Chapter Text
The next three days were filled with planning and preparation, as well as fixing the damage to the Castle. Repairs were finished under the expert guidance of the various magic users from all the countries. Spirit assisted and taught Hikaru with the majority of it, though she was often at the bedsides of her two patients.
When they weren't working on repairs, collecting food supplies, or resting, the Provisionary Council, as they had decided to be called, met to discuss the beginnings of the agreement they would need. It was only a rough draft, since two of the principal members were still indisposed, but all of them agreed it would be better to have at least some idea of what they wanted.
Ferio, as Prince, would be the nominal head of the civil government. Hikaru, as the Pillar, would be his adviser in the needs of the world, when she was there. In her absence, Spirit assured them that Eagle, as a Pillar candidate, or Clef, as the Master Mage and oldest magic user alive, would be able to communicate with Cephiro. After more discussion, they agreed Clef would retain his position as the Master Mage - if he wanted it - and continue overseeing those magic users that lived in Cephiro, but his duties would be shared by his under-mages. A Summoner like Ascot, a Conjurer or Illusionist like Aska or most of the Fahren mages, and a Sorcerer/Sorceress like the late Alcyone, Presea, or the Chizetan magic users.
Eagle, or whoever took the Priest's position, would also have a small under-staff, with someone from each world in the agreement representing their home and their special skills among the staff. They would help keep the wishes of various people in mind, and work towards providing solutions that would benefit the greatest number of people.
The Captain of the Guard would have two lieutenants, one with spell-casting ability, and one without.
Cephiran law was fairly straightforward, and required little amendment. Most of the changes were to remove the Pillar as the sole voice of law and reason.
Once Cephiro had been restored, efforts could be made to aid the other three countries. Fahren needed little help, but was willing to trade various items and crafts, as well as new techniques for magic. Aska freely admitted that most of their spells required written or illustrated invocation, which could create problems, and was often difficult to master. She was interested in some of the crafting spells that mage-smiths like Presea were trained in.
Chizeta's problems could be solved with trade, and the designation of areas they could colonize. That would require the writing of some immigration laws, but nothing that couldn't be managed after Clef was awake.
Autozam was the most difficult. What they needed was a complete alteration of their energy systems before it killed off the entire population. Geo and Zazu both preferred to let Eagle speak for what their world needed. Zazu understood the mechanics of the energy systems, but not the wider ramifications. He was better with individual systems, or interfaces that were almost entirely mechanical. Geo was more a warrior and a Second in Command, good at following Eagle's lead, but not as good at the political games and such that were required. After some discussion, it was agreed that a more detailed plan for remedying Autozam's situation would have to wait until both Clef and Eagle were awake. It would require both their expertise before any plan could be made beyond the promise of help, which Clef and Eagle had already exchanged.
Despite the missing people, the talks were still beneficial. As Umi put it in one session, at least everyone was on the same page. While Hikaru was getting a crash course in politics and the magics of the Pillar, Umi and Fuu were proving invaluable in other ways. Fuu was a born organizer, and a voice of reason, often seeing solutions that others might miss and getting paperwork sorted out. Umi, using the skills she learned as a politician's daughter, was skilled at negotiating and bringing up legislative issues that others hadn't even thought about. She couldn't always offer solutions, but she did a very good job pointing out all the things they'd need to discuss once the full group was available.
The third day dawned, and all of them gathered, holding their breath. Waiting.
***SoC***
He wasn't dead.
That was the first thing Clef was aware of when he first emerged from the dark oblivion that had claimed him. He lived still.
The pathways of his magic, and of his life-force, felt raw and scoured. It was no less than he expected. Then something washed over him, magic from a source he could not name, but which felt achingly familiar. It soothed the burn, granting cool healing energy in place of pain, and sent him gently back to the darkness.
