Title: no stopping
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 1600ish words?
Content notes: none
Author notes: Post-canon, Ascot/Clef
Summary: Ascot didn't want to be Clef's apprentice, accidentally or otherwise. So he found a way to change that.

oOo

The quarter-meeting of the Mage’s Guild took place in one of the old chambers in the levels below the main castle, buried into the stone; only because there was no where else large enough to take the meetings now apart from the main dining room or the council chamber, neither of which were available for Guilds to use.

Ascot took a breath as he slipped into the back of the room, glancing about, but he’d guessed correctly where Clef would be sat, and the door he’d come through was well out of his sight.

Why he still felt so nervous about this, he couldn’t say, but he didn’t feel ready to deal with Clef seeing him here before everything was declared and certain. Quarter-meets were open to all Guild members, but Ascot had only come along a couple of times, when there was something going forward he wanted to be there to see it go through – when Clef had encouraged him to come along and see it through.

He bit his lip now, looking down at his boots and the plain pale grey of the stone below them. After the second lesson Clef had run away from, Ascot had still turned up at the usual time for a few days, but he hadn’t been surprised when he was greeted with written apologies instead of Clef being there.

Then he’d gone to the Guild, and after that he’d used that time for other things. Things which were, hopefully, going to be completed today.

The meeting was fairly long; quarter-meetings always started with a summary of the doings of the Guild over the last three months, and there was enough normal business to get through even after that. Ascot tried not to watch Clef too visibly, but the tired slump of his shoulders was painfully familiar, and Ascot just wanted to reach out and fix it somehow.

Not that he could, unless today went as he hoped.

Item after item was read, discussed, agreed or rejected. Clef wasn’t silent, but he wasn’t speaking up that often, either. Not that he had to – the meetings were chaired by Livina as the Administrator for the Guild, so he wasn’t running anything today.

Finally, they reached the last item of business, and Livina straightened the pages before her and looked about the room with a smile.

“Now, to the most anticipated part of any Quarter-Meeting, the new awards. The confirmation board met yesterday and we have a number of people who have been confirmed as passing a qualification this Quarter. First are those who have achieved Iru: Iru Meriva, please step forward.”

Clapping echoed through the chamber as the first new Iru stepped, beaming, into the middle of the circle to receive her certification. Ascot held his breath as the next name was read out, and the next, and then realised what he was doing and tried to force himself to breathe evenly.

Livina clapped her hands together after the second Master Iru had received their certification and ring to go with it and returned to their place, and Ascot jolted in his seat, snapping upright.

“We have one final qualification to confirm today, one which I am very proud to grant, as it has been very clearly earned. But one which has also caused us some discussion, as though it is not a new rank, it is certainly one which has not been granted for a long time. We had no record of what might have been granted to show this rank, but settled in the end for a ring, as for a Master Iru, but to be worn on the opposite hand – as a Master Paru is ranked just as high as a Master Iru, but is different.”

Ascot bit his lip, his face heating horribly as what felt like everyone in the room turned to look straight at him – as Clef jolted upright in his seat and then spun to look at him, eyes wide. Ascot couldn’t look away from him as Livina kept on talking.

“Step forward, Master Paru Ascot, and receive your certification and the blessings of this Guild.”

Ascot swallowed, tore his eyes away from Clef’s, and got himself to his feet. He walked through the room to applause that didn’t seem real, but the certification certainly was, and when Livina stepped out and asked him to reach out his hand, the light that floated from her grasp formed into a ring about his finger and the weight of that was real, too.

Livina smiled at him, but she didn’t step back, as she had done with everyone else. “Let me be clear,” she declared, “that Master Paru Ascot has asked for, and received, his mastery as a summoner first and foremost, and that is something which we have been delighted to grant. Summoning has been too long considered a niche for mages to experiment with rather than the discipline in its own right which it clearly is. We have few enough Paru, and this has made the lack very clear, so in my role as Administrator I have a motion to bring to this meeting.”

This was unexpected. Ascot froze, watching her as she looked about the room. Clef was to his right, now; he could just glimpse him from the corner of his eye, but couldn’t see him without turning, and he couldn’t turn away from Livina. She seemed relaxed enough, looking about the place.

“As it stands, Summoners are a subset of this Guild, ranked along with the Mages under the Guru – but this does both disciplines a disservice, and I believe it has helped contribute to a general misunderstanding of summoning, and a tainted view of what is a remarkable skill. Those who have interest or talent in being a Summoner at the moment usually end up starting with mage training and eventually becoming a Pairu, if they can; what I believe we need is a whole separate hierarchy within the Guild, one for those who wish to identify as summoners first, independent of the hierarchy of mages.”

She smiled at him, and Ascot’s stomach felt like it was trying to jump into his throat.

“And I suggest that this new hierarchy be led by the first person in three millennia who has had the courage to ask for the mastery they actually desired, rather than settling for becoming known as a Master Pairu when they certainly have the skill for Iru mastery – there’s no mistaking that – but that is now how they wish to be known, and that is a true and precious thing.” Livina looked about the room again, and there was a hush for a moment as people considered.

Ascot himself had only stunned silence in his head. Even his friends had gone quiet, though they were mantling his shoulders with a sense of fierce pride.

“What about us Pairu?” someone called from behind Ascot. “Where would we go?”

“You would be free to choose to rank in either hierarchy, or both – though we will likely need an Ordnance to ensure that people can work only for one or the other at any particular time to ensure there is independence between them.” Spreading her hands, Livina looked very pleased with herself, and with the amount of approving nods and murmurs starting about the room. “I propose that a small committee be set up to work out details, and bring them to the next meeting for discussion and approval – with the goal of calling an extraordinary meeting for ratification when we have a form agreed for this new branch. This is not a thing to be done lightly, but I believe it is a thing worth doing.”

“If it’s worth doing, then we’d best do it,” one of the older mages said, one Ascot had never even spoken to, and yet they were grinning at him. “And I agree that our Master Paru would be very well placed to advocate for the summoners. In this committee, at first, and then whatever shape this new Guild segment takes, if he’ll take the job. Proposal seconded.”

“Will someone third it?” Livina said, and then looked over to Ascot’s right. “Someone not the Guru, please, he’s abstaining from this. Any new branch would be independent from him.”

Ascot swallowed, and finally looked at Clef again, but Clef looked as startled as Ascot felt.

Summoners independent of the Guru, their own branch within the Guild. Ascot bit his lip again. That had been the one thing that still nagged at him, these last months when he’d barely seen Clef – that whatever he did, he would still be subordinate to the Guru in the Guild’s hierarchy, and that Clef would take that as reason they shouldn’t acknowledge this tension between them even if Ascot managed to get rid of the accidental apprenticeship which had banned acting on it until now. From the look on Livina’s face when she’d told Clef he wasn’t voting on this, she’d been thinking about that too, and Ascot should have felt embarrassed. Did, distantly. But she’d found a way around it, and a way which would help anyone who wanted to be a Paru feel they could step forward, and find support, and frightened though he was at the idea of leading anything…

It would be worth it.

Ascot took a deep breath, and when the proposal was thirded and put to the vote – when the room overwhelmingly supported the motion – he agreed with a nod to taking part in the committee to look at setting up a place for Summoners all of their own.

The meeting ended, the Guild was dismissed, and he waited out the rush of people headed to the doors. When he eventually turned to go, Clef was still there, standing uncertainly at the edge of the floor. But when Ascot came towards him, he looked up, and smiled.