#pearly fey my daughter

[kodfish-26]

hi this is my first actual tumblr post thats not a reblog

ace attorney doodles!!!,!4 idk here u go. u get a prize (not really) if u guess my favs (its so obvious)

im autisming out rn over this like i havent in years so im going a little stir crazy take these stupid drawings

[skyefeys]

milf (Man I Love Fey women)

[ladykailolu]

Now that you’ve finished part 3

I have a funny story to tell you! :3

So we all know Diego and Mia fucked right?

I mean they both fine as hell so if they didn’t explore each others’ bodies that’s a criminal shame.

So they fuck right, and then our girl Mia is gonna do her trial for old Terry Fawless,

but then Uh Oh Spaghettios! Diego is dead (or in a coma)

so of course, dealing with a serial killer who put your boyfriend down and having to deal with some idiotic love struck brat who think the serial killer loves him

Is the best time to find out you are pregnant with your comatose boyfriend’s child! 🙃🥳

So yeah, just an extra layer of fun to the whole debacle

But when all is said I’m done, and she now has her pitiful man child assistant that she’s adopted

She thinks, on one hand, being a single mother is difficult, cause it’s not like her bitchy aunt will do anything other than mock her, arguing that at at least she got married to her boytoys before getting knocked up like an idiot

and this is California so I should be able to get an abortion.

But on the other, This could potentially be all I’ll ever have left of Diego, and I already have to deal with this man child at my lawyer job which no doubt pays enough for me to care for it

So…

Flash forward some amount of months and

Say hello to Marigold Fey!

Assistant Feenie makes for a nice babysitter while mommy Mia works, and Mia Fey makes for a great mommy! For 3 years that is… till… you know what happened

Poor 3 year old Marigold is sent to live with old Morgan and Pearly for a while

And Pearl and Marigold develop a sister like relationship

But of course when that does to shit because of Morgan’s murder plot, Both Pearl and Marigold are just saddled with Nick and Maya

But then guess who decides to be alive again, that’s right, the man, the myth, the father himself, Diego Godot

Whom of course knows nothing about Marigold or any of that,

In fact for a while no one does cause everyone shares one brain cell, and since We don’t even know Godot is Diego yet, we have no way to connect the two (other than same skin tone [which for ace attorney is noteworthy as only a handful of characters have tan skin])

All Godot knows is that Marigold always refers to Pearl as her sister, so that bitchy aunt of Mia’s must’ve had another kid :/

And all Marigold knows is this white haired jerk is being mean to “Uncle Phoenix”

At one point, 6 year old Marigold even gets pissy at Godot and chews him out for being a jerk to him when “He’s a good guy!“ “He saved auntie Maya!” “And he was my mommy’s friend” “Stop being a bad guy!” “Mommy didn’t like bad guys”

It’s not until late game where Marigold starts to talk more about Mommy and we figure out who Godot is that we can start connecting the dots.

But none of that really matter because soon after everyone finds out the plot twist, Uh Oh, Godot is going to jail for murder

Sorry Marigold, no father for you, but you’ve still got Maya, who you can be with now that she’s a big girl and soon to be Master

So yeah, nothing like more bastard kids right? Now he and Gyro have something in common

Here are some pictures of old Marigold

Let's see...

We could rearrange the timeline here to make it plausible, such that Mia already had her baby shortly before her 2nd trial and right right back to work because those bills aren't gonna pay themselves. So, she got knocked up right before Diego got poisoned, but at the time, she didn't know that she was pregnant. She found out when he was already in a coma, which looked like it may not end anytime soon. And Feenie didn't know she even had a kid until he was hired, and she mentioned Marigold at one point.

That becomes the newest scandal in the Fey family, and ofc Morgan is quick to jump on Mia's back about it. But Mia is a strong woman, and needs to be strong for her daughter, so she carries on. Until she passes away.

Unlike Maya, Marigold does not fall under Feenie's guardianship and instead goes to live with Morgan, which I thought would be a very odd move. I figured that Morgan would resent Marigold, as she's another descendant of the Master to be rid of. Yet, Marigold lives under her roof! Would Marigold have spiritual powers? Mia wasn't a practicing spirit channeler, but she still had Fey blood, and the spirit channeling power runs through the Fey blood in their women. I figured that Mia would have that ability to channel spirits, but without the proper training, she can't actually channel any spirits. Marigold would have that same power, and living at the Kurain school with Morgan and Pearl, it's likely that Marigold would have an opportunity to train to be a channeler.

...Unless, Morgan wanted to stop the Master's bloodline entirely and ensure that Marigold could never be the new Master (if something happened to Maya). So, she forbid Marigold from learning the channeling arts and instead had her be a nun/servant of sorts, similar to Iris. Seeing as they're very close in age, Pearl and Marigold would probably get along swimmingly! At least Marigold has a friend near her age to confide in (kinda like Maggie and Sadie-Mae).

Bruh, imagine Marigold running up to Godot and hitting him with her fists because he's being mean and rude to Uncle Feenie, but it accomplishes nothing because she's this smol little girl lol (it's actually kind of cute)

But since Marigold referred to her mom in the past tense, and referred to Maya as "auntie" instead of "mystic", couldn't people put two and two together then? "Oh? 'Auntie Maya??' Then that means Mia had a kid? But with whom? She had been with only one guy...."

I imagine that Godot is already in jail when Feenie, Marigold, and everyone find out about Marigold's parents. And at this point, Marigold is somber and says that she wants to talk with Godot at the jail. Feenie asks if she's sure about that, and she's resolute.

Can you imagine? First finding out that you have a child with your dead girlfriend...while you're in jail? And that your kid was born while you were napping, in-between life and death? Even now, Marigold won't have a father, and even if she visits Godot when the prison allows, it's not gonna be a normal relationship between father and daughter. It's almost like a relationship between two strangers.

Even so, Marigold isn't alone because she's got her Auntie Maya, her Uncle Feenie, her cousin/sister Pearl, etc, etc. Unlike some of Gyro's bastard daughters (i.e. Paxe, Sadie-Mae), Marigold has a family around her, and she grows up to be a functional, happy adult.

Hahaha, but this also means that Godot can't be too hard on Gyro for neglecting to taking care of his kids. I feel like Godot would make an effort to take care of Marigold, however he can while in prison or on house arrest, in Mia's memory at the very least.

Ok, but...how particularly messed up would it be if Marigold resembled Mia more, and Godot could recognize that everytime he looked at Marigold's face?

[nutmeg-mayonnaise]

I'm curious, what other Ace Attorney couples/families feature in your fic universe?

Hello friend! The my fic focuses very much on Maya/Phoenix/Edgeworth for the most part, but here are other families and couples that get mentioned:

I shared Pearly’s kids (Opal and Amber Fey) but I never talked about their fathers. They’re unnamed at the moment and only mentioned here and there, and Pearl is divorced with both of them. Iris has a daughter as well but her husband passed due to illness*. Pearly and Iris are examples that unhappy marriages in Kurain Village and the Fey Clan are still commonplace, but they both find solace in their daughters.

Gumshoe and Maggey got together and have a few kids themselves. Apollo is ultra busy with his law firm in Khura’in but he gets roped into watching Rayfa’s kids (not with him, to be clear!). 

That’s all the families! The only couple not mentioned yet is Franziska and Adrian, and they aren’t exactly dating, there’s definitely something going on between the two of them, and they still visit and send each other letters. :)

Thanks for the question!

*updated June 28th, 2023.

[snezfics-n-shit]

Sicktember Alt 1: "I Could Really Use A Hug Right Now"

Fandom: Ace Attorney Characters: Maya Fey, Phoenix Wright Notes: You ever think about just how much Maya has on her plate? Training, carrying the main family of the Fey clan on her shoulders, just being the master of the Kurain Channeling Technique? It’s a lot! On what should be a happy surprise visit to Phoenix’s place (which is at Edgeworth’s place now? Fancy!), it all comes crashing down. Mid 7yg, Phoenix is living with Miles, Maya is in her early-mid 20’s and has spent the past few years doing basically nothing but training. It's a mental breakdown! *Sad Kazoo Noises*

     It wasn’t just jet lag that had gotten to her. Maya, and most likely Phoenix as well, had figured that out by now. Pearly always worried about Maya getting herself sick from overextending, and Maya always tried to insist she would be fine so Pearly could be the carefree girl she deserved to be. Pearly didn’t deserve that kind of stress in her life, not after all Aunt Morgan put her through. Knowing that made Maya’s wish that her cousin could have taken her place as master very brief, no matter how many lives would have been saved if that were the case. 

Hours of training under a waterfall, late nights of channeling various spirits she sometimes couldn’t possibly care less about, and of course going back and forth on a packed airplane to acquaint herself with every spiritual landmark absolutely did a number on Maya’s health. She hadn’t left Edgeworth’s cozy guest bed since she dropped all her luggage on the floor yesterday afternoon. She didn’t even question why the guest room was free if Nick was supposedly crashing here. All she wanted was to sleep with maybe a side of curling up and dying. 

“Maya?” Nick’s concerned voice managed to have the volume of three air horns. “I know something’s wrong. You haven’t eaten for at least a day. I’m coming in.”

He was lucky Maya hadn’t even taken off what she was wearing yesterday, though she had no energy to do anything about his entry even if she was in her birthday suit. Meh, he had a girlfriend once, probably nothing he hasn’t seen before. 

“I’m not hungry.” Maya whimpered. 

“Not hungry?” Nick jokingly pressed his hand on her forehead, only to pull back in almost horror. “You’re actually burning up!”

“Good.” 

“What do you mean ‘good!?’”

“I just…” The dam broke. Maya had no time to prepare before the tears started flowing. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.” 

“Do what anymore?” 

“Everything, Nick!” Maya hiccuped, then sobbed. “All I ever do is train and meet with branch family members who somehow didn’t run away from being Feys the first second they could. Do you know how many branch family members just move to the city and want nothing to do with us ever again? At least half, Nick! I don’t blame them one bit.” 

“Yeah, I think Bikini alluded to that kind of tension after she realized it was your mom who, you know…” 

“My mom’s dead because of me, Nick!” Maya instinctively wiped her nose on Phoenix’s t-shirt, but even if it was more from being sick than crying, Phoenix just let her go ahead with that.

“Maya, you know that’s not–”

“And everyone expects me to have daughters to put through this hell all over again!”

“I’m sure you can break the cycle–”

“I am the cycle! All my past relationships have failed because it’s just too much! Just because your parents could do that doesn’t mean I can. Besides,” Maya sniffled and wiped the lines of tears from her cheeks, “look how you turned out.” Somehow, she still had it in her to tease him. She was even able to laugh, if only just a little. “Sis did tell me how much of a spoiled brat you were in college.” 

“Hey! I got better.” Phoenix lightheartedly retorted. 

“That’s up for debate.” Maya huffed. “You still wouldn’t survive a day in the Fey clan! Heck, if your ex could channel spirits, you might have ended up in an arranged marriage and stuck with her.” 

“I’d rather you not even joke about that.” Almost a decade later, Dahlia was still a sore subject for both of them, though Maya seemed more comfortable talking about her than Nick was. “But… You do seem to be doing a little better.” 

“I guess I am.” Maya sniffled. “Thanks for listening to my feverish ramblings I’ll probably forget by tomorrow, Nick.”

“Any time, Maya.” Phoenix sighed through his nose. If Maya was as cynical as she was feeling just a few minutes ago, she might have interpreted that as bragging. “Do you want anything for that fever? We have Steel Samurai cooling patches in the freezer downstairs.”

“Tempting, but nah.” Maya really was sick to turn down anything Steel Samurai themed. “How about… Just a hug?” 

Phoenix may not have been able to completely wipe Maya’s full plate clean, but a hug? That was absolutely doable.

[akihikosanada]

finished the apollo trilogy, thoughts below

first thing i have to say is the lack of women in this trilogy was to be expected considering how good the og trilogy was on this aspect. not only that but they were vital to the overarching plot (there is no plot without the feys) and there were many interesting women on the diff cases (dee vasquez, adrian and mimi come to mind) also obligated to mention oldbag because she's my favorite witness in pwaa you also had flop girl rep of women over 60. anyways this was all to say it was still really disappointing because whenever they had a woman they could develop more they'd almost forget about her in the next game because of the "no spoiler rule" or whatever. they had something going with trucy in aa4 but then they forgot about her until 6-2 and got her reduced to magic panties outside of that one case. they got athena to lead a single case in her debut game and then only a super trial only one in aa6. snarky emma was cool but forensics aside i feel like she did not have much going on? compared to gumshoe for example, even bobby turned out being plot important you know? they had lamiroir but then they forgot about her until the VERY end of aa6, only to not even say her name. when it comes to witnesses etc alita and aura were the best ones, they had juniper appear in three cases and be said to be athena's best friend but she wasn't even mentioned in aa6? at least jinxie sent trucy flowers in 6-2. rayfa was easily the best character of the khura'in storyline and even she felt not done well so what gives.

i'm soooooo mad of how dirty athena was done fr like now i get why everyone thinks she deserves her own trilogy (just make it 2d please. that's all i'm asking for). by far my favorite character from the trilogy, i cannot forgive how they treated her like a child during 6-4???? from nahyuta it was expected but it disappointed me from blackquill because i didn't read it as "banter" or something of the sorts...also her theme songs rock‼️‼️‼️

whatever they were doing with apollo's backstory is hilarious really....born to a magician who then hooked up with a musician. almost burned to dead in a fire that killed his dad and then became a rebel's foster son. then moved to the states and became friends with an astronaut and a kid who wanted to become one. became a lawyer at a guy's firm whose adopted daughter is his half sister. meets his mom ALONG said girl except she lost her memories so she doesn't know who she is and never does once she regains them. his friend became an astronaut friend but died so he becomes the og astronaut's lawyer in his murder case. also his rebel lawyer foster dad had a son who then became a prosecutor. meanwhile phoenix's lore could be summarized by saying he got accused of stealing once when he was 9 and then framed for murder when he was 21. anyways why was it all so complex. not like they ever mentioned anything said in a past game about him in the subsequent ones. they just needed something for the sake of plot i guess????

siblingisms were not hitting this time around.....i looove sibling relationships in media (succession my beloved, kny's redeeming trait) so the bad writing regarding them here made me soooo mad.....trucy and apollo was only a thing in aa4, klavier and kristoph barely ever interacted???? and we don't know anything about them on that regard, nahyuta and apollo was a thing i guess, gar'an and amara were giving morgan and misty fey without the panache or the anything, nahyuta and rayfa was only revealed at the end and they never interacted anyways, etc. aura taking hostages for the sake of blackquill was peak siblingisms though, but after all the cool siblings we had in pwaa this was lame as hell

the dlc case of aa5 was easily my fav of the trilogy like it really had it all (phoenix as protag athens as co counsel pearly cameo blackquill aka my fav aj prosecutor funny as hell defendant good side characters good culprit good ending the dissin of phoenix wright etc etc etc) second would be 5-3 but aristotle means was suchhhh a lame culprit and admittedly the idea behind the school was goofy as hell (danganronpa moment i guess)

funnily enough aa5 was my favorite because it had the 2 cases i liked most + had athena + blackquill + feenie outfit <3 still lame though

girl why was 6-5 so long. i'll admit here i couldn't play past aa4 because my game wasn't working so i watched gameplays of the subsequent two games but even in story mode it was 14 hours long??????? what?????? it dragged on for so long it wasn't funny!!!!!

edgeworth being important in all the games was sooooooooooooooo. love the glasses and i appreciate the pandering to the fans (the dlc case of aa6 was this but it still sucked. anyways) but considering the "no spoiler rule" they had going the entire trilogy i suppose showing us edgey as phoenix (and larry's) friend is okay??? as if it didn't take him a very long while to get on friendly terms with phoenix. egregious when they didn't even have klavier in aa6 and they don't ever dare mentioning kristoph, whose role is a "spoiler" from the very first case of the apollo trilogy anyways.

i feel like the games were lacking on good culprits? there's some exceptions to this (alita my love, kristoph's insane plans, i respect retinz's and nichody's hustle, marlon even if he isn't a "real" culprit) but the rest were pretty lame??? i will give it to l'belle that his plan was super batshit + i love his theme song. also note that the only final culprit i mentioned was kristoph because the other two aren't even worth mentioning which is super disappointing when in pwaa mvk engarde and dahlia were the best ones easily (and after playing the aj trilogy i still consider them so)

idk how they are for the japanese version but the puns for this trilogy felt too on the nose? i remember the name eldoon making me physically angry though that was the only really bad one in aa4. starting in aa5 and ESPECIALLY the khura'inese names the puns were making me want to die really. why were the royals + dhurke + nahyuta the only ones without punny names from what i could tell too 😭

i had read about how the games have such huge stakes (an international spy is among us! we need to dethrone this country's monarch!) that it got hard to be interested in what was happening and honestly yeah.....the most powerful person was easily redd white but it was effective because you weren't fighting "for the greater good" but rather for solving your mentor's murder and helping her sister (and later yourself). even in bridge to the turnabout the stakes are kept pretty small as the plot is about the feys (and godot), all characters we should care about by now. it was weird in aa5 because you were competing against an international spy but even then at least the final case was still mainly about athena and blackquill? it was ridiculous in aa6 though because all of a sudden your enemy was the evil queen of the country you were in and failing to defeat her meant she would continue staying in power and whatever......what happened with helping your boy best friend because he got framed by his evil mentor💔

why'd they have to mention the us so much in aa6...like at first it was implied at most they were in the usa (japanifornia slay) but i think it should have stayed as just that, something about them all canonically living in los angeles is weird as hell

music didn't feel as epic for the courtroom segments (few exceptions though) and some character songs were good but overall the music didn't really catch my attention. i'll look for the soundtrack on youtube soon though so i can resisten it on its own but it doesn't take from the fact that was my original impression)

if you got this far in and you're asking yourself "is kiara being a hater" the answer is 1. why did it take you so long to figure that out and 2. yeas❤️

verdict: give me a 2d athena trilogy or i kms. also i never want to read the word panties again

[daddywright]

I have only recently got into the ace attorney fandom, and this story was the first story I read, and I feel spoiled! I absolutely loved every chapter, so I'm gonna word vomit here and tell you everything I love about this!

