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fan_flashworks2022-07-20 11:56 pm
down) wrote in fan_flashworks2022-07-20 11:56 pm
Entry tags:
Magic Knight Rayearth: Fanfic: Nimble steps
Title: Nimble steps
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 1000 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Technically sits in the weight of water!verse I have, but should stand alone even without context. Post-canon, Clef.
Summary: Some changes are probably best made with some preparation. This probably should have been one of them.
oOo
Waking up would have been, ideally, a slow and measured process. Calm, steady. Serene.
Instead waking was a flail of panic and dizziness as Clef attempted to work out what was blaring out an alarm at him – and a sudden, abrupt drop from the safety of the mattress to the abrupt solidity of the floor, sheets tangled about his legs.
…Legs which were significantly longer than they’d been the last he remembered paying attention to them.
Clef blinked, winced, and blinked again, eyes watering slightly in the morning light through the open curtains while his head thumped at each shriek of the alarm and his mouth felt dry and unpleasant in a way which he hadn’t felt in decades. Maybe centuries. But the memory of last night – of reports still to be written, Lantis unconscious and trapping Clef in his chair…
The idea that dragging Lantis out of there would be a lot easier if he was only taller…
With a final shrill clamour, the vibrating box on the bedside table finally fell quiet, leaving behind it something almost like peace.
“No,” Clef said, staring down at himself, and bit his lip. He’d been considering making a change, but…
He was in no state to reverse it right now. But neither he nor the Guild administrators deserve to deal with him while he felt like this, and they were his only notional meeting this morning.
Clef laboriously untangled himself from the sheets, careful to make sure his legs went where he meant them to, sent a brief apology for the meeting, and made himself drink two glasses of water before lying back down again. He would deal with this… later.
#
Later, unfortunately, came without any change to the length of his legs, or his indecision over what to do about it. But he had been thinking about this, and…
Now he’d changed, he was feeling a stubborn urge to not go back to the small form he’d held for so many years.
Maybe he would stay like this, after all.
#
The first time he tripped over his own feet hitting the floor before he expected them to, he nearly gave in and changed his mind. The second time, that stubbornness kicked in harder; he wasn’t going to be forced into any changes by his own failure to adjust to this!
Three weeks in, when he was still having trouble knowing where the floor was, he half-fell into a meeting with LaFarga and Ferio and dropped into a chair inelegantly, sighing.
Both LaFarga and Ferio looked as though they were trying not to grin – the same expression Presea had worn when she caught his shoulder to keep him from tipping head-first between the seats in the Council Hall yesterday with every single member of the new council there to see him fall. “I know,” Clef muttered rubbing a hand over his face. “I’ll get there.”
“You used to wear robes that dragged about your feet the entire time,” Ferio pointed out, openly grinning now. “I never knew how you avoided tripping over the hems – you’ll work out where your feet are eventually, or…”
Clef paused, narrowing his eyes as he looked up. “Or?”
“Or you could always come to drill with the Guard in the mornings! I’m sure it would help you adjust.” Ferio’s smile could not get wider.
“I am not giving up an hour of sleep so you can poke me with a practise sword while I learn where my feet are!” Clef retorted, settling himself upright in his chair. “No matter how entertaining you might find the idea!”
“It works, though. We’ve had several trainees who have made significant changes to their forms – drill helps them relearn their balance and reach, get settled back into their new form.” Ferio tilted his head. “The entertainment would just be a bonus.”
“No,” Clef said, firmly as he could, and forcibly shifted the meeting onto the prospect of patrols on the bailey wall and what they would have to do to get a continuous walkway in place.
When the discussion was done, Ferio excused himself and headed out, but LaFarga lingered while Clef picked up the scattered notes they’d made.
“Ferio was right,” LaFarga said, abruptly, looking down.
“What, about having access points closer to the gates? Yes, that would be best, but with the keystones for the warding where they are now-“
“About drill,” LaFarga clarified, and Clef blinked, looking across at him… and flushing, slowly, as a memory of dropping Lantis off on LaFarga’s threshold while wobbling from the combination of liqueur and sudden height intruded insistently on his thoughts. “But it wouldn’t need to be drill.”
“…I don’t quite follow?”
“If there’s anything – physical. Exercise. Something you wouldn’t mind practising. It would help you with your balance; it doesn’t have to be some form of drill. Just stretching, or dance – anything.”
Opening his mouth to respond, Clef caught on ‘dance’, and slowly closed it again as he considered. It wasn’t as though he needed to go out publicly and take up space on a dancefloor, but he’d known how to get through most of the standard social dances, once. They seemed to still be a feature of international gatherings, at least the formal ones.
Perhaps practising what he could remember would be good for more than one goal.
“I’ll consider it,” he said, finally. Then thought to add “Thank you, LaFarga.”
“You’re welcome,” LaFarga said, gruffly, and bustled out of the room, leaving Clef to try to untangle his legs in peace… and without witnesses when he banged his shoulder into the doorframe trying to leave the room.
