Struggling Against Gravity

by musouka and Aria

One year after the case at Hazakura Temple, a change in perspective causes Phoenix to attempt to re-establish ties of friendship with Edgeworth. What he uncovers is a complex tangle of emotions that threaten to unravel everything he thought he understood about himself and his old friend.

10. Chapter 10

Struggling Against Gravity

Chapter Ten

Even before his eyes opened, Miles Edgeworth recognized the sound of paperwork toppling to the floor. To his chagrin, it wasn't the first time he had heard it since entering the Prosecutor's Office the previous morning. His arm reflexively sprung outwards to stop the fall, but too late-and then came the lurch of realization that, due to his own carelessness, he would have to spend the better part of the next hour re-organizing.

He let out a sigh and scooped up the majority of the mess relatively quickly. Kneeling to retrieve the last of it, his gaze fell automatically to his cell phone, partially obscured under an evidence list, and saw-nothing. The screen displayed nothing beyond the date and time.

Something within him constricted. Still no word from Wright...?

Before he could ponder the implications further, a light knock came from the door.

"Who is it?" He didn't bother trying to mask his irritation.

"Aha," replied a voice that was not quite in sing-song, "I thought I detected the sounds of movement from within."

Miles stood as the door cracked open, trying not to let his distaste show too overtly. Wonderful.

"Guten Morgen, High Prosecutor. I see the Sleeping Beauty has finally awoken." A quick pause, and then, mock-sheepish: "Hmm, not due to my arrival, I hope?"

Miles ignored the question.

"Prosecutor Gavin," he said instead, attempting to keep his voice curt. His eyes darted briefly to the bars of sunlight streaming through the windows, then to the clock-he must have only nodded off briefly, perhaps shy of an hour, but apparently, it had been enough to invite this unwelcome intrusion. "I don't suppose you plan on actually working today?"

As though in answer, the door swung open further, and the younger prosecutor's head slid through, as though to tease his presence to an unseen audience. His blonde hair had grown longer since Miles had last seen him, and was swept back into an irritatingly effortless-looking ponytail that hung over his shoulder.

"I'll have you know I'm always working, Herr Edgeworth," he said cheerfully, clearing the doorway and approaching the desk with a casual sort of gait. He tapped his forehead with a single, heavily ringed finger, grin broadening. "The gears are always turning, ja? Always looking for inspiration for the next big hit."

I don't dare hope he's ready to announce he's taking another leave to tour with his band. The part-time rock star's prosecution work was solid enough, from what Miles had seen, but his actual presence about the office often encouraged tensions and headaches that he would sooner do without. Ema Skye's mood, for one, tended to plummet dramatically if she so much caught sight of him about the premises. And the less said about his 'music', the better.

Klavier Gavin's eyes took in the state of the room, before he let out a low whistle. "Herr Edgeworth, this bloodbath is a bit much even for a renowned workaholic like yourself. Unless you're planning on just dropping the pretense and living in your office outright..."

Considering how eager certain others seem to be to flee from it, that might actually be a necessity. Miles closed his eyes briefly, fighting the threat of a migraine. Wright would probably have a heart attack at the very suggestion.

Regardless, there wasn't any point in being bitter towards a nineteen-year-old teenager about the failures of the larger institution of the Prosecutor's Office. And he supposed that objectively, to an outsider looking in, the current state of his office was excessive - piles of paperwork not just crowding his desk but extending out onto his couch, the windowsills, and even the chessboard, its pieces all unseemly knocked askew. Ordinarily, Miles Edgeworth was known as a man who would have sharp words to offer any fledgling prosecutor caught treating his work with such disorganized respect, but last night, his thoughts had-

He hadn't heard from Wright other than a brief text message around lunchtime announcing he was boarding the train to Kurain. It included a repeat of his assurances that he would call with an update later in the evening. Miles had taken it for what it was and continued with his work, but his cellphone remained on the corner of his desk, constantly visible, constantly in reach.

The afternoon, and then the evening, came and went. Miles stepped out of the office at roughly seven o' clock to consult with Sam Riverton, who was closing up for the night to return home. They had done the necessary final review of the details he required for his case, exchanged cordial goodbyes, and Riverton offered the standard concerns about Miles's patchy sleeping habits-before the older man had given a tip of his hat and departed for home and family.

Miles had returned to his own space to see that he had missed a single call from an unknown number. That had been the first incident where he had spilled paperwork on the floor in his rush to get to it.

He dialed back quickly, regardless of the number not being recognizable as Wright's, and listened to the ringing on the other end-but no answer came. Irrationally, he had tried calling back every hour or so, and with each passing hour, the space around him seemed to become further crowded and more disarrayed until it had been reduced to the near-trainwreck surrounding him now.

You'd think this was Wright's apartment, of all places... An unpleasant recollection of spilled beer rose to his memory. Klavier Gavin's head was tilted inquisitively-Miles shook his own to bring himself back to the present.

"There was-is-a great deal of work to be done, as you should well be aware," Miles said, trying to keep the words level. "Someone has to fill in the gaps from the shortage of prosecutors."

He finished shuffling the papers from the toppled folders, and slid them to a less precarious position. From his peripheral vision, he could see Gavin eyeing him sidelong, one hand hooked into the pocket of his pants by the thumb. Whatever he was considering seemed just at the tip of the rock star's tongue, but then could be seen visibly dying and being left unsaid.

Miles hadn't exactly intended the comment as a personal jab towards his visitor, but he realized belatedly it was probably easily interpreted as such. He barely held himself back from another sigh, feeling the throbbing in his temple becoming one note worse than before.

He could still recall Lana Skye's description of Klavier Gavin's plight one year ago. The urgency of her words had been enough to cause him to take a closer look at the events surrounding his home office. What he had seen-a young man on television, essentially alone in representing the office, surrounded by interrogating reporters, had struck a strange, painful chord in him.

Just before arriving, he had researched the younger man's debut case, which further deepened that odd feeling of empathy. It resonated uncomfortably with Miles's memories of his own outing to the coutroom-too much seemed to hit home: the chaos of a trial going unexpectedly, horribly wrong, and the defendant's unexpected status rendering a proper verdict impossible...