"She offers him a smile. It’s small, tentative, but it possesses a strength that makes a hidden part of him twist and burn with quiet envy." the first time we see nick's wish to be as strong as mia!

Considering the fact that nick didn't have any prominent figure in his life, it makes sense that he would look up to gregory so much

"Phoenix looks up, and starts walking towards Mia Fey

He doesn't stop for two years."

THE RELATIONSHIP THAT MIA AND NICK HAD WAS PRECIOUS AND DESERVES MORE THAN WHAT THE FANDOM GIVES THEM

"Larry’s arms wrap around him, squeezing almost too tight" People forget that Larry and Phoenix were good friends too, and Larry would help his best friend

"Nobody believed him, nobody but Mia" Maya is what Phoenix is to Mia and I adore that

"He wishes, desperately, that he’d said it while she was still alive. I loved you. For everything you did." Not you absolutely breaking my fucking heart

Also the first AA game felt unnatural in the sense of how seemingly unaffected Phoenix seemed at Mia's murder so I'm really glad you wrote it this way

"Expensive. Thoughtful. Too much." SHUT UP NICK YOU DESERVE ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING

Also quick break to mention how I absolutely fucking love your writing style and i wish I was literally half as talented as you cuz the last time I read something that made me feel this multitude of emotions was ocean vuong. And I practically worship Ocean Vuong. So now I worship you too

"You're a stranger to me // When will I stop hoping?" I never really realised just how badly nick musta been hurt by good ol' bratworth before this fic, but now that I have read it, it would have hurt him so bad

"Is this why you never answered my letters? Because I was a reminder? Because it hurt too much?" Honestly what happened to miles and phoenix's friendship hurts so much because it should have never happened, and miles didn't deserve that.

"Maybe Miles Edgeworth is not the man he thought he’d be, either." yo when I tell you this hurt I mean this huRT

Fun fact! My birthday is on the same day as DL-6 anniversary. Gregory Edgeworth died on my birthday. I feel horrible now

"monster. You were nine years old and he's a monster. " No one has made me feel this much emotion for what happened to Miles in a single sentence other than you. I commend you for that

"I love you," he says quietly. He has never said those words to anyone, except for Dahlia Hawthorne.

Maya sniffs in his ear, crushing him tight. "I love you, too."

He has never heard them back.

PHOENIX HAS NEVER HEARD THE WORDS " I LOVE YOU" COME BACK TO HIM ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME WHY NOW I'M SAD

"Tell me everything. Every detail—" Miles is worried bout nick and why wouldn't he? gods you're so gay miles but tbf if I knew someone like nick irl i'd go ballistic too

"He determined the motive for his own assault...with amnesia. Naturally." My man's smart af and he is king

"Is that what she thinks of me? That I'm like that? That I don't care about who the bad guys really are?" Gumshoe noooo you're hella precious! Also this particular chapter was so well written! loved this soo much!

Also taking a minute to appreciate the pacing! Rarely do I ever come across an author who just hits that sweet spot of perfect pacing and you did! so thank you!

Alright so here are a few thoughts that I felt capcom needed to do which you did for us!

no. 1 - Address the trauma phoenix faced with not only dahlia but also with mia's death

no. 2 - Actually fucking flesh out a good relationship dynamic between larry and phoenix

no. 3 - actually! have! phoenix! be hurt! in bridge to turnabout! istg my man would not have dropped from a burning bridge to a freezing river only to have a cold

AUNT FRANZY AND PEARLS MAN!

THEY CUTE

ok so I have a LOT of feelings for bridge to turnabout and HOO BOY BUCKLE UP

So I always thought that in this fic, miles must have felt fucking awful! I mean he very clearly hates who he was and what that has led to but that must have been doubled over with this case! Phoenix would have died if not for mia and it would have been indirectly miles's fault. I think about that alot

Like he said that he very much regrets whatever he did as bratworth in the phone call with gumshoe but i don't think he anticipated this. poor edgeworth

Also I think this was the final nail in the coffin for miles. Phoenix forgave him, after all the fucked up shit miles did, and that made that man go "how is this guy so fucking compassionate awwwww shit I'm in fucking love with this idiotic brave man".

my main thoughts were "holy shit phoenix must have been feeling awful." like to learn that you were in love with a person who turned out to be a murderer but then not a murderer cuz everything you felt about that was real and just...... it must have hurt. He never fell in love with dahlia. it was iris, always. and WHAT ABOUT MILES DURING THIS!!! Like to learn that the man you love was falsely led to believe that he was in love with a person he rarely met and then learn that his ex who is not murderous might still be in love with him because "that was real. that part was real." like damn. people just gloss over this

also I feel terrible for iris F in the chat for iris lads.

Dahlia literally haunting that courtroom scene. I felt mia's power. I felt her desperation. I felt everything and I am once again in awe of the absolute power your writing holds.

also godsdamn pearls had to go through all that shit huh. also FRANMAYAAAAAA THANK YOUUUU

I too, am a hoe confused as to what I should feel towards diego.

Ok anyways we jump to disbarment now

"He just winks at her and says Maya has other talents, and if Mystic Maya overhears, she puffs up at him like the fish from the aquarium she saw once, the one with all the spikes and silly eyes."

you know what constantly amazes me? your ability to change tones so effortlessly. When writing from edgey's pov, the language is sophisticated. precise. when writing from pearly's pov your language is simplistic, child-like. from phoenix's pov it's natural. grounded

"She never knew anybody who made faces like him, growing up in Kurain, and it’s one of the things that makes him special." Yo phoenix is the most amazing uncle ever and we all know it ok he's brilliant

I'M RUNNING OUT OF CHARACTER LIMITS

PEARLY CALLING EDGEY AT FIRST SIGN OF TROUBLE I'M SOFFFFTTTT

“I think I did something really bad." trucy baby no it's not your fault

pearl and trucy bonding supremacy. my girls would fuck shit up

"She’d meant to do this properly, one day." Thank you for giving importance to maya's feelings. thank you for treating her like a real human being. thank you

“Everything that happened...for what? It’s only gotten people hurt. Pearly. Our mother.” Me. Me." I felt so bad for maya here. I wish I could tell you in precise words about how this exact framing of the sentence is what broke me. "me. me" maya deserved more, but mia did all she could

"What do scared kids need? ...Food." not you breaking my godsdamn heart again. phoenix just knows what's it like being a helpless child, and he'll be damned if he ever lets anyone face that again

“‘Course, Pearls,” he says reflexively, before frowning. “What for?” reflexively. if every man in the world could be like phoenix wright then the world would be worthy of the gods

"Another one?" give it 2 years edgey she'll be your daughter too

"after countless hours creating the man’s living space in his mind from the background snatches he’d seen in the man’s ridiculous video calls." NOT ONLY DO THEY VC FOR NO PARTICULAR REASON BUT ALSO MILES ACTUALLY SPENDS TIME TRYING TO RECREATE HIS ROOM?? BECAUSE HE WOULD ONE DAY LIKE TO BE IN IT??? good gods these bitches gay. good for them

"because just as day is light and night is dark, Phoenix Wright is an honorable man." damn straight. you love to see it (it being a 27+ year old man pining for another 27+ year old man)

also hey miles! how do you feel about the fact that the man you love changed his fucking major and degrees halfway through college just so he could see you again only for you to be incredibly rude to him and make him end up in jail! (i bully edgeworth cuz i love him)

"Wright finishes, shrugging like it’s nothing, like his commitment and belief isn’t the most extraordinary thing that Miles has ever faced." it's more than pining at this point. it's incredible faith and trust. Miles had someone who cared about him even after all those years despite him having changed so drastically, ofc he would be surprised. Miles loves phoenix and so do i.

also HOT DAMN YOU WRITING IS JUST * MWAH *

Also the whole segment where they kiss is just !!!!! miles wants! it's beautiful! THEY'RE IN LOVEEE

receiving poisonous bottles which your ex tried to kill you with. My man can't get a break huh

Miles being chivalrous and protective and absolutely stealing my godsdamn heart (and phoenix's too)!

Klavier being the absolute king that he is we stan

The hostage situation section? gods miles must have been terrified.

Phoenix not being able to promise pearly that he'd always come back home and miles hearing it and like... ouch. my heart. you didn't need to do that (but i love your for it)

GODS THE CLIMAX WITH KRISTOPH WAS SOOO SATISFYING AND LIKE MY MAN PHOENIX REALLY PUNCHED THAT BITCH HUH

klavier baby I am so sorry

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL!

and thus my comment ends. I believe I have almost used up all of my commenting limits and i leave with these few parting words : HOLY SHIT YOUR AMAZING AND I LOVE YOU!

also I made a playlist on spotify for this fic! here's the link : https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3k8lRHiO8ZXQDLpiTUL7SN?si=fc3b35b4ab064867

gods this was long huh

GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY....WHERE DO I BEGIN...THE FACT THAT YOU BROKE THE CHARACTER LIMIT ON AO3 AND MADE A PLAYLIST? WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS?

thank you so much for all the amazing things you said....i am crying on a Wednesday morning knowing my writing was appreciated this much. thank you!

[maya-hee-maya-hoo]

I have to ask: If Morgan Fey refused to let other cultures and mainland education into your village, how come Mystic Pearl is sheltered while you are not?

Oh, that is because Pearly is my aunt’s daughter and I’m not. Quite unfortunate, and I used to smuggle books into the Manor for her.

Mia herself did a pretty good job raising me with Western education. Maybe it was because my aunt had multiple plots to stop me from becoming the Master anyway, she never stopped us.

I guess there were the occasional disparaging comments...

[talesofealdancynedom]

Professor Hara Fyrstan, in fairy robes; remastered concept.

Tale 31: If We Lost The Sea Wives (chapter 1 - Northland Family 1/5 ) part 7. Stories of Magic Forests

no warings

              Hara Fyrstan tends the Fey Conservatory, with great care; He was a prodigy, filling the role his grandfather once did. In fact, they weren’t too different from each other, in looks, roles and personality. Both red haired, grey eyed, fey loving, Northland bred passionate professors. Both with big hearts, and equal compassion for all living things; Including fey. This due to both of them being born, and raised, in the farthest North West tip of Elden Kingdom: The magic Isle of Isfisceard. This mystical ancient place, had the most magical sea in the world. Every inch of the village and islands, was coated in fey. It made the people invested in their land, and its connection to fey of the sea. Naturally, this included Hara and his grandfather, Saturn.

The fey conservatory of Pepperidge academy, which was used for rehabilitation and education, was Grandfather Firepot’s greatest accomplishment. It is a school treasure. All teachers, students, and fey; enjoyed the peaceful atrium. It is a glass walled, three stories tall, magic garden withing the school. Hara dreamed of this job, ever since his grandfather told him stories about it. It inspired Hara to work hard in his Northland schooling, to immigrate to to The Grand West, just for the position. When Hara got there, he made the most of his success. Pepperidge Academy’s infrastructure, community, and fey, received only the best love and care from their new head seer. Hara had gone so far, as to make all of Pepperidge a protected magic forest, like his ow. He had quite the reputation after only a year’s employment. Hara was incredibly thankful for his grandfather, who helped inspire and teach him.

              The conservatory didn’t just hold and heal ferries and wonderous plants, but also aquatic fey; Fish children, Sea wives, or Daughter of The Sea, as Hara knew them. As a mage of the Northlands, Hara should have a complex and deep relationship with the daughters of the sea, but instead his qualms with the Fish Kingdom came from one of his students; Rah Wintersleep. Rah was also a mage, but instead of a seer of magic knowledge like Hara, he was charmer that sung spells. Rah was also a storm-breaker, that caused epic storms when magic flowed through him in times of joy. He was working on controlling it, with a storm staph. Rah was not only Hara’s responsibility as a student, but had fallen into a trap Hara’s kin often do; Loving a maiden from the waves. Sorry, mister of the waves. While preparing food for the fey, in the back room, Hara got to over hear Rah, and his true love, Fish Prince Broc. Hara spied on everyone who came into the conservatory, in order to protect the fey and students.

“The selkie your mother made, which you suggested to her; I think she’s actually infatuated with our witchery teacher.” Rah said. He was charming the small pearly cuttle Kraken in the fountain. Hara perked up at the word Selkie.

“Oh, yeah. He’s probably going to love her back. Selkies often suffer from Stockholm’s syndrome, so it’s nice to see a little sister find actual true love; Instead of being kidnapped.” Broc smiled. Hara was too busy in school for seal gawking, back home. Rah and Broc’s conversation was making him nostalgic. As if the distant tune of proverbial bagpipes, was calling him hither.

“Now that you’re my queen in waiting, and the wolf kingdom fell into disrepair, I worry for my mother.” Broc continued. “She always frequents the Day Veil of men, but now mages have made the Beast King’s more willing to see view humanity in person. I doubt people will take kindly to a ghostly giant mermaid, or bewitchingly radiant maiden. I don’t want to be Fish King so soon. I will worry for all my new daughters, while I mourn my Mother and little siblings.” Broc said. Rah hugged Broc, to comfort him.

“I’m sorry I’m too young to be queen of a fey kingdom yet. I worry I’d be a bad fish Dad; No one can top your father Lyra… Besides; your mother, father, and family are very well loved. It would be a tragedy to all who adore the water’s fair folk. I can’t imagine life without ocean fey. All beautifully crafted, and sweet of song.” Rah said. He was getting sad, which was unusual. The two of then gazed into the pool of miniature kraken, nuzzled together like gannets.

Hara slumped. Imagining the world with fewer fey, was a chilling thought to someone who spent their life learning about and helping them. The thought that the bays of Isfisceard, could no longer echo with the haunting melody of the fish children, seemed unnatural. The ocean would have no song, no feminine beauty, and no more wonder. Hara considered if he had taken it all for granted. Rah’s words made him think of home, and all it’s verdant cliffside isles. Home would be nothing without the Sirens on the oddly formed sea walls, mermaids in the rivers and glens, selkies on the beaches, or krakens listening in the deep. The smell of sea salt, vibrancy of the hills, wool of sheep and music of home. Hara wilted at the thought of all that vanishing. It made him feel like life was short, and that he wanted to see it all again. The fey of the fish kingdom, were the ones that inspired him to study and conserve fey. They taught him he was a mage, and how to interact with the world of magic. Hara wanted to experience that again. All of this in the span of the ten minutes it took to pour milk into little labeled saucers for the pixies.

