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synnefo-nefeli · 4 years ago

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I really love the scene in Heard Your Heart Beating when Apollo and Klavier sleep after drinking and Apollo wakes up at some point and looks at Klavier and thinks about him and Daryan and Kristoph. Idk I really like the vibe of it and also Apollo is really fond of him and you can see it lol

This is for the DVD Commentary Author Ask if there is a scene from any of my works you’d like to see a DVD commentary on, send me an ask!

Yesss this one of my favorite scenes so far in HYHB.

So there are two things going on in this scene- one is a payoff moment when Apollo figures out the significance of Valentine's Day is to Klavier, and the other is the emergence of the theme of " Safety". This chapter also functions as a transition point from Klavier and Apollo moving from work colleagues into a closer friendship. There is still a giddy nervousness at the beginning of this chapter that is usually associated with moving to the next step.

I wanted to express that almost frenetic nervous energy when inviting a new friend/date/etc into your personal space for the first time. And Apollo, despite him stating repeatedly that the hangout is platonic/feeling guilty about appearing to move on from Clay /trying to keep that boundary that’s existed so far between them, allows that boundary to fall.

By the end of the chapter there is now a comfort and deeper trust between them so that their relationship can continue to develope organically over the next few chapters without Apollo being constantly flustered every time Klavier teases him or there still being awkward feelings between them. They’re still in the “getting to know you” phase of their friendship but they’re at the point where coffee breaks and after work drinks no longer suffice. They now want to hang out as much as possible.

More under the cut so I don't spoil people for this chapter

Before I get back into the Safety theme I want to reiterate the meaning of the story’s title. It comes from Florence + The Machine’s song, “Cosmic Love”. The lyric goes:

“ I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too-So I stayed in the darkness with you”

This lyric aside from Comic Love being a big mood inspiration for the story, this lyric refers to Klavier and Apollo finding eachother after going through a really shitty and traumatic year and a half.

They recognize that the other is a source of some comfort as each of them understand what the other is going through a little bit better than the others around them.

This scene is the first confirmation to the reader that yes, Klavier is actively seeking out Apollo for comfort.

So far in this story we know *something* is bothering Klavier- he’s actively avoiding someone and he’s been kinda timid in reaching out to people without having his glimmerous persona constantly on. In the following chapter, Klavier mentions that he’s been asked to be in Edgeworth’s wedding.

Apollo attempts to commiserate with Klavier about this as Phoenix has just asked Apollo to be his best man.

Klavier tells Apollo that Apollo shouldn’t be shocked about being asked to be Phoenix’s best man- considering how much Apollo means to Phoenix. He has to point out to Apollo how much Apollo means to Phoenix and Trucy as well as how Apollo impacted Klavier’s choice to return to the legal world full-time.

And while Klavier is honored that he’s been asked by Edgeworth, his being asked is more of a surprise than Apollo being included in the Wright-Edgeworth nuptials. There is no way that Apollo wouldn’t be included after all he’s done for Phoenix and Trucy and how close he is to the WAA. Klavier had a different dynamic with Edgeworth. Part of this because, well, it’s Edgeworth. But Edgeworth has formed close bonds with Gumshoe and Kay...but Edgeworth just spent the last few years chasing down a Phantom Criminal in order to save Simon from Death Row. So Miles and Simon had a closer dynamic.

Klavier unfortunately comes with a lot of baggage-most of it being from things beyond his control. It was his debut that resulted in Miles’ partner from being disbarred and disgraced. There is everything with Kristoph. Combine the canon stuff along with this story establishing that the Gavins and the von Karmas have a bit of a family feud going on, it’s no wonder why Klavier admits to feeling that he’s still needs to figure out if and where he belongs.

He’s always looked up to Phoenix and Miles and wants to spend his career under them, but he thinks he needs more chances to prove himself to rebuild trust.

Of course- the obvious signal Klavier is missing, is “Hi, the Chief Prosecutor has asked you to be in his wedding party. If the grooms didn’t like you, you wouldn’t have been invited let alone asked to be IN THEIR WEDDING PARTY” ...and he misses it right after he’s finished telling Apollo, “how could youthink you’d wouldn’t be included, Herr Forehead. Jeeze.”

Like I said- Klavier is shit at taking his own advice. I’m not being mean to Klavier, but because Klavier is anxious about trusting people and letting people in, he prefers to do things on his own terms and under his control just in case he needs to get out if he gets rejected.

And even though he reached out to Apollo first with his condolences for Clay’s death he didn’t expect anything more than a thank you note, but Apollo not only acknowledging him, hunting him down to his apartment and even offering his company to Klavier, was a happy surprise to someone who has been very lonely.

He’s been wanting to get to know Apollo but he’s felt awkward due to the fallout with Kristoph and the continuing dark age of the law of which he was apart of the two major catalysts.

Apollo over the last few weeks is appearing to be a safe space for Klavier.

However Klavier wants more confirmation and a chance to suss things out (re: Kristoph). So when Apollo says he doesn’t have plans and was oblivious about Valentine’s, Klavier pounces on it. He spent Valentine’s alone the previous year and it spiraled his depression so he was not in the mood to again this year.

This scene was meant to be that very comfortable state between two people with a budding friendship. Once you get drunk with someone while having deep conversations, it tends to push you more into the friendship category.

It was also important to get some of the serious topics out rather than dragging it out. Having this quiet evening is something they both needed, and it allowed them be vulnerable. Especially since Apollo was already upset from the phone conversation he had with the Terrans earlier in the chapter.

Apollo needed a night in with the only person who has never treated him with kid gloves, even before Clay’s death. And Klavier needed a night in with the only person who has never put him on a pedestal.

When discussing Kristoph, it was important to remind the reader that Kristoph is a human being- it’s what makes him a compelling villain and why his betrayal of both Apollo and Klavier’s trust strikes an emotional chord with the player. Before the events of AA4, there was a time where Kristoph gained Apollo and Klavier’s love and loyalty, where he was a normal boss, a dog-dad, a good older brother. There were good times and happy memories- which is why when Kristoph is exposed, Apollo and Klavier are disillusioned- Klavier moreso. But another reason as to why Klavier finds Apollo to be a safe haven, is because, Apollo knew the Kristoph Klavier loved. They both wanted Kristoph to be proud of them. They respected him and wanted Kristoph to be proud of and acknowledge them.

Klavier has been wanting to talk to Apollo about this for awhile and I believe so has Apollo. Apollo is never going to say to Phoenix, “hey Mr. Wright, Mr. Gavin was a good mentor to me too-“ it wouldn’t go over well, even though Kristoph was a good mentor to Apollo-his only flaw was thinking that Apollo would happily be a lickspittle and easy to manipulate. So when Apollo gives Klavier that reassurance that Klavier can talk about those happier moments of his life involving Kristoph, Klavier sees that Apollo wants to take that awkward stress away from Klavier but also Apollo wants to get to know Klavier better.

Klavier is so used to people researching his celebrity persona and forming opinions based off of his former lifestyle, that it’s refreshing to find someone who wants to organically grow their relationship without preconceptions.

Yes, Apollo initially wrote Klavier off as being a fop and glimmorous- but those thoughts were due to Apollo being self-conscious. By the end of Turnabout Serenade, Apollo admits that Klavier is pretty cool and in DD, Apollo remarks that Klavier is different than most prosecutors and how dedicated Klavier is towards his job.

It was also important in this chapter to allow for Apollo to discuss Clay and his relationship with Clay’s family. You’ll notice in this story that Klavier is the only person Apollo will share anecdotes about Clay with and freely grieve about Clay. It’s not that Apollo hides it from The WAA, he does share some things with them, but right now, Klavier is the only close peer Apollo has, and this comfortable vulnerability they’ve trusted eachother with allows Apollo to express himself with out him fearing that he’ll appear fragile. He’s tired of people walking on eggshells around him, but Klavier hasn’t and never will.

Likewise, I made sure to have Klavier fish for information about Apollo. Yes they’ve been hanging out for weeks at this point and worked a case together (sorta), but those coffee dates have been more talking about work, general topics like Trucy’s shows, etc.. they’ve been light in topic. So dinner and drinks at someone’s home gives way to deeper conversations about value-systems, love lives (even though Apollo isn’t entirely truthful lol), etc. And it works really well to the point they get more comfortable than either had anticipated.

I loved writing the discussion about how Klavier will never ever do a performance of “The Guitar’s Serenade” where he’s singing Lamiror’s words. It was such an organic moment while writing too- Klavier just started talking about how he’s feel like an imposter to sing those words because he’s never experienced a lost true love...and he hopes that he’ll never know what that feels like. It’s an honest moment that puts to rest any assumptions Apollo may have had about if Klavier is just a flirt not to be taken seriously in the romance department.

Hearing that Klavier is pretty private in his love life, isn’t a player, and has pretty much admitted that he tries to date with the intention of marriage, shows Apollo more into Klavier’s serious and introspective side. A side that Apollo’s only known in the context of their work. It makes Apollo realize that Klavier is human and is wanting of things like love and companionship. More importantly, Klavier will take those things seriously should he be so lucky to receive them.

There is also a bit of humor here- because c’mon Klavier lives to be playful when he can, and he wants to know more about Apollo’s views on love and relationships. Apollo is adorably flustered because he doesn’t want to admit he’s still a virgin. But in this portion I wanted to start laying down the idea that Apollo is demisexual. Part of the reason he hasn’t fallen in love or felt desire is because he’s fullfilled by his relationships with those he holds dear, but also no one has been interested in Apollo and stayed long enough to bond with Apollo in a way for desire to to bloom.

Because they’re starting as friends-particularly a friendship made as adults- this is going to give Apollo that chance to realize he wants more from Klavier. And for Klavier who wants a true friend and companion after the betrayals he’s suffered, Apollo is a perfect match for him.

The most important thing for me while writing this scene was to show Apollo and the reader that Klavier is suffering and grieving just like Apollo is, (and to establish early that Klavier is super bad at taking any of his own advice) and for Apollo to start drawing parallels to himself while wanting to dig into what’s going on with Klavier.

Apollo is interesting because he’s more likely to say what’s exactly bothering him but fails to realize his feelings about others.

Whereas Klavier is very aware of his own feelings but will hide what’s bothering him from others.

They’re also two people who now need reassurance about where they fit in and how others consider them in their lives.

And if you were wondering: yes, at this point Klavier does have a crush on Apollo haha. So getting invited to sleep over was a bonus for him...despite it being labeled as a “platonic sleep-over”, because at this point in the story, it is a platonic sleep over. Klavier is good at reading the room (even when drunk) to know that Apollo isn’t making a move on him and neither should he.

The comment Klavier makes about Apollo’s bed’s size is a homage to my favorite BL manga, FAKE. In the manga, Ryo who has just started as a detective at a new precinct and met his new partner, Dee- has Dee over that same day for dinner and Dee winds up staying the night. Ryo has a large bed for a single guy (according to Dee) and Dee makes a comment “that’s a big bed you got there, do you have a girl to go with it?” because Dee the little shit that he is, is trying to see if Ryo is single (and yes, they sleep in the same bed that night. How is that fir team building haha...it’s totally platonic. It takes Dee 7 volumes to get that. Please read it it’s a classic). Klavier is totally asking to get a rise out of Apollo because Klavier suspects that Apollo exaggerated his experience because Apollo’s pivot was not smooth at all XD.

Finally the last aspect of showing safety is them sleeping in the same bed together. We know from descriptions of Klavier that Klavier has not been sleeping well. Something is keeping him up at night and his mood has been less glimmerous. When he arrives at Apollo’s that evening; he wasn’t able to really conceal the dark circles under his eyes. Apollo has been missing Clay, who would usually sleep over and share the bed with Apollo,’s company.

Sleeping next to someone, especially falling into a deep sleep in a bed that is not your own, is a sign of trust. Yes they were sleepy from the alcohol, but they went to bed together easily, slept for hours, had brunch, and went BACK to sleep. Neither minded, nor did Klavier feel that he should leave after they ate. They are comfortable and too hungover to even think about anything except getting more sleep XD Also it’s not as if Klavier is in a hurry to get home when he eventually saw the text from his land lady.

Sorry if that was a rambling response but I have a lot of love for this scene in particularly and I’m so excited to give a behind the scenes look at it!

#ace attorney #klapollo #apollo justice #klavier gavin #head your heart beating #dvd commentary #behind the scenes #thank you Anon for letting me sqwee over this chapter

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sylvanfreckles · 4 years ago

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Day Three: Family

Fandom: Ace Attorney

Summary: A chance meeting with Klavier Gavin pushes Phoenix to invite the younger man to the company Christmas party. After all, no one should be alone for the holidays...not even a prosecutor.

* * *

Snow was starting to fall as Phoenix Wright climbed the steps to the front of the prison, bottle of wine under one arm. He still didn't quite understand how his old friend had gotten to keep so many amenities in his cell, but that didn't really matter...Kristoph Gavin would be behind bars for the rest of his life.

