Title: Tourney
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: PG
Length: 2000 words
Content notes: n/a
Author notes: Completely random medieval au? I have no idea. Clef/Umi, background Fuu/Ferio, very very unchecked.
Summary: “You are determined, then. To fight, disguised as some nameless person without reputation to warn you opponents what you are capable of-“

oOo

Rain sluiced down over the little diamond-shaped panes of wavering glass in the window, another layer of distortion over the world outside, but it was a familiar view to the two people within the room. “If it keeps on like this, the melee is going to prove a matter of who can keep their balance best in mud.”

“Which will not stop you competing?”

“Certainly not!” The woman by the window turned, throwing a smile across the room at the man who was sighing at her by the door. She was slender, young, not quite old enough to have seen two decades pass. She wore quilted jerkin and hose which would form a protective layer of padding underneath the gleaming pieces of plate armour which lay ready on a long table by the wall. There was another set of armour on a stand in the corner, far more distinctive, with dragon-wing pauldrons and details chased in gold, but this one was just as well made.

The woman’s hair was tied into a braid and wrapped about her head, where it would stay safely out of the way under her helm, and she held in her hands the mail tunic which would go on before the plate. “My balance is up to the trial, I assure you – and besides, it will make matters less predictable, and therefore more interesting. Do you not think so?”

Stepping towards her, the man sighed again, running one hand through already-disturbed hair. “You are determined, then. To fight, disguised as some nameless person without reputation to warn you opponents what you are capable of-“

“I am a knight of Cephiro. Of course I shall fight, and reputation means nothing in the heat of the melee – actions, and luck, those are all one should rely on. If I am unrecognised, then my opponent would never beat me in an open fight, for they will obviously lack the skills to focus on what is important in the field! And the King’s guards will take the field – if Sir Lantis and the Marshal are there openly, then all comers must expect a hard fight, surely.”

“Umi…”

“Clef.” She echoed, half mocking, but holding out the mail shirt to him so he could help her on with it, which he dutifully did. She stood still as he settled the links carefully into place across her shoulders. “You know that if I rode under my own colours, I should be given an even wider berth than Lantis or LaFarga – save for the just-knighted fools who merely wish to brag it was the Knight Selece herself who unhorsed them.”

Clef’s hands stilled, resting on her shoulders. He had a young face, but old eyes, and there was silver glittering in his hair – his age was impossible to judge. “You saved our country, you and your sister-knights. If chance had not tossed your ship up on our shores, when it did… forgive us, if we would rather honour you than attempt to do you harm!”

“I do not want to be merely honoured, Clef!” Umi snapped, and for a moment they stared at each other, motionless, on the edge of – something. But she dropped her gaze, and he began to breath again, taking a step back. “I am just another knight. That is all I ever wanted to be! I am glad that storm abandoned us in Cephiro, glad that we could help you – but I cannot live my life resting on what I achieved through luck as much as skill and – and sheer stubbornness, when I was little more than a girl. Surely the Lord Chancellor understands that, however long it has been since he bore a sword? I am bored, Clef.”

“Both Hikaru and Fuu share your position, yet neither of them are resorting to throwing themselves at danger.” It was said low, but heard clearly enough. Umi laughed again, her good humour making a recovery.

“Danger? It is a tourney, Clef, not a war!”

“People die in tourneys, just as permanently as in real battles, and with far less cause!”

“Perhaps, but so do people die out hunting, or at board, or in bed – not many! Hikaru and Fuu have found their own schemes of entertainment – Hikaru has her building schemes, this great wall the guards will use to protect Cephiro, and Fuu is already taking on the duties of Princess Consort, though she will not marry Ferio until the new year. If I had something to occupy me, a quest…”

It was Clef’s turn to laugh, as he slowly began fastening the pieces of armour over her limbs. “You have already succeeded in the one quest that features in the legends of Cephiro. You discovered the way to Eterna, and brought back the star-metal for your sword to be forged from it. The King offered you an Earldom, and you declined – that would have given you business enough to keep from boredom-“

“But governing an Earldom would mean living there, knowing it, its people and its problems. My home is here. All the people I care for – I lost my family once, when the storm flung us across the seas. I will not lose the new one I have found.” Her hands were fisted when she raised her arms so the breastplate could be fastened at the sides. Clef did not remark on it. “No – no, there must be something I can do which will not demand I make my home elsewhere.”

“If the Marshalry were not already filled…” Clef began, and Umi laughed again, helplessly.

“With LaFarga and Lantis, there is already one Marshal too many in this land!”

“True, perhaps. And perhaps it is also true that you would find something better to do here by going out and looking of an evening, instead of coming to interrupt me!”

“But, Clef, making you grumpy is the most reliable form of entertainment I have found!”

