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wardencommanderrodimiss · 4 years

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Witches, Chapter 28: Themis school festival, redux. Nobody dies but everyone is depressed, up to and including yours truly, the author.

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

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“I guess I should’ve learned my lesson the other day about your sense of timing,” Apollo says.

“You could’ve paid for a taxi,” Athena says. “Like you did the other day. You had options! You chose to accept a ride from me!”

“You could’ve learned your lesson from the other day, too, and not been late,” Apollo says.

“Hey, it’s not late unless the trial starts without me, or I get to the office after a client or Mr Wright has shown up.”

“Is that what we’ve expanded the rules to be now?” Apollo asks.

Themis stands quiet and empty, and cold besides. Even the campus itself seems more battered and worn than it was a few days ago; the wind has torn loose or knocked down a number of the posters and signs planted along walkways and on building walls, and no one has bothered to gather any of them. Athena picks up a crumpled, out-of-date advertisement for the mock trial and shoves it in her pocket until they find a garbage can.

“You wanna just wander around?” she asks. “We’ll find everyone after the mock trial and see who won.”

She had been so insistent on wanting to watch the mock trial the other day, but they’ve wrung every last surprise out of Juniper’s script and Apollo, at least, has no particular desire to head into the lecture hall and relieve some of the most stressful bits of their past two days in court. The photograph of Courte posed as the body for the mock trial autopsy report, and days later a victim for real. The arrow stabbed into her side, not merely held there by her own hand. “Sure.”

On the sidewalk out toward the dining hall, some enterprising student with colorful chalk scrawled INVESTIGATE ALL ADMINISTRATION NOW. “I guess Mr Wright was right,” Athena says. “They won’t be able to bury this scandal this time.”

“Gonna be a hell of a school year from here on out,” Apollo says.

“I wonder how Hugh’s doing,” Athena says. “I believe he didn’t know his grades were bought, of course, but I’m not sure all his classmates are going to believe him. And I bet some of them are gonna be pretty angry about it, and take it out on him.”

“Yeah.” Though Hugh’s attitude probably hasn’t made him many friends already, besides Robin and Juniper. He might be used to disdain from his classmates, not that it will make it any easier. High schoolers are cruel. And adults can be just as petty, so there’s not really ever any reprieve. Hopefully he can come back from this; hopefully he tells his parents to go to hell for it, and hopefully Robin and Juniper stick by him.

Chalk writing in another corner of campus reads WHO ELSE IS LYING? “I guess it’s probably equally possible that Means was or wasn’t the only person at the school involved,” Apollo says. “Like Mr Wright said, it depends on how the process of changing grades works.”

“It’s funny,” Athena says. “When he gets talking like that and it’s all - just seems disjointed and irrelevant, but then there’s actually buried in there that’s important.” She goes quiet, watching the trees bend in the wind, and she skips forward and stomps on a leaf blowing across her path. “When I first met Mr Wright I had no idea who he was - like, I knew all about Phoenix Wright, but I had no way of connecting this guy I’d just met who was like, weirdly chill about me being a kid who wanted to investigate crime scenes, to, y’know, the famous Phoenix Wright.” Apollo nods numbly, remembering his first time meeting Phoenix, and all of the twists and turns his opinion of the man took in one day. “He wasn’t what I expected. He’s still not what I expect.”

“He’s got a way of surprising you,” Apollo says. It’s the kindest, most truly honest thing he can say. He likes Phoenix, really, he does - he admires him still, sometimes. He’s also one of the most frustrating people Apollo has ever had the misfortune of knowing.

Athena laughs suddenly. “Man, can you imagine if Hugh wins the mock trial?” she asks. “I would love to be able to sit in on the lecture that Mr Wright is supposed to give. He’ll probably say something bonkers two minutes in and then get stuck having to explain all of his extremely niche life advice.”

“I shouldn’t be here,” Hugh says.

The classroom is a small one, on the second floor of the main building; Phoenix had no instructions on where his lecture is to take place, and no one seemed to be around to ask, so with Hugh trailing silently behind him Phoenix poked his head into every other room they passed until he found one with chairs that look comfortable enough.

“The terms are that the winner of the mock trial gets a special lecture.” Phoenix seats himself in a chair and drags another one over to kick his feet up into. Special lectures are probably better if they’re informal. “So unless it was your doppelganger who won the mock trial, here you are, the winner, and here I am, the…”

The teacher. God, why did he ever agree? Why did he ever think he could teach anyone anything?

Hugh flinches. Great start, Phoenix: mock the kid you’re teaching. “That was - that was so stupid of me,” Hugh says, “stupid like me, as stupid as everything else that I—” He puts his head in his hands. One of them is still bandaged heavily. “That I said that the People of the Hills are - creatures, and criminals, and I was just saying things but Juniper is one of them and I - she just has so many reasons to hate me now because of all the stupid things I’ve done!”

“You don’t believe what you said there, about the fae?” Phoenix asks.

Hugh jerks his head up, wild-eyed. “I was just saying things,” Hugh repeats, clutching the side of his neck. “I just wanted to say something that would convince Prosecutor Blackquill, and I figured, if he’s not one of them he’s close to it and he’s a criminal, so - I’m just afraid that Juniper might think that, if I had known this about her - that she’d think if I’d known she wasn’t human then I wouldn’t have wanted to protect her. And that’s not true at all. She’s my friend. She and Robin are both - I mean I’m surprised, sure, but they’re still Juniper and Robin.”

Phoenix nods. “Then you tell them that. You tell Juniper this doesn’t change anything. Tell Robin the same, too, just to make sure she knows. But you’re still wearing your friendship band, and they still are too. You made it through suspicions of murder with that friendship intact - this is just smaller stuff you’ve gotta work out now.”

“Thank you,” Hugh says quietly. His head sinks again. “But I still shouldn’t be here. The mock trial is for the students at the top of the class, and I’m not. It should have been someone else, not me! They should have figured out who and let them participate, not me! And I only won because I watched your two lawyers win and I borrowed all their strategies and theories! I basically cheated! Just like I tried to cheat by looking at the script and—” He waves his bandaged hand before grabbing at his hair with it again. “I shouldn’t ever have been in this mock trial!”

“Perhaps not,” Phoenix says. “Or maybe, if you didn’t think you were good to go, getting unearned hundreds, you could’ve been buckling down and learning and learning how to study better.” Hugh shifts his hands so that he can look at Phoenix, while still hanging his head like a kicked puppy. “If you weren’t coasting through on confidence, and maybe with your determination - because I can see you are determined to become a lawyer, just like a lot of kids I’ve known, don’t try and object to that - maybe you could’ve been best in your class if you knew your failings and knew to work with them and around them. We’ll never know now, but it could have been possible.”

“No it wouldn’t,” Hugh mumbles. “I’m an idiot, and I shouldn’t be here, and you don’t understand that.”

Phoenix laughs. He can’t help it. He doesn’t mean to - this is the side of him that he tries to keep from the public eye now, tries to keep from Athena, wishes he could’ve kept from Apollo - but he laughs anyway. Hugh’s not wrong that he’s a bit of an idiot. He’s just coming to the wrong verdict from that fact. “Hugh, I’m giving you permission to forgive yourself for all the stupid things you’ve said this week, because that is the stupidest thing you ever could’ve said.”

“Huh?” His bitter laugh, and his sudden sharp words, have startled Hugh into sitting bolt upright. “What do you even think you’re talking about?”

“I’m Phoenix Wright, nice to meet you,” Phoenix says, extending his hand, and unsurprisingly, not getting a handshake in return from Hugh, who appears even more confused. His eyes dart toward the door, considering whether to run, whether Phoenix is crazy and even worth talking to. “Tell me what you know about me, Phoenix Wright.”

Hugh shakes his head. “You’re a brilliant lawyer. You’ve had a lot of celebrity clients - Will Powers, Max Galactica, Matt Engarde. You’ve defended famous legal figures - Lana Skye, the Miles Edgeworth. You - you’re a genius, you’re a legend. Professor Means had us study so many of your cases and your strategies, how you pulled off every crazy victory. I can’t even - begin to - to compare, or to—”

“Stop circling around it and tell me what you know about me,” Phoenix says. “The thing everyone knows about me and avoids bringing up around me.”

Hugh blinks. He doesn’t say anything. He scratches his neck. He adjusts the bandage on his hand. Phoenix brings his feet to the floor and leans forward, staring Hugh in the eyes. “I was disbarred for double the years that I’ve been an active lawyer. Half of the legal world of Los Angeles is still convinced that I framed Kristoph Gavin twice. That is the first thing you think of when you think of Phoenix Wright, isn’t it?” Hugh freezes, sitting there like a statue. “Whether or not Means told you that was something to admire about me, using forged evidence, that’s still the first thing you think about me.”

Finally, Hugh nods. “He said it was a lesson about how you have to be careful,” he says. “How dirty prosecutors will use any tricks they can to trap you.”

“Yeah, that’s kinda what I figured,” Phoenix says. “Wrong lesson, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. I did use falsified evidence, but I wasn’t the one that falsified it. Actually, the lesson is still about being careful, honestly.”

“Like when Professor Means gave me the audio tape that he made,” Hugh says glumly.

“Exactly like that,” Phoenix says. Hugh stares at the floor. Phoenix sits back and drops his head against the back of the chair. “In all honesty, Hugh, I can’t tell you if you should or shouldn’t be here. That decision is yours, whether you want to stay or go. It’s not going to be easy - not, I’m not talking about - okay, the Bar isn’t easy. I’ve taken it twice, I know. But everything you do - this bribery scandal, your grades, most people aren’t going to care whether you knew or didn’t know, if it was your parents or you. They really won’t care. This is going to be attached to you for the rest of your life - wherever you go from here, whatever your career becomes, whatever you do. You will always have this blemish on your name. You will never get away from it.”

Phoenix Wright, attorney, asterisk.

Hugh’s shoulders slump even lower.

“It has to be your decision, whether being a lawyer is something you want strongly enough to spend your career fighting past this perception of you. I can’t decide that for you.”

“You decided that for you, then,” Hugh says. “You decided it was more important than everything that people say about you.”

Phoenix hesitates. Did he? Or did Edgeworth decide that for him - or did Phoenix decide that Edgeworth was more important than everything that people say about Phoenix? “What I can tell you is that you’re not the only person struggling with - you’re not the only one who’s got to live with past mistakes defining you, however you’ve grown past that. And I’m not your only company, either.”

Is this a damning indictment of the state of their legal system, or just a statement of the very bad luck of everyone Phoenix and Edgeworth have ever met?

“Like Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth - if you know anything about the trials in which I defended him and Prosecutor Skye, you know what his reputation was. I know two brilliant prosecutors forever marred by sharing a name with a father who committed unforgivable crimes.” And Sebastian shares this exact schooling situation with Hugh, too. “And of course, there’s another brilliant prosecutor who’s here at this school today who has to share his name with all the wrongs his brother did.”

And share a face, too. Doppelgangers.

Hugh stares back down at his feet, his hands tightly gripping his neck, his elbows pulled together in front of his chest. “I think,” he says weakly, just barely peering up at Phoenix over his glasses. “I think - I still want to be an attorney. Even if I have to start over. Even if this is the first thing everyone thinks of when they hear my name.” Dropping his arms, he sits up straighter. “Juniper and Robin and I all promised that we were going to help make the legal system better. I still have to help them. And I want to be able to be like Ms Cykes and Mr Justice, winning honestly and finding the truth. I want to be as good as they are.”

A lump rises in Phoenix’s throat. Pride, and shame. They’re damn good kids, and what is he? Setting them loose because if he keeps away he might not repeat that laundry list of mistakes he made with Apollo with Athena. (Might. No guarantees. Will probably screw up in new terrible ways instead.) Keeping secrets from them, carefully skirting around the edges of lies.

“I’m glad,” Phoenix says. “Face it head-on. It won’t be easy, but I hope you’ll find it’s worth it.”

“So Hugh won, then,” Athena says.

When the crowd starts spilling out of the main building, they determine the mock trial has ended and force their way upstream through the students back to the lecture hall, where they find Robin and Myriam have lingered. “He did!” Robin says, without a shred of disappointment. She’s practically bouncing as she said it. “I can tell he learned a lot from you, man! And how much ass you kicked yesterday! And I mean,” she continues, giggling, “I can’t quite pull off Prosecutor Blackquill’s thing. I’ve gotta learn to be scary!”

“I don’t think you need to do that,” Apollo says. “I think you should stick with your strengths.” Whatever those are. Pottery, and loud shouting. Apollo doesn’t know about the former, but the latter is a valid, tried-and-true tactic and a proud tradition.

“Oh! Thena! Hi!” Juniper emerges from the audio booth, her arms full of the blue and white fabrics of her costume. “You made it! I have to run now though. Since he doesn’t have to teach a lecture to Robin, Prosecutor Gavin thought it would be good to use the time for extra practice.” Hefting her costume up further in her arms, her voice lowers and she reluctantly adds, “Which is good because I didn’t practice last night even knowing I’d have to sing today.”

“Understandable,” Apollo says. “I was exhausted last night, and I wasn’t the one on trial.”

“But you and Thena were doing all the work.”

“Don’t worry so much,” Athena says to Juniper. “You’re gonna do great, I know it!”

“Oh, and if Prosecutor Gavin starts to get snippy with you, don’t worry about it being your fault,” Apollo says. “That’s just how he gets when it comes to performances. Turns into a prissy diva, but don’t let it get to you.”

“O-oh, okay.”

Apollo very suddenly gains a certain clarity that tells him that his warning is only going to stress Juniper out more. Well, shit.

“Prosecutor Gavin, really?” Robin asks, watching Juniper scurry off and the last stragglers empty out of the lecture hall. “He seems so calm cool and collected!”

“Yeah, Trucy and I once thought that, too,” Apollo says, mostly to Athena, who was absently nodding along with Robin’s statement. “And then we learned better.”

Myriam pulls one arm back within her box and produces a notepad and pen, which she begins scribbling on. Does she have a storage pouch within there for her journalistic tools? “Are you writing that down?” Apollo asks. “Don’t write that down.”

“You can do so much better than being a trashy tabloid reporter!” Robin says.

Myriam hisses like a disgruntled cat. “But it’sss what I’m good at!”

“So I guess it’s just us for the moment, then?” Athena asks. “Where are we headed next? What’s there to do at a school festival, anyway?”

“You’ve never been to one?” Robin asks. She marches off toward the doors and waves for everyone to follow her. “There’s lots of food, for one, and I am starving, so I think that should be our first priority.”

“I skipped high school,” Athena says. “Or - I guess I sort of speed through it. I didn’t take the time to do much but study law and psychology.”

“Really?” Robin asks. “I figured you went to some other school like ours! Not just went on your own like - wasn’t that lonely? Or boring? Forget what my parents want, if I’d been trying to do this all alone without Juniper and Hugh, I for sure would’ve quit already!”

“Lonely?” Athena repeats, frowning and then twisting her mouth to the side. “No, I guess I never really felt lonely, since I was - I knew this was something that I wanted to do and I needed to do and I wasn’t going to let anything stop me. It never really crossed my mind, that I was doing it alone.” She smiles, a little sadly. “And then eventually I met Mr Wright, and Prosecutor Edgeworth, and then I knew I definitely wasn’t alone anymore. I had people I could ask all my important questions of!”

Envy coils tight in Apollo’s chest and he tries to strangle it. Just be glad for Athena, he tells himself. Be glad for her that she’s not had an intimidating boss she was afraid to ask too many questions of, who turned out to be a murderer. Be glad for her that she’s had Apollo also here to help, instead of just relying on a fifteen-year-old with no legal aspirations.

“You’re so lucky,” Robin sighs. “Not a single one of the prosecutor teachers here has any force of personality what-so-ever. That’s why we got sucked into the Courte-slash-Means cults of personality too. What are we gonna do, care at all about our own professors? Puh-lease!”

“Maybe going forward you shouldn’t go making cults of personality around people who might be fallible,” Apollo says.

Myriam hisses. “Ss-seems unlikely. It’s-sss how people are.”

“But being aware, you can definitely change it, right?” Athena asks.

“No,” Myriam says. Athena’s mouth flaps in abject confusion. So much for expecting some wisdom or a moment of self-reflection out of these kids.

Myriam has begun to explain to Robin that she doesn’t actually know who any of the prosecution course’s professors are.

Even now that it is filled with activity, the campus still holds a subdued energy. Athena’s head swivels in every direction, toward every conversing group they pass. The emotions must be overwhelming to hear, and when they stop for a moment here and there, Apollo can properly people-watch, and even only hearing small snippets of the conversation, flickers of red flare up across his vision. A hand clutching a phone tightly while arguing with a classmate, a bouncing knee or a fingernail chewed, Apollo isn’t listening and doesn’t want to listen - he doesn’t want to hear anyone say that Means was framed or Juniper isn’t innocent, doesn’t know if it will happen but wants to take himself as far away from the chances of it as he can - and still. Still he notices. Is he getting better at this? A stronger sight? He doesn’t want to be better at it. He doesn’t want to know if he isn’t watching for it.

He wants to be normal when the case is over, but that doesn’t happen. Not at the Wright Anything Agency.

Hugh carries himself differently now. Even with the mock trial win under his belt, the arrogance he held himself with is gone. The realization that he wasn’t a genius clearly hit hard - a gut-punch of an attitude adjustment - but Apollo hopes he can learn humility from this. Maybe there’s a certain relief in no longer pretending. Everyone knows. Everything about all three of them - Hugh, Robin, Juniper - is out in the open now.

(And then there’s still Myriam, within the box, and Phoenix’s blue eyes piercing through the cardboard shell.)

“Trucy called, said she’ll be coming around soon.” Phoenix leans up against the side of the building, his suit jacket folded over one arm. “I’ll probably catch up with you kids later, but I won’t hang around now and cramp your style, don’t worry.” He reaches out and grasps Hugh’s shoulder. “Hugh, very nice to meet you. Good luck.”

