http://clampfix.fanworks.net/re-fix/donning2.txt </head><body><pre>The Donning of A Mage's Robe Chapter 2 By Katelyn QueenHikaru@yahoo.com http://sailoralderaan.tripod.com/ This is a fanfic that takes place in the MKR world, but it is not about the Magic Knights. It's about a character I made up all on my own, during the time when corruption was forming when the princess was the pillar and she was in love with Zagato. If you don't want spoilers, I suggest you don't read this!!! Anyway, I hope you enjoy. Magic Knight Rayearth and the characters (minus Karina) belong to CLAMP and are not mine. You don't really have to know a lot about MKR to understand this 'fic. The Cast of Characters: Zagato - the guard of the princess Princess Emeraude - the princess and Pillar of Cephiro. Her will determines everything. Karina - the daughter of a legendary mage, she is almost a better Magic user than Alcyone, but her less-exotic looks make her less noticed. Alcyone - Karina's best friend who uses ice Magic. She is exotic and pretty and has a habit of twisting people around her little finger. Master Mage Clef - the Master Mage in Cephiro, and the one who teaches Alcyone Magic. ~~~ Karina stepped lightly into the village clearing in the moonlight and looked to see where she had come out. The village was clean and empty in the darkness, and Karina had an uneasy feeling as she walked over to her mother's hut. She knocked on the old wooden door, rotton with age. She tapped on the shuttered windows. And yet nobody answered. She tapped again on the windows and the doors. "Mother?! MOTHER!!!" she shouted, yet nobody answered. "Where are you?!" She pushed open the door to the hut -- There were papers strewn all around and it looked like a struggle had had taken place. The ground was all messed up, but the worst part was the body of her mother lying in the wreckage. The walls were scorched, which told Karina her mother had tried to use Magic against her attacker. She gasped in fear and alarm as she ran by each hut, peeking in only to see the very same thing. So that was why the village had been so silent - every one of them was dead. She choked back sobs, trying to imagine who could have done such a thing, but she couldn't think of anything. 'Monsters are roaming the lands now...' she remembered a young lad who had walked through the village a month before saying. Could it have been a monster? A bunch of monsters? She imagined deep in her heart the magic that she needed, then focused on the village. "I cannot bear to leave all of you dead in your huts. I shall burn the village and put a sign of memorial here for all to remember you by," she murmured. "Fire...wall!" The wall of fire consumed the village, leaving Karina desperatly clutching a necklace of her mother's and her travel sack. Tears fell to the ground as the world Karina had grown up in disappeared with her very eyes. When the last of the village was burned, Karina found a large boulder. She used Magic to carve the names of everyone in the village who had died on the boulder and also used Magic to place it in the center of where the village had used to stand. She took the red dirt that she had once farmed and rubbed it over her mother's name, making the name look red. "Mother...I will make you proud of me," she whispered. "I will become the greatest mage that ever existed...and I shall never forget you." She put the necklace around her throat and looked up into the large mountains looming behind her. "The master mage said to train in the mountains, but I no longer want to go. I want to see Alcyone and tell her of the death of everyone around us...she has a right to know." "You should follow the orders of the Master Mage, little girl," a bird squalked. Karina turned in surprise and looked at it. "He is very wise and knows what's best." "I know, but Alcyone deserves to know what happened to her parents." She turned to look at the ground where the rock sat and she heard a rustle in the bushes. She turned and saw the bird growing. "Any pupil of the Master Mage must be a good pupil!" the bird roared. "I shall steal his pupils for my sake!" "Nani?!" Karina jumped back. "I'm not even his pupil...yet." "Ah but you are! He sent you into the mountains, did he not?" the bird asked. "Yes yes he did! So you shall become my pupil and I shall train you!" Karina looked majorly taken aback. "We must prepare you for the Magic Knights!" "MAGIC KNIGHTS?!" Karina screeched. "The Legendary Magic Knights? But Cephiro is peaceful! We have no need for them!" she protested. "They are coming in time, Master Mage Karina, and you must be ready for them." "Master...Mage..." Karina paled. "You're lying! The Magic Knights are from a legend! They won't come!" She shook her fist at the bird. "And there's no way I could ever become the Master Mage! That's Clef's job!" "Are you going to train with me or aren't you?" the bird asked. "I am Morgath, champion of Magic and cousin to Clef." There was a flash of light and a human stood before her instead of the bird. He was very handsome, with light brown hair that spread in front of his eyes a bit and a lean, muscular body, together with piercing green eyes and a dimple on his left cheek. Yet Karina did not notice how pleasant to look at he was, she was so entranced on the way Magic was buzzing around him, almost like a shield. "You are...very powerful," she murmured. "I had never met the Master Mage, but I wonder, does he have your Magic aura?" "Probably not," Morgath told her. "I hone my Magic powers everyday by living out here, while Clef is indoors with no need to use his Magic at all. I wouldn't want his life -- it's too rich for me." Karina nodded, understanding what he meant. "I'm also younger than Clef, you would be amazed how much younger, so Clef looks down on me. I think he's lost track of me now though." "Will you teach me to hone my Magic too? So that I may possess the skill to protect the Princess Emeraude, should anything happen?" "You are wise in the ways of the world and your Magic is strong too. I am surprised Clef did not keep you as his pupil." "I never saw Clef," she admitted. "My friend, whom I taught Magic, did, though, and he gave her instructions for myself. I did as told, going to our village. Now I am to train in the mountains." "To train in Magic, you must have a teacher," Morgath told her. "Did you think you could just make up new spells?" "No! My mother was a powerful mage, and she cast many spells and knew many things I didn't--" "Obviously, that did not save her," Morgath replied drily, looking out at the burnt village. "To be good at Magic mentally, like my cousin, is not enough. You must also be good at physical Magic, which I specialize in." "Hai," Karina nodded. "Magic is very difficult to understand, isn't it?" "Come with me to the mountains. I have a training fortress up there where I will teach you all aspects of Magic. Then you can go back to the Master Mage Clef and show him that you truly are worthy of becoming a Mage," he told her. "I shall help you don those Mage's robes, little Karina." She smiled up at him. "You are very kind, Morgath-san. I think I shall earn my Mage's robes with you!" He started along a path through the forest. She quickly followed. 