After the school day was done, Hara went to his dorm, to see his dragon princess trying to cuddle Woodwick. Hara had become a queen in waiting himself, but to the Dragon Kingdom; Fleoganan was his true love. She was an optimistic idiot. Which is an underappreciated quality in people. Hara’s heart filling with love when embracing her, combined with a day’s brooding, reminded him that his family hadn’t met Fleog yet. They had already shared the undying true love’s spell, and Grandpa knew nothing of it. Then Hara saw Woodwick, innocently preparing for tomorrow’s lessons. Woodwick also remined Hara of home; He was technically Hara’s adoptive uncle. Woodwick was one of the last two fountain nymphs, which grandfather had found on a black market. These Naiads turned the flowing pools they bathed in, into water that could heal any wound. Yet, Woodwick’s dream was to be human; And due to his value, grandpa adopted Woodwick, and kept his identity secret. This gave Woodwick his dream, by fooling everyone. Nymphs can be very convincingly human. In fact, the unpublished research grandpa Firepot left to Hara, on Woodwick’s desire for humanness, helped Hara conserve local fey.  It gave common folk, including wizards, empathy towards fey, similar to mages.

When Woodwick and Hara first met, it was on a road trip to the family beach home. They spent time packed into a hot car, after being picked up at the Main Northland Station. Their little home was in the middle of nowhere, as Isfisceard was an isolated heritage village, by the Fish Gate into the Shadow Veil of fey. The small house was on a sandy beach, along the main road into the cove. South of the magic academy and village, west of the train station. Hara was not fooled by his grandfather’s insistence that Woodwick was just a tween he adopted. Hara, though a child, was an avid seer mage; He knew a fairy when he saw one. Hara never asked why Grandpa adopted a fey, and never mentioned that he knew. Woodwick had just become a normal member of his family.

It was official; Hara missed his. He hadn’t seen his grandfather, or parents, since he graduated and arrived in Pepperidge. Hara decided he wanted to visit home, the next chance he got.

“Woodwick, I want to go home for the semester break; Want to come? Fleog, you have to meet my family.” Hara chimed.

“I’m not particularly interested.” Woodwick said. “Then again, it would make your grandfather very happy.”

“I can’t believe your not homesick. I keep forgetting that under all that professor, is a fairy.” Hara sighed. Woodwick as a fey, lived a timeless state with no opinions of past or future. Missing something, would require opinions regarding the past.

“Well, now that I know seeking a familiar face is human thing, I may consider myself persuaded.” Woodwick responded. He wanted to be human, and was very assertive about it. There was a time he was also convinced he was a real boy, and not some changeling. He was focusing too much on the words, and not enough of the familial aspects. Hara apologized, and made the plans. He felt good about visiting his safe, unchanged, childhood home. That was on a specific abandoned beach, close to the fey of the sea.

NEXT--->

[rivalsforlife]

"Pearl buried her head further into her knees. She didn’t know anything about Trucy’s real mother and father… but it wasn’t fair for her to try and make Mr. Nick and Mystic Maya her real parents. Pearl couldn’t remember ever meeting her father, and her mother… Her mother…" from "marriage, magic, misunderstandings"? maybe the bit in which trucy & pearl argue before that too, if you want? (thank you for the phoenix & maya friendship content)

you are so very welcome anon, I have like three default states and they’re dadworth, narumitsu, and phoenix+maya friendship... but the last one rarely comes up and that’s partially why I’m really glad you asked for something from this fic!! For that I’ll do the argument and a bit of the scene you’re talking about haha... underneath the keep reading here:

Pearl finished wiping at her eyes. Something was still bothering her about what Trucy said. “Um… Miss Trucy…”

“You can just call me Trucy, Pearls.”

“Um, okay, Trucy…” It was strange. She wasn’t used to calling people names without a title. “Why do you call Mr. Nick and Mystic Maya your… Daddy and your Mommy?”

One little thing I try to do with Trucy’s dialogue now that I’m not totally sure I did a year ago when I wrote this fic is have her adapt how she refers to people depending on who she’s talking to... like say if she’s talking to Phoenix she’ll call Pearl “Pearls” and when talking to Maya she’d call her “Pearly”. I see her being very quick to adapt to other people’s speech patterns to make herself as likable as possible, even at a young age, as part of the magician persona.

... I say all this not even entirely sure if Trucy does this in the fic? It’s 20k words and I’m not gonna go through it all to check haha, but that’s definitely a thing I started doing at some point.

Pearl on the other hand has been raised to be very formal by Morgan and put proper titles in front of everything, even nicknames (see: Mr. Nick and Mr. Scruffy Detective...) even then it’s a little hard for her to call someone her own age with a title (hence why she doesn’t do it in narration but does in her dialogue here). ... Thinking about it now, Trucy is probably the first person around Pearl’s age that she’s ever met, which is pretty depressing.

“Because they are,” said Trucy, like it was obvious. “Or they will be.”

“But they’re not going to be your real Daddy and Mommy, right?” Pearl pointed out.

Trucy’s expression got strangely serious. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well… Mystic Maya has Fey blood,” Pearl explained. “So… so her daughters are going to have Fey blood, too, and they can channel spirits like I can and like Mystic Maya can. But you can’t, so… you’re not going to be Mystic Maya’s real daughter.”

“But Daddy is my Daddy.” Trucy crossed her arms, and she was starting to look angry. “And whoever my Daddy marries is going to be my Mommy, right?”

Trucy “calls her new father ‘Daddy’ within 0.2 seconds of being unofficially adopted by him” Wright and Pearl “raised in Kurain Village” Fey probably have veeeery different attitudes towards how family works. A lot of it ties into my Kurain Village headcanons which haha I DEFINTIELY rambled on about in another commentary, so I won’t repeat most of it... but like I said then, it’s my belief that spiritual power being hereditary leads to a lot of attitudes on the importance of women with that spiritual power having biological children who will have that spiritual power. In Kurain Village, there’s no real “use” in a spirit medium adopting a child, since that child can’t inherit the legacy of the village.

And of course Pearl is super sheltered so I don’t even know if the concept of adoption really exists for her. In this fic she doesn’t even really understand the idea of how babies are made, because she is nine years old and extremely sheltered and you just know Morgan would refuse to answer any questions she may have for fear of exposing Pearl to “impure thoughts”. (When she’d just be asking a basic biological question. Then probably never got around to asking Maya or Phoenix.) So Pearl isn’t totally sure of the mechanisms but what she does understand is that for Trucy to have spiritual powers, Maya would have had to give birth to her, which she didn’t; and because Trucy doesn’t have spiritual powers she wouldn’t be recognized as a viable heir in the eyes of the village, and thus, can’t be considered Maya’s daughter. Pearl’s also feeling a fair bit of jealousy which I’ll get to in the next scene... but that’s also influencing her actions here.

Trucy, like I said before, seems to be pretty quick to just accepting new family as her own. I guess this may make sense coming from the Gramarye background... like I don’t think Valant and Zak were related, but he’s automatically her “Uncle Valant” despite that, so she already sees family as something that doesn’t need blood ties. But it’s also only been a few weeks since she came to live with Phoenix and is of course dealing with some unacknowledged trauma regarding her father abandoning her, so the insinuation that she doesn’t have a “real family” is getting to her a bit too.

They’re also babies so they can’t really understand or voice any of this.

“But… but not your real ones!” Pearl shouted.

“Why isn’t it real?” Trucy shouted in return.

“Because… because it isn’t!”

Trucy didn’t have anything to say to that. She just glared at Pearl for some time with her arms crossed. Pearl glared back. It wasn’t her fault if Trucy just didn’t understand something as simple as that.

“I’m going home,” Trucy muttered, and then turned on her heel and stormed off. Pearl sulked for a little bit, before beginning to feel overwhelmed by all the crowds, and then followed from a safe distance.

Admittedly children are very hard to write haha. They’re both dealing with a lot of stuff but as kids can’t really process it super well...? So I wanted their argument to come off pretty childishly, which makes sense since they are. eight and nine years old.

And I don’t really like kids much and don’t ever have much reason to spend time with them, so I don’t know how kids talk...? I attempted the best I could from my memory from ten years ago, and no one’s said anything about it being off haha.

Anyways... the scene after this is just supposed to provide some more context into the environment that Pearl grew up in and what she was taught from Morgan. I’m not going to go into too much detail about it because it wasn’t in the request, though. Key points are that Pearl grew up in an environment where it was expected that she would have biological children someday -- like, even moreso than society right now. And she’s expecting the same thing from Maya because of the environment she grew up in.

Okay, now for the part in the ask:

Trucy had already locked herself in her room by the time Pearl returned to the office, so Pearl sat on the couch with her knees to her chest and sulked. She didn’t want to fight with Trucy. If Trucy was going to be Mr. Nick and Mystic Maya’s kind-of-daughter, then she wanted to get along with her. She couldn’t bear it if Mr. Nick and Mystic Maya wanted to spend time with Trucy more than they wanted to spend time with her.

Kind of touching more on the jealousy Pearl feels towards Trucy -- she thinks that Trucy’s going to get to have Phoenix and Maya as parents (which is... half right) and that upsets her because, for the past few years, she’s pretty much been their “kid”. She worries that Trucy’s going to take her place.

Pearl buried her head further into her knees. She didn’t know anything about Trucy’s real mother and father… but it wasn’t fair for her to try and make Mr. Nick and Mystic Maya her real parents. Pearl couldn’t remember ever meeting her father, and her mother…

Her mother…

Sooo yeah this is all happening only a few months after Bridge to the Turnabout, which always makes me so sad about Pearl. Because I don’t think it was ever explained to her what her mother did, since she still seemed to be under the impression that Morgan would want what was best for Maya, hence why she went through with the letter. The realization that Morgan betrayed her and used her to hurt Maya probably crushed Pearl. She’s not going to get over that very easily.

And since Morgan was locked up Phoenix and Maya were probably as close to her own parents as she got. I’d say Phoenix would probably adopt her in a heartbeat if she asked. Maya probably sees her more like a little sister, since there’s the same age gap between Maya and Pearl that Mia and Maya have. But with Pearl’s current attitudes on family I don’t think she’d fully admit to herself that she wants Phoenix and Maya as her parents, so she’s pretty much abandoned by her biological parents and now fears she’ll be abandoned by her “new parents” - and kind of drags Trucy down with her in a sort of “if I can’t have them you can’t either” way. It’s more subconscious because Pearl isn’t a cruel person by nature, she’s just a grieving kid.

So... Pearl has no memory of her biological father, presumably he left before she could remember. He certainly doesn’t come up much in conversation. Morgan probably still hurts too much for her to think about, hence why she can’t quite finish her thoughts about what her mother did just now. The kid really does deserve good parental figures in her life, she just needs to change her attitudes a bit to see them for who they are.

Overall with this fic... it’s got a special place in my heart for the Phoenix and Maya friendship content obviously. Also, for a while, I wasn’t a huge fan of Pearl... partially because I don’t like kids, also her shipping opinions annoyed me... but then I sat down and realized I had 20k words of feelings about her? At the end of the day she DEFINITELY deserved better and I will fistfight Morgan in a parking lot for her sake. A lot of this fic was kind of dumping my Kurain Village headcanons onto the floor and shouting “LOOK AT THESE!!” while also being able to write Phoenix and Maya friendship from a perspective clouded by heteronormativity and also emphasizing the importance of platonic and familial types of love being just as if not more powerful than romantic love... which are all things that are really up my alley. 

... And of course it’s the least popular of my fics because it’s a 20,000+ word one-shot that doesn’t have any ships. I know I sometimes browse around and see a long fic and go “wow! why don’t you split those into chapters!” like a hypocrite. So I’m not surprised, but that just makes me even more thankful that you’re asking about it? So... thank you! It’s midnight now and I don’t know how coherent this whole thing was but I really appreciate it!!

[unnecessarygayfeelings]

Finished my Farafey fanficton! Here’s a link to it on ao3, but I know not everyone uses that, so I’ll post it here under the read more. No content warnings (there’s a small mention of alcohol, but no one is intoxicated), just 2k words of fluff. This is for the Farafey micronation especially @aquilamage because she has epic content that inspires me a lot.

Lavender Lip Gloss

It was new year's eve and Kay was going to be late to the party because her roommate was hogging the bathroom.

Kay should be used to this, really. Ever since she and Sebastian decided to rent an apartment together at the ripe old age of nineteen, she became well aware of her friend's quirks. But she could handle the misplaced pens, loud classical music, and endless pacing at ungodly hours of the night. She would be a hypocrite if she judged him, though. Half of the pens they owned were probably on her desk, and in the early mornings she liked to sing her favourite pop songs in the shower. They argued about who was the cause of their the noise complaints every time they received one.

They've been roommates for years now. Kay was used to Sebastian's habits... except for one.

"Seb, leave the goddamn door open when you're just fixing your hair! I need the hairspray!"

It took a long time for Sebastian to break the habit of placing barriers between them when it wasn't necessary (Kay had grown up in a home with open doors and open hearts; she wants the same for Sebastian), and eventually he stopped locking the door behind him every time he entered a room. Kay respected Sebastian's need for privacy. But she also respected their friendship, and that's why she knew that what she was about to do was not only expected, but acceptable in their tiny apartment. She took a step back, lifted her leg and opened the door with one swift kick.

There was a high-pitched yelp from Sebastian, who had styling gel on his hands, a strand of hair sticking up on his head, and an unimpressed expression on his face as he saw Kay's triumphant smile. "I-I was almost done!"

"You always say that, and then you end up taking another thirty minutes," Kay replied, grabbing her hair spray and securing her high ponytail right there. Sebastian's face scrunched at the smell. She sprayed a little bit of the product in his hair, too. They both laughed, doing the finishing touches on both of their party looks together.

After a final once-over from each of them ("The green button-up was a good choice, right, Kay?" "Yeah, but what about this silver skirt?"), they were ready to go to the new year's party. It was at Miles's house this year, and if they both weren't used to bothering him at every location possible, it might have felt a bit weird to party at the boss's place.

When they arrived at Miles's house, the host himself greets them. Although he does look genuinely pleased to see them, his smile turns strained when Kay tells him to "prepare for trouble, and make it double". While Sebastian is making small talk with Edgeworth, Kay lets her mind trail elsewhere— to the reason she was so eager to get to the party in the first place.

Maya Fey had been in Kura'in for a while now. Despite their friendship being long-distance, they were still very close. Their bond was just as strong as Kay's with Sebastian, although she felt very different about Maya than him. Kay's heart soared every time her phone dinged with a new message. She circled dates on the calendar with a violet marker whenever they planned to video chat. The time difference was brutal, but Kay would gladly stay up late just to hear Maya's voice.

"Waiting for s-someone special?" Sebastian's teasing voice broke Kay out of her thoughts. She hadn't even realized that Miles was long gone. The only one next to her was her best friend, who was looking extra smug. Of course Sebastian knew about her crush. He was the one Kay would go to at one in the morning, bombarding him with texts and asking him if he thought there was a deeper meaning to them. The deeper meaning, he would tell her, is that you both like each other and it's only a matter of time before one of you make a move. He was being ridiculous, of course. Just because Maya called her pretty and laughed a little too loud at her jokes and had a purple heart emoji next to her contact name didn't mean anything.

Okay, it definitely meant something, but Kay wasn't going to take the first step and confess or anything because... she was shy. Ugh. She wasn't used to being shy. Sebastian was the shy one, not her. But Kay hadn't seen Maya in person in what felt like forever (it had been six months), so who knows. Maybe she would make a move.

"Hey, there she is!"

Kay's head shot up, pure enthusiasm with a twinge of anxiousness filling her whole body. She looked to where Sebastian was pointing, and there she was.

Maya Fey was here. Maya Fey was looking around the room. Maya Fey was making eye contact with her. Maya Fey was walking towards her.

"Hey!" Maya Fey's voice sounded so much more real when it wasn't through a speakerphone, all light and chipper. Kay wasn't sure how she'd survive the night, let alone make a move.

