Phoenix and the Beast (Part 1/2)
Title: Phoenix and the Beast
Fandom: Ace Attorney
Characters: Phoenix Wright/Miles Edgeworth, Mia Fey, Gumshoe/Maggey, Franziska, Dahlia, Sister Bikini, Pess, Pearl, Maya, Iris,
Summary:
Notes: Written for the following request on the Kink Meme:
It must be done:
Beauty and the Beast
Phoenix Wright style.
Phoenix has got to be "Belle"
Other characters are up to author.
Gaston, Mrs. Pott, Lumiere, anon can even add original inanimate turned animate objects if need be.
----------
Once upon a time, there was a young boy who dreamed of becoming a great defense attorney, but on the way he was hurt horribly and became instead a name feared in the courts, referred to in whispers as “the demon prosecutor.” It was said that he had lost his soul, and perhaps rumors were true, for even a frail old woman who claimed to be in desperate need of his help won no pity from him, until he realized that this was no ordinary woman and felt his first strong emotion in a very long time, an abject terror that he probably would never actually admit to in his life.
A voice, strange and yet familiar, from some memory long ago, told him, “Until you have proven yourself worthy of love, having learned to love and be loved in return, you will remain a beast. And if you do not prove yourself worthy before the petals on this rose have all faded and fallen, then you will remain a beast forever.”
And apparently this woman did nothing by half-measures, considering that what seemed like half the prosecution department as well as a few others (spirit mediums from Kurain Village, of all the ridiculous things) were transformed along with him, though not into creatures but rather into household artifacts. And thus it was that the universe's torment of Miles Edgeworth was proven to be not yet finished, but rather quite capable of some new and innovative methods of causing pain and suffering.
*
Part of Phoenix Wright was, of course, conscious of the gossiping around him. “That Mr. Wright's sure one strange fella.”
“That must be one fabulously fabulous book.”
“He's, like, always staring at a, what is it again, oh yeah, a, like, book.”
Normal, everyday gossip for the small town in which Phoenix and his mentor, Mia Fey, lived and had their law practice. As amusing as the people of the town could be, someday Phoenix hoped to rise above them and move on to greater tasks and adventures, which could explain why his nose was generally buried in some sort of study.
“Feenie! Hello!”
“Hello, Dah-”
Suddenly the book was snatched from his hands. “My poor Feenie, you'll get all wrinkled from staring at the book too long.”
Phoenix sighed. “I need to study if I'm going to be a lawyer, I've told you that already.”
But Dahlia was only half paying attention to him, flipping through the book. “How can you read this much? I don't see anything interesting at all in here.” Carelessly she tossed the book aside, and it splashed into a mud puddle.
“Dahlia!” Phoenix snatched the book from the puddle, doing his best to clean the mud from the cover. “You're supposed to respect books, you majored in English...”
“For the poetry, silly. I like it when people read poetry to me. You could recite me some.”
“Not now, I have to get back and help Mia with a case.”
“But Feenie...”
Dahlia Hawthorne really was disturbingly cute, and when she pouted just so Phoenix, like most of the men in the village, had a hard time refusing her anything. Still, the damp cover of the book, the concern that she had ruined it - as though he could afford another with his skimpy salary - helped remind him that, as enchanted as he had been when he first met Dahlia, she perhaps was not the model of perfection he had envisioned her to be. “I have to...”
“You could marry me,” Dahlia said suddenly, which was enough to send Phoenix into a temporary state of shock. Dahlia had the grace to look somewhat embarrassed, though the transition was suspiciously smooth. “Sorry, I know, I'm a bad girl for saying that and it's your job and privilege to ask me, not the other way around, but I was just thinking what a lovely engagement present that necklace would be...”
Why was she bringing up the necklace again? “You gave it to me, to hold our love forever.” The words were more like rote now; he wasn't sure if he had ever meant them beyond an enchantment with a lovely picture, come to think of it, but he was certainly not giving her back her gift in such away. The insult! And poor shy Dahlia...
His phone beeped, reminding him he had been due back at the office several minute ago. “I'm late, I've got to run!” Though he wouldn't have liked to admit it, he was glad of the excuse to sprint away from Dahlia.
Mia's shabby house doubled as their office, with Phoenix living in the loft above the barn because, despite the fact that he looked at his mentor like a mother figure rather than a romantic interest, sleeping under her actual roof would have looked a bit suspicious. He found Mia in the office basement, frowning at a chaotic mess of papers - it looked like he had attempted to do the filing again, except he knew quite well that he hadn't made this particular mess. “You all right, Chief?”
“Hmm? Oh, hi, Wright.”
“I'm not sure I fit in too well here, Chief. With the people and everything.”
That was enough, at least, to draw Mia's bleary eyes from her paperwork for just a moment. “Who said that?”
“No one. I just kind of... sensed it.”
“Oh.” Bending over, Mia once again began reading the various papers quite closely. “There's always Dahlia, isn't there?”
“I don't know, Dolly's - weird.”
“Weird?”
Phoenix rambled on a while about his relationship with Dahlia, how at first it had seemed perfect but then he had realized that if this was perfection he didn't want it, until he realized that Mia was not really listening but rather was much too absorbed in her work to take note of his romantic problems.
“How's the case coming, Chief?”
“Fine, I...” Mia trailed off, staring at the piles of paper. “I don't know. Maybe I'm really not cut out for this...”
“Don't say that, Chief!” Maybe Mia Fey wasn't cut out for the job of defense attorney, after the horrific cases of her past, but Phoenix remembered someone telling him, once, that a defense attorney was someone who believed in people, no matter what. Mia believed in him without question, even when no one else did, and Phoenix would defend her to the last. “You can do this!”
Lips curving faintly upwards, Mia slowly shifted her gaze back to the paperwork. “I'm glad you at least believe in me, Wright. I...” and suddenly her eyes grew large, and she snatched a paper off her desk. “I know who did it!”
Now the case was what filled their talk, and for the first time since she had agreed to take this case Phoenix knew Mia would get a good night's sleep. And none too soon, as the court date was scheduled for the next day.
*
Leaving Wright in charge was something of a frightening prospect, but then again he was quite eager to prove himself, and Mia Fey didn't think he was actually inept enough to do any permanent damage to himself or the office during the day in which she would be gone. Still, the motherly part of her couldn't help but rattle off a large list of things for him to be careful about, until Wright asked her whether she thought he was five (and she privately admitted that the possibility did tend to occur to her on occasion, though she was gracious enough not to actually tell him so).
As she rode out of the town and cast a last look over her shoulder, she saw Wright standing at the edge of town, waving, a goofy grin on his face. “Kick some butt, Chief!” he called after her, just before she turned the corner into the cover of the forest.
Hours later, Mia Fey wished she could be kicking some butt, and sorely regretted the supposed shortcuts through the forest. Was it getting dark, or was that just how thick the trees were here? If only she could be in court now - it would be safer than this strange place, she thought, or at least more familiar. Would they be worried about her by now? Would Wright be wondering about her, and what would he think if he saw his prized mentor like this, shivering and cold, tugging aimlessly at the horse's reins in an attempt to find a trail to the city court, back to the village, to anywhere that wasn't the forest.
A sudden howl disrupted her thoughts, and the horse jolted in fright and started to run. Mia, never the most confident of riders, could do little more than clutch at the saddle and pray to the spirits of her ancestors to keep her safe. “Help!” she screamed to the empty forest, and the echoes of her voice blended with the cries of the wolves. “Anyone! Help!”
Suddenly the horse whirled, and Mia flew from the saddle, landing in a drift of snow, soaking herself. Wet and frightened, she called out to the horse, but the hoofbeats were growing fainter as the howls grew louder.
Those familiar with Mia Fey would not have credited the hysterical scream bubbling in her throat to her, nor would they have expected anything like her panicked scrabbling through the brush, wolves seeming right at her heels. Either the spirits of her ancestors had been listening or some of her rookie's bizarre yet useful luck had rubbed off on her, but the moment before the wolves burst from the bushes she reached a wrought iron gate.
Somehow she managed to slip into the gate and force it closed, lowering a heavy bar into place between her and the wolves, escaping their frothing jaws. Still, she was not quite out of danger yet; the biting chill of the wind sliced right through her thin, soaked cloak, reminding her that she needed to find someplace dry and out of the wind and preferably warmer than the other side of the gate.
A gate and a fence meant a house, didn't they? A manor or a castle? That would be the logical conclusion, that there was something within the gate that the gate was meant to protect. Pulling her cloak around her, trying to convince herself it was warmer than it was, she made her way along the path from the gate.
Yes! She had been right; the gate and fence guarded something that could only be described as a castle. A rather grim and dark castle, one that she would not have liked to enter on a good day - but desperate times called for desperate measures. Perhaps they would show some hospitality to a hapless stranger, let her have some scraps of their supper and dry her clothing by a fire, give her some corner to sleep in and perhaps some direction as to how to find her way back home.
Trying to hide her trembling, she made her way to the front door and knocked.
Almost immediately, the door opened. No one was inside to greet her, though. She stepped inside, out of the wind, looking around in hope of seeing somebody, anybody. “Hello?” She thought she heard someone whispering. “Hello? Is anyone there? I got lost in the storm...”
*
“Hey pal, it's a traveler!” Gumshoe forgot, yet again, that he was currently in the form a (rather ugly) clock, and therefore supposed to be as still and silent as possible in the presence of any stranger so that he was seen as just an ordinary clock and not a rather hard to explain clock that could talk and move of its own will.
“Silence, you foolish fool!” If she wasn't busy impersonating an ordinary candelabra, Franziska would have taken the excuse to practice the arm of using her flames as a whip. As it was, she made a mental note to use the excuse when the next opportunity presented itself.
“Is anyone there?” the strange woman had the foolishness to venture further into the castle, and worse, to grab at Franziska and heft her rather dizzingly into the air.
“Hey, pal, put her down!” Gumshoe's voice rang out.
“What? Who's there?”