He reached for the handle to the front door, only to jerk back when the door swung inward without his touch. For just a moment Phoenix stared, almost sure he was seeing Kristoph here in person, only for the slight difference in the man in front of him to sink in—hair and skin a shade darker, fewer lines in his face, dressed in an elaborate jacket that Kristoph would never have been seen dead in.

For his part, Klavier Gavin looked just as startled to see Phoenix. He recovered quickly, nodded his head to the defense attorney, then turned to the side to slip past him.

Phoenix adjusted his coat and ran one hand through his spiky hair. He didn't hold anything against the young prosecutor—they'd both been deceived by Kristoph all those years ago. It was just still awkward, sometimes, now that they were working in the same city again.

“Are you going to see my brother, Herr Wright?”

He paused and glanced back over his shoulder to find Klavier looking up at him from a few steps down. He had his hands jammed in his pockets, and was staring at the bottle tucked under Phoenix's arm.

“He's still allowed visitors, isn't he?” Phoenix asked. Damn, he hadn't even thought to check...just assumed.

Klavier made a face and crossed his arms over his chest. “He won't see anyone.”

Phoenix let the door close and studied the younger man for a moment. “Anyone?”

“Not even me...not even his family.”

Blowing out a sigh, Phoenix leaned back against the railing that ran up the center of the prison's front steps. “Do you know why?”

Klavier's eyes met his briefly before looking away. He was uncharacteristically subdued, with no sign of the flamboyant prosecutor that had made Apollo's first cases so challenging. “He says he doesn't want pity.”

“Pity?” Phoenix frowned. He could imagine Kristoph saying something like that, but there was no way Klavier would actually act that way. From everything Phoenix had heard the younger Gavin still held his older brother in high regard—Kristoph had practically raised him, after all.

“It's his way,” Klavier shrugged.

Phoenix shifted away from the railing and took the few steps to be closer to the young prosecutor. “Are you all right, Klavier?”

Klavier shrugged again. He met Phoenix's eyes for another brief second before looking out over the empty steps and blowing a lock of hair out of his eyes. ��He's all I have, Herr Wright. He's never...I didn't want it to be like this.”

With a grimace, Phoenix looked away. It was hard...they'd both been deceived by Kristoph, and they'd both had a hand in making sure he stayed behind bars for good. And while that had been the first steps for Phoenix getting his life back after losing his attorney's license, it had been one final loss on top of a year of losses for Klavier.

“Hey,” he grabbed Klavier's arm as the younger man was turning to leave. “We're, uh...we're having a party. At the office. You should come.”

Klavier stared at him with raised eyebrows. “With Herr Forehead and all the little frauleins? I'm not so sure I'd be welcome.”

“It's not like that,” Phoenix scoffed.

“And what is it like?” Klavier challenged. “Hmm? My brother won't accept your pity so you try to force it on me?”

“This isn't pity!” Phoenix dropped the wine, not caring if the bottle shattered on the ground, and took Klavier's other arm to force the younger man to face him. “This isn't about pity, Klavier. This is about friendship. About family. About being together to...to celebrate what we do have.”

Klavier's head was lowered and his shoulders slumped in Phoenix's grasp. “Herr Wright...”

“You know Apollo and Athena respect you. Hell, Trucy asks about you all the time...and it's not just us who'll be there, Edgeworth's coming.”

Edgeworth. High Prosecutor Edgeworth. Klavier almost perked up at that, glancing up at Phoenix through his bangs.

Encouraged, Phoenix went on. “I invited a few old friends from the police force, and Athena's bringing a couple of students she's tutoring. Maya and Pearl are coming...Larry will probably show up whether I invite him or not...” He knew Klavier didn't know half these people, but something about the thought of the young prosecutor spending the holiday season alone was just unbearable.

Impulsively, Phoenix pulled Klavier into an embrace, right on the steps of the prison. “You're not alone,” he murmured. “You've still got us, Klavier. I know it's not the same, but...please. You've got us.”

Klavier froze for a moment, then his arms came up to wrap around Phoenix. God, when was the last time someone had hugged this kid? “Danke, Herr Wright. I'll try.”

* * *

Larry had finally given up on trying to spike the punch and was by the table with Maya, engaged in an all-out competition to see who could make the most disgusting plate of meatballs. So far Maya was in the lead, Phoenix thought, with her creative use of wasabi and chocolate syrup, but Larry had downed that like a champ and was creating an abomination with tartar sauce, whipped cream, and a jar of pickled onions he'd dug up somewhere.

A knock on the door pulled Phoenix out of his conversation with Edgeworth, and when he opened it he was pleasantly surprised to find Klavier on the other side, holding up a box from the bakery like a peace offering.

“Herr Wright,” Klavier began, hesitantly, but a squeal from behind Phoenix had the older man jumping out of the way.

“You came!” Trucy yelled. She wrapped her hands around Klavier's forearm and tugged him into the room. “We've been waiting—why are you late? I need you on my team for trivia, Athena and her kids are trouncing us and Polly's no good with anything other than nerd stuff!”

There was a protesting “Hey!” from the corner where Pearl was presiding over a game of trivia (currently Trucy and Apollo vs Athena and her students).

“Trucy, let the man take off his coat first,” Phoenix complained as he rescued the bakery box before Trucy's enthusiasm sent it crumbling to the floor.

“Never!” Trucy shouted. “Take no prisoners!”

“But you're taking one now!”

“Never!”

Phoenix dropped the box on the table, wincing as Larry immediately dived into it for an eclair to add to the monstrosity he was about to force-feed Maya, and chased after Trucy and Klavier. “Klavier, quick! I'll distract her and you can run!”

Klavier was already laughing, and he simply shrugged out of his coat as Trucy shoved him down to sit next to Apollo. “No, no, the fraulein's honor must be avenged.”

“Yes! Take that, Athena! We're here for vengeance!”

Phoenix held his hands up in surrender and picked up the prosecutor's coat to drape over the back of the couch with the other winter jackets and retreated.

“I didn't realize your parties would be so...enthusiastic, Wright,” Edgeworth observed when Phoenix returned. His expression was carefully controlled as usually, though a muscle in his cheek was twitching as he watched Maya take a big bite of Larry's disgusting meatball-and-eclair combination.

“Yeah, well,” Phoenix shrugged. “Sometimes family's like that.”

Edgeworth snorted, though Phoenix was pretty sure that was just to cover a gag as Maya swallowed down the last bite of Larry's creation. “Indeed.”

Phoenix smiled, looking from where Maya was triumphantly pulling a jar of Vegemite out of her pocket (to Larry's horror) to where Trucy was pumping both hands in the air in victory at Klavier's first correct trivia answer. “Yes, indeed.”

* * *

(The Ace Attorney series is the second of my top three video game series that I’m writing for. There was some headcanon here, but I hope you enjoyed it!)

Next Time: Warmth - “Yes, of course. Because a cold nose to the jugular is such a renowned aphrodisiac.”

* * *

Day Two - Master List - Day Four

#ace attorney #fanfic #phoenix wright #klavier gavin #trucy wright #miles edgeworth #kristoph gavin (mentioned)#Christmas #friendship #post-dual destinies #angst #klavier needs a hug #twelve days of fictmas 2020

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 5 years ago

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Witches, Chapter 16: congrats Apollo you’re not back in hell. this case, you’re only on the margins of it.

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

Among the ethical questions Apollo has pondered in his time as a lawyer, “is it wrong to search for a new job on my current employer’s office computer?” is the least consequential and least dire one. Not that he’s thinking of leaving the WAA, not at this moment, but being stuck spinning in a chair while Phoenix and Athena go out to investigate - it might not become a trend, but it might be, and he’ll need to prepare a contingency if it does. If he, the lawyer who got this place renamed from Wright Talent Agency to Anything Agency by being the first lawyer in seven years to work within its walls, who put the pieces together for Phoenix to let him get his badge back, gets squeezed out of it.

Fine. He’s used to it. Foster home after foster home and before any of them a home in the mountains of Khura’in, Apollo doesn’t fit, Apollo goes away to the next place that will take him for a little while longer.

But Phoenix is only so reliable and some part of Apollo suspects that he’ll get yanked away by the fae and leave the case suddenly on Apollo’s shoulders, and instead of pondering the ethical question - the answer is, he doesn’t care if it’s wrong, but he’s not going to do it because Mia would know and he’s not going to test a fae queen’s patience - he sets to work researching the scene of their crime. The Shipshape Aquarium’s website prominently displays what they call the Aqua Tunnel, a glass tunnel that runs under the aquarium’s largest tank, allowing a full view of fish to the sides and right above their heads. Apollo’s stomach churns just seeing the pictures of visitors standing there, illuminated blue in the dark, water all around them held back only by glass that can’t be thick enough to put him at ease. It looks like drowning feels.

So it’s almost like a good thing that this is the case that he’s been squeezed out of.

Then Athena texts him to tell him that their client is an orca, one of the marine animals on display and performing at the aquarium, and the dizzy lightheadedness that the Aqua Tunnel instilled in him turns to dizziness from the breathless laughter wheezing forth from his lungs.

The woman who had shown up on their doorstep really didn’t say much specific about her friend and her case, did she? Apollo desperately wants to see how Phoenix bluffs his way through this one and is desperately relieved that he’s only involved in this case from the margins. Athena tells him that she wants to hear later about the time Phoenix cross-examined a parrot; their human client (Athena says human, anyway, because she needs to distinguish from their orca client, but they probably can’t say for certain yet, human) mentioned it as the real actual reason she came here looking for Phoenix Wright.

Apollo drags his feet across the carpet to bring the spinning chair to a halt - wait, maybe this is why he’s so dizzy - and heads for the shelves back behind Phoenix’s desk. His oldest cases, and a few that he acted as Mia’s assistant on, and a few of hers even before he was a lawyer at all, rest there, and Apollo had read through some of them again on the really slow, lonely days before Athena was here and while Trucy is at school. He knows exactly where to find that one, the one where Phoenix cross-examined a parrot to defend the future Chief Prosecutor and get a forty-year legend of a prosecutor indicted on murder charges.

(How many legends has Phoenix torn down in the strangest of ways, as a rookie, while disbarred, a force to be reckoned with no matter his personal circumstances?)

The parrot’s name was Polly. Apollo sort of hates that as much as he hates everything else about Phoenix’s chaotically stupid bluffs working out for him, and that this is what he so admired about Phoenix from the start. It’s a lot less fun to be the one behind the bench, bluffing frantically, than it is to follow it in a transcript.

He drops the file on Athena’s desk and sticks a pen in the relevant part so they can review it later. Her last update said that they’re going to do their own investigation to find possibility of a human culprit, so that the orca won’t be put down, and it’s radio silence from there out. Apollo goes back to the aquarium website. Trucy sends him photos from the wrestling match she and Jinxie are attending; she won’t be back until early evening.

The other bookshelf out in the front room is where the fun happens. He’s found the same book there twice, sure, but almost never with the same cover. A weathered leather-bound tome, cracking along the spine, surely a grimoire full of old fae secrets, contains Mia’s taxes. A textbook cover proclaiming this a study of real estate law contains biographies of famed stage magicians. The only ones that stay the same are the thin picture books slipped in between matters of law and magic: Deauxnim, all of them, Elise or Laurice. Bored again, he thumbs through one, marveling at the elaborate illustrations, and the pages are cold to the touch. On reaching the end, a loose sheet torn from a sketchbook slips out, drifting feather-slow to Apollo’s feet. It’s a simple painting, three people and no background rendered in pale watercolor - a man with stark white hair and a visor that makes him look like he stepped out of a comic book, a beautiful woman in a suit jacket with a magatama around her neck, and another, older woman with hair tightly bound up on the top of her head and the same soft smile, albeit wearier and more lined, as the first woman. His eyes keep drifting back to the woman with the magatama, the yellow dot on her lapel that might be an attorney’s badge, her knowing brown eyes. The page, then the book, he slides back where they came from, but he can’t close the cover on the sensation that he’s supposed to know who she is.

Every time he thinks he’s dug into every nook and cranny of this office, turned up every little scrap, there’s always something new. He hasn’t had the chance - that makes it sound like he wants to be doing this instead of being so bored out of his skull that he ends up hunting through decades of paper - to explore the shelves since Athena came to the office. The last notable anything he found before her arrival was an accordion folder containing receipts for what looked like every single thing Phoenix ever bought from September 2016 through the next six months. What neurosis created that habit?

He glances back at the spine of the picture book, still holding the image of the middle woman’s watercolor eyes in his mind. Mia? Could she be? He doesn’t ask, not out loud, and she doesn’t give any hints.

Back at Phoenix’s desk, where the desktop computer is, the overwhelming blue of the aquarium website mocks him and his memories of water rising up over his head, and he spins the chair away and stares at the back wall, the sun-faded movie film poster that doesn’t show a title, and the shelf of case filings. He doesn’t care if Phoenix wants him to man the office tomorrow - he is not missing this case for the world, not because it’s Phoenix Wright back in court for the first time in eight years, but because he desperately wants to know how this orca matter pans out. (And okay, maybe he does want to see what Phoenix is like behind the bench when he’s not backed into a corner, his life on the line against a serial murderer, no other choice in his eyes but to become the thing that Kristoph framed him to be seven years earlier. Maybe Apollo’s still looking to find the legend he admired within the man that he knows.)