"Hi, Maya!" Sebastian greeted, holding out his arms and allowing a brief hug. Maya showed her affection through touch: high fives, hair ruffles, and hand holding. Kay was the same which was one of the reasons why their long distance communication was difficult. You couldn't embrace someone through a screen.

Then Maya turned towards her, arms outstretched, and Kay found herself being pulled in like a magnet. Maya's hugs were warm and welcoming. She didn't miss how they both lingered, the hug lasting many seconds longer than a hug Kay would have with any other friend, even Sebastian. But eventually they had to (slowly) pull away.

"It seems like forever since I've seen you!" Maya exclaimed, looking up at Kay with a big grin. "You look great! I love your skirt!"

Kay's brain seemed to short-circuit. Maya was wearing a cute pink party dress and her long hair was in its usual style, decorated with sparkly hair clips. Her lips were shiny with a purple gloss. It was a light shade, like lavender. Was this weird, just staring at her lips? She needed to respond before it got weird. "Thanks! I love your lip gloss!"

Okay, so now Maya had solid proof that she was staring at her lips. Oops. But Maya just smiled at her. "Haha, thanks! Do you guys want a drink? I saw Miles bought the good champagne."

Had he? Kay didn't even notice. Sebastian nods and then a minute later Maya is offering her a drink. Kay takes the glass, and tries not to think about the brush of Maya's fingers against hers too much.

Conversation is easy. Maya asks what they've been up to since the last time they talked. Kay feels like this question is more for Sebastian, since her and Maya just talked this morning on the phone. Sebastian tells her about his latest case (not a murder, thankfully), and Kay includes details from her perspective as the detective assigned. She's sure she had mentioned this case to Maya before, but Maya seems very interested anyways.

When they ask what news Maya has, she perks up tremendously. "I've finally mastered the bowl without falling on my face!"

Recently, Maya has taken up skateboarding while in Kura'in. Pearl has been the one teaching her; she was very talented, and had a cool skateboard with a flame design on the sides. Kay had been blessed with many cute selfies of Maya in her skating gear (lavender knee and elbow pads, and a florescent pink helmet that could probably blind a person if they stared too long at it) and ten second clips of her skating around in sunglasses, striking poses at the camera. Maya was a beginner but she refused to give up, despite the constant complaining of bumps and bruises from falling all the time.

"Really?" Kay gasps. She's received many texts about the bowl, and according to Maya it was one of the most difficult things to master in her life. ("It's harder than channeling spirits, Kay! Stop laughing, it's the truth!") Kay had never skateboarded before so she felt like she couldn't judge but it certainly didn't look easy.

Maya quickly pulls her phone out of her dress pocket. "Let me show you. Pearly got it on tape! Proof that I'm not making it up to sound cool or anything."

Kay believed her. Maya wouldn't need to make stuff up to sound cool. She unlocked her phone (Kay felt herself blush at the lockscreen— it's a selfie that they had taken the last time Kay was in Kura'in, a trip that was impulsive and expensive but she didn't regret it one bit) and pulled up a video of Maya on top of the bowl. Pearl can be heard off-camera shouting encouragement. Then Maya adjusts her helmet, balances herself on her board, and slides down the bowl in one swift movement. She skids to a stop once she's on the ground. The last thing they hear before the video cuts out is Maya and Pearl screaming with excitement.

"That's so cool!" Kay exclaims, genuinely impressed.

Sebastian's eyes are nearly bugging out of his head. "Whoa! You look like a pro-professional skateboarder!"

"Yeah, this makes all the times I fell down on my butt worth it," Maya says, grinning from ear to ear. They talk some more before Maya goes to mingle with an old friend.

"Hey, do either of you know where Nick is? I want to bug him before the year ends."

Sebastian points Phoenix out across the room, where he is currently distracted by his daughter Trucy pulling an comically long scarf out of the tiny pocket on her blouse. A mischievous smile, a wave of her hand, and Maya's off.

There's a brief silence as they watch Maya leave. Sebastian turns to Kay with the same shit-eating grin he has when he's about to say something clever. "Kay? I diagnose you with gay. Lesbianism, if you want to be specific."

Kay groans. "I know, I know."

"Well, it's clear that she likes you, too, so I don't see what the con-conundrum is."

Kay believed that she was a relatively logical person. Her field of work made use of that trait, tested it. And now she was being presented with more evidence and a restless witness. The pieces fit together perfectly— Maya Fey liked her. The only question was what she going to do with this information.

"Was I... obvious about it?"

Sebastian raises his eyebrow. Takes a long sip of of his drink. "Is that a trick question?"

Not everyone Mr. Edgeworth invited was at the party, but the house is noisy regardless. Friends and acquaintances are talking in groups, there's music coming from an unknown source, the television is playing a new year's special, and Kay's heart is beating up a storm. Despite all of the activity, Kay thinks her heart is the loudest thing in this place.

Sebastian is tapping his fingers against the table next to them. Another noise, although it's muffled by the black gloves he's wearing. "Well, I know you don't like champagne."

Kay looks down at the drink Maya gave her, still full. The condensation from the glass mixes with the sweat on her palm. The feeling of Maya's hand brushing against hers lingers.

In the distance, Maya nudges Phoenix roughly in the side, and his drink splashes on his shirt. Maya laughs and then points at the stain, exclaiming loudly that it kind of looks like the Blue Badger. Phoenix seems to push his annoyance aside to carefully examine his sleeve. Maya calls other people over to look, a light yet determined expression on her face, and Kay can feel herself fall a little more in love.

...

The flashy countdown screen on the TV lights up, signaling the last minute of the year. Kay smiles and swirls the untouched champagne in her glass. She's lost in the way the tiny bubbles cling onto the sides of the cup until something distracts her. Or more accurately, someone.

"Hey," Maya says, placing her own glass on the table in front of them.

"Hey," Kay echoes back intelligently. She places her glass next to Maya's as her friend (she ignores the tightening in her chest when she calls her that; she's not sure there's a single word in this world to describe what Maya is to her) sits down next to her.

There's a moment of silence between them. Maya smells like jasmine and nostalgia. Kay wants to look but she's glowing like the sun, so she decides to play it safe and stare ahead. She sees Sebastian and Klavier talking about something, but she can't concentrate enough on their voices to know the topic.

Maya's voice snaps Kay out of her trance. "Happy new year."

For a split second, Kay thinks she miscounted the seconds, and missed the celebration. She checks the television quickly, and sighs with relief. "You're about thirty seconds too early, but I appreciate your enthusiasm." Then she had to use all of her strength to resist the urge to kick herself for sounding so weird.

"Oh." Cheeks flushed red for sure, Kay risks a glance at Maya. She doesn't regret it. She doesn't think she'll ever get tired of seeing Maya smile. "Happy new year's eve, then?"

She barely pulls herself together before responding in a passably-normal-although-probably-too-eager tone. "Yeah! Happy new year's eve!"

Maya laughs at that, and Kay can physically feel her heart soar. She knows it's bad to look at the sun but she can't help it, and within seconds she's pretty sure she could map out all the freckles on Maya's face. Kay stares too long to pass as normal and she knows it. But Maya is staring, too.

"TEN SECONDS!" Kay doesn't recognizes whose enthusiastic yelling the voice belongs to, but she doesn't even bother tearing her eyes away from Maya.

Ten.

Maya is sitting so close to her that their thighs are touching. How did Kay not notice that until now?

Nine.

Maya hesitantly reaches over and touches Kay's hand with her own.

Eight.

Her hand is shaking slightly. It's sweaty, too. Kay doesn't complain. She's probably the same.

Seven.

Kay curls their fingers together. She can't seem to stop smiling.

Six.

There's no denying it. The walls between them tumble down to reveal something a bit more than friendship, a bit more than just simple attraction.

Five.

Kay wants to say something, anything, but she's been rendered speechless. She's pretty sure she looks ridiculous. Ridiculously lovestruck.

Four.

Maya's other hand reaches over to brush Kay's hair out of her face, and her touch lingers near her cheek.

Three.

There's a line that they haven't neared, trying to maintain their friendship. Maya is standing at the edge of it, threatening to cross over.

Two.

Maya tilts her head, leans in, and closes her eyes. Kay can't hear the music over her heartbeat pounding in her ears.

One.

Kay closes her eyes, leans in, and unconsciously holds her breath.

"HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

Their lips met, and Kay smudges Maya's lavender lip gloss.

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

the branches and the roots

post-Spirit of Justice. Maya, still in Khura’in, looks in old records hoping to learn a little more about her family.

[on ao3]

----

The heavy wooden door, when it creaks open, dislodges pounds of dust from its frame and its intricately carved face. Maya sneezes into the sleeve of her robe. She lifts her face up out of it, stares into the dark windowless room ahead of her, and sneezes again. 

“Just wait a moment, if you think it is dusty now,” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi says. 

He told her to call him Nahyuta, so there’s a teasing Cuz or Yuty on the tip of her tongue, because family is family however distant, and family she calls things like Sis and Pearly and Nick. But she can’t quite access it. The tip of her tongue hits the back of her teeth and her jaw sticks shut and she’s avoided addressing him as anything. Plus he still calls her Miss Fey so it’s not like he’s figured it out either. 

She covers her face with her sleeve. “Okay,” she says. “I’m ready.”

Prosecutor Sahdmadhi arches one perfect eyebrow. He reminds Maya of what all the hanging scrolls of the former Masters depict; the old portraits are consolidated in the manor, a forest of women whose flaws are brushed away as they are enshrined in traditional inked artistry. He, and his mother, unreal, beautiful, the kind of elegance that Maya was told all her life to emulate and never could. The kind of regal grace that Pearly performed as soon as she was able to walk. 

(Poor perfect Pearl, such a prodigy, but of the branch family, forever damned to be nothing. Morgan was the only one who acted on making Pearl the Master, but Maya knows with the way other elders of the family looked at her when she started spending longer and longer stints down in the city, months at a time with Nick, that they hoped she’d be just like her mother and never come back. That the city would eat her too.)

They step into the darkness, their only light a flashlight that Maya holds, and a lantern Prosecutor Sahdmadhi brought. “I wonder when it was someone last came down here,” he says. His voice is muffled a little by his scarf pulled over his face to shield him from the initial wave of dust. The orange-ish lantern-light turns his skin and his hair and his clothes gold, all gold, and warm and alive, a reminder that this is not a tomb and they are not buried. “I suppose I can get estimate a range…”

He turns to the shelves on the left, closest to the door, and picks up the first scroll-container there. This dusty room in the basement of the palace - Maya kept calling it the dungeons, and Nahyuta didn’t laugh, and she felt a pang of homesickness for the family that laughs at all her stupid jokes, and then she wondered if there are actual dungeons that Ga’ran and Inga used and that’s why he didn’t laugh, and her homesickness turns to sorrow - is an archive, of a sort, but the only information they are keen on recording in here is geneaology. Carefully preserved scrolls sit stacked on shelves around the room’s walls, a number she can’t estimate because she can’t see them all at once swinging the flashlight all around. A solid-looking wooden table stands in the center of the room. Prosecutor Sahdmadhi sets his lantern down there and spreads out the scroll. 

“How did anyone do anything down here before batteries existed?” Maya asks. She shines her flashlight up at the ceiling, almost expecting to find eyes or a face leering down at her, like this is a horror movie and not still part of a very lived-in palace. Much as this room hasn’t been lived-in, or walked in, and certainly not vacuumed or dusted in. 

“There are oil lamp holders on the walls,” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi answers. “And candles.” He doesn’t quite sound disparaging but he’s pretty close to it. 

“And risk setting everything on fire?” Thousands of years of the royal line up in smoke because someone was clumsy. Someone like Maya, who makes movements too quick and too big and takes up space in an unrefined manner. 

Prosecutor Sahdmadhi doesn’t answer and moments later he’s murmuring, almost to himself, “So it’s been at least fifteen years since someone cared to come here and update anything,” he says.

“What do you mean?” Maya lowers her flashlight from examining the lamp holders on the walls so she won’t shine it straight in his eyes and approaches the table, to where he is pointing at something. The names are tricky to decipher, even after two years of extremely immersive study of Khura’inese, but one she knows is Ga’ran’s even without the little crown drawn above it, and the other is very, very long, so that must be Inga. A family tree.

Prosecutor Sahdmadhi taps his fingers between the two names, where a line is drawn between them to signify marriage, but no other line extends from that one, no other name beneath theirs. “They never put Rayfa down as their child, or as existing at all. There were rather more pressing matters when kidnapping your sister’s daughter, and forcing your sister to live as a nursemaid and your double, else you’ll kill them both.”

He says it all so dry, deadpan, because he must have gotten used to living with that over his head, become resigned to the reality of that, the way Nick almost laughs when he’s talking about his poker-playing years even if it’s an obviously bitter laugh, and like with Nick, Maya wants to hug him, but she doesn’t think he’d appreciate that. Certainly she would ask first but he’s already saying something else and the time for asking is passed. “This will have to be redone afresh on a new scroll.”

“Why?” Maya asks. “They didn’t write the princess down at all, so you could just add her under—”

Under your parents, but her eyes follow his fingers brushing across the parchment and all the muscles in his hand tighten when he reaches his mother’s name and the blackened, burned holes next to and beneath her name.

“Another reason candles are so practical for this work of genealogy,” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi says, and this time he isn’t dry or deadpan. His voice is dripping, anger barely contained, not swallowed and barely held in his mouth to stop him from spitting that fury that’s justified if unbecoming of a monk and prince regent. (Unbecoming of a Master, too. Maya’s spent two years in Khura’in trying to learn to be the Master, and she’s a stronger medium than ever but she still only sometimes knows how she’s supposed to act, how to become the Master and not Maya. Maya has too many feelings, Maya has too much righteous indignation to be as calm as the Master is supposed to be, but Her Benevolence Princess Rayfa is also full of fury and still a beloved princess, so maybe that’s okay. To feel things. To be angry.) “Fire right at hand to burn out the sinful heretics.”

“Cut off the branches,” Maya says. Morgan tried to do that literally, with her last plan, pruning the tree violently, and Ga’ran literally used fire to burn the Sahdmadhis out of the royal family. “You were a baby. You didn’t do anything wrong. You were as much the queen’s child as you were Dhurke’s.”

“I’m sure there would have been some contention over my expulsion from the family had I been a girl,” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi says. “You can’t turn a potential medium loose into rebel hands, after all. But I wasn’t, and so the only blood of mine that mattered was that of my allegedly criminal father.”

“How did you ever become a prosecutor like that?” she asks. She asked to come down here searching for something about their family long ago, wanting to find the place where Khura’in and Kurain broke apart forever, but the affairs of a thousand years ago suddenly pale in importance to what happened a month ago. What happened fifteen years ago, and twenty-three years ago. Living family more important than the dead. 

(Especially since she hasn’t ever gotten the chance to speak with Nahyuta one-on-one before. Not even talk with him and Princess Rayfa and Queen Amara together. Prosecutor Prince-Regent Sahdmadhi seems to be everywhere at once, trying to do everything all at once, the way his brother is trying to take up every criminal and civil defense all at once. Maya’s spent more time with Apollo than she expected to, but she’s got more legal experience than Datz and Ahlbi who are also trying to help him run his law office, and they need someone who knows all about it. Putting on the skin of co-counsel and legal assistant is easier than trying to find the skin of Master. And she wants to help her family, and Apollo is family, two different ways. Via Nick, and via her distant Khurainese cousins.)

“When I emerged from the woods claiming to renounce the rebels and wanting to work as a prosecutor to bring an end to them” - Prosecutor Sahdmadhi snorts, his hands curling tight around the edge of the table - “Ga’ran made a great show of being a benevolent queen willing to forgive the child of her sister’s murderer and integrate him into her regime’s legal system. And then she dragged me out of earshot of her guards and snapped a leash around my neck and told me it would be Rayfa’s noose if I ever dared step out of line.”