“Yeah,” Hugh says. “Thanks for - er.” He looks at everyone else standing there. “Um. Thanks.”

“Now go have some fun,” Phoenix says, waving them off. “You all deserve it, now shoo. And oh, Apollo, if I don’t get the chance, tell Klavier I say hi, when you see him.”

Apollo waits for him to toss the magatama over, but he doesn’t. Maybe he forgot it, or maybe he figures that since he’s got a performance, a whole crowd to be watching, this is one time that Klavier won’t disappear.

As the late afternoon wears into evening, heavy clouds gather, the bright hues of the sunset reaching out from behind their dark masses paint the exposed sky. The chill in the air drops to cold, and Apollo wonders if he’s the only one who notices, the only one whose teeth are chattering - shit, he’s thinking about Means’ teeth again, and if in the long run this haunts him more than an actual fucking yokai trying to kill him that’s gonna be some sad sort of funny. (Ask Athena about the psychology of that.) No one else says anything about being cold. Too excited to notice, and Apollo, at a frankly normal level of anticipation, is the only one shivering. The only one with an issue for any reason with the decision to camp out a spot not far from the stage, long before the concert starts.

Trucy finds them there, and tells them she would have forced them to stake their claim if they hadn’t - Apollo negotiated their location out from under the scaffold-mounted speakers, and that’s more kindness to his ears than he expected they’d be willing to give. The stage lights rise, the screaming begins, and Apollo braces himself.

The show is shorter, and much less flashy, than at Sunshine Coliseum, and that suits him perfectly. Out in the open air, the sound dispersed easily, and even at its peaks the music is a tolerable volume. Phoenix only shows up during the penultimate song. The friendly hand he has extended to Klavier does not reach his band, or his music. Apollo can’t blame him - he still isn’t a fan. Sure, some of it - a lot of it - is catchy, but that doesn’t make it suddenly to his tastes. Or even good. Gavin is talented at what he does, which is making entertaining songs, though again, fine art they are not.

(Trucy always tells him he protests too much. Apollo tells her she has no idea what she’s talking about, shut up.)

When the rest of the Gavineers disappear offstage, silence hangs suspended over the crowd, the briefest breath of respite, the last echoes of screams and applause bouncing faintly off of the surrounding buildings. Klavier remains alone under the spotlights, radiant in the blinding white lights, and stepping away from the microphone, he waves Juniper up beside him. In her stage gown, she practically glows, the luminescent exterior of her cloak shining as the fabric swirls with her every movement. Trucy gasps and smacks Apollo’s arm. Phoenix glances over at them and his mouth turns up in a wry smile.

Juniper doesn’t sound like Lamiroir, and in Apollo’s not-very-musically-inclined opinion, she doesn’t sound like she’s trying to sound like Lamiroir either. That seems the better choice: no one else can ever sound like Lamiroir, so there’s no reason to invite the comparison more than necessary. Without a piano backing, right from the start the song already has such a different feel that it further dissuades the comparison. One thing for certain: the shy girl they met earlier this week has a hell of a voice, when she gets to using it. And Apollo joins as enthusiastically in the raucous applause as everyone else.

When the last notes fade out into the dusk, Juniper ducks her head for an immediate retreat. Klavier doesn’t let her; he springs up and catches her hand before she goes far, swinging his arm up and raising hers high. He waves to the crowd, motioning upward, and the cacophony swells with him. “Themis!” he shouts, leaning into the microphone, his voice still barely rising over the cheers. “One more time for your very own Juniper Woods!”

Athena and Robin are definitely trying to outdo each other as the loudest, most supportive friend. After a moment, Hugh drops his veneer of sophistication and joins in. Trucy slaps Apollo on the arm again, grinning wickedly, and starts a countdown on her fingers for the two of them to show up their friends. Athena, laughing as she does, claps her hands over her ears and yells something back at them that is drowned out in the rest of the noise. She shoves Trucy, and Trucy hits Apollo in the back, trying to use them as a wedge to shove their way up through the crowd to the stage. This maneuver sees limited success. Instead they are forced, as is everyone else, to wait, slowly shuffling to the stage for autographs or to scream love confessions or whatever fans of bands do, Apollo doesn’t know. The only other concert he’s ever been to had a murder at it.

“Junie!” Athena squishes herself up against the side of the stage, stretching herself up to her friend, who crouches down to take Athena’s hand. “That was amazing! You were amazing!”

Juniper laughs nervously. Her face is pink, and that might be embarrassed anticipation of the compliments that her friends are going to lavish upon her head, and it might also be the exhilaration and the hot stage lights. “Thank you, Thena.”

“Your voice!” Robin gushes. “You have the most wonderful voice, Juniper! I can’t believe it! Except of course I totally can, because it’s you!”

Juniper ducks her head into her knees, her hood falling entirely over her face. She mumbles something, muffled by the fabric and all the other excited clamor. “Ah, look at you, lucky Fräulein, and your little gang of groupies out to support you.” Klavier leans over her shoulder, grinning down at them, his hair tumbling in messy sweaty curls around his face. Apollo hates him just on principle, just for the sake of it. “I see everyone made it.” He sweeps his hand back through his hair, pushing away all of the loose stray hairs stuck to his forehead.

“Groupies?” Juniper echoes in confusion, lifting her head.

“Groupies!” Athena repeats happily. “Junie’s groupies!”

“Ah,” Juniper says, and she tumbles backwards out of her crouch to sit on the stage, looking up at Klavier. “Do - do you need help? Is there anything I can do to get everything put away?”

Klavier shakes his head. “No need, but thank you. We have a system.” He straightens back up, looking over the stage, and his bandmates also assailed by the crowd. “Short a man, now,” he adds darkly, “but easier to do it ourselves than try to bring someone in. And besides, with this crowd, it will be quite a while before we’re even able to break away from the greeting to do anything else. You go spend some time with your friends, Fräulein. Get some rest - it’s been quite the week.”

Juniper inches to the edge of the stage and Athena offers a hand to her to help her down. “It was very nice to get to sing with you, Prosecutor Gavin,” she says. “Maybe we’ll run into each other again in better circumstances.”

“One hopes,” Klavier replies. “Until then!” He steps back, with a jaunty wave and a wink. “The rest of my fans await me, ja?”

He bounds back across the stage, leaving Apollo without the chance for a word. “He’s kind of a douchebag, isn’t he?” Hugh says. That’s rich, coming from him.

Juniper shakes her head. “He’s actually kind of sweet,” she says. “Though he is also a bit…” She trails off, glancing to Apollo for help, obviously remembering the warning he gave her earlier.

“Of a diva?” Trucy chimes in. “High-strung? Perfectionist? High-strung perfectionist diva?”

“Er,” Juniper says, eyeing Trucy in puzzlement. “Yes? But um, I’m sorry - who are you?”

Juniper is something of a celebrity among her classmates now, for the good and the bad - the group of them with her in tow can barely make it one step before someone else assails her with a question about what being a defendant was like, or compliments on her singing. Making their way free of the stage area, away to somewhere quieter where they’ll all have room to breath, is a long, laborious process, and all the more difficult when Juniper’s glowing robe lights her up even between the scattered pools of lamplight. Myriam is the first to come up with an idea; she helps Juniper shrug off the cloak and bundles it up into a tight ball and brings it under her box with her, freeing them to escape under cover of darkness.

“So how long do we have to be friends before we get to see your face?” Robin asks Myriam. They’ve commandeered a picnic table on the edge of campus, piled with all the foodstuffs that Athena and Robin and Trucy managed to snatch from wherever they passed. “I bet you’re really pretty!”

The crunching beneath the cardboard box abruptly stops. Myriam had relinquished her hold on Juniper’s cloak, not wanting to get crumbs on it, and Athena currently wears it inside-out to accentuate her usual yellow style with some extra, luminescent, yellow. “No,” Myriam says. “I’m - I’m not. You don’t want to sssssee.”

Does she go to class with a box over her head, too? Or does Robin just not have any classes with her? “Myriam, look,” Juniper says. In the dark, next to Athena, she looks yellow, but she stretches out her hand over the table and asks, “Does someone have a light?”

Apollo is the first to get his phone out; under white light, Juniper’s skin is clearly green, a light, soft green, healthier than the other shades she showed in the detention center. Her fingers don’t have claws but her nails are white, like they were polished, and particularly shiny. In her white ruffled gown, her shoulders bare - she isn’t cold, of course she isn’t, Klavier doesn’t get cold either - and her wavy hair loose, she appears to Apollo how he might imagine a nymph of Greek myth. A tree spirit. (Juniper Woods - what a name.)

“We’re all a bit—” Juniper shrugs and touches the pointed tip of her ear. “It’s okay. Even if you don’t want to, or whenever you do.”

Myriam hisses wordlessly, but nothing about it sounds like a threat or maliciousness. Just an acknowledgement that Juniper is speaking to her. “We’re all a biiiiit weird,” Robin adds cheerily. “Maybe not these lawyers” - she waves a disapproving finger at Apollo and Athena - “but us Themis kids! And that is cool, I will have us know!”

If she had any idea of how fundamentally weird and fae the Wright Anything Agency actually is—

“Ah, um, Juniper,” Hugh says. He has been silent most of the day, alternating between intently watching the conversation go by, and zoning out so far that Robin kept count of how many times she could say his name before he would react. (Record: eight.) “There was something that I’ve been meaning to say to you.”

“Huh?” Juniper must at least suspect what is coming, with that fearful look in her wide red eyes. She’d heard that rumor too, and Myriam starts upright with a soft thwap as her hand hits the inside of her cardboard box.

“Juniper, can - can we still be friends? Best friends, the way we all were?”

“Huh?” Athena asks.

“That’sss not—”

“Hugh?” Juniper asks.

“When I won,” he says, “I was going to tell you that I’m not a genius at all, and that I’m actually sort of twenty-five, but that all came out at the trial, so I just have to ask now if - if we can still be friends, if you still even want to be friends, or if there’s all these stupid things I’ve said, and done, not knowing, and that’s why you never told us this about yourself—”

“Sort of?” Widget echoes and Athena snarls something unintelligible at it and closes a hand around it like she’s going to strangle it. She does, however, when the momentary anger at her interrupting machine passes, still look very confused.

“Hugh,” Juniper says sternly. “And Robin too.” She folds her hands together, fingers intertwined, and clenches them tightly. “I wanted to tell you both, so badly, and I just couldn’t figure out how. I was scared - it wasn’t anything you said or did. I always was just going to be afraid. And I - I understand, completely, the things you’ve said. The Gentry are terrible,” she adds. “And cruel. I know that too. That side of my family was cast out. My parents are dead and my grandmother turned into a tree.”

Athena’s mouth opens with a soft pop and hangs open, her jaw moving back and forth as she searches for words that she ultimately can’t find. Apollo can’t put together a question either, and if he could he wouldn’t ask now. He sees on Juniper’s face that this, however strange, almost laughably strange, it sounds, that this is raw, painful, and she’s opening up her heart for six people to hear. However much detail she wants to give is up to her, and he won’t be the one to press for more.

(But he’s definitely going to ask Athena later, if she ever finds out more from Juniper.)

After several seconds of silence, Hugh says, “I thought I could just - get in and out. Just wander back out. And then when I didn’t I thought it was - a couple years. Two or three maybe.”

“Time passes differently there,” Apollo says. Trucy nods solemnly.

“Time in—” Athena looks from her to Hugh, and then to Apollo. “You mean in - in Faeryland?”

“Yeah,” Apollo says.

Hugh folds his arms. “You were the one that asked that question in court, after the prosecutor mentioned my age,” he says, in a slightly accusatory manner. “Whether I was actually twenty-five or had spent a time - elsewhere.” Apollo has no idea what he’s being accused of, but it doesn’t sound good.

“Hugh,” Juniper says. “Robin’s right. We’re all weird.” Her eyes dart nervously over at Apollo, waiting to see if he takes offense to that. He nods. He’s weird. He knows that. He’s weirder than anyone knows. He’s weirder than he himself knew. “And some of us are going to know weird things. It’s going to happen. It doesn’t mean anything bad.”

What was Hugh’s first impulse - expecting that Apollo is fae? That he’s been involved with spiriting humans away? Can Hugh not tell that Apollo is human - does spending seven years there not grant someone the Sight? There’s nothing about Hugh that Apollo would describe as even vaguely charismatic or glamorous - does stumbling in as a teenager not change a person the way that Klavier was? Apollo should ask Klavier if he knows.

Juniper’s defense doesn’t do much to lessen Hugh’s suspicious glare, and Athena still looks deeply curious, resting her chin on her hand and staring at Apollo. He sighs. “I know someone who was taken and explained that to me,” he says.

Athena nods, satisfied, but now Trucy is the one with the intent, piercing stare. Apollo glances away. She’s not going to let that go easily.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t properly answer your question,” Juniper says suddenly. “Hugh. Of course we’ll still be friends, but I don’t want it to be like we used to be. How we argued, and all the secrets we had from each other.” Her eyes turn down to her hands, and the friendship bracelet on her wrist. “I don’t want any more secrets. And I want us to work together - Myriam too - so we can make a better legal system, where we’re fighting for the truth and not victory. And we’re not trying to justify our methods by our end results.”

She’s taken particular care to avoid that particular “ends justify the means” phrasing. “Hell yeah, I’m in!” Robin says. She holds out her hand, and Juniper reaches out and takes it. Hugh clasps his over theirs, and after a moment of hesitation, Myriam tentatively places her hand on the pile.

“We’ll make Professor Courte proud,” Juniper says. She doesn’t draw her hand back right away, leaving her open palm facing upward on the table, and then she slowly curls her fingers closed. “Prosecutor Gavin mentioned the memorial for her. I’d like to head over there.”

Themis has begun to empty; they still pass other groups of students, but those tend to be smaller and quieter, more subdued as the night has gone on. The stage is empty when they pass, the crowd long scattered. Trucy grabs Apollo’s elbow and drags him far behind their small procession. “I didn’t know you knew someone like that,” she says in a low voice. “Someone like my mother was.”

Her mother: stolen as a child, her soul stripped from her, and now - what is a soul without a body? Something close to death - something that wishes it could be dead? An unfortunate life that was to lead. “Believe it or not,” Apollo says, “I have a life where things happen to me and I speak with people while you aren’t around.”

Trucy grins. “I don’t believe that, no,” she says, and she lapses into silence, clearly receiving the message that Apollo isn’t going to tell her who. But as they amble on she seems deep in thought, tapping her chin, surely going over the list of everyone she knows Apollo knows - as if he doesn’t know anyone not of her mutual acquaintance - and wondering who could fit. Surely she’ll come up with Klavier as a plausible contender.

If she knows any of the traits that stolen children like him and her mother have - if she even remembers anything of her mother at all.

The memorial for Courte has expanded. Flowers spill out over the walkway, laying in bunches around the framed photograph of the professor that is itself nearly obscured by notes taped to it and stuck on it. Some of those notes are elaborate, tiny writing covering their faces; others are just a few words or a simple drawn heart. Someone moved one of Courte’s abstract sculptures here from the art room to sit behind her photograph. Almost buried in the midst of everything is the same photo of the professor and Juniper in the art room that became contentious evidence on the first day of the trial - hell, judging by the way the top edge of the photo is punctured and crumpled, it might actually be the printout that the prosecution used. He wonders who brought it here, if it was another piece of evidence that Klavier or Vongole repossessed. Or maybe Blackquill had heart enough to send his hawk out on a last errand for this case.

Juniper kneels down and sweeps up a dozen flower stems in her hands - some tulips and carnations, a large sunflower, all begun to wilt and wither at the edges of their petals. Apollo thinks suddenly about the flowers of faery rings, wonders if they ever wilt or if they remain, unnaturally enduring, until someone comes along with a matchbox and a past to lay to rest. Busy thinking, he nearly misses it when Juniper starts humming softly and the flowers cupped in her hands emanate a faint glow, all the colors of their petals, and like time rewinding the shriveling edges pull back together and the wrinkled surfaces smooth. Juniper sways and slumps to the side, dropping the flowers to catch herself with one hand. “I’ve never been very good at that,” she says. “But I wanted to try.”

She picks the flowers back up from her lap and lays them neatly at the base of the picture frame, sweeping aside a few other dead petals and leaves. Something clatters against the pavement and frowning, Juniper reaches out and picks up a simple metal ring. She holds it between her thumb and forefinger and stares through the center for a moment before, seeming to decide something, she sets it back down with the flowers she revived.

“Well, I think that was pretty good,” Athena says, offering Juniper her hand to help her back to her feet. “I’ve never seen anything like that!”

Juniper brushes off her skirt. “You probably haven’t seen much magic, have you?” she asks.

“Other than the time a bird-demon yokai tried to kill us - I mean, I didn’t actually see much of that, it was trying more to eat Apollo and Trucy.”

Was that metal ring iron? Is being half human enough to make one immune? She can’t be immune - the detention center affected her, and badly. Maybe she’s just human enough that the effects of iron aren’t so dramatically painful, and scarring. Like it did to—

Apollo wonders who that ring belonged to, anyway. Thinks back to the empty dark stage. Trucy gives Apollo a nudge, jarring him to go back over what was said after everyone decided there was far too much to unpack in Athena’s statement. Robin said that there was an exhibition set up of all of Courte’s latest works that never got the chance to be unveiled, along with some of the Fine Arts Club student members’ art pieces. Hugh suggested that be where they go next. “You all go ahead,” Apollo says, conscious of all of the eyes on him, and in particular the unnatural fae red of Juniper’s, and Myriam’s reflecting any faint bit of light. “I’m gonna - gonna go see if Prosecutor Gavin’s still around somewhere.”

“Sure thing,” Athena says, before anyone else, and Apollo wonders for not the first or last time what she’s heard, from him, from Klavier, if, someone holding the magatama excepted, Athena is the only person Klavier’s glamours can’t truly hide him from. (Her assertion that her ears aren’t magic is one Apollo thinks he could come to believe - if nothing else, for the fact that Blackquill doesn’t seem to be able to disrupt her. Or maybe he thinks the psychological analysis that Athena pairs with it valid enough to let her get away with it.)