His phone, left on his desk, begins buzzing and continues buzzing. Someone’s calling, probably Phoenix, because he’s the only one who calls regularly instead of texting. What sort of trouble has their case run into, or maybe he’s wondering if Trucy’s back yet because she can be somewhat unreliable when it comes to letting anyone know where she is. But the name displayed on screen isn’t Phoenix - it’s Klavier.

They’ve never spoken on the phone before. Apollo’s heart seizes up, beats out a swift staccato rhythm. What the hell is going on that he would call? “Hello—?”

“Tell me your boss isn’t defending an orca.”

Apollo collapses into his desk chair, nearly tipping it off of its wheels. “Where did you hear about that?” he asks. “That’s not - please tell me that’s not a - a timeline constant, or whatever, that you didn’t see it happening, or - tell me you’re not prosecuting the orca!”

Klavier laughs. “Nein, Forehead, I am not sure even you could convince me to take that to court.” His chuckle continues for a few moments after but trails away into silence, long enough that Apollo wonders if the call has been dropped. Apollo inhales to say something and Klavier cuts across him, maybe coincidence that they chose the same time to speak, maybe not. “Herr Samurai told me about it. He’s the one prosecuting that whale of a defendant.”

He starts laughing again and Apollo groans. Determined to not give him any more satisfaction, he simply asks, “Blackquill doesn’t have an office space, does he?” He’d dismiss the thought entirely on basis of common sense, but Klavier has to have spoken to him somehow, and common sense would have a convicted murderer not prosecuting at all. Who’s to say what they’re doing over at that building?

“He does not, but he was here to speak with the Chief Prosecutor over some or another matter, and stopped by my office before he left to tell me that your boss’ first case with his new badge is…” Klavier makes a dismissive, disgusted noise from the back of his throat.

“The client when she showed up at the office didn’t say that her friend who needed defending was an orca.” Apollo has a sudden need to defend Phoenix against Klavier’s disdain, not least because that disdain sounds particularly like someone else. “Though, I mean, when he and Athena found out, yeah, that was a, uh - a choice, they made, to continue.”

“You aren’t working this one?”

“No. I’m stuck back at the office.” Like they’re a real agency that is going to have clients show up more than once every three months. “Missing out on a free trip to the aquarium” - and all the fun drowning phobia that could come with it - “but at least I don’t have to figure out the defense plan for a killer whale.” He doesn’t mind a challenge, finds all the outlandish challenges in the past have made him a better lawyer, but it’s a killer whale. It’s there in the name, and he can’t ask it for its testimony to get its side of the story, put that together with the rest of the evidence, with what he sees and hears. A client who only spoke a little English, and pretended not to have even that, sure. An orca might be taking Phoenix’s “have total faith in your client” mantra a little far.

“Which aquarium is this?” Klavier asks. “There’s the two big ones around here, ja?”

Apollo spins his chair back to his desk, finds that he doesn’t have the computer here, or his laptop up, and racks his brain for the name. “It’s the Shipley” - no, that’s the victim’s name - “Shipshape Aquarium.”

“Ach, the pirate one.”

“You’ve been there?”

Apollo hasn’t - there had been been a middle school biology class field trip that his foster family of the time couldn’t afford to send him on; they had five kids in that house and naught to spare for any class trips. Clay came back with a googly-eyed shark keychain that Apollo still has clipped to his bag, and the proclamation that the aquarium was “totally lame” and if they wanted to see fish they could go to the pet store and walk through the fish section for free.

(And then they did, and then they couldn’t stick to their for free part of the concept and bought a betta fish that lived for four years after they did extensive research on the proper care and tank setup, which caused Apollo to take up a crusade against the store for the little plastic containers they kept the poor fish in, and then Clay said again, not for the first or last time, that he should be a lawyer because he could get really passionate about arguing and his surname made the whole deal better because with a surname like Justice you have to be either a lawyer or a criminal, basically. That was two years after he left Khura’in, after he was starting to realize it might be a long, long time, if ever, until he returned, but he had never stopped thinking about being a lawyer, not because of Dhurke but because of Clay, who never knew Dhurke. He just knew Apollo. And he thought that would be the career for Apollo, not because he was Dhurke’s son, but just because of Apollo.)

“Mhm.” Klavier sounds more subdued than usual. “Ja, I have. Many times.”

“You don’t strike me as a fish person.”

“That could be because I’m a human person, do you think?” He’s laughing again, but again, it falls off quickly. “It was Daryan who so enjoyed the aquarium, not I. You didn’t suppose his shark aesthetic was an accident?”

“I never really thought about it,” Apollo admits. Maybe that’s not quite true - the thought had passed his mind, and then gotten shuffled away as many more important impressions of Daryan replaced it - namely, that he was an asshole, and probably a criminal. And then actually a criminal, another of the people Klavier loved who turned out nasty. “Though I guess that makes sense.” If there’s anything that could make that hairstyle make sense.

“We went there often, even after we were celebrities - every time we’d come home from a tour, less and less as that was, especially as I started traveling for reasons that weren’t tours, we’d visit that or the other aquarium around the city. Hard to sneak through the crowds when you’re famous, admittedly.” He gives another softer, sadder laugh. “The fans coming up for autographs made it harder to play our favorite game of harassing each other about what fish looked most like the other one.” A thoughtful pause, where Apollo thinks he’s dwelling on the times passed with someone no longer around in the same capacity as his memories, mourning a friend turned into a monster - and maybe he is, but the actual words he follows up the silence with are, “I’m not sure what fish I’d call you. Something very small and very red, surely.”

“Ugh.” Just when Apollo wants to be charitable to him, and sympathetic. “You’re hilarious.” He tips his chair back and stares at the ceiling. They’re not in court, but he’ll never let one of Klavier’s statements go unchallenged. “I know exactly what you’d be.”

“Oh?”

Apollo grins as he says it, the one that Trucy always teases him for because she says it’s his texting Prosecutor Gavin look and she’s sort of correct, but it’s more like a roasting Prosecutor Gavin look. “A clownfish.”

His jab is rewarded with a strangled, choking laugh.

Apollo toys with the idea of asking him why he didn’t glamour himself free from the squeeze of the crowds, but decides not to. He’d never told Daryan about his history and the abilities he had - that, Apollo remembers, Klavier saying he never had the words to tell his best friend and then he was gone. (Apollo remembers him saying that because Apollo, without the words to tell Clay about Dhurke, sympathizes.) Maybe he didn’t want to so obviously display his secret in front of his friend. Maybe he liked the attention, the screaming adoring fans, back then before Gavin was the name of a murderer, too. He had nothing to hide from back then.

So instead, the prior part of the conversation that Apollo circles back to is, “So Prosecutor Blackquill came by to let you know, specifically?” Any angle he looks at it seems like one of Blackquill’s manipulations, a stab into that open wound of Klavier’s mistake. Something to use against him, measuring his reaction, assessing the best way to get under his skin - tell him Wright is back in the legal world, tell him that Wright is making a mockery of the legal world with an orca, and watch and wait to see if there are fireworks.

“He did specifically wish to let me know, but it is not as though we have never spoken with each other before.”

“Right. And you thought he was pleasant enough, or whatever.” Should that surprise him? Klavier’s best friend was Daryan, an utter asshole, after all - and Klavier can be a real dick in court too.

“He is not unpleasant, which is something not quite the same, especially not as we are lawyers. I think he may just have wished to see my reaction as I found out about what your boss is up to.”

If he isn’t being manipulative, he’s simply a troll, and yeah, that sounds like the conclusion to draw about Blackquill. “You’re right,” Apollo says. “That probably would’ve been pretty funny to see.”

“Hmph. I don’t imagine you were any more composed - you probably yelled loud enough to wake the dead, ja?”

Yes, he had yelped “What?” to the empty office, nearly dropping his phone as he did, and the longer he takes to come up with a retort to counter that assessment, the more Klavier is going to start laughing at him. “How do you suppose Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth feels?” Apollo asks. “He’s done this thing allowing him back in court for whatever reason and now Blackquill’s using his freedom to prosecute to take an orca to court.” Klavier doesn’t respond, just laughs at that, but Apollo can’t laugh for more than a moment. He rubs at some stray ink marks on his desk and adds, “Do you have any idea why he’s set this all up?” he asks. “Let Blackquill do this? Not the orca specifically, but prosecuting at all”

Klavier goes quiet. “I presume, as do the few colleagues I’ve spoken of this with, that he thinks the verdict was wrong - that he hopes, in some convoluted manner, to clear Herr Samurai’s name and overturn his conviction.”

“You think?”

“I respect Herr Chief greatly and would at least like to hope that there is some reason to his actions.” Right, this is Edgeworth, not Phoenix. Edgeworth’s the one who’s not a cryptic fae bastard. “I could not tell you what I think, myself.” Bitterness coats his words as he adds, “I am not known to be someone good at guessing if someone I know is capable of murder.”

“I…” Apollo clumsily searches for some kind of condolence. “I don’t think anyone is.” Klavier talks to him about these things because he knew Kristoph, too, but sometimes Apollo thinks that Klavier forgets that he did know Kristoph, too. That it wasn’t his brother, no, just his boss, but still blindsided him. The evidence was there but otherwise Apollo never could have guessed - he just chose to believe the evidence. But what if it was a friend, now, a brother, a coworker - if Clay was accused, if - or Trucy, Phoenix again, Athena - if there was evidence to it, what would Apollo do? He doesn’t know.

“You have your Truth, though. I suppose that makes it a little easier, wouldn’t it, ja? You see and you know they are lying - know more than they are saying, are involved, did it.”

“Yeah, but it could be any of those options, like you said. It’s not necessarily just, did a murder.” He pushes off from the desk and starts slowly spinning his chair again. Everyone has secrets, but they’re probably not all murders committed. It’s all context, during cases, and he’s a defense attorney, he’s supposed to trust his client, but everyone else caught up in a thing— “Not that it helps me with Blackquill.”

“Too secretive even for our eyes - ja, he’s a bit of an odd one.”

“A bit? A bit? Do you say that because you’re already so far out there odd that he only seems a bit—”

“Ja, ja, you work for an ‘Anything Agency’ that is defending an orca—”

“I’m not defending the orca!”

“You are an accomplice. All of you are guilty. Blackquill is prosecuting the orca as well, and all of you are a bit odd.”

A bit. Understatement of the decade. “And you’re still a clownfish.”

Athena’s car pulls into the lot before Trucy gets back, which means that Apollo could’ve just shut the place down for the day and gone with them to the aquarium and it wouldn’t have changed a damn thing but that he had time to talk with Klavier. Not like anyone showed up with another case.

“I got to feed an orca!” Athena’s shout begins before she has thrown the door open. “But the penguin hated me.”

What, exactly, is Apollo supposed to say to this? “I’m sorry?” he offers, and behind Athena, Phoenix snorts stifling laughter. “How’s the case for tomorrow looking?”

“Eh.” Phoenix wiggles his hand noncommittally. Athena presses the heels of her hands against her eyes. “We’ve got enough of a possibility to get it to go to trial, but nothing more than that, and that’s probably just in part because Prosecutor Blackquill is a lunatic.”

“Is he really that bad?”

That’s a young woman’s voice asking that question, but Athena has been face-to-face with Blackquill and knows exactly how bad he is, and Trucy heard her and Apollo complain about him for weeks after Mayor Tenma’s trial. Phoenix steps into the office and aside, and behind him stands a girl maybe Trucy’s age, with a soft round face and big gray eyes, her light brown hair pulled up in tight twists. Her clothing looks like Iris’ robes, with a shorter hem, down to the large beaded necklace from which a magatama hangs.

Oh. Oh no. Do all the fae dress like this, or is this one of the relatives that Iris mentioned to them in Nine-Tails Vale?

“I’ll let you make your own determination from the gallery tomorrow,” Phoenix says. “If you’re coming. If not, we can catch you up but I’d rather go over the case again with Apollo and see if we can figure anything out.”

“Of course I’ll be there tomorrow!” The girl claps her hands together. “Your first trial in ages, Mr Nick! I wouldn’t miss it!”

“Who’s this?” Apollo asks. He sounds calm, really, he thinks, and then Athena shoots a quizzical look, eyebrows pressed together and turning up where they meet, at him. Of course. He can’t hide, not from her, but either she hasn’t registered the similarities between this girl and Iris, or she’s been assured, by Phoenix, by spending some time with this girl already if they all came in together, that she’s not terrifying.

Not any more than the fae are, conceptually, for what they all have the powers to do.

“You can call me Pearl!” The girl inclines her head forward politely. Apollo notes that she didn’t say that’s what her name is, just that’s what she goes by. “I’m a friend of Mr Nick’s!”

Her clothing, her careful wording of an introduction, and now an odd nickname (nickname, don’t think the pun, don’t acknowledge it) for Phoenix. Add it all up, and he doesn’t like the sum. “Hi,” he says. “I’m Apollo.”

