Title: Structural Flaws
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 900 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Post-canon, pre-relationship Presea/Hikaru
Summary: “There are a few seconds in the middle of this kind of spell where you can tell if the materials you are using will work with the intention you have for them."


oOo

“There are a few seconds in the middle of this kind of spell where you can tell if the materials you are using will work with the intention you have for them, or if there is something unexpected that means altering the plan would be best. A hidden inclusion, a structural weakness, things like that.” Presea smiled at Hikaru across the table. She had rebuilt their land without any of the background knowledge someone would normally have had before they became a mage, much less the pillar; that she was so interested now gave Presea hope that, maybe-

Hikaru nodded, her fingers brushing over the surface of the geode in her hands, and Presea pulled herself back to the lesson she’d been asked to give.

“Normally we would attempt to work with materials which have been assessed, where we know their exact properties with as much certainty as possible. Or where we are generating the materials from willpower alone, which takes a different kind of spell – but there are certain occasions where it can be useful to be able to work with whatever is around you. To change plans as you go, while the spell is in motion. Plus, there are some materials which can be… volatile, prone to changing if you try to assess them before use, so being able to change with them can help.”

A smile lit up Hikaru’s face. “It sounds like it’s fun, too. A challenge!”

Presea grinned back at her. “Well, I think so, but most of my students don’t! I don’t know why.”

“What kinds of changes do you make?” Hikaru set down the geode that Presea had pulled out of the stores for this lesson, and picked up the lump of unrefined metal ore instead, looking at it curiously.

“It depends on what the project and the issue is. Sometimes if there’s a trace of something you weren’t expecting you can pull it out, or find somewhere isolated in the project to keep it, or use it as an additional decorative element. If it’s a structural flaw, it needs to be put somewhere it won’t cause issues.”

Hikaru looked at her, and then glanced at the room around them. They were in one of the bits of castle that had been flung up when they needed a shelter, when Cephiro was falling, and…

Well, these rooms were certainly full of a lot of unnecessary-looking ornamentation.

“The Castle was formed from will alone. At least, the additional parts – the core at the centre already existed…”

“Princess Emeraude’s castle,” Hikaru murmured, and it had been so many years now, but they both paused a moment.

“Yes. But around it… spells also often take on the caster’s… sense of purpose, and, uh. Style?”

They turned together to look at the closest pillar, which failed to touch the floor at all, rendering it completely useless as a structural element, no matter how highly ornamented it was about the top.

“Also sometimes if a caster doesn’t actually understand the structure they’re building they just add bits in weird places to anchor all the wards they’re incorporating,” Presea said, with a sigh.

“Oh! Is that why a lot of the weird bits have so much magic in them?” Hikaru looked around, reassessing the room, and Presea could almost see her cataloguing the spells still worked into the fabric of the building.

“That’s what he says every time he refuses to let me fix it properly.” Presea pulled a face at that pillar. “We could rearrange the bindings, but no! Instead we have things like this-“

Hikaru started giggling, and Presea flushed, cutting herself off. But Hikaru was giggling at the pillar, not Presea’s irritation with it.

“Maybe Clef’s afraid he doesn’t know how to keep it whole, if it changes?” Hikaru suggested, tilting her head to one side, and whatever she was looking at was deep below the surface of the Pillar. “All the spells are all tangled up with each other. I guess it would be hard to untangle them again, and no one wants the building to collapse.”

Presea could sense the layers of power twisted together inside it, but not well enough to see them the way Hikaru obviously could. “It would probably disintegrate, instead of vanishing,” she murmured, considering that. “…If we came up with a way of supporting the structure while we made it make sense, do you think you could talk him into it?”

“I’m sure he’d like it to be less of a burden.” Hikaru nodded, firmly, looking up at her with a conspiratorial smile. “If you work out the magic, I’ll talk to him?”

“Deal.” Presea held out her hand, and Hikaru shook it, firmly.

“In the meantime – do you want to learn how to find that moment of time when you can change your plans?”

Hikaru grinned up at her, and it was all Presea could do not to blush again. “Absolutely!” Hikaru was saying, and all the while Presea was wondering just when it was that her own plans had changed, in an instant, without her realising it until it was too late to make a change.

Not that she wanted to. There were no flaws to the structure she could see building here, slowly, between them. She was just going to have to trust to it, and let it grow.