Dislaimer: Magic Knight Rayearth isn't mine. I can only bow down to CLAMP.
Princess Emeraude loved her country very much. To her, that was as important a part of being the Pillar as the strength of one's heart. She loved Cephiro, and willingly gave herself up to protect it.
But she was a human being, and knew all too well about the fallibility of humans. Humans were made to love, to bond to each other, to put the ones they loved before all else.
And Cephiro's Pillar, no matter how human, could not do that.
She chose to keep a child's body, in the belief that as a child she could keep a pure, strong love for her country without becoming attached to another person.
She should have known better.
Even a child could love someone enough to want to tear the world apart for them. And Emeraude had the ability to do so.
The Pillar wasn't supposed to love anyone more than Cephiro. Emeraude thought that if she stopped herself growing before she reached the age of sexual desire, then she wouldn't be tempted to put one person above her country.
She didn't yet know that love didn't need sex for it to take hold.
Zagato was kind, intelligent, and attentive to her needs. She told herself it made him a good Sol. It was true; he was. She respected him for that, perhaps even admired him. He was a great help to her, as the Pillar who ruled Cephiro.
She would be lost without him.
She didn't realize why she clung to the thought of him, not for the longest time. Her heart was lighter when he was with her, and she knew it was because she relied on her Sol. She was lucky to have him. Cephiro was lucky to have him.
Zagato was always so good to her. She hoped he saw how much she appreciated him. She hoped he didn't see her as a child in need of coddling.
She wanted him to see her . . . she didn't know. Not as a little girl. Not as his ruler. Not even as the Pillar.
And Emeraude wanted to be with him. She longed to be around him all the time. Not because she, as the Pillar, needed him, as the Sol. She was able to take care of her country with her prayers and love. She just liked being near Zagato. She sought him out without a strong reason, just to see him. Just to be near him.
It frightened her, a little. Not because she believed she was in any kind of danger from Zagato, but because she didn't know. She didn't know what he meant to her. She didn't know what he thought of her.
She had to find out, but she was afraid of the answer.
She wanted Zagato to see her as a woman.
He did.
Once she understood she had fallen, she entered the Water Prison right away and called the Magic Knights. She did not allow herself to act on her desires or to take the form she longed for, to make herself Zagato's equal in stature.
She still loved her country. She knew what her duties were. She knew what she had chosen, when she became the Pillar.
She could not fall in love. She could not put one man above all the people of Cephiro. She could not put her own happiness above the happiness of all of her people. She would not allow herself to be the ruin of Cephiro.
She would die before that happened.
Clef was a Guru, the master mage of all of Cephiro, and he was hundreds of years old. He had studied all of the most ancient texts, and learned the nature of his world. His magic was strong, the spirits at his call were many, his knowledge was great.
And because of that, he was afraid.
The people of Cephiro came to him to advise them and to teach them. They believed he was the wisest and greatest of all mages, and perhaps that was so. They believed he could teach them the ways of the world, to shape it and to live happily. He was the master.
But how could he, even as powerful and revered as he was, truly know anything?
It would be so easy to lose touch. To think, that he, himself, was as great as the people believed him to be, and to forget that he was just another person. Worse, he could forget the wonder that drew him to study Cephiro in the first place, the wonder that many others were experiencing for the first time.
Cephiro was an incredible land. Plants, humans, and creatures all thrived, under the benevolent hand of a single Pillar. One girl's heart could create a world where thousands, millions, could live in harmony.
But if Clef believed he knew it all, if he let himself think he was the best, he'd forget the awe, the greatness, the mystery of it all. He never wanted to lose that.
It was a child's sense of delight, a child's way of experiencing the world. That was what he wanted, always. Children didn't have any preconceived notions the way adults did.
It wasn't perfect. He was still an ancient mage, even in the form of a child, and he still guided the people of Cephiro. He still advised Princess Emeraude. He formed his own thoughts and biases, the same as anyone.
But he knew, he remembered, that there was still so much he didn't know. That he didn't really know anything – the wisdom his followers so looked up to was a single drop of water in a vast sea. He was wise, but only as wise as humans can be.
The world, Cephiro, was greater than that. The Sun shone, flowers bloomed, fruit swelled to ripe without Clef's knowledge or influence. The land itself was so far beyond any spellcraft he could work. There were so many things he simply couldn't fathom.
The depths of the human heart were a mystery to him.