He surfaced again after a period of dreamless rest, aware this time of his slowly healing body. He was somewhere warm, comfortable and, to his raw senses, safe. He felt the touch of a healing sleep wrapped around his essence, keeping him from awakening further than the dream-state of semi-awareness. The spell was strong, and he could not have fought it, even had he wished to. He allowed it to soothe him, sending him back to the restful darkness.
Time passed in waves of dream-like awareness interspersed with periods of true sleep and quiet oblivion. Gradually, he became aware of other things in his dreaming.
He was never alone when he surfaced. There was always a presence beside him. Most often, it was the wielder of the strange, half-familiar magic. But sometimes it was others. Presea, or rather the woman who shared her face and powers and had taken her name. Umi. Hikaru. Fuu. The others who had helped him hold the Castle since the Pillar's death.
He was aware of his healing body and his slowly replenishing energy. His battered and depleted life force energy was smoothed over and restored to him. Magic returned to him more slowly, at a rate his healing pathways could withstand, but it was soon a comforting pulse in the back of his mind once more.
Sometimes he passed into true dreaming. Most often it was memories that filled his mind. Emeraude and Zagato. Hikaru and Umi and Fuu. Presea and Alcyone. All that had happened between his beloved students, and the young girls from another world.
Once he dreamed of the ancient tales of Cephiro, the history so old and forgotten that it was even more legend than the existence of the Magic Knights had been. He dreamed of a time when the Pillar and Cephiro had been partners, and the position had been a duty, but not a burden, nor the cage it had become.
In his dreams, he wept, and he grieved for what had been lost, and the cost of human error.
Grief was sharp in his mind, blunted only by the comforting presence of his caretakers, but it was not unwelcome. He had never had a chance to mourn. Too much had happened too fast, and then he had thrown his strength into protecting the people of his world, and what he could of the land and it's creatures. There had been no time for tears, no time to grieve for his lost students, the dead he had cherished as friends and more, dear as his own children, had he ever raised any.
In a way, it hurt, the memories that haunted his dreams. But as he healed, he became aware that it was much like a festering wound, finally lanced. He had held his grief tightly, using it as a goad for the reckless use of power he had espoused in his efforts to hold his world together without a Pillar. With no outlet, the pain had tortured him with sleepless nights and anguish. The return of Lantis and the Magic Knights had eased some of the pressure on both his magic and his heart. Being able to apologize the young women he felt he had deceived and ill-used had helped as well, along with their forgiveness, but the chance to rest and mourn eased him still more.
It was a relief he hadn't realized he needed. A healing he hadn't even believed would be possible, until the pain began to ease and be soothed in the peace of mourning within his own mind.
He surrendered to the memories, and the emotions, content to let the tide of healing carry him where it would. A part of him feared the vulnerability he felt, but he never felt threatened by those who tended him. He might have been shamed at being so unguarded, but even in his half-aware state he knew that those who watched over him touched him with love and comfort in their hands. The voices that occasionally reached him were unintelligible, but the tones were always gentle, a balm to his battered and anguished spirit. Like the magic that soothed his damaged body, they were a comfort.
Time passed, but he made no effort to mark it. It wasn't important. His unguarded mind and re-emerging powers told him that all was well within the Castle, so he let himself rest.
Then a time came when he emerged from oblivion to dreaming and realized that the spell that bound him was no longer in place. Freed of the constraints of a magically induced slumber, his mind darted towards wakefulness. He swam through darkness and disjointed thoughts, following the light that grew steadily stronger until it filled his senses and his vision. He breathed deep, inhaled familiar scents and a wild-world air that he could not place, and blinked.
Light blinded him for a moment, though it was not bright or painful. He blinked again, urging his eyes to open fully, and the world solidified and steadied around him.
He found himself looking at a familiar ceiling. His own. He was in his own rooms, in his private quarters. The soft warmth that encased him was his own bed. The familiar scents were his own sheets, his books and his clothes and the faint tang of the spells he used to protect his unconscious mind from the outside world, though they had been rewoven by...Lantis, his senses told him. Lantis and the owner of that strange magic that he recognized but could not place.