The speed at which the woman whipped around was dizzying, and Franziska decided that there was no further point in continuing the masquerade. “You foolishly foolish fool, put me down at once!”
The woman gasped when she realized she was being addressed by a candleabra, and carefully put Franziska down - only to pick up Detective Gumshoe and prod at him.
“Hey pal, that tickles - no, leave that closed, pal!”
“Sorry,” the woman said. “I never saw anything quite like you before. Are you trapped spirits?”
“You foolish fool of a foolishly foolish woman, don't ask foolish questions!” Franziska directed a whiplike tongue of flame at both the woman and Gumshoe.
“Ow!”
“Hey, pal!”
At least the woman finally set Gumshoe down. “That hurt.”
“It's what I do when foolish fools are foolishly foolish.”
The woman sighed, rubbing her hand, then said, “I got lost in the woods and I was hoping I could find a place to stay the night...”
Franziska was about to open her mouth to call the woman some more variations on fool as she denied the request, but Gumshoe was quicker. “Sure pal, I know what it's like to be down and out, have nowhere to go and all that, of course you can, owww!”
“Foolish fool! You are lucky that we can no longer have salary discussions, or yours would be in severe jeopardy at the moment.”
“Yes, sir.” At least Gumshoe had the decency to look repentant, with that foolish doggy look he got sometimes.
“...since this foolish fool has foolishly extended our hospitality, we must honor that.”
“All right, sir! I'll show the lady to a chair - this way, pal!”
This was one of those exceedingly rare and frustrating times in Franziska's life when she was at a loss for words as she watched Gumshoe and the newly arrived Sister Bikini (a teapot), Pearl (teacup), and even Pess the dog (footstool) conspire to make this foolish stranger comfortable and at home in her little brother's own chair, by her little brother's fireside, without a word of consent from their master. Still, she suspected that the rage burning in her would be as insignificant when compared to the rage that would ignite in her brother if - when - he discovered this, burning as dimly as her own candlelight burned against the blaze in the fireplace.
A sudden roar of rage confirmed her suspicions, and she stared on, partially horrified and partially proud, as the Beast lunged at the invader to his space.
*
“Feenie doesn't know it yet, but we're getting married today. Oh, I'm afraid I might be a bad girl!” Dahlia giggled and fanned herself a bit.
“Nonsense.” Morgan Fey beamed at her daughter, then sipped at her tea, before continuing. “None of my daughters could possibly be bad girls. I think it's quite good what you are doing for poor Mr. Wright, actually.”
“Yes,” Iris said, though she didn't sound quite as sure, earning her double glares from her mother and sister.
“I just hope poor Feenie appreciates all the trouble I'm going to.”
“And don't forget what you must find out from him before you kill him, my dear.”
“Oh, I know. You want your precious Pearl back and you think that Mia's mother might have had something to do with her disappearing, so I'm to use Feenie to get to Mia.”
“Excellent memory. Now, I believe you have a bridegroom to fetch? And Iris, as you are supposed to be dead, I suggest you disappear now?”
Afterward, Dahlia could never tell exactly what happened, only that she somehow found herself in a mud puddle with an off-key band playing a march for a wedding that was not going to happen, and Morgan Fey's stern glare on her.
Weighted heavily with this failure, Dahlia slunk to the pub, where Iris proceeded to attempt cheering her up by enlisting the admiration of all the gentlemen present, as well as the jealous resentment of the ladies.
*
Getting rid of Dahlia was not easy, and even Phoenix himself was surprised at how adamantly he wanted to get rid of her. Still, a marriage to Dahlia Hawthorne would mean he would be yoked to her for the rest of their lives, and thus be stuck in this annoyingly provincial town unless Dahlia decided she wanted to leave the life she had made for herself here, rather than being free to leave with Mia when she found them a way out.
As though conjured by his thoughts, Mia's horse appeared - but out of breath and riderless. Phoenix hurried up to the animal, a shock of worry going right to his belly.
“W-what happened?” Phoenix demanded of the animal. “Where's Mia?”
The horse just rolled its eyes at him. Great, how was he supposed to figure out anything from the horse? Still, it had been smart enough to find him - maybe it could bring him back wherever Mia was. “Hold on, Chief, I'm coming.” He remembered to duck inside for his cloak and gloves (Mia would be proud) and then he mounted the horse.
“Show me where you left her, please.”
Luckily for Phoenix, the horse seemed to know exactly where it was going. Unluckily, it was not along a path that Phoenix would normally have chosen to take, had he been the one deciding where to go. Nor did he like the wolf prints where the horse finally stopped.
Still, he managed to find his way to the barred gate, which had a bit of fabric caught on it. Wasn't this the same sort of fabric as Mia's cloak? Evidence! He tucked it into his pocket, wrestled the gate into letting him through, and debated whether he wanted to latch it against the wolves or leave it open in case he and Mia needed a quick getaway. In the end he decided to close it and latch it with a breakable looking branch, hopefully enough to convince the wolves the gate was still barred, but not enough to keep him and Mia from breaking through in a hurry if needed.
Then he made his way to the path and up to the castle, the foreboding in the pit of his belly magnified with each step he took, and only his determination to save Mia keeping him from turning tail and fleeing the scene like some frightened puppy. When he finally stood by the door it took him a moment, in which he drew a long breath and silently reminded himself that the entire reason he had decided to become a defense attorney was to save people, before he got the courage to raise his hand for a knock on the darkly looming door...
*
“I told you it was foolish to offer her a place to stay.”
“But sir...”
“None of your whining, Gumshoe.”
“...I thought we might have hope with her, sir.”
Gumshoe was astounded that this assertion did not convince Franziska to whip him, and dared to sneak a quick peek at her face. She looked unusually still, thoughtful, when she said, “No. You are foolish to hope for that chance. What is she going to see in my little brother, foolish woman, and what would he see in her? Besides which, she is too old...”
“But sir, time's almost out!”
That did earn him a lashing, and a rather painful one at that, but he supposed he probably deserved it for making a prosecutor consider something that she had already decided was not to be considered. “I am aware of that. I should never have foolishly visited him in this foolish country.”
“Awww, sir...”
Which earned him another lashing with the whip, and he was spared from more lashings at the moment when the door slowly swung open, for the second time in two days. Both stared at the young man who came in, slightly bedraggled, hair rising in what could probably be classed as quite a distinctive spike.
*
Pearl, the delicate little teacup, was nearly bouncing herself into pieces, she was so excited. “Sister Bikini, there's a boy in the castle, and he might be the Beast's special someone.”
“Ohohohoho!” Sister Bikini, a rather rotund and jolly teapot, beamed at Pearl. “You should know better than to make up stories. Mediums must train very hard and be very truthful!”
Before Pearl had a chance to respond, a very purple feather duster came bursting into the room. “Hey, did you guys hear, there's a boy in the castle?”
“See, I told you, and Mystic Maya's telling you now, and you'll believe her, won't you, Sister Bikini?”
“Ohohoho! Of course I believe the daughter of the Master.”
*
“Maybe he'll be the one, sir?” Gumshoe was almost afraid to speak, and grimaced in anticipation of a sound lash, but none came.
“I... it would be foolish to hope.” Suddenly she stirred to life, jumping down from their customary ledge. “We should watch him, though.”
He had gone running up the stairs, yelling “Come back” and “Mia,” and now Gumshoe and Franziska made their way up the stairs after him. Somehow the boy found his way right up the stairs to the tower dungeon. Gumshoe was impressed by his detective work.
*
Mia heard the rookie's voice through a thick veil of heat and cold and ringing in her ears and feeling like she was about to fall into a million pieces. At least it gave her something to go towards, whether it was into or out of a dream.
Out of one nightmare and into another, though she realized that she was perceiving her current reality now, lying on a thin layer of scattered straw over a very hard floor. Not much light; she was in some sort of prison.
“Mia?”
“W-wright,” she choked out, reaching out to grab hold of one of the cold iron bars, and then he was there, kneeling by her, familiar rookie face in a familiar look of concern.
“Mia, what happened?”
“A beast. G-get out of here. W-while you c-c-can.” Why did her teeth have to pick now to chatter, when she had to use her best lawyer voice to get the rookie out of here? He was her responsibility; if anything happened to him it would be her fault.
“Not without you, Mia. I'm not leaving without you.”
There was that cursed stubbornness again. She'd blessed the quality in a rookie defense attorney; Wright would never give up believing in a client. Now, though, the quality was just going to get him into trouble. “W-Wright...”
A bone-shattering roar shocked the room. “Who dares invade my castle?”
There was the Beast, in all his fury, and even through the haze of illness she could see Wright's face pale. But to the credit of his courage, if not his common sense, he stood his ground, between the beast and the cell. “P-please sir, c-c-can't you see she's sick?”
A wordless roar. Wright, get out! Leave me be and get yourself out!
“Let her go. She- she n-n-needs a d-doctor.”
“She is my prisoner, and I will not release her. Now get out!”
Wright skittered away from that voice, then stopped. Oh no, don't get any hero ideas. Let me die here; I've had my shot. And you're going to be something big one day.
“What if- if I stayed instead?”
“You?” Suddenly the creature was no longer roaring; suddenly it seemed downright - calm. Collected. Under control. “You would stay here?”
“No, Wright!” Why wouldn't he listen to her, why wouldn't he get himself out of here? “I've had my shot, you're too young, you don't deserve...”
He wasn't listening to her, and maybe it was his time with that theatre troupe or maybe it was something else, but Wright suddenly seemed very collected as well. “If I did, would you let her go?”
“Yes...” and suddenly the beast was looming, ablaze with its intense power, with hidden strength and fury, “But you must swear to stay here forever.”
*
Forever. Forever was quite a long time. Forever was... forever was never seeing Mia again, not knowing if she managed the next big case, not getting to go to her for advice or check up on her. Forever was no more walks through the village, which perhaps was a bit too familiar, but Phoenix realized for the first time in his life that perhaps there was something to miss in that place. Forever was never getting to pursue his dreams beyond this castle...
