Title: Peaceful
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 1600ish words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Post-canon, gen. Grew out of the image of Clef using a spell to 'iron' his clothes while wearing them because that would be so convenient a spell to have and went a little sideways trying to get there...
Summary: The first night he lay down expecting to be up in about five hours, and instead had slept right through the night and all his morning meetings, he was mortified.

oOo

A month into Cephiro's rebirth the euphoria and grand, sweeping energy of that explosion of life and wellbeing had settled down into a steady glow. It was still very much there - Clef was thoroughly aware of the life saturating the world about him with every breath, every moment. It was similar to the buzz that had run through Cephiro the first few years that Emeraude had been the Pillar; when she was optimistic, and happy. But now it was a richer, broader thing; the joy of many, not just one.

In practical terms, the settling meant that they weren't discovering entire new provinces appearing overnight anymore. The land still grew, but in a steady push, not chaotic bursts. Life was calmer. Clef, in turn, felt calmer himself - he'd been sleeping in fits and starts, waking up whenever something new happened, or just when the fizz of energy was too much and he couldn't sleep. Not that he'd felt bad, even sleeping only a few hours a night - not like the grey and sleepless exhaustion in the anxious years before the rebirth. But external energy - even from Cephiro herself - was an unsustainable substitute for real sleep, real healing.

It therefore shouldn't have been a shock to him that, now things were calming and the world was safe and well, sleep kept creeping up to claim Clef. The first night he lay down expecting to be up in about five hours, and instead had slept right through the night and all his morning meetings, he was mortified. More so when he found that Ferio (who he'd been meant to meet that first time) had worried enough he'd gone to the Healers rather than just waking Clef up; Naru Miura had apparently flung her hands up with a declaration of 'finally!' and banned anyone from waking him for anything less than Cephiro's disintegration. So Clef found out when he stumbled downstairs at the lunch bell, full of apologies.

Ferio waved him off. "You needed it. I got hold of your calendar and warned everyone that Miura would be talking to them if they bothered you - I think word's spread now, though, so you'll probably find everyone's going to let you sleep in for a while."

"I don't want to sleep in!" Clef protested. "I don't need to sleep half a day away - there's still so much to do, and-"

"And all of it will wait until you're rested," Lantis added as he sat on the other side of the table, setting his plate down and also a small extra fruit bowl which he pushed across the table towards Clef. "Though I would like to rearrange our meeting soon about shifting the burden of holding the castle away from just yourself."

Clef eyed the fruit, and then his own plate. He'd taken a fairly normal serving, for him, but he was already halfway through his meal and just starting to feel really hungry. Another thing he'd not had to worry about when Cephiro was throwing out energy enough to sustain him. But Lantis wasn't the only mage in the room with more on their plate than usual. They were all going to have to keep adjusting as Cephiro did; something Clef probably needed to make sure the Mage's Guild was monitoring - and set a good example for. He sighed, and pulled the bowl closer without complaining.

"I'm still not going to make a habit of missing meetings," he muttered. "I can catch up on sleep without being rude."

Ferio patted him on the shoulder. "No one is going to begrudge you actually getting some rest."

"What, even the other Guilds? We've a meeting in half an hour, and if I'd slept through that - do you know how much work it took to arrange for us all to meet at once?"

Grinning, Ferio shot a look at Lantis, then back at Clef. "Well, given Miura's a Guild head and will be in attendance - I suspect she'd have a word with anyone who did get grouchy."

Rubbing a hand over his face, Clef had to work at not laughing at that thought. "Even so-"

"You'll just have to find a clock with an alarm if you want to wake up on time," Ferio continued. "But I was about to go back for something more to eat - did you want me to grab you anything else?"

"You don't all have to start pushing food on me, the point is taken." Clef sighed, and settled to finishing his meal quickly enough that he wasn't late to his next meeting, given he was actually awake for this one.