“It’s very nice to meet you.” Her language is formal but not stilted; it sounds like the most natural manner of speech, coming from her. Mr Nick. She’s just polite, then; polite, refined, almost regal in mannerism, her every movement stepping further into the office made with deliberate care. She tips her head back, her expression serene, scanning the air of the office like she’s looking for something.

“Pearls is an old friend of mine who we ran into at the aquarium,” Phoenix explains, with no indication of whether she’s a human “old friend” or the other sort. “She gave us some help with our investigation.”

“Oh, I didn’t do much of anything.” Her cheeks start to turn pink and she quickly brings her hands up over her face. “It was just good to see you lawyering again! But you haven’t gotten any better at keeping your office clean.” She lowers her hands, one of them falling only to her mouth to chew on a thumbnail, and she surveys Trucy’s magic props spread out on every available surface. “Why doesn’t she just keep everything in the Magic Panties and take out whatever she needs only when she needs it? They’re already enchanted and there’s no cost to using them, and poor Mystic Mia has to look at all this!”

“Huh?” Athena asks. “Mia, that’s - she was your boss, wasn’t she, Mr Wright?”

Which is when Apollo realizes that he hasn’t ever mentioned Mia to Athena, and from the expressions on Phoenix and Pearl’s faces - slow dawning surprise for the former, and narrowing eyes, rising anger, for the latter - Phoenix hasn’t told her, either.

(He feels awful that he feels some sort of - satisfaction? No, that’s too strong a word. Relief, a little bit - that Athena wasn’t told the secrets off the office. That Phoenix isn’t always good at communicating with her either.)

Instead of sitting down and mapping out the case, their evidence, and their plan of attack for the trial tomorrow, as Phoenix clearly still wants to, he sinks into the couch with a long sigh and explains Mia’s continuing presence to Athena, the way he did for Apollo and Vera last year. (“So that’s why the lights did that this morning!” Athena exclaims, and Apollo is really curious what she thought was going on otherwise.)

Pearl sits primly next to him, hands folded neatly in her lap, watching Phoenix without ever blinking. “Mystic Mia is my cousin,” she says when Phoenix has finished his brief summary - nothing in it new to Apollo, but Athena next to him sits hunched forward with her elbows on her knees, her hand cupped over Widget as though ready to start a therapy session based on whatever emotional testimony she finds in Phoenix’s words. “But she left to become a lawyer when I was very small and I don’t remember her very well.”

“Oh!” Athena sits up suddenly. “If she’s your cousin, and she was a faery, then you’re…” She doesn’t finish the statement, either waiting for an affirmation from Pearl before she speaks it into truth, or being extra cautious with the idea of not asking or accusing her what she is. But Pearl nods, and Athena slumps back against the couch and says, “That makes me feel so much better about the smelling blood that you did back when we were investigating! That’s so much less weird.”

“That still sounds kind of weird, whatever you’re saying,” Apollo says, literally biting his tongue a second later as the fear of telling one of the fae that she’s weird - even a true statement as that is - takes hold. A bit odd is such an understatement.

Pearl, though, does not react to that, and Apollo doesn’t hear about the blood-covered coin until later. In the moment, the door violently bangs open and Trucy barges in, a huge grin swallowing up her face, excitedly shrieking, “Pearly!”

The apartment door creaks open and the approaching footsteps stop abruptly. “Bad day, huh?” Clay asks.

“Mmph,” Apollo says, his face pressed into the couch cushions. He considers leaving it at that but knows that Clay won’t let it go, and a second later the door closes and the weight of his best friend settles in on his legs. Apollo turns his head to the side, unable to see Clay but at least able to be heard without yelling. He doesn’t have the energy to yell. “My coworkers are defending an orca in court.”

“Like, a whale? Like that kind of orca?”

“Is there another kind.”

Clay cackles. “Holy shit.”

Phoenix sends the kids off long before he leaves the office himself, pondering a whistle and a bloody coin and a looped fifteen seconds of security footage and a dead man still without an official autopsy report. That’s the first thing they’ll be slapped with at the trial tomorrow, and if they’re unlucky it’s going to turn out to show that the manner of death wasn’t blunt force trauma at all and they’ll be in deep shit with nothing to bluff on from the outset. If he’s really unlucky, they still won’t have finished the autopsy, as late today as it was ordered, and he and Athena are going to get through a good case before the full report arrives and smashes their every conclusion to bits.

He leans his head in his hands, staring down at the surface of his desk as though he can divine the answers from the scratches in the wood. “Mia,” he says, “what am I doing?”

Silence answers him. He lifts his head and looks out the window, to the bare empty rooms of the long-ago closed Gatewater Hotel, that whole damn lot cursed because that’s what happens to a place when it’s used as a staging ground to frame one fae royal for the murder of another. He’d been glad that particular branch of the Gatewater went under, as he’d stopped leaving these blinds open and really did miss the sunlight shining in through, even if he still had to pull them shut when the night became dark and the cold yellow city light cast a pool on the ground that night after night still marked where Mia died.

How does he get over the death of someone who’s only sort of gone?

“I did this for Edgeworth,” he continues, “but now other people want my help - Sasha, and Athena, and - I don’t know if I can do this anymore. I don’t know if I should. Do you think defending an orca is going to make me any less of a laughingstock? Maybe it’ll be better publicity for me. People think orcas are cute, right?” He doesn’t have much opinion, but Athena and Pearl and Trucy all seem to agree. “Maybe that would put some trust back to me after, y’know, having to set up an entirely new legal experiment just to get Kristoph convicted. That really looked good for me, huh, makes me seem real honest.”

He leans back, hangs his neck over the back of the chair. “How long were you chasing Redd White for, anyway? Was that when you left Grossberg’s, when you found out that he was the one White bribed for information about your mother? If you’d been chasing him for seven years and came up with no solid connecting evidence, just a list of names - would you have given up fighting in an honest manner? How many people could he have blackmailed into suicide in that time - is it wrong to stop someone like that, even with—?”

Even with forged evidence. Fudge it here and there for the safety of innocent people because sometimes the guilty are too damn smart to be found out. That’s not why the devil forged evidence, but it certainly is what the Demon Prosecutor’s mantra was. No way to know, so damn them all.

“Or,” he asks, “are you a better person than me? Would you not fall so far?”

He should probably get home soon, make dinner for the girls before they just eat cookies and bagels. Pearl doesn’t have Maya’s appetite, thank god, and hosting her doesn’t send him bankrupt and empty the entire pantry. It’s been so long since she last dropped by that even if he did have to shell out for a five-course feast tonight, he’d do it. Trucy adores her, and vice versa. It’s good for them to get to see each other again.

He makes sure to leave the computer on, cursor blinking on an open document so that if Mia has anything to say, either to the case or the latest installment of Phoenix’s forever-ongoing personal crisis, she can let him know. (Right after her death, Maya left the computer on, slept on the couch, and in the morning before she came to cheer Phoenix on in court found flip reciept and suicde folder compile names. And she had dutifully followed her older sister’s last, typo-marred instructions, cryptic as they seemed at first, but when the surrounding cards were played, it made sense, and Mia saved Phoenix’s life for not the first and not the last time.)

He flips the back room lights off and sees, standing next to the couches, between Phoenix and the door, the Gavin hellhound.

Phoenix lets out a shaky breath. Like he wasn’t doing a good enough job of reminding himself that he’s an imposter walking back into the courthouse tomorrow, spot who doesn’t belong, and the convicted murderer doesn’t either but Edgeworth’s put them both back there because he believes in them. But Edgeworth’s faith doesn’t change the past, only the future, and he’s only one man against the multitude of specters literally haunting Phoenix.

“What do you want?” Phoenix asks the barely-corporeal fae hound. Feathery plumes of white smoke drift off of her tail and the backs of her legs, her edges blurred against reality, the classic archetypal image of a ghost. She opens her mouth wide enough that she could probably fit her jaws halfway around a basketball, pulling her lips back, showing off her teeth.

He has no idea when Kristoph summoned her - at what point his patience gave out and he reached to the magical heritage his blood allowed him, binding for himself a hound bred for the Wild Hunt. He first ever saw her after Kristoph was in jail, and he out, when he and Trucy noticed the beast stalking them, never coming close, never making a threat, but observing, studying, gathering information for someone. And he first saw her teeth when she yawned, and through the Sight she changes just slightly; shining gold tips the ends of her misty fur, and her teeth drip and bleed with the rotting red of death, the kind of curse Kristoph cast. It all snapped into clarity that instant, whose monster this was, and where the dark red marks of teeth in Zak Gramarye’s neck came from.

She didn’t kill him. That isn’t what her kind are bred for; they don’t kill their prey themselves. They flush out their quarry and chase it back to their masters, herd it in and corner it, to let the handler deal the final blow. Zak came back to Los Angeles because of the statute of limitations was about to run out, and magic that lies in contracts often runs parallel to the laws of human land, but he also came back knowing that he was being watched, being followed, being hunted, and Phoenix knew by who but not how. Didn’t know how until he saw the dog whose lineage was dedicated to the hunt and her teeth that left the impression of her pursuit.

Zak Gramarye died by a blow to his head, but the jaws of death were tight on his throat before then.

He tried to play it cool, for a while, what with her haunting his apartment and the office every so often but then more when Apollo was there and then not at all. Don’t let her smell fear, bribe her with human food, the way Phoenix knows to befriend the fae. It took him a long time to understand why she was still around - she wasn’t pursuing anyone, hadn’t sunk her teeth into a new victim, and Kristoph was shut away in iron. He figured she should be gone.

And he really should’ve figured out what Klavier was - a stolen human child, replaced by Kristoph, who Phoenix knew long ago was a changeling - when, after the verdict came down, he watched Kristoph laugh and Klavier flee and the dog followed Klavier. Fae hounds are bound to one master only, always, until they’re set loose or die, and she was Kristoph’s but followed Klavier. She shouldn’t have been able to shift allegiance like that, and she couldn’t have, not to anyone else but Klavier, because the Gavins - they were the same to her.

Knowing that Klavier is the man commanding the hound, or just letting her wander loose to her own devices (however a creature like her, so bound up in the will of one master, makes determination of what she wants to do herself) doesn’t make Phoenix feel any better at her presence. Not today, and not this time of night when ordinarily, no one would still be here.

She pulls her ears back, jaw opening again, but instead of keeping her head level, she turns her open mouth toward the floor and gags. The horrible sound grates down his spine like claws and his throat like broken glass, like he’s the one choking. With a last wet cough, something yellow falls from her throat, and she snaps her long, disproportionate jaws shut, lifting her head back up to look at him. She licks her lips with her long black tongue, weirdly solid against her wisping fur, and smacks her mouth open and closed a few times. Then she noses whatever-it-is toward Phoenix and looks up again, expectantly.

“Fine,” he says, squatting down so that he can get a better look at it without turning his eyes entirely away from her. It’s an attorney’s badge, its gold plating flaking off to show duller silver below. A well-worn attorney’s badge. “Huh? Is this Kristoph’s—?”

Cold to the touch, cold in his palm, he turns it over. Eight years later he still knows that number by heart.

“Why did you have this?” he asks, his words choked out around his heart risen up into his mouth. He’d ask why she ate it, but that just seems to be a thing that the fae do. Why she had it is the same as why she ate it: because she had it. But why? “Did Kristoph take it when I had to turn it back in to the Bar Association?”

He still doesn’t actually know what happens to a badge of someone no longer a lawyer - he decided he didn’t want to know, mourned the ambiguous fate of his badge, whether it was melted down to become part of a new badge for a new attorney who wasn’t a fuck-up, or had the numbers shaved off and gold plating reapplied and new numbers engraved to become a new badge for a new attorney who wasn’t a fuck-up, or just got dumped in a box for record-keeping about attorneys who are fuck-ups. “Did he send you in to take it for him? Like a trophy?”

He has no way to know where her hollow red eyes are focused. She’s nearly nose-to-nose with him and showing no sign that she understands a word he’s saying. Even if she does she probably can’t convey it back to Klavier, as though he would know the answer either. What person alive has spent more time with Kristoph than either of them, and they don’t know him at all.

On the off-chance that Klavier can actually hear what is being said to his hellhound, or if he knew that she had swallowed Phoenix’s attorney’s badge, he looks her in her empty eyes and says, “Thanks.”

She spins about, her tail swinging right into his face and through it and it feels like a faint misting of snow, the powdery top layer gusted up by the wind, and streaks straight through the closed door, out of the office.

Leaves Phoenix sitting on the floor, and his heart in his hand, tiny and tarnished and ice cold.

#roddy fanfics #fic: the witches of los angeles #weekly updates until i get thru my nano buffer is my plan

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smellofparchment-blog · 7 years ago

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By Moonlight and Sunrises: Chapter 10 - Sunrises

Story Title - By Moonlight and Sunrises (ffn link)

Story Description - There was no awkwardness. No need to fill the empty space with words because the space wasn’t empty. There was something - inaudible, invisible, of course, but there was something there anyways. “How can I possibly want to kiss a woman whose name I don’t even know?” Percy finally asked, breaking the silence.

