You know, I was thinking meta-y about Fuurio while looking at Suz's fanblog earlier and thought I'd share with the class.
When you ship just about every other 'canon' couple in Rayearth, you're shipping what they could be. You ship what Zagato and Emeraude could be if they weren't stuck in a fucked-up system, you ship what Umi and Ascot or Umi and Clef could be once the initial issues are worked out, you ship what Hikaru and Lantis and/or Eagle could be given just a little more time, you ship what Caldina and Lafarga could be if they got a little more screen/page time.
But when you ship Fuu/Ferio, you're shipping what they are. You're shipping two cute characters that canon has together, and, plot twist, you agree completely. There's no need for rants on why they belong together, though you can certainly make them if you're so inclined, because even if you can't articulate why they're so right for each other, you feel it. You feel it in their initial interactions, you feel it in the looks they give each other, you feel it in the way they have those moments where they might as well be the only people in the room (at least in the manga), you feel it in how they act differently with each other than they do with other people but you're not even sure they realize that's happening.
Suz, you've bemoaned before that the Rayearth fandom doesn't really do much in the way of non-canon shipping, and in a way, I see that, but I think part of the appeal of non-canon shipping in other fandoms is that the creators haven't made enough of a case for the canon ships. This is especially true in cases when, say, they've neglected to flesh out a female love interest beyond being a love interest for a male lead, so of course a relationship between him and a more fully developed male character is gonna be more interesting. So, while non-canon shipping is great fun and all, I see the fact that we can get so much out of the canon ships to be a positive for the series, a testament to CLAMP's ability to create a full cast of beautifully nuanced characters and make us want to play with all the relationship dynamics they've set in place.
And Fuu/Ferio is Exhibit A.