Title: Saturated
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 950ish words
Content notes: None beyond ellided mentions of canon
Author notes: Post canon Umi&Clef and the title's only going to make sense to me for a while but hey
Summary: “It’s kind of spooky down here,” Umi muttered.

oOo

“It’s kind of spooky down here,” Umi muttered, and Clef couldn’t help but smile a little.

“You are the one who insisted on following me,” he pointed out. “If you would just let me get on-“

“That would mean going back up those tunnels on my own!” Umi hissed, sounding horrified, and that was it, Clef had to grin.

“I promise you’re the scariest thing down here.”

“…I’m more powerful than you then?” Umi grinned at him, teeth showing. “If I’m more dangerous than the most powerful mage in Cephiro.”

Clef bit down on his lip until he could take an even breath, forcing himself to pay attention to the cool air of the tunnels down here, the strength of Cephiro quite literally surrounding them. It was nothing like-

“I said, scariest, not most powerful,” he said, when he thought he could keep his voice steady enough for her to not notice anything… off. And avoiding the word ‘dangerous’ altogether.

The pause itself must have been too notable, however, as Umi’s footsteps came a little less evenly behind him.

“Anyway,” he said, before she could start poking at him about that too. “If you hadn’t insisted on coming along with me you would be out in the gardens with all your friends having a great time, so you really only have yourself to blame for being somewhere spooky.”

“But I feel like I’ve barely seen you in months!” Umi complained, successfully distracted. “You promised you’d make it to the picnic today, and then when I come to fetch you, you’re all ‘I’ll be there as long as I’m done in time’ – of course I’m not letting you drown in your work again. So it’s obviously your fault I’m down – wherever we are, anyway.” She lengthened her stride until she was alongside him, instead of trailing behind, and stared up at the rough-hewn stone ceiling. “This is old, right? I mean, it’s new, because all of Cephiro is new, but… it’s one of the bits that’s come back.”

“Yes.”

“Are we really right under the castle? Below even the pool room and all of that?”

The keystones that held the castle and its wards into their foundations were so full of power – of Clef’s power, yes, but not just his – that he didn’t have to think to know where they were at all times. Right now, those keystones were a ring some way above where they walked, and the central stone wasn’t far off directly above them.

“Yes. We’re directly below the Council Chamber and the Pool Chamber. And these tunnels are indeed a reoccurrence.”

“How come we’ve never heard of them before? It’s been years since we rebuilt Cephiro, and I would have sworn we’d investigated every part of the Castle by now.”

“They weren’t here before,” Clef said, with a shrug when she turned to stare at him as well as she could as they walked. “Lantis came to see me and said he’d had several dreams about these tunnels. Memories, mostly – once, when Zagato was first in training but before Lantis was old enough to properly begin, he came to the Pillar’s castle to see his brother and got lost down here for hours. So I came to see if they’d returned, either because of the dreams, or…”

“Or Lantis is being haunted by the tunnels and they’re giving him creepy dreams about being lost. That’s pretty spooky, Clef!”

“There’s never been anything bad down here!” Clef protested. He wasn’t going to claim this place wasn’t… haunted, in a way. But… “We’re wrapped in bedrock – in Cephiro. Memories can… soak in, places like this.”

“So it’s only haunted in a memory-way and not a ghosts-chasing-people way?” Umi sounded sceptical, and she was walking close enough her shoulder was almost bumping into his. “Well, the tunnels definitely exist, if that’s what you needed to check then we can go now, right?”

Clef shook his head. “I need to walk them.”

“Why?”

“To make sure they match my memory – to make sure they’re stable, in Cephiro’s new structure. To tie them into the wards for the castle above.”

“…And?” Umi caught his sleeve. “That wouldn’t be urgent enough to avoid all of us unless you’re trying to avoid us!”


“…And making sure there aren’t any pockets of… bad memories. If someone was here, when things-“ he trailed off as Umi just stared at him. “It’s okay, I promise. But if there are any places which could do with… with some attention from the Priests, I would rather find them before some young apprentice mage wanders down here and gets lost and then starts having nightmares bad enough that they summon up creatures to disturb the rest of us even through the castle warding.”

“…So we’re down here chasing ghosts.”

Clef sighed, then grabbed her hand, pulling her onwards. “No, I’m down here assessing a new part of Cephiro, as it is my job to do, you’re just haunting me. But you’ll be happy to know that so far everything has matched with my memories of this place, which means another half an hour and we should be leaving.”

“Is that a promise, too?”

“That we should be leaving then? Absolutely. But if you want to go back up now, as I said, if you just retrace our steps-”

“I’m not leaving you down here with the ghosts on your own,” Umi muttered, and held his hand tighter.

Clef wasn’t expecting to find anything worrying down here. But Umi’s determination was touching, and he wasn’t… unhappy, to have the company.

Even if she was absolutely going to drag him straight to the picnic instead of writing up a report about this when they got out.