“Just lemme know if you’ll need a lift home or not,” she adds.

“Sure thing,” Apollo says, and Trucy sticks her elbow straight into into his side as she passes him by. It’s like primary school. This is the productive way that primary schoolers engage with each other in regards to crushes. Apollo in his personal and professional lives is surrounded by children. This isn’t even a revelation.

And then he’s alone in the dark, and part of him wishes that he’d asked Trucy to come with him instead, because while there’s a lot she doesn’t know, there’s plenty that she does, and she’s better at people. Klavier’s her friend too, and she didn’t even get to say hi earlier. They could’ve just gone to check up on their friend together, and Apollo wouldn’t be second-guessing his every decision now.

He doesn’t even have any guarantee that Klavier didn’t take off and flee as soon as the crowd thinned.

He could just text him. If he knew what to say. Which he doesn’t. And while it’s also painfully awkward to not know what to say in person, he also figures that the principle of the thing is that, at least he’s there.

The stage’s dozens of grand lights have all gone dark by the time Apollo circles back. The outer lights on the main academic building faintly illuminate it, the little that there is to see. The banner overhead on the scaffolding proclaiming this to be Themis’ sixty-seventh school festival has detached at one side and flaps noisily in the breeze, and Apollo remembers several other colorful tapestries hanging off of the side of the building that have already disappeared. The huge speakers and the scaffolding itself wait to be deconstructed another day.

Apollo looks at the stage and finds himself looking everywhere around the stage.

He could laugh, remembering what Phoenix said once: Trucy had tried to distract him with a will o’ the wisp enough times that he knows when a glamour like Klavier’s is trying to fool him. He might still laugh later, because it could in some way be funny, how he’s been caught up enough in this to know.

But right now, staring at the ground to find his way to the stairs to ascend to the stage, it’s not really funny at all. His eyes won’t focus and he feels dizzy, wobbly, and off-balance forcing them in a direction they want to drift away from. If it gets any worse he might vomit, and he’s going for Klavier’s shoes if he does.

A moment after that thought passes through his head, the sensation starts to fade. He blinks a few times and presses a hand to his forehead, trying to shake himself back to normal. His eyes no longer roll, unwillingly, in directions other than where he aims them.

“I should have expected,” Klavier says.

Apollo looks down at Klavier, lying on his side behind the stage’s witness stand, where the microphone stood during the concert, his arm folded beneath his head, his hair loose and splayed about. Apollo remembers the crime scene photos, remembers that Courte’s body was here, behind the witness stand, on her side. Almost the same. But there isn’t any blood, and Klavier’s eyes are open, staring up at him through the dark.

“That he would—” Klavier stops and props himself up on his elbow, squinting at Apollo. “You don’t have it.”

“What?” Apollo asks.

“The magatama,” Klavier says. “He didn’t give it to you?”

“Oh,” Apollo says. “No.” He remembers that Phoenix told him to say hi to Klavier, and decides right now it might be better not to. Second pass in silence; he waits for Klavier to ask him how he found him, then, or why. Klavier’s arm slides out from supporting him, to rest his head on it again, and his eyes fall from Apollo’s face to the surface of the stage, vacant and empty. Maybe picturing Courte’s body there, or the banners soaking up her blood. He looks tired - so terribly, impossibly tired. After a moment, he rolls over onto his back, staring up at the sky.

Apollo sits cross-legged on the stage.

The sky is dark, devoid of light, and Apollo studies the starry backdrop of the stage. Whoever painted it didn’t concern themselves with making any real constellations. He doesn’t remember if Juniper, on her costume, had random patterns or did some research. It’s not like it matters, but it’s something Apollo takes note of anyway - a sign of how long he’s known Clay more than anything else. All the strange and sometimes stupid ways that chance meetings change people.

He looks at Klavier, whose eyes remained fixed on the sky.

Funny that, chance meetings.

Apollo spins his bracelet on his wrist, feeling the familiar grooves carved into the metal. Waiting for when Klavier decides he’ll say something.

The sky actually has the slightest bit of variation to it - the darkness of the sky, and the darkness of the clouds, two different shades, and the clouds shifting and parting with the cold wind. Winter, the fae’s horrible winter, is close on its way. Apollo shivers. Nothing about the prospect makes him happy.

“Means told me something interesting the other day.” Apollo doesn’t like the tone of voice that Klavier uses to say interesting. Not bitter, but promising nothing good, either. Apollo looks at him. He isn’t looking back at Apollo, has his face turned to the sky but doesn’t quite seem to be really looking at anything at all.

He waits, but Klavier doesn’t go on. “The second evening we were investigating?” Apollo prompts.

“So Herr Wright told you, then?”

“N-no, he didn’t - he wouldn’t say anything.” There’s something so dark in Klavier’s voice that makes Apollo nervous, leaves him scrambling to defend Phoenix with an urgency he usually doesn’t feel when it comes to Phoenix and his myriad recorded failings. Phoenix telling Apollo something is not a concern that Klavier needs to have. “Athena and I were at the detention center, talking to Juniper, and Means was there - still thinking maybe he could get the case from us, I guess. But Mr Wright showed up, asked to talk to Means - when Athena and I left, we heard them arguing. Neither of them named any names but Mr Wright was accusing Means of having - threatened someone, or - or trying to discourage them from investigating by - something he said. But when we asked Mr Wright about it, he wouldn’t say who they were talking about, or what was said.”

Klavier finally turns his head, enough to arch a doubtful eyebrow at Apollo. “What, you think Mr Wright ever says anything instead of just being a cryptic bastard about it?” Apollo asks, and that gets a snort from Klavier, blowing some strands of hair up off of his face. But he does look like he believes Apollo now. “But he - Mr Wright - he was furious. At Means, for whatever - whatever it was that he said.”

Klavier stares back at the sky, his lips pressed tightly together, pondering that. “A threat,” he muses. “I didn’t think it - well. I was not imagining Means a murderer either, so I was wrong in my understanding in several ways, I must imagine.”

“What did he say?” Apollo’s voice sticks in his throat, emerging a weakened squeak.

“That it was foolish and selfish of me to have returned here - that it is my fault that Frau Professor is dead - I suppose that must have been what your boss considered an attempt to—” He waves a hand above his head and even in the faint light Apollo notices as he gestures that there isn’t a single ring on any of his long fingers. “Fortunately I am far too stupid to even understand that his message was to make me - give up, or accept that my involvement in this case did more harm than good. I figured it to be some expression of grief, a lashing out, over his coworker’s death - but knowing that he killed her, and now that you mention it—”

Tell Klavier that Courte’s death is on him, and watch him break - the way Klavier broke when Juniper mentioned her after the trial. Crumble his resolve so that he doesn’t keep going and get that audio recording examined; as far as gambits go for the covering up of murder, this one is a stretch, but Means probably still got some satisfaction out of being able to hurt someone who was being an extra thorn in his side, one that never should have been there because he’s a goddamn prosecutor, and not the one prosecuting the case.

But there’s a lot Apollo still doesn’t understand, even as rising dread reaches out to stifle his next question. He almost doesn’t want to ask for clarification. He knows he has to. Closing a hand around his wrist, he digs his nails into his arm. “But - why would he say that? How could it have been your fault?”

“Oh, it’s very funny.” Klavier talks like Apollo isn’t there, like he’s talking to himself, tossing thoughts into the air and seeing what comes of them. “That when we first met that I should have tried so hard to warn you away from your office, that Herr Wright is cursed and should make it so much more likely to damn you to an early death - and that I sitting there telling you that am after all no better, or safer a person to be around. That I can see all around but in a mirror.”

Apollo thinks he knows what he means - he can’t mean anything else. But he isn’t quite saying it, either - would Athena call that a defense mechanism, some last moments of clinging to some sort of denial rather than saying the words directly - and much as Apollo doesn’t want to drag it out of him like this, he also wants to be sure. And whenever Klavier and Phoenix talk around a point, Apollo is never sure that it isn’t really actually some new fae magic thing he hasn’t been introduced to yet.

“You’re cursed?” Apollo asks. Klavier blinks his eyes closed and keeps them closed, and then he nods. Apollo swallows. His nails in his skin hurt. “By - b-but - who?”

A ragged laugh croaks from Klavier’s lips. “You know who,” he rasps. “Who else? Surely not the man who’s done this before!” There’s a near-hysterical edge to his voice that Apollo has never heard before. “He’s cursed people and killed people for their petty slights to his pride, and I am - stupid enough to assume that he could not hate me enough to treat me the same as he has everyone else who has had the misfortune to—”

“You’re not stupid,” Apollo interrupts.

“Blind,” Klavier says, “and naive.”

“That’s not—”

“When he didn’t end lives he ruined them, and I helped him do it!” Klavier pushes himself upright, his hair a mess and a wild glint in his eyes. “I was so proud, truly I was, to have played a hand in exposing the corruption of such a prolific defense attorney! To tell my professor that I was living up to her ideals and teachings - I was wrong!” He curls his head toward his knees, and digs his hands into his hair. Both of them, Apollo sees now, are bare of rings. “How could I come back here and face her when I was so wrong?”

Apollo shifts forward. He wishes he had a single word to say, that he knew would help, or even would just not make it worse. “Why should she forgive me?” Klavier asks. “Why should he—” He lifts his head up, and all the mania has bled from his face, leaving him nothing but distraught. “Why did he forgive me?”

Apollo doesn’t say anything, and even if he had anything to say he’s not sure that he could. All else aside, he thinks, Phoenix means well - he just never channels that into normal human words or actions. Klavier’s hands slowly uncurl from his head. He’s shaking. He laughs, sick and nervous and just as shaky. “Why am I - why didn’t this just kill me, instead?”

The lump in his throat is too big to swallow. Apollo shakes his head. He expects, for a moment, that Klavier will lash back out at him for his silence, for not having an answer to impossible questions. But Klavier doesn’t say anything more, or glance away again, just rests his arms on top of his knees and stares at Apollo over them, looking at him like Apollo’s done anything more than sit here stupidly quiet, growing sicker to his stomach and closer to sympathetic tears with every moment had he lets this digest. A bad question comes to mind, born of false hope that he’s sure Klavier would have already explored, and unable to stop himself from wondering and hoping anyway, Apollo asks softly, “Are - are we sure he wasn’t bluffing? Professor Means, I mean? Making it up to…?”

Means gleefully found Athena’s weak point and repeatedly jabbed her there until even Blackquill, master of the art of cruel underhanded cuts, offered Athena a hand to get her back on her feet rather than let Means win. Apollo wouldn’t put this past him either.

“I did wonder,” Klavier says. “Thought then perhaps it was just a lie he made lashing out in grief, which is why your boss heard of this.” He gives a small, dismissive wave. “I went and asked him. If it was true. If I’m cursed.” Shaking his head, he adds, “Even if he’d said nothing, the look on his face was all the answer I needed, ja?”

“Oh,” Apollo says. He has a little trouble picturing it, honestly - Phoenix, the poker king, ever careful to not let slip any expression he doesn’t want seen. “I - I’m sorry.”

A small sad smile twitches onto Klavier’s face, and Apollo kicks himself for not having been smart enough to say that much sooner. Silently, they watch the wispy clouds drift across the dark sky. “I expected,” Klavier says quietly, “for a moment when I saw you, that he told you what happened, and gave you that magatama for that purpose.”

He’s not quite wrong to suspect that Phoenix would be particularly - what’s the best word here? Nosy? Micromanaging? Or the other way to look at it, concerned? Phoenix has had that habit before. “No,” Apollo says. “But you explained to me how your disappearing act works, and when I noticed something not seeming quite right, I figured it was you.” Klavier snorts. “And we - me and Athena and Trucy and the Themis kids - Juniper wanted to go to the little memorial for Courte. She was kinda arranging the flowers left there and she found a - a ring like—”

“Like this?” Klavier says, lifting one hand and spreading out his bare fingers for Apollo to see. Apollo rolls his eyes with an exaggerated sigh and Klavier chuckles; the grin lingers for a few seconds before it slowly falls, and Klavier’s eyes turn downcast again. “Ja, well, I have little else to offer her memory, and what point lies in it for me when I am already cursed?”

“Stop yourself from being cursed again by someone else?” Apollo suggests. “I mean, I think Mr Wright - he’s been - multiple—” He remembers Phoenix once talking about how different curses land against each other, in the way he talks when he’s pretending not to be referring to himself.

“Ja,” Klavier says. “He told me my brother was not the first to hate him so.”

That’s surprisingly direct of Phoenix. Like Apollo is the only one he doesn’t say things to. “Well, there’s your point,” Apollo says. “For it to not get any worse.” He slides the ring from his finger and offers it back to Klavier, who, staring at his hands, doesn’t see him right away.

“Difficult as it is to imagine this getting any worse,” Klavier says darkly, but when he raises his eyes he notices what Apollo is doing and laughs sharply. “Nein, Herr Forehead, no need for that. I have not had the rest melted down for scrap, just left them at my apartment. You keep that. Keep yourself in one piece for me, ja? You’ve got no need to worry after me.”

Apollo remains unconvinced. He’s still going to worry. He’ll continue to worry, and he’ll press on that later, but a new thought has begun to eat at him, sinking teeth into his stomach and twisting until it hurts, nausea and anxiety and a sick nervous pain. And the anger, this same anger that he’s felt again and again, ever single goddamned time this happens. “Wouldn’t - wouldn’t Mr Wright have known about this? Before you asked? He could’ve Seen - he should’ve Seen—”

“We’ve crossed paths twice since I last saw my brother,” Klavier says. “Yes. He undoubtedly knew before I.”

“He should’ve told you,” Apollo says.

Klavier shrugs. “To what end?” Now he sounds casual, too casual, almost like the lack of care isn’t quite feigned, like all of Apollo’s justified bitterness and anger was leeched away from Klavier and leaving him with nothing at all to just shrug. Phoenix knew because Phoenix knows everything and Klavier knows that he knew and didn’t tell him and Klavier shrugs at it.

“The truth?” Apollo asks. The truth, because that’s what they’ve always been after, together, since they met. Since before they properly knew each other, since before they knew what the other was about, they were still chasing that same goal.

“And what of it? Justice was already served. Kris is already in prison, for the rest of his life, however short the state cuts it, for what he has done. I know that. What difference more does knowing this make?”

Apollo gapes at him. His head spins. He thinks about Klavier taking this stance with any other person, any other crime, and he can’t make this thought work. “This doesn’t sound like you,” he says, lacking anything else to say. This isn’t right, and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

“And who am I?” Klavier snaps back. “You think you know? You think I am to want to know that my brother hates me, ja? Just because that is the truth? I knew that! I know that!” He stands up, unfolding himself but only to assume a different defensive posture, arms folded and tightly clutching them, drawing himself up in a way that Apollo wonders if it’s a conscious choice or not, to mimic Kristoph. Apollo scrambles to his feet after him, searching his face for Kristoph’s and finding that it’s only pain that twists and contorts his expression. “‘Ignorance is bliss’ is not a mantra for our profession,” Klavier continues, “but I will tell you that it most assuredly is when it comes to them and their curses.”

“Right,” Apollo says irritably. He wants to scream, but not necessarily at Klavier - just scream, at nothing, at the world, at the great cosmic and fae injustices heaped on their shoulders. “Which is of course why you didn’t warn me about anything and let me blindly and ignorantly wander in way over my head.”

Professor Means didn’t accomplish what he meant to - he didn’t stop Klavier from investigating. He didn’t stop Klavier from helping to put him behind bars. But if he also meant to hurt him for daring to stick his nose where he didn’t belong, taunt him the way he taunted Athena, he succeeded. He still broke something in him. Maybe he’d done that as soon as he killed Courte.

Klavier works his jaw, a scowl etched deep into his face and brow. “Or is that somehow different?” Apollo asks. Another of Klavier’s particular and almost superstitious - if usually excusable - hangups about the fae? “Like—”

“Shut up!”

Apollo recoils, hitting his back against the stage witness stand. Even Klavier looks for a moment shocked at his outburst, but if it wasn’t what he meant to say he doesn’t apologize or backtrack. “You aren’t - of course it is different!” he snarls. “You had a chance to get out before worse happened, is why I told you! But this - listen to me, Herr Forehead - in everything I have ever been through, I have not heard even a whisper of a way to break a curse.”

Athena drives him home.

She’s wise enough not to ask specifics, and so for that matter is Trucy. “How’s Prosecutor Gavin?” is all she says when it’s the three of them in her car, Apollo relegated to the backseat because Trucy called shotgun and he has to respect her authority as the most senior member of the Wright Anything Agency.

“Not good,” Apollo says, and Athena frowns into the rearview, and Trucy turns and peers over the back of her seat, and that’s all there is on that topic. Out the window, Apollo watches the lights of the city blur by, rewinds the conversation in his head to play back every question that he shouldn’t have asked that led to what can’t have been the inevitable outcome. This could have gone any way if it weren’t for stupid Apollo, treating everything like a cross-examination to gather as much information as possible, no matter how the witness being questioned feels about those questions.

Surprise of the century, that it isn’t a great way to deal with upset acquaintances.

He stands in the lobby of his apartment building, phone in hand, finger hovering over the name in his contacts list. He already sent a text to Klavier - I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed - and he wants to say more but he doesn’t know what and he’s trying not to shove his own foot deeper down his throat. Either he’ll figure it out himself, or he’ll swallow his pride and relay to Clay the gist of what happened to ask for advice.

