Title: reflections of the past
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 2300ish words
Content notes: References to the depressing parts of canon?
Author notes: For 'reflect', also for 'masks' for my birthday bingo card. This was going to be cute and fluffy and then it wasn't. Ferio & Clef, post-canon.
Summary: "Whose idea was this?"

"Caldina's, but there was pretty enthusiastic support once she explained the concept."

"You mean you thought the idea of an incognito dance was amusing?"

oOo

Clef stared at the mask in his hands, and sighed. "Really, Ferio?"

"It's a masquerade ball. So you have to wear a mask," Ferio said, lounging in a chair on the other side of the room with his legs slung over one of its arms, his own mask dangling from his hand, green and gold ribbons trailing down to the floor. He was wearing full Guard uniform, chest plate and tall boots and all, which hardly ever happened.

"Whose idea was this?" Clef muttered, turning his own mask over to stare at it. Empty eye-holes stared back at him from the blue-edged silver, and this one had blue and purple ribbons hanging from it, ready to tie it about his head.

"Caldina's, but there was pretty enthusiastic support once she explained the concept."

"You mean you thought the idea of an incognito dance was amusing?" Clef turned the mask over, held it up to his face, and stared at himself in the mirror over his dresser. It covered almost a third of his face, and that was it. "And you really think that these masks are going to disguise anyone's identity? Even if they did, there aren't going to be many people of my stature attending; there's no point my going."

"The masks aren't meant to disguise people, they're meant to let you pretend you're disguised, give you an excuse to go talk to people you wouldn't normally approach. Do something you wouldn't normally let yourself do. It's for fun. Which is why you need to go - I don't think you've had any fun in a century."

"The last century hasn't been much fun for anyone." Clef set the mask down. "I'm not interested, Ferio."

"I paid for the mask, you have to go." Ferio grinned at him.

Clef rolled his eyes. "I can pay you back for your wasted money."

"It's an official occasion," Ferio said, swinging his legs down to the floor. "That means all the Guild Heads are meant to attend, and that means you need to at least show up. And as you have to show up, you have to have a mask."

It was tempting to bang his head on the dresser. "Even if I do have to turn up - which I am not agreeing to do - I can always leave a minute later. One minute's attendance doesn't warrant the foolish act of putting this on, when no one is going to mistake me for anyone else!"

"Well, you could always fix that," Ferio said, and his voice was suddenly firmer than it had been. Clef watched in the mirror as Ferio stood, walking across the room. "If you let yourself get back to your normal height, then you wouldn't be so easily recognised. You might not be recognised at all."

Taking a breath, Clef had to look down - only his gaze fell on the mask, the empty eyes staring back at him. "Why would I do that?" he asked, voice flat.

"Because it's time to move on." Ferio stopped behind him, and Clef didn't look up. "Because Cephiro has taken her due, and she doesn't get to take anything more. Because you took this form to dedicate yourself to this land, and you've done it for long enough, and it's time you get to have your own life again, let us all shoulder the weight together."

Their eyes met in the mirror. "Sometimes you look so like your sister," Clef whispered, pinned by the unyielding strength in that expression.

"She wouldn't want you trapped in the past." Ferio took one last step forward, until he was beside Clef, not behind him, and reached to pick up Clef's mask. He turned, and held it out, until Clef looked up at him directly. "This is just an excuse to try something different for an evening. If you prefer being like this, you can always go back to it tomorrow morning. But I don't think you do."

"She told you why I took this form, didn't she."

"So you could focus properly on supporting the Pillar and not get distracted by personal concerns? Yeah. She told me." Ferio propped his hip against the dresser. "I was more worried about her than you, back then, so I didn't exactly tell her I thought that was the loneliest thing I'd ever heard, giving yourself an excuse not to seek out any companionship at all."

"Just because I look like a child doesn't mean I spend all my time alone, Ferio," Clef snapped, feeling heat rising in his cheeks.

"But it does make a statement about your intention to not get involved with anyone. Everyone knows that's what it means, when a mage sends themselves backwards in age. And yeah, I know sex doesn't have to have anything to do with feelings - Emeraude keeping a child's form was never going to stop her falling in love, and it won't protect you, either. But it makes you a lot less approachable, and you know it; even if you did fall for someone, you'd probably manage to keep it hidden until you managed to suffocate either the feeling or yourself in the process. Not wanting to be distracted by 'personal concerns' means there were persons you found distracting, and you deserve to be distracted! When was the last time you hugged someone? Even held their hand?"

"Not as long ago as you might think." His hand on Umi's to try and pull her out of the spiralling anger at herself that had been rising in her voice was probably not what Ferio meant, but it counted. Before that, though…

"Humour me. Please?" Ferio extended his hand a little further, the ribbons swaying slightly as they hung from his hand. "One night. Let yourself relax, let go of- everything."

"If I let go of everything the castle's going to collapse and then your ball will be a disaster."

"Clef."

He took a breath, closed his eyes, took another. It wasn't as though he hadn't considered it - it was several years since Cephiro had been reborn, and he'd been pushing the idea away more and more recently. "It feels disrespectful. When she lost everything, to just- just start over, try and have what she couldn't-"

"If she could hear you say that, she would be so disappointed in you that it would start snowing. You know that, right?" Ferio tapped him on the head with the mask, clicking his tongue like you would at a small child. "She wouldn't want you to tie yourself to her ghost and Cephiro and try to replace her. I think our Magic Knights would be highly distressed at the idea of you doing that, too."

