She chuckled and pushed off the edge of the bed to go sit down properly.


    In passing the Eidolon on her way, Xanarken followed her with his confused gaze, and backed-up against the end of the bed, sitting on the footboard, “I…am equal parts curious and confused.  What happened?  Why are you two so chummy suddenly?”


    “She scolded me in Kitez for being a hard-ass for the last four months and, for a change, I actually listened.” Gabriel answered, explaining it in its most distilled form, “Having her put her life on the line to save Seth and I also helped.”


    “I actually really like him, too.  Well, now, anyway.” Ren added, “It’s crazy how much more personable he is when he’s not trying to act emotionally constipated.” Xanarken snorted a laugh but Gabriel just stared at her with an offended look on his face, “Since we’re on the same page though, I feel like it would be a waste if I just left and went back.  So…”


    “…If you have any power at all over whether she stays or goes, we’re asking you to stop the transfer until she graduates.” Gabriel finished.


    Xanarken stared at them for a good long while, a thousand things going through his head at once.  But, in the end, he smacked his hands down onto his thighs as he stood back up again, “Alright, I’ll do what I can.  I can’t make any guarantees, but…I’ve stalled him for two months already, what’s a few more.”


    Gabriel nearly choked, “Say what!?  Two months!?”


    “What?” The Eidolon asked nonchalantly, “She told you what happened, right?”


    “Yeah?”


    “Well, after the Fafnir got the guy who put the glamour on her in the first place, Rylen started looking to get his toy back.  But, because she’s in the Fourth now, he couldn’t just snatch her out of my hands.  I thought she was a good influence on you, so I made him back down for a while.”


    “Didn’t stop the Captain from snatching her himself.”


    “What do you mean?”


    Ren flipped her colors again, “Part of me finding out what happened included restoring my rank so I could see the footage.”


    “…Ah.  That changes things.”


    “Explain?” Gabriel mumbled.


    “As Eidolon, we have an agreement between one another that we won’t step on each other’s toes when it comes to what we each do with our own Wings.  We mind our own business.”


    “Right.”


    “So that was the only thing stopping Rylen from doing exactly what the good Captain just did.  Captain Rydell was under no such understanding, and he just voided the agreement.  She’s a member of both Wings now, and if Rylen wants to pull her for something, he need only say so.  I have to work with him on it…I can’t just say no anymore.”


    Gabriel put his fork down, “…So that’s what it was.  Rylen was playing the long-game.  He knew that this whole mission into Kitez would put Ren into swiping-distance of the Fafnir, and counted on that contact making her pine for the old days.  It was just to his benefit that it led us all to being stuck on the Aegis in the end.”


    “I told him ahead of your deployment that he shouldn’t count on it.” Xanarken sighed, “Anyway, I’m glad you two are getting along and want to finish the program.  Nothing wrong with expanding that skillset.”


    “Thank you, sir.”


    The Eidolon gave a little wave before dissolving his mantle, and left the two on their own to finish eating.  Gabriel lifted a fist, and Ren bumped it with her own; mission accomplished.