And yet, there was something familiar about the beast, something very familiar, something teasing at the edges of Phoenix's awareness. “Come into the light,” he said, softly, half a request and half a command.
He hadn't quite expected the beast to listen to him, to obey him and take a step - was that hesitation - into the shaft of sunlight that made its way into the dungeon. The face - all wild angles and fur - was somewhat frightening, but then Phoenix looked into the eyes and caught his breath. If he didn't know better, if he didn't know that Miles Edgeworth had compassion and understanding in his eyes rather than this cold and somewhat bitter look, he would have sworn he looked into the eyes of his onetime friend, the eyes of the man who had inspired him to become a defense attorney.
The eyes decided it. Ignoring Mia's whispered protestations, Phoenix said, “You have my word.”
“Done!” And before Phoenix could draw another breath, the creature was in the cell and hoisting Mia onto one of his gargantuan shoulders.
“Wait!”
Phoenix's plea fell on deaf ears, and in a rush they were gone, leaving Phoenix to stand alone in the room. Now that Mia would be able to get help, now that he had done his job in defending her, he felt... empty. Drained. Completely and totally alone in a strange place, doomed to live out the rest of his life in a small cell with no one left to talk to, as doomed as Mia's clients when she had lost their trials.
Mia... he hadn't even said goodbye...
*
Miles Edgeworth had thought that turning him into a beast, now visibly imperfect, ugly on the outside as well as the inside, had been the worst thing the universe could throw at him.
The minute he laid eyes on Wright, he knew he had been wrong.
Why must his childhood friend be here, bringing back the past, bringing back a time when Miles Edgeworth, Demon Prosecutor, had been filled with hope and promise and the dream of becoming a defense attorney?
Why now, when he could no longer scoff and simply turn the fool away, using for a shield the image that he had created, the shell of a man who no longer cared, but who was nonetheless perfect? Why now, when he was trapped in this ugly bestial form, visibly imperfect, rather than having all imperfection hidden behind a tightly controlled shell?
Why now, when the last hopes of Miles Edgeworth - and perhaps more importantly, though he loathed to admit it, the hopes of the others who had shared in this unwilling transformation - were all beginning to fade along with one slowly dying rose?
Fear hid behind fury, and before he quite knew what he was doing, Miles Edgeworth had made Wright swear to remain forever and had whisked away his other unwelcome visitor to his carriage, sending her back to the village where she could receive proper treatment away from himself and Wright. He didn't want anyone else around who might be able to guess, or help to guess, about his true identity.
Miles Edgeworth also knew how to get things done, and before he returned to the cell where he had left Wright, set in motion the word that no one - no one - was to give Wright any clue as to who exactly the Beast was, under threat of a very long and painful discussion with the Demon Prosecutor himself.
Franziska and Gumshoe were hovering outside the cell door, listening to the soft, almost whimpering, sound that came from the darkness. Gumshoe looked downright embarrassed, while Franziska looked as cool and composed as she had been every last day of her life. They both turned to look at Edgeworth.
“Neither one of you is to breathe a word of my identity to the prisoner, is that understood?”
“But sir, what am I going to call you?”
“Beast would be fine, Gumshoe.”
Franziska sniffed in ladylike disdain. “I do not approve, little brother, but then again I do not approve of being related to one in such - distressing - appearance, so I suppose I may as well pretend you are something else entirely.”
“And you believe I approve of being in such guise?” Miles Edgeworth growled, a low warning rumble.
“Um, sir?”
“What is it?”
“I-if you think he might be the one to help,” Gumshoe apparently lacked the mechanism for self-preservation that would have warned him Edgeworth did not like the way this was going, “then you should treat him right.”
Franziska's whip of flame was quick to punish, before Edgeworth had a chance to get his own vengeance. Nevertheless, he let his sister's audacity go with only a glower, and then said, “I don't know what you could mean, Detective.”
“U-um,” Gumshoe was now doing his best to inch away from Franziska, not an easy task for a clock, “M-maybe he'd like a nicer room. And a big dinner.”
Edgeworth snorted at the idea of taking romantic advice from the rather inept detective, especially as source informed him that Gumshoe was nearly as clumsy with his attempted courtships as with his investigations. Still, as he entered the cold cell he admitted to himself that, whether or not he wanted to see Wright, he did not like the idea of leaving his childhood friend to freeze in this cell.
When Wright saw him, he turned away, face flushing a bit. Was he...
“You didn't let me say goodbye.” Wright's voice was filled with raw pain edged with anger, and for a moment Miles remembered that elevator, and that he had never said goodbye to his father and how badly he had wanted to. “I'm never going to see her again and you didn't let me say goodbye.”
What was he supposed to say to that? Sorry? Sorries wouldn't make anything go away, wouldn't make anything better. Maybe he really was the beast he seemed to be, incapable of causing anything but devastation.
“...I'll show you to your room,” Edgeworth growled, trying to pretend he did not see how broken Wright seemed to be just from the simple lack of good-bye. How broken he was feeling at this very moment - no, he could not allow a chink in his armor. Wright could never guess who he was, what had become of Miles Edgeworth - and Franziska and Gumshoe were not too far off, and he would like it even less if one of them saw a chink.
Wright at least had the grace to stop sniveling so much in his surprise. “I thought... I was... to stay here.”
“You are my guest, and are free to go anywhere in this castle but the West Wing.” That was the sacred area where the rose was kept, and could be a refuge from Wright's presence whenever Edgeworth decided to take it. When Wright didn't move from the straw-littered floor, he added sharply, “Unless you'd rather stay here?”
“I... no...” And Wright was scrambling to his feet, following clumsily after Miles, still sniffling like he was still nine years old. Part of Miles wanted to make it go away, to apologize for upsetting Wright, but of course he was incapable of doing such a thing even if he had fully desired to do so.
On arriving at the room, he did manage to hold the door open for Wright, and assure him that the servants would take care of whatever he needed, but something in him, something hot and burning and twisting in his gut, did not allow for proper civility beyond that. “You will join me for dinner,” he heard himself growl. Don't make this any worse than you already have, except he could not stop himself, his pride and hurt and fear were all conspiring against him. “That is not a request!” And he slammed the door forcefully, and pretended that he did not notice Franziska and Gumshoe watching him with some degree of disapproval, and left Wright to finish his sniffling in the room.
*
Iris was beginning to grow quite concerned.
Dahlia never sat and stared at a fire without words, never wore an expression that seemed so lost and vulnerable, not without carefully arranging herself to the best possible version of her appearance. But this sulk, this was spontaneous and genuine, not at all arranged.
“...what's wrong?” she finally got the courage to ask her twin.
“Go away.”
“No. You're there for me, and I'm going to be there for you.”
Which won her a heavy sigh. “It's that Phoenix.”
“The one with the-”
“Yes.”
“The one that Mother-”
“Yes.”
“Oh, um...” Iris couldn't think of what exactly would make her sister feel better. “...sorry?”
“How can he resist me? Everything I try to do, he... he's not ordinary...”
“No man can resist you, Dahlia. You're the one all the men want, and there isn't a woman in the whole town who wouldn't want to be you, just ask any of them.”
Indeed, several side conversations were going on around just that theme, how lovely Dahlia was, however could that crazy boy resist her, if only this woman were Dahlia, if only that man could have Dahlia...
“So why can he resist me, then?”
“I don't know... maybe it has something to do with, er, Mia?”
“Mia...” and suddenly Dahlia was all cold, devilish purpose, her lips curling into something between a smile and a snarl. “Mia. You might just be smarter than I thought.”
“Dahlia, you have that look...”
“He'd do just about anything for our... dear... Mia, right?”
“Umm, I guess so...”
“So we have Mother haul Mia off to the asylum, and I promise to help spring her if he marries me.”
Iris wasn't entirely sure she liked this plan, but when Dahlia Hawthorne was your twin sister and she came up with a plot, there was really only one option open. “You are brilliant as always, my dear sister.”
“I know.”
*
Mia...
The Miles Edgeworth that Phoenix had known in grade school would never have been so cruel as to deprive Phoenix of someone he cared about without even leaving time for goodbyes. Maybe he'd seen Edgeworth's eyes, for a moment, in the eyes of this creature, but that had just been a passing fancy. Good going, Wright. You've sold your life to this creature all because you saw something that wasn't really there.
At least it had gotten Mia away safely. Or he hoped it had gotten Mia away safely. Though why I think I can trust him...
The guest room in which he had been left could probably have fit most of Mia's little cottage inside. The furniture - the bed alone - must have cost more than Phoenix could hope to earn in a year as a defense attorney. Then again, there wasn't anywhere else to sit, and the Beast had given him this room - he slumped onto the bed, trying to keep himself from crying, to remind himself that he was a grown man and grown men weren't supposed to cry, not for the sake of one missed goodbye.
“Oh my, my, my. I think someone could use some tea against the cold, before he has some hypothermia. Wa ha ha. Ho ho ho.”
I must be losing it now, if a teapot is talking to me. “Er...” And not only that, but I answered it.
“You may call me Sister Bikini. I make a rather attractive teapot, do I not? Ho ho ho.”
Great, a talking, preening teapot named after a visual I certainly did not need. “U-um, whose sister are you?”
“Ho ho ho. I am a nun of the Kurain Spirit Channeling Technique. Or was, until I got turned into a teapot. At least now I don't have to worry about hypothermia. Wa ha ha ha. Ho ho ho.”
Could you stop with the weird laughing thing already? And what is this Kurain Channeling Technique - it sounds familiar somehow... “So, um, how did you get to be a teapot, if you don't mind me asking?”
“My, my, my, a curious one, are you? Well, it is a very long story and I fear you would get hypothermia before I finished - Pearl!”
An adorable teacup bounced to join the teapot, looking for all the world like one of the most adorable children Phoenix could imagine, except in the form of what was almost quite an ordinary teacup, if not for the totally cute face peeking at him. “Here I am. Who's that, Sister Bikini?”