Of course. They would have collapsed when he drew upon his life-force magic in the Pillar Chamber.
He breathed again, then coughed as air flowed down a dry throat. A hand and arm slid under his shoulders, and a cup was placed to his lips. "Drink."
He sipped. Water, but cool and refreshing and flavored with a gentle sweetness. He drank until his thirst quenched, then tilted his head back to look at this caretaker.
Silver eyes looked back out of an oval face, surrounded by multi-hued brown hair. Warmth tilted the full lips upward, gentle and loving. Realization washed over him, and everything fell into place.
Clef gasped, and would have drawn back if he had possessed the strength. "You..." He stuttered to a halt. "How…?"
"Hikaru's choice. She wished for freedom. The Pillar is an old contract that cannot be dissolved by the Pillar alone, but in her wish to gain her own freedom, she granted mine as well. When she called for someone to save two she loved, I was more than willing to come and renew the old pact."
He felt grief again. "Hikaru...she is..."
"A Pillar. But a Pillar by the old contract, as it was in the beginning." A gentle hand brushed his hair away from his face. "Do not fret, my Mage. It will not be the burden you fear, for any of your loved ones."
Her words soothed him. "What...has happened?" She offered him the cup again, and he sipped to soothe his throat again. "How long have I been…?" He wasn't sure what he had been. Nearly dead, he knew. "...recovering?"
"This is the fifth day since you fell." Her gentle smile eased his fear before it could truly take hold. "We have held the Castle intact, the Pillar and I, and those whom you entrusted with the magic. The people are safe."
He relaxed against his pillows, nearly faint with relief. Then another thought made him stiffen. "The man from Autozam...Eagle Vision...I..."
One hand touched his chest, keeping him place. "Eagle Vision of Autozam lives. He has been in a healing sleep, like you. He will wake soon, and his people are with him. He will wake weak, but healed of his wounds and his illness. There will be time for promises to be kept when you both are well."
He relaxed again. He'd only been awake a few minutes, but he felt exhausted already. He blinked heavy eyes. "What...what should I...call you?"
She smiled again. "I am called Spirit by the Pillar and her friends."
"Spirit..." He breathed the word. Then his eyes closed, and her soft laugh, like the long missed sound of a brook running strong over rocks in spring, followed him into sleep.
***SoC***
He ached. But it wasn't a harsh ache, or the burning pain he'd grown used to with his illness. No, it was the ache of healing muscles and healing wounds, the low background pain he was used to from overextending himself in battle. Low and dull and easily ignored, with the knowledge that it would pass soon enough.
New sensations filtered slowly through his sluggish senses. He was lying on something soft. Soft and warm and comfortable. He couldn't feel the pressure of his headband or his arm-guards. Someone had removed his equipment. Removed as well the drain from his machines.
There was someone with him. A low voice grumbled in the distance, though he couldn't decipher words. Still, he thought it sounded like Geo.
He drifted a while, more tired than he could ever remember being and content to rest. He was surprised to be alive, but glad. Though he wouldn't have minded dying for his people, or to protect his friends and loved ones, he was glad to be alive. Glad he would get to see the new fate that could be made for his world.
He thought he remembered someone saying something about Clef's condition, but couldn't remember what it was.
Then he remembered what had happened before he lost consciousness. The horrendous coughing fit that he'd suffered, and right in front of Lantis.
Hikaru had been there too, and someone else...it took him a moment for his thoughts to clear enough for him to remember. Spirit. Spirit of Cephiro. She had done something to him. She had told him there was time, and then she had put him to sleep.
The memory drew him toward awareness, toward waking. Whatever spell had pulled him under, he thought it was gone. He felt tired, bone-achingly weary, but over that was an edge of curiosity. He wanted...he needed to know what was happening, what had happened to his people. He thought he had a fragmented memory of Geo arriving, or rousing just enough to see his Second-in-Command before he sank into unconsciousness, but he wasn't sure if that was memory or a dream.