It had been a blow to Miles himself when he was a fresh prosecutor at the age of twenty, but Klavier Gavin had been even younger-seventeen years old, practically a child. Additionally, his version of a disastrous entrance into the world of law had been far more high-profile than Miles's own. Victim though he had been, Terry Fawles was not a world-renowned entertainer.

Further and deeper scandals regarding the Prosecutor's Office and the court system continued rolling out afterwards, and problems that Miles had found easy to dismiss from a distance became much more arduous when he saw the full impact up close. Despite his rocky start, Klavier Gavin had seemingly been the one to step up and attempt to begin repairing the damage. Whether that had been voluntary on his own part or more or less a task mandated to a fresh face already - and unusually these days, for their line of work - beloved by the public as a musician, was beyond Miles's knowledge.

But looking at him now, practically glittering with his ridiculous accessories in the morning sunlight, the memory that he had returned to this country primarily out of concern for the so-called, and much vaunted, 'New Hope of the District' triggered a feeling of mostly second-hand embarrassment.

"I am surprised you haven't heard? My band's tour has, at last, come to a close," Gavin's voice was still light as a lock of blonde hair twirled its way around his index finger. It struck Miles as an oddly childish sort of tic to have.

"And? Am I to interpret that to mean you intend to return to work full time?"

"Indeed, more or less. I've mostly settled back into the familiar routine since that incident with your appendix. Juggling three cases at once, just like old times." Another chuckle. "Quite a way to be welcome back, but it was about time anyway, ja?"

That gave Miles pause. It is true that I owe him for covering for me after that episode at the hospital... He swallowed. The number of sighs that wanted to make its way from his throat seemed too many to count. If Maya Fey were here...she would insist, at any rate.

More stiffly than he would have liked, but more steadily than he knew he would have been able to manage just a few years prior: "I reviewed the cases you took over after I was released. They were handled-competently. ...and given the circumstances, I... do appreciate your assistance with them."

"That? Nein, nein." As though a switch were flipped, the easy grin returned to Gavin's face-mildly infuriating, as always. "Simply my responsibility, and... I owe you a considerable debt myself besides."

You do? That was news to Miles.

He inexplicably began snapping his fingers, as though in tune to some invisible beat. "Besides, it was a pleasure getting a front row seat of your work in progress. One can see why you're considered a star of the prosecution arena yourself, Herr Edgeworth. Everything in crisp, perfect order."

A part of him was relieved he could drop the shows of appreciation in favor of something much more comfortable, familiar, and stern. "I'm not one to reward flattery, Prosecutor Gavin."

"Oh?" The snapping came to a brief halt, the corners of his lips teasing a tug even further upwards. "How could I be anything but sincere?"

If you want to be taken as sincere, you could start with dropping that utterly ridiculous farce of an 'accent.' He could only imagine Franziska's response to being called 'fraulein' in this ridiculous facsimile of her native tongue. Ema Skye's perpetually sour expression would seem mild by comparison.

"If only all of our associates could be as efficient, ja?" Klavier Gavin was continuing, and there was the briefest flicker of distraction on his face before his smile broadened. "Both in the office and on the stage, really. ...I don't suppose you play any instruments, Herr Edgeworth? A man of the strings, perhaps?"

What? As seemed typical with Klavier Gavin, Miles had a difficult time discerning whether the younger man was intentionally trying to provoke him, or was simply an idiot.

"Prosecutor Edgeworth?" came a relatively young voice and a shock of dirty blonde hair. Miles couldn't place his name-one of the newer detectives. "I don't mean to interrupt, but... I don't suppose your meeting is over...?"

"Meeting?" Miles echoed. Gavin half-turned back towards the door.

"Prosecutor Gavin said you were holding a highly classified meeting," he explained, eyes darting to the blonde prosecutor in question. "Th-that we weren't to interrupt under any cir..." The detective trailed off when his line of sight flitted across Miles's face instead, crossing his arms in front of him like a cross between a shield and a spiritual ward.

"N-nevermind!" he squeaked. "I can come back later!" He punctuated it with a door slam.

Klavier Gavin seemed far too pleased with himself for Miles's liking once the retreat was completed.

"That was entirely unnecessary on your part," Miles said, voice flat.

"I kindly disagree. It wouldn't do to have you disturbed-a much needed meeting with the sandman is of crucial importance, ja? Really, I felt quite privileged to see the High Prosecutor in a state of delicate rest." He paused slightly, then leaned forward slightly with an expression that could easily be mistaken as a leer, though, in spite of the irritating words, Miles didn't sense hostility from it. "It looks like you've been toiling away all night."

"It's not the first time, I assure you."

"I do not doubt it."

A brief silence passed between the two of them. Miles nearly began to wonder if Gavin was actually waiting for some further sort of show of gratitude, when the younger man spoke up first, thumbnail working the lining of his pocket once again, and something almost like a slight frown flickering across his features.

"May I offer any assistance?"

"Excuse me?"

"Your stress being constant to the point of default doesn't mean I can't see it, Herr Edgeworth. As you said, we have a shortage of competent prosecutors at the moment. ...it wouldn't do to have you end up back in the hospital." It could have been Miles's imagination, but the faux accent seemed to color his voice less as he spoke. "Are you worried about something?"

I hear enough of this sort of nonsense from Wright. I certainly don't need to hear it from someone barely nineteen years old. Jarringly, it occurred to him that the prosecutor eyeing him anew was even younger than Maya Fey herself, now.

"You said you were already juggling three cases." He ignored the younger prosecutor's question. "No, I believe I have things under control."

"I see." For a brief second, Miles could have convinced himself he saw something like genuine disappointment in Klavier Gavin's face.

"Let me know if you have second thoughts, Herr Edgeworth. Maybe it's not my place to say it, but... sharing the burden is not a crime, and you are not the only prosecutor in this office."

When Miles didn't reply, Gavin made the slightest suggestion of a bow, and strode his way back to the door-with one last, entreating look before closing it behind him as he left.