(Klavier more-or-less stormed off while Apollo was still reeling, disappearing into the darkness and leaving Apollo to think that he should chase him down, not let him go off on his own in this state, but Apollo’s already made everything so much worse. He stood there on the stage alone, waiting while knowing that Klavier wasn’t going to come back, until Vongole loped up out of the dark up to him. She stood there with her shoulders hunched up and her head low, ears pressed back, like someone just kicked her. Her eyes as empty red as they are, she can’t do the puppy-dog eyes look, but Apollo would have sworn that was what she was going for, and he had no idea what she wanted or what he was supposed to do. After a few moments of that, she had seemed to shrink even further before his eyes and she turned, head drooping even lower, and slunk away. If she showed up trying to make Apollo feeling guiltier, than she damn well succeeded.)

And then there’s the other problem of the night.

Heart pounding shallowly in his throat, he presses his thumb to the screen and lifts his phone to his ear.

“Hello? Apollo?” Phoenix sounds - confused. Apollo wonders if Trucy told him the very little that Apollo told her. If maybe he’s guessed why Klavier is not doing well. “What’s up?”

“There’s something I want to talk to you about,” Apollo says. His heart is in his mouth now, too big and choking him. “In person, preferably.” So that he won’t try to lie. So that if he does, he can’t get away with it.

“I was planning to head into the office tomorrow morning to put together some stuff. Swing by sometime before noon and we’ll talk, all right?”

He doesn’t ask what it is that Apollo needs to talk about. Does he think he knows? Or, well, he probably does know. Or he doesn’t really care enough to ask in advance.

“Okay. I’ll see you then.”

His hands are shaking when he hangs up. He isn’t quite sure why - he’s asked questions of Phoenix about the fae before. He’s broached these topics before, confronted Phoenix about information he’s hidden before. This is just that, again. Same old, same old: Apollo drags every new fact about the fae out of Phoenix with more difficulty than he drags confessions out of murderers.

But if anyone knows the fae better than Klavier, if anyone could ever know a way to break a curse - it’s Phoenix.

#roddy fanfics #fic: the witches of los angeles #i've left the house twice in eight weeks and am finally being smacked about by The Depression over it #and work from home makes my back hurt bc there are no good chairs for it. i am so tired. i wanna take a nap with my dog.

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robboyblunder · 6 years

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Finally FINALLY I got around to doing character designs for everyone (at least the main cast) including rubberhose versions and extra bendy-verse versions of them! The bendy-verse versions of them are meant to be characters they voice acted in the actual cartoons including the titles of the episode their characters were in!

Over-all i’d say i’m very pleased with how these turned out and quite like my designs and hope you guys do too! A few notes I wanted to add on design decisions will be under a readmore :P

(please don’t repost or use w/o permission, and leave my description; thanks!)

Henry- his was pretty hammered out in my mind the moment I heard his voice; I wanted to make him look very kind and soft, the brown eyes really doing it for me along with his over all kind of soft-ish deameanor (sweater vest? comfy...). I’m not gonna lie, he makes me think a LOT of my dad (a great guy whom I love) who is late 40′s so I think i got his peppered hair down pretty well LOL. Otherwise I see him as being really nervous when he’s unsure of things, but he pushes through regardless

Sammy- of course the pretty boy for me fell into the blondie blue eyed trope which wasn’t intentional but it happened. I based his hair off an old propeller knight design of mine from shovel knight, combined with a bit of that lawyer with the silver hair from ace attorney because when I think proper/prim I think of that guy (edgeworth? I think?). Otherwise the sassiness kinda came into play a lot with this, including a ‘better than you’ vibe

Norman- Okay, look. I know he’s not what you’d typically picture upon hearing his voice from the game but that’s because he isn’t! I based him off caleb hyles’ lovely voice from instruments of cyanide, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t think of his in-game self! I tried to give him a sorta cocky southern cowboy kind of vibe, always having a toothpick in his mouth and random ink smudges regardless of what he was doing. Also the flashlight behind his ear is perfect for sneaking through dark places a nosy mf might just try to go

Susie- again, the whole pretty blondie thing kind of stuck with me because I saw most other designs had her blonde; I actually tried a LOT of hair colors with her and none of them felt right for me except for blonde. When I made her eyes dark green I was DONE FOR. I literally can’t stop flustering because I think i made her pretty LOL. the little spatterings of freckles were just a cherry on top really, but she’s essentially sassy, good taste, and sammy’s best friend with whom she loves gossiping

Allison- I based her a LOT on her model’s look because, well, that’s what i had to go off of really! She ended up looking like my mom (can I stop making people look like my parents?!) on accident but hey it fits. I tried to make her seem calm and determined, and a bit more modest with her style; not to say she couldn’t be super dressed up if she felt like it! not much else I can say for her

Tom- HOO BOY. I really just went ham here; I gave him the typical gruff square jawed man look you’d picture a drill sergeant to have, but then it got to all the extra details and it was really fun. The mole on his nose, scars, amputated arm (because of his in game model) and intense eyes all add an ‘i’m experienced and will not take your bullshit’ vibe I wanted him to have, but not in an angry unfriendly way entirely.

Wally- I love this boy SO MUCH. he’s a ray of sunshine and I really wanted to show that so he’s wearing yellow, all smiles, doused in cute freckles, and has curly hair. I liked the idea of him being a red-head a lot so I stuck with that because other hair colors didn’t really suit my taste for him! anyways I love wally and I cry over him

Joey- This guy. man oh man, this guy. So he’s based off his in game model as well, but aged down to his more of ‘still working’ time period but is very salt and pepper like henry because I figured they’d be a similar age. I tried to give him a very powerful and calm demeanor because he’s in charge and has a firm grasp on everything, but he still is charming and able to woo people easily with his charisma. So you’ve got this lovely blue eyed devil who most certainly is not as nice as that smile... (his blue eyes however are very lovely)

#bendy and the ink machine #henry stein #sammy lawrence #norman polk #susie campbell #allison pendle #tomas connor #wally franks #joey drew #long post #out of all of them... I adore henry the most but that's because he's my favorite character LOL #second place is. uh. I can't choose. i love all of them #except joey. I love joey but man i would punch him so HARD #this is queue'd by the by

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mikumutual · 5 years

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answers aa themed questions nobody asked because i’m cool and sexy

also i havent played the 5th or 6th games so

YOUR FAVOURITE…? 1. Favourite Ace Attorney game? honestly? phoenix wright ace attorney! everything’s fresh, there aren’t many weak characters, and the plot is remarkable (especially the fifth case). the whole trilogy is really good as one unit though 2. Favourite case? 1-4, 1-5, 2-4, and 3-5 are tied lol, i can’t make a decision to save my life. 2-1 is really really funny tho 3. Favourite defendant? as a defendant, lana skye. as a person, edgeworth 4. Favourite prosecutor? as a prosecutor, franziska von karma. as a person, edgeworth 5. Favourite ship? wrightworth obviously... ive probably put more thought into them over the last 3 years than any other ship 6. Favourite victim? probably mia fey or gregory edgeworth... but for non-relevant victims, neil marshall :( 7. Favourite murderer? shelly de killer, i LOVE that guy. but dee vasquez was very cool as well 8. Favourite assistant? maya fey!!!!!!!!!! but i like kay faraday a lot too (im so sorry ema) 9. Favourite witness? adrian andrews... or maybe iris? i mean i didn’t like iris but god what a person 10. Favourite quote? “It doesn't matter how many underhanded tricks a person uses... The truth will always find a way to make itself known. The only thing we can do is to fight with the knowledge we hold and everything we have. Erasing the paradoxes one by one... It's never easy... We claw and scratch for every inch. But we will always eventually reach that one single truth. This I promise you.” - Miles Edgeworth i made this one of my senior quotes :]

YOUR LEAST FAVOURITE…? 11. Least favourite Ace Attorney game? uh fucking apollo justice. literally what the hell was that 12. Least favourite case? turnabout visitor wasn’t very strong? i guess it’s fine as an intro, but it’s also wonky with the timeline of aai 13. Least favourite defendant? max galactica. he’s better in the anime though 14. Least favourite prosecutor? manfred von karma, obviously. i like every other prosecutor (who i know of) though, even winston payne is pretty funny in hindsight 15. Least favourite ship? “miles edgeworth/female oc”. there are a lot of bad ships though, mostly involving phoenix & his assistants. dont do that please 16. Least favourite victim? zak gramarye for kickstarting that shitty, shitty game 17. Least favourite murderer? again mvk... but also fucking frank sahwit LMAO 18. Least favourite assistant? i guess trucy 19. Least favourite witness? fuck everyone from turnabout big top unless it was the anime episode 20. Least favourite memory of Ace Attorney? repeatedly trying and failing to download the emulator for aai2 hbjsjhdb i eventually got it but someone had to send me the download fully pre-patched and i felt kinda useless DO YOU PREFER…? 21. Phoenix Wright or Apollo Justice? phoenix wright. fuck that “GOTCHA!” mechanic jesus christ 22. Maya Fey or Trucy Wright? maya fey. nothing personal against trucy but i just dont like aj hbjsdjhsdb also maya is really sweet and fun and she has the best sprites. she seems like she’d be a good friend, it’s too bad that she doesn’t have the time for them as a spirit medium and all :( if maya ema and kay got to hang out together itd be wild 23. Investigations or trials? trials are easier in my opinion because investigations have several things you could be doing without such a linear style, so if you miss something, you won’t really know until you wander around forever 24. College Phoenix or Hobo Phoenix? college feenie!!!!! he’s like trilogy feenie but more emotional and less witty. i like to pretend that hobo phoenix doesnt exist 25. Klavier Gavin or Kristoph Gavin? who would say kristoph 26. Ace Attorney or Ace Attorney Investigations? ace attorney but only because phoenix is in it lmao. im actually rewatching a playthrough of aai now, and playing aai2 at the same time, so while it is on the mind, i feel like the cases characters and mechanics - while loved - don’t hold up to the OGs 27. Apollo’s perceive, Phoenix’s magatama, or Athena’s Mood Matrix? i actually kinda like the mood matrix more than anything because it has a really good UI and the magatama is kinda grating. but FUCK the gotcha mechanic it is SO FUCKING STUPID and IMPOSSIBLE TO USE. where is logic chess 28. Ace Attorney trilogy or Apollo Justice and Dual Destinies? you already know my answer to this one 29. 3D models or sprites? i do like the 3d models a lot but i like the original sprites more! imo original pixel sprites > 3D models > HD sprites. mostly bc the hd sprites are garbage (see here, here, and here) 30. Ema Skye as she is in Rise from the Ashes or Ema Skye as she is in Apollo Justice? rfta !!!!!! shes actually really nice as an assistant, esp considering the fact that we actually see her interact with her sister, which is something maya didn’t have very often. also her random appearance in aai was well appreciated by me

MISCELLANEOUS 31. Did you like what they did to Phoenix in Apollo Justice?

NO I AM SO FUCKING MAD WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT TO HIM ISN’T HE A LAWYER WHY COULD HE NOT JUST DEFEND HIMSELF FROM THE FACT THAT HE “FORGED EVIDENCE” IT WASN’T EVEN HIS IN THE FIRST PLACE SOMEBODY ELSE FORGED IT AND HE DIDN’T KNOW THAT, MANFRED VON KARMA GOT AWAY WITH A FUCKLOAD OF NONSENSE AND SO DOES EVERY OTHER LAWYER SO WHY IS IT THAT PHOENIX CAN SURVIVE EATING A POISONED GLASS NECKLACE AND GETTING HIT OVER THE HEAD WITH A FIRE EXTINGUISHER AND FALLING FROM A BURNING BRIDGE INTO A RUSHING RAVINE AND BEING HIT BY A CAR BUT HE CAN’T FUCKING DEFEND HIMSELF LIKE HE DOES IN EVERY OTHER CASE BECAUSE THAT’S THE POINT OF THE GAME AND ALSO HIS ENTIRE CHARACTER

32. Your opinion on Dai Gyakuten Saiban? haven’t played it! it looks pretty cool though

33. Do you think Dai Gyakuten Saiban and/or Miles Edgeworth Investigations 2 will get localised to the West? doubt it, since the creators have said that it won’t be. but the fan translations are pretty good, so i think it’s okay

34. Do you think Miles Edgeworth should get another Investigation-game or do you think another character deserves a spin-off? i mean he already has two, so i guess he doesn’t need another? like i love edgeworth but he’s not as fun without phoenix around. ngl i would play a franziska game. or a maya game, or any spinoff revolving around a side character. hell i’d play hotti game if it meant it took place in the trilogy era

35. Opinion on the soundtrack of the Ace Attorney-franchise? REALLY good. really really good. i love how each game of the trilogy has different composers but each track has the same theme and feel!!!

36. Do you like where the franchise is heading or did you prefer the atmosphere in the original trilogy? seriously absolutely completely prefer the trilogy. i’m sorry but the rush of youth and trust is way, way more enjoyable than whatever “i’m 35 and therefore middle aged” nonsense is happening in the 2020s

37. Capcom suddenly announces that Phoenix will no longer appear in the Ace Attorney franchise! Your reaction? He’s been replaced by Penny Nichols. Fuck you.

38. Capcom suddenly announces that the Ace Attorney franchise has ended for good! Your reaction? it was me i ended it

39. Would you like there to be another Ace Attorney/Professor Layton crossover game? i didnt play it but i really like the idea!!!!!! aa crossover games are really funny to me, i mean have you seen edgeworth in project x zone 2, lmao

40. Would you like an Ace Attorney anime? we have one now! honestly i don’t think it did a very good job of representing the cases, but it did do a good character remix of turnabout big top so that they’re not creepy anymore. they also did a really good job with the anime-specific cases, like the one on the train! it feels a lot better paced when it’s intended for that medium rather than just adapted. also the childhood episodes made me cry

41. Opinion on anime cutscenes in Ace Attorney? like in 5 and 6? mm, the art style is kinda weird, and i don’t really like the voices, but i guess not everything can be pachinko and prozd

42. Would you want to play an Ace Attorney game where you take on the prosecutor’s role? YEAH ACTUALLY!!!!!! it might be kinda weird being on the right side of the screen though lmao

43. Do you like having DLC in Ace Attorney-games? uhhh i hate having to buy extra things, but i’ll admit that they are pretty funny

44. Opinion on Lamiroir’s storyline? i only played aj so if shes in other games idk but i thought she was fine

45. One thing you think the Ace Attorney games can improve on? stop having creepy characters please. also jesus christ if phoenix and edgeworth arent wearing rings in aa7 i will become the ceo of capcom myself

46. Capcom suddenly announces an Ace Attorney movie! Would you like it to be based on an already existing case or would you like an all new storyline? i mean the musical did a pretty good job of adapting existing cases, so it might as well be new. it would be kinda hard to balance the games’ timeline & character development without being repetitive or an au

47. Capcom suddenly announces an Ace Attorney movie! Would you prefer it being live-action, 3D animated or 2D animated? stylized 2D animation, probably? i would want it to feel more like into the spiderverse than an anime, though. in my dream ace attorney movie, they’d just need a high art budget, several plausible deniability wrightworth scenes, and prozd to voice edgeworth

48. If there could be an Ace Attorney crossover with whatever franchise you’d like, which one would you choose? (Does not need to be a video-game franchise) your turn to die is probably closest in characterization, although its premise is more “locked in a room” than the open-world investigation of aa

49. Opinion on recurring witnesses? (Wendy Oldbag, Lotta Hart, Larry Butz, etc.) honestly, i like them a lot! i don’t know why people hate them so much - i mean, i know lotta lied, and wendy is a horrible old flirt, and larry just kinda sucks all around. but they’re also pretty funny to have around! larry is a constant comic relief who reminds you how much better nick & edgey are in comparison, lotta is likeable as a general character (like in 2-4, although yeah, not remarkable), and wendy oldbag is really funny. she’s so fucking funny. none of you appreciate wendy oldbag’s quirks and you are SLEEPING ON IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

50. Do you think Dual Destinies deserved its M-rating? no idea, holy shit, it got an m-rating? i mean every game before it has had blood violence and very mild swearing, and since DD probably doesnt have anything too sexually risqué, i doubt it deserves a rating any harsher than the rest of the series

okay thanks thats all

#this was fun hbjsdsdj #yea i love the trilogy #also my theme makes all everything lowercase for some reason? so this is probably easier to read on mobile #ace attorney

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agrumpywombat · 5 years

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21 Questions

Answer 21 questions and tag 21 people you want to know better.

Tagged by: @ltreefin I wasn’t expecting to be tagged, but thank you! :’)

Nicknames: Sleepy :3 I may perpetually be tired

Zodiac Sign: Virgo, though I probably act more like a Pisces

Height: 5′3″

Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff :D

The last thing I googled: “Mordecai Gamepress” - I was looking up stats for a new hero/unit in Fire Emblem: Heroes. He’s a thicc boi.

Favorite musicians: Fall Out Boy is my heart <3 I like several more artists, more so on the pop side, but FOB is definitely the band I put on shuffle the most.

Some song stuck in my head: Stay with Me - Sam Smith. Another artist with a gorgeous voice <3

Following: 214

Followers: 67. Thank you! :)

Do you get asks: Nah. My blog is more of a “post whatever makes me smile” type thing. I’m not against asks. I just usually don’t get them, lol.

Amount of sleep: It varies, but it never feels like enough cx During the week, probably around 6 hours. On the weekend, a lot more :D I love naps.

Lucky number: 2

What you’re wearing: Black dress with rose gold bangles

Dream job: Idk really. I think part of the problem is that I would need to hone a different skill set than the one I use now. I would enjoy something more quiet and more on my schedule.

Dream trip: France. I’ve always wanted to go to the Palace of Versailles.

Instruments: I can’t play any, sadly. I like to listen, though! :)

Languages: English. I can pick up bits of Spanish, if I hear conversations, though I’m far from fluent.

Favorite songs: I have sooo many ;-; Instead, top 3 songs that I like right now: Super Fade - FOB, Sweet but Psycho - Ava Max, Dancing with a Stranger - Sam Smith & Normani

Random fact: While I like both of the Game Grumps, Arin is my fav. To me, he’s relatable, and his style of humor kills me. Super quotable dude x3

Aesthetic: Girly. I love flowers, pink, etc.