Maya thinks of Shelley de Killer. A sword hanging overhead to force the desired result. Her mouth is dry. She nods. Prosecutor Sahdmadhi isn’t even looking at her anyway. “Her claims of forgiveness changed the minds of no other prosecutor, and there is a reason I started prosecuting internationally. Not just because there was no fear of facing my father’s friends on the stand and damning them in this farce of justice, but because my colleagues would not be cruel for my name, and because the leash choked me a little less when I did not have Ga’ran’s eyes constantly on me. Do you know, some of the other Khura’inese prosecutors called it favoritism that she had for me. Special treatment, that she often called me to the palace, tasked me with giving the princess a cursory understanding of the legal system or assisting her at crime scenes - it was all a sick game to her. I could spend time with my sister and no one must ever know it. I imagine she enjoyed watching me try to stay detached. Watching me squirm.”

“She’s a monster,” Maya says. 

“Unfortunately not.” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi rolls the scroll back up, his fingers tight around it crumpling it, because this sheet is already tainted, already wrong, and it doesn’t matter if he ruins it. “She’s human, just as the rest of us are.” He sets the scroll aside, near his lantern, rather than put it back. There’s no reason to put it back when it needs to be redone. She wonders if he’ll burn Ga’ran and Inga out of the tree in retaliation. Like Pearly splattering gravy on the hanging scroll of her mother - destroy the records of the family that some other family didn’t want around. She doubts it, somehow, that Prosecutor Sahdmadhi would do that. 

“Now,” he says, curtly, businesslike, like a prosecutor, “this ancestor of ours who founded your channeling school, how long ago did she live?”

-

There is not necessarily a guarantee that Ami Fey will appear anywhere in the genealogy of the Khura’inese royals. It may have been her mother or grandmother who left for Japan, and simply Ami who once there decided to turn their spiritual power again into real power, not as a queen but as a Master. A wise woman with the wisdom of the dead in hand. Or Ami Fey may not have been known as Ami in Khura’in; it may have been a name she took upon leaving. 

Or she may, as they come to realize, have been a branch burned from the tree for leaving and taking their spiritual secrets with her. 

“I suppose this must be her, then,” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi says, “as we have been through everything else and…” He gestures at the shelves on either side of them. They have searched the generations that lie around the era that Ami should have lived, finding no trace of her name or a Khura’inese equivalent. What they have found, what Prosecutor Sahdmadhi concludes is the junction where their families broke apart, is another searing burn, blackened edges of a hole through the parchment, the sole person to have been stricken from the family in half a dozen generations on either side. A daughter; in the scorch marks, when they squint, the light right on the page, both of them hunched over it and struggling to keep their long hair out of the way, they can see that this disavowed disgrace was a daughter. 

“Her,” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi repeats, “or whoever came to bore her, and taught her of the powers of our bloodline. Perhaps she had only some limited knowledge some mothers before her carried out of our homeland, that she came to make her own.”

Our homeland. Does he mean that Khura’in is home to her? It is tradition in the village for the Master to study in Khura’in; did her mother think of it as her homeland? (Did she keep secret her blood’s connection to the royal family? It would have been Amara’s mother on the throne then. How did she rule - did she lay down a hand of fear that would have left Misty cautious to confess her identity, as Maya had been?) What is home - is it Kurain, or Khura’in, or Los Angeles? Is it the village she grew up in, or the city where she found her truest self? She and Apollo share a fond longing for the perks of the city, of one kind of home, and the confusion of not knowing whether to call that place home, or instead consider home the place in the mountains where each of them formed their first memories. 

“They disowned her for leaving, then,” Maya says. “They - they do that too, in my village. If you’re gone for twenty years, you’re considered dead and stripped of your rank and titles and - everything.” That’s what they say, anyway. No one has actually fully disappeared like that to test it. Her mother almost had, and then Maya would have found out whether the elders truly meant to erase Misty from the halls of the manor and the scrolls of the Masters, or simply, finally, pass her title along.

“Spirit channeling is a powerful tool, jealously guarded by individuals who want to hoard that power for themselves,” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi says. “For there to be some outsider who know the secret undermines its exclusivity and its power. It does not surprise me that the act of leaving would so be considered a betrayal, enough to leave one little more than ashes.” He touches his fingertips to the parchment. 

“Or gravy,” Maya says. Prosecutor Sahdmadhi’s eyes dart suspiciously toward her. “Never mind,” she adds hurriedly. “So then, um, we read these right to left, when it comes to ages?”

Prosecutor Sahdmadhi nods. He taps his fingers along all of the other names in a row with the burn mark, the siblings of this persona non grata, and then the row up above, their mother’s siblings. “Yes,” he says. “And our subject here was the youngest daughter of a youngest daughter, and each of them with several sisters. Ami - we will presume, for ease of referring to her, that this was your Ami who has been stricken from the tree - had nothing in her future, no position of prestige or power waiting for her.” He sighs, stepping back, closing his bright eyes and pondering for a moment, as though he may begin a recitation. “Our royal line and our country was founded on a story of two sisters - the elder, a medium so powerful she was revered as a goddess by the people she led, and the younger, who lacked the power to channel spirits but nonetheless stood as the country’s loyal and beloved protector.”

His eyes open. “It should be a position of honor, even to be a younger sister, or even to be one who could not channel. But somewhere that was lost, and being unable to channel or become queen became a source of great shame - as though the only worthy and admirable position there ever is to hold is Queen.” Shaking his head, he continues, “My aunt should have been our people’s great protector, our country’s loyal guardian. Instead she nearly destroyed us, out of jealousy, because our family has come to be such a way that for younger daughters such as Ga’ran and Ami, no future awaits.”

The equating of the two of them - Kurain Village’s revered founder, and the evil queen - makes Maya uncomfortable. Yes, they were both the younger sister, as was Lady Kee’ra, and Lady Kee’ra the younger of two as Ga’ran was, but that is all that Ga’ran shares with either of them. And that is all that Ga’ran shares with—

“I’m the younger daughter,” Maya says. Prosecutor Sahdmadhi looks at her straight on again. Honestly, even Maya has gotten bored sometimes - often - with Kurain Village genealogy and whatever else, even while she’s come to be curious about Khura’in. She wouldn’t blame Prosecutor Sadhmadhi for not wanting to hear it. But he appears genuinely intrigued by what Maya has just said, to be waiting for her to continue telling him about her family tree in Kurain. Something in his eyes urges her to continue, but she can’t get more than one more sentence out through the tightness in her throat. “And so was my mother, the Master of the village before me.”

“What happened?” he asks. She wonders what his guess is. It would be reasonable to assume that they both had older sisters who died - reasonable in any other family, but they are not any other family, the Feys and the royals. If there’s anyone in the world who could make a guess that lands close to the truth of all that Morgan Fey did, it would be Nahyuta. He could know.

And she knows when she tells him, he’ll understand. “Aunt Morgan, my mom’s older sister, wasn’t a very powerful medium. So when the elders convened, they passed her by and gave the title of Master to my mother. And Aunt Morgan had been counting on the power and status that being Master would give, and her husband had too. Her - her first husband.” The implication there tells the rest of that story. It’s exactly what Prosecutor Sahdmadhi can assume it is. “And then my mother was consulted on a murder case, and was disgraced, and she decided that should mean that she should disappear—”

“That was the DL-6 incident of 2001, yes?” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi asks. Maya blinks. “After we witnessed your channeling prowess in your trial, and I returned to Los Angeles, I researched Kurain Village and your family.”

Yes, she was going to tell him about it all - but something about the fact that he already knows it feels like a betrayal of trust. Like she was going to welcome him into her house and then he pushed past her and pulled out a copy of her front door key and used it because he’d stolen it from her a week ago and had a copy made. Except in this analogy her key is a matter of public record. “So you know about all about that ton of murder cases we’ve been caught up in,” she says, and the words still fall out of her mouth bitter. 

“Your aunt tried to frame you for murder,” he replies.

“Guess why.” That sounds bitter as well, but she didn’t mean it to. Morgan’s motive wasn’t part of the actual case as was presented in court, as became part of the transcript. But Nahyuta could know.

“I suppose I may reason that she had, at that point a daughter capable of channeling, whose only path to inheriting the title was through you.” He speaks with confidence, but his expression is puzzled. He wouldn’t know why she has suddenly soured on the conversation. She shouldn’t be mad - it saves her at least ten minutes of explanation if he knows DL-6, and then the incident in Kurain Village, beforehand - but that emotion reared its stupid head anyway. 

“My cousin Pearly,” Maya says, shaking off her frustration. She can’t stay mad at one of the few people who can truly understand. “She’s about as strong as me and ten years younger. A real prodigy. But she was - we call it the branch family, the ones descended from whichever sisters didn’t become Master. And branch family meant, she’d be nothing. She doesn’t care about the titles, but Aunt Morgan sure did.”

“And your aunt was the older daughter,” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi muses. “And passed by despite it. She acted as she did because you were the one to inherit the title - yet you are, as you said, the younger daughter, who should not have had that in her future.” He doesn’t ask a question, but his tone and his eyes make it clear that this is an inquiry.

“You said you researched my family,” Maya says. His family too, at a distance. “If you dredged up every court case with a Fey involved, you know why. You know why this younger daughter gets the title, and it wasn’t anything about who was the stronger medium.”

“I am sure I do,” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi says, “but please, I would like to hear from you - tell me about your sister.”

Maya swallows the lump in her throat and blinks to dispel the burning behind her eyes. “She was amazing,” she says. “She was - she left the village, for me. To try and find our mother, and so she wouldn’t have to compete with me to be Master. So we wouldn’t end up hating each other like our mom and Aunt Morgan did.” Her eyes burn again, after a few seconds’ respite. “I hated her sometimes anyway, for leaving me alone, but that was different than hating her like - like our moms and aunts.”

The plural emerges from her lips without really thinking, but when she does think, she realizes she doesn’t know how her mom felt about Morgan. Did she hate her for all she tried to do? Or did she love her older sister with both pity and anger instead? How did Misty and Morgan feel about each other when they were children? Did Ga’ran love her older sister or spare her only out of the practicality of needing a stand-in to channel spirits? 

“She was a defense attorney,” Maya adds, knowing that Prosecutor Sahdmadhi knows it, but now he can hear it from her, like he asked. “She was Nick’s mentor, and she saved him, and she taught him all of his tricks that he used to beat you.” She grins, despite herself. A faint shadow of a smile crosses Nahyuta’s face. He’s glad he lost. She knows that now. “I wish you could’ve met her.”

The smile fades. “Do you?” he asks. “I put you through hell, and that I did it because I thought it the only way to protect my sister is no excuse, one I cannot imagine her tolerating, not when I am sure that she too must so have loved her own sister.”

Maya runs her hand over the beads of her necklace. Mia wore a magatama until the day she died, and every day she returned after; she kept that connection to a home that she abandoned not because she hated the place, but because she loved who remained there. “I’ve been accused of murder a lot,” Maya says. “Like, a lot, you know.” She glances away from him, doesn’t see if he nods. “And you know, some of the prosecutors who did that, tried so hard to get me convicted of murder because they had perfect win records to maintain?” Tried to act as heartless demons like Nahyuta did, because it’s easier that way, easier to turn cold, to never feel. “We became friends. And are, still.” Edgeworth paid for the flight, after all. “I forgave them. I forgive you. I’m sure Sis would too.”

“You think so?” Nahyuta asks. He sounds honestly concerned that a woman who’s been dead for more than a decade wouldn’t like him. 

“Yeah,” Maya says. “She - I mean, she had experience with the blackmail thing. She spent years on a case like that. Building a case against the horrible man who leaked the news of our mother’s involvement in DL-6 to the press, building up evidence of all of the people he blackmailed to suicide and ruin. She knows you have to strike at the top. And she’d know that you loved your sister. That - that does mean something.” 

They didn’t talk about it, really, but Maya knows that, like she herself did, Mia forgave Godot-Diego for his stupid, prideful plan that ended with him killing their mother. People with good intentions and hurting hearts do ugly, painful things for love. People get trapped and can’t see another way out. She’s forgiven Tahrust Inmee for framing her for murder. People do desperate, mad things for love. Khura’in is a country of mountains and on another mountain on the other side of the sea, years ago, Maya learned a lot that she carries with her.

“Did she ever find your mother?” Nahyuta asks softly. She thinks he must be thinking about his own lost mother who he only just found. She imagines the anguish he felt when she was shot, not knowing if he would ever see her again to catch up on the lost years. She remembers lying on a courthouse couch, her sister with Pearly’s robes smoothing Maya’s hair back from her face and telling her that their mother is dead. Maya remembers not knowing how to mourn a woman she never knew and couldn’t recognize. Nahyuta knew his mother for a time when he was old enough to remember; his situation wasn’t the same, and it didn’t end the same, and Maya is so glad for it.

“No,” Maya says, and Nahyuta’s eyes sadden. “She - she didn’t. Sis thought, I guess, that - 

that if she could find out and expose that blackmailer for everything he’d done, then - then our mother would come out of hiding, I guess. Would come home. And instead, that horrible, horrible man murdered my sister, and tried to frame me, and Nick, for it.” 

There it is again, the pain behind her eyes of sharp tears gathering. “Nick and I took him down but it was too late for Sis. And she was so - she was so young, I keep thinking now, because I’m - I’m older than she was when she died. Does that make me not the younger sister, anymore? I’m older than my older sister. Am I - what am I, then, by birthright? Of course I’m going to be the Master someday, because I’m - I’m the oldest daughter now, aren’t I? Only because I’m the one that lived.”

Nahyuta doesn’t say anything. What is there to say? More than almost anyone else in the entire world - more than anyone but Queen Amara herself - he understands, has lived such a same awful nightmare, and there’s nothing to say. There’s no consolation.

“Sometimes I think I shouldn’t have kids,” Maya adds. “Most of the time I think it. And if Pearly didn’t either we could just - put an end to this. Is it worth it? For the world to have this - us, to channel the dead, is it worth it if it keeps ruining the living?” How many more neglected sons and dead daughters will their bloodline see? Why are they the sacrifice for this power to continue to exist? Why should the dead be prioritized over the living mediums who call them back?

“Maybe I’ll adopt,” she says. “If I ever want kids. Like - Nick adopting a kid worked out really well for them both. Then I could get to have kids without perpetuating this - this cycle.”

“Our shared blood spilled again and again,” Nahyuta says.

“One of my cousins, who can’t even channel, still became a nun because our family is so fucked up,” Maya says. And that’s a bit of a simplification of Iris’ choice and situation, but it’s also exactly what happened, isn’t it? Shut herself away to atone for the crime of loving her sister and also those other crimes - willing to do whatever it took to protect Maya from Morgan’s plot because she knew no other way to atone for the sins of herself and her sister and mother. “I don’t know. Am I overreacting to say that we need to swear a pact, like you and me and Pearly and Her Benevolence, to not have any biological children so that we can end the bloodline? Like is that - is that blaming the wrong thing? The blood and not—”

Not us? 

“Is our family always so damned to turn out this way?” Nahyuta asks, rephrasing her fumbling questions so elegantly. “Do we have a choice in what we become? Or say perhaps we should swear to do better - and perhaps we do, for a generation or two. And then what? The Holy Mother and Lady Kee’ra gave us the best example they could of how to protect Khura’in, how to rule and serve its people while loving each other, and look how that became corrupted. Look how Lady Ami left, and her descendants set out across the sea, and still in your faraway village older and younger sisters go to war with each other.” He gives her a sad smile, his eyes even sadder. “Of course it seems the inevitable fate of our bloodline, given what both your branch and mine have lived through, Cousin.”

“Shit sucks,” Maya says. She needs to ask Datz to teach her some good curses in Khura’inese. All she knows is how to damn people to various hells, and sometimes that just isn’t the vibe she’s going for with her swearing. 

Nahyuta laughs softly. “Indeed it does.”

Maya reaches out and pulls the scroll back closer to her. Ami, the daughter who founded her branch of their ancient family, nothing more than a nameless scorch mark. What else should Maya have expected to find? She knows how her family is, home and here. Why not a thousand years ago, the same? She should have expected it, the fire and the pruned branches. Then and now.

“Does that mean you’re on board with the no-kids pact?” She glances back at Nahyuta. “Or do I just like, really not want kids actually and I’m just trying to find justifiable excuses when ‘I don’t want kids’ can be its own excuse?” She’s babbling. The Master is not supposed to babble. “Have you ever thought about if you want—?”