With a blessed silence finally returning, Miles took a moment to allow himself to lean back in his chair and slowly exhale. Relaxing was difficult. In truth, his head was still pounding from the lack of sleep, but that was nothing he wasn't used to - it was the lingering knot of anxiety, the feeling of lack of control, that irritated. It was a feeling he had always loathed in the courtroom and, he was finding, even more so in his personal life.

Of course, that feeling is more or less standard when it comes to matters involving that man...

That 'personal life' had somehow expanded to include said man within it was still difficult to process. Wright may have felt guilty about how long they had been together without Maya knowing about their relationship, but it felt to Miles as though it had all happened in the blink of an eye. A glance at the date on his cellphone confirming that it had really now been nearly half a year did little to soothe that feeling of strange disorientation.

It was also an unpleasant reminder that he had confined himself almost entirely to this room, surrounded by paperwork, for nearly thirty hours now.

He hadn't actually intended to stay in the office the entire night. The work he was assisting Riverton with had been taxing, to be sure, but as the night wore on, he had found himself reluctant to return to his empty apartment and be faced with nothing to distract his thoughts from whatever might be happening in Kurain Village.

So he had found more and more loose ends to tie up from various cases, and recent incidents that still needed evaluation, and old files that needed organizing. Miles had taken a pause to prepare some tea as a refresher, and told himself that he would close up when Wright, as he had promised, called.

Through the windows, the sun had risen further, glancing off the nearby buildings. It seemed about time to accept that the call wouldn't be coming.

There could be any number of reasons why. Most likely was that it had just slipped Wright's mind - infuriating as that was, it was also the most comforting possibility. Perhaps he and the Feys were partying to such a degree that he had forgotten a casual promise - Miles really had no idea what they got up to whenever Wright visited. Wright never went into detail about those sorts of things with him.

But still, this long... Try as he might to talk himself out of excessive concern, Wright's failure to answer any of his calls wasn't reassuring either.

And if something had gone wrong-

He dialed Wright's number. It went immediately to voicemail, just as it had before Miles had fallen asleep.

The mysterious caller from last night floated to his mind again. Miles picked up the phone, glancing at his call history - he had made an embarrassing amount of attempts, even if it didn't quite match Wright's fervor when Miles had gone to the hospital. He made one more.

The door had been left slightly ajar from where Klavier Gavin had made his exit. He felt his grip on the phone tighten, waiting for someone to answer.

---

Phoenix woke up freezing. He tended to skimp on the heat in his own apartment when bills were tightening, and Kurain's guest room, admittedly, was by any standard the better-kept between the two, but this—a biting cold that seeped into his fingers—reminded him of his days back in college and constant fights with a cheap, sputtering electric heater.

Knowing Maya's propensity for freezing waterfalls as training, his first thought was wondering if this wasn't also part of the regimen—though it was hard to imagine the precise benefit potential frostbite might have for clarity of spirit. Opening his eyes, though, he saw the covers of his futon in a thrashed state some distance from his body. He must have spent the night tossing and turning.

Phoenix sat up, breathing quickly into his hands, when he caught the sound of a girlish whispering beyond his door.

Some kind of commotion was taking place outside. The voices weren't Maya or Pearl's, but they were accompanied by a rush of pattering footsteps. Phoenix nearly wondered if he had been spied on through the night, but the sounds seemed to be retreating from his room, not drawing closer. After standing and quickly trying to smooth out the front of his shirt with his palms—he was too tired to be terribly self-conscious about his appearance—he opened the door in time to catch a faint glimpse of reddish pigtails vanishing into the main house. Curiosity piqued, he moved forward, following them all the way out the front entrance of Fey Manor.

Though it was cold, the early light glinting against the frost clinging to the village buildings forced the last remnants of sleep from his eyes. He caught the sight of the pigtails again, their owner's hand clutched in that of a girl with longer, straighter hair-but still with enough resemblance to be able to identify them as sisters at a glance. They were both peering around the entrance to the manor.

"What's going on?" the younger one asked, and the older one raised a finger to her lips in a silencing motion. She fidgeted uncomfortably, then glanced back at where Phoenix had followed, eyes widening.

She tugged on her sister's arm. "Claire-"

"Shhh!"

Phoenix had become accustomed to seeing robed girls of varying ages and dispositions swarming Maya during his previous visits, but these two weren't dressed in traditional medium gear-rather, it looked as though they could have walked straight out of the city. Their clothes looked worn, but the faded jeans and t-shirts sporting colorful logos were unmistakably out of place against the backdrop of Kurain.

He didn't have much time to ponder the implications of this before his attention moved upwards, where the girls were peeking.

A small crowd seemed to be forming by the dirt road just beyond the bus stop. Phoenix pressed on, sidestepping the younger pair without comment-though their eyes widened and they made space for him regardless. He drew near the gathering, and felt a few of the acolytes' eyes make their way onto him as well. Fortunately, being taller than the average preteen girl meant it wasn't too difficult to spot the clearing at the center, housing the apparent spectacle.

He registered Maya's outline first—and an immediate warm, liquid sort of relief spread down through him at the sight of her tangible, robes, sandals and all—before him. She was nodding to something, and Phoenix's gaze flicked to the right.

He was greeted by the reflected glare from of the surface of a red sports car he knew all too well. The relief he had been enjoying immediately snapped into something else—something that jumped into his throat and nearly made his mouth open with nothing to fill it.

He didn't...

Edgeworth was half-obscured behind the car, clad, inexplicably, in his usual pink business suit—Phoenix internally winced at the thought of the state it would be in after a few runs across Kurain's dusty roads—and clutching a dark briefcase. His face was slightly pinched and red from the cold; a gray scarf hung around his shoulders to match his jacket.

Maya was talking.

"...really good to see you, Mr. Edgeworth." She spoke as though the crowd of witnesses behind them didn't exist; Phoenix barely caught the words, even straining forward. Her voice seemed buoyant—even airy—but her expression was difficult to read, mouth equally split between non-smile and non-frown. It was as though she was looking at something not quite there, something failing to manifest itself visibly, in the form of the prosecutor in front of her.