I have no idea who to tag. I’m just going to tag some of the blogs that I like and remember off the top of my head :)

@little-miss-edgeworth, @steblynkaagain, @dumbledora-the-explora, @theamazingsallyhogan, @honestlynatalie, @gaysdisaster, @cyrodiildo

#tag game #21 questions

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thatotherjess · 6 years

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I got tagged by @amycampbell00 ! Thanks ^^

RULES: answer 21 questions and tag 21 people that you’d like to get to know better. (Make a separate post!)

1. Nickname: Well...…….. Jess for starters...

2. Zodiac: Gemini

3. Height: 5-something? I’m not tall but I’m not all that short?? I haven’t measured myself in some time

4. Last movie I saw: SPIDERMAN. Spiderverse was so good y’all, I almost cried. I held hands with my girls for the entirety of the movie...

5. Last thing I Googled: “Horseshoe Crab Eyes?” LISTEN. I have an idea that could be a cool tag for myself. I also wanted to know where the fuck those fucker’s eyes are. Did you know they have four eyes?? Wild.

6. Favorite musicians: aaaaaahh…… I am very indifferent to musicians in general.... none??

7. Song stuck in my head: Currently, What’s Up Danger. I had Pop//Stars and Run Boy Run in my head earlier.

8. Other blogs: nah

9. Do I get asks? Nope

10. Followers: more than 10

11. Following: waaaaaay more than 10

12. Amount of sleep: I always try to aim for 7 hours. I’m home now so I’m batting around 8 hours most nights! Once school starts up who knows!!

13. Lucky number: 24. Solid number.

14. What am I wearing: Polar bear fuzzy socks, green sweat pants, two layers of tanktops, PMA tee, and a fuzzy blanket that is wrapped around my shoulders like a scarf. Tonight is a fuzzy, cozy night.

15. Dream job: hmm. If I’m being honest.... working with a game developer? Or being involved in the gaming community/industry?? I don’t have any programming skills but that’s what tech-smart siblings are for. I have ((some)) confidence in my ability to craft an engaging story or help design some monsters

16. Dream trip: Ireland would be neat. Or Germany. I like traveling in general so I’d love to go just about anywhere.

17. Favorite Food: oooo. I like a lot of desserts. I love those Good Humor bars and Ben&Jerry ice cream! A good cup of hot chocolate is also up on that list, along with a good batch of cheesy potatoes

18. Play any instruments?: nope! I was a chorus kid, my family didn’t want to buy an instrument for band/orchestra. I also had no patience for music lessons

19. Favorite song: Dude that changes like every day..... All time favorites have to be ‘it’s a mystery’ or ‘the skeleton song’ tho

20. Random fact about me: ((Boring fact: I am currently working on my own thesis! It involves gender theory and gaming. ((Non-Boring fact: I live close to a kennel so sometimes, when I have just woken up and want to take my own dog for a walk, there will be an unfamiliar dog or cat in my yard/driveway that has escaped from said kennel. These encounters range from startling to confusing to fantastic

21. Describe yourself as aesthetic things: fuzzy socks with some of those worn plastic stoppers on the bottom missing, fireflies glittering at the tops of tall trees, neon/liminal lighting or a stoplight being obscured by fog, an echo-y flight of stairs with harsh overhead lighting, an abandoned farmhouse which nature has reclaimed with a near pristine colored-glass window, layered winter sweaters and hoodies, a dirty jacket covered in pins, oddities cluttering a dusty desk, the trail of light left behind by sparklers, a covered mirror hung in a hallway lined with faded pictures

umumum, I will tag.... @nicequietgirlinclass, @the-dark-in-the-sky, @chickensauras, @edgeworth-s, @glitchgeek, and @septic-egos-theoriez. Because y’all are awesome and charming as fuck. Also I love y’all and your good good content ((none of you have to do this, I just wanted to compliment you guys, okay bye love u))

#thanks for the tag!#have some facts #it is very late #ask meme

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ladyloveandjustice · 6 years

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Ace Attorney fic: Split-Lip Smile

Split-lip Smile

Athena wiggled her tooth with her tongue. It was hanging in there barely. She wished it would just give up and fall already. That felt like a dumb metaphor for…something. She liked wiggling it though, it distracted her from the pain, thoughts about how her hair was all gross and caked in blood, and much, much darker thoughts…

Everyone in here was miserable and their emotions screamed so loudly she thought her eardrums would burst open. Her only solace was the couple in the corner. They were arguing endlessly but they were also stupidly, horribly in love. The vibe of it was strong that if she focused and basked in it, she could block everyone else out, even her own pain. Even if she wasn’t a freak of nature she’d be able to tell how into each other they were. Just their body language and the way they talked made it clear they had known each other for years, probably pined for years, sailed the stormy seas of hardship together. It was red string of fate stuff. Athena had a secret weakness for that bullshit deep down, so it was nice hearing it. If Junie the hopeless romantic was here. she’d be melting right now.

No. Don’t think about Junie. She would hate to see you like this. Athena clenched her first, making a cuff chafe her wrist. The cool metal was kinda soothing, despite everything.

Anyway. The couple. They were such a comically mismatched pair, it was funny just looking at them. So funny she couldn’t stop making her mouth hurt. Like, on one hand, you had a slouched, unshaven guy in a ratty sweatshirt and, ugh, sandals as well. Topping it all off was one of the gaudiest caps she’d ever seen…it said “papa” on it, so he had a kid, and Athena felt deeply sorry for whoever it was. Because the other guy was just as bad, in the opposite direction. He was ramrod straight, wearing a super garish purple-red-magenta-she-really-couldn’t-decide-the-color suit, and what even was the thing around his neck? Was it a cravat? She’d never seen a cravat that weird, had he layered three of them of something? It looked like unfolding tissue paper.

The tissue paper man was like a million emotions at one right now, tired, angry, sad, disappointed, amused…you wouldn’t know it from just looking at him though, he had pinched expression like he was so above trivial things like feelings. The other dude only had one emotion besides love going on and it was a deep, dark sadness. She recognized the flavor of sadness just because it was so like her own- he’d lost a part of himself and given up on getting it back. He was another one who wasn’t reflecting how he felt in how he acted though, he had an easy smile and laugh that was annoying in how constant it was. Tissue man was SO annoyed at him it was hilarious. And his voice was carrying to the point she didn’t even need superhearing to pick it up.

“YOU may not care what happens to you, but you have RESPONSIBILITIES and to do such immature and reckless things at your age..”

“Edgeworth, I’m not going to outgrow being reckless.”

Edgeworth. That did not sound like a first name. They were together and they called each other by last names? Weirder every second.

“You COULD if you wanted to. Look, Gumshoe and I and even Franziska let you get away with a lot, but you do NOT know the authorities here.”

“You asked me to help.”

“I specifically said to be careful.”

“Yeah, I know you don’t want me to embarrass you.” Sandal man shrugged.

“That was not what I meant and you know it.”

Another shrug. “But I did embarrass you.”

“I don’t get embarrassed.”

That definitely a lie (a lie that was so amusing to Sandals that it broke his sadness for a moment) but it was true he wasn’t feeling embarrassment right now. He was just worried. She kind of wished she could communicate that to Sandals. Not that he’d believe her.

“Well, I don’t want to humiliate you further, so let’s go back to your place.” Sandals began to shuffle across the room. Edgeworth sighed and followed him. She couldn’t help but sigh herself. She didn’t want them to leave, she needed something to focus on.

As if he’d read her mind, Sandals stopped dead in his tracks. Was he looking at her?

“Hey, are you okay?”

THAT’S A STUPID QUESTION.

Athena swore and grabbed at Widget. How the hell was it talking? She’d stopped charging it ages ago, it was supposed to be dead as a doornail. It hadn’t spoken in YEARS.

“Cool robot thing.” Sandals said like it was a completely normal accessory. “And it’s right, that was stupid. What I meant is…what happened?”

IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

“That’s never stopped me before,” Sandals said cheerfully.

“Wright, don’t meddle,” Edgeworth scolded, but she could hear equal concern from him as he stood there, examining her so methodically it was unnerving. His gaze traveled over her gross hair, her right eye that was swelling shut, the huge bruise on her jaw, her split lip, her dirty ripped clothes…when his eyes landed on her cuffed hands and skinned knuckles, his eyes narrowed, and Athena braced for him to tell Wright that they couldn’t consort with criminals or some other stuffy-elitist-rich-guy thing, but instead his concern swelled slightly. “Is your wrist sprained? Or possibly broken?”

Athena tried for a disaffected shrug but it jostled her right arm too much and she hissed in pain. Wright actually winced along with her.

“So, what’s the deal?” he said. “Who did this to you and why are you here? Was it for defending yourself against the jerk who did this to you?”

“Why do you care?”

“If it was self defense I can he-“ he stopped dead. “I know people who can help.” He corrected himself. There was pain buried deep in his voice. She could see a similar pain in Edgeworth’s expression.

“It wasn’t.”

. “Then…are you taking the fall for whoever did this to you?” The concern had intensified and there was a bit of pity mixed in now. She couldn’t stand it

“I don’t know why you’re assuming I’m some victim and not just a delinquent,” Athena snapped. “I got in a fight with a cop, okay? I started it, too.”

Athena expected them to scold her and walk away at this. Indeed, she didn’t need powers to tell disapproval was now emanating from Edgeworth, but she could hear from his tutting that it didn’t greatly override the concern. And Wright’s emotions didn’t change a bit. He leaned in curiously. “Why’d you do a thing like that?”

“Again, why do you care? I just told you I was in the wrong!”

“Well, not necessarily-“ Wright said. “There’s some really bad cops out there. It depends on what started the fight.”

“Though violence should always be a last resort,” Edgeworth sniffed. “However, let’s hear the tale.”

Athena stared at both of them. They seemed to genuinely want to listen. She didn’t why they’d zeroed in on her, why they cared, but..

“I saw a guy being arrested and the cops were smacking him around, calling him a murderer, and he was so scared and I knew he didn’t do it, so I started arguing with them and they didn’t believe me and were taking him and I had to do something; I couldn’t be useless again, so I tried to fight them so he could escape but it didn’t work, of course it didn’t work”. It all poured out of her in one breath, she couldn’t control it. Her eyes burned and her bruises ached. She hunched over a little, letting her bangs fall over her face.

“Huh.” Wright was…impressed for some reason. “So, what was your relationship to this guy? Was he important to you?”

She flushed. How could she explain this part? “…N-no. It was the first time I’d met him…I just happened to be there. I’m not even positive what his name was. Cartwright, I think.”

Edgeworth put a hand over his eyes and groaned.

“How did you know he was innocent then?” Wright was…excited? Why?

Athena looked down. Okay, they had finally gotten there. The part that would make him leave. “You won’t believe me,” she mumbled.

“I wouldn’t sure about that. You’d be surprised at some of the shit I’ve seen,” Wright said, prompting a scold from Edgeworth about behavior in front of children that he ignored. “Try me.”

Might as well rip the band-aid off. “Okay then. I’ve got…sensitive hearing. I can hear what emotions they’re feeling, if they’re lying….usually.”

Edgeworth was dragging his hand over his face now. “If you’re trying to say you’re magic-“

“No!” Athena interrupted angrily. “It’s science, okay! There’s been an entire research paper published on the phenomenon by-” she gulped “a-a very good psychologist if you’d care to look it up!”

“Oh.” Edgeworth said, a lot of his skepticism suddenly gone. Wright rolled his eyes. Then he pointed at her necklace. “Is that little guy related to your power at all?”

“He’s supposed to help me tap into it, but he’s buggy. He actually stopped working for a long time, I don’t know why he suddenly-“ she stopped and narrowed her eyed at Wright. “Wait, you really believe me about my powers?”

Wright shrugged. “Why not? I’ve seen weirder.”

Athena wanted to ask “how?” all sarcastically, but she couldn’t quite find her voice. She was overwhelmed by the…acceptance she heard from him. The trust. It was something she hadn’t had directed at her in quite a while.

“May I take a look?” Wright said, gesturing again at Widget. She nodded mutely. He leaned closer, examining him. “God, Ema would love this.”

Athena had no idea who Ema was and she didn’t get the chance to ask, because Wright suddenly said, “What’s your name?”

“…Athena Cykes.”

“Well, Ms. Cykes, my name is Phoenix Wright. I’m just a humble pianist, but I used to work in law and have a couple of connections. And my partner here is a big deal, fancy-pants prosecutor. So we might be able to do something about this false arrest if you tell us what you know.”

Edgeworth threw his head back as if to appeal to the heavens. “How did I know we’d end up here? And just drag me into it too. You’re impossible, Wright. I remind you I just got us out of a scrape-”. He carried on scolding for a while but Athena could barely hear him over the swell of intense fondness that washed over every word he said. She couldn’t detect a scrap of actual irritation. Phoenix seemed to understand this and listened calmly until he had finished.

“…all right then, you talk to her if you so desperately want do it. I’m going to go demand some medical attention for her wrist. I’m sure you’ll convey everything to me later.”

“Thanks, Edgeworth.”

As Edgeworth left, Phoenix took the seat beside her. “Now, Ms. Cykes, tell me everything you know from the beginning. Don’t leave anything out.” When she hesitated, he grinned and said, “Don’t worry, you can trust me.”

She bit her lip. There was no way this man was going to actually help her. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t be able to. But…she thought of the sheer bone-chilling despair she’d felt from the man, the discord in his voice like nails down a chalkboard when he’d given in and said he did it…it was a sound she’d heard a long time ago, that she still heard echoing in her head every night. She didn’t want the man’s voice to join the chorus. She had to try something. What did she have to lose? What did he?

Besides, she had noticed something. The deep dark sadness in Phoenix had lessened a little during their conversation- somehow a ray of happiness had broken through in his voice, the tiniest bit of sunshine. For whatever reason, he was doing with her had made something happen inside him, had filled in a little of whatever it was he’d lost. She liked that feeling. She wanted to keep hearing it from him.

So she told him every single detail she could remember. She told him all the events of the night leading up to it, every speck of conversation, every tiny thing she’d seen or overhead, every blow of the fight, every shift in emotion….and basked for as long as she could in in the weak ray of warmth, enjoying how it strengthened with each word she said. Edgeworth came in with a harried officer who examined her wrist and started to wrap it, only for Edgeworth to insist they weren’t doing it right and intervene himself. He was surprisingly gentle.

He caught Athena narrowing her eyes at Phoenix, who was trying to calm down the irate officer.

“I’m sorry if my partner’s meddling has angered you at all. I know he can be…overwhelming”.

“No…uh, well I guess, yeah, a little..” Athena mumbled. “I just…don’t get why he believed me so easily.”

Edgeworth shook his head. “That’s just what he does. Believe in people. Whether they want him to or not.” The affection in his tone was so intense Athena almost felt like she should cover her ears.

After they were done and Phoenix had finally calmed the irate officer down, he shook her good hand and said, “we’ll call the number you gave us when we have something for you. Your parents will be coming to get you soon, right?”

“Yeah,” Athena lied. Her great-aunt and uncle were pretty done with her at this point. They hadn’t answered when the cops called. She was probably going to spend the night here. But that was none of Phoenix’s business. She was curious about something, though.

“Um…before you leave, I just want to know…why were you so interested in hearing my story? I mean, really? Why did you insist like you did?”

“Well, for one thing, because I have my own kid and when I see a beat- up teenager I generally want to know what’s going on.” Phoenix put his hands in his pockets. “And second, I saw you watching us out of the corner of my eye. And I saw you were smiling, like you thought we were cute or something.”

Edgeworth made a vaguely affronted noise. Athena looked down at her lap, flushing slightly. She hadn’t realized at all that he’d noticed her.

“It’s okay. I’m a romantic too. Anyway, it was a very warm smile. I figured if you could smile through a busted lip like that over something as doofy as the two of us, you had to be a good person. And pretty observant!” He grinned at her. “I wanted to hear your story.”

There it was again. Acceptance. And a genuine fondness, even though he’d just met her. It was all so weird and overwhelming. All she could manage was an “I…I see.”

Phoenix nodded at her. “We’ll come through for you Athena. Just hang in there ‘till then.”

“And take this to clean yourself up some more.” Edgeworth handed her a handerchief.

As they walked out, she heard him start in on Phoenix. “So, should I draw up adoption papers for this one? Will she be added to your collection?”

“Well, hey, Trucy did always want a big sister…”

Their bickering faded and the cozy affection wafted away and Athena was alone again.

She looked down at the handkerchief. Who the hell even carried these around anymore? It was soft too. She rubbed it against her face, scraping dried blood away bit by bit. She almost felt bad messing something so nice up. But she couldn’t let go of it, it was only proof she had that the men had been real, not just some hallucination bought on by head trauma.

As she predicted, no one came to get her. She was eventually ushered to a holding cell. She sat down on the flimsy cot, handkerchief still wadded in her hand. The stale air made every wound ache more. She leaned against the wall, letting the cold stone sooth her bruises. She wondered if this was the same kind of stone they used for cemeteries. Was Simon in a place just like this right now? No, he had to be somewhere even worse.

She could suddenly see Simon standing across from her. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

If there was any justice in the world, you’d be stay in here with me, he rumbled. The room seemed to be getting smaller by the second.

Cartwright was standing next to him. It’s what you deserve for being so weak. They were closing in on her. So was the flat gray wall behind them. It was shuddering ominously. She wanted to scream at them to get away, but she had no voice. It all collapsed, burying them in rubble. This place really was a grave after all.

Her eyes flew open. She’d fallen asleep somehow, huddled in this cold little corner. Just a dream.

The handkerchief had fallen to the floor and was all covered in dirt. She picked it up numbly. The men who had given this to her felt like a dream now too. They were so distant, and so was the hope anything could change. She was never going to see them again. Even if they really had believed her, they’d think better of it. They’d realize she was just some crazy little girl. They’d forget about her.