Story Rating - teen (T)

Story Characters - Percy Weasley, Audrey Shacklebolt, George Weasley, Keegan Shacklebolt (OMC), Sabina Kopitar (OFC), Oliver Wood, Kingsely Shacklebolt, Zhara Shacklebolt (OFC), Kristopher Shacklebolt (OMC), Kelsey Rowle (OFC), Thorfinn Rowle, Molly Weasley I, Arthur Weasley

Story Pairings - Percy/Audrey

Chapter - 10) Sunrises

12 September 1999

"Hey - Prophet owl's here!"

As George opened the window, a small tawny owl swooped into the kitchen and dropped the rolled up newspaper in the middle of the dining table, which was covered in dishes and cutlery leftover from the large breakfast. The week following the attack at the Shacklebolt Estate had been a hectic one. Percy, Audrey, and the whole Shacklebolt family had constantly been in and out of the Wizengamot giving testimonies and journalists were all over the place. However, Kingsley was doing everything in his power to get the trial expedited and over with as soon as possible.

In the midst of testimonies, however, many Order secrets had begun to come out to the public - namely, Percy's involvement. It was unavoidable once Percy was sitting in the Wizengamot and being asked whether he had had any previous encounters with the accused, and the onslaught of questions that had followed had been a nightmare. Fortunately, though, Audrey had been by his side the whole time, just like when he had told his family.

Still, when Percy had received the letter from Rita Skeeter requesting an interview, he had been reluctant. That is, until Audrey made a good point: he could control his story, or he could let the old bag gab away however she wanted. Now, as the Burrow was filled with silence, the headline ominously stared back at him.

FORMER ORDER SPY SPILLS ALL: DRAMA, INTRIGUE, AND HEARTACHE

"Well, she certainly embellished," Percy declared, breaking the silence.

"Could be worse," Audrey said optimistically. She nodded towards the newspaper and added, "Do the honours, Perce."

Everyone in the small kitchen - Molly, Arthur, George, Ron, and Hermione - intently stared at Percy, then back at the newspaper in anticipation. With a deep breath, Percy reached forward and unrolled the paper.

"'Once upon a time, the name Percy Weasley would have meant less than nothing to all households of the wizarding world - ' wow, really, that's how she's going to start?" Percy began to read.

"Keep goin', you need to be brought down a couple pegs," George urged jokingly.

With a sigh, Percy continued, "' - but today I have the honour of introducing you to the Order of the Phoenix's bravest hero. Here follow the tales of a man that has given up more than most for the sake of doing the good thing for all magical kind.' And then it just goes on about some missions I did."

"Perce," Ron started with a serious tone, "for twenty-three years, you have been nothing but a pompous prat, but now - now - you act modest. What bloody missions?"

"Well the first one she talks about is the one where I stopped that last decree Umbridge wanted to get passed, back when she was Headmistress," Percy explained. "It was the one allowing physical punishment of students but Fudge never got it because, uh, I may have replaced it with a rather embarrassing letter bearing Umbridge's forged signature."

"Perfect, prudish Percival Weasley, did you just confess to damaging Ministry property and forging an official's signature?" George exclaimed sarcastically.

"Settle down, would you?" Percy grumbled. "Then it goes on about how I smuggled a muggle-born and his family out of the Ministry."

"The McConnells," Audrey intervened. "Keegan and I received them on the other end of the portkey."

"Wait - really?" Percy asked as he turned to look at Audrey in shock. "Blimey, we had a lot of close calls," he added observantly.

"You mean Gregor McConnell?" Arthur asked. "He... he pushed me out of the way of a blast when we were at Hogwarts."

Audrey glanced at Percy and smiled when she saw the look on his face. She could tell he was trying to down-play the article, but he seemed proud. He had a glint in his eye that she hadn't seen before. When he glanced her way, he didn't hesitate to return her smile.

"The, uh, last part actually talks about the mission that Audrey and her brother did, and how she saved my bloody neck," Percy continued, looking back down at the newspaper in his hands, a wide grin still on his face. "And then it ends with, 'While the war may be over, the list of heroes we must thank for their sacrifices continues to grow. Today, you can add Percy Weasley to that list: a perfect example of selflessness and bravery. Tune in - ' Oh, bloody hell."

"What's wrong?" Audrey asked curiously. She leaned in to get a better look at the article and rolled her eyes as she got a glimpse of the words.

Percy rolled his eyes and continued, "'Tune in next week for the hot gossip on his hero belle, Audrey Shacklebolt. There is more to this pureblood princess and her hero spy than meets the eye.'"

"Ugh, she even bloody rhymed it," Ron said with disgust, "Classic Rita Skeeter, ladies and gentlemen."

"Well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Audrey declared tiredly. "For now, enjoy being a hero, Percy. You earned it."

"Skeeter or not," Molly started, leaning across the table to grab the newspaper from Percy, "this is getting framed and put in the living room."

"Nestled right alongside all of Percy's other awards," George teased as Molly promptly left the kitchen with Arthur following closely behind. "I call it 'The Shrine of Humongous Bighead.'"

As everyone else began to disperse and leave the kitchen, Percy leaned in towards Audrey, a mild look of annoyance on his face, and explained, "He means Head Boy."

"Oh, I know," Audrey replied with a smirk, "Him and Fred pretended like they didn't know who I was talking about if I didn't use that nickname for all of our fifth year. So - "

"So you're familiar," Percy interrupted with a sigh. Although he sounded annoyed, Audrey could see a small smile cracking his glare.

Leaning in closer, Audrey whispered, "You know, if you still have that badge, I think it would still look rather good on you."

"You want to me to wear my Hogwarts uniform?" Percy asked in confusion.

"I meant just the badge."

"I like where your head's at."

31 December 1999

Percy cleaned his glasses for possibly the tenth time in the last half hour, then gently perched them on his face again as he looked in the mirror in his old childhood bedroom. He had managed to tame his curly red hair for the night, and had put on his best set of dress robes. Deciding that this would be his final inspection, Percy gave himself a satisfied nod before opening the door to enter the chaos that was filling the rest of the Burrow.

Almost instantly, Percy was surrounded by the shouting and noise of his family attempting to get ready for the big New Year's Eve party that the Shacklebolts were hosting. He was nervous for the event, although not because it meant he would be facing Audrey's whole family. After Kelsey had been taken care of and things had settled down, Percy had actually regularly kept in touch with Audrey's parents. By all accounts, it seemed that he had made a good impression on them, and he couldn't be any happier.

When Percy's eyes found Ginny and George in the living room playing Exploding Snap, however, his happiness did fall a few steps.

"Hey! You two!" he exclaimed, storming towards his siblings. "You're not even dressed!"

"Ah yes, thank you, Captain Obvious," George bit back with a smirk. "Don't get your knickers in a twist - we'll go change now."

"This was a task for an hour ago!" Percy shouted as George and Ginny rolled their eyes at him and trudged their way upstairs.

Looking around rather frantically, Percy called out, "Ron! Harry!"

"I've got them!" Hermione shouted back. Deciding that she was probably the only other responsible person in the whole house, Percy considered that handled and went into the kitchen to join his older brothers.

Bill and Fleur stood by the window, seemingly calm in the midst of the loud house. Fleur was now sporting a visible baby bump, which had resulted in Molly being even more overbearing than usual; however, for the first time ever, Fleur seemed to be enjoying the attention her mother-in-law was giving her. Sitting at the dining table, Charlie was deep in conversation with his new girlfriend, a witch that he worked with in Romania by the name of Raluca. Admittedly, Charlie not showing up alone for the first Christmas ever had been the highlight of everyone's holidays.

For now, anyways.

Feeling a strong hand on his shoulder, Percy turned his head to see Arthur standing beside him. "How're you feeling, Perce?" his father asked with a grin.

"Nervous - definitely nervous," Percy replied, "but excited."

"That's a good sign," Arthur said reassuringly.

Percy nodded as his father left to extract Molly from Fleur's side. Looking down at his watch, the panic set in again. "People! We're already running late!" Percy shouted.

"Oi, relax," George grumbled as he entered the kitchen, fully dressed, "Haven't seen you this worked up since you graduated."

Percy only rolled his eyes at George, but he felt the smile spreading across his face as the rest of his family filled the small kitchen of the Burrow. The last time he remembered his whole family, Harry and Hermione included, crowded together in the Burrow like this had been Fred's funeral. Now, for the first time in a while, it was for a happy reason.

"All right, be clear when you're in the Floo: Shacklebolt Estate, Hornsea."

Audrey instinctively turned her head as she heard the roar of the Floo, considerably softer when covered up by the loud music playing in the main hall. She excused herself from her father's side as she made her way out of the hall and started to head towards the study.

She quickly stopped by her old bedroom, giving herself one final look-over in the mirror. She had left her hair down, wavy and swaying with every movement. Her gown was a deep burgundy colour and form-fitting. The sleeves were simple lace of the same colour and the dress left her back entirely bare all the way down to her waist. Except for the healed scar running diagonally across her back, she looked exactly how she had looked that night seven months ago.

The night her and Percy had first kissed.

With a satisfied nod, Audrey made her way to the study once more. As soon as she entered, she found the room full with the whole Weasley family. Audrey met Percy's eyes and he started heading towards her, the room growing quiet. She could see the surprise on his face as he recognized the dress. The grin he was sporting was contagious.

"This is... you look beautiful," Percy finally said.

"Thank you," Audrey replied with a proud smile, "you're looking rather dapper yourself."

"People are in the room!" George piped in as he popped up behind Percy and gave his older brother a much too strong pat on the back.

Percy rolled his eyes at George's outburst but Audrey only laughed and took hold of Percy's hand. "Well in that case, follow me," she declared.

With Percy by her side, Audrey led everyone back to the main hall, the sounds of music and conversation getting louder with each step. Everyone was visibly filled with awe as they entered the hall. The ceiling was covered in garlands of silver flowers. Large wreaths hung on the wall and beautiful glass vases of poinsettias were at the centre of each table. A Charmed mistletoe was zooming around the room, coming to an abrupt stop over its next pair of victims: Keegan and Daphne. Dramatic as always, Keegan dipped her down as if dancing before kissing her, earning a loud chorus of 'whoop's from his co-workers.

"Welcome to the Shacklebolts' New Year's Eve party!" Audrey introduced as she turned to face the rest of the Weasley family. "Make yourself at home."

One by one, everyone began to disperse as they recognized old friends or simply felt like joining in on the dancing. Soon enough, only Percy and Audrey were left standing together.

"This is amazing," Percy said as he looked around the room.

"You don't want to know how stressful it was to be around my mum this last month," Audrey replied, "but it looks like it paid off."

"Ah, just who I was looking for!"

Audrey and Percy turned around at the sound of Lucinda's voice. Of course, Audrey should have known that her grandmother wouldn't be one to wait around for Audrey to come to her - rather, Lucinda was a fan of taking matters into her own hands.

"Well, Audrey, please introduce us," the older woman said pointedly.

"Percy, meet my grandmother, Lucinda. Gran, this is Percy, my boyfriend," Audrey introduced with a smile.

"Pleased to finally meet you dear," Lucinda said as she shook Percy's hand. "Kris speaks of you very highly."

"I am truly happy to hear that," Percy replied politely.

"So polite," Lucinda noted as she looked Audrey's way, as if that would mean Percy was out of earshot. Taking a step back and looking at the couple with a proud smile, she added, "Now go enjoy yourselves!"

Hooking her arm with Percy's, Audrey chuckled at her grandmother and led him into the party. With a wave of her wand, two glasses of champagne floated towards her and Percy and they each took a glass as they continued walking. "Gran can be a lot, but she means well," Audrey said with a shrug.

"If you think that's a lot, wait 'til you meet Muriel," Percy replied with a shake of his head. "Besides, I kind of like that my biggest worry is being bombarded by your grandmother."

"Well, when you put it that way, we've definitely fried bigger fish," Audrey admitted. It really was nice, for the first time ever, to not feel like she had to watch her back at every turn.

As the couple made their way around the large room, they stopped a few times to talk to several people they both recognized from work. It felt so natural to be by Percy's side even for the simplest conversations, and Audrey found herself enjoying introducing him to the rest of her family. Soon enough, Audrey spotted Sabina and made her way over to her best friend with Percy in tow.

"Sab! I'm so glad you're here," Audrey said as she went to hug her friend.

"Aye, glad to be here. Nice to see you again, too, Percy," she greeted, looking around rather frantically.

"Likewise," Percy replied slowly. "You all right?"

Sabina sighed heavily and met Audrey's eyes. "I've got a situation," she declared. "Your dad told my dad to feel free to bring the team."

Audrey frowned in confusion at her friend. Every year her parents had held this party, her father had always extended an invitation to the Quidditch team that Sab's father coached, Puddlemere United. "Like he always does," Audrey said slowly.

"Merlin's crotchless thong, I need to be more hammered," Sabina muttered, quickly downing her champagne right after and summoning another glass.

"Oh, look - I didn't know Oliver would be here," Percy said as he spotted his friend just entering the hall. He moved to wave him over but Sabina quickly smacked his arm down.

"Are you mad?" she hissed. Shaking her head, she added, "Jebemti, I need to get out of here."