Phoenix began to push his way through the crowd.

Edgeworth closed the car door behind him, then hesitated. A strange moment hung taut in the air between he and Maya—finally, he offered a hand to her in a gesture that seemed a little too stiff, a little too practiced. Maya took it.

"It's your first time here, isn't it, Mr. Edgeworth?" she asked, half-turning and holding her other hand out to the rows of old buildings. Her gaze was still fixed on him.

"Yes... that's correct," Edgeworth said.

"Well, you've been to Hazakura. It's not too different from there, though, just... bigger and less cold," Maya said. The corners of her mouth quirked slightly, but even from this distance, Phoenix could tell that the motion was half-forced. "But the rest of the 'spiritual nonsense' stuff, you've pretty much seen it all before up there..."

Edgeworth winced.

She let go of his hand, arm dropping back to her side.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"No," Edgeworth replied. "It's quite all right."

Maya didn't look particularly reassured. If anything, the air of uncertainty hanging around her shoulders began to sink into something uncomfortably like defeat.

"So..." Her voice trailed off. She took a deep breath, eyes trailing back towards the red car behind the prosecutor. "So... um, I guess you must be here to—"

"Maya!" Phoenix called out. He felt ridiculous, standing on his tiptoes and half-shouting to get her attention—but it seemed inexplicably crucial, like a firework bursting into his mouth, that he not let her finish that sentence.

"Huh?" Maya twisted her neck to look behind her. Her eyes widened. "Nick!" She turned to face him fully. "How long have you been hiding there?"

I've been here in the open the whole time!

Maya glanced back at Edgeworth before moving forward and approaching him. The acolytes immediately cleared a pathway for her in a motion that reminded Phoenix of a parting river. Edgeworth stayed where he was in the background, watching.

"I'll show him inside," Phoenix said, just as she opened her mouth.

Maya blinked. For a second, she seemed unsure of how to respond—the tips of her fingernails pressed against each other beneath her chin. "Are you sure?" Something in her voice rippled unevenly, like the surface of a pool disturbed by rainfall. "I mean, aren't you..."

"You still have classes to teach, right?" Phoenix said. Though it looks like most of them followed her out here.

She bit her lip. The surrounding stares of her students, wide-eyed and encircled around them, suddenly seemed intense and heavy against his back.

Phoenix waited. From the corner of his eye, Edgeworth might as well have been a statue.

"...Okay." Her head lowered, and a line of dark bangs shadowed her eyes. "If you insist. Um, if you guys get hungry or anything, you know where the kitchen is..."

"Yeah," Phoenix said. "We'll figure something out..."

"Right," she agreed.

Another second ticked by.

"Maya," Phoenix began. "Look..."

She shook her head so quickly and forcefully that Phoenix's mouth immediately closed of its own accord. Her expression flickered in what seemed like another aborted glance over her shoulder; instead, she sighed and folded her hands against each other in front of her robes, fingers closing into the gaps between her knuckles.

"I have to get back." Her voice was soft. "Later, okay?"

He hesitated before nodding.

I'll hold you to that.

Maya took a deep breath, turning her attention back to her students. Following her gaze, Phoenix saw more of them dotted amongst the crowd - girls, and even a few boys, wearing modern colors and modern styles that didn't belong to Kurain.

"Okay, everyone!" she called out, voice ringing out as though a vocal switch had been flipped. "It was a fun diversion, but it's time for us to get back to training!" She threw her arm out, motioning for the others to follow her in her stride back towards the east end of the manor. The rows of children obeyed, though several of them kept stealing looks back at Edgeworth, who seemed almost admirably oblivious to their attentions.

Satisfied, Maya continued - and as Phoenix watched her go, something nagged the back of his mind as she had turned from him, her profile authoritative and uncharacteristically commanding against the backdrop of her trainees. It wasn't until after she had finally disappeared around the edge of the building that the connection visible in her posture crystallized in his mind.

Her resemblance to Mia in that moment had been startling.

---

With the children gone came a feeling of dust settling-and of palpable tension radiating, like waves of heat from a furnace, from the person standing silent behind him. As Phoenix turned back to face the prosecutor, still lingering awkwardly near the sports car, Edgeworth's narrowed, piercing stare may as well have been a neon sign hung around his neck next to his cravat: "What's going on, Wright?"

But now that they were alone together, Phoenix could also see, even with the shape of his head shadowed from the angle of the sun, the dark circles beneath his eyes.

"Let's head in," he said. If this turned into some kind of argument, he didn't feel like having it in the middle of the village. "The room I'm staying is over here."

Edgeworth paused, then nodded. His gaze wandered surprisingly minimally as Phoenix led him through-with a silent, quick apology to Maya and all of Maya's ancestors as he left the no-shoes rule unenforced as they entered.

Once they had arrived, Edgeworth set the briefcase against the corner, gently, as though the Japanese-style walls were fragile enough to break if pressed with any excess force. He pulled his scarf from his neck in a fumbling motion and tucked it into his coat pocket.

"Are you sure it's okay for you to be here?" Phoenix asked, getting in the first word. "I thought, with your work..."

"It's not a problem." Edgeworth's voice was curt. "I found someone to cover for me."

"Okay," Phoenix said, uncertainly, probing, "But still, I thought..."

"I said it's not a problem. Most of it was dealt with last night, and the remainder..." Edgeworth's lips abruptly quirked into a mirthless, self-depreciating sort of grimace. "It just means that I owe a certain someone a favor. "

I guess I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, Phoenix thought. He doubted that either of them were in the mood to go into Prosecutor's Office politics at this time and place.

Edgeworth said nothing for a long moment, his gaze moving over Phoenix-searching-and there was that settling heaviness to the lines of his mouth that told Phoenix he was having some sort of tortured internal debate.

"You seem..." he began, then visibly searched for the correct word. "Tired."

"I do?" Phoenix managed a ghost of a weary grin-but as exhausted as he still felt, Edgeworth's eyes had a bloodshot quality to accompany the dark circles that was faintly alarming now that Phoenix could focus on his face. Unlike Phoenix, Edgeworth didn't have the convenient visit of a spirit last night to reassure him, but...