“You just remember who you have asked to see to your arming today, Lady Knight!” He returned. “If you want it fastened well, you should not tease the one doing the fastening – that or take a squire of your own. Now that might keep you busy – but I would pity the poor squire!”

“They would have as little to occupy them as I have!” She retorted. “And at any rate, it is easier for the Lord Chamberlain to steal some unused arms than it is some lowly squire.”

“Borrow some unused arms. Not steal. I told you before, you cannot keep these! …You do understand that you will need to borrow a sword, as well? Your own blade would label you as plain as your own armour. That is, if you truly intend to go through with this-“

“You know that I do.” She looked at the sword which hung, in place of honour, on the wall by the fireplace. The dragon’s wings shape of the hilt was far too distinctive to go unnoted, but still she sighed. “I shall have to borrow one of those too, I suppose.”

“…I brought this one. It matches the armour.” Clef said, softly, and lifted a scabbard from the table, where it had lain behind the armour, unseen. He presented it to her in both hands, and watched quietly for her reaction.

The metal bands about the scabbard were indeed tooled with the same thin pattern which marked the edges of the armour – but there was also a crest, one repeated on the hilt of the sword.

A crest she recognised from the ring Clef always wore.

Slowly, she drew the blade, leaving the scabbard in his hands. It was well-polished, but not unused; there were several marks not fully erased by the whetstone. “…It is a fine weapon.” Her voice nearly cracked on the words.

“It deserves to have something to do, once in a while.” Clef said, just as softly.

“Then – then it shall. I will – attempt to do it justice.”

Clef smiled, and stepped close to fasten swordbelt and scabbard about her waist. “I am certain that you shall, or I would, indeed, have stolen someone else’s arms for you to get muddy. Now, then, I believe you are ready. I have borrowed a horse from the Marshal’s stable which should serve you well enough, though you will have to explain to him what has happened if you are beaten and lose it, and I must appear before I am missed. The weather will not stop the melee – battles have been fought in worse conditions, after all – but it may well aid your disguise.” He handed over the plain helm, and a dark blue surcoat with no badge, just as a barely-knighted boy or girl would be wearing. He hesitated, though, on the threshold – one hand on the latch of the door, he turned, only to find Umi studying the hilt of the sword again. “Umi-“

She looked up, startled. “Yes?”

“…May I ask – half the knights taking part seem to have declared they will be fighting for the Princess Consort to-be. Will you follow the same fashion? I do not know how I will keep the King out of the fighting next Tourney, if someone else wins in the name of his beloved – and it was hard enough this time! His taking the field might drive Fuu to fight for her own honour, or his, and I cannot have the whole of the royal family taking to the field…”

“Who will I fight for?” Umi blinked, then resheathed the sword and crossed to him, a grin lurking in a twitch at the edge of her lips. “I will fight for myself, of course.”

“Of course.” He shook his head, with a wry smile, and turned to unlatch it as she reached his side.

“But – should I win it, I shall do so for you, my lord.”

The door swung open, but Clef did not – could not – move through it, staring as Umi pulled coif and helm on. “You – Umi?”

“I would ask for a token of yours, but I suppose you have already supplied me well enough to count.” She said, and he could hear the smile now hidden behind metal as she strode off down the corridor, one of her hands raised in a salute to him.

Minutes later, he was slipping into his place beside the King, under the pavilion which had been erected to protect watchers of the field from the worst of the weather. Even now, there was a little rain falling, but the clouds were splitting apart overhead sunlight sliced down across the damp grass, making it steam.

Before, he had merely wanted to see Umi make it through the fray safely – now, he had to admit, a part of him wanted badly to see her win.

To see what she would do then, in honouring her declaration.

…And once the day was safely done, he would turn again to the question of employment for his Knight, because it was that or feel his chest aching with anxiety each tournament – he would not begrudge her the need for excitement, but he would not forgive her leaving him because she was unlucky in a play-fight!

oOo

(The King tried to ask where Clef had been three times, with no answer from the Chancellor, before he gave in and let his friend alone – and then the horns sounded, and the Knights rode onto the field before them.

Clef’s gaze fixed immediately and unerringly on a Knight with a blue coat and unmarked shield. Ferio frowned, and turned to his betrothed – who was looking between Clef and the field with a laugh dancing in her eyes.

“My Lord,” She whispered, voice pitched for him alone to hear. “I believe I now know where Umi is – and why she declared at dinner last night that she was feeling unwell, and would watch the Tourney from her rooms.”

“You do not think she would-“ Ferio started, then caught himself, smothering his own laugh and glancing at Clef again. “She would, though. Do you think she will win?”

“…In his name.” Fuu said, composing her face into a demure smile. “That would account for the edge to his distraction – and will be a pleasant change from mine.”

Ferio had less composure. The start of the fighting was delayed a good five minutes as the heralds waited for the King to cease laughing.)

oOo