Something dark and sad crosses his face. “I have no idea what I ‘want’,” he says, making a sarcastic quotation mark in the air with one hand, and Maya almost laughs because that’s some of the most informal expressiveness she’s ever seen from him. “Until a very recent time, all I could hope to ‘want’ for the future was that I would die before I was thirty and be freed of this, for no hell in death I’ve ever heard of could be worse than the one I lived.”

Maya regrets asking. “Oh,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

“I suppose that is some argument in support of your suggestion,” he continues, like the way Nick talks about being disbarred, where he blithely talks past anyone’s sympathy or acknowledgement of how fucked up it was. “Given that it was a hell my own aunt made for me. Is there anything else you wished to examine down here?”

Nick talks past it because he can’t let himself pause to consider how fucked up it was, because he’s treading water and has to keep moving and if he stops to think he’ll drown. Maya knows this because she’s done the same. She kept a smile on her face and kept moving because she had to keep Pearly’s head above water, again and again. Nick has Trucy. Nahyuta has Rayfa and the entire country of Khura’in. “No,” Maya says, rolling up the ancient scroll to return it to its place. “That’s all I was looking for down here.”

Nahyuta nods. He points her to the spot on the shelves, the carefully ordered archive of their family’s burdensome history, the spot where Ami was excised from. They stand there, after, silently, eyeing the shelves in the gloom, as though both reluctant to leave it. “I suppose,” Nahyuta says softly, barely more than a breath, “that it is not quite true to say that I have never given thought to the matter of children. What I want, I do not know. But that I am regent now, I have wondered too, as we said before, what will be next? Holy Mother forbid my sister ever become a tyrant, but what of her potential future daughters? What of - what, perhaps, of mine? How shall we safeguard our country from our own descendants?”

“I hear democracies work okay sometimes,” Maya says. And sometimes there are the Paul Atishons of the world who commit murder in the course of running for a village council position. Sometimes, there are people - greedy, selfish, ambitious people - and everything goes wrong. 

Nahyuta’s mouth twists in a small smirk. She’s certainly hedging her bets with her phrasing, she knows.

“I guess even if you decided to not have kids so they or your grandkids or great-grandkids can’t ruin everything for everyone again,” Maya says, “you and Her Benevolence would still have to restructure the entire government because—”

“Because our entire line of succession is based on spirit channeling, yes,” Nahyuta says. “Thousands of years of tradition and direct descent, and we stand poised to overturn it all.” He shakes his head. “My most immediate concern has been piecing our legal system back together and undoing all the false verdicts that Ga’ran’s rule has wrought, as you and my brother are well aware, but I have had some discussion with my mother and sister about introducing a parliamentary system.” He folds his arms behind his back, shifting his wait like he is about to start moving, and then he doesn’t, and they remain there in the dark. “Even if our family should play out its bloody feuds again, we may at least limit the casualties. Our people should not suffer from a despot’s unilateral decrees just because one sister so envies the other.”

Envy, yes - it was jealousy, and ambition, and selfishness, and people died. It was Morgan expecting that she was owed her birthright and unable to cope when her more talented younger sister overtook her as Master. It was Ga’ran expecting nothing and wanting it all the same, desiring for herself the admiration that Khura’in’s people had for her older sister, the beloved queen, but only able to make herself feared, not loved. People are dead because one sister got what the other wanted.

Kurain Village teaches that channeling is a gift from the gods, but a gift shouldn’t come with a price to pay. 

“What does Her Benevolence think of that?” Maya asks. She respects Rayfa, the princess wo held too much responsibility at such a young age and now has had her world shattered several times over and stepped up from it stronger, and she never should have had to live any of this. She should not have had to learn that her mother was not her mother and was a monster, and her father who was not her father by blood was a monster, and the other father she could have had was already dead. Like Pearly, if such a tragedy ever had to befall her, why did it have to be when she was so young? Everything Princess Rayfa went through, Maya thinks, might make her understand the same facts that Maya and Nahyuta understand. 

“She agrees,” Nahyuta says, as Maya thought she would. “Lady Kee’ra and the Holy Mother were Khura’in’s great protectors. Perhaps this is what protecting our country means now - protecting it too from the worst of ourselves.” He sweeps a strand of hair back behind his ear and the shiny gold earrings there. “And I owe a great many thanks to Phoenix Wright, and you, for first helping Rayfa on the path to understanding these such matters. For teaching her what I could not.”

“I’m glad we could,” Maya says. “I really am glad. I think Khura’in is lucky to have you both now.”

Nahyuta glances away, like he doesn’t really know how he’s supposed to respond to genuine concern and compliment. How long was he under Ga’ran’s thumb? How many years of being unable to have a heart, because it was his heart that Ga’ran used against him - how many years was he in a pit of vipers with no one who was allowed to care about him? If Maya knew she doesn’t quite remember. 

“I will do whatever I can to support Her Benevolence, and to repair all the wrongs that have been done to our country,” Nahyuta says stiffly, forcing the words out. “I owe - for all I stood complicit in, I—” He is still staring at the far wall, and he squeezes his eyes shut and takes a moment to compose himself. “I owe my father so much more, but this much I am able to do. This I may change.” He blinks his eyes shut again and twists his beaded prayer necklace around his fingers. “I cannot make it up to him, but I will try.”

Maya’s stomach sinks. 

Only once has Apollo ever broached the topic of the three days she spent channeling his father, and that was just to know if she had any awareness of what was going on while she was channeling. The answer is no and a noncommittal vague shrug, because her soul vacates her body but spirits leave behind traces of feelings on their departure. When Tahrust left her she felt at peace, a sense of justice imparted and no regret remaining, for about three seconds until she remembered where she was and that she and Nick might be executed depending on what the high priest did or didn’t say. 

After Dhurke left, she was exhausted, mostly, and a bit confused why he was already gone because she didn’t think he had yet accomplished all he meant to - but more than that sense of unfinished business, there was love. Love for all three of his children, love for his wife, love for his rebels and his country. Everything he did was for love, and for once, the choices made for love weren’t stupid and messy. And still they ended with such pain. 

Talking to Apollo then, she remembered how much Dhurke loved his son, enough that for a moment she couldn’t breathe with it. (She wondered if this was how much her mother loved her.) And talking to Nahyuta now—

“You don’t need to make anything up to him,” Maya says. Nahyuta turns his head so that she can’t even see the pained expression on his face, but she can see his hands curled up to his chest, clutching the dragon tattooed on his palm close to his heart. “He loved you. He forgave you from the start. He understood why, and he loved you.”

“Don’t,” Nahyuta whispers. “You can’t say that—”

“I know he - hey!” 

Nahyuta spins on his heel, heading for the door. Maya runs after him, grabbing onto his arm and hanging firm even as he twists in her grasp and slams the heavy doors behind them with a thunderous thud that makes the floor beneath their feet shudder. Nahyuta scowls at her; Maya scowls back, and when he breaks eye contact first, his shoulders slumping a little, Maya risks releasing her cousin’s arm. He studies his boots instead of leaving.

“I’d channel him so he could tell you himself,” Maya says, “but for one thing, I don’t know if that actually - helps. With getting closure.” Nahyuta looks at her from the corner of his eyes. A question. She goes on, her eyes stinging as she does. “Me and Nick with my sister, that whenever I’d channel her, or Pearly would, I wondered like maybe we were just picking at a scab and it’d never heal because she was here again, but she wasn’t here, not enough. She was always just out of reach, even when I got to hug her and tell her I loved her, I - I don’t know.” 

She never considered asking Pearl to channel Misty so that Maya could talk to her mother for the only time ever in her life. Both because she thought that Pearly would find the guilt unbearable, and Pearly feeling in any way responsible for what happened on that mountain is the last thing Maya has ever wanted, and because she doesn’t know what to say or how to get closure with a woman she never really knew. She had never come to terms with her mother’s disappearance, really, but then just the knowing - knowing that she was dead and no longer somewhere just at the tips of Maya’s fingertips if she reached far enough and looked hard enough - was the closure. Not closure enough, never enough, but the best Maya figures she could ever get in that situation. 

“Ask Lady Inmee if she felt the chance to say a final goodbye to her husband made the loss any less painful,” Nahyuta says. “To hear from him one last time that she loved him, when she knew that, and to tell him one last time that she loved him when he knew such.”

“Yeah,” Maya says softly. When Nahyuta resumes walking, it is to set a pace that she can easily keep beside him as he leads her through the maze of halls. She swallows her nerves, shoves aside the little bit of her mind that is convinced she is overstepping bounds, because when has she ever cared about that, and she already did once this conversation so why not finish it off? 

“And for the other thing,” she says, and Nahyuta turns his head sharply, his hair swinging, to look at her, like he’d forgotten that she started talking in a way that signaled that she had more than one point about channelings and closure, “I don’t think it would really change that much about how you feel, for you to hear your father say he’s forgiven you.”

Nahyuta stops, but doesn’t make to flee. He just stops, waiting for her to finish before they ascend to the ground floor of the palace, out of the records of the dead and back to their living family who still need their help. “I think you need to forgive you,” Maya says. 

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t say anything as they stride through the palace, passing guards in the lived-in halls, and she expects when they reach the front gates that he will throw her unceremoniously out. But he instead steps with her into the sun, out into the colorful, bustling streets of the capital, where here in the land of the living the people they pass have nods and bows of acknowledgement - for Nahyuta, mostly, of course but Maya too, and it never fails to amaze her. She spent two years here coming to know the people while hiding a part of herself, and now they know, and that and so much more has changed.

Nahyuta stops to chat with a sweet bun vendor, and through the quick conversation Maya gathers that the woman was one of the Dragons. They come away with a pastry for each of them, and it seems like Nahyuta has waited for her to take a bite and be unable to speak for him to finally say, “You make it sound so simple. As though it is easy to - how? How am I to...?”

Joke’s on him; Maya can easily talk through a mouthful of bun, even if it’s not helpful. “Wish I knew.”

Rather than stuff it in his face, Nahyuta breaks off a small piece of the bun and pops it into his mouth. The delicate, refined mannerisms he sometimes shows almost make Maya snort when she thinks about him learning manners while living in a shack in the mountains, that chaotic, feral childhood that Apollo has described a few times. Instead of laughing, she swallows her mouthful and says, “No, really, trust me, I do wish I knew.” How to forgive oneself a guilt of the kind so deep and painful it could drive a person to consider choosing death instead - that would be a power far greater than channeling spirits. Maybe that would be a gift that didn’t come intertwined with pain, but it isn’t the one Maya has. “I wish I was any help at all.”

She waits a moment to see if Nahyuta will reply right away, and when he doesn’t, she takes a large bite of her sweet bun again and raises her eyebrows in the best disdainful look she can muster, in response to Nahyuta watching her shove pastry down her face in the most undignified of ways. He rolls his eyes. She is still chewing when he says, “You were. Thank you, Maya.”

This deserves more dignity than talking with her mouth full can merit. The delay is at least two seconds until she can say, “Oh,” a reply that still surely lacks dignity. “You’re - you’re welcome.”

A warbaa’d roars and they both jump. A dog barks, and then another, another layer of noise over the loud bazaar. Maya closes her eyes to take in the ambience, all the voices chattering, catching up with neighbors and bartering for their groceries. “It feels different here now,” Maya says. 

“What do you mean?” Nahyuta asks. 

“I didn’t notice until it wasn’t, but there was always - this kind of tension, in the air, here. Even when everyone was trying to act normal, we were all - not. We were scared and - and hiding things.” Rebels, rebel-sympathizers, secret police, and Maya the spirit medium from abroad. “It feels like I can breathe now. It feels like - well, it doesn’t feel like home. My village is so damn quiet. Not like—” She waves a hand at all the bustle around them, looking over the shop storefronts, and then she is hastily halted when Nahyuta throws an arm out to stop her from walking into the path of a yak. “But it feels like it could be a home, more than it ever did before.” Even when before had the Inmees’ lovely hospitality. How hard as that is to look back on now, with all that happened since. “The thing I miss most though, besides Pearly and Nick and everyone - I wish I could get a burger. And ramen, but mostly a good burger.”

She watches the yak trundle of sight. Nahyuta looks briefly offended on its behalf until he asks, “Have you ever been to Burger Barn?”

“I can’t,” Maya whines. “The lines. I go in and I’m hungry and I smell everything and I’m so much hungrier but then I have to wait so long, and by the time I’d get to order I’d probably have eaten my own sandals, so no, I’ve never actually had one of their burgers.”

The law office comes into sight down the street; Maya has had trouble remembering where it is, and then Datz redid the outer walls yesterday and she barely recognizes it, but she can find her way now by the dragon he painted on the wall, to go with the office sign. Nahyuta’s eyes widen and he comes to a halt, and Maya realizes that he must not have been down here yet. She gives him a moment to take it in; she’s not going to try to get used to this visage yet, not when Datz is talking about redoing the roof too. “So,” she prompts when Nahyuta tears his eyes away and they resume walking, “you’ve been to Burger Barn?”

“I recommend going before you are hungry,” he says. “Then by the time the wait is over you are not positively famished. But I find it surprising that the wait would prove to you a challenge - it should pale in comparison to activities such as meditation beneath a freezing waterfall. The Burger Barn is only slightly cold from too much air conditioning.”

“I cannot believe you went to Burger Barn before me,” Maya says. “I can’t believe this! Was it as good as they say or is it overrated? I guess you probably haven’t had enough burgers to know—”

“I made it a point to visit several other burger joints in the time while I was in America, intending to make such a comparison,” Nahyuta interrupts, and Maya cackles at the thought, remembering Apollo lamenting his brother’s habit of obsessively over-researching anything that may tangentially cross his path. Like all the trials Maya has been involved in. Like burgers. Nahyuta raises his eyebrows at her outburst but continues, “From the samples that I have experienced” - experience a burger, that would be a great restaurant tagline, and Maya nearly laughs again - “I would rate it as the best.”

“Huh,” Maya says. She’s spent years convincing herself that they have to be overrated. “I guess we’ll have to go. And with Pearly too, it can be like another dimension of our training. I can’t believe I never thought of that trick before! Just treat it like training. I’ve been locked in cold mountain caves before, like oh no, the burger line is difficult somehow.”

“Oh Mystic Master of Kurain, cousin of mine, all your wisdom yet you missed this simple fact.” He says it so deadpan, only the corners of his eyes turning up with amusement.  

Maya sticks her tongue out at him. “Nick’s got a challenger - that is the most sarcastic way of calling me wise that I’ve ever heard. But I’ll—” She stops as something occurs to her. “You - you will come back to LA someday, right?” He isn’t running from an evil queen any longer. He has a home to stay in. 

“Of course,” he says. “I have people there I must ask forgiveness of, and I should like to visit your village someday, as well, to meet our cousin Pearly.”

She’s called her that so much that Nahyuta not knowing her doesn’t know that isn’t quite her name. She smiles. Maybe once she goes back to the village, she can convince Pearl that his name is Yuty and watch what happens when they meet. That would be funny. “And I would like Rayfa to be able to meet her, as well,” Nahyuta continues. “And for her to see more of the world beyond Khura’in.”

Pearl is only four years older than the princess, has had her world upended in much the same way to learn that her mother was not what she seemed, and by following her instructions Pearl was not doing right by the people she cared about. “That’d be good,” Maya says. They stand on the doorstep of the office, stare together up at the hand painted sign above the door. “I bet Pearly would love to meet you and show you around. Go to Burger Barn. Have a fun cousins hang-out. Get to know each other a little better.”

See if together they can find a way to do better than their mothers and aunts. Change the fate of their family. 

Nahyuta smiles. “I would like that.”

[the-hidden-writer]

A Second Chance: Chapter 5

An Ace Attorney fanfic. Read on both AO3 and FF.net!

Summary: Miles learns the identity of his “dead” mother, and the aftermath of that revelation is a tricky one. Especially when his newfound little sister is trying to turn him into a spirit medium.

AKA Miles is a Fey. Miles also doesn’t really know how to family properly.

[Chapter 1] | [Chapter 2] | [Chapter 3] | [Chapter 4]

Comments make my day! :D

The Promise

You’d assume, being a prosecutor, that one would get used to the atmosphere of a prison. Perhaps many do. Miles, however, doubted he ever could. Not when he knew that there were so many stories confined in its walls, many of them probably stories of injustice. It made him nauseous to think that he was so close to being in one of these himself.

