Title: Making Arrangements
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: All
Length: 850 words
Author notes: Part of Griþian and Fritþian.
Summary: After making plans with Umi without thinking, Clef has to do a bit of shuffling with his schedule.

Clef walked back into his study in a bit of a daze. He still wasn't exactly sure what had just happened, or how he had just obligated himself into hosting Umi at his house for a week. There should have been some sort of pause in the discussion to work out a convenient time for both of them, which Clef had assumed would be in at least four months time.

Umi's statement that she was free sooner than that was startling, but it shouldn't have been enough for him to have stared at her blankly while she made the suggestion that she return not next week, but the week after. It definitely wasn't any excuse for him not to give any thought to what his schedule may actually look like for that week and if hosting a guest - one he'd promised to show around - would even be possible. It was difficult enough holding down two jobs respectably without trying to even work out time off from either of them. (The near two weeks he'd just stayed away from Mazda while the Knights visited notwithstanding.)

Somehow, they worked out an entire plan of where and how he would be meeting her when she came back - early afternoon at the landing platform just off the smaller receiving hall. From there, they would go to his Ward, and she would be staying with him for the week.

Shuffling through his papers, Clef pulled out the battered little diary for this year, and flipped through to that day.

"Not next week, but the week after…" he murmured to himself as he turned to the following month.

The week after was technically the end of the first week and the beginning of the second. Clef looked at the first day and pulled a face.

Month 11 - Day 6 : Council Meeting ~LM

Of course the day they'd agreed on had been a Sixthday. And of course, neither one of them had stopped to think - or count the days - and realise that it would be a Council meeting day. But a late morning one could mean that - barring any emergencies - they could be out by lunchtime. It was doubtful, but… possible.

If that was the start of the week, what did the rest of the week look like?

His scrawl littered the neat lines of the page. The meeting with the Guard on the seventh would need to be moved or cancelled. The Academy committee meeting on the eighth… well, that could be chaired by Livina.

Clef dug out a mostly blank sheet of paper and picked up the first pen he found. He unscrewed the cap and tried to write out a reminder to ask Livina to chair the meeting, only the nib just scratched the paper without leaving a mark. He shook it a few times, but it still didn't write. Screwing the cap back on and setting it aside - he'd put more ink in it later - Clef picked up the next pen and managed to write his reminder.

There was the ball in Royce that evening as well, but he should probably attend. Ferio would remind him about trying to be sociable and get more people actually interested in the changes he was trying to make. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if he took Umi along with him, and he'd still technically be showing her more of Cephiro, if he did.

Also, it would be rude to cancel since he'd already accepted the invitation.

But he should check if he needed to mention bringing a guest, or it one was already counted in the invitation, as many of the Councillors had partners they would likely be bringing.

The next few days were all meetings and appointments scheduled in Mazda, which could be rearranged for different times of the day, or he could just leave them and spend time with Umi around them? (He made a note to talk to Aveo about taking over some of those, if she had time.) The twelfth started with a Circle meeting (probably shouldn't be rearranged) and ended with a Mage's Guild meeting.

Again, he could probably get Livina to chair the Guild meeting, and it wouldn't be too difficult to reschedule some of the things on the thirteenth to a later time - after he saw Umi off.

This was do-able.

It was stupid, but it was easily sorted, almost as if Umi had had someone look at his schedule for him, but he didn't have anyone at the Castle who would be willing to do that for her. He sorted all his own things here. And Aveo managed most of the things in Mazda while he was away.

There was a copy of this diary somewhere in her study that picked up whatever notes he put in this one, which was why he paused on the sixth with his pen.

Under the reminder about the Council meeting he wrote:

Umi ~EA (arrange transport)

That was bound to get him a number of questions when he arrived home later that evening.