Title: Bedraggled
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 600 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Post-canon, Umi and Clef
Summary: This bit of magic just is not working.


oOo

“Look. We need to stop here today – we aren’t getting anywhere productive,” Clef made himself say, clinging as firmly to the words his own teachers had used as he could, instead of any of the frustrated noises he wanted to make.

“Clearly,” Umi muttered into her folded arms, leaning forward onto the dripping-wet table. Spots of ice decorated the surface and slowly melted, water seeping over every side. Clef’s clothes were sodden, and he couldn’t imagine Umi’s were any better.

“…I did say it might be best to ask Presea how to-“

“If I ask Presea, she’s going to tell Hikaru, because she’s terrible at keeping secrets from Hikaru, and then it won’t be a surprise birthday present!”

He rubbed at his face, and winced when that involved smearing cold water over his skin. “Still-“

“You’re the master mage. This is magic.” Umi glared up at him, though she looked more tired than fierce for once. “You’re going to teach me to do this.”

Clef’s voice was not a wail, because that would be undignified, but it… wasn’t doing anything better than wailing. “Just because I’m master mage doesn’t mean I’m a master of all magics, and this is obviously not working!”

“We’re just going to have to keep trying until it does!” Umi snapped at him, and only the interruption of the door opening saved them from descending into a real argument then.

Ferio, leaning around the door, winced at the state of the training room. “…So. It’s going well, then?”

Letting his head drop onto the table-top, Clef let Umi take care of hissing at Ferio’s so helpful interjection, and wondered again who had shown Umi that it was possible to solidify magic into a crystalline, gemstone-like format, and if he could pay them to teach her how to do it.

His own grasp of the theory was shaky, and it wasn’t something he’d ever attempted to do before – but Presea, the one person he knew would be actually good at this, was indeed very bad at keeping things that excited her from Hikaru. Which was normally very sweet. Only right now…

“Can you at least dry the two of you off a bit?” Ferio suggested, still talking to Umi over Clef’s head. “Right now you look like you’ve been having a water fight.”

“That’s pretty much true,” Clef muttered, but then the air shivered next to him; he was too tired for the sudden jolt of adrenaline that hit him then, and managed to glare at Umi before she could actually unleash whatever new spell was on her tongue. “No.”

“But! I think I could do this!”

“Given the last two hours I don’t care if you can or if your magic would manage to misunderstand your meaning somehow – you need to eat before you use your power. Preferably also sleep for at least a few hours.” He looked down at his robes, and sighed. “So should I, for that matter – no, just because we’ve both cast in a worse state before now does not mean we should do when there is no imperative. …It doesn’t work so well, anyway.”

“Then what are you planning on doing?” Umi asked, pulling a face at him.

Clef shoved to his feet, sighing. “Heading to my rooms by the least-used corridors I can take. At least if I say a student I was tutoring was having some trouble with a spell, it’s the truth – rest, Umi.” He waved to Ferio, and headed out of the room, hoping hard that he wasn’t going to be seen this bedraggled by too many people.