Title: Improper Preparation
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 1300ish words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Post-canon, Umi, Fuu, Clef - because I always remember the lessons going wrong in the 'worst witch' books and I guess that's where this sparked from XD
Summary: Potions are hard!


oOo


Ryuuzaki Umi dropped first a heavy lid onto the thick metal pot in front of her, and then her arms onto the table and her head onto her arms, in that order and with great speed.

“How is this so hard?” she wailed, the noise muffled by her sleeves, which had plenty of volume today – possibly too much, given she’d got one in the pot at least once – but which did at least filter out some of the bitter, burnt smell around her. The bonus (and minus) of the style of Cephiran robes she’d acquired was mostly in the dramatic sleeves.

She wouldn’t normally be wearing them in this particular setting, but she’d already had to send all three sets of her official apprentice’s robes down this week to see if the laundry could rescue them.

Fuu, whose own pot sat a little further along the table, steaming happily away and not spitting out acid-yellow splatters of foul-smelling stickiness, was giggling quietly. (Hikaru, who had decided to enter the newish mage’s academy next year, was absent and likely happy about it.) There were three other students in the room with them who were also taking the ‘foundational preparations’ course to make up for gaps in their education, though in their cases it was mostly due to the whole Pillar-falling-land-dissolving thing which had happened while they were meant to be in school.

Two of them, though, looked almost as woebegone as Umi felt when she looked back up, and not just because they were in range of the smoke from her failed potion before she had smothered it. Ariya had a couple of holes in her sleeves – Umi had done that yesterday – and was staring into her own pot with trepidation.

“This is… purple? I don’t think it’s meant to be purple?”

Umi blinked, and she and Verso both shifted around their own tables to take a look.

“That is… very purple,” Umi agreed. “Which is probably better than yellow? Maybe?”

“What colour have Fuu and Evija got?” Verso asked, suspicion in his voice. His own brewing pot was already shut down, with tell-tale traces of sticky yellow down the sides, though it hadn’t made quite the same stench as Umi’s before he’d given up on it. As one, all three of them turned to peer at the mixtures in front of their two classmates who were actually probably going to pass the class.

“Um.” Evija flushed. “Green?”

Fuu nodded. “Green,” she said, holding up the stirring stick of clear glass that she held, a few droplets of a soft grassy green hanging on the end of it. “Though it was a very soft yellow until the last few ingredients.”

All of them turned to look back at the pot in front of Ariya, which was bubbling in a cheerful but slightly menacing fashion. “Huh,” Ariya said, and poked at the liquid with her own stirring stick – at which Umi and Verso both took a step back.

This wasn’t a class which should be able to injure them – none of the ingredients they’d been given could, theoretically, do more than make unpleasant smells and stickiness if they got this wrong. It was the only reason their supervisor had left them alone for quarter of an hour when a message came for them while the class were busily attempting to brew this burn-salve, which they should – if they had it right – then be able to imbue with just a bit of magic to make it more effective.

Only some of them seemed to have a gift for doing the very unexpected even with supposedly safe ingredients.

“I’m sure it would be a lot easier to just cast a spell than work out how to do this,” Umi grumped, dropping back into her seat and looking at Fuu’s perfect-looking potion with envy. “Do you know where I went wrong?”

“Unfortunately, I was paying too much attention to my own preparation,” Fuu said, smiling at her with far too much amusement. “Though you seem to have added all of the defu root?”

“Ah.” Umi looked from the small scrap of green-skinned root left on her cutting board to the good ten centimetres of it left in the ingredients Fuu hadn’t used. “We weren’t meant to use all of that? I know we were meant to measure the Anpu flowers, but-“

“Were we?” Ariya looked up at that, looking from the pile of ingredients still remaining in front of both Fuu and Evija. “…Oh.” And she sighed, and put the lid onto her brewing pot, which both contained the ingredients and stopped the magic which had been heating it all in one go. “Never mind that, then.”

The doorway to the corridor opened then, and their erstwhile teacher took one step inside the room and coughed. “Oh, dear,” he said, looking about at them with just as despondent an expression as any of them, before turning to someone entering the room behind them. “I only left for a few minutes-“

“I don’t doubt it,” said a far too familiar voice, sounding amused, and someone – Evija, Umi thought – made a small squeaking noise as Clef walked in, wearing his full set of robes and looking very official, though his lips were twitching as he caught Umi’s eyes.

“No,” Umi said, flatly, before their teacher, Dacia, could say anything. “You are not teaching us, no, go away.”

“Unfortunately,” Clef said, now openly amused, “I am.”

“No!”

“I have to-“ Dacia said, glancing between them with a look of worry, but Clef waved it off even as Umi dropped back into her seat again with a groan.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine, I’m sure. You need to get yourself home – you have everything? Yes?”

“Yes.” Nodding, clutching the bag that had been still at the desk, their teacher – former teacher – turned to Clef and smiled, suddenly. “Thank you-“

“It’s no problem,” Clef said, and with a return smile he raised a hand, and the familiar faint pressure of his magic filtered through the room as Dacia vanished, dispatched off to… presumably their home.

“Is everything alright?” Fuu asked, but Clef smiled at them.

“Yes – Dacia’s family has a new member, rather earlier than expected, so has been called away, and I’m afraid you are stuck with me until we can find someone free at the right hours to help out. My apologies, Umi, but it’ll probably take a week to rearrange schedules. We’d been expecting some leave – but not quite yet.”

“But they’re all doing fine?” Umi asked – they’d heard a bit about the child on the way.

“Yes,” Clef said, firmly. “So, unfortunately, it’s back to potions class – Dacia did say he’d been unable to go through the full demonstration, and it looks like a few of you managed to finish the potion anyway, well done both of you – but for those of us who learn better by seeing things done,” and he shot a grin at Umi, who stuck her tongue out at him, “We will be going through it again after lunch. But perhaps you two could go through it for the rest of us?” he said, looking to Evija and Fuu, who both nodded. “Thank you. We can turn your pots off and set them to cool on the side for now, then – and if we could all pitch in to help clean, I’ll… deal with these.” He gestured at the three manifestly incorrect attempts at potion making.

Umi sighed. At least, if she was going to have to learn this, she could grump at her teacher about it now.

Maybe that would help.