With effort, he dragged his eyes open, blinking to clear the sleep haze from them.
The ceiling overhead was well-lit, not like the cell he had occupied previously. The bed was wider as well, though just as comfortable. The room felt smaller, but less confining. Like the guest rooms aboard his ship, as opposed to a prison.
A rough hand slid under his shoulders and tilted him up. A cup was pressed to his mouth. "Drink." He recognized Geo's brusque voice. Geo was seldom stern with him, but his voice was barely veiled steel now.
He drank. Geo urged him to finish the cup, while another presence – Zazu, he saw – fluffed his pillows. Only when they were arranged did his Second set him back down.
He blinked at the grim lines of Geo's mouth. "Geo..."
"You're an idiot. If Hikaru hadn't wished you safe, you'd have died in that explosion." Geo's voice was flat and tired.
"You totaled the FTO! After all the work I put into that thing..." Zazu moaned as he slumped down next to his commander. "Man, it'll take forever to get another machine to perform that well."
He managed a wan smile. "I am sorry about that. But I had promised I would help, and so I couldn't just leave the Magic Knights without aid against that person."
"You mean you wouldn't leave Lantis." Geo all but snarled the words.
"That too I suppose." He sighed and leaned back against his pillows. "I really am sorry Geo. But once I decided not to finish the invasion, once I came to the agreement with Master Clef...I really just wanted to choose my own time and my own way."
"You're still an idiot. A huge idiot." Geo sighed. "Anyway, the crazy chick and her...whatever that other lady was...they've been defeated. The Castle's still standing, though I hear it was a near-run thing. Aside from you, no one's really badly hurt, except for that Master Mage Clef."
Eagle blinked. "Master Clef is…?"
"He overdid it, same as you. At least that's what Lantis said. A bunch of them had to go rescue him from some place called the Pillar Room. He's been out cold since, but he's supposed to wake up today, just like you." Geo waved a hand.
Eagle frowned. "How long have I been unconscious?"
"Four days. Almost five. It's really damn lucky that Spirit gal was here, or you wouldn't be waking up. You jerk." Geo scowled. Then he darted forward and engulfed Eagle in hug that was just shy of crushing. "Don't you do that again, or I'll make sure you don't get any sweets for a solid month."
Eagle laughed gently. It felt good to laugh without stabbing pains in his chest. "I'll keep that in mind." He sighed as the burly man released him. "I really am sorry for making you worry about me."
"Yeah, yeah." Geo sighed and slumped back. "Well, at least your craziness paid off. Everything's okay. As soon as you and this Master Mage guy get back up to fighting weight, we're gonna be developing a new government here. And then, they've promised they'll help out Autozam."
"They're still going to do that? Even though I didn't become the Pillar?"
Geo blinked at him. "Well yeah. The new Pillar likes you."
"It's Hikaru then?" He felt a wave of sadness. For Hikaru, and for Lantis.
"Yeah." Geo shifted, having noticed the change of his mood. "But you know, they said it was gonna be different, this time. Not like what Lantis ran away from. That Spirit gal, she seemed pretty sure that it would be better this time."
Spirit. If he was correct in his guess about her identity, then she would certainly know. He felt tentative hope stir within him. "Well then, I suppose I'll have to hope for the best." A yawn startled him.
Geo grinned. "Go back to sleep, you hard-headed idiot of a commander." He nudged Eagle back down and pulled the covers up. "We'll be here when you wake up."
"Yeah. No kidding. You'll see Eagle. There's a lot of interesting stuff happening on Cephiro now. And we're going to be part of it!" Zazu grinned cheekily at him.
He found the strength to smile in return, though his eyes felt heavy. "I look forward to it."
And with that, sleep swept in and claimed him once more.