Was he really that stressed out about how this would go?

As soon as the question arose in his mind, he knew it was unfair. Between the two of them, Edgeworth certainly wasn't the one responsible for this entire issue to have gone as far as it had. Phoenix resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose in vague self-reproach.

"A lot of things were going on last night. I didn't exactly get a full night's sleep," he admitted. But it could have been a lot worse.

"Maya seemed..." Edgeworth began, then shook his head.

"Yeah," Phoenix said. "I told her about us."

Once again, he saw the wheels turning in Edgeworth's brain-and apparently they didn't settle into a picture that he found reassuring. Something in his face and around his shoulders seemed to sink downwards.

"So she didn't take it well."

Phoenix tried to figure out how to best answer - but, as he so often did, Edgeworth seemed to take his facial reaction as confirmation enough. As his eyes slid away in something like grey disappointment, whatever words to soften the blow that were forming in Phoenix's mind fizzled out like a match.

For a long moment, Edgeworth said nothing, expression unreadable beyond a general, but unmistakable, unhappiness. His hands raised to remove his jacket, almost distractedly, then fell again. "That call last night," he said. "Was that you?"

"Yeah," Phoenix said, after a moment. It took him a second to place what Edgeworth was talking about, but suddenly he had an idea as to what seemed to be making the other man so irritable upon arrival. "Sorry... I know it was late, but-"

"There was no answer when I returned the call."

"I used that payphone you saw when you came in." As he spoke, he watched Edgeworth, in lieu of removing his jacket, turn his attentions to his briefcase. The prosecutor unlatched it and began retrieving a few unmarked folders. Phoenix kept talking. "There's no reception out here. I'm sorry-I should have told you."

"Yes," Edgeworth said, back still turned, but the words were more tired than harsh. "You should have."

"I'm sorry, Edgeworth."

Edgeworth's head turned and his brow furrowed briefly. Then: "I shouldn't have missed it to begin with."

Phoenix gave a mute shake of the head. I didn't expect you to be hovering around your phone 24/7, either. Edgeworth's brow furrowed further-and the folders slipped back into the case. He didn't shut it, but he left it where it was lying as he rose back to his feet.

"All right," he said once, quietly—directed more to himself than to Phoenix. Then, once more, as though verbally bracing himself for some unseen hurdle before him: "All right."

Phoenix turned his head slightly. Edgeworth's murmur, while tense, wasn't quite the audible mass of self-blame he had been anticipating since his arrival. It felt closer, he realized, with faint surprise, to the tone he was used to hearing when the prosecutor was hunched over a desk surrounded by paperwork, making preparations for a particularly difficult case. The image felt utterly and almost comically out of place against the backdrop of Kurain.

Phoenix had to fight back a smile in spite of himself; it was out of place, but it was also markedly different from the thick uncertainty that had hung over Edgeworth back in the hospital, suspended somewhere in a space between self-pity and reproach that had left Phoenix exhausted with frustration.

He's really trying.

Some trace of it must have broken through; Edgeworth's expression of forced calm abruptly fragmented into agitation. "Wright, be serious. We can't leave things like this with her."

And the tangled, unidentifiable emotion that had overwhelmed Phoenix since he saw both the red car and its driver on the dirt road finally settled back into his chest, now comfortably sure of itself.

It had been gratitude.

"Wright, are you listening? If we're going to tackle this-" Edgeworth continued, furrow creased in annoyance-holding his hands out in a gesture of perfect seriousness.

It was too much. Phoenix opened his mouth to reply, but a laugh burst through instead—a bizarre flurry of emotions all fighting to get out at once

We're not talking about interrogating a tough witness or anything... it's Maya. For something he had struggled with justifying to himself all last night, even after speaking to Mia, it finally came naturally again.

"No," he amended quickly. Edgeworth's expression was stung. "Sorry—sorry. You really don't know how much it means to me, you being here..." He exhaled, trying to shake out the last pieces of inexplicable mirth still stubbornly clutching at his insides. "Honestly, I think... just seeing you probably helped."

For both of us.

"Wright..." Edgeworth began.

"I think—I think it'll probably turn out okay," Phoenix murmured, winding down. I believe that.

"Wright," Edgeworth repeated. He seemed at a loss to say anything else.

Phoenix continued. "When she's done teaching, or whatever she's doing, we'll talk again. If she doesn't make sure of it, I will." And if it's all three of us, then that's fine too. He made his best attempt at a reassuring sort of smile, and was mildly surprised when it came with ease.

Edgeworth stared at him, expression still disbelieving, before snorting dismissively and sitting down. There was still something deeply sullen in the way his shoulders slumped and his jaw set, glaring into the opposite wall.

"You think I'm an idiot, no doubt." The words were a murmur.

"I don't." Phoenix moved forward, closing a hand around the other man's shoulder, half leaning against him. "I really don't."

Edgeworth's eyes darted towards him cryptically, but-it might have just been Phoenix's imagination-the tightness in his back loosened, if only just fractionally. Phoenix's smile lingered, pressing into his jacket.

It was sometimes difficult to believe just how much he loved this man.

---

The scratching sound of Edgeworth's pen against the paper behind him acted as a heavy, erratic counterpoint to the muffled voices on the news before him—Kurain's reception was terrible at best. Phoenix swallowed a small sigh, resisting the urge to glace back where Edgeworth was sitting; he had settled at the small table in Phoenix's room nearly an hour ago under the pretext of working.

After laughing in his face like that, I guess I should just be happy he's still here… The mental image of Edgeworth desperately hunting for a place to hide in the manor garden floated with to the surface of Phoenix's mind with ease, hovering briefly suspended between affection and irritation.

Phoenix was just about to turn his attention back to the screen when he heard a tentative knock on the edge of the sliding door. He and Edgeworth shared a look, and Phoenix hefted himself up. For all his bravado earlier, he felt the palms of his hands grow slightly moist. The height of their visitor's shadow though the paper screen made it obvious that Maya wasn't outside, but that didn't mean Phoenix wasn't being summoned for a discussion earlier than expected.