Without another word, Sabina disappeared into the crowd of the party. "Well, it's never good when she starts swearing in Slovenian," Audrey declared as she looked up at Percy.

"What was that all about?" he asked curiously.

"I have a feeling we'll find out eventually," Audrey replied as she watched Sabina disappear into the crowd. "Still wanna go say hi to Oliver?" she asked.

"Actually... I was thinking we could get some fresh air," Percy said, feeling a surge of courage run through him.

"I'd like that," Audrey replied with a smile.

The couple made their way towards the double doors leading out onto a large balcony that overlooked the sea. The area was sealed with Heating Charms to keep out the cold winter breeze, but the view was still breathtaking. A starry sky hung over the strong sea waves rolling onto the beach. Audrey set her champagne glass down on the stone ledge of the balcony as she looked out at the seaside, a small smile of contentment on her face. She felt calm and happy. These were the moments she wished would never end.

"Remember the last time we were alone on a balcony together?" Audrey asked, the smile on her face widening as she continued looking out at the view.

"That's actually exactly what I was thinking about."

Turning to look at Percy, Audrey frowned in confusion when she didn't immediately see him next to her. When she turned around and her eyes finally landed on him, her jaw dropped slightly and her eyes widened in surprise. She felt her breath hitch as she looked down at Percy, down on one knee in front of her with an open ring box in his hand and an incredibly wide grin on his face.

"Audrey Shacklebolt, I want to stargaze with you for the rest of my life, wherever we are," Percy started. "Will you marry me?"

"Will I - ? Yes! Yes!" Audrey replied excitedly, smiling uncontrollably.

Percy quickly got up and put the engagement ring on Audrey's finger then, without a moment's hesitation, wrapped his arm around her waist to bring her close and kiss her. Audrey quickly kissed him back, hands grabbing at his dress robes to pull him even closer. This was a moment that would last forever.

1 January 2000

"Look at that - made it to sunrise."

Audrey blinked rapidly in the hopes that it would make her feel more awake as she took in the first sign of light between the clouds. After the excitement of their engagement and the thrill of the countdown, Audrey and Percy had decided to stay up to see the first sunrise of the year. They had situated themselves on a bench in the gardens, with plenty of blankets, coffee, hot chocolate, and some strong Heating Charms. Overall, Percy was much better at dealing with sleep deprivation than she was.

"First sunrise of the year," Audrey said with a smile. "First sunrise as your fiancée."

With his arm around her waist, Percy gave her a light squeeze and a kiss on the cheek. "I like the sound of that," he said.

"You know what else sounds nice?" Audrey started as she looked over at Percy. "Audrey Weasley sounds pretty nice."

Percy returned Audrey's wide smile. "It sounds perfect," he said quietly.

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itsthecelia · 8 years ago

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and then and then

So basically next on the journey I left Santa Fe in the afternoon on Wednesday and drove to Albuquerque to meet a friend for coffee a little after three. I haven't seen them in about a year. It is kind of crazy to think that I was in the area just a year ago. It feels like utter lifetimes. It is interesting how I am feeling more familiar than I thought I would being on the road. A lot of these cities I have passed through before and I am suddenly remembering being on this street or eating there before. Memory is a funny thing. I spend no time trying to remember those details but they are flooded in my mind when the familiar is presented. So I get to Satellite Coffee downtown ABQ around 3:30 and spend about an hour chatting with Stephanie. It was so lovely to see her and talk about life with her. She always reminds me about how I am young and how my 20′s are a time for exploration. How some of us have that travel itch and not to feel down about that sort of life. It is always refreshing to see her and spend time with her. She always helps ground me in my journey I think. Very thankful for our connection.

So after that chat I head to the next strangers house. This time I’d be going to Kristopher’s place. All I knew about him is he is 31 and he runs a podcast. Since I had a last minute show booked by Austin Morrell at Gold House in ABQ I told Kristopher I didn’t know if I’d end up spending the night at his place. We still hung out for a bit before my gig. We went to some Thai place and I ate some veggie potstickers. The place smelled like lacker and the ceilings were high. The walls were red. I didn’t get the sense that Kristopher was happy, he seemed pretty sleepy and down. It was kind of a bummer but I also understand the dynamics of a life. This is where I had walked in on his peephole of a life. He mentioned recently going through a break up. That probably had a lot to do with it. But we went back to his place and I played some music for him. He perked up a bit and was pretty impressed by my seemingly secret talent. His friend Stephany came over after awhile and her and I both talked about the nomadic lifestyle. About that itch for exploration and life experience. It was nice to be meeting and talking to people who had a more similar view on life. It was helpful for me to hear these reaffirmations because many doubts like to float into my mind. Then before long I had to head to my gig. I drove only about 10 minutes and was at the house venue Gold House. I was so stoked for this show.

I walk into the house and Austin and James were setting up. I met the dog and James cat name Kat Stevens. Me and Kat Stevens fucking bonded. He was a big orange tabby but he was sooooo sweet and cute. I finally had a face to put to the name Austin too which was great. Him and I had been corresponding via email about shows in the area for awhile. We finally got to meet in the flesh. I was slightly allured by him but also not overly hopeful about anything either. As I am sitting here I am really realizing it is so much about the people. Slowly the place filled up. Austin played his lovely ambient set. Then before I knew it, it was my turn to take the stage. I was ready and excited. People were there and they were there to listen. It was the bestest. There was a plushy dragon basket going around being filled up with donations to help support my tour. Austin made this whole thing possible for me which was fucking awesome. I was so grateful for that. Then his friend who was so fierce and fabulous went on after me. It was so dope. The whole show rocked my socks off. Everyone was super nice too. After the show was over, we all mingled and I ended up eating spicy toast and strawberries at Austin’s house at about 1:30 am. He let me stay in a guest room which was nice.

The next day he made some yummy eggs and cut up some fresh mango for me. He showed me his club house and the garden too. Then we went to Prismatic for some coffee and then I met him at Sister Bar to see where he works. I met a few of the guys that work there and ironically I met his dad there too. He, his dad, and I shared some food and talked about my travels and some of their upcoming travels. It was quaint but I was on my way to Flagstaff after awhile. I left them there at the table and headed to my car. I had about a 5 hour drive to Flagstaff AZ to make a gig I barely knew anything about.

So after being in the car for 5/6 hours, stopping at approximently three sketchy ass gas stations, and one more cup of coffee, I made it to Flagstaff. When I walked into the venue no one knew I was even suppose to be playing there tonight. I could tell it was gonna be shit. They treated me like a nobody and basically said get up there for 30 minutes and another band is booked there must have been a mistake. I knew I wasn't getting paid and I basically just wanted to play my songs and leave. So I talked to the band and told them who I was and asked them how long they would let me play. They were pretty nice about the whole thing at least. I asked the bar to shut off the music but they never did. I had to compete with not only the loud crowd but the loud music too. It was a fucking joke. Its nights like this that I question what the hell I am doing with my life. But I played my songs and then got the fuck out of there. Toward the end of my set an older man walked in and sat down with a notepad and listened closely. Before I left I went up to him to thank him for actually listening. He said his name was Uncle Don and that he was a poet. He slightly creeped me out but some of the best people do. He told me about how his wife died last year and that she was a musician. I think I reminded him of her (if she was even real). I had to leave him be though because I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.

So I left the venue and checked my phone. The person I was suppose to crash with hadn't gotten back to me at all so I was a little nervous about that. My friend Zack happened to text me around that time and I started bitching about my night to him. He ended up calling me and I got to hear Zack, Sam, John, and Moovy’s voices. It helped calm me down. Zack and I bitched about our romantic (or lack there of) drama. He talked about how his girls be ghosting him and I talked about how I was too scared to make out with the people I actually want to make out with. After awhile he let me go. I drove to taco bell and realized my fate would be in a Target parking lot. I was dead tired and about to have to sleep in my car for the night. I got all my pillows and blankets into the most comfortable position I could muster, which ultimately sucked, but I dozed off. I remember questioning my entire life before falling asleep and feeling like a low life and then being too tired to care.

Then a big loud DING happened, it awoke me. I came back to my senses to realize I forgot to put my phone on silent . . . thankfully. Because Kendra messaged me being like I’m so sorry I didn't message you, my gig just got out. She also said I was good to crash if I still needed. I said yes and then drove to her house in half a daze, thankful about life working out after all. It was crazy to roll up at her place around midnight after only meeting her briefly in a coffee shop about one year ago. I asked her about her gig and how her bands were doing. We ended up talking for awhile and catching up which was pretty cool. She didn’t own many possessions and it was refreshing to see. They had just what they needed. She had a huge air mattress waiting for me and pulled it into this little side room for me. I hugged her goodnight and thanked her again for opening her space to me for the night. Then off to sleep I went. I slept pretty well actually and woke up around 10 or so. I laid in bed for awhile and could hear her boyfriend bustling around in the kitchen. I hadn't met him before and I wondered if he knew I was here. I finally mustered up the social stamina to go out and say hello.

Low and behold I had seen him the night before at the gig and didn't even know who he was the night before. I remember thinking he was super cute. Then I was like oh shit there he is in this kitchen! He recognized me and was like hey were you that girl playing at Hops on Birch last night? I said yes and then told him I remember seeing him there. It was kind of a cool moment. How small the world can be some time. He made me a cup of coffee and explained how he had to head out to his sisters graduation. He was so sweet, he had been waiting for me to wake up so he could go into the closest in the room I was sleeping to get a clean shirt. I felt kind of bad because I had been laying in there awake for like 30 minutes just preparing to be social. He didn’t mind though because he wanted to delay getting to the graduation any way. I sipped on coffee and briefly chatted with him before he left. What a nice guy. Seriously. And very attractive. What a catch. I thought about how single I was and have been. I wondered who my next boyfriend would end up being. I made myself a peanut butter bagel and ate a clementine for breakfast, hopped in the shower quick and headed downtown before I left for Phoenix. Again, I reflected about how wonderful people are. How kind and open to sharing they are. I was amazed and grateful for the kindness in peoples hearts. How they are so quick to help me, feed me, give me a place to stay. Life is beautiful thanks to the beautiful people that inhabit it.

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 5 years ago

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More on the Japanifornia Defense Attorneys Nahyuta & Apollo AU, since this is the flavor of the day.

-There is one word that everyone would use to describe Nahyuta and that is “aloof”. He has 0 friends because first he figures, Dhurke’s gonna come back to get them soon, he doesn’t want to make friends only to leave them - as opposed to Apollo, who’s like “hey my parents were from here I might as well take the time to get to know people while we’re here.” And then, as time goes on, years pass and Dhurke doesn’t come back, Apollo starts aggressively pretending that they never had any life other than this one here in America, acting like it’s all fine, why would I be bitter or angry because there’s nothing to be bitter and angry about because there’s no one who ever promised us anything, while Nahyuta just becomes cold and bitter.

-Nahyuta is Kristoph’s favorite student for reasons of him generally being cool, composed, and emotionally unswayed by anything. Nahyuta has a small personal crisis when, after Turnabout Succession, he remembers this and all the times that Kristoph acknowledged his potential by saying the two of them were a lot alike.

-Phoenix does not know Apollo and Nahyuta are brothers for quite a while until sometime after Succession Apollo’s like “Hey Mr Wright, so after our boss being convicted of another murder my brother quit his job at the law firm he was working at and is having a crisis of faith and conscience so can we hire him on for a bit here until we can get his head back on straight” and Phoenix just goes oh god he has a brother THALASSA WE GOTTA TALK AGAIN.

Their fake documents that got them smuggled into the States have them as half-brothers - same mother, different fathers, to explain the last names, but also to give them some blood/legal relation to each other to hopefully keep them from being split up.

Apollo and Nahyuta are probably in the same grade in school, because while there’s a year in age between them, they were probably learning the same things in whatever makeshift way they got schooling while with the rebels. I mean, I guess a bunch of the rebels are lawyers, so there’s probably enough education between them to cobble together some teachings that Apollo and Nahyuta aren’t entirely in the dust when they’re flung into an organized school setting.

Their cover story is that the home they grew up in before entering the foster system was oh totally in America we’re definitely not here from a country on the other side of the world hiding from our evil aunt, but was an immigrant home where they were homeschooled mostly in their native language, hence....everything.

Nahyuta ends up accidentally kind of older-brothering Trucy because that’s just his natural instinct and he’s also uncertain of Phoenix’s parenting skills and Phoenix is like “I think one of my employees may be trying to steal my child?” and the answer is yes because Nahyuta doesn’t remember how to make friends so his two modes are “we are strangers” and “you are my younger sibling.”