That was his greatest regret, in the end. He had seen the changes in Princess Emeraude. He thought he knew what they meant, but he hadn't done a thing. He didn't intervene. If he had, he could have spared so much heartache, not only to his pupils Emeraude and Zagato, but to the Magic Knights, Presea, all the people of Cephiro and the worlds beyond.
No, that was pride again. Clef was only one person, a child in the wide world. Cephiro was only one world among many, and the natures of the others were a mystery to him.
He had seen Emeraude falling in love, and he had realized that as long as she was the Pillar, that could only cause her pain. He had seen and chosen to do nothing, because he didn't know what he could have done. Everything that had happened because of it was a painful reminder that he was not the greatest in Cephiro. There was so much he didn't know. So much he had yet to learn.
He was a child after all.
Ascot hated adults. They always decided they knew what was going on without bothering to find out if they were right. And they were so sure they knew better than you, no matter what you tried to tell them. Even when you were right.
Monsters were always bad, and evil.
And they lied. They just said whatever they wanted, even when they knew it wasn't true. Even when it hurt some monsters who never hurt anybody. They just did whatever they wanted, and nobody cared about anybody else. Adults were the worst.
Ascot never wanted to be like them.
And in Cephiro, he didn't have to be. He didn't think about it. It wasn't a conscious choice, not to grow up. He was a kid. That was how it was. He knew better than any stupid grown-up about his friends. They called them monsters, but that word didn't describe his friends at all.
And if the grown-ups didn't want anything to do with his friends, well, Ascot didn't want anything to do with them either. He had his friends. They didn't need anyone else.
Expect it was harder than it seemed, living out in the woods or the desert or by the sea. All his friends needed their own different kind of place to live, and wherever they went, there were always people who said they shouldn't be there. Who drove them out.
Everywhere they went.
Everywhere.
It was so annoying. You can't be around here, they said, but they had to be somewhere. Ascot's friends deserved a home of their own. If the adults would just take the time to get to know them, they'd know Ascot's friends weren't like the monsters they talked about. He'd never even met monsters like the ones in the stories, that were bad all the way through. His friends weren't bad at all. Sure, they were big, and some of them looked scary, and sometimes there were accidents when his friends and the humans misunderstood each other, but they didn't hurt people on purpose.
Ascot always held out hope that each different time, each new place, would be different, but it never was.
That's why he couldn't help but believe in Zagato. The man was an adult, but he didn't shout at Ascot's friends, or throw things at them, or try to drive them away. And he listened to Ascot complaining about the way they were treated, and he promised they could all come live at Cephiro Palace. Right now, people would try to stop them, but he was going to change things, and he needed the help of Ascot and his friends, and then everyone could be happy.
Of course Ascot would help. Of course he wanted his friends to be able to live happily. And they would be happy at the palace, he knew. That was where the Pillar lived, and so it was the center of happiness in Cephiro.
Funny how it took another grown-up to show him what a mistake he was making.
But no, Umi wasn't a grown-up. She was older than the form he unconsciously kept, it was true, but she wasn't an adult yet, either. She was somewhere in the middle, and maybe that was why she could see what Ascot couldn't.
She was right. Ascot was the one who was hurting his friends most of all. How could he make his friends fight, and let them get killed, no matter what Zagato said? He already knew adults lied. He should have realized what he was doing. He should've thought about it.
Well, he was thinking about it now, and he didn't want to ever hurt his friends again. He should've never listened to Zagato.
And . . . Umi wasn't the only one. She wasn't the only one to make him think that maybe he was wrong. Caldina was nice to him, when they were both doing what Zagato said, and he thought maybe she didn't realize how bad this whole thing was either. Caldina wasn't like Zagato. She was kind, and funny, and proved that not all grown-ups were the same. Maybe she'd been tricked too.
In the end, it took another Magic Knight to convince her that she shouldn't listen to Zagato. Ascot could take his monster friends out of Zagato's schemes, but not Caldina. She had to think it through and decide for herself, just like he did.
Ascot did change, after that. He started to think about people before he judged them. What they wanted, what they did, how that compared to what they said.
Caldina thought he grew up to impress Umi, but she was wrong. Well, no, maybe not entirely wrong – he wanted her to see how he'd changed – but mostly he just wanted to be someone his friends could rely on. And it was that desire, more than anything, that made him grow up.
He could still be happy, hanging out with his friends, even if he was an adult, and if he could protect them better, or help one more person, it would be worth it.