He grabbed the inset handle and, with only a second of hesitation, opened just enough of a gap to see who was knocking.

Outside the door, Pearl stood, looking more abjectly miserable than Phoenix could remember seeing her since the last time Maya had been in mortal peril. Her hair hadn't been done up in its usual loops; it was difficult to see her eyes with the way it curtained her face as she stared at the ground.

Phoenix opened the door the rest of the way, but Pearl made no move to step any closer.

"I apologize for disturbing you, Mr. Nick…" Even speaking, she didn't meet his eyes.

Pearls…

"You're not disturbing me, Pearls," he said, quietly. "You're never a disturbance."

A sound that sounded perilously close to a watery sniff reached his ears and Phoenix felt his throat tighten in kind. When he had seen her last night, she had seemed so sure in the brittle cold of her anger that he hadn't given much thought to the fear that must have been buried underneath it.

He knelt down on one knee and tried to look up at her face, and, in response, her entire head jerked to the right, towards the inside of Phoenix's room. Out of the corner of his eye, Phoenix noticed Edgeworth suddenly become engrossed with his paperwork to a magnitude of ten.

"Did you want to talk to me about something?" Phoenix asked, as gently as he could manage. That prompted a short series of tremulous nods. Clearly she didn't trust herself to speak.

This probably isn't the best place for a discussion of what happened, Phoenix thought.

Standing up, he held out his hand. Pearl took it, which Phoenix chose to interpret as a good sign.

"We'll be back, Edgeworth," Phoenix said, jerking his head slightly in an approximation he hoped would be understood as 'we're going down the hall.'

"Mmm," Edgeworth replied. Phoenix watched his eyes race across a document at a speed Phoenix could tell meant he wasn't actually reading it.

Don't worry. It'll be fine. Phoenix pulled the door shut. I can handle this.

If he repeated that enough times, maybe it would be true.

---

Pearl's hand in his felt slightly clammy, like she had been sitting out in the cold for too long. He hoped she hadn't been wedged in some freezing cranny of the garden since this morning, trying to gather enough courage to come to his room. It seemed depressingly likely, though.

"Let's go in here," Phoenix said. He pointed towards the nearest room. Pearl didn't protest.

The interior was eerily similar to the other rooms in the mansion. Same woven mats, same paper doors, same alcove. Phoenix blinked, trying to get used to the disorientation that came with stepping into a room that seemed identical to his, except with all traces of himself removed.

He turned to Pearl.

"What did you want to talk about, Pearls?" he asked.

"Did you talk to Mystic Maya, Mr. Nick?" The question itself wasn't surprising, but it was rather direct for someone that still wouldn't meet his eyes.

"...Not yet." Admitting it made him feel like a failure. Last night, he left Pearl promising to fix things and then went to bed without having clarified anything to anyone but himself.

"Oh…" Pearl drooped even further, like a wilting flower. "So… it didn't help…"

"What didn't help?"

"I thought…" Pearl said, "I thought calling Mystic Mia would fix everything… But this morning, Mystic Maya didn't come to my room like she always does. I was concerned, because classes were supposed to start soon, so I went to get her…

"Mystic Maya was lying in her room. I thought maybe she was still asleep…but…" Pearl trailed off, then: "Even though her back was to the door, she got up right away when I said her name, so I don't think she was sleeping. She laughed and said she was sorry she overslept, but I… I think she had been crying…"

She was crying?

Phoenix found himself wishing he could sink through the floorboards to the ground below.

"When I called Miss Iris—"

"You talked to Iris?" Phoenix interjected. He nearly asked if she had sounded mad or hurt, but he swallowed the question. Best not to muddy the waters at this point in time…

Pearl nodded. "I called after Mr. Edgeworth came…I thought…"

When Pearl didn't seem inclined to continue, Phoenix prompted, "You thought?"

"…you were going to leave." It came out barely a whisper. "Mr. Edgeworth was here, so…" Phoenix must have looked startled, because she continued at a quicker pace, "Mystic Maya said you two are always f-fighting, because that's what rivals do. So… if he was here, that means…"

She thought Edgeworth came to drive me off?

Phoenix shook his head at the completely bizarre mental image that conjured. "I wouldn't say we fight, exactly. It's sort of complicated."

I'm also not sure I'd say we're "rivals" either, especially at this point…

Pearl nodded. "That's what Miss Iris said, when I talked to her."

Finding out that Iris hadn't overtly passed judgment on the circumstances of her younger sister's panic, and even managed to console her, made Phoenix slightly dizzy with relief. Even he hadn't known he'd been this concerned about Iris's reaction.

"Iris is right," Phoenix said, with what he hoped was enough confidence to sway Pearl's doubts. "Edgeworth didn't come to argue with me; he came because he was worried."

Trust me, he's the last person that wants to make this any more complicated than it already is. Phoenix found his thoughts turning towards the man he'd left in his room, no doubt twisting himself into all varieties of mental contortions as Phoenix and Pearl's absence stretched on.

"He was worried about Mystic Maya?" Pearl's tone took on a distinctly contemplative quality, even though her stare seemingly remained fixed on the tatami mats.

"Yes," Phoenix said. Among other things…

"Hmm," Pearl murmured. Phoenix frowned; he couldn't interpret much of anything about that sound except that it wasn't particularly positive or negative.

Pearl ran her toes over the ridges of the woven mats, seemingly unwilling to verbalize anything else. Phoenix thought he felt her eyes on him, but it was difficult to tell with her hair still obscuring her face.

"Mr. Nick," Pearl said, softly, but clearly, "You care about Mystic Maya, right?"

Not in the way she's hoping, but…

"Yes," he answered. "More than anything."

"Even with Mr. Edgeworth here, you're not leaving? You'll do your best?"

Do my best with what? He shook his head. This was no time to get distracted. Convincing Pearl was just the first step.

"Pearls, I'm not leaving," Phoenix said. "I'll stay until Maya talks to me, no matter how long it takes. I promise."

Pearl nodded, locking her eyes to Phoenix's for the first time that day. She seemed to take the expression on his face as confirmation, because he suddenly found small hands wrapping around his back in a hug so forceful he felt the contours of her face against his chest.