It had been nice though. To be listened to, even if just for a little while. But it that never lasted. She just wasn’t meant to be heard. Her nightmares always made sure to remind her of that.

She didn’t know how long she sat there, but eventually the sound of keys clanking jostled her out of her stupor. She dragged herself up and followed the guard out. She braced herself to get an earful from her great-aunt about how much money she’d cost her. But that wasn’t who she found waiting for her in the lobby. She found Phoenix Wright and Prosecutor Edgeworth, looking a little tired, but both smiling.

“We called you, but nobody picked up, so we thought we’d check here. You should have told us you needed someone.”

“Why are you here?”

“To give you some good news!” Phoenix threw his arms wide. “We proved Mr. Cartwright innocent. He won’t even have to go to court. They’re releasing him now and the real killer’s been taken in.”

She stared at him. She hadn’t heard a hint of spite or insincerity in his voice- he was brimming with a very pure happiness. But still, what he said couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t.

“…but…there’s no way…it’s been one night…you couldn’t’ve…”

“We’re used to working fast. And you’re a way more honest and observant witness than I usually get. The stuff you told me basically led us right to the truth.” Phoenix clapped her on the shoulder. “Edgeworth smoothed stuff over for you, so let’s head out to celebrate. You must be starving.”

She was too shocked to protest. She was shuffled into a red sports car and before she knew it she was listening blankly to the two of them argue about where to go. They eventually compromised on a breakfast café.

Athena only spoke to order a large portion of eggs and bacon. After placing the handkerchief carefully in her lap, she dived into the meal with all she had. As she filled up, her head cleared and it dawned on her that all this was actually real. She took a huge swig of milk to force down her last mouthful and slammed down her glass. “Okay. I want you to tell me everything”.

Question after question poured out of her and they answered them patiently. After they’d gone over every detail of how they’d solved the case, Athena leaned back in her seat and let out a breath. It felt like she’d been holding it for years.

“I didn’t think…things like this could happen.”

“Things like what?”

“I thought, if they decided someone was guilty, you couldn’t ever change their minds. I thought there was nothing anyone could do so I just…” she twisted the handkerchief in her hands. “I just gave up.”

“I don’t think that’s really true,” Phoenix said quietly. “if you had, you wouldn’t have fought for that man.”

She shook her head. “I was just angry. I knew it was hopeless. That I was helpless. But you…you saved him. You actually saved someone.”

Phoenix leaned forward, looking her directly in the eye. “You saved someone, Athena. We couldn’t have done any of this without you. You were brave enough to stand up for him. You were brave enough to tell your story- his story. Don’t forget that.”

“But I almost didn’t tell you. I didn’t believe lawyers could do anything.”

“Yeah well, sometimes we can’t,” Phoenix sighed. Edgeworth made a “hmmph” noise and looked away. In that short syllable Athena heard anger and billion other emotions she couldn’t untangle. “But we can do a lot if we have a client like you.”

Athena’s grip relaxed on the cloth. She felt like she was teetering on the edge of something and once she fell, there would be no going back. “Lawyers…can really save people.”

“Yep. Thank you for reminding me of that.” Phoenix stroked his chin. “You remind me of a lot of things, actually. You’re passionate, perceptive, inquisitive….”

“Reckless,” Edgeworth said under his breath.

“…and most importantly, you have a strong desire to help people with no one on their side.” He continued like Edgeworth hadn’t spoken. He slid a card across the table. “Let’s keep in touch, Athena. A kid like you is gonna go places, and I want to hear about it. Heck, if I ever get back into law, I might give you a call.”

Edgeworth raised an eyebrow at this. “Oh? Getting back into law, are we?”

“I said IF.” Phoenix grumbled, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Of course,” Edgeworth said with the utmost calm, face impassive. But he couldn’t hide his real feelings from Athena. They buzzed pleasantly in her ears.

Athena looked down at the card. “Wright Anything Agency”. She wrinkled her nose. “Why’s there a purple stain on this?”

“Uh, sorry, just ignore that,” Phoenix said as Edgeworth sighed deeply.

Athena was most silent as they drove her home. She has a lot to mull over. When they let her out at her apartment, Edgeworth made a point of asking her why her parents hadn’t come for her, and she explained that she didn’t have parents and that she lived with relatives that were fine, but they were too busy to deal with her much. “I see,” he said with a pain and understanding that took her by surprise.

It wasn’t until they pulled away that she realized she’d forgotten something. She ran after the car, yelling her thanks and waving the handkerchief like she was at a train station in an old movie. Phoenix waved back at her, but they didn’t turn around to retrieve Edgeworth’s item. Eventually, the car disappeared over the horizon.

No one was home, so she used the key under the mat to enter. She went upstairs to her room and looked in the mirror. She looked like a living wreck, a total nightmare. But still, a smile was threatening despite her split lip.

Phoenix Wright, the former lawyer who dressed like a bum. And that prosecutor…Simon hadn’t been nearly that stuffy. But he had been nearly as awkward. And worn weird fancy clothes. Maybe that was just a requirement for the profession.

She wondered if Simon was still awkward. She wondered if he still liked samurai movies and got nervous around kids. She wondered if prison had hardened him into someone unrecognizable. Probably. He had probably changed a lot.

But she was changing too.

She sat down on her bed. A lawyer can save someone. She couldn’t believe she’d never considered it before. If she became a lawyer…she might be able to overturn his sentence. If she could get the case re-opened.

They won’t listen to you. No one will ever listen to you.

That’s what she’d thought. But now she knew there were people who would. And she could work with them. She would absorb everything he knew…

DON’T FORGET ABOUT ME!

She jumped at Widget’s voice, the looked down. Just a little while earlier, she’d wanted to rip this embarrassing thing off her neck. But now she welcomed it. Two voices were louder than one. She wanted to make them hear what was inside her heart. She would shout it from the rooftops. And if she could use her mother’s analytical psychology and her stupid power to do some good for once, if she could prove it was a real asset to the law and rub that in the faces of everyone who had denied her and doubted her…that was all the better.

“Yeah,” Athena reached up, cupping her hand around her necklace. Her mouth stretched into a smile. She could still see that tooth hanging in there. She punched it with her tongue and it finally fell, clattering to the floor. Her grin stretched wider and wider, so wide that her lip reopened and blood dribbled down her chin. It really was a nice smile. “Yeah. Let’s do this.”

A/N: I finally finished this- ended up being longer than I expected. I wanted to write something about how Athena and Phoenix met ever since finishing replaying Dual Destinies. Very few details were mentioned in the game about how it happened, we know it was in Europe while he was visiting Edgeworth, we know he saw potential in her and she once mentions he “helped her out a jam”- that’s about it, iirc. It’s very mysterious. So I springboarded off these vague details. There might be something in canon that contradicts some of this, idk, but I did my best.

A while back, I wrote a couple ace attorney one-shots dealing with various types of grief and angst with a couple different characters. Then someone in my family actually died and I stopped writing fanfic for a while. But I always wanted to do something from Athena’s POV to round it all out so I could make it a series on Ao3. I finally did this one after feeling a strange compulsion to write about someone who was injured and arrested. But it's longer and more positive and doesn't quite fit in with the others? Oh well. I kept the details of what Athena saw with the murder case and other stuff vague because this got long enough as it is- the police procedure for Athena being taken in here probably doesn’t make sense but it’s the Ace Attorney universe so the rules are probably different and more nonsensical anyway. Hope you enjoyed!

#ace attorney #athena cykes #phoenix wright #miles edgeworth #fanfic #my fanfic

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thefun41 · 6 years

Photo

Next up is Lesbian!Maya This one was definitely a challenge! I’ve drawn Maya a few times but I think this one is the best so far!

I’ll be blabing under the cut but in the meantime look forward to Gay!Klavier (hopefully) on Wednesday!

Edit: I have been informed that this is not the flag currently used. :/ I was wondering why kept seeing a pink one, just not where I was looking.

(Warning : rage and bitching below)

*deep breath* OH BOY! OH GOLLY AHH JEEZ Like DAMN was this a challenge. This took me an entire week!!! Other then Sebastian (because of that jacket) all of the pride requeswts have taken 3 days or less. During those 3 days I research an outfit, make a sketch, normally have a goofy side image to post before it because my brain is hyperactive, obsess over how to pose them and make the final image. Not this time!!! Even though this was an incredible struggle there was a lot that was learned by this… experience.

So let’s break it down.

Struggle #1 : Which flag are we using again? On the Ace Attorney Amino, the requester requested a Lesbian Maya. Here is the issue, in my research I have found a lot of lesbian pride flags and narrowed it down to 2. The lesbian pride flag which is purple one with the black triangle and the battle axe (which was used) and lipstick lesbian, which is this pink one (see above). Now this bodes the question : What’s the difference? Well as far as I can tell, The purple one came first and is generally an umbrella flag for lesbians, while the pink one was made spicifically for a lesbian subculture : lipstick lesbians. There is a stereotype that lesbians are “masculine”, lipstick lesbians are very comfortable with their femininity, in fact very “girly” and seemed to be underrepresented sooooooo they have their own flag and subculture, kinda like the opposite of gay bear that we covered last time. It seems like the Pink flag overtook the purple one in popularity OR whoever made the pink one was just better at marketing, who knows. Now the requested went with “a regular lesbian” so battle ax flag it is. Also battle axes are cool, so there’s that.

Lesson learned : the LGBTQ+ community is waaaaaaay bigger then I thought with subcultures and whatnot. Knowlage is half the battle!

Struggle #2 : Fashion is hard guys. Picking the outfit took at least 2 days, and then I changed it at least a half dozen times. there are 3 issues I had (lists within lists, listception) : Maya’s limited style, using the colour pallette with my messed up, self-restricted viewpoint, and Maya’s age. First Item, off the top of my head, I believe Maya is only seen in 5 outfits, her usual outfit, iris outfit for a moment, a waitress outfit for an hour, a red dress in that one promotional image where the case is super fancy, a white suit outfit thing for soundtrack stuff and a conductor uniform??? Out of the ones I can rememer, mostof thesse are dresses. When debating on weather or not I should put her in a dress I decided no because (as far as I can remember) she’s always ion a dress. and then my brain went nuts with questions.

Why is she always in a dress? is that sexist? It is a problem? What’s wrong with with her always being in a dress? Why do I want to really get her out of a dress? Am I sexist? why do only women were dresses? Is it the hips? Why don”t men wear dresses? Can they? They don’t really have hips so they can’t really wear skirts. Wait a minute men do kinda wear dresses, I mean kilts and kimono’s exist. would the bulge be an issue? Would men emphasize their bulge like women emphasize their breasts? Can men look good in dresses? Can any man look good in a dress? Can I put Edgeworth in a dress and make him look good? I’ve seen a ton of Phoenix in dresses but why not Edgey? … So yeah a lot of useless questions taking up my time for no reason. The point is I purposely designed an outfit with pants … this obviously did not happen. I had this idea of a cozy look in a cute sweater but this leads to the next issue. The issue with this cozy look? It’s too simple.Yes that look is cute but it’s not for me, it’s for the person who requested it. Any it’s entirely possible that this person may have seen the other works from this pride project and the outfits I made for them and then they just get Maya in a sweater? It’s a cute sweater but it didn’t seem fair. A similar issue happened with Phoenix but the solution to that was just to open his shirt and BOOM, extra layers and thus a more complex look. Now maybe the the OG requester wouldn’t mind but I just couldn’t do it, I feel like I needed to give her an outfit with more effort into it. And thuys Maya went back into skirt, now this lead to the third issue : Maya’s age. I found a lot of nice outfits, outfits that would look great on Maya! … When she was a teenager. Now maya is most definitely a full grown women and not a child. Now weather or not I pulled off the 28 year old Maya will be discussed later but nonetheless, all of those cute outfits I found? Out the window. I was so indecisive that I just asked my brother to pick one. Honestly? I really liked what he picked, and I confirmed with my dad that, yes, you can put this outfit on a almost 30 year old. The scarf ended up being omitted in favour of her magatama, otherwise we ended up with the same problem as before, it’s too simple. this time with a few days of work under our belt so there was no way I was going to start over. The solution to this was a nice floral pattern based on a cherry blossom. this makes it more visually simple. I think it looks pretty! After all that work I do like the end result.

Lesson learned : Stop. Over. Thinking. Things. And for the love of god sketch it out. Just looking on google and imagining on the character sometimes will not cut it. If I don’t get it relatively quickly, doodle, draw and scribble some more.

Struggle #3 : Why can’t I draw women?? I am one?!?! Like seriously, why, it makes no sense. Well actually it does make sense because I am fairly sure I can count the amount of women I’ve drawn with one hand. It’s a simple measure of practice. I was foolish to think that simply drawing human’s would be enough. sadly that is not the case. Men and women are built differently and of course I failed to accommodate… many many times. The amount of times I have modified maya and changed her proportions is unreal. One thing I do all the time is make the abdomen too long and I have no idea why this is. Her face! I have no cluw what went wrong the first dozen times but it just didn’t work! I wish I could explain why but it just didn’t look right. you”ll notice that she doesn’t have lips even though she does in her new design, It’s because I have never been able to draw lips. Ever. Not once. Does she even look like an adult? I can’t even tell anymore. She is a little thicker then her concept art but making her look thinner just didn’t work out. Her arms, I had to hid them since the preportions were all off, the hands were held together in front of her checkl and they were too lanky and there was nothing I could do to make it look good and don’t get me started on her hands please don’t. If I didn’t cut off her legs I would have issues with that too. Her breasts, how on earth do you shade those??? Does not compute. DOES NOT COMPUTE!!! So yeah the struggle is real. The solution? Trial and error. Just keep trying until it looks good. Play with your strengths. A friend of mine told me that she reminder her of Tina from Bob’s Burgers… ok? Sure. So after all that while I do like the end result I also see what can be improved, and sadly we have reached the limits of my skill at this time.

Lessons learned : Practice practice practice. I don’t draw enough women, I need to draw more women. I can’t quite comprehend how cloths fall on the chest area and obviously looking the mirror is not a solution. What is the solution? Drawing naked people. … No seriously. Once I learn proper anatomy and human proportions and how muscles distribute over the body not only will I have a lot easier time drawing these characters I will also be able to figure out how clothing would fall on their bodies and i’ll have a easier time shading. Right now I’m drawing and shading clothing without knowing WHY it’s folding like that or why the light is hitting this area. Of course I’ll be doing this for both men and women because as started before, they are built differently. do you know what I also can’t draw? Children. I am NOT applying this to the kiddies. That’s weird and gross. The kids will have t deal with being freaks. I’m cool with that.

Struggle #04 : Life How did we break 3 fuses at my house while I was at work? Why did it effect half my room upstairs, the computer setup that is downstairs and the WiFi on the main floor when the thing used to blow the fuse was in an upstairs room across the hall. why did no one fix it until the next day? Why just leave it like that? Why did I sleep in until 1 when I’ve been consistently waking up at 9? I had things to do what gives? Why did I accept a split shift the next day when I’m exhausted? Why do I get super stressed out when I set an alarm that I can’t sleep? Why am I spending 3 hours writing this when I never bothered to put this much effort in school work? How have I not punched someone yet?

Lessons learned : Don’t rely on anyone but yourself. Do what you can with the time allowed. Pat yourself on the back for not resorting to violence. How to change fuses. Writing this is very therapeutic. Did you last this long? Who knows! All I do know is that yes this was a struggle but I plan on learning from this. Next up is Gay!Klaver and I’m REALLY looking forward to it!

#ace attorney #maya fey #lesbian #pride 2018 #lesbian!maya #lesbian pride #past me is a dummy but has good intentions

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 6 years

Text

Chapter 15: more information, and finally, some answers -- but of course more questions.

And surprise! Another chapter! I’m super excited for this one, and even more for what’s next up.

[Beginning] [Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

Wednesday morning sees Apollo wonder if he got stuck in some sort of time sink in his way to work, if he dove through a liminal space and lost a few hours, because there’s no regular, non-fae, mundane reason that Phoenix should be in the office before him.

He has papers spread out over the coffee table, next to a formidable-looking legal text, and is sitting cross-legged on the couch hunched like a gargoyle. “Morning, Apollo,” he says, tapping his pen again a legal pad until it flings forth from his fingers and arcs up into the air to fall somewhere near the piano.

Something shuffles on the other couch, out of Apollo’s sight, and Vera pops up over the back of it. “Hi, Mr Justice.”

She still looks human. She looked human on Sunday, too, when Apollo went to see her and Trucy; he has wondered since the hospital visit when, or if, something will break like Kristoph broke.

“Hey, Vera.” He sets his bag down near the door. “What’s going on here?”

“Inheritance law fuckery,” Phoenix says. “I figured I’d spare you the early start on it.” He yawns and reaches for a mug perched precariously on the corner of the table. It takes all of Apollo’s self-restraint to lunge forward for fear of him knocking it over. “This does mean there’s some tea in the kitchen that hasn’t gone totally cold.”

“I didn’t know you drank tea.” It sounds tempting, though; he and Clay ran out of coffee yesterday and haven’t gotten their shit together for it.

“Not every habit I’ve picked up from people I hang out with is bad,” Phoenix says. “Just about eighty-five percent of them.”

Vera slumps back into the couch. “I don’t think you’re inspiring confidence in our client,” Apollo says.

Phoenix grins sheepishly. It’s an expression that still surprises Apollo, that vulnerability and acquiescence of wrongdoing, even if it must be calculated that he chooses to let it show at all. “Sorry.”

“You did warn me that this isn’t your expertise,” Vera says softly. “It’s okay. It’s better than being alone.”

Phoenix’s face falls. He looks back to his hand, expecting the pen to still be there, and finding nothing. “Oh, Apollo, if there is something you want to do later, I’ve got some folders on my desk I need run over to the Prosecutors Office.”

“Yeah,” Apollo says. “Sure.” It’s still a little cold – not that Phoenix is wearing a scarf inside today, but Apollo feels it biting into his nose and fingers. If he can get some tea and reheat it, that would—

He stops dead.

