Title: G(u)ilded
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 1100ish words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Ascot/Clef pre-relationship - there's a couple of snippet-fics on ffwks for this timeline, but this should stand alone.
Summary: Ascot's solved the issue of his accidental apprenticeship, in a way Clef had never expected.

oOo


The quarter-moot of the mage’s guild had finished, and Clef was rooted to the spot. He felt like he’d frozen the moment Ascot’s name was called.

Ascot had claimed his mastery, and claimed it as a Paru. There weren’t words to express the pride Clef felt, watching him stand confidently in front of the Guild, accepting the status he had rightly earned several years ago.

It was the obvious solution, in retrospect, to the issue of Ascot blatantly having both the power and skill required to be ranked Pairu and Master Pairu, and a just-as-obvious lack of interest in being known as a mage instead of a summoner. How Clef hadn’t ever thought of it-

Well, Livina was right, the summoners deserved their own Guild, and someone dedicated to their own interests and needs, who hadn’t spent centuries immersed in the mage-centric structures of the one Guild that had stood until now.

The fact that his heart was beating a little too fast for just professional interest in Ascot potentially stepping outside of the mage’s guild – outside of the hierarchy that Clef couldn’t recuse himself from…

That was not the important thing right now, he told himself, sternly, as the last few people headed for the doors. Livina was one of them – the Administrator shot him such a smirk as she passed that he was blushing even before Ascot turned around.

Ascot looked just as stunned as Clef did – but he smiled, and came across, hands fiddling with the new gleaming-gold ring he wore on the opposite hand to the one Clef had received many, many years ago, at the quarter-moot when he’d been granted his own Pairu mastery.

“I suppose it would cause some trouble if I defected to the Guild of Summoners,” he said, the moment the thought hit him, impulse-control slightly frayed with all the personal implications he was trying so hard not to think about.

Ascot blinked at him, then grinned, before he ducked his head. “I don’t think Livina would approve,” he said.

“No,” Clef said, and gave in once more. This time, to the impulse to reach out and take Ascot’s hand in his, holding the ring to the light.

The design reflected the summoner’s collar about Ascot’s shoulders, a green stone bright as Ascot’s eyes at the centre, and it looked right on his hand.

“Congratulations,” Clef said, meaning it, and had to bite his lip as Ascot flushed bright red.

“Sorry I didn’t tell you-“ Ascot started, but Clef shook his head, even as he made himself let go of Ascot’s hand.

“No, I know I’ve been… it’s been… awkward. I’m sorry.”

Through the years, the only people Clef had been in a relationship with were peers who he’d grown close to while they argued about magic and explored how it worked, together. It was something he’d always enjoyed: magic as a collaboration, an exploration.

He’d not had a single relationship of that kind since he became Guru. And by the time he’d realised that he and Ascot were discussing their way through a whole new theory of summoning – more specifically, by the time he’d realised how very much he was enjoying every moment spent in Ascot’s company, working together on this thing they both cared about… by then it was far too late to untangle the accidental apprenticeship they’d created and the way he felt, and withdrawing had been the only reasonable thing he could think of doing.

Ascot had just cut through that whole knot.

“I’m not your apprentice anymore.” Ascot glanced at him, and Clef had to bite his lip against spilling his first thankful reaction to that.

“You aren’t anyone’s apprentice, Master Paru Ascot. …Did you know Livina was going to declare the intent to form a new Guild?”

“I had no idea!” Ascot looked at him head on at that. “I know – there are a lot of Pairu with a lot of experience, lots more than I have. Once it’s set up, I’m sure one of them-“

“Ascot, if you don’t want to take the post as head of the Guild, you’re going to have to make that clear as soon as you start meeting to arrange the Guild’s setup. There is no one else who could do as good a job of it as you could. People are going to assume you’ll do it unless you tell them otherwise, very firmly.”

“You think I could do it?”

“I think you could be very good at it,” Clef told him, with absolute honesty. “Your Guild will be yours to protect – your friends, made of people who have faced similar challenges to some of those you’ve had. And all of them dedicated to their summoning, and to those they summon. I think you would be good at standing up for them – and you understand summoning so well. I think you’d be perfect for it. Not just…”

Clef did bite his lip then. ‘Not just because then we’ll hold equal rank’ was not something he should be blurting out.

“If you’re interested in the job, I think you would be good at it, but that doesn’t mean you have to be the one who does it,” Clef made himself say, instead. “It’s the kind of job you should take because you want it, not because you feel obligated to.”

“If I did…” Ascot stepped in closer. Close enough Clef had to tilt his head back to look at him, breath catching in his chest.

“…It’s only, what, five minutes since you were officially my apprentice,” he pointed out, weakly.

Ascot considered that. “Maybe five. But we never agreed to set up an apprenticeship in the first place.”

“I was still teaching you. At the beginning, that was my intent – to teach you the things you hadn’t had a chance to learn, anything you wanted to know.”

“Until it changed?”

Clef swallowed. “Until it changed.”

If he’d ever felt attracted to people without first getting to know them – coming to regard them as good friends before he felt inclined to notice the elegance of their hands or the way they smiled when a piece of magic worked for them – maybe he wouldn’t be in this kind of situation. He might have found someone else, already. Or he might have realised this could be an issue and chosen to find Ascot another teacher instead of slowly becoming his friend until he wanted more.

Either way, he made himself close his eyes, and take a half-step back.

Ascot didn’t quite sigh, but his next breath out did sound as though he was deflating a little. “Okay. But I’m not your apprentice anymore. So you’ll come eat together to celebrate, won’t you?”

“Yes. I can – I would like to do that.” Clef opened his eyes and smiled at Ascot again, ruefully. They weren’t through the awkwardness yet. But maybe…

Maybe they would be, sometime soon.