Dancing or drill – he probably needed to do something.
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 1000 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Technically sits in the weight of water!verse I have, but should stand alone even without context. Post-canon, Clef.
Summary: Some changes are probably best made with some preparation. This probably should have been one of them.
oOo
Waking up would have been, ideally, a slow and measured process. Calm, steady. Serene.
Instead waking was a flail of panic and dizziness as Clef attempted to work out what was blaring out an alarm at him – and a sudden, abrupt drop from the safety of the mattress to the abrupt solidity of the floor, sheets tangled about his legs.
…Legs which were significantly longer than they’d been the last he remembered paying attention to them.
Clef blinked, winced, and blinked again, eyes watering slightly in the morning light through the open curtains while his head thumped at each shriek of the alarm and his mouth felt dry and unpleasant in a way which he hadn’t felt in decades. Maybe centuries. But the memory of last night – of reports still to be written, Lantis unconscious and trapping Clef in his chair…
The idea that dragging Lantis out of there would be a lot easier if he was only taller…
With a final shrill clamour, the vibrating box on the bedside table finally fell quiet, leaving behind it something almost like peace.
“No,” Clef said, staring down at himself, and bit his lip. He’d been considering making a change, but…
He was in no state to reverse it right now. But neither he nor the Guild administrators deserve to deal with him while he felt like this, and they were his only notional meeting this morning.
Clef laboriously untangled himself from the sheets, careful to make sure his legs went where he meant them to, sent a brief apology for the meeting, and made himself drink two glasses of water before lying back down again. He would deal with this… later.
#
Later, unfortunately, came without any change to the length of his legs, or his indecision over what to do about it. But he had been thinking about this, and…
Now he’d changed, he was feeling a stubborn urge to not go back to the small form he’d held for so many years.
Maybe he would stay like this, after all.
#
The first time he tripped over his own feet hitting the floor before he expected them to, he nearly gave in and changed his mind. The second time, that stubbornness kicked in harder; he wasn’t going to be forced into any changes by his own failure to adjust to this!
Three weeks in, when he was still having trouble knowing where the floor was, he half-fell into a meeting with LaFarga and Ferio and dropped into a chair inelegantly, sighing.
Both LaFarga and Ferio looked as though they were trying not to grin – the same expression Presea had worn when she caught his shoulder to keep him from tipping head-first between the seats in the Council Hall yesterday with every single member of the new council there to see him fall. “I know,” Clef muttered rubbing a hand over his face. “I’ll get there.”
“You used to wear robes that dragged about your feet the entire time,” Ferio pointed out, openly grinning now. “I never knew how you avoided tripping over the hems – you’ll work out where your feet are eventually, or…”
Clef paused, narrowing his eyes as he looked up. “Or?”
“Or you could always come to drill with the Guard in the mornings! I’m sure it would help you adjust.” Ferio’s smile could not get wider.
“I am not giving up an hour of sleep so you can poke me with a practise sword while I learn where my feet are!” Clef retorted, settling himself upright in his chair. “No matter how entertaining you might find the idea!”
“It works, though. We’ve had several trainees who have made significant changes to their forms – drill helps them relearn their balance and reach, get settled back into their new form.” Ferio tilted his head. “The entertainment would just be a bonus.”
“No,” Clef said, firmly as he could, and forcibly shifted the meeting onto the prospect of patrols on the bailey wall and what they would have to do to get a continuous walkway in place.
When the discussion was done, Ferio excused himself and headed out, but LaFarga lingered while Clef picked up the scattered notes they’d made.
“Ferio was right,” LaFarga said, abruptly, looking down.
“What, about having access points closer to the gates? Yes, that would be best, but with the keystones for the warding where they are now-“
“About drill,” LaFarga clarified, and Clef blinked, looking across at him… and flushing, slowly, as a memory of dropping Lantis off on LaFarga’s threshold while wobbling from the combination of liqueur and sudden height intruded insistently on his thoughts. “But it wouldn’t need to be drill.”
“…I don’t quite follow?”
“If there’s anything – physical. Exercise. Something you wouldn’t mind practising. It would help you with your balance; it doesn’t have to be some form of drill. Just stretching, or dance – anything.”
Opening his mouth to respond, Clef caught on ‘dance’, and slowly closed it again as he considered. It wasn’t as though he needed to go out publicly and take up space on a dancefloor, but he’d known how to get through most of the standard social dances, once. They seemed to still be a feature of international gatherings, at least the formal ones.
Perhaps practising what he could remember would be good for more than one goal.
“I’ll consider it,” he said, finally. Then thought to add “Thank you, LaFarga.”
“You’re welcome,” LaFarga said, gruffly, and bustled out of the room, leaving Clef to try to untangle his legs in peace… and without witnesses when he banged his shoulder into the doorframe trying to leave the room.
Dancing or drill – he probably needed to do something.