Title: Economical
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 1000ish words
Content notes: None apart from spending a lot of money without worry.
Author notes: Stand-alone several years after the last thing I posted, apparently. For restraint, also drag for ffwks bingo.
Summary: Umi likes to spend money on her friends. Clef doesn't know how to.

oOo

It wasn't what Clef had expected, when Umi dragged him out to go shopping.

He had been startled enough when she walked in to the end of the class full of adolescents getting their first taste of power inhibited only by their own will. They were a dream and a nightmare all at once - he was trying to teach them how to be sensible about experimenting, and how to find their limits. When Umi had burst in, he'd looked up and announced "and here is one person who knows how bad it feels to have a spell almost snap back on you, but has managed to avoid the full experience to date. But she doesn't know how to read a clock."

"I can read a clock back home just fine, and you must be almost done. Mind if I wait here?" Umi sat herself on top of one of the spare desks in the row against the far wall, and beamed when he glared at her.

"If I said yes, would you leave?"

"Why would you do that? You're always telling me I need to know more about my magic."

With a sigh, he carried on with the last ten minutes of his lesson, leaving the pupils with a set of small experiments to do so they could learn what it felt like for them when they weren't committed to a spell, when they didn't really believe in what they wanted their magic to do, on a tiny and safe scale that would let them recognise the feeling, hopefully, if they pushed against it in something more important.

Umi, thankfully, sat with her arms propped on her knees, listening thoughtfully, and didn't say anything more until the class was over, then wandered up to him at the front of the room. "I don't remember you teaching us that feeling so neatly," she said, as the students milled around, taking far longer to pack up than usual, all listening in intently.

Snorting, Clef waved a hand to pull his lesson notes into his ring. "I didn't," he told her. "You three are the reason I first came up with a way of explicitly teaching this. Well, and Ascot with you. I've had several years now to refine the process."

"You didn't teach classes at all back then, did you," Umi said, thoughtful still as she looked about the room. "This place even looks like a school. Is it new? Or did we just never find it?"

"There weren't many classes like this, no. We didn't have many teachers with time to run them, not who could have kept things safe with students half as strong as you. Powerful mages have always undertaken an apprenticeship with one master, at least for any practical work. But after the reformation we had too many new mages determined they would grow up to protect the people they loved, and too few powerful Iru alive and qualified to teach them. It's taking a while, but we're working a system out."

"But you weren't even doing that. You were ridiculously busy back then, I remember you never seemed to sleep." Umi watched him, closely, head tilted. "Have things changed recently? You haven't seemed any less busy."

Laughing quietly, Clef stood. "Yes. You and your fellow knights have actually managed to learn enough to get your qualifications. Now you're all Iru, my most troublesome pupils are no longer taking up my time - these classes are slotting into the gap where I was previously teaching you. Now, what did you want? You didn't burst in on us out of curiosity's sake."

"I might have done," Umi said, with a grin. "Restraint isn't my strongest virtue. No, I wanted to grab you because you need to go shopping, so I wanted to make sure I couldn't miss you."

Clef eyed her. "I do?"

"Yep! Holidays are next week, and I bet you haven't remembered to get things yet, and today's the last day the markets are open. So, come on, I'm going to go spend your money for you. You can thank me later, when you aren't up half the night making things for all of us."

She grabbed him by the hand, and dragged him out of the room, and the Castle altogether. Clef could have pulled away, but - well, she was right, he hadn't managed to buy anything for people yet, partially because he'd lost track of how close the holidays were but mostly because he never knew what to get anyone. He very much would rather not be making things in a last minute panic for the fifth year in a row.

But after the third small and neat present Umi had picked out and had the stall-holders wrap, he had to step back, and look at her. For all her cackling that she was going to spend through his entire account, she was being…

Restrained.

It wasn't like her. Clef had seen her spending her own money on her friends before, and she took a real delight in giving things to the people she cared about. It was a lot harder to do here - though she was qualified, she wasn't resident, and hadn't a job to get any income with. He pulled her aside, when the jeweller was wrapping the latest little gift (a small carved griffin for Hikaru). "Why are you holding back? You know you aren't actually going to run me out of money, don't you. I never use it, it might as well go into the local economy."

"Mama always says you should be restrained with other people's money," Umi said, shrugging. "I mean, it's not mine."

Clef looked at her a moment longer, then waved his hands back at the stalls. "I give you permission. Just this once, spend as if it were your own."

Pausing, Umi looked at him. "You mean that?"

"I mean it." He shrugged. "I trust you."

"…Okay! Come on, then," Umi said, almost bouncing on her feet, and grabbed his hand to drag him back the other way. "We need to go back over these stalls - there was the most amazing cloak on that first one that Fuu would love-"

Clef tried not to smile too hard, and let himself be dragged along - let Umi be unconfined for him, buying things he would never have been confident enough the recipients would like.