"I'm sorry." The words came out muffled against his t-shirt; he had to strain to hear them. "I'm sorry for saying all those things…"

"It's okay," Phoenix said, softly. "I'm not upset. I'm sorry for scaring you last night, too. I shouldn't have run off like that."

In retrospect, it seemed obvious that he should have stayed to console Pearl and wait for Maya. It wasn't as though Maya had planned to spend the night in a ditch somewhere, no matter how upset she had been.

"You know," Phoenix said, stroking the top of Pearl's head, "if it'll make you feel better, Mia wasn't worried at all."

"Mystic Mia wasn't worried?"

"No, she wasn't. Not even a little bit." If anything, she'd been incredulous over his fears. "Thank you for calling her, Pearls. It really helped."

Pearl pulled away and turned slightly, fingers intertwining as she glanced back at him. She took a deep breath, as though steeling herself for something difficult. "Um, Mr. Nick? Did you have any plans this afternoon?"

Aside from sitting around and waiting for Maya?

"No, not really," he admitted. With the mood Edgeworth had been in when he left, Phoenix had assumed the rest of the afternoon would be mostly the same as it had been before: silently pretending to pay attention to television while Edgeworth—literally—attacked paperwork to distract himself.

Pearl nodded, more to herself than Phoenix, before speaking. "Then… if you wouldn't mind, I would like to show you something…"

"Here, in the manor?" A vision of Pearl sliding open one of the myriad doors in the house to reveal a 'honeymoon suite' covered in glittering rose petals abruptly appeared before Phoenix's eyes. He shook his head to dislodge the mental image.

"No, it's outside—in the village."

"I don't mind," Phoenix said.

Pearl nodded once again, taking his hand to guide him. Her movements were a little too forceful –

they reminded Phoenix of himself, trying to put up a confident face for a tactic in the courtroom he wasn't sure would work.

They had almost reached the door when Phoenix stopped.

Edgeworth was still waiting back in his room. He didn't think Edgeworth would begrudge him a walk through the village with Pearl—Phoenix's first assumption was that he'd probably prefer to spend time on the work he'd brought with him. That stack of papers was his original plan for today, after all. It wasn't like he wanted to be here in Kurain.

But it's not like he won't ever come here again. He realized he was tired of Edgeworth hiding himself into a corner of Phoenix's world where he couldn't interfere with any other parts of it—and Phoenix tacitly going along with it, because it was easier that way.

Pearl's fingers tightened around his as she noticed Phoenix's hesitation. "Um, Mr. Nick...?"

"Hey, Pearls," Phoenix said. Crossing his fingers that Pearl wouldn't take this the wrong way: "Edgeworth is still waiting for us. Do you mind if we invite him?"

"Mr. Edgeworth?"

"If you want it to be just the two of us, that's fine, but I'd feel bad for him being stuck here all alone," Phoenix said. And for the walls, after he's done climbing them. "We should at least let him know we're going somewhere else."

"If you think it's a good idea…" Pearl's stare was dubious, like Phoenix had made a spectacularly bad move in some invisible chess game occurring in her own head.

"He's never been to Kurain before," Phoenix said. "I think it'd be nice for the two of us to show him around."

"Yes, you're right Mr. Nick." Pearl said, after a short bout of consideration. "It's only fair!"

"Fair"…? Phoenix shrugged. Who knew half the things that went on in the younger Fey's head. She agreed; that was what mattered.

"Come on, let's go get him," Phoenix said.

Pearl's expression became serious as she nodded, as though Phoenix had suggested dragging him from the room instead. Phoenix felt himself smiling in response. I sure hope it doesn't come to that…

---

Edgeworth, as expected, hadn't moved since Phoenix left, though the crack of Edgeworth's neck as he abruptly turned to look at the opening door was audible enough that Phoenix couldn't help but wince sympathetically.

"We're going to take a walk around Kurain. Want to come with us?" Phoenix said from the doorway. Pearl stuck her head in to peer in Edgeworth's direction, but made no effort to move the rest of her body past the threshold.

Edgworth's brow furrowed in obvious consternation, as though Phoenix had asked him something in a foreign language and he needed a moment to parse it.

"Thank you for the offer, but I'd hate to impose," Edgeworth said, already turning back to a mostly blank expanse of page in front of him. A short stack of paperwork rested beside it. "If you two want to go alone, I wouldn't mind waiting here."

Before Phoenix could even open his mouth, Pearl said, "It's really no imposition at all, Mr. Edgeworth. After all, even Mr. Nick insisted that you come!"

At Pearl's words, an ambiguously vulnerable expression rose to Edgeworth's face, as though he was hesitantly surprised in spite of himself. As Edgeworth's stare lingered, Phoenix felt his own cheeks begin to warm in response, like someone was boiling water at the base of his throat. I don't know about "insisted"…more like "suggested," really…

"All right," Edgeworth finally said, not sounding as displeased as he otherwise might. He collected his paperwork and stowed it in his briefcase, then turned to face both Phoenix and Pearl. "I'll go with you, if Wright was so insistent."

It took the entire trip through the labyrinthine halls of Fey Manor before the Phoenix felt the tips of his ears finally return to their normal temperature. They eventually reached a massive side gate; both Edgeworth and Phoenix paused at the sight of its sheer breadth and thick iron latch, but Pearl continued on and began to grapple with the handle.

Upon seeing her obvious trouble with the weight of the door, both Phoenix and Edgeworth moved as one to lend assistance. It seemed to Phoenix there might have been an easier route closer—if not through—the main hall, but he assumed Pearl was trying to avoid face to face interaction with Maya at this point in time.

The door itself led out to a side lane that Phoenix had never seen before, though it didn't look much different from the rest of the village he'd seen from the front of the manor. Thatched-roof cottages still haphazardly dotted either side of the path up until the forest edge. Despite what Maya sometimes said, it was hard to imagine this place attracting much outside attention—there just didn't seem to be much of interest to see.

