Remains of the Day
"Maya, you are not fine."
At last, it stops being a question. As soon as the remains of his breath fade, complete silence falls on that corner of Kurain, where the whispering of the spirits is usually the most restless.
There is no distracting Phoenix when he knows exactly what he is talking about.
"I have to-" Maya begins, and the words die on her tongue, forcing her to start over once more. "I have to be-"
"No, you don't."
He is too firm on his feet to let go. She knows him. He is fixed on her eyes, and Maya looks back, with no more strength and nowhere to hide.
There is no escape route this time. She will fall apart with the next words.
"You try too hard. Stop hurting yourself like this."
It is enough. She flings herself in his arms, wailing so loud that the air around her shakes, and its vibrations shift slightly to the earth.
Tomorrow she will get on her feet, conscious and steady, to hold the hands of the living and the dead. Tomorrow she will bring peace to someone else.
For today, she cries.
"To each their own, Wright. That's how it works."
The stillness of the room is only broken by the steaming mugs, with a touch of rare snowflakes outside.
After their meeting halfway through the door, when Edgeworth had gotten rid of his fears and Phoenix had decided that sure as hell someone would not let him see him off, there were few moves and few words. They sit in near complete silence, taking their time to adapt and understand.
"I can't be the only one who has things to take care of," he adds, with a hint of anguish on his face. "I hope we will all be done soon."
Phoenix closes his eyes, unwilling to move, and lets images of the future flow. He sees Maya and the monster she hides inside, Pearl too young to even start understanding. He pictures his own life, and whomever he lost.
Even now that it's all said and done, nothing outside of this moment feels definitive. Even so, in this short breath of time, they can afford to believe everything will be. Someday.
"We will do our best," Phoenix answers. "Until then, I will be waiting."
"Be sure to do your part, too."
They laugh, quietly. There are things to be buried, others to let grow. There is no better way — once something is over, the least one can do is start anew.
At the end of the evening, neither says goodbye.
"Don't bother coming back in a haste, little brother," Franziska grumbles, five steps from the gate. "I am the one who has unfinished matters here. I won't let you ruin that again."
He looks at her, or at what is left of her crumbling mask, without needing to wonder how much she means it. There is a mosaic of tones in her voice, a fierce battle fought between the young girl she should be and the woman she was forced into being.
He thinks of his own path to freedom, of the excruciating pain, and feels a wave of fierce sympathy.
"Worrying about me is not what you should be doing," he says sternly, already used to ignoring her annoyance. "Think of yourself a bit longer."
He grasps her arm before she can move a finger. This time, he is determined to win — he hopes the memory of this will be enough, when the weight of remorse and fury crushes her again.
"No matter what you believe, I am on your side."
And he flies beyond the entrance, leaving behind loud hisses and a long chain of screams. Despite this new victory, hs smile is sad.
A resolve stronger than a whip — it takes no less, and so much more, to chase away the ghosts of the past.
What was that fool thinking?
Franziska writes the thought in the creases of the paper, in the circle of her teacup, with no less strength than the raging snowstorm outside. She lets the files shake in her hand, as they have done since the review and the final trial were assigned to her.
To kill a person he already knew was dead — such complete, incredible foolishness was almost unseen before. In the end, whatever Phoenix Wright touches seems to turn into absurdity. She would never have thought it possible to see a more nonsensical case after her own intervention; and yet here it is, marked in ink, confirmed to be true in front of her own eyes.
If only it were that easy, she finds herself thinking. Wielding a blade just as naturally, cutting through flesh, to erase the dead from the rest of the world.
There is no way she could be fooled like that. Her heritage, pain and brilliance of her blood, has taught her better.
She meets Godot's gaze on the way to the bench, finding in them no more than a lost man. The memory of eyes like those — eyes like her own — makes her shiver for a moment.
"Do you like the snow, kitten?"
A few steps, the smell of steel chains. Two men accompany him, not caring enough to listen.
"I like it better here," Diego says, barely holding his words together. "There are no stains on this snow. You should be proud of your little sister, kitten. The Fey burial ground is kept impeccably."
Her spot is marked by a smooth white rock, nearly hidden by the first strands of the new winter. He touches her tombstone with reverence, searching for the traces of ink that form her name.
"It was my last wish, you know," he explains to the wind. "To see you at least once. Not like that, though. I am saving the joy of seeing your face for when we meet again, with better eyes."
His right hand, made heavy by the cuffs, does not surrender. He can take a sip from his cup, then let it fall, with aromatic black marking her ground, her bones, their story.
"I know you care, I did not forget," he half-laughs. "I am sorry for Maya. I really am. The last cup is always the bitterest, when you have to leave. But tell me, did I have a choice? Telling her that I cared, that all Fey women are precious — would that have made it better? She would not have lived with that. She has had enough mourning for a lifetime, and she will do without me."
Calloused fingers open an old cut, right beneath his eye, and a red stain widens on the snow. He cries on, quietly, without a sound. He cannot see anything — it would not make a difference anyway.
"I am a dead man, kitten," he sighs, as soon as his voice goes back to steady enough. "I have been dead as long as you have. Let me rest, and be with my kind."
The square of cold earth is abandoned to silence once more. Only the bare branches, mixed in black and white, catch his see you soon.
Mia is called a few days later, for the first time in a while. She is surprised to find herself wrapped in warm, fitting robes, with the texture of soft snowflakes all over Maya's skin.
She finds tears, fresh to the touch, and a crumpled note in her other hand. It invites Mia to go for a walk, wherever she feels like going, as long as she likes. With a wisdom that comes from eternity, she takes advantage of her little sister's love, and does her best to enjoy it.
The garden is cleaner than she remembers it. If there is something she knows since her childhood, it is that the acolytes always do their best in difficult circumstances. She may have to ask Pearl for a channeling — she cannot wait to comfort her sister again, as she always did in times of need.
And she finds herself thinking, on the mantle of snow, that life always went back to normal afterwards.
Something has changed in the smell of the winter, as well as in the way Maya reacts to her presence. She may be stronger, and in need of affection, but it is there — Mia remembers this feeling too well to be mistaken, even from the other side.
Maya is letting go. It is true for her and for her world, where the void Mia left is being filled daily. There is a dimenson that belongs to her, to Phoenix and their friends; a dimension which Mia can still shape, yet no longer experience.
From now on, the future is theirs.
She leaves Maya by the brazier, tight in her own embrace, and lets her enjoy the snow with her eyes.
His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
— James Joyce