If Phoenix Wright hadn’t intervened.

Waiting in a private visiting room, he couldn’t help but keep his gaze fixed on the ground. He couldn’t deny it- he was nervous to meet the man. They hadn’t really met each other before, but both unknowingly played a part in each other’s story, therefore it sort of felt like it was overdue.

The door on the other side of the glass finally clicked and opened. Miles looked up to see Diego Armando enter, clad in the black and white striped prison uniform with his head still held high. He was wearing his infamous visor, which he couldn’t help but feel relieved at. It was a special request from him that he be permitted to wear it during the visit, although he wasn’t sure if they would grant it. At least the man could see his expression when he told him the news.

“Miles Edgeworth,” Armando said as he slowly sat down in the chair on the other side of the glass (though somewhat visibly disorientated presumably due to suddenly being given his visor) with a small smile appearing on his face. His voice was deep and rough from misuse. “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Miles cleared his throat. “Hello, Mr. Armando. I-”

“Stop shaking, Mr Prodigy. From what I’ve heard you’re no caffeine addict, so there’s no need to act like one.”

Had he been shaking?

In truth, Godot’s story hit a little too close to home for Miles, even before he knew that he had killed his mother. For one thing, to watch Phoenix Wright accuse a prosecutor in court is not something to be taken lightly. It was unheard of, until his own trial where the prosecutor was found guilty of killing his father. Manfred Von Karma. More recently, Diego Armando had been found guilty of killing Maya’s mother, coincidentally also with Phoenix acting as defence.

That man seemed to be a truth magnet.

After that trial, he’d gained a newfound sympathy for Maya. He’d never really known how to tell her properly, but losing a parent in that fashion is not an experience shared by many. Little did he know that they would soon have to both experience each other’s pain with the revelation that they were siblings.

And the white-haired man sitting behind the glass killed their mother. It was hard not to keep thinking of that.

He cleared his throat again. “I’m sure you’re aware of the Kurain Channeling Technique?”

Diego snorted. “Too well.” Was his curt reply.

“Well,” Miles continued, “after an important conversation with her, Mia Fey sent me here.”

Suddenly Armando stiffened, and his relaxed demeanor morphed into one of importance. His posture straightened, his shoulders tensed. It was almost comedic how the mention of one name could change his entire attitude. Almost.

“Why…” he whispered, perhaps to himself, “why isn’t she the one here?”

“Because the matter at hand doesn’t entirely concern her.” Miles responded honestly.

Armando didn’t reply. Miles took that as a signal to continue.

“She told me that you had once studied under my father, Gregory Edgeworth.”

Diego sighed. “I did, but not for long.” A wistful smile pulled at his lips. “The tricks he taught me lingered in my mind everywhere I went. I was young, reckless,” he stifled a humourless laugh, “and it took a lot of convincing to get him to take on a penniless runt like me.”

He turned his head towards him, and Miles could only assume that he was looking him in the eyes. All he got was the glare of the red visor.

“He caved in the end, if only because he wanted to practise on teaching a cub like me before he did it with his own son. Hmm, he talked about you all the time.”

“I see.”

“I taught everything he taught me to Mia, you know. She must’ve taught it to Phoenix Wright.” He laughed quietly. It was an unsettling, hollow sound. “That was probably what got me in the end. Good old Greg, always searching for justice, even from beyond the grave.”

He paused, and the smile faded. “He was a good man. Better than you or I could ever hope of being.”

Miles didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t know many people who knew his dad, so any praise (even if it was coming from a murderer) was highly valued.

“I suppose,” Miles said, once he was sure that his voice wouldn’t break, “that you were the messenger between father and daughter then.”

He sucked in a breath and waited for a response. Even without the visor, Armando was good at hiding emotion. His expression was blank as he processed what he’d just been told.

“...You’re kidding.” He said eventually.

“No.”

“Ha… I always saw a piece of Greg in her. I guess that wasn’t just me after all.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

The realisation hit a little too late. Whatever emotional barrier Armando had built for himself suddenly shattered in an instant. His perfected neutral expression turned into one of horror.

“Hold on, are you Misty’s-”

“Yes.”

“So you’re their-”

“Biological brother, yes.”

“God…”

Armando forced a grin. “I ruined another life that day, huh?”

It took all of his effort for Miles not to say “yes” to that too. So he kept silent. It was Diego who spoke next.

“I’m not gonna waste my sins with an apology, because I would be lying to you. I’m not sorry for what I did, as much as I try to be... Regret? Sure, a bit I guess. But I would do it again. I orphaned you and your sister, there’s no changing that.”

To be honest, Miles was expecting an apology when he came in here. However, now he was glad he didn’t get one. He didn’t want to feel sympathy for this man.

He just wanted to leave.

“Thank you,” he said gruffly, “for saving my sister.”

With that, he abruptly rose and made his way to the door, knocking on it sharply thrice. He accomplished what he came to do, and kept his word. That was all.

“Edgeworth.”

He turned to look at Armando, who in that time had removed his visor to reveal white, glossy eyes and a long, deep scar between them. Diego wasn’t looking directly at him, instead was staring straight ahead into the glass. It was a haunting sight.

“Tell Mia… tell her thanks for sending you. And… I want to see her. Please.”

Damn it. Sympathy.

“I’ll consider it.”

And he left.

~._-_.~

Ring-ring. Ring-ring.

“Hello?”

“Mystic Soma! Hi!”

“Mystic Maya! How are you since last time?”

“A lot better. So much better! I’ve kinda come to accept that even though Mom’s gone, she got justice in the end. I didn't even really know her so…”

“I hardly remember her too, but my mother says she was an incredibly nice woman, so she’ll be happy when I tell her. You sound a lot better than last week, I was starting to get worried about your health. You do realize that you’re the mast-”

“Hey Soma, is Pearly around? I’ve got some really important news to tell her, and I just can’t wait!”

“Oh, yes she is. Is it good news or bad news? Should I stay with her?”

“It’s awesome news! But yeah, I think you should stick around. You can pretend you’re cleaning or something like you used to do with me.”

“I did not!”

“You’re a horrible liar.”

“And you’re imagining things. Hold on, I’ll get Pearly for you.”

“Thanks!”

“Pearl! Come over here, Mystic Maya wants to speak to you!”

“...Pearly?”

“H-hi Mystic Maya.”

“Oh Pearly, you’re not still sad over my mom, are you? Mystic Soma told me you were feeling better!”

“...I told her to say that.”

“Oh, Pearly.”

“I-I-I’m sorry! I d-didn’t want to make you s-sad...”

“Nonono, don’t cry! I have some really cool news!”

“R-Really? What is it?”

“I found out who my dad was, and I have a brother!”

“What? B-But Mystic Maya-”

“I know! But that’s not even the best part!”

“Wha-who…?”

“Pearly, you’ll never believe it, but Edgeworth’s my brother! He’s your cousin!! He’s a part of our family!!!”

“...h-huh?”

“Mr Edgeworth’s your big cousin, Pearly! And yes, it is the one you’re thinking of. Tall but not that tall, weird dark hair, always looks like he wants to slam his face into a wall? Him! He’s-”

“No!”

“Huh? Pearly?”

“NO!!!”

“What? Pearly, what-”

“Mystic Maya, what did you say?!”

“Mystic Soma, I-”

“I’ve got to go, Pearly’s really upset.”

“I don’t-”

Click!

“...I don’t know what I said.”

[kurainburdened]

I’m realizing a lot of people followed me without playing AA, something I hadn’t considered when I first started this blog so heres some info for those who want to read up on Maya Fey.

But I also compiled ALOT of my HCs so if you haven’t been following me for a year  there’s a lot about how I characterize Maya. 

But if you have been following me for like a year or even 6 months I can’t imagine there’s a lot of new info here lol

Note: Im really ADHD and organizing my thoughts in a cohesive way is really hard for me so IDK if this is at all comprehensible. I did my best

Recap

[ important info for those who have not played AA ]

Information about her Family, Village and Traditions

The fey family has been blessed with the power to channel spirits. A power said to have been given to them due to how their ancestors were servants to the gods. The Main Families oldest daughter is the one that will head the family as the Kurain Master and lead their village. The younger siblings will become subservient to the Kurain master, a position that causes a lot of resentment. This means assassinations and uprisings aren’t entirely unheard of in their family.

In fact, most of the village is shown to be pretty uncaring towards Maya. When shes being dragged away for murder, they either watch on in disinterest or gossip among themselves. No one seems to be even a little bit upset or worried.

The only one who seems to show any kind of concern or faith in Mayas innocence is her Aunt Morgan, who raised her like a mother. This is ironic because Morgan is the one who set her up for murder. Something both Maya and Mia take as something very shocking

The Kurain Master holds quite a bit of political power as politicians all wish to have favor with her in order to gain access to her powers. In fact, even when in hiding, the previous Kurain master, Mayas mother, was kept under heavy surveillance, and files were kept on where she was and what she was doing.

The kurain village is a matriarchy, one where men are not allowed to live. Even in mariage, husbands must live separate from their wives. Because of this its stated in canon that this leads to many unhappy marriage that all end in divorce. Also, because of this rule, the men who visit for business purposes are given quite a mixed treatment. Because of the lack of men in their village, some see it as one of their few opportunities to make an impression and finally get married. Others see men and immediately assume them to be scum.

Traditionally the Kurain Master is never allowed to leave the mountain, and many of the women in the village are very sheltered. Pearly, Mayas younger cousin was raised to believe that there wasn’t even a world outside their village, and that the forest bordering it stretched on forever. Maya had to be told by her older sister about the ocean. Throughout the games there are proven to be extremely unknowledgable about very basic things. Pearly doesn’t know what a watch is. In the games Maya has no idea how to turn on a computer and in the anime she doesn’t know what the internet is.

Family History and Meeting Phoenix

Mayas mother, Misty, was tasked by the police in channeling a victim of a high profile case. In the end, the channeled victim gave the police a false lead to protect someone, which caused Misty to be branded a fake. This information was leaked to the public and soon Mayas family became a laughing stock.

Her Aunt Morgan raised Maya after her Mom disappeared and Mia left. Though this was with the ultimate goal of one day killing Maya, in order to make her own daughter the next Master.

Mia, Mayas older sister became obsessed with finding out who leaked this info and passed down the burden of Kurain Master to Maya. Years later Mia is a successful lawyer and even had an apprentice named Phoenix Wright. Then, on the day Maya and Phoenix were supposed to meet up with Mia, Mia was murdered. Maya arrived first on the scene followed by Phoenix. She was promptly accused of her murder which Phoenix got her acquitted for.

Other cases about Maya Fey

Maya is also kidnapped by an assassin in order to prompt Phoenix to defend a a killer. During this time she is starved over a period of three days to prompt Phoenix to close the case as fast as possible

When her mom finally reappears its because she has found out that there is a murder plot created by Mayas Aunt, and handed down to one of her cousins. Wanting to have the chance to save her daughter but not wanting to reveal her identity, she appears before Maya as a popular childrens author instead. In the end her mother is stabbed right before Mayas eyes, after which Maya had to hide from her killers on an isolated part of a snowy mountain.

Important Info

[ information important to how I characterize Maya ]

Her sister and how she affected her

During her sisters time in LA, due to her quick rise as a prominent lawyer, her ability to think outside of the box and her likable personality, Mia became a well known name between lawyers and police alike . Even among the police who are known to be hate defense attorneys, she was beloved.

Once she passed away, Phoenix mostly keeps Maya around due to her ability to bring back her sister.

Maya hears time and time again from those around her just how amazing her sister was. Because of this Maya feels a lot of pressure to replace her sister, feeling guilt that she could’ve easily been the one killed that day, leaving her sister to live in her place. She works tirelessly to be useful to the ones Mia left behind, most specifically Phoenix who’s debut case was defending Maya in court. She views him as a little brother who she needs to take care of.

During the final case of the first game, Maya has spent a lot of time with Phoenix and hasn’t been meditating enough. Because of this her powers start to leave her.This comes as a big hit to her. Maya has felt that she, herself, is useless and that her only real use is the fact that she can channel her sister. She goes to many lengths to try and be useful to Phoenix. At one point when Phoenix lets slip to a murderer that he has incriminating evidence, the murderer attempts to taser Phoenix, at which point Maya leaps in front of him and takes the hit. In the end Phoenix still gets tasered anyway. When she wakes up she begins to cry, stating how shes useless for being unable to protect him and even saying she wishes she never woke up. Maya has a lot of self hatred for being unable to reach the standards she feels her sister set.

Maya takes very active roles in getting Phoenix cases, to the point that there is not a single case in the trilogy that has not been sought out by Maya (not including the ones that Phoenix had a personal stake in and even some of those maya forced him into)

Morgan and how she affected her

I portray Morgan as someone who was kind of strict but someone very important to Maya. Morgan is someone who was the eldest sister but due to Misty’s, (her younger sister and Mayas mother)  abundance of power, the title of Master went to her instead. This caused a lot of anger and resentment towards Misty and by extension Maya. But as she raised Maya, it wasn’t all bad. There were softer moments. Small shows of kindness that Maya latched onto as proof that her Aunt loved her. I also hc that some of the most intimate moments Maya had with her Aunt is when Morgan was teaching Maya about their history and what it meant to be Master. Maya felt bad for her Aunt because she could see how passionate Morgan was about being Master, and this got passed down to Maya. Even after her Aunt tries to get her killed, that passion still remains all the way to when she’s an adult. In fact, she still loves her Aunt desperately and tries to make excuses for her and her actions.

Also because Morgan had no plans to allow Maya to live very long she did not properly educate or prepare her for being Kurain Master. Because of this I hc that after the trilogy Maya makes a point to get an education in order to properly lead her village and also make changes to the traditions in place that have bred so much hatred and murderous intent.

I think something that people really miss about Maya is that she is actually VERY serious about her position as Kurain Master and is very much willing to concentrate and put in hard work when necessary. For goodness sake the girl spends how many hours meditating. In fact she excitedly signs up to sit on a block of ice to meditate.

I also hc that Maya was supposed to learn how to use the sword because one of the family heirlooms passed down was a sword and a statue of her ancestor is also seen with a sword. So I like to think she tries to pick this up later.

De Killer and what this case says about her

When Maya is kidnapped by the assassin Maya is able to create a way to communicate with Phoenix and give him information that allows him to find her. When the assassin moves her, she figures out a way to leave behind evidence in a way that her kidnapper wouldn’t notice but she knows her friends will. She also leaves behind a letter, comforting Phoenix and her younger cousin, and even actively encouraging him to throw his case. Ensuring him that this is what she wants and that ‘she wouldn’t forgive him’ if he saved her because she knows Phoenix wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he went against his morals as a lawyer.

This speaks heights to how self sacrificing Maya is. She is an eighteen year old girl, slowly being starved to death by an assassin and yet her first thoughts are to comfort the adult trying to save her. Yet she isn’t trying to be a martyr either. She actively tries to get herself saved too if she can. But she lets Phoenix know that if he has to choose, choose his client. Because she knows how it would effect him. In spite of everything that happens she’s still trying to take care of Phoenix. 

Trust and Loyalty

During the last case of the third game, there’s a character called Godot who was in a relationship with her sister Mia. He was in a coma for several years and when he awakes he finds out Mia was killed. He blames himself for not being there to save her, so when he finds out about a murder plot against Maya he takes this as an opportunity for redemption.  In the end Mayas mother is possessed by a spirit that wants to kill Maya and Godot is forced to kill Mayas mother right in front of her. Godot admits to Maya later that he honestly didn’t care much about protecting her and was acting only out of selfish need for a feeling of redemption. That if he truly wanted to protect her he would’ve just told her from the start that someone wanted to kill her instead of creating an equally secret plot to protect her. To which Maya vehemently protests against. Sayig she believed in Godot and that he is a good person who wanted to save her too. That he should give himself more credit. This is just a long set up to explain that once Maya trusts someone she is EXTREMELY loyal to them. Maya even lies in court to protect Godot.

Which goes into another point which is that, Maya is ABSOLUTELY willing to break rules, the law and lie in court. She is only a certain amount of law abiding because the two closest people to her are lawyers.