Turnabout Reclaimed is fun when Pearl comes back to the office and Phoenix introduces her to Apollo and Nahyuta who weren’t at the aquarium. “Hello, my name is Pearl Fey. I’m a spirit medium.” and Nahyuta goes “ha ha h a what”

Apollo always kind of checked out whenever he was learning about Khura’inism because he was just never very religiously-inclined and he’s straight up forgotten the like, two times Dhurke mentioned that Nahyuta’s mother was the queen of Khura’in, so Apollo is like “hey Nahyuta why are you so weird about this” and Nahyuta’s like “you should know why I’m weird about this”

Which goes as well as you expect when they talk later. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU’RE ROYALTY” “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU FORGOT THAT I’M ROYALTY”

For the serious stuff, Cosmic Turnabout is also an interesting crisis for Nahyuta. When Apollo takes his leave of absence from the agency, Nahyuta has to decide what to do, whether to choose his family over his ideals. He can follow Apollo, help him investigate, help him with whatever the hell he thinks he’s doing - or he can stay with the agency, with Athena who is his friend, and continue defending their client and doing the job a defense attorney is supposed to do.

Canonically when it came to it we know Nahyuta chose family over ideals, but it’s still a fun situation to put him in here, especially if Apollo doesn’t tell him what he saw with Athena’s tells. Nahyuta was friends with Clay, of course, wasn’t as close with him as Apollo was, and Apollo is his brother - but Apollo isn’t telling him what’s going on, and Nahyuta has to choose whether to follow his brother on faith that Apollo has reason to be doing what he is, or stay and continue working the case with Athena and let his grieving and volatile brother go off on his own.

Fun stuff.

Anyway, then there’s Magical Turnabout, and if you’re like “but Roddy who’s prosecuting if Nahyuta is a defense attorney” and the answer is “Klavier, duh” because I think it would be super fun to put Klavier in a situation where once again he’s the prosecution and there’s an accusation leveled against someone he knows and loves, except this time it’s not Apollo bringing the accusation, it’s Apollo defending the accused, and Klavier supposed to be at odds with him. Plus, then we also get Klavier and Retinz who may be familiar with each other in the world of Japanifornia celebrity, plus we get Klavier once again prosecuting a Gramarye, and the specter of the Gramaryes at large - his understandable resentment of the concept of the Troupe against Retinz’s petty overreacting grudge.....which might remind Klavier of someone else who hated the Gramaryes and committed murders for petty revenge on them.

Nahyuta gets to tell Retinz to go to hell in like 37 ways, and also has to reckon with the concept of, Retinz hates Trucy not for anything to do with her, but with her family, which is - Apollo and Nahyuta are here at all because they’d be in danger in their home not because of who they are, but their family.

More fun stuff!

Dhurke shows up like “Wow, you boys really never told anyone about your father?” and Nahyuta smacks him in the face with a string of prayer beads because his instinctive reaction now is not “Dad kept his promise” but “holy shit Dad’s ghost is here” and he’s gotta perform an immediate exorcism.

He’s not....wrong, exactly.

(Then Dhurke asks for their help and Nahyuta’s like “Of course we’ll help” and Apollo’s like “Excuse me you don’t speak for me Dhurke go to hell”)

#ace attorney bullshit tag #i like putting nahyuta into utterly ridiculous situations to watch him respond to it and making him work at the waa #and go thru the events of aa4 and aa5 is ABSOLUTELY a good way to get that

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 6 years ago

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chapter 11.5 -- okay, 12, it’s chapter 12, fine, fine. I should stop trying to predict how long my chapters will be. I’m always wrong. the Fae AU keeps escaping all my predictions. it’s fine. it’s cool.

[Beginning] [Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

It is not, as Apollo expects, the worst road trip he has ever been a part of. Trucy likes to sing along to the radio – she has a surprisingly good voice – which stops Clay from starting up his usual road trip tradition of bellowing out “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” and seeing how much he can get through before someone slaps him. Trucy claimed shotgun, as “the woman with the magic map”, meaning Apollo is shunted to the back with Ema, who upends her bag on the floor to pull from it a jumbo-sized pack of Snackoos and offer a handful to him.

“None for us?” Clay asks, pouting in the rearview mirror.

“Backseat privileges,” Ema replies.

Trucy cranks the radio up as a familiar guitar riff begins.

If it’s extortion, it works; she and Clay have not finished the first verse, Trucy’s almost-operatic interpretation running up against Clay’s off-key warbling, before Ema is shoving the Snackoos up between their seats, offering a trade of chocolates for an end to the car-vibrating force of Guilty Love.

“Not a fan?” Clay asks.

Ema groans. So does Trucy. “Don’t get me started,” Ema says.

“Yeah, please don’t,” Trucy adds.

“He’s a pretentious fuckin’ diva who—”

Trucy begins yelling out the chorus to the song over the second verse emitting from the radio.

They are all still arguing – Ema berating Clay’s taste in music while Trucy moves into an attempt to sing My Boyfriend is the Prosecution’s Witness to the tune of Guilty Love and Apollo tries to turn the volatile atmosphere anywhere else – when the song ends. Trucy shushes everyone, violently, smacking Clay on the arm and then flailing back at Ema, and turns up the radio. A DJ is in the middle of saying something.

“—announced today on their social media. While fans are disappointed, no one can say that the break-up comes as a surprise, after the sentencing of guitarist Daryan Crescend for murder in July, and the three months of, ahem, radio silence that’s followed. And earlier this week, leader singer Klavier Gavin’s brother was indicted on a second count of murder – I can’t say I blame him for maybe wanting to duck out of the spotlight. Gavin’s brother was previously charged in April, for—”

Trucy changes the channel. A commercial for a local furniture outlet doesn’t help break the awkward spell fallen over them. “Yeah,” she says, after a full minute, during which time they discover their new channel is a country music channel. “No real surprise.”

“Brother and bandmate,” Clay says quietly. “Hell of a year.”

“Hell of a six months,” Apollo says. And he was there for all of it – he was there for more of it than Klavier ever was. Klavier wasn’t there in April, not when Kristoph fell, not when any of them could have had any idea what was ahead. How much magic would surround them.

“If my older sister had been convicted of murder, I was gonna crawl into the dirt and die,” Ema says, “so I’m with the fop on that one, actually.”

There is a worrying lack of hypotheticals in the second half of Ema’s scenario. No “would have”s. Like she was where Klavier is, but the trial had a different outcome, and the frozen expression on her face, her eyes gone blank, she looks like she has caught up with her own words. Said too much. Apollo doesn’t know much about her as a person, her life before failing the forensics exam, how it was that she knew Mr Wright, but he can sympathize with that fear of having given away too much, turned the conversation down a path that should stay blocked off.

“You have a sister?” Trucy asks, turning around in her seat. “You seemed kinda ‘only-child’ to me.’ “Yeah,” Ema says quietly. “Older sister. Her name’s Lana. We don’t… talk much.”

Apollo doesn’t know why the name feels like it strikes something in his brain, the way Ema’s did when she first introduced herself.

“Oh.” Trucy visibly wilts. “Sorry.”

Ema shrugs, slumping back against her seat, her arms folded. “It happens,” she says. Her eyes are glazed over, settled in Clay’s direction. Her mouth quirks in the beginnings of a smile. “She took me to the Space Museum once, not long after it first opened.” The wistful smile has grown a little larger. “Back when I didn’t know what kind of scientist I wanted to be, so I wanted to go everywhere, and she was like ‘Ema I’m not taking you to the fucking tar pits again, how about space?’, and—” She shakes her head. “Sorry. Your jacket got me thinking. Do you work there or something?”

And that is the question that Clay most likes to be asked, that or literally anything else ever about space, and that is the end of any of them getting a word in edgewise – but while Apollo’s heard it all before, Trucy has questions galore, and Ema sits forward, slowly losing the pretense of not being enraptured.

They have driven for over two hours by the time Trucy directs them to pull of the highway at an exit that tells them there is nothing for them that way but another 38 miles until Kurain Village. “Is that where the Fair Folk live?” Ema asks dryly, in her voice none of the nervousness that people tend to have. Apollo hasn’t spoken much with her about magic, doesn’t know what she thinks – but, well, she knows Phoenix. That’s clue enough that caution comes secondary.

“Not really,” Trucy says. “They just named it that. It’s part of our world. Sometimes some of the fae do show up and hang around, I think – Maya tried to convince Daddy to move out here, once, apparently, but he wouldn’t leave the office.”

“Who’s Maya?” Apollo asks. Sometimes he realizes how little he knows about Phoenix’s personal life, too.

“Daddy’s friend. She’s – wait, stop! Here! Turn down this road here!”

“This is not a road,” Clay says, hunching over the steering wheel. “This is some dirt, off the road, not even in the shape of a dirt road.”

The car groans as Clay turns it off of the asphalt into the dirt. Trucy pops open the door and stands, holding herself between the door and the car roof and turning her face to the sky and the no-longer-distant mountains looming above them. She says something, muffled, and points into the trees. “We’re close,” she says, ducking back inside the car. “Let’s park and go – we’re close.”

“Park right here?” Clay asks, raising a doubtful eyebrow.

“Barely anyone comes this way,” Trucy says. “Like, one bus, except I’m not even sure if this is on its route. It’s fine.”

“I’m more worried that this is some sort of sacred ground that we’re stomping on,” Clay says, but he turns the key and then smacks his head against the top of the wheel. “How much are we going to regret just walking out there?”

“Probably we won’t,” Trucy says. She flings the door open and jumps out, stretching her arms up into the air. “C’mon already!”

“So what are we doing now?” Ema asks, crumpling the Snackoos bag back into her bag and tumbling forth from the car like a liquid spilled. “Just walking into the woods until we find treasure or a bear?”

“We do have a map.” Trucy waves it at her. “But yes. That’s what we’re doing.” She lowers the page halfway to her side and then stops, tilting her head back. “I’ve been here before,” she says. “Grandpappy and I – sometime – sometime after my mom died.” She takes a few slow steps toward the treeline, her movements uneven, as in a daze. “It was just the two of us. And we came here, and we buried—” She spins around, eyes wide, looking at all and none of them. “We buried his grimoire.”

Without another word of warning, she dashes into the woods, sending them scrambling to catch up to her. It’s colder here than in the city, though Apollo didn’t think they went up too far in elevation. Leaves thickly coat the ground; do they hide rings of flowers beneath them or do those in their magic break through? They finally reach Trucy when she, focused on her map, walks straight into a tree and takes some time to properly reorient herself.

“Do you know why here, of all places?” Apollo asks. “Is it because of the mountains, and he was…?”

He stops. Does Trucy know what her grandfather was? Phoenix didn’t say. Of course he didn’t.

“He said this is where he landed,” Trucy replies, crunching a leaf beneath her foot. “He said he fell, and this is where he landed.”

“Was he—” Clay’s sense, that question that they all know they shouldn’t ask, that question that Apollo has asked again and again anyway, wars against curiosity, against more than wanting to know – needing to know, to understand what is Trucy’s family. “Was he, erm, one of – Them?”

He can’t even bring himself to offer up one of the epithets. This close to the mountains, Apollo isn’t sure that he could bring himself to speak of them plainly like he has learned to.

“Yeah,” Trucy says. “But I’m human. Don’t worry.” She flashes a grin, one of her usual grins, but it is tempered by the speed with which is vanishes from her face again, replaced by a frown of concentration. “I think we must be close, but not quite yet.”

“Hey, Trucy?” Ema asks. She pushes a branch out of the way and it snaps back to nearly strike Clay in the face. “Not to pry, but – if your grandfather was one of the Fair Folk, are you the changeling, or was it your mother?”

Trucy stops.

“Wait,” Ema says. “Not a changeling – that’s the fae child. The human kid, the one swapped out. Is there a word for that?”

“I don’t think so,” Trucy says. She hops over a log. “I don’t think there’s a name for people like that.”

She doesn’t answer the first question. Maybe she doesn’t know, either.

“When you say you buried it,” Apollo says, aware that there is nothing subtle about this lifeline he is throwing to pull her away from questions best left avoided (am I a child stolen away, raised by the fae? Did they take me from the life I should have had?), “have we come all this way to be foiled for want of a shovel?”

“Oh fuck,” Trucy says.

“Hey!” Ema barks, her sharp rebuke the manifestation of that urge Apollo feels to scold her for that. “Language, young missy!” She folds her arms across her chest, her glare a fond one. “Where did you learn that?”

“My daddy’s a card shark,” Trucy says, countering Ema with a smug grin of her own.

“I thought he was a piano player,” Clay says.

“Only because you’ve never heard him play,” Trucy replies. “Easy mistake to make.”

“Considering it was all magic that hid the map,” Ema says, with nary a pause to acclimate everyone to the idea of throwing the conversation back past that latest sharp turn, “wouldn’t it be magic to hide it again, logically speaking?”

“Where’s the logic here?” Clay asks. Ema snaps a twig off a bush and flicks it at him. “And I mean, if it’s just covered up with some illusion, couldn’t anyone stumble into it?”

“Maybe it takes the map, too,” Apollo says. “Or maybe only a Gramarye can unveil it.”

He steps up onto a tree stump, like the extra five inches can grant him some kind of special insight or a better view in the forest of brown. Then he is falling, the wood rot giving way beneath his foot, a sharp jolt running up his leg from the twist of his foot. “Shit!”

Trucy winces. “Ouch. Poor Polly. I—”

“Apollo,” Ema says, very seriously, but somewhat muffled by her hand over her mouth. “Move. Move right now.”

