Arknights | Northbound

[veryroundbird]

Rating: Mild
Words: 926
Characters: Magallan, Mayer
Relationships: Mayer/Magallan
Summary: In the last week of their undergrad terms, Magallan asks Mayer to help her with one small thing.
Notes: 2021 Pride Month request!

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"So," says Hanna Meyer, as she gets blearily half-dragged down the hall by her hand in her roommate's hand, "what's this urgent thing you needed to wake me up for? Not that I mind being woken up since I nodded off working, but—"

"Relax, relax," says Erika, squeezing her hand, and only wincing a little from where Hanna bit her on reflex from being woken suddenly. "It's extremely urgent, and extremely necessary. You're done with your finals, right?"

Hanna pouts. "It's a personal project. A passion project!"

"So you're done with your finals!" Erika's brown hair fluffs a little bit in a pleased kind of way, long white feathers ruffling a little. "So it's fine."

At first Hanna hadn't quite known what to make of Erika Magallan, when they'd been assigned the same dorm in freshman year, when she had a habit of disappearing for days at a time and then returning with footage of the campus steam tunnels, but her bright attitude was just nice to be around, in a crowd of grouchy engineers.

And now they're seniors in their last week of classes, both with very generous offers from Rhine Lab out west; in some ways it feels like no time at all they've known each other, and in some ways, it feels like it's been forever. Part of her—that she doesn't quite know how to interpret—hopes they'll know each other forever.

So when Erika wants her to go somewhere unknown, she'll follow.

They climb the engineering building's utility stairway together, since this late at night the elevator's shut down, footsteps echoing in the austere concrete-and-metal shaft. "Do you think you're ready?" Hanna says, without any preamble; they both know what she's talking about.

"Hm..." Erika hums a little, as she thinks to herself. "I've got my lucky pendant! And I already read the orientation packet, and got my schedule... I'm really looking forward to it, ehehe. I just have to review my equipment, once we ship out." She glances back at Hanna, from a step up. "But this one last thing I needed you for, Hanna."

"Eh? Shouldn't we go back to the lab, then?"

Erika shakes her head. "No," she says, pulling Hanna up to the end of the stairway before the roof access door. "No," she says, again. "Just you."

And when she nudges open the roof door, the sky is lit up with bright stars on earth—

—or, no. But rather, drones—Erika's little recording drones that Hanna helped her design for her urban exploration projects, and a few others that were borrowed from around the lab, floating in a ring of multicolored lights above them.

And there's the Meeboo that Erika asked to borrow a week ago, sitting patiently in the corner; it yips, and then from its auditory output comes—music. A slow, jazzy beat—romantic, even, if she allows herself to put that kind of subjective word to it. "Huh? Erika, this is—"

"Hanna Mayer," says Erika, holding out a hand, and tilting her head just gently sideways, "may I have this dance?"

How can she say no to that?

Erika the hobbyist figure skater is just as graceful on a dance floor, and Hanna's all gawky legs that rarely get beyond the path between her lab and her room, but this isn't the kind of dance that requires any kind of poise. Erika laces their fingers together, and puts an arm around her waist, pulling her in close enough that she can feel a flush rising across her face.

"You could have just told me," Hanna murmurs, just over the music.

"Well, the wonder of exploration is in life's surprise joys," after all," she says, tucking her face against the side of Hanna's head. "You know I'm going to be away for a while, once they get me set up."

For a moment, Hanna doesn't have words; she's thought about it, of course. She knows what kind of position Erika's taking at Rhine Lab, on an exploration grant, fulfilling her long-held dream of traveling to the frozen north of the continent. In the end, she settles for a simple "...mhm. I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you too," says Erika, sounding uncharacteristically subdued as she guides Hanna in a gentle circle; her hand in Hanna's holds tight. "But—in this moment, and between expeditions—I'll stay with you. And if you ever need me by your side, don't worry about calling on me, okay? No matter how far away I am."

"They'd better let me work on all your equipment!" Hanna says, firmly.

"Ehehe—I'm sure no one can stop you!" says Erika, and Hanna can feel her smile widen, cheek-to-cheek, in a way that makes her heart flutter.

"Just like no one can stop you," says Hanna, smiling in spite of herself. "We've been talking so long about chasing our dreams together, and—now we're finally going to do it."

Hanna leans against her, comfortably. "Here's to changing the world," she says.

Of course exploration is dangerous. Hanna, working with self-destructs in her lab, is going to be safer than Erika, hiking across the unknown parts of Terra into what may well be Catastrophe zones. But—Hanna believes in what she said. They're unstoppable, when it comes to the things they love, always turning inexorably toward the north of their compass.

And as they slowly turn together under the lights, in the cool midnight air, she thinks—that's why Erika will return to her, in spite of all that might stand in her way.