“Oh my, my, my, how rude of me. What is your name, good sir?”
“I'm...” ...introducing myself to inanimate objects, this is insane, “...Phoenix Wright, attorney at law.”
Suddenly, a bundle of vivid purple feathers burst out of a corner. “I'm going to call you Nick, then, because it's much friendlier to have nicknames, and you can call him Mr. Nick, Pearly!”
Surrounded by a chortling teapot, a giggling teacup, and an overly bouncy feather duster, Phoenix was at a loss as to what he was supposed to do now. Until the wardrobe suddenly moved, and he decided on a startled yelp as good enough for the moment.
“I shall call him Mr. Wright, as is proper.” If a wardrobe could sound condescending, than this one did. “Mr. Wright, I am Hannah Fright, and I used to be secretary to Mr. E- Beast. I now perform quite a different function but I attempt to retain my usefulness to him. The rather flighty feather duster over there is Mystic Maya-”
“Hey! I'm not flighty! Why would you do something like that and call me flighty?”
Pearls (she was too cute to call just Pearl, and for some reason the name Pearls just seemed to stick in his mind) clattered her disapproval, sending tea splashing. “Don't you insult Mystic Maya!”
“Easy, easy,” the wardrobe - er, Miss Fright - soothed. “I just wanted to say, Mr. Wright, that you were very brave to choose to stay here for the sake of your... mentor?”
“Mentor,” Phoenix confirmed, “And she was like a mother to me, too.” What little diversion the talking items had given him was gone, replaced by a twisting and sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Mia...
“And, of course, I am here to assist you in the selection of something appropriate for dinner...” She opened her doors and somehow began shifting through a broad selection of suits, each one looking like it had cost more than the price of all the clothing Phoenix had ever owned.
“...I'm not going to dinner,” Phoenix announced, crossing his arms and pouting.
“His Highness won't like that,” Hannah cautioned him.
To his surprise, the feather duster leapt to his defense. “He doesn't have to do everything the Beast says, and it's not like he's a real prince so you can stop calling him Highness anyway, Hannah.”
“Your Sister Bikini didn't like me calling him Master, and I am not going to call him simply Beast...”
“It's only because of the Kurain Master, so maybe you could call him Master Beast...”
The argument was cut off by the arrival of one (fairly goofy-looking) clock. “Dinner's ready, pal!” the clock announced cheerfully.
“That's Mr. Scruffy,” Pearl chimed in before anyone had a chance to react.
“Awww, pal, I asked you to stop calling me that. Can't you call me Detective Gumshoe?”
Hannah broke in quickly. “You'd best get changed quickly, Mr. Wright - I think this would do wonders for your eyes.”
“I already told you, I am not going to dinner.”
“WHAAAAAAT?” Gumshoe looked horrified. “Please, pal, you don't understand, I'd have to tell - them - that you aren't coming, and that would be very bad, and I'm begging you, pal...”
“I'm not hungry. Sorry.” Phoenix lay back on the bed. Actually, he was sick and his head was spinning with all these new things happening around him, and he really just wanted to be back at home on his own little pallet, or looking over case files with Mia again...
He barely heard the rest of what was said in the room, or the departure of Detective Gumshoe.
*
Miles Edgeworth did not like waiting. He particularly did not like waiting for Wright after he had gone to the trouble of extending an invitation to dinner. Perhaps because his mind was reeling with all sort of scenarios involving Wright discovering who he was, telling him he had never liked him and would never like him, confronting him with the truth of what had happened so many years ago...
“Where is he?” Edgeworth growled when the inept detective stumbled down the stair.
“Uh, sorry sir, he said he wasn't hungry...”
Before Edgeworth quite knew what he was doing, a roar of rage had erupted from him, and he was charging up the stairs, determined to bring Wright downstairs for dinner, where the civility of excellent food and expensive wine could, perhaps, help Wright get over his grief and help surmount the first hurdles of getting (re)acquainted with one another.
“Join me for dinner!” he bellowed at the closed door. I sound like a beast now, some part of him acknowledged, but only in a vague and distant sort of way, quickly pushed to the side.
“I won't.”
He tried the door - locked, of course. “Let me in!”
“Leave me alone!”
“You would be doing much better with that if he was out here and you had a whip,” Franziska informed him.
“You... are... not... helping....”
“Not like you to lose control like this, little brother. Why so touchy?”
If only she ever lost control, showed some chink in her armor, but his sister was a perfect von Karma through and through, giving Edgeworth nothing to use in snipping back at her. Instead he rounded on the significantly less controlled Gumshoe. “I suppose you have some terribly useful suggestions for me as well, Detective?”
“Uh, only that maybe if you asked, sir...”
He should not be taking relationship advice from this inept detective. He should not think that Gumshoe ever had anything worthwhile to say. But some long-forgotten part of Miles Edgeworth acknowledged that perhaps he was going about this the wrong way, and perhaps Wright would like to be asked, at the very least.
“Would you join me for dinner?” Perhaps his growl was still a bit rough, threatening, but it was softer. Surely Wright couldn't say no to...
“No.”
Softer, then. “Would you join me for dinner... please?”
“No!”
Once he could have asked with all the pleasantries required, in a much more flowery manner, a manner necessary for a man who dealt in words and twisting language to its most perfect use in his case - but Miles Edgeworth had long ago run out of patience, and with patience, he had run out of words as well. “Then you may as well starve!” he hollered at Wright, furious at his inability to control his guest, even more furious at his inability to control himself.
“If he doesn't eat with me, he doesn't eat at all!” he announced to whomever in the castle was listening, trusting that Franziska could spread the word of his - displeasure - to those who were not in immediately bellow-range.
Dimly, he was aware of Franziska assigning Gumshoe to keep a lookout, of her following him, but his only goal was to escape to his room, to take up the magic mirror and look in and see what Wright was up to.
“Show me Phoenix Wright,” he growled at the mirror, and it responded by showing Phoenix on the bed, looking ridiculously small with his knees drawn up to his chest.
Hannah was there, hovering, treacherously listening sympathetically to every word Wright said. Which, at the moment, happened to be, “I don't want anything to do with him!”
Such bitterness - he had never thought such bitterness was possible from Wright. Certainly he had never considered it could, and would, be turned against him. “It's hopeless,” he growled, restraining himself from hurling the mirror in a childish fit. “He's like the rest of them. He'll only ever see me as a beast.”
*
Even though Franziska had set Gumshoe as lookout, when she had followed Miles about halfway to his room she realized that she could not trust that particular detective with a sensitive task, particularly when he was so easily distracted.
As expected, she returned to find him quite engaged with one of the young women. Maggey Byrde, if she remembered correctly, whose current existence as a rather plain feather duster seemed an atrociously foolish pun on her last name.
Only a moment after Franziska's arrival, before she had decided what the most amusing way of interrupting and terrifying Gumshoe would be, the door opened and Phoenix Wright poked his head into the hallway. Immediately Gumshoe was separating himself from Maggey, looking at her a moment, then shouting, “Hey, PAL!” as Wright stepped into the hallway.
That was enough to make Wright pause and look at Gumshoe. It was also enough of an excuse to practice her technique in sending another finely controlled whipstroke of flame.
“Owww! Hey, sir, that hurt.”
Byrde was standing quite rigid now, something about apologizing and wanting to do her duty. Franziska thought about sending a lashing in the direction of the foolish girl, caught a glimpse of Gumshoe's expression, and decided against actually lashing the girl. “All foolish fools should leave immediately. This means you, Maggey Byrde!”
Which sent her scuttling away, and left Franziska to deal with another pair of foolish fools on her own. “I hear you are called Phoenix Wright, and that you aspire to become a defense attorney.”
“Um, yeah...” the fool was staring at her, sheepish and with a healthy amount of caution in his expression, but something in the twist of his mouth hinted that maybe, possibly, he was just a bit pleased that someone knew his name. Well. Franziska did not want him to get any foolish ideas about his importance.
“That is a foolish profession. Defense attorneys are all fools. One who seeks perfection must devote oneself to being a prosecutor.”
Franziska's words of wisdom brought only a furrowing of the foolish fool's peculiarly shaped eyebrows, and when he opened his mouth to spew out some foolishness, she rewarded him with a lash of flame. “Ow! Hey, that hurt!”
“That was for being a foolish fool,” she told him primly.
“Um, sir, aren't we supposed to be making nice for the guest, and, um, stuff?”
How dare that bumbling fool try to correct her, who was the embodiment of perfection - or would be, if she was not trapped in this foolish form? She sent a lashing his way, and almost as an afterthought, “That sounds like your job, Gumshoe.”
“Oh, er, sorry sir, um, pal, did you need anything?”
“I... I guess I'm a bit hungry.”
“Fool! The Master says you are to eat with him or not at all!”
“But, um, sir, if we let him starve, and I know what it's like to not have anything but instant noodles forever to eat, and can't we just let him have one little thing...”
“Don't blame me when the Master catches you foolish fools and decides to put you all in the dungeons.”
“All right! Come on, pal, we're going to get you a real feast, and maybe I can even talk them into singing and dancing...”
Franziska rolled her eyes, but really, what did she care if Gumshoe was going to make use of the foolishly large amounts of food that the chef had prepared? After all, it was her foster brother's order he was flaunting, and not hers, and perhaps that would teach the foolish fool something about personally making sure his commands were followed through rather than making Franziska do all the work.
She did wince at the foolish musical number the detective attempted to perform to accompany the meal, and was just as glad when the travesty was over, and their guest, now quite well-fed, could be sent back to his room.
“Thanks, pal, it's been so long since we had anything really useful to do, what with being-”
“Gumshoe!” Franziska snapped, worried suddenly about what secrets might spill from the onetime detective's mouth. “I am sure our guest is tired and would like to go to bed.”
“Actually,” the foolish fool said, rubbing the back of his neck, “I'm not really tired yet, and my head's still too - I'd like to see around this place a bit, before I go to bed, if that's okay...”
“You bet, pal! I'll give you the whole tour of everything!”