He'd flung on yesterday's robes when he woke up, too bewildered by the time to find more than clean underthings, and given he'd abandonded them on the floor last night in a wave of sleepiness as he stumbled to bed they were fairly crinkled at this point. He paused outside the meeting room to brush his clothes down, an impromptu unwrinkling spell rising to his lips as he ran his hands swiftly over the fabric, and didn't notice Miura approaching until she spoke up.

"Well, I guess you weren't going to actually sleep for a month, much though you could use it."

"W- Miura!" He flinched and spun about to face her, then glared. "It's true you stopped anyone waking me this morning, then?"

"Oh, the injunction's indefinite, not just this morning," she said, cheerfully. "If you're sleeping that hard you should stay asleep, I don't care what people are trying to debate at you. I'll take it off when Cephiro isn't wobbling about all over the place and pulling on your connection - and when you aren't single-handedly still holding this building together, and a disproportionate amount of the land, and when you've recovered from over-stretching yourself for decades before doing far worse than that for more than a year."

"I'm fine!" He snapped.

Miura, unfortunately, was so used to his snapping by now that she completely ignored it, just as Ferio and Lantis would. She didn't even get annoyed anymore. "No, but you will be. Resting is fairly integral to that process, so rest you shall."

"You can't order me to sleep. Even if you tried, I can't sleep so easily as that. Last night was… an aberration."

"I can't order you to sleep, but I can advise you to rest, and I can order others not to interfere with your following my advice." Miura's smile turned… suspicious. "Fortunately, I don't have to try to make you sleep. Cephiro looks set to make sure that happens all on her own, and bound so closely to her as you are, I don't think you can dismiss her directions so easily."

Clef paused, looking at her, and lowered his hands very very slowly from smoothing the last part of his sleeve out. "…You believe Cephiro is… responsible for how much I slept last night?"

"I believe Cephiro has moved into a new phase of recovery - one which involves encouraging rest and recuperation among those who need it. The entire infirmary slept well last night, for the first time in all the years I've been practising as a Healer. I can feel the shift in energy." She beamed at him. "So now people are going to heal whether or not you're too stubborn to listen to me and look after yourself."

Very carefully, Clef didn't swear. He'd assumed that the ease of sleeping was just - things were calmer, safer, he might crash hard for a few nights then be back to a pattern more normal for him. But if Cephiro was leaning hard on this 'resting' suggestion…

"I need to make an alarm clock," he muttered to himself, twisting his hand to summon his to-do list, which was holding steady at 'obscenely long' but at least not growing these days.

"If you want one to work, you're going to need one which doesn't rely on magic," Miura pointed out. "Just as a warning. As Cephiro is bound to interfere with the working of such spells for the moment…"

"…I need to get Presea to make me an alarm clock," he amended, then pulled a face. "Or better still, talk to Metro about getting something from Autozam, I suppose. Do you have any more good news for me?"

"Yes. This healing means that the dozen people in the infirmary who were suffering from burn-out and the two with the Autozam's exhaustion have all improved significantly in just one night." Miura smiled at him still, and he had to give in and smile back, because no wonder she was happy with this new twist. "And we're now a minute late getting into this meeting, but it's my fault, and I'll happily say as much. But I wouldn't worry. You weren't the only late riser this morning."

Sure enough as they entered the large meeting room, there were several people yawning or propping themselves up over a mug of tea, and instead of anyone accusing them of being late, there were only demands to know what was happening - which Miura cheerfully answered, leaving Clef to find his seat and get settled. It gave him the opportunity to look about, too, at the people in the room; and he could see that a lot of them were worn, recognised the worry on their faces.

Everything had been moving so fast, first Cephiro's deterioration, and then the rebuilding.

Maybe it really was a good thing, for all of them, that Cephiro was apparently determined to slow the pace - and slow them down, too.

…He was still going to invest in an alarm clock. But perhaps he would try stopping work a little earlier in the evenings, and letting himself relax a little.