“Mr Wright,” he says. “This office doesn’t have a kitchen.”

Phoenix raises an eyebrow. It disappears beneath the hem of his beanie. “Sure it does,” he says. “Only just when you want it to.”

“You’re shitting me.”

He waves a hand. He’s found another pen somewhere. “Go look. You’ll find it.”

And in the next room, on the wall that doesn’t have a desk, there is a door that Apollo has never seen. It’s the wall across from his desk, that he has stared at often enough with no idea what to do and the window behind him, and he knows he should have seen it. Cautiously pushing it open, he steps into a narrow kitchen with no room for two people to stand side-by-side between the counters, with two stovetop burners, no oven, a fridge, and numerous cabinets. A teapot and several mugs are laid out on the counter. The teapot, white with black and gold detailing of some sort of hounds or wolves, looks like it cost real money, which means that it was probably a gift that Phoenix took up drinking tea in order to use. The mugs are a mismatch of kitschy souvenir mugs from cities across Europe, another with a cracked handle and the logo for one Ivy University, three hand-painted probably by Trucy and showing a clear progression of skill, and two with weirdly detailed images of cats on them. Someone’s reject mugs handed over? Apollo takes the one with the calico on it, feeling like those two might be the ones with the least meaning behind them (or conversely, the most, but probably a stupid inside-jokey meaning), and pours himself some tea with the distinct feeling that in picking up the pot, he has taken his life into his hands.

The tea is still warm when he takes it back out to the main room. Phoenix smirks. He hasn’t stopped being unbearably smug, apparently; just maybe has less to be smug at Apollo over. “I see you found the kitchen,” he says.

“Anything else I should know about this place?” Apollo assesses his options and decides he would rather sit next to Vera. She unsprawls herself and presses close to the arm of the couch. “Any ghosts or anything?”

“I guess you’re a bit behind the curve since I haven’t been around much,” Phoenix says, “but she’s not really a ghost, technically. ‘Ghost’ implies she died here instead of choosing to ascend into an incorporeal… blanketing life-force blessing who is… still sapient and has opinions about my lack of organizational skills and also everything else.” He straightens his back out and winces. “I’ve lost you, haven’t I?”

“I was only about half-serious,” Apollo says. “I mean, I thought this place was weird, but--”

The lights flicker.

“Oh.”

Phoenix laughs. It stops just short of mocking, but it’s close. “Her name is Mia,” he says. “She was murdered almost a decade ago now – at the end, I’m sure she could’ve lashed back one last time, knocked her killer dead instantly with a curse, but she just – went the other way – ascended, kind of? Stuck around to help me bring him and more to justice, legally. Life and death, she went for the blessing instead. She’d given enough of herself away to the office before, anyway.”

Vera wraps her arms around her knees. “Is that… something anyone can do?” she asks. “To… to learn to stay? Instead of dying, could…?”

No trace of the laugh is left in Phoenix’s face. “No,” he says. “I’m sorry.” They must be all thinking about her father. “Sell your soul and maybe you won’t go if you get murdered before your time, but that’s inadvisable for about a thousand reasons.” He shakes his head. “Otherwise – otherwise Mia’s unique. She’s the strongest fae I’ve ever known – she could have been Queen of the Winter Court if she had wanted. The ones on the throne, now, they’re powerful, but…” He shakes his head again and leaves it hanging, his eyes dark and downcast. “Not like her.”

Apollo doesn’t want to breathe -- wants to ask so many questions and is sure if he moves he makes Phoenix realize that Apollo has learned more of his personal life and relationships to the fae this week than in the past six months. This must be Phoenix’s mentor, fae royalty, and now Apollo knows what happened to her.

Mia Fey.

He always thought that name was bold when he read the trial records.

“Did you love her?” Vera asks.

Phoenix smacks his head back into the couch. “How do I keep getting to this kind of thing?” he asks the ceiling. The lights hum a little louder. “You can’t ask me that in front of her!” His exasperation tilts upward at the end, seems blended with some amusement. “Yeah,” he adds. “Of course I did. And she saved my life when we first met, and keeps saving it.” He sits forward again, rolling his eyes as he does so, but then resting his arms on his knees he stares very seriously between Apollo and Vera. “Whatever your misfortune or your curses, this office, Mia’s blessing here, is about the safest damn place in the world.”

Vera nods, her thumbnail halfway to her lips, and then she hurriedly brings it down. Does she know about the curse? Have they mentioned it in front of her? Has Phoenix told her – does she know of more than the nail polish poison? Does this reassurance, actually for her benefit, seem strangely out of nowhere?

“We should probably get back to work,” Phoenix says quietly, tapping his pen to the legal text, and the look at the man behind the cards is gone.

Apollo stays with them, because he has nothing else to do, and even if he’s personally inheriting nothing but abandonment issues and anxiety, it’s still good to know. Early in the afternoon, Vera begins spacing out and Phoenix is doodling in the margins of his legal pad. Apollo thinks it might be a good time to go.

“I didn’t know you are an artist,” Vera says.

Apollo, in the back, at Phoenix’s desk – still surprisingly bare, if only because he’s migrated to the couch – only catches part of his response, “on the side,” and when he reenters they’re talking about museums and classical art and Apollo definitely checks out. “1202!” Phoenix yells after him, in the middle of the same breath as something about the Renaissance.

Lawyer, artist on the side, turned piano-poker player, legal reformist on the side, seems pretty damn weird to Apollo, but they’re all also squatting in the office of “immeasurably powerful fae being on the side, lawyer full time”, so what does he know?

Room 1202 at the Prosecutors Office is the second prosecutor’s office Apollo has ever seen, but because the first was Klavier’s, he has no idea if this one is typical of their decor, or equally pretentious in the opposite way of Klavier. The couch and curtains are the same shade of – maroon? Burgundy? Apollo doesn’t know what he would call this color. On a small table sits a chess set, red and blue, and the shelf beneath the huge window is a bookshelf with a tea set and some kind of figurine resting on top of it.

The prosecutor at the desk has graying hair and a suit that matches his decor. He looks up over his glasses at Apollo and sits back, and he doesn’t actually look any older than Phoenix. Maybe even younger, but that could be Phoenix’s unkempt aura of existence. “Mr Justice,” he says, standing and starting to move around the desk. “I was told to expect you to come by. My name is Miles Edgeworth.”

“Nice to meet you.” Apollo shakes his hand and turns over the folders. “I have no idea what this is from Mr Wright, exactly. He didn’t say if I was allowed to look.”

Edgeworth flips the first open, scans it, and lazily tosses it onto his desk without a second glance. “Like a lot of the things Wright ferries my way, or has Trucy do, there might be something in there, but mostly, it is an excuse.”

Apollo shifts in place and fidgets with his bracelet. “For…?”

“Today? An introduction between us, I imagine.”

“Does he do anything without an ulterior motive?” Apollo asks, directed somewhere toward the wall, but Edgeworth snorts and shakes his head.

“He learned too well from his mentor and her cohorts.”

Apollo takes a step back away from the terrible, cutting blade of his words. “Forgive me,” Edgeworth says, his eyes and palms turning up, some sort of pleading with nothing or with Phoenix or with the fae. “That is neither here nor there. What I wanted was to speak with you about last week’s trial and your impressions of the system, having stood in the courtroom yourself; I was unable to attend to witness myself.”

It takes effort to stop himself from just weighing himself back and forth, foot to foot, burning off nervous energy in place. He feels like he did early in his career with Kristoph, still terrified of his boss but for mundane career-anxiety reasons. “I’d be glad to, but uh, since you’re a prosecutor, wouldn’t you rather get Prosecutor Gavin’s thoughts—?”

Edgeworth makes a noise of disgust in the back of his throat. Apollo regrets everything he has said so far this conversation. “I am equally interested in the perspective of both benches, but yes, I would perhaps like to hear from Gavin if he would deign to show himself in front of me.” He frowns deeply, squinting not really at Apollo, and then he cranes his neck over Apollo’s shoulder. “I asked him to deliver something to me in person today, so if I seem distracted at any point, I might be trying to make sure that I can corner him.”

“He hasn’t come into work?” Apollo asks.

“No, he has – I’ve seen those ostentatious vehicles of his.” Edgeworth folds his arms over his chest, drumming his fingers and shaking his head. “And he responds to email – but simply, no one has seen him around when I’ve asked.”

Apollo knows which office is his; he can stop on the way down. Is this some sort of machination on Phoenix’s part, too? “Oh.”

Edgeworth waves him over to the couch, returns to his desk, and begins what feels a little more like an interrogation or a trial than a conversation. He shouldn’t have expected otherwise – he knows the name Edgeworth as a famous (and infamous) prosecutor, and already he can see the hints to that reputation. He doesn’t ever ask more about Vera the changeling when Apollo brings it up, makes some quiet dismissive noise when Apollo mentions curses – and that, finally, seems like something he can push back on. He doesn’t know what Edgeworth is looking for from him, a fight or information or one in the form of the other, but he can try a new tactic.

“You don’t think that sort of thing is important to know?” Apollo asks.

“To what end?” Edgeworth asks. “For your own purposes, to secure your own belief in someone’s guilt, or lack thereof? What will you do with it – lobby an accusation that is subjective through your very own eyes and hope that someone believes you – that the prosecution will take pity on you?” He leans forward, intimidating even with the desk and the floor between them. “Will you take photographs through the center of a magatama – can you? – or just hold it to the eye of every detective on the scene, hoping to get corroboration to put before a judge and jury? Presume I trust you, because Wright picked you as his successor – faith and trust between the prosecution and defense can go a long ways, but if you have only that and wisps of magic, you still will not reach the truth.” His eyes, as they have all conversation, flicker from Apollo to the door and back again.

“And furthermore, for the matter of a jury trial, I can only see, going forward, that penalties should be made in cases of wanton claims about curses and magic, as you made.”

“But—”

He holds up a finger. “Consider this, Mr Justice: yes, the purpose of the Jurist System is for common sense to fill in the gaps where a clever killer has escaped with critical evidence. There is, however, a difference between that and a verdict based in impulse because accusations of magic have been bandied about. Consider a clever and unscrupulous attorney, or prosecutor, swaying a jury with passionate and baseless conviction that this witness is one of the Gentry – or even that the one behind the other bench is, and as such their evidence cannot be trusted. How will we ever untangle the truth amidst that slew of hearsay?”

Numbly, Apollo nods. Edgeworth sighs heavily and rests his forehead on his hand. “The psychology behind how a jury might respond to further cases such as this one, with claims of magic, is a headache in clear need of further research before we push the Jurist System toward the mainstream. We desperately need reform to prevent more Kristoph Gavins and so much other corruption like his, but…” Finally, he seems to be at a loss for words. “Wright was – is – a competent attorney, but it was fortunate for us all that the judge most often saddled with him is remarkably unfazed by talk of the Gentry. Going forward, with you and Wright and his methods and the possibility of uniquely made-up juries, I worry what could be unleashed, if the defense make claim to Wright’s Sight but lacks his integrity, or if the prosecution is not the rarest trustworthy witch who can confirm what was Seen.”

“I don’t think Prosecutor Gavin is a witch, actually,” Apollo says, knowing as soon as the first word leaves his mouth that he sounds like an idiot, and continuing on anyway.

He doesn’t even know if Edgeworth would consider Klavier trustworthy.

Edgeworth’s frown lessens, his brow slightly uncreasing. “Wright told me as much, eventually, but I admit I was thinking of a different prosecutor, my mentee.”

“Wait,” Apollo says, screaming again inside his skull because this next statement is actually going to be just as stupid, “you think Mr Wright’s an idiot for hanging out with the Fair Folk, but you mentored a witch?”

“Did I say he was an idiot?” Edgeworth looks, and sounds, puzzled, like he really isn’t sure if that was the phrasing he used.

“No, but I got that kind of, uh, vibe.”

“Hm.” Edgeworth considers it for another few seconds. “You are right, of course, he is; but the circumstances in our cases are very different, and my taking on a mentoring role toward a younger prosecutor was and is independent of him being a witch.” He folds his arms on the desk, quietly tapping a pen in one hand. “The most prominent difference is that I have not and refuse to give in and casually allow this office to become something like a coven, as Wright has your office.”

Apollo cannot lodge an objection to that. “I think I must cut us short here,” Edgeworth says, and Apollo tries not to jump up too quickly in relief. “I have to make more consideration of what we’ve spoken of, and see what Wright has thrown at me this time.”

“You’ve given me a lot to think about, as well,” Apollo says. Edgeworth is right – it is a headache.

His mouth twitches. Apollo hasn’t actually seen him smile. “You aren’t the one running this reform, Mr Justice, so you need lend a little less consideration – but I am glad to learn that you won’t just sit back and let the wind carry you where it may. That you know how you wish to fight, too.”

With nothing to say to that, Apollo nods, turning it into a little bit of a bow of his head, and hurries for the door, finding sitting in the open doorway on the floor, a small stack of papers. He picks it up, glances it over, and finds his eyes are immediately drawn to the signature at the bottom, in purple pen, initials unmistakeable. “Um, Prosecutor Edgeworth?” he asks, turning back around, everything but his mouth and feet frozen. “I think – I think Prosecutor Gavin came by.”

Edgeworth curses, too much of a hushed hiss for Apollo to determine what exactly the words are, and he hurries around his desk to snatch the pages from Apollo’s hands. “Yes, he – yes, that is exactly what I asked him to—” He crumples the edges a little with the tightening of his fists, a harsh scowl tearing across his features. “I have been watching the door, all this time – you didn’t see these on your way in?” Apollo shakes his head. “Gavin, I swear – the man is a goddamned ghost, somehow, when he wants to be.”

“If you wanted me to meet Prosecutor Edgeworth for whatever reason, you could have just introduced us,” Apollo says.

“I wanted you to drop off those papers, Apollo.” Phoenix looks up at him like he’s looking up from checking the new hand he’s been dealt, utterly and frustratingly emotionless. “I don’t know what you mean.”

The second one is a red lie. It circles him – for someone else, he has no tells at all. “Bullshit you don’t,” Apollo says. He has the distinct feeling that he has had this conversation before. Twice before? Every conversation he has had with Phoenix is this one? “Or are you fishing for information on Prosecutor Gavin and hoped I would learn or say something?”

“And how is Prosecutor Gavin?” Phoenix’s lazy eyelid has returned. Apollo doesn’t miss it. Apollo wants to punch it away. It isn’t right that his boss should have such a punchable face.

Apollo crosses his arms. “No,” he says. “I’m not doing this. Ask after him yourself.”

“I have.” Whenever Apollo’s voice gets louder, Phoenix drops his lower, like if he can balance Apollo, Vera out in the front room won’t hear them. “And Ema’s only heard from him in email – Edgeworth too – nobody’s goddamn seen him, so yeah, maybe I did just hope that you could draw him out.”

“And what do you care?”

Phoenix scowls up at him, sticking a pencil to mark his place in the heavy leather-bound book with handwritten script he is paging through, and slamming it shut harder than necessary. “Where should I start?” he asks, voice with all of the bitterness but none of the sarcasm that Apollo is used to. “Maybe I spent seven years with Kristoph Gavin as my closest ‘friend’” – he makes quotes in the air with his fingers, too – “and learned not only how he thinks, but how you come to start think after being around him for a lengthy personal relationship. And maybe I spent those seven years also listening to all of his belittling, dismissive remarks about his little brother.” He smacks his palm on the desk like it is the defense’s bench and then he looks surprised, as though the muscle memory of being in court should have atrophied years ago. “And maybe I’ve seen prosecutors before have their foundations upended, to end with a spiral off a cliff, and maybe” – his voice drops further to a hiss – “I would prefer not to let Kristoph get the last goddamn laugh over any of us who have survived him this far.”

He falls back in his seat, spinning it halfway away from Apollo, and closes his eyes. “Or maybe I’m just morbidly curious how it ends this time. Your pick.”

Two steps forward – Iris and Mia, pieces of a history before Apollo, the man before disbarment – and then three more back. His internal counter of “Days Since I Last Hated Phoenix Wright” resets.

“I think less people would try to kill you if you didn’t pretend to be heartless,” Apollo says. He turns on his heel and heads for the sound of Vera humming along to the radio.

“Magatama’s in the bottom desk drawer if you want to go back sometime,” Phoenix calls after him.

Clay’s advice for no response to his texts was to wait a day and then send some casual, irreverent remark, maybe about something going on at the office, as a bump to the previous message. That, unlike most of Clay’s advice, had actually seemed reasonable to Apollo.

Ran by the prosecutor office today, maybe you saw me talking to Edgeworth I knocked on your door afterward to say hi, guess you weren’t in then

On Thursday, it seems to Apollo that Vera has officially-unofficially been adopted into the agency, because there’s some easels, canvasses, and paints that were not there when he left the prior afternoon. She has dismissed both the paints and her sketchbook for a plain pencil and the edges of a Wonder Bar flyer.

“You’re in early,” Apollo says.

She doesn’t jolt quite as much as she has when he’s surprised her other times. Maybe she’s learning to be a little more at ease in the world. “It’s lonely at my house,” she says. “I’m not lonely when I’m alone here.”

Mia. Apollo nods. “I feel that, too.”

Phoenix wanders in before noon, after the two of them thoroughly investigate the mysterious kitchen. Vera is trying to make a house of cards on an already-precarious end table, and Apollo is looking over the books on the shelves, hoping to find one that can teach him something new without being criminally boring. “Nothing?” he asks Vera, pointing to a canvas.

She shrugs. He is almost to the back room when she says, “Um, Mr Wright?”

He stops dead.

“How do you draw something that isn’t real?”

“Huh?” Apollo asks. Phoenix turns back around, heading for the couch and not looking confused, and Apollo has no idea why they both understand that very weird question.

“How have you done it in the past?” Phoenix asks. Vera has abandoned the cards and is flipping through the legal pad that Phoenix was doodling on yesterday. “I know your first, er, paintings—”

“Forgeries,” she says softly. “Call them what they are. It’s okay.”