'I'm going to become a Mage after all!' she thought excitedly. ~~~ Alcyone watched Clef as he concentrated on Magic and put out the fire one of the cooks had started. "That was wonderful, Clef-sama!" she squealed. "Wasn't it wonderful, Zagato-sama?" "Yeah," he said, not really paying attention. "It was wonderful." "I'm so glad you agree with me! We're going to get along good, aren't we, Zagato-sama?" she asked, batting her eyelashes flirtatiously at him. "If you'll excuse me, Lady Alcyone, the princess has woken," he said stiffly, not paying attention to her. He left without another word. "Ja ne, Zagato-sama!" Alcyone called as he left. She turned back to Clef, who was shaking his head at her. "What?" "Alcyone, do not get distracted while learning Magic! If you mess up a spell, you could kill us all, including Zagato. You could kill Lady Karina and the Princess and everyone in the palace. Do you understand me?" he asked sternly. "Hai," she answered solemnly, not telling him that the Lady Karina would not be back for awhile. "Now, concentrate deep inside you. You have an affinity for water Magic, Lady Alcyone. Use that. I want you to get the cook some water for his stew. Make the water appear in the pot neatly. The words will appear in your head," he instructed. "I-I don't hear any words," she told him. He sighed in an exasperated way. "And you were supposed to be my best pupil. LISTEN. Your heart will speak the words for you! Magic is easy if you believe in your heart!" "I still hear nothing," she muttered, confused. "You do not HEAR it, Lady Alcyone," Clef muttered, starting to lose his patience. "How did you learn the ice chariot spell if you do not know how to do such a simple Magic trick such as making a spell in your mind?" "I learned it!" she insisted. "How?" he demanded. "Well, Karina--" "Ahh, the Lady Karina is the one powerful in Magic, eh?" Clef asked, getting through her disguise. He guestered to one of the guards. "Get Lady Karina from her room. She should have returned from her errand to her village by now." The guard nodded and left, leaving Alcyone biting her nails. "Why did you lie, Alcyone?" "I did not LIE!" she screeched, getting mad as a bobcat. "I simply stretched the truth!" "You do have Magic potential," Clef told her. "I shall continue to train you, but Lady Karina gets priority." He saw the steam coming out of Alcyone's ears. "Did you mean to cheat your friend out of her Magic lessons?" "NO!" Alcyone denied. "I just wanted to get up to her level before she started training!" Clef eyed her with distaste, his trust of her already broken. "Master Mage Clef?" the guard asked, returning. "The Lady Karina is not in her rooms, nor has she been there in the past week or so." He saluted Clef and stood by the door again. "What is the meaning of this?" Clef asked Alcyone. "There are many monsters roaming the land, Clef-sama," Alcyone told him. "Perhaps one of them caught her?" She tried not to sound too happy that Karina was still gone, and hoped that she had suceeded. But Clef still didn't trust her. "Be warned, Alcyone. If you lie too much, someday you'll get caught." With a swirl of his robes, he left the main Magic room, leaving Alcyone crushed. 'This is all HER fault!' she thought with a clenched fist. 'That stupid, selfish KARINA!' ~~~ In the blackest of night, in the middle of an eerie forest, Morgath and Karina stood in a clearing, a campfire blazing beside them. "Now, let me get this straight," Karina muttered. "I'm supposed to jog through this huge forest and light the campfires around it using Magic?" Morgath nodded. "The path is easy to follow. You should not trip or fall, but if you run into any monsters, come back to me. I should be able to fend them off." "Hai, sir!" She started to jog, slowly through the forest. It was peacefully serene, and as she past the first logs that were to be made into a campfire she concentrated on fire Magic. "Flare...lamp!" the fire burst into flames and she continued jogging until she reached another one. "Flare...LAMP!" The fire there burst into flames too. She continued jogging. She realized that she hadn't seen a fireplace in awhile and began to worry. She picked up a piece of wood from the ground. "FLARE LAMP!" she had a torch. She waved it around a bit and realized that she wasn't on the path anymore. The path she had made had closed behind her and she realized one thing -- she was lost. "MORGATH!!!" she shouted. "MORGATH!!" She heard a little thing behind her. "Pu?" it asked. She turned around and saw, with the light of her torch, a small white creature that resembled a rabbit. It had a red jewel on it's forehead. "Puuu!" "Hi there!" she giggled. "You're cute! My name's Karina. Do you know where the Magic training fortress is?" The rabbit-creature shook it's head. "C'mon, you little guy. You hafta know SOMETHING." "Pu," it shook its head again. "ARGH!" Karina screamed. "FLARE...LAMP!" she send the fire shooting in the air as sort of a distress signal. But the question was...would anybody see it? ~~~ The end, for now!!! Yay I got a chapter done!!! *cheers* I'm soooo happy! I'm also sooo sick. Email is good!! E-mail will make me feel MUCH better! QueenHikaru@yahoo.com ~K~</pre><p><a href="./">Back</a></p><p><a href=http://www.dreamhost.com/donate.cgi?id=216><img border=0 alt="Donate towards our web hosting bill!" src=https://secure.newdream.net/donate1.gif></a></p></body></html>