*
Continue reading
Fandom: Ace Attorney
Characters: Phoenix Wright/Miles Edgeworth, Mia Fey, Gumshoe/Maggey, Franziska, Dahlia, Sister Bikini, Pess, Pearl, Maya, Iris,
Summary:
Notes: Written for the following request on the Kink Meme:
It must be done:
Beauty and the Beast
Phoenix Wright style.
Phoenix has got to be "Belle"
Other characters are up to author.
Gaston, Mrs. Pott, Lumiere, anon can even add original inanimate turned animate objects if need be.
----------
Once upon a time, there was a young boy who dreamed of becoming a great defense attorney, but on the way he was hurt horribly and became instead a name feared in the courts, referred to in whispers as “the demon prosecutor.” It was said that he had lost his soul, and perhaps rumors were true, for even a frail old woman who claimed to be in desperate need of his help won no pity from him, until he realized that this was no ordinary woman and felt his first strong emotion in a very long time, an abject terror that he probably would never actually admit to in his life.
A voice, strange and yet familiar, from some memory long ago, told him, “Until you have proven yourself worthy of love, having learned to love and be loved in return, you will remain a beast. And if you do not prove yourself worthy before the petals on this rose have all faded and fallen, then you will remain a beast forever.”
And apparently this woman did nothing by half-measures, considering that what seemed like half the prosecution department as well as a few others (spirit mediums from Kurain Village, of all the ridiculous things) were transformed along with him, though not into creatures but rather into household artifacts. And thus it was that the universe's torment of Miles Edgeworth was proven to be not yet finished, but rather quite capable of some new and innovative methods of causing pain and suffering.
*
Part of Phoenix Wright was, of course, conscious of the gossiping around him. “That Mr. Wright's sure one strange fella.”
“That must be one fabulously fabulous book.”
“He's, like, always staring at a, what is it again, oh yeah, a, like, book.”
Normal, everyday gossip for the small town in which Phoenix and his mentor, Mia Fey, lived and had their law practice. As amusing as the people of the town could be, someday Phoenix hoped to rise above them and move on to greater tasks and adventures, which could explain why his nose was generally buried in some sort of study.
“Feenie! Hello!”
“Hello, Dah-”
Suddenly the book was snatched from his hands. “My poor Feenie, you'll get all wrinkled from staring at the book too long.”
Phoenix sighed. “I need to study if I'm going to be a lawyer, I've told you that already.”
But Dahlia was only half paying attention to him, flipping through the book. “How can you read this much? I don't see anything interesting at all in here.” Carelessly she tossed the book aside, and it splashed into a mud puddle.
“Dahlia!” Phoenix snatched the book from the puddle, doing his best to clean the mud from the cover. “You're supposed to respect books, you majored in English...”
“For the poetry, silly. I like it when people read poetry to me. You could recite me some.”
“Not now, I have to get back and help Mia with a case.”
“But Feenie...”
Dahlia Hawthorne really was disturbingly cute, and when she pouted just so Phoenix, like most of the men in the village, had a hard time refusing her anything. Still, the damp cover of the book, the concern that she had ruined it - as though he could afford another with his skimpy salary - helped remind him that, as enchanted as he had been when he first met Dahlia, she perhaps was not the model of perfection he had envisioned her to be. “I have to...”
“You could marry me,” Dahlia said suddenly, which was enough to send Phoenix into a temporary state of shock. Dahlia had the grace to look somewhat embarrassed, though the transition was suspiciously smooth. “Sorry, I know, I'm a bad girl for saying that and it's your job and privilege to ask me, not the other way around, but I was just thinking what a lovely engagement present that necklace would be...”
Why was she bringing up the necklace again? “You gave it to me, to hold our love forever.” The words were more like rote now; he wasn't sure if he had ever meant them beyond an enchantment with a lovely picture, come to think of it, but he was certainly not giving her back her gift in such away. The insult! And poor shy Dahlia...
His phone beeped, reminding him he had been due back at the office several minute ago. “I'm late, I've got to run!” Though he wouldn't have liked to admit it, he was glad of the excuse to sprint away from Dahlia.
Mia's shabby house doubled as their office, with Phoenix living in the loft above the barn because, despite the fact that he looked at his mentor like a mother figure rather than a romantic interest, sleeping under her actual roof would have looked a bit suspicious. He found Mia in the office basement, frowning at a chaotic mess of papers - it looked like he had attempted to do the filing again, except he knew quite well that he hadn't made this particular mess. “You all right, Chief?”
“Hmm? Oh, hi, Wright.”
“I'm not sure I fit in too well here, Chief. With the people and everything.”
That was enough, at least, to draw Mia's bleary eyes from her paperwork for just a moment. “Who said that?”
“No one. I just kind of... sensed it.”
“Oh.” Bending over, Mia once again began reading the various papers quite closely. “There's always Dahlia, isn't there?”
“I don't know, Dolly's - weird.”
“Weird?”
Phoenix rambled on a while about his relationship with Dahlia, how at first it had seemed perfect but then he had realized that if this was perfection he didn't want it, until he realized that Mia was not really listening but rather was much too absorbed in her work to take note of his romantic problems.
“How's the case coming, Chief?”
“Fine, I...” Mia trailed off, staring at the piles of paper. “I don't know. Maybe I'm really not cut out for this...”
“Don't say that, Chief!” Maybe Mia Fey wasn't cut out for the job of defense attorney, after the horrific cases of her past, but Phoenix remembered someone telling him, once, that a defense attorney was someone who believed in people, no matter what. Mia believed in him without question, even when no one else did, and Phoenix would defend her to the last. “You can do this!”
Lips curving faintly upwards, Mia slowly shifted her gaze back to the paperwork. “I'm glad you at least believe in me, Wright. I...” and suddenly her eyes grew large, and she snatched a paper off her desk. “I know who did it!”
Now the case was what filled their talk, and for the first time since she had agreed to take this case Phoenix knew Mia would get a good night's sleep. And none too soon, as the court date was scheduled for the next day.
*
Leaving Wright in charge was something of a frightening prospect, but then again he was quite eager to prove himself, and Mia Fey didn't think he was actually inept enough to do any permanent damage to himself or the office during the day in which she would be gone. Still, the motherly part of her couldn't help but rattle off a large list of things for him to be careful about, until Wright asked her whether she thought he was five (and she privately admitted that the possibility did tend to occur to her on occasion, though she was gracious enough not to actually tell him so).
As she rode out of the town and cast a last look over her shoulder, she saw Wright standing at the edge of town, waving, a goofy grin on his face. “Kick some butt, Chief!” he called after her, just before she turned the corner into the cover of the forest.
Hours later, Mia Fey wished she could be kicking some butt, and sorely regretted the supposed shortcuts through the forest. Was it getting dark, or was that just how thick the trees were here? If only she could be in court now - it would be safer than this strange place, she thought, or at least more familiar. Would they be worried about her by now? Would Wright be wondering about her, and what would he think if he saw his prized mentor like this, shivering and cold, tugging aimlessly at the horse's reins in an attempt to find a trail to the city court, back to the village, to anywhere that wasn't the forest.
A sudden howl disrupted her thoughts, and the horse jolted in fright and started to run. Mia, never the most confident of riders, could do little more than clutch at the saddle and pray to the spirits of her ancestors to keep her safe. “Help!” she screamed to the empty forest, and the echoes of her voice blended with the cries of the wolves. “Anyone! Help!”
Suddenly the horse whirled, and Mia flew from the saddle, landing in a drift of snow, soaking herself. Wet and frightened, she called out to the horse, but the hoofbeats were growing fainter as the howls grew louder.
Those familiar with Mia Fey would not have credited the hysterical scream bubbling in her throat to her, nor would they have expected anything like her panicked scrabbling through the brush, wolves seeming right at her heels. Either the spirits of her ancestors had been listening or some of her rookie's bizarre yet useful luck had rubbed off on her, but the moment before the wolves burst from the bushes she reached a wrought iron gate.
Somehow she managed to slip into the gate and force it closed, lowering a heavy bar into place between her and the wolves, escaping their frothing jaws. Still, she was not quite out of danger yet; the biting chill of the wind sliced right through her thin, soaked cloak, reminding her that she needed to find someplace dry and out of the wind and preferably warmer than the other side of the gate.
A gate and a fence meant a house, didn't they? A manor or a castle? That would be the logical conclusion, that there was something within the gate that the gate was meant to protect. Pulling her cloak around her, trying to convince herself it was warmer than it was, she made her way along the path from the gate.
Yes! She had been right; the gate and fence guarded something that could only be described as a castle. A rather grim and dark castle, one that she would not have liked to enter on a good day - but desperate times called for desperate measures. Perhaps they would show some hospitality to a hapless stranger, let her have some scraps of their supper and dry her clothing by a fire, give her some corner to sleep in and perhaps some direction as to how to find her way back home.
Trying to hide her trembling, she made her way to the front door and knocked.
Almost immediately, the door opened. No one was inside to greet her, though. She stepped inside, out of the wind, looking around in hope of seeing somebody, anybody. “Hello?” She thought she heard someone whispering. “Hello? Is anyone there? I got lost in the storm...”
*
“Hey pal, it's a traveler!” Gumshoe forgot, yet again, that he was currently in the form a (rather ugly) clock, and therefore supposed to be as still and silent as possible in the presence of any stranger so that he was seen as just an ordinary clock and not a rather hard to explain clock that could talk and move of its own will.
“Silence, you foolish fool!” If she wasn't busy impersonating an ordinary candelabra, Franziska would have taken the excuse to practice the arm of using her flames as a whip. As it was, she made a mental note to use the excuse when the next opportunity presented itself.
“Is anyone there?” the strange woman had the foolishness to venture further into the castle, and worse, to grab at Franziska and heft her rather dizzingly into the air.
“Hey, pal, put her down!” Gumshoe's voice rang out.
“What? Who's there?”