“—your first forgeries were identical copies of things, but then – like the diary page – that was still you making something new, something that wasn’t real.”

“But it was always obvious how to make those real.” Vera’s eyes are fixed on the page and a little scribble of a woman with smudged graphite hair and red pen eyes, as many of them as a spider. “I was told exactly what to do. I had the torn edge to match my new page to, and the text to put on it, and the handwriting to put it in, and the type of paper. But I don’t know how to make something new.”

Phoenix digs his phone from his pocket and starts typing. “I’m not ignoring you,” he says. “I just need to, before I forget, tell a friend of mine that I need to introduce him to you.” Apparently satisfied with whatever message he sent, he tosses his phone toward a shelf. It bounces off and cracks to the floor. “Anyway. The advice that’s maybe shitty I can offer you is to find what’s real in it. Like… paint me how you feel today.” He gestures toward a canvas. “Not how your face would look if you were showing those emotions, not what’s making you feel them, but how it feels. That’s real, but it’s not you replicating anything.”

Seeming to decide against doing whatever he meant to, he returns to the couch and sits on the arm of it. “My friend’s a children’s book author-illustrator – he’s human, but his mentor was one of the fae.” The glance he casts about the office doesn’t land in any one place. “I don’t think I have any of her books here, but I’ll bring them in. After her death, he and I talked a lot about what he’d learned from her, because my experience with the fae and art had been my friends getting obsessed with kids’ action shows and needing the concept of ‘fiction’ and ‘acting’ explained about a dozen times.” There’s that fond exasperation again. “She said that her books were always grounded in something real. They had to have that heart of truth, and the rest she could build.”

Vera lets the pencil fall from her fingers and cranes her head back to look at her paint brushes. “Is this a common thing?” she asks. “The fae, drawn to art?”

“Culturally, it’s not their thing,” Phoenix says. “They themselves don’t have much of a tradition of storytelling or paintings that are much more than… apparently accurate versions of history. It’s something about how they consider themselves bound to the truth, even if they’re twisted about it. They’re a little weird about music, too, but I do know that they’re drawn to human artists over this same thing – that they don’t get it, but we do, so they like artists as…”

“Court jesters?” Apollo offers.

Phoenix snorts. Vera has stood and gone to consider her paints, and he slides off the arm of the couch and sprawls across it on his back. “Something like it. But it is interesting to consider, in terms of you, Vera – you’re a changeling. They swapped you for a human baby of artistic parents, who was more or less destined to grow up to be an artist – and there’s a woman I know, human, a musician, and she’s the other side of that coin. So from my nearly-anecdotal sample size” – Ema would not approve – “it’s future artists and musicians who… get… taken…”

He sits bolt upright, his eyes flashing blue. “Oh, son of a bitch!”

At his outburst, Vera squeaks and stumbles into the piano, knocking some some brushes and a palette down to the floor. He looks at Apollo, eyes pale and vacant, jaw twitching but still hanging open. “I do know what the hell he is!”

And Apollo, halfway to Phoenix’s desk to grab the magatama, is sure that they’ve realized the same thing.

#fic: the seelie of kurain #roddy fanfics #next: THE BOY IS BACK. and probably having a mental breakdown. mood but also like. bad.

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 5 years

Text

Struck with a sudden major desire to write stuff for the Bullshit Defense AU even though that’s not my NaNo project, but I’m mitigating that somewhat by rereading and releasing into the wild this technically-finished piece that at the time I wasn’t quite happy enough with it to post, but now I’m just like, sure, here you go. I like it more than I don’t, so up it goes.

---

Miles texts her when the jury reaches its verdict on Vera Misham: Not Guilty. Franziska thanks him for telling her and ignores further attempts to engage her in conversation, returning to work that seems suddenly less important than the prospect of overhauling their entire legal system, putting an end to the madness that has plagued her entire lifetime. She could have consulted on this project, on the committee, had the offer, and refused, recommending Simon instead. He refused, also; the phantom is the only thing with his undivided attention, as much now as six years ago. She had guessed that would happen but still thought that he would be a better prosecutorial consultant than her, she who can barely connect to people and has no idea what should go into the selection and mechanics of a jury, versus he who has made his bones on cracking open the heads of everyone he ever crosses paths with.

Mia texts her later, telling her where they “all” – who is all? All of the defense attorneys in the family? All of the lawyers in the Edgeworth-Fey family but Franziska? – have gathered to discuss the trial and the system. Her father’s office – no, Ray’s now, Ray’s since her father’s retirement – is the biggest of all of them, the best place for going on ten people to have a rousing debate. She’s curious what happened in the trial, too curious, and finally by four she gives in and packs up for the day. Sebastian is in his office when she swings by, telling him she is leaving; he asks her if she has seen Gavin. She hasn’t, wonders if he just didn’t come back after the trial, but his car is parked a few spots down from hers in the garage. In hiding, then? For the loss, or something worse?

The Justice-Shields Law Office on the window still takes her by surprise. She was never even used to seeing Shields Law Office before it changed, again, and she won’t admit it to Ray but he was right and that is very much a badass name for a law firm.

The conversation hits her before the door is halfway open, and then when it is closed behind her, a pen hits her, flung loose from Lana’s hand while she was gesturing and yelling at Diego. He probably deserves it. Miles steps in, on Lana’s side, and Mia tosses them all a Look before she resumes talking to Ray. Trucy is bouncing around all of them; Gregory and Phoenix are off to the side, deep in conversation, both wearing deeply serious expressions. Apollo is perched on the couch closest to the door, looking dazed. Franziska sits next to him.

“You should see our full family dinners,” she says. “Louder, and so many more flying objects, but just as much legal debate.”

“How much more family do you have?” Apollo asks. “I thought mine was chaotic, and it’s just six of us.”

“This is only half,” Franziska says. Apollo swears under his breath, a word or language she doesn’t recognize. “Just the lawyers.” And ex-lawyers: one retired (sort of, mostly), two stripped of their badges.

They sit there in silence for a while, listening to the conversation that bounces about the office, over to them. Lana, with her jaw set, is speculating on what she thinks about the ability of prosecutors to adapt to or accept the new system. She might be a decade removed from the office, but not much about it has changed. Franziska is glad to have Simon and Sebastian on her side for the uphill battle that it will be. Miles, listening and saying nothing, keeps glancing over at Franziska. Mia is wrestling another cup of coffee out of Diego’s hands.

“Aren’t you a prosecutor?” Apollo asks. Franziska nods. “I was surprised that Mr Wright didn’t pick you for the trial – at first anyway. Then it made sense that he got Prosecutor Gavin, but…”

“Phoenix Wright and I are not on good terms,” Franziska says, stiffer than she meant to, but there are no good ways to say any of this. “Not at this time.”

Apollo suddenly looks like he regrets asking. “Oh.”

“I haven’t heard the details of the case,” Franziska says. She might not be good with people but even she can tell that Apollo is eager for a conversational redirect and has no idea what to do. “I am surprised that he requested Klavier Gavin for the case, as well.”

So Apollo explains a story seven years old, and it seems to her a final nail in the coffin that she learns Phoenix’s story from someone who is not him. Seven years that he could have sought help, seven years of isolating himself – now he has burned that bridge and Franziska is happy to leave it broken.

No. Not happy. But what else is there to do?

She is about to stand, maybe leave, maybe talk to Miles, when Trucy comes over, and without greeting or preamble, her smile falling off her face, flings herself onto the couch next to Franziska, leaning her head against her shoulder. Franziska leans back. Now she is stuck.

She lingers for a few hours, speaking with whoever comes over to her, Trucy, and Apollo. Phoenix is not one of them. An email from Simon finally jars her back to the reality of the work she is neglecting, and she gently nudges Trucy off her shoulder. Phoenix calls out to her as she is leaving, but she lets the door swing closed behind her and starts down the stairs.

“Franziska!”

She doesn’t stop until she is at the bottom of the stairs and she turns, waiting for Phoenix to hurry down after her. “Franziska, wait.”

They haven’t spoken face-to-face, the two of them, since that day in April in the defendant lobby. She raises her chin and stares him down, unwilling to extend a hand or a single word until he does first.

“Would your father be proud of this?” he asks. He sounds bitter, spiteful, the way he has come to sound more and more as the years without his badge wore on. She is almost grateful for that; she doesn’t have to feel bad about what she said, not when he is bringing it back up with an edge as sharp as hers was.

“Of course not,” she snaps back. “He is like Kristoph Gavin – a superiority complex and a desperate need for control over the course of a trial. He will be disgusted to hear of this Jurist System.”

“Good.”

“Good,” Franziska agrees. “But, if he knew, my father” – she tilts her chin up toward the office at the top of the stairs – “knew, he would not be so proud of this.”

There. That shames him, his eyes falling toward the ground, head ducking just slightly. “Gregory Edgeworth would be ashamed of you if he knew,” she snarls, like a wolf who has seen the throat of its prey and will only tear in deeper with that opening. “Mia Fey would be. All of them.”

“Then tell them,” Phoenix says, and if her eyes were closed when she heard him speak those words, it would sound like a defiant challenge – but he has not looked at her. His stare is haunted, fixed on the wall. “Then go ahead and tell them. Why haven’t you?”

For Miles, she thinks, for Miles, because he loves you. But that is not the answer, maybe the barest part of it – the reason she has forgiven Miles for forgiving him – that cannot explain why it is still a raw open wound in her chest while she stands here. “Because I have no wish to hurt them,” she answers. “Not the way you hurt me and my brother both.”

At that, he looks at her, and raises one eyebrow, doubtfully. “You?” he asks.

Does he doubt that? Does he doubt that her anger was not multifaceted, twisted together with pain? Does he not think that she loves him, has always, at times more than she loved her own stubborn, frustrating brother? The words feel less like she is spitting them and more that they are torn from her. “I believed in you,” she snarls, in a way that is both whisper and scream from a raw, mangled throat. “I believed in you, always! From when we were children, from when you decided that the future you wanted was to wear that badge--!” She jabs a finger into his chest, where the badge should be though it has been lost longer than he ever had it, the ghost of something gold. “From when you lost it, I believed in you! I believed that you would never – I defended you! Against every word in the Prosecutors Office, I argued for you, I defended you, I spent weeks working to convince Sebastian, Simon, that I knew you and you would never, ever, ever do – I knew you and you never could--!”

“I didn’t ask you to do that,” he says, frustratingly blasé, and her mind is still catching up to that by the time she has slapped him, purely instinct driving her, the way she didn’t in April because she had words that could cut him deeper.

“You could have asked me for help! Any of us would have, but I – I would have dropped everything! If you had just asked, you fool!”

Simon asked, eventually, despite the danger, and Franziska did not hesitate. She would not have hesitated for Phoenix, not for anything, nothing more important, not for the world.

“I know,” he says. “And that’s why I didn’t.”

He holds up an arm to block her slap this time. “You could not have known what Kristoph Gavin was! Not then! That he was willing to murder a child to keep his secrets! You had no reason to be afraid!”

“I didn’t have evidence, no,” he says, “but I was.”

“And I have worked more dangerous cases than that of Kristoph Gavin,” she snaps. Is working, now. “I am not afraid for my life, for the sake of the truth!”

“It doesn’t matter now,” he says.

“It does! It will always matter! Your crime does not go away! Not when you fall to the level of my father, of Damon Gant, of the corruption I have sworn to stand against! I cannot compromise, not for anyone, not even for you, Phoenix Wright, because I--”

– could easily become that. Wouldn’t it be so easy to fall, so much simpler – if she knows of guilt then why fight for every half-relevant shred of evidence when she could just create it? Wouldn’t it be easy to think herself perfect, self-righteous, the sole arbitrator –

Because I am afraid to become what my name bids me to be. What others think me because of that legacy.

She’s crying now, hadn’t realized she was close to doing that until she feels the first tears sliding down her cheeks, watches Phoenix’s face fall. “Do not look at me with that pity, Phoenix Wright! I don’t need that from you – do not pretend that you are sorry for what you have done!”

“I’m sorry there wasn’t another way,” he says. “But now there is, and that’s what I wanted to do. Make sure that doesn’t happen again. Make sure no one is backed into the corner I was.”

“There was another way for you!” she screams. “There always was! I believed in you! My entire life, I was sure! And you – you disappointed me! I was wrong about you!”

And he didn’t even kill anyone. She wonders how close the Gavin brothers were, once, before seven long years – she wonders if what she is feeling is just a fraction of Klavier’s pain.

Thinking about him just unsettles her more.

“Franziska, I--” Phoenix stops. He presses a hand to his eyes. “No, you’re right. What am I supposed to say?”

“That you’re a fool.” She wipes her cheeks dry. “You’re a foolish fool.”

“Yeah, I am. Right as ever.”

“Stop it.”

“What?”

“This – this agreement! This not fighting!”

“You want me to yell back at you?”

“Yes! Then perhaps I could hate you! Then I could just be angry that you are a fool instead of just – sad. Sad that you are – this now!”

She can’t hate him; she could never, not Phoenix, who she has known for as long as she has known her brother and her father; who she has spent a lifetime more time with than the father who gave her her name. But she does want to. She wants to very much.

“Fran?”

She doesn’t look back at him.

“Are you going to start coming to family dinners again? Trucy misses seeing you – Miles does too.”

They didn’t talk about Zak – Franziska wasn’t going to bring it up if Trucy didn’t – but she doesn’t doubt that her niece will want to talk about it someday. And their situations might not be identical – Franziska was too young when she was adopted – but she thinks she, of anyone, can understand the conflict best.

Families are difficult things.

“I might,” she says. “For Trucy’s sake.”

Gavin’s car is already in the lot when Franziska arrives in the morning, but around noon Sebastian comes by her office to ask again if she has seen him, because he isn’t responding to any knocking on his door. “He might not want to speak with you, or anyone,” she says, then dragging him into her office to give him the abridged summary of what happened in the trial with Gavin’s brother.

“I mean, he still doesn’t have to avoid me,” Sebastian says, looking more worried than ever, fidgeting with a pen he plucked off Franziska’s desk. “He was already working here as well when – my father – he knows that I know that…”

That he is not to blame for the sins of a man whose name and blood he shares. There are three of them in that club, now.

She doesn’t try and seek out Gavin because she knows she will be less welcome than Sebastian, has made herself less welcome. Later in the afternoon she is taking the stairs back up to her office, absorbed in a memo, when suddenly there is someone else in front of her, who she nearly runs into. He springs out of the way and she manages to process who it is who is using the stairwells in which Franziska almost never sees anyone else.

“Frau von Karma.”

Professional conduct be damned, she had nearly slapped him the first – and only – time he called her Fraülein. He learned his lesson quickly. “Prosecutor Gavin. Sebastian Debeste has been looking for you. He wished to speak to you about the Jurist System.”

Gavin’s expression betrays nothing. He has as good of a poker face as Phoenix does, as his brother did. “Ja. I will keep that in mind.” Beneath his eyes are shadows of exhaustion, the kind that she sees often on Miles or Phoenix. Again she wonders how close he and Kristoph were – and even before, several months ago, there was his bandmate, the detective. “Now if you’ll excuse me…”

He presses up against the wall and sidles past her; she nearly lets him go, but something is still eating away at her. I didn’t ask you to do that. “Prosecutor Gavin, wait,” she says.

Looking down at him, she remembers herself and Phoenix, yesterday, a different stairwell at a different office, and a conversation about the same things in the way. The same ghosts linger on all of their shoulders. She hasn’t thought far enough ahead to know what to say. “I… am sorry about your brother.”

He closes his eyes, his shoulders hitching up with a sharp breath. “Frau von Karma,” he says, “I know you don’t like me, and I have made my peace with that. You don’t have to pretend any sympathy. It demeans us both to pretend, ja?”

His smile is gut-wrenchingly sad.

She was wrong. God, was she wrong.

“I…” It is easier to admit it to herself than to speak the sentiment into being. It always has been with anything soft. “I was mistaken,” she says. “In my assessment of you. I thought your brother’s crime was yours, and I – that was incorrect.”

His mouth twists. Is it her failure to properly apologize that is the problem? The words have dried up in her throat, even thinking of how her father, and Ray, and all of them would be proud of her if she can manage to admit wrongdoing, how Phoenix always frowned at the rancor she directed at Klavier Gavin, never joining in, often telling her to lay off him, Fran; there’s nothing to suggest that he did anything wrong.

Not him, but the other. How long did Phoenix know? “I was mistaken,” she repeats. The proper words have died again on her tongue. “And while I cannot say that I understand fully what it is you have gone through, I do know – somewhat, at a lesser amount, what it is to think you know someone and have them let you down. And what it is to be judged on the crimes of another who shares your name.”

He is still silent, looking at her with those sad, tired eyes, like a kicked dog. “That is all,” she says, and it’s not, it’s not, not when Apollo and Ray both clearly think highly of him as a prosecutor, not when she has not uttered I am sorry, not when the matter of Phoenix hangs on her like a shroud. She hated him, for her belief in Phoenix, that he could not be capable of the crime accused – and he proved himself capable of it, and Gavin proved himself honest.

She is almost turned back up the stairs to leave, cursing her own stubborn foolish pride that turns her tongue to lead, she has fought and clawed her way into her position and she cannot admit that she has been so wrong to another much like herself, when he speaks. His voice is nothing more than a murmur, barely audible over the clack of her heels on the steps. “Danke, Frau von Karma.”

“Guten Tag, Herr Gavin,” she says, and she stands there with her back turned until she has heard him leave.

#i'm sorry that this one has an ending that's just barely bittersweet it's just fucking bitter #fran and phoenix do end up becoming close again and smoothing that wound over but it takes another year till the end of DD #which is a thing i want to write someday but. i'm trying to prioritize one project and then rl stuff at a time #bullshit defense au #bullshit defense fic #is it obvious that fran is my favorite character in this entire damn au? PROBABLY IS.

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