“What?” He sits up, dislodging his foot from the stump, and looks about himself. The forest floor of dead leaves has cleared, as though by a strong, concentrated wind, revealing browned dead grass encased by a perfect circle of blue flowers. “Oh. Oh shit.”

Without an ounce of grace, still on his hands and knees, he scrambles and rolls his way out of the faery ring. “So according to the map,” Trucy says, and above his head Apollo hears the flutter of the paper, “I think we found it.”

“Only a Gramarye, huh,” Clay says dryly.

“That was only supposition!”

“So who’s gonna stick their hand in a rotten tree stump?” Ema asks, producing a flashlight from her bag and shining the beam down into it. “I volunteer Trucy, because she’s wearing gloves, and is our Gramarye.”

Trucy kicks up the leaves on her approach, searching for hints of another ring around the stump, more than just Apollo’s that sits adjacent to it. “If I get bit by a squirrel and get rabies and die, it’s your fault,” she says, kneeling down next to the stump and brushing her hair back to peer down into it.

“Statistically, your chance of getting rabies from a squirrel is negligible,” Ema says. “That shouldn’t be your worry.”

“What should I worry about, then?” Trucy asks. “Can you bring the light a little closer?”

“Bats, racoons, foxes, feral cats and dogs, and right now, probably non-rabies Fair Folk curses, since we’re fucking around by a ring.”

“I’m still concerned about bears,” Clay says.

“I’m not,” Ema says. “I’ve already got my plan, which is to trip you into its path.”

“General ‘you’, or me, specifically?”

“You specifically. Nothing personal, though. I just know Trucy and Apollo better than you.”

“This is way heavier than I thought,” Trucy says, falling off-balance and dropping something dark and rectangular. “Oof! Okay. Okay. We got it!” She lifts it up onto her knees, a thick book with a black cover and a character emblazoned in flowing purple script on it. “I knew I remembered this.” Her voice is quieter as she opens the book and flips through the rough-edged pages. “Grandpappy’s grimoire.” She closes the cover again, reverently, and keeps it balanced on her legs as she turns back to the stump. “Light again, please. I thought I saw something else.” Trucy has her head nearly in the hole, which can’t help her with her light situation, and she sits back and plunges her hand in again. “Yep! This is a – a funny-looking magatama?”

She holds it up, the blue stone sparkling in the flashlight beam, but also seemingly with its own interior glow, and Apollo gasps.

Three sets of eyes turn to him.

“That’s a mitamah,” he says, and to his own ears he sounds like he’s choking, but he feels like he’s choking too, and maybe the others don’t notice but he doubts it. “That’s someone’s soul.”

Trucy drops it into the leaves.

“What?” Clay looks suspicious – Trucy looks horrified. “How do you know?”

(“There’s no reason to give away your soul,” Dhurke told them, sternly, the sternest he ever got. “Never.” And then they tried to argue, to come up with reasons, because of course they did, and he hugged them both close. “You’ll make great lawyers someday, always looking for reasons and other ways, but this one – promise me. Nahyuta. Apollo.” He prodded each of them in the chest. “Don’t let someone else get their hands on your soul.”)

“The tail of it is different.” Apollo picks it up, brushing off the dirt and leaf particles that cling to it, and points to the longer, squiggling protrusion that extends from the loop. It doesn’t fully connect like a magatama, either, more like a hook than a circle.

It feels warm in his hand, humming through his fingers and up into his ears. It reminds him of the office – familiar, but disturbing, because there is no reason that it should feel so familiar and comforting.

“Could it be your grandfather’s?” Ema asks.

“Wouldn’t that mean he’s still alive?” Clay asks. “Is that possible?”

“It couldn’t be,” Apollo says. If he stares at the mitamah he thinks he can see flecks of gold within the blue, like stars on a constellation chart. “The Fair Folk don’t have souls like we do. They can’t sell them or manifest them like this.”

“Is that why they want human souls?” Ema asks.

“How do you know?” Clay repeats.

Apollo’s heart has stoppered up his throat.

“It makes them stronger,” Trucy says softly. “When they buy names, or souls, it makes their magic stronger. But this – this can’t be that.” She hugs the grimoire up to her chest. “It can’t just be that.”

“Should we just… put it back?” Ema asks. “Someone’s probably looking for it, right?”

“It’s been seven years and no one has come before us,” Apollo says. The humming isn’t as steady now, seems more like a song, and familiar, damned familiar. “No, we can’t just leave her here.”

In the silence, even the song seems to stop. “What?” Apollo asks. Their three sets of eyes are on him again, even more piercing, Trucy’s wide and Clay’s narrowed and Ema’s narrowing too.

“‘Her’?” Ema repeats. “Why ‘her’?”

“I…” Apollo swallows his heart. “I don’t know, but I… I know?”

“I don’t think you should be holding that in your bare hands,” Clay says.

But the alternative seems to be dropping her in the dirt again, and Apollo’s fingers curl tighter around the stone. He can’t do that, either. Trucy unties her scarf from around her neck and silently passes it to him, letting him wrap the stone up in the red fabric and then cradle it close again. The song thrumming in his ears ceases. “I guess we should take it to Mr Wright and ask him if he knows what to do,” Ema says. “He’ll know what to do with it. Her?”

Trucy’s gaze is unfocused, her head slowly drifting away from the horizon back toward the stump. “Trucy?” Apollo asks. “Are you okay?”

“He wouldn’t do that,” she says. “Just buy up someone’s soul all for himself. He wouldn’t. There had to be some other reason. It wasn’t just power, there had to be a good reason.”

(“There’s no reason,” Dhurke said. “Never.”)

“He gave me magic, as a gift,” Trucy says. “He was a good man.” She looks up at Apollo, blinking her blue eyes furiously. “Wasn’t he?”

It takes them another forty-five minutes to stumble out of the woods and find Clay’s car again. Ema makes everyone nervous talking about the odds of them stumbling across a body decomposing in the undergrowth – “I have zero desire to ever get caught up in one of your murder investigations,” Clay says, picking up a branch from the bushes and brandishing it like a baseball bat – and bears. The two of them are at least doing a good job of filling the silence left by Trucy, uncomfortably quiet, walking in a trace. Apollo tugs her by the arm out of the way of trees. He could put the mitamah in his pocket but hasn’t, has kept it held close to his chest.

The story that Phoenix spun of the Gramaryes is gnawing at him. A woman, on the bad end of a deal with Magnifi – Apollo doesn’t want to think about the possibility.

(Trucy must be thinking about the possibility, mustn’t she?)

She crawls into the back seat of the car, depositing the grimoire in the middle, and Ema makes a mad dash for the front seat, leaving Apollo to sit on the other side of the grimoire, separated by it from Trucy. The only time she speaks is to call Phoenix and ask him if he is at the office – he is, because she directs Clay to go back to the office.

It is a long, quiet ride home, some subdued conversation between Ema and Clay about their fields of science rising over the country music still on the radio. Trucy taps Apollo’s hand and beckons him to hand her the mitamah. She takes off one of her gloves and weighs it in her hand with an ever-deepening frown until she wraps it back up and passes it back to Apollo.

Ema shouts “Yellow car!” and hits Clay on the shoulder. He hits her back and tells her that she needs to specify no punch-backs next time.

Phoenix is sitting on the floor leaning against the couch with two notebooks and a stack of papers spread out in front of him, the coffee table shoved to the side, a pencil in his mouth and another tucked behind his ear, when they stagger into the office. Apollo is mediating an argument about the merits of Eldoon’s for a late lunch – Ema does not want to brave it, while Clay wants nothing more than to do so. Phoenix does not look up.

“Hey, Daddy,” Trucy says wearily.

His head snaps up, dislodging the pencil behind his ear. “What’s wrong?”

“You always complain about your back hurting, and now look what you’re doing.” Trucy’s words sound forced through a smile. Phoenix’s frown deepens. He watches Trucy walk past him to deposit the grimoire on his desk.

“We went looking into the envelope you gave her the other day,” Apollo says. “The real last page.”

Phoenix doesn’t look back from Trucy right away. “A full expedition team, huh?” he asks, raising one eyebrow as he looks over Ema and Clay. “Who’s this?”

“Er, oh, yeah. I’m Clay Terran. Apollo’s roommate.” Clay points with his thumb at Apollo, even though they all know there is only one Apollo that they know. “You’re Mr Wright, yeah?” He doesn’t do a good job of feigning enthusiasm.

“I know that look,” Phoenix says, standing with a wince and an audible crack of some of his joints. “That’s the ‘I’ve heard about you and it’s nothing good’ look.” He lets Clay splutter for a full two seconds before he grins crookedly and adds, “That’s fair.” Almost immediately, his expression flattens out to something stern and almost entirely foreign. “Trucy,” he calls. “What’s wrong?”

“We found my grandfather’s grimoire,” she says, sitting on the desk and holding it up, only for it to slip from her hands and crash to the floor. “And Polly has the other thing that was with it.”

Apollo unwraps the mitamah.

Has he ever seen Phoenix surprised? The man spent seven years an unbeaten poker player, and this past half-year absolutely inscrutable to Apollo’s eyes. There is nothing controlled in his reaction; his mouth falls open and his eyes go wide, turning blue immediately and staying blue, horror apparent in how they linger on the mitamah. “Oh,” he breathes. “That is – yeah.”

He reaches forward with trembling hands and scoops up the scarf spread across Apollo’s hands. He holds it cradled close, too, his free hand cupped beneath the one holding it, prepared to catch the stone should it slip, but still not having touched it with bare skin. “So,” he says. “The ‘source’ of Magnifi’s magic – that grimoire, and this soul.”

“But,” Trucy says, “that…” She stops. She chews on the inside of her cheek. Mr Hat, the wisp, is visible, bobbing frenetically around her shoulders. “It’s…” Her shoulders slump. “Do you know what to do with that, Daddy? Is there a way to know what person a soul belongs to?”

“Not from looking only at the mitamah,” Phoenix answers. His eyes still hollow blue when he turns them back to Trucy. “I am not particularly familiar with mitamahs, honestly, but I’ll look into it and see what I can do to get it back to her.” He takes the stone in one hand and offers Trucy her scarf back. “If the fae who has possession of a soul is still alive, they can just give it back – not that many are willing to, mind – but since he’s dead – well.” He shakes his head. “Thank you, though. For helping Trucy, and bringing this back.”

It’s a firm end to the conversation, not that Apollo knows what more to ask about a soul. Ema, though, is frowning, her arms crossed, her mouth twisting like she is puzzling out something. “We were gonna go get noodles at Eldoon’s,” Apollo says. “If – if you wanted to come, Trucy.”

“Oh!” She looks surprised, like she hadn’t expected to be addressed. “Um.” Her heels bounce against the desk. “Thanks, but I’m okay.”

Her hands, curled around the edge of the desk, shine red. Apollo doesn’t even need that to know she’s lying.

“We all agree she’s not okay, right?” Clay asks.

They were silent for a block down from the office, Ema not even complaining about losing the Eldoon’s battle. (Apollo was prepared to tell her that she didn’t have to come, but she had attached herself to them without a cursory protest.)

“Definitely not,” Ema says. “I guess she doesn’t want to believe that her grandfather was the double-dealing type of Folk – which, I’ve read the case file on his death, I’d believe that about him in a hot second. There’s nothing worse than a blackmailer like that. Also.” She plants herself firmly in the sidewalk. Apollo and Clay both bump into her. “None of us referred to the mitamah as ‘she’ or ‘her’, right? Like you were, Apollo.”

“None of us but Trucy even talked about it,” Apollo says. Clay nods. “Why?”

“Because Mr Wright did.” Ema’s forehead creases. “He said he would ‘get it back to her’. He wasn’t even touching it, was he?” Apollo shrugs. Ema shrugs too. “He knows something. More than he said.”

“He always does,” Apollo says.

They reach Eldoon’s, and Ema says that it’s weird to see the stand without a corpse attached. The look that Clay gives her makes her and Apollo both laugh. Once they have their noodles, they walk another few blocks to People Park and find a bench not far from where the noodle-stand crime scene once stood. Apollo has learned to be grateful for the mouthfuls of broth that taste of so much salt to sting. It feels a little more like safety, like salt across a doorway.

He starts to say what he’s thinking, that Trucy might be worried that the mitamah is her mother’s, or at least he is, but the words die on his tongue, shriveled by the salt. He doesn’t feel right to tell Clay and Ema about Trucy’s mother’s death, when he has no idea if Trucy knows or not. Phoenix has made him the guardian of family secrets that aren’t his and something about that feels wrong. Maybe necessary in some way, to understand the case, to understand what happened with Kristoph, but still wrong.

Instead, he helps Ema explain to Clay her earlier comments about Magnifi and blackmail. You can’t refuse, and we both know the reason why – Trucy can’t know he did that. She seemed to idolize him. What a hard way to fall.

He’ll text her tomorrow, Apollo decides. Check in, see how she’s doing.

(There’s probably someone else he should check in with, too, the events of this week all considered.)

#fic: the seelie of kurain #roddy fanfics #start your morning with some magic and gramarye fuckery wooooooooooo

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