The speed at which the woman whipped around was dizzying, and Franziska decided that there was no further point in continuing the masquerade. “You foolishly foolish fool, put me down at once!”
The woman gasped when she realized she was being addressed by a candleabra, and carefully put Franziska down - only to pick up Detective Gumshoe and prod at him.
“Hey pal, that tickles - no, leave that closed, pal!”
“Sorry,” the woman said. “I never saw anything quite like you before. Are you trapped spirits?”
“You foolish fool of a foolishly foolish woman, don't ask foolish questions!” Franziska directed a whiplike tongue of flame at both the woman and Gumshoe.
“Ow!”
“Hey, pal!”
At least the woman finally set Gumshoe down. “That hurt.”
“It's what I do when foolish fools are foolishly foolish.”
The woman sighed, rubbing her hand, then said, “I got lost in the woods and I was hoping I could find a place to stay the night...”
Franziska was about to open her mouth to call the woman some more variations on fool as she denied the request, but Gumshoe was quicker. “Sure pal, I know what it's like to be down and out, have nowhere to go and all that, of course you can, owww!”
“Foolish fool! You are lucky that we can no longer have salary discussions, or yours would be in severe jeopardy at the moment.”
“Yes, sir.” At least Gumshoe had the decency to look repentant, with that foolish doggy look he got sometimes.
“...since this foolish fool has foolishly extended our hospitality, we must honor that.”
“All right, sir! I'll show the lady to a chair - this way, pal!”
This was one of those exceedingly rare and frustrating times in Franziska's life when she was at a loss for words as she watched Gumshoe and the newly arrived Sister Bikini (a teapot), Pearl (teacup), and even Pess the dog (footstool) conspire to make this foolish stranger comfortable and at home in her little brother's own chair, by her little brother's fireside, without a word of consent from their master. Still, she suspected that the rage burning in her would be as insignificant when compared to the rage that would ignite in her brother if - when - he discovered this, burning as dimly as her own candlelight burned against the blaze in the fireplace.
A sudden roar of rage confirmed her suspicions, and she stared on, partially horrified and partially proud, as the Beast lunged at the invader to his space.
*
“Feenie doesn't know it yet, but we're getting married today. Oh, I'm afraid I might be a bad girl!” Dahlia giggled and fanned herself a bit.
“Nonsense.” Morgan Fey beamed at her daughter, then sipped at her tea, before continuing. “None of my daughters could possibly be bad girls. I think it's quite good what you are doing for poor Mr. Wright, actually.”
“Yes,” Iris said, though she didn't sound quite as sure, earning her double glares from her mother and sister.
“I just hope poor Feenie appreciates all the trouble I'm going to.”
“And don't forget what you must find out from him before you kill him, my dear.”
“Oh, I know. You want your precious Pearl back and you think that Mia's mother might have had something to do with her disappearing, so I'm to use Feenie to get to Mia.”
“Excellent memory. Now, I believe you have a bridegroom to fetch? And Iris, as you are supposed to be dead, I suggest you disappear now?”
Afterward, Dahlia could never tell exactly what happened, only that she somehow found herself in a mud puddle with an off-key band playing a march for a wedding that was not going to happen, and Morgan Fey's stern glare on her.
Weighted heavily with this failure, Dahlia slunk to the pub, where Iris proceeded to attempt cheering her up by enlisting the admiration of all the gentlemen present, as well as the jealous resentment of the ladies.
*
Getting rid of Dahlia was not easy, and even Phoenix himself was surprised at how adamantly he wanted to get rid of her. Still, a marriage to Dahlia Hawthorne would mean he would be yoked to her for the rest of their lives, and thus be stuck in this annoyingly provincial town unless Dahlia decided she wanted to leave the life she had made for herself here, rather than being free to leave with Mia when she found them a way out.
As though conjured by his thoughts, Mia's horse appeared - but out of breath and riderless. Phoenix hurried up to the animal, a shock of worry going right to his belly.
“W-what happened?” Phoenix demanded of the animal. “Where's Mia?”
The horse just rolled its eyes at him. Great, how was he supposed to figure out anything from the horse? Still, it had been smart enough to find him - maybe it could bring him back wherever Mia was. “Hold on, Chief, I'm coming.” He remembered to duck inside for his cloak and gloves (Mia would be proud) and then he mounted the horse.
“Show me where you left her, please.”
Luckily for Phoenix, the horse seemed to know exactly where it was going. Unluckily, it was not along a path that Phoenix would normally have chosen to take, had he been the one deciding where to go. Nor did he like the wolf prints where the horse finally stopped.
Still, he managed to find his way to the barred gate, which had a bit of fabric caught on it. Wasn't this the same sort of fabric as Mia's cloak? Evidence! He tucked it into his pocket, wrestled the gate into letting him through, and debated whether he wanted to latch it against the wolves or leave it open in case he and Mia needed a quick getaway. In the end he decided to close it and latch it with a breakable looking branch, hopefully enough to convince the wolves the gate was still barred, but not enough to keep him and Mia from breaking through in a hurry if needed.
Then he made his way to the path and up to the castle, the foreboding in the pit of his belly magnified with each step he took, and only his determination to save Mia keeping him from turning tail and fleeing the scene like some frightened puppy. When he finally stood by the door it took him a moment, in which he drew a long breath and silently reminded himself that the entire reason he had decided to become a defense attorney was to save people, before he got the courage to raise his hand for a knock on the darkly looming door...
*
“I told you it was foolish to offer her a place to stay.”
“But sir...”
“None of your whining, Gumshoe.”
“...I thought we might have hope with her, sir.”
Gumshoe was astounded that this assertion did not convince Franziska to whip him, and dared to sneak a quick peek at her face. She looked unusually still, thoughtful, when she said, “No. You are foolish to hope for that chance. What is she going to see in my little brother, foolish woman, and what would he see in her? Besides which, she is too old...”
“But sir, time's almost out!”
That did earn him a lashing, and a rather painful one at that, but he supposed he probably deserved it for making a prosecutor consider something that she had already decided was not to be considered. “I am aware of that. I should never have foolishly visited him in this foolish country.”
“Awww, sir...”
Which earned him another lashing with the whip, and he was spared from more lashings at the moment when the door slowly swung open, for the second time in two days. Both stared at the young man who came in, slightly bedraggled, hair rising in what could probably be classed as quite a distinctive spike.
*
Pearl, the delicate little teacup, was nearly bouncing herself into pieces, she was so excited. “Sister Bikini, there's a boy in the castle, and he might be the Beast's special someone.”
“Ohohohoho!” Sister Bikini, a rather rotund and jolly teapot, beamed at Pearl. “You should know better than to make up stories. Mediums must train very hard and be very truthful!”
Before Pearl had a chance to respond, a very purple feather duster came bursting into the room. “Hey, did you guys hear, there's a boy in the castle?”
“See, I told you, and Mystic Maya's telling you now, and you'll believe her, won't you, Sister Bikini?”
“Ohohoho! Of course I believe the daughter of the Master.”
*
“Maybe he'll be the one, sir?” Gumshoe was almost afraid to speak, and grimaced in anticipation of a sound lash, but none came.
“I... it would be foolish to hope.” Suddenly she stirred to life, jumping down from their customary ledge. “We should watch him, though.”
He had gone running up the stairs, yelling “Come back” and “Mia,” and now Gumshoe and Franziska made their way up the stairs after him. Somehow the boy found his way right up the stairs to the tower dungeon. Gumshoe was impressed by his detective work.
*
Mia heard the rookie's voice through a thick veil of heat and cold and ringing in her ears and feeling like she was about to fall into a million pieces. At least it gave her something to go towards, whether it was into or out of a dream.
Out of one nightmare and into another, though she realized that she was perceiving her current reality now, lying on a thin layer of scattered straw over a very hard floor. Not much light; she was in some sort of prison.
“Mia?”
“W-wright,” she choked out, reaching out to grab hold of one of the cold iron bars, and then he was there, kneeling by her, familiar rookie face in a familiar look of concern.
“Mia, what happened?”
“A beast. G-get out of here. W-while you c-c-can.” Why did her teeth have to pick now to chatter, when she had to use her best lawyer voice to get the rookie out of here? He was her responsibility; if anything happened to him it would be her fault.
“Not without you, Mia. I'm not leaving without you.”
There was that cursed stubbornness again. She'd blessed the quality in a rookie defense attorney; Wright would never give up believing in a client. Now, though, the quality was just going to get him into trouble. “W-Wright...”
A bone-shattering roar shocked the room. “Who dares invade my castle?”
There was the Beast, in all his fury, and even through the haze of illness she could see Wright's face pale. But to the credit of his courage, if not his common sense, he stood his ground, between the beast and the cell. “P-please sir, c-c-can't you see she's sick?”
A wordless roar. Wright, get out! Leave me be and get yourself out!
“Let her go. She- she n-n-needs a d-doctor.”
“She is my prisoner, and I will not release her. Now get out!”
Wright skittered away from that voice, then stopped. Oh no, don't get any hero ideas. Let me die here; I've had my shot. And you're going to be something big one day.
“What if- if I stayed instead?”
“You?” Suddenly the creature was no longer roaring; suddenly it seemed downright - calm. Collected. Under control. “You would stay here?”
“No, Wright!” Why wouldn't he listen to her, why wouldn't he get himself out of here? “I've had my shot, you're too young, you don't deserve...”
He wasn't listening to her, and maybe it was his time with that theatre troupe or maybe it was something else, but Wright suddenly seemed very collected as well. “If I did, would you let her go?”
“Yes...” and suddenly the beast was looming, ablaze with its intense power, with hidden strength and fury, “But you must swear to stay here forever.”
*
Forever. Forever was quite a long time. Forever was... forever was never seeing Mia again, not knowing if she managed the next big case, not getting to go to her for advice or check up on her. Forever was no more walks through the village, which perhaps was a bit too familiar, but Phoenix realized for the first time in his life that perhaps there was something to miss in that place. Forever was never getting to pursue his dreams beyond this castle...
And yet, there was something familiar about the beast, something very familiar, something teasing at the edges of Phoenix's awareness. “Come into the light,” he said, softly, half a request and half a command.
He hadn't quite expected the beast to listen to him, to obey him and take a step - was that hesitation - into the shaft of sunlight that made its way into the dungeon. The face - all wild angles and fur - was somewhat frightening, but then Phoenix looked into the eyes and caught his breath. If he didn't know better, if he didn't know that Miles Edgeworth had compassion and understanding in his eyes rather than this cold and somewhat bitter look, he would have sworn he looked into the eyes of his onetime friend, the eyes of the man who had inspired him to become a defense attorney.
The eyes decided it. Ignoring Mia's whispered protestations, Phoenix said, “You have my word.”
“Done!” And before Phoenix could draw another breath, the creature was in the cell and hoisting Mia onto one of his gargantuan shoulders.
“Wait!”
Phoenix's plea fell on deaf ears, and in a rush they were gone, leaving Phoenix to stand alone in the room. Now that Mia would be able to get help, now that he had done his job in defending her, he felt... empty. Drained. Completely and totally alone in a strange place, doomed to live out the rest of his life in a small cell with no one left to talk to, as doomed as Mia's clients when she had lost their trials.
Mia... he hadn't even said goodbye...
*
Miles Edgeworth had thought that turning him into a beast, now visibly imperfect, ugly on the outside as well as the inside, had been the worst thing the universe could throw at him.
The minute he laid eyes on Wright, he knew he had been wrong.
Why must his childhood friend be here, bringing back the past, bringing back a time when Miles Edgeworth, Demon Prosecutor, had been filled with hope and promise and the dream of becoming a defense attorney?
Why now, when he could no longer scoff and simply turn the fool away, using for a shield the image that he had created, the shell of a man who no longer cared, but who was nonetheless perfect? Why now, when he was trapped in this ugly bestial form, visibly imperfect, rather than having all imperfection hidden behind a tightly controlled shell?
Why now, when the last hopes of Miles Edgeworth - and perhaps more importantly, though he loathed to admit it, the hopes of the others who had shared in this unwilling transformation - were all beginning to fade along with one slowly dying rose?
Fear hid behind fury, and before he quite knew what he was doing, Miles Edgeworth had made Wright swear to remain forever and had whisked away his other unwelcome visitor to his carriage, sending her back to the village where she could receive proper treatment away from himself and Wright. He didn't want anyone else around who might be able to guess, or help to guess, about his true identity.
Miles Edgeworth also knew how to get things done, and before he returned to the cell where he had left Wright, set in motion the word that no one - no one - was to give Wright any clue as to who exactly the Beast was, under threat of a very long and painful discussion with the Demon Prosecutor himself.
Franziska and Gumshoe were hovering outside the cell door, listening to the soft, almost whimpering, sound that came from the darkness. Gumshoe looked downright embarrassed, while Franziska looked as cool and composed as she had been every last day of her life. They both turned to look at Edgeworth.
“Neither one of you is to breathe a word of my identity to the prisoner, is that understood?”
“But sir, what am I going to call you?”
“Beast would be fine, Gumshoe.”
Franziska sniffed in ladylike disdain. “I do not approve, little brother, but then again I do not approve of being related to one in such - distressing - appearance, so I suppose I may as well pretend you are something else entirely.”
“And you believe I approve of being in such guise?” Miles Edgeworth growled, a low warning rumble.
“Um, sir?”
“What is it?”
“I-if you think he might be the one to help,” Gumshoe apparently lacked the mechanism for self-preservation that would have warned him Edgeworth did not like the way this was going, “then you should treat him right.”
Franziska's whip of flame was quick to punish, before Edgeworth had a chance to get his own vengeance. Nevertheless, he let his sister's audacity go with only a glower, and then said, “I don't know what you could mean, Detective.”
“U-um,” Gumshoe was now doing his best to inch away from Franziska, not an easy task for a clock, “M-maybe he'd like a nicer room. And a big dinner.”
Edgeworth snorted at the idea of taking romantic advice from the rather inept detective, especially as source informed him that Gumshoe was nearly as clumsy with his attempted courtships as with his investigations. Still, as he entered the cold cell he admitted to himself that, whether or not he wanted to see Wright, he did not like the idea of leaving his childhood friend to freeze in this cell.
When Wright saw him, he turned away, face flushing a bit. Was he...
“You didn't let me say goodbye.” Wright's voice was filled with raw pain edged with anger, and for a moment Miles remembered that elevator, and that he had never said goodbye to his father and how badly he had wanted to. “I'm never going to see her again and you didn't let me say goodbye.”
What was he supposed to say to that? Sorry? Sorries wouldn't make anything go away, wouldn't make anything better. Maybe he really was the beast he seemed to be, incapable of causing anything but devastation.
“...I'll show you to your room,” Edgeworth growled, trying to pretend he did not see how broken Wright seemed to be just from the simple lack of good-bye. How broken he was feeling at this very moment - no, he could not allow a chink in his armor. Wright could never guess who he was, what had become of Miles Edgeworth - and Franziska and Gumshoe were not too far off, and he would like it even less if one of them saw a chink.
Wright at least had the grace to stop sniveling so much in his surprise. “I thought... I was... to stay here.”
“You are my guest, and are free to go anywhere in this castle but the West Wing.” That was the sacred area where the rose was kept, and could be a refuge from Wright's presence whenever Edgeworth decided to take it. When Wright didn't move from the straw-littered floor, he added sharply, “Unless you'd rather stay here?”
“I... no...” And Wright was scrambling to his feet, following clumsily after Miles, still sniffling like he was still nine years old. Part of Miles wanted to make it go away, to apologize for upsetting Wright, but of course he was incapable of doing such a thing even if he had fully desired to do so.
On arriving at the room, he did manage to hold the door open for Wright, and assure him that the servants would take care of whatever he needed, but something in him, something hot and burning and twisting in his gut, did not allow for proper civility beyond that. “You will join me for dinner,” he heard himself growl. Don't make this any worse than you already have, except he could not stop himself, his pride and hurt and fear were all conspiring against him. “That is not a request!” And he slammed the door forcefully, and pretended that he did not notice Franziska and Gumshoe watching him with some degree of disapproval, and left Wright to finish his sniffling in the room.
*
Iris was beginning to grow quite concerned.
Dahlia never sat and stared at a fire without words, never wore an expression that seemed so lost and vulnerable, not without carefully arranging herself to the best possible version of her appearance. But this sulk, this was spontaneous and genuine, not at all arranged.
“...what's wrong?” she finally got the courage to ask her twin.
“Go away.”
“No. You're there for me, and I'm going to be there for you.”
Which won her a heavy sigh. “It's that Phoenix.”
“The one with the-”
“Yes.”
“The one that Mother-”
“Yes.”
“Oh, um...” Iris couldn't think of what exactly would make her sister feel better. “...sorry?”
“How can he resist me? Everything I try to do, he... he's not ordinary...”
“No man can resist you, Dahlia. You're the one all the men want, and there isn't a woman in the whole town who wouldn't want to be you, just ask any of them.”
Indeed, several side conversations were going on around just that theme, how lovely Dahlia was, however could that crazy boy resist her, if only this woman were Dahlia, if only that man could have Dahlia...
“So why can he resist me, then?”
“I don't know... maybe it has something to do with, er, Mia?”
“Mia...” and suddenly Dahlia was all cold, devilish purpose, her lips curling into something between a smile and a snarl. “Mia. You might just be smarter than I thought.”
“Dahlia, you have that look...”
“He'd do just about anything for our... dear... Mia, right?”
“Umm, I guess so...”
“So we have Mother haul Mia off to the asylum, and I promise to help spring her if he marries me.”
Iris wasn't entirely sure she liked this plan, but when Dahlia Hawthorne was your twin sister and she came up with a plot, there was really only one option open. “You are brilliant as always, my dear sister.”
“I know.”
*
Mia...
The Miles Edgeworth that Phoenix had known in grade school would never have been so cruel as to deprive Phoenix of someone he cared about without even leaving time for goodbyes. Maybe he'd seen Edgeworth's eyes, for a moment, in the eyes of this creature, but that had just been a passing fancy. Good going, Wright. You've sold your life to this creature all because you saw something that wasn't really there.
At least it had gotten Mia away safely. Or he hoped it had gotten Mia away safely. Though why I think I can trust him...
The guest room in which he had been left could probably have fit most of Mia's little cottage inside. The furniture - the bed alone - must have cost more than Phoenix could hope to earn in a year as a defense attorney. Then again, there wasn't anywhere else to sit, and the Beast had given him this room - he slumped onto the bed, trying to keep himself from crying, to remind himself that he was a grown man and grown men weren't supposed to cry, not for the sake of one missed goodbye.
“Oh my, my, my. I think someone could use some tea against the cold, before he has some hypothermia. Wa ha ha. Ho ho ho.”
I must be losing it now, if a teapot is talking to me. “Er...” And not only that, but I answered it.
“You may call me Sister Bikini. I make a rather attractive teapot, do I not? Ho ho ho.”
Great, a talking, preening teapot named after a visual I certainly did not need. “U-um, whose sister are you?”
“Ho ho ho. I am a nun of the Kurain Spirit Channeling Technique. Or was, until I got turned into a teapot. At least now I don't have to worry about hypothermia. Wa ha ha ha. Ho ho ho.”
Could you stop with the weird laughing thing already? And what is this Kurain Channeling Technique - it sounds familiar somehow... “So, um, how did you get to be a teapot, if you don't mind me asking?”
“My, my, my, a curious one, are you? Well, it is a very long story and I fear you would get hypothermia before I finished - Pearl!”
An adorable teacup bounced to join the teapot, looking for all the world like one of the most adorable children Phoenix could imagine, except in the form of what was almost quite an ordinary teacup, if not for the totally cute face peeking at him. “Here I am. Who's that, Sister Bikini?”
“Oh my, my, my, how rude of me. What is your name, good sir?”
“I'm...” ...introducing myself to inanimate objects, this is insane, “...Phoenix Wright, attorney at law.”
Suddenly, a bundle of vivid purple feathers burst out of a corner. “I'm going to call you Nick, then, because it's much friendlier to have nicknames, and you can call him Mr. Nick, Pearly!”
Surrounded by a chortling teapot, a giggling teacup, and an overly bouncy feather duster, Phoenix was at a loss as to what he was supposed to do now. Until the wardrobe suddenly moved, and he decided on a startled yelp as good enough for the moment.
“I shall call him Mr. Wright, as is proper.” If a wardrobe could sound condescending, than this one did. “Mr. Wright, I am Hannah Fright, and I used to be secretary to Mr. E- Beast. I now perform quite a different function but I attempt to retain my usefulness to him. The rather flighty feather duster over there is Mystic Maya-”
“Hey! I'm not flighty! Why would you do something like that and call me flighty?”
Pearls (she was too cute to call just Pearl, and for some reason the name Pearls just seemed to stick in his mind) clattered her disapproval, sending tea splashing. “Don't you insult Mystic Maya!”
“Easy, easy,” the wardrobe - er, Miss Fright - soothed. “I just wanted to say, Mr. Wright, that you were very brave to choose to stay here for the sake of your... mentor?”
“Mentor,” Phoenix confirmed, “And she was like a mother to me, too.” What little diversion the talking items had given him was gone, replaced by a twisting and sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Mia...
“And, of course, I am here to assist you in the selection of something appropriate for dinner...” She opened her doors and somehow began shifting through a broad selection of suits, each one looking like it had cost more than the price of all the clothing Phoenix had ever owned.
“...I'm not going to dinner,” Phoenix announced, crossing his arms and pouting.
“His Highness won't like that,” Hannah cautioned him.
To his surprise, the feather duster leapt to his defense. “He doesn't have to do everything the Beast says, and it's not like he's a real prince so you can stop calling him Highness anyway, Hannah.”
“Your Sister Bikini didn't like me calling him Master, and I am not going to call him simply Beast...”
“It's only because of the Kurain Master, so maybe you could call him Master Beast...”
The argument was cut off by the arrival of one (fairly goofy-looking) clock. “Dinner's ready, pal!” the clock announced cheerfully.
“That's Mr. Scruffy,” Pearl chimed in before anyone had a chance to react.
“Awww, pal, I asked you to stop calling me that. Can't you call me Detective Gumshoe?”
Hannah broke in quickly. “You'd best get changed quickly, Mr. Wright - I think this would do wonders for your eyes.”
“I already told you, I am not going to dinner.”
“WHAAAAAAT?” Gumshoe looked horrified. “Please, pal, you don't understand, I'd have to tell - them - that you aren't coming, and that would be very bad, and I'm begging you, pal...”
“I'm not hungry. Sorry.” Phoenix lay back on the bed. Actually, he was sick and his head was spinning with all these new things happening around him, and he really just wanted to be back at home on his own little pallet, or looking over case files with Mia again...
He barely heard the rest of what was said in the room, or the departure of Detective Gumshoe.
*
Miles Edgeworth did not like waiting. He particularly did not like waiting for Wright after he had gone to the trouble of extending an invitation to dinner. Perhaps because his mind was reeling with all sort of scenarios involving Wright discovering who he was, telling him he had never liked him and would never like him, confronting him with the truth of what had happened so many years ago...
“Where is he?” Edgeworth growled when the inept detective stumbled down the stair.
“Uh, sorry sir, he said he wasn't hungry...”
Before Edgeworth quite knew what he was doing, a roar of rage had erupted from him, and he was charging up the stairs, determined to bring Wright downstairs for dinner, where the civility of excellent food and expensive wine could, perhaps, help Wright get over his grief and help surmount the first hurdles of getting (re)acquainted with one another.
“Join me for dinner!” he bellowed at the closed door. I sound like a beast now, some part of him acknowledged, but only in a vague and distant sort of way, quickly pushed to the side.
“I won't.”
He tried the door - locked, of course. “Let me in!”
“Leave me alone!”
“You would be doing much better with that if he was out here and you had a whip,” Franziska informed him.
“You... are... not... helping....”
“Not like you to lose control like this, little brother. Why so touchy?”
If only she ever lost control, showed some chink in her armor, but his sister was a perfect von Karma through and through, giving Edgeworth nothing to use in snipping back at her. Instead he rounded on the significantly less controlled Gumshoe. “I suppose you have some terribly useful suggestions for me as well, Detective?”
“Uh, only that maybe if you asked, sir...”
He should not be taking relationship advice from this inept detective. He should not think that Gumshoe ever had anything worthwhile to say. But some long-forgotten part of Miles Edgeworth acknowledged that perhaps he was going about this the wrong way, and perhaps Wright would like to be asked, at the very least.
“Would you join me for dinner?” Perhaps his growl was still a bit rough, threatening, but it was softer. Surely Wright couldn't say no to...
“No.”
Softer, then. “Would you join me for dinner... please?”
“No!”
Once he could have asked with all the pleasantries required, in a much more flowery manner, a manner necessary for a man who dealt in words and twisting language to its most perfect use in his case - but Miles Edgeworth had long ago run out of patience, and with patience, he had run out of words as well. “Then you may as well starve!” he hollered at Wright, furious at his inability to control his guest, even more furious at his inability to control himself.
“If he doesn't eat with me, he doesn't eat at all!” he announced to whomever in the castle was listening, trusting that Franziska could spread the word of his - displeasure - to those who were not in immediately bellow-range.
Dimly, he was aware of Franziska assigning Gumshoe to keep a lookout, of her following him, but his only goal was to escape to his room, to take up the magic mirror and look in and see what Wright was up to.
“Show me Phoenix Wright,” he growled at the mirror, and it responded by showing Phoenix on the bed, looking ridiculously small with his knees drawn up to his chest.
Hannah was there, hovering, treacherously listening sympathetically to every word Wright said. Which, at the moment, happened to be, “I don't want anything to do with him!”
Such bitterness - he had never thought such bitterness was possible from Wright. Certainly he had never considered it could, and would, be turned against him. “It's hopeless,” he growled, restraining himself from hurling the mirror in a childish fit. “He's like the rest of them. He'll only ever see me as a beast.”
*
Even though Franziska had set Gumshoe as lookout, when she had followed Miles about halfway to his room she realized that she could not trust that particular detective with a sensitive task, particularly when he was so easily distracted.
As expected, she returned to find him quite engaged with one of the young women. Maggey Byrde, if she remembered correctly, whose current existence as a rather plain feather duster seemed an atrociously foolish pun on her last name.
Only a moment after Franziska's arrival, before she had decided what the most amusing way of interrupting and terrifying Gumshoe would be, the door opened and Phoenix Wright poked his head into the hallway. Immediately Gumshoe was separating himself from Maggey, looking at her a moment, then shouting, “Hey, PAL!” as Wright stepped into the hallway.
That was enough to make Wright pause and look at Gumshoe. It was also enough of an excuse to practice her technique in sending another finely controlled whipstroke of flame.
“Owww! Hey, sir, that hurt.”
Byrde was standing quite rigid now, something about apologizing and wanting to do her duty. Franziska thought about sending a lashing in the direction of the foolish girl, caught a glimpse of Gumshoe's expression, and decided against actually lashing the girl. “All foolish fools should leave immediately. This means you, Maggey Byrde!”
Which sent her scuttling away, and left Franziska to deal with another pair of foolish fools on her own. “I hear you are called Phoenix Wright, and that you aspire to become a defense attorney.”
“Um, yeah...” the fool was staring at her, sheepish and with a healthy amount of caution in his expression, but something in the twist of his mouth hinted that maybe, possibly, he was just a bit pleased that someone knew his name. Well. Franziska did not want him to get any foolish ideas about his importance.
“That is a foolish profession. Defense attorneys are all fools. One who seeks perfection must devote oneself to being a prosecutor.”
Franziska's words of wisdom brought only a furrowing of the foolish fool's peculiarly shaped eyebrows, and when he opened his mouth to spew out some foolishness, she rewarded him with a lash of flame. “Ow! Hey, that hurt!”
“That was for being a foolish fool,” she told him primly.
“Um, sir, aren't we supposed to be making nice for the guest, and, um, stuff?”
How dare that bumbling fool try to correct her, who was the embodiment of perfection - or would be, if she was not trapped in this foolish form? She sent a lashing his way, and almost as an afterthought, “That sounds like your job, Gumshoe.”
“Oh, er, sorry sir, um, pal, did you need anything?”
“I... I guess I'm a bit hungry.”
“Fool! The Master says you are to eat with him or not at all!”
“But, um, sir, if we let him starve, and I know what it's like to not have anything but instant noodles forever to eat, and can't we just let him have one little thing...”
“Don't blame me when the Master catches you foolish fools and decides to put you all in the dungeons.”
“All right! Come on, pal, we're going to get you a real feast, and maybe I can even talk them into singing and dancing...”
Franziska rolled her eyes, but really, what did she care if Gumshoe was going to make use of the foolishly large amounts of food that the chef had prepared? After all, it was her foster brother's order he was flaunting, and not hers, and perhaps that would teach the foolish fool something about personally making sure his commands were followed through rather than making Franziska do all the work.
She did wince at the foolish musical number the detective attempted to perform to accompany the meal, and was just as glad when the travesty was over, and their guest, now quite well-fed, could be sent back to his room.
“Thanks, pal, it's been so long since we had anything really useful to do, what with being-”
“Gumshoe!” Franziska snapped, worried suddenly about what secrets might spill from the onetime detective's mouth. “I am sure our guest is tired and would like to go to bed.”
“Actually,” the foolish fool said, rubbing the back of his neck, “I'm not really tired yet, and my head's still too - I'd like to see around this place a bit, before I go to bed, if that's okay...”
“You bet, pal! I'll give you the whole tour of everything!”
*
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