Title: Perambulate
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General?
Length: 1400 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Post canon, Clef, &Ascot, briefly implied Clef/Umi
Summary: What if Cephiro was struggling to be stable, and Clef decided there was something more important to do than paperwork?


oOo

For the first few years after Cephiro’s rebirth, it was fairly stable, even as the land steadily grew and the forests and the mountains reappeared, in almost the same places they had probably been before – close enough that people agreed on what they should be called, at least.

But those first few years, people had mostly still been based in the castle. Once they started to move out, establish villages and hamlets and cottages that stood alone deep in the woods – things deteriorated.

Perhaps it was having so many different perspectives as people learned about their new surroundings, adjusted them, claimed them as ‘home’ in ways that no one based in the castle would have. Perhaps it was local perspectives seeing the small everyday changes while the people back in the castle believed things to be the same as their older memories – Clef still wasn’t sure what had tipped them over the edge, but the night he woke to a massive earthquake and the sensation of an entire province crumbling was scarred into his memory.

That terrible night was three years ago. The issues with Cephiro’s stability had improved, but they were far from cured. He’d helped the Priests learn the magic they needed to set up a map which tracked the changes across Cephiro in every shrine they built, so they could organise prayer sessions which reinforced each change in people’s idea of Cephiro, but change was always a hard thing to internalise. Especially when it was change elsewhere, unrelated to your experience of an area.

(When the Knights had first seen them, Fuu had called it ‘a map with track changes turned on’, which apparently was some technological reference to them, but it was the best descriptor he’d heard anyone come up with.)

Getting Cephiro stablised was, notionally, a job to be lead by the Priests – but there were so few of them, and much though he didn’t personally get on with the new Soru, he wouldn’t have wished the job of taking over after Zagato onto Cephiro’s worst enemies, let alone a good person who just managed to irritate him regularly. And it was possible that those with a strong active connection to Cephiro – anyone with strong magic – might have a stronger influence in Cephiro’s makeup than those without that direct connection.

(Clef wasn’t entirely convinced about that; they were all Cephiro’s people, after all, and he had been there to hear Hikaru’s declaration ringing out – ‘all those who love Cephiro’. But perhaps mages were more likely to love the land, or those who loved the land were more likely to open their hearts to her and become mages.)

Either way, he himself had been taking such an active role in holding Cephiro together for such a long time that he knew his memories were dangerous. So he had started to make steady circuits of Cephiro each quarter of the year, making sure to stay a day in at least each village, and the most important other places too.

The circuit was taking longer each time he made it; over a month now, and he’d had to shift a lot of his work onto other people’s shoulders just to be able to do it, but that in itself was probably a good thing. His Guild was meant to be able to function without him; his role had always originally been intended to actively help the Pillar manage Cephiro’s magics and support the world’s existence. Now that the Pillar was almost everyone, it only made sense for him to ambulate around the land, helping out with local magical snarls and watching constantly for cracks in Cephiro’s makeup.

He enjoyed the walking, and after living with the entire population crammed into one building for several years it was a relief to have an excuse to spend a lot of time alone – as alone as one could ever be in a Cephiro this determined to be alive, at least. Spirits and creatures and Cephiro herself frequently kept him company, instead of endless paperwork and administrative meetings. He carried news to the outerlying regions, and brought back ideas and, occasionally, a newly-woken mage who wanted to head to the Castle for Guild training, and was happy to get a bit of tutoring from Clef in preparation before they started choosing teachers and classes.

It was soon going to be impossible to walk the whole circuit and still manage the duties he did have at the castle. He was already working out how he would have to split the circuit up into sections as it continued to grow, but that Cephiro did continue to grow was, largely, positive.

The downsides to both the growth and his perambulation were, however, obvious. The constant reminders that he was doing this to try to help Cephiro stabilise, each time a quake tried to shake her. Plus so much time alone with his thoughts wasn’t always best for keeping them from spiralling further into anxiety.

He also kept missing the visits the Knights made to Cephiro, though… that had been a little more deliberate than otherwise, since he’d finally grown. (Bad enough to walk the entire land on legs the length he had as an adult – he hadn’t wanted to do it as a child, but riding instead of walking hadn’t had the same impact on his memory or his sense of Cephiro. He needed that contact with the ground, something likely due to the nature of his particular magic.)

But the castle wasn’t the only place he had friends, nor were his friends always resident in the castle.

Today he was cutting across the edge of one of the greater plains in the north. It was three days walk to the next village if he skirted the edges of the woodland – going through the trees added another two, but the wild wood was always better at keeping itself steady than some of the less well rooted parts of Cephiro.

There were no hamlets or houses out here, at least none he was expecting, but he had a shelter he could set up if the weather suggested more than just a bedroll would be a good idea. But there was a sheltered nook between two large rock outcroppings, just at the edge of the woods, a good day’s walk from the last village – he’d slept there several times before, sheltered from the weather but still able to see the sky, and was looking forward to a peaceful night after several where he’d been telling people the news from the centre over and over until his voice rasped in his throat and he could finally excuse himself to sleep.

Only when he rounded the last out-flung curve of trees, there was a fire already lit in the stone firepit, and at least six mounts of varying descriptions were milling about, munching on the fine long grass – several horses, at least one deer, and a couple of creatures over the far side of the herd which were probably oxen but a little too far away to see.

“Ah,” he said, on a slow sigh. Of course, he was hardly the only person to know this spot – the Rangers were probably the ones who had built the hearth, and it was Rangers badges that he could see on the people looking up from the fire and their tasks about the camp.

Well, one more night with company, and then tomorrow would be quiet, he thought, and made his way over to the fire, nodding at the people who waved him over.

He was almost to the fire when a voice behind him called out “Clef?” in tones of confusion, instead of the formal ‘Guru’ he’d had from anyone else.

“Ascot?” he said, probably sounding just as startled, but smiling anyway. “I didn’t know you were out this way?”

“I was further east, but we had some reports of creatures causing trouble for travellers in the woods near here, so we came to investigate,” Ascot said, waving him across to the fire, and Clef went with a lighter heart. “You’re walking the villages in the area?”

“Yes – thank you,” he said, as Ascot waved him over to one of the dry spots close to the fire, coming across with him.

Tonight he wouldn’t mind the talking. Not with a friend to converse with.