No wonder Maya has trouble keeping the trainees focused. Kurain was a nice change of pace when he took some time off to spend with Pearl and Maya, but there was no way he could imagine living out here permanently.

When Phoenix turned to gauge Edgeworth's reaction, he found the other man scanning his surroundings, brow faintly furrowed. Seeing him there against the pastoral backdrop, in slacks and a business shirt, shifting slightly as though his shoes were already pinching, it was hard not to remember Ema's teenage rhapsodizing over her vision of "outdoorsman Mr. Edgeworth."

More like "out-of-his-element Mr. Edgeworth," Phoenix thought, not without lingering fondness from earlier in the morning. He must have been frantic, coming all the way out here without changing from work.

Pearl's eyes seemed to follow the line of Edgeworth's sight up into the trees that pressed tightly against the village outskirts. She didn't seem inclined to be the first one to speak out.

"So, where is this thing you wanted to show us?" Phoenix said. I'm not sure we're really dressed for a trip through the forest…

"It's not in the woods, don't worry!" Pearl reassured them-her focus still on Edgeworth, or perhaps the idea of what would happen to his dress shirt after such a hike. She then hesitated, looking as though she was trying to mentally calculate the distance. "It is a bit of a walk, though. I'm sorry."

"That's fine, Pearls," Phoenix said. "Right, Edgeworth?"

Edgeworth startled slightly at being addressed. "Yes, of course," he said. "Please lead the way."

An odd sort of silence fell upon the three of them as Edgeworth's invitation was met with a contemplative stare. Pearl's teeth worked at her lower lip at a dangerous sort of pace, deep in thought.

"Mr. Edgeworth," she said, "did you know Mystic Maya is the leader of our entire village?"

Edgeworth blinked once, then shot a quick look at Phoenix, as though the sudden interrogation were somehow his fault.

"Yes, I was aware," he said, turning his full attention back on Pearl. "It's a heavy responsibility—let alone for someone as young as Maya. I'm certain that she works very hard."

For a moment, Pearl's eyes could have bored a hole through a steel wall. Phoenix had never known Edgeworth's piercing glare to lose against a competitor, but if things kept up like this, he could face a difficult fight throughout the day.

"There's much to look after, and many people living here, who all need different things. I know Mystic Maya loves this village very much, because she works so hard for everyone in it," Pearl said. "Do you like it here, Mr. Edgeworth?"

Uh-oh.

It seemed unjust to leave Edgeworth by himself on this one. Phoenix stepped forward. "Pearls, he just got here a few hours ago, so he hasn't had a chance to see much. Why don't we show him more about the village along the way?"

When Pearl's head turned back to Phoenix, he thought he saw something almost like suspicion in her glance—his stomach did an odd, irrational flop—but then her face softened. "Yes, that's a wonderful idea, Mr. Nick!" Then, back to Edgeworth: "Was there anywhere you wanted to see more of first, Mr. Edgeworth?"

Edgeworth's increasing bewilderment at being targeted became even more apparent. He opened his mouth, but Phoenix cut in again.

"Pearls, why don't we—"

"I suppose that the rock slab near the front of the manor seemed…" Edgeworth said, pausing slightly, and giving Phoenix a look, "…imposing."

Not to mention nearby, huh? But if Pearl was put off by that rather reserved—and strategic—expression of interest, she gave no sign that Phoenix could discern.

"Y-Yes, that's a good choice!" she said. "It's one of the village's most famous landmarks! I would be more than happy to show you to it!" She rolled up her sleeves to punctuate the last part of her outburst, as though ready to push Edgeworth towards the boulder should he make a show of any resistance.

"You" to "it", huh? Is this an Edgeworth-meets-Kurain tour or a Kurain-meets-Edgeworth tour? Phoenix found himself smiling as he regarded the tableau in front of him: Edgeworth nodding hesitantly in the face of Pearl's determination. He's probably wondering what he got himself into, agreeing to this.

But Pearl was continuing, "—since we're taking that route, perhaps we could also take a detour and visit the waterfall! It's very cold and excellent for honing your spirit, so I'm sure it would be beneficial for you too, Mr. Edgeworth! Oh, and if you go far enough, there are mountain caves that are said to have ancient ruins within! The caves also have glowing-"

Edgeworth turned towards Phoenix in what appeared to be a mute appeal for assistance, but whatever expression he saw on Phoenix's face was enough to make him flush crimson and then scowl in obvious irritation, probably assuming—correctly—that there wouldn't be any more help coming from Phoenix's quarter.

"I..." Edgeworth abruptly looked manifolds more tired, as though he were briefly collapsing in on himself. Then, he suddenly straightened and every appearance of exhaustion faded. "You said there was something you wanted to show Wright, didn't you, Miss Fey? We should probably head that way before we decide on any detours."

As tempting as seeing a bedraggled, sopping Edgeworth in his fancy outfit was, Phoenix had to agree—he was curious as to what Pearl wanted him to see, too. He stepped forward and motioned towards the front of the manor.

"Come on," Phoenix said. "The rock is straight ahead, right?"

---

It appeared the village was more active—relatively speaking—during mid-morning as compared to when Phoenix usually showed up for his visits in mid-afternoon. Their odd band of three met a few women on the dirt path, heading the opposite direction. Most of them nodded respectfully to Pearl and then went on to stare at both him and Edgeworth as if they were a particularly unusual form of insect. Two of women tucked their hands into their robes as both of them walked closer, like they were afraid of some sort of vague impropriety.

All three times, he heard urgent whispers in their wake. Whenever that happened, Pearl's seemed to fix her gaze on a very specific point on the far horizon and her walk would become a little more strident.

Phoenix was used to the non-Fey population of Kurain giving him a fairly wide berth, but this seemed on the hostile side even to him. Am I missing something? What's the problem?

A thought struck him as he watched Pearl's face in profile.

"Is it okay for you to be taking us around like this, Pearls? You don't have classes or anything, do you?"

"Oh!" She turned to face him fully. Judging by the way her hand flew to her mouth in obvious surprise, Phoenix got the uncomfortable feeling his presence had been completely forgotten until this moment. "No, not at all, Mr. