Application for Mia Fey, Phoenix Wright / Gyakuten Saiban game series

[defense_rests]

((Mia is taken from after Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations, so beware of moderate spoilers. I'll label major spoilers in the comments if at all possible. Also: important clues are indicated by colored text in the game. I will keep this to a minimum.

Permission has been obtained from the other active PW muns. Can you say "workninja?" I knew

Comments

[computerwizkid]

Dairine read the application twice, just to make sure she hadn't misunderstood, and was forced to admit that the application did, in fact, seem to indicate that Mia had been dead in the recent past. Being fairly new to Hogwarts, herself, she hadn't yet run across anyone dead. At least, not that she knew of.

"You're - I mean, you've been dead?" she asked, correcting herself. Even if she'd died at some point, Mia was quite clearly alive now.

[defense_rests]

"For almost three years now," Mia replied. "At least, the last time I was channeled, it had been nearly three years since I was killed." Technically, if what Phoenix had told her was true, she wasn't due to get killed for another eight or nine years. But that was overly complicated.

"I was under the impression that the formerly deceased show up here from time to time, but maybe it's not that common." Which was something of a relief. "I'm Mia Fey. I take it you haven't encountered this phenomenon before?"

[computerwizkid]

"I guess I wouldn't know. I've only been here a few weeks, myself," she replied, with a shrug. "I'm still trying to figure out how magic works in this place - it's different from the wizardry I'm used to. I'm Dairine Callahan."

[defense_rests]

"Nice to meet you, Miss Callahan," Mia said, and meant it, as there was really only one attendee so far who hadn't been a pleasure (and it was hard to complain about anything when you're suddenly not dead).

"The only magic I've ever seen is fake stage magic, so I wouldn't know much about that either," Mia admitted. "Spirit channeling's not the same either. Are there different types of wizardry? How so?"

[computerwizkid]

"See," Dairine said, "That's what I'm trying to figure out. I really can't tell if what they use here is really something different, or just a new application of the wizardry I'm used to. I mean, with what I use, you technically can to anything you can figure out how to describe, but they don't even seem to use the same methods of casting spells, here."

[defense_rests]

"Anything you can figure out how to describe? I wouldn't think there'd be any limit to that. Unless that's a very literal definition." She'd had to pore through enough legal documents when she first interned to know how the wrong turn of phrase - or a typo by a clerk who wasn't paying attention - could turn things on its ear. Or nearly cause an entire estate to be left to the neighbor's dog.

"What sort of methods do they use here, then? I've seen the house elves disappear and reappear, but not much short of that."

[computerwizkid]

"They seem to do a lot of wand-work, with incantations in some sort of psudo-latin. It's the incantations that get to me - wand-work isn't anything new; my sister's got some really effective offensive spells she does with a rowan wand," Dairine explained. "But the wizardry we use is based in a completely different wizardly Speech, which's the language the universe was created in. When a wizard uses the Speech, things happen, so yeah, it's a literal definition. If you mess up, you could literally change what you are." Dang. Dairine hadn't had to explain wizardry to anyone in a long time. She wasn't sure she'd ever had to explain it to anyone who wasn't a computer.

[defense_rests]

"I can see how that would be difficult," Mia said, fascinated. She was getting the general idea. "There's enough room for error with the English language as it is. So the more drastic whatever you're attempting, the greater the risk of it backfiring?" This made more sense to her than just waving a wand about. There had to be consequences, after all.

[computerwizkid]

"Well, the Speech is more exact than English, so it's harder to misspeak. But mistakes are still easy to make, and you've got to be especially careful of promises. And transit spells, but at least I've got some programs on my computer that can do the calculations for those."

[defense_rests]

Mia nodded. "Promises? I'm guessing that breaking them in this case would not be an option." The mention of a computer gave her pause. "You use a computer for - wait, no, we use computers for so much nowadays that I really shouldn't be surprised by that."

[computerwizkid]

"Well, it's fairly new. Most wizards still work out of books, if they've got a hard copy at all," Dairine said, pulling Spot out of her bag. The computer put up a pair of eye stalks to look at Mia, and then looked up at Dairine. Despite being a MacBook with legs and eye stalks and therefore having no way to actually have an expression, he gave off a definite You're showing me off again? kind of irritation. She ignored him, continuing, "And I know a guy who's got his manual in an iPod."

[defense_rests]

"Oh, my." Mia blinked back at Spot, clearly fascinated. "I can understand why most would still rely on books - people still gravitate towards the familiar. But if it's that complex, I can definitely see why you would use a computer." She smiled. "Now for some reason, it doesn't surprise me at all that you use Macs."

Otherwise, blue screens of death would probably take on a whole new meaning.

[computerwizkid]

"Yeah, the Powers That Be seem to like 'em. The logo's a little different on the wizardly ones, though," Dairine said, turning Spot to show the Apple Without a Bite on his cover. "He upgrades himself, too. Not always standard upgrades," she added, tweaking one of the computer's jointed legs, "but I've only had to take him beyond the edge of the known galaxy to debug him once."

[defense_rests]

Mia had to smirk just a bit at the logo. "That's convenient. ...did you say 'he?'"

We'll get back to the part about beyond the edge of the galaxy in a minute.

[computerwizkid]

"Well, technically, 'he''s an 'it,'" Dairine admitted with a shrug. "But I've kind of falling into the habit of calling him a 'him.' He's certainly not just an object."

[defense_rests]

((Warning: image is worksafe, but the character in question is not brainsafe.))

"That makes sense, since 'it' always tends to mean an object," Mia noted. "English doesn't have a gender-neutral pronoun to fall back on." Yes, this had actually come up in one of her early cases. When you had witnesses like this, that was no surprise.

"You had to go beyond the edge of the galaxy? Transit spells can take you that far?" She'd never associated magic and space travel, but then again, it wasn't as if she had encountered any real magic before now.