(i felt like this was a lot of explaining so you can read the explanation below or skip it and watch this video of the cut scene im describing and then get to my thoughts )

PL vs AA is a game in which, during trials, the defendants are in an iron maiden suspended several feet in the air above a pit of fire. If found guilty there are sentenced to death and are immediately plunged into it. 

One of her friends, Espella, is about to be subject to a guilty sentence, and after declaring “this just isnt right” she makes a leap onto the iron maiden, gets it open and orders her to jump onto a nearby chandelier. Meanwhile guards are desperately trying to come in and recapture espella. During this confusion Maya is accidentally caught and shoved into the iron maiden and plunged into the fire. 

Phoenix believes Maya has been killed for a good part of the game and Maya wakes up in a strange land unaware of how to find Phoenix again 

I talk about this scene a lot but I feel like it really highlights just how brave Maya is. Because for a lot of the game you see Maya pushing Phoenix into the line of fire. If there’s a show of danger, for example when El Tigre seems like he’s about to go on a violent rampage Maya hides behind Nick. 

But when it really counts Maya is more than willing to put her life on the line to save other people. Not even for just her friends, but if it just means saving the life of someone innocent. 

Vulnerability in front of others

During PL vs AA, there is of course, a reunited scene between Maya and Phoenix later in the game that many fans found lackluster. Once they see each other, Maya belts out a YOOOOOOO NIIIICK before carrying on as usual. Ive seen countless people redo the scene as something more emotional- more crying more hugging. But honestly I think this was just more in character for Maya.

Maya’s always been the type to put up a strong front if she can. And later on you do get a brief scene of Maya tearing up and saying “I thought I’d never see you again” before she quickly moves on. She’s just not the type to run crying into phoenixes arms and try to bottle up those ‘sappy’ emotions unless she cant do it anymore. She’ll laugh off serious moments if physically possible. 

In other scenes you can see her being very sensitive with other people and their feelings, such as when adrien andrews begins hyperventilating and shes the first one at her side telling ‘take a deep breath and just breath. it’s going to be ok’ 

[hellodelicatebouquettidalwave]

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Justice for All Reunion, and Turnabout

Let’s turn the clock back four months to Phoenix and Maya’s reunion. Phoenix has been in something of a funk since Maya left after Christmas. (Rise From the Ashes shows us he snapped out of it briefly, but the fallout from it may have just made things worse. Much more on this later.) In to the office walks Dr. Turner Grey, an up-tight surgeon. He was suspected of malpractice, resulting in the deaths of over a dozen patients. Dr. Turner claims a nurse who died in a car accident shortly after the incident is responsible, and has requested that Maya channel her in order to obtain a confession. Maya won’t do it without Nick, so they both head to Kurain Village. Too bad Dr. Grey is murdered in the middle of the ritual and Maya’s the only suspect in a locked room mystery.

 This is our introduction to the Fey clan branch family, giving us another crucial piece of the tragic saga that ends in the original trilogy’s climax. Morgan is for me of the more frightening Ace Attorney villains, in the same league as her daughter Dahlia, Matt Engarde, and Kristoph Gaven. I got chills just reading her message to Pearl vowing to one day destroy Maya. (I was sixteen and playing this rather late at night; it was probably not a wise decision. I don’t think I slept very well that night.) It’s a perfect gender reversed Cain and Abel situation, only she isn’t satisfied with just seeing someone else ruin her sister’s life. Morgan will stop at nothing until the entire main family is destroyed, even though her nieces have shown her nothing but love and respect. Mia’s reluctant to discuss the fact Morgan must be involved in framing Maya, indicating a certain loyalty to her aunt in spite of what she’s done. How did a monster like that have two such sweet daughters as Iris and Pearl?

And, Morgan has tried to convince herself she’s doing it for Pearl! I don’t think anyone really believes this, though. It’s actually about controlling Kurain Village through her daughter and vicariously having everything she felt was unfairly denied to her. There’s no indication Morgan ever bothered to have any contact with her two older daughters until she and Dahlia found they had a common goal. Pearl’s spiritual power simply made her a convenient pawn. It’s a good thing Pearly has Mr. Nick and Maya looking after her-the poor girl is better off.

Then, we have the culprit that committed the murder itself. I have to admit Ini actually being Mimi came as a total shock the first time I played. It’s hard not to sympathize with her. Mimi may just have continued to live life as Ini until Dr. Grey threatened to expose her. The man is certainly overbearing and possibly unscrupulous. This is the only time in the Ace Attorney franchise that a character goes out and illegally obtains a gun. A gun being involved in a case usually means someone connected to law enforcement is the culprit and/or victim. If he got it for self-defense, his fears were certainly justified. But, what if Dr. Grey intended to coerce a confession out of Mimi? I actually take this as a sign he did not drug Mimi like she believes. He wouldn’t kill the person he wants to see take the blame for the malpractice incident.

The music for Reunion, and Turnabout is quite good, though very somber overall. Mimi’s personal theme is a Reminiscence variation, Scars Etched by Flame, that stand out to me. (This is likely a result of its effective use in the opening.) Maya’s personal Reminiscence variation, Heartbroken Maya, plays while she speaks to Nick in the Detention Center. It was an indicator of how emotionally difficult for everyone involved this was, but Maya finally being able to see Mia gain via Pearl’s spirit channeling made it all feel like it’s going to be fine. (Plus, Turnabout Sisters’ Ballad plays during this scene!) 

So, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we’re going to the circus next!...Most of you are probably creaming and running away right about now. I’ll be sharing my thoughts on the case three reputation of the series as well, so don’t be scared off just because it’s Turnabout Big Top! 

[snezfics-n-shit]

Whumptober Day 26: Faint

Fandom: Ace Attorney 

Characters: Godot, Phoenix Wright, Maya Fey, Franziska von Karma

Notes: Post-SoJ, Godot has recently been released from prison. Phoenix and Maya take him out for burgers and ketchup catching up. Human socialization? For Godot? He’ll take it. Too bad there’s someone who wants to ruin his fun.

“Don’t you think your first restaurant visit after prison should be something, I don’t know, nicer?” Phoenix stared at the Burger Barn menu. Was this really Godot’s idea? The coffee served there wasn’t even that good. “Miles offered us a reservation at a five star place downtown.” At least at somewhere more high end, the brand new suit Phoenix bought specifically for this event would have been appropriate. He still wore it, but it was definitely out of place.

“Are you saying this place isn’t nice, Nick?” Maya gaped in feigned hurt. “How could you!?”

“Yeah, how could you, Nick?” Hearing Godot call him ‘Nick’ made Phoenix uneasy. Maybe ‘Trite’ had a nice ring to it after all. “This isn’t for me, anyway. It’s for the Master.” Godot shot an affectionate smile at Maya. “Mia’s so proud of you. I promised we’d take you here once they released me.” 

“Yeah, she didn’t want to ruin the surprise, but I got her to tell me!” Maya laughed. “Sorry Pearly couldn’t make it, by the way. She and Trucy are comparing admissions essays tonight.”

“Who?” Godot stared at the two. “I know Pearl, but who’s the other one?”

“Oh, Trucy? My daughter.” Phoenix presented Trucy’s senior photo he kept in his wallet. “She’s around Pearl’s age, actually.”

“What the hell!?” Godot raising his voice caught the attention of the other patrons in line. “Then why didn’t you drag her around and put her in harm’s way at Hazakura Temple?”

“She’s adopted.” Maya corrected him. “I made the same mistake, honestly.”

Did Phoenix even look old enough to have a biological daughter Trucy’s age? Who would be Trucy’s mother if she was his? He certainly wasn’t surrounded by women during the year Trucy was born. 

“I think I’m going to pick out a place for us to sit.” Phoenix excused himself. “I don’t want anything, so you two can order without me.” Now that he had essentially been spoiled with home cooking, Phoenix had little interest in fast food. That, and he wanted Maya to understand how it felt to deal with a notorious fry thief.

He found a clean table next to the booths. There were four chairs, so he could use the extra one to hold coats unless someone from another table asked to use it. He couldn’t help but notice a familiar shade of blue in the corner of his eye and tried to pretend he wasn’t there.

“I know you can see me.” A woman in the booth next to him spoke. “How foolish to think you can call ducking your head ‘hiding.’”

“Oh, uh,” Phoenix laughed nervously, fully acknowledging the woman, “hi, Franziska.”

“You look frightened.” Franziska observed, not at all realizing that maybe, just maybe, it could be the whip sitting beside her. “You shouldn’t be,” she glared at Godot standing in line, “but he should.”

“Who? Godot?”

“He shouldn’t be here.” She stuck up her nose. 

“Is he not actually released from prison?” Phoenix blinked a few times. “Did we accidentally help him escape?”

“No, he’s been released. He should be at home.”

“So, he’s on house arrest now?”

“No, he-” Franziska stopped herself and looked away as soon as Godot and Maya approached the table with their food; to put it more accurately, Maya’s food and Godot’s coffee cup. 

Wait, was that some kind of string dangling around from the cup?

“Hi, Franziska!” Maya greeted her, completely blowing any attempt of cover. “Since when did you eat at Burger Barn?” She wasted no time after setting down the tray to start digging in.

“I don’t.” Franziska answered flatly. The bacon cheeseburger with the works, apple pie, and strawberry shake on her tray said otherwise. “I, um,” her ears looked red, “was told to order something if I wanted to sit here.”

“How’s Adrian doing?” Maya tilted her head before grabbing a handful of fries. “And why are you here ‘just to sit here?’”

“She is well, thank you.” Franziska took a sip of her shake. “She’s overseeing some renovations to our home right now. As for why I’m here, I have been tasked with monitoring Godot’s wellbeing until we’ve found someone suitable for helping him adjust to life out of prison.”

“You missed me that much, Princess?” Godot smirked. “After your chat with that author, you just had to see me again.” He took a brief sip from his cup, his hand obstructing Phoenix’s view of whatever was attached to the string.

“You really went through with that book deal?” Maya hummed. “Is that why you moved back here from Europe?”

“I did go through with it, yes. I left Godot’s apartment to discuss some things with that fool in the beret, but I told him I would only be out for a few hours.” Franziska took another, bigger sip of her shake. “I was on my way back to his apartment when I was informed he left home without my knowledge.” Franziska frowned at Godot, who was already confused why Phoenix was staring at him for so long. “Don’t even try to change the subject again, either. You know very well why you shouldn’t be here.”

“Doesn’t mean I care.” Godot shrugged and then directed his attention to Phoenix. “And what’s with you? I know you’ve seen a tea bag before.” His body swayed slightly in a way that didn’t look at all voluntary.

A tea bag? Wait. 

“You should care.” Franziska stood up, preparing for what she saw coming a mile away. “You were explicitly instructed to stay home and monitor your temperature on an hourly basis.”

“We both know that’s overdoing it.” Godot leaned on the chair next to him.

“You were also told that if your fever went up, you would need to go to the hospital.”

“Are you sick, Godot?” Maya gently tapped Godot’s shoulder, causing him to lose some balance. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Yeah, but it’s not a big deal.” As if only to prove him wrong, a sensation crept up in Godot’s chest, prompting a barking cough that he had worked so hard to suppress; he had done such a good job doing so, too. “I was going to go home right after this.”

“Don’t listen to him.” Franziska commanded. She took a quick bite of her burger before she grabbed hold of Godot from under his arms. “He pulled this with Adrian when she checked in on him earlier. I refuse to allow a fool like him manipulate anyone with such lies, especially not my wife. I also will not stand for whatever foolish escape tactics he roped you two into employing.”

Phoenix reached for Maya’s fries while everyone was so caught up in the distraction, only to find she had managed to wolf down both her burger and all her fries while he wasn’t paying attention. With an inaudible sigh, he put on his coat, considering the group was likely going home soon.

“Actually, um,” Maya fidgeted with one of her hair beads, “we just picked him up like normal. We never would have guessed he wasn’t supposed to leave home.”

“Figures.” Franziska pursed her lips. “I’m going to hazard a guess that he’s been regularly dismissing himself to ‘watch videos of seals’ as well?”

“Hey! How did you know?” Maya looked surprised as if by the third time Godot was ‘sent a funny seal video,’ it wasn’t at all weird. “He said it was a habit he developed in prison.”

“So he was going to the bathroom just to cough?” Phoenix asked. “That’s actually better than what I was thinking.”

“You are disgusting! How foolish do you need to be to-” She suddenly felt Godot become much heavier in her arms. As she expected, his fever caused him to collapse. “Wright,” She hoisted an unconscious Godot over Phoenix’s shoulder, “you are to carry him to the limousine.”

“Why me?” Phoenix grunted as he carried Godot; just staying in place like this was doing a number on his back. Not only was Godot heavy, but there was no doubt his fever was high. Phoenix felt sweaty on every part of him that Godot touched.

“Because I said so, that’s why.” Franziska gave such a strong argument, no wonder she was considered a prodigy prosecutor early in her career. She must have attended the same law school as Phoenix’s mother. She huffed as she hurriedly put away the rest of her meal in the to-go bag, grumbling something when she heard Phoenix and Maya share a chuckle over her ‘required purchase’ story being a flat out lie. She pulled out her phone and tapped on a few touchscreen buttons. “Our ride will arrive shortly. We’re taking him to the hospital, so don’t expect a ride home so soon.”

“Wow, we’re going to the hospital in a limo!” Maya said as if this were some kind of amusement park attraction. “That’s so cool!”

“Maybe we, uh,” Phoenix adjusted Godot’s position over his shoulder, “should refrain from calling a trip to the hospital ‘cool.’”

“For one thing, at least, I agree with your foolish boss.” Franziska collected her things as she led the two conscious parties to the exit, paying no mind to the crowd of patrons who stared in fascination with the spectacle. “You do still assist him, yes?”

“Well, not really since I became the Master of Kurain, but it would be really fun to assist him again.”

“I see.” Franziska hailed the limousine that approached the parking lot. “If you should ever consider assisting me on an international case, Adrian and I would be more than happy to bring you along.”

Phoenix wasn’t allowed to open the door, as demonstrated by the driver stopping him before he could even try. When the driver at last allowed the group in the vehicle, Phoenix and Maya found themselves amazed by the spacious interior. It would be an understatement to say the back was just the right size for Godot to lie back in.

“I’ll consider your offer, but something’s been bothering me” Maya held her hand to her face.

“What? Besides Godot’s cough?” Phoenix didn’t bother pushing Godot off his shoulder as he felt the edge of Godot’s visor pressing against him. “Or how sweaty I’m going to be if he keeps radiating this much heat?”

“I just think Godot could have used a good whipping!” Maya declared, surprising Phoenix and making Franziska laugh until she snorted. “I mean it! That would have told him he should go home!”

“He could have, yes.” Franziska patted the feverish ex-convict on the back. “The whip is retired, though. I just take it around as a habit.”

“No way!” Maya’s volume was toeing the line of potentially waking Godot. “Maybe you’re sick, too.” She jokingly felt Franziska’s forehead. “You feel fine, but something’s up.”

“It just does not fit in where I want my life to be right now.” Franziska spoke matter-of-factly. “Am I not allowed to improve myself?”

“I never thought of it that way.” Something about what Franziska said felt familiar to Maya, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

“Didn’t stop you from threatening me with it whenever I got out of bed.” Just as the conversation reached its softest point, it was too late to prevent Godot from regaining consciousness. “For a more pressing matter, why aren’t we at Burger Barn?”

“You collapsed!” Franziska raised her voice. If Godot was awake, why bother toning herself down? “We’re taking you to the hospital. You’ll likely need another breathing treatment and you are not making any excuses this time.”

“Do you think I can use the whip if he tries anything?” Maya grinned. “Why let it gather dust?”

“I’d like to see you try.” Godot laughed, but soon enough there was that cough again. “This cough makes me miss being unconscious.” 

“I don’t blame you.” Phoenix looked out the window, watching the scenery move along and keeping an eye out for landmarks that could tell him how close they were to the hospital. “That cough is pretty bad. Never heard one quite like it.”

“You know what?” Godot leaned back into the position he was in before he came to. “I’m going to wait and see if I can pass out again.”

“Then Nick can carry you again!” Maya clapped her hands together.

Phoenix had one thing to say to that.

“Objection!”