"Don't you bring them into this, that's just-"

"Unfair?" Ferio snorted. "Who ever said I play fair? Come on. One night. I'll let you borrow some of my clothes, I'll let you hide in the corner all evening if you want to." He took a breath. "For my sister's sake. Please?"

"Fine!" Clef snapped, snatching the mask and standing up, before Ferio could make him feel guilty enough he actually felt ill. "Fine, one night, and you don't tell anyone it's me, so if - when I go back to myself tomorrow, I don't have a thousand prying questions to answer."

"Deal," Ferio beamed at him. "So, are you going to change now, or do you want me to fetch some spare clothes first?"

Hissing, Clef reached down to grab his boots and yank them off his feet, taking his socks with them. The tile floor was cool under his bare feet. He pulled the ring from his finger, and it clattered down on the dresser. His coronet was next, and without it his hair cascaded over his face in an even more hap-hazard manner; he tried to blow it out of the way while he fumbled for the catches on his mantle. It fell away, taking his outer robes to flop in a heap on the floor. The simple cloth of his shirt and trousers (and underwear) he was fairly confident he could grow with himself. His belt, however, had to come off, and he dropped it next to the mask before taking a breath, closing his eyes so he couldn't see what he was doing, and reaching for his magic.

It had been more than three centuries since he bound himself into this form, and the spells he'd lain on himself were firm and set in place, echoing layers of intent and power. Breaking them felt like he was trying to smash through a shell that had thickened and thickened over the years; it hurt, shards of magic striking him as he broke them free, and an ever-growing pressure building up under his skin; a heat trying to burn him from the inside-out, until the last layers of his spell broke and the pressure burst through him, wiping out awareness of everything else.

For a moment there was nothing but the sharp ache and a sheer white light flaring across his vision; he couldn't breathe, couldn't think. Could do nothing but endure until it faded back under a wave of itching, pins-and-needles prickling that defined every inch of him.

He came back to himself gasping for air, slumped forward against a hard surface that was inexplicably curved, and- ah, that was Ferio's armour, and that was Ferio's arm round his back holding him up. Clef took a breath, or tried to; his chest spasmed as it expanded and he was hit with a coughing fit, grabbing on to Ferio's arms to stay upright.

By the time it passed, his head was spinning, and he let himself lean forward into Ferio while he caught his breath. "Ouch," he muttered in protest, forehead pressed to the side of Ferio's neck.

"Are you okay? Clef?" Ferio's voice was taut with worry.

Well, this was his fault. "Maybe," Clef got out, and leaned harder when a second bought of coughing hit - not as hard this time, but enough to set him shaking. His lungs weren't used to being this large, his legs this long. He ached all through. But even still, he felt…

Free.

Clef took a more cautious deep breath, and resolved he wasn't mentioning that to Ferio any time soon. "I think I can stand up now?" he said, trying to raise his head and step backwards. His knees gave way as his weight pressed to them, and Ferio grabbed him tighter, lowering him down into the chair.

"Let's try sitting first, okay?"

Ferio steadied him, and Clef gripped the arms of the chair, slumping against the back. "Good idea."

Slowly, Ferio let go, and pulled back until Clef was actually sitting under his own chair-assisted power, then flopped down into a pile on the floor, next to the puddle of Clef's abandoned robes. He was staring at Clef, eyes wide, and if he wasn't certain it would have started another coughing fit Clef would have been laughing.

Instead, he flexed his hands and feet, trying to breathe through the trembling in every limb, and swallowed. "I don't suppose you could get me a drink?"

"Sure," Ferio agreed, though he blinked at Clef a couple more times before shaking his head and getting to his feet, vanishing off to the other side of the room. "Water or tea?"

"Both?" Clef asked. He wanted the tea badly to settle shaken nerves, but water was probably a better first bet.

When Ferio brought him a glass, he had to work to wrap both hands around it tight enough to keep it steady, and he nearly inhaled the first sip instead of swallowing. But he managed, and by the time he was presented with a cup of tea to replace it with, his hands had almost stopped trembling. Ferio vanished for a few moments while he savoured the warm comfort of the tea, but returned with a selection of clothing by the time Clef had finished the mug.

"Ready to try standing again?"

"I think so." Clef put the mug down on the dresser, and accepted Ferio's hands to help haul him up out of the chair onto his feet. His knees wobbled, but steadied after a moment, as his body remembered how it was supposed to work. They circled the room a few times, Ferio steadying him less and less, until he felt confident enough to send Ferio to sit down and do another couple of circuits himself.

Half an hour later, he was dressed in some of Ferio's more nondescript clothing, shades of grey and blue with a tunic that stopped at his knees and shouldn't trip him up too easily. Clef stood before the mirror again, looking himself in the eyes more steadily than he had managed in a very long time. The mask lay in his hands, and he brought it up slowly, tying it on.

The person in the mirror might not look like the Guru people had known for the past few centuries, but they were Clef all the same, even with half his face concealed. When he turned to the door, Ferio grinned back at him, his own mask tied on and doing absolutely nothing to disguise the scar across his nose or the one on his cheek.

Clef snorted, and crossed the room, increasingly steady on his feet. "Come on, then. Let's go see what chaos you've created this time."

"At least half the credit should go to Caldina," Ferio insisted, making a show of checking the corridor was clear before waving Clef out of the room. "If you get really bored, you could always go to the library. You could actually reach half the shelves for once, right now."

Clef elbowed him as he went past, and walked on while Ferio doubled over in entirely fake breathlessness. Music was floating up the stairs, and he went on with his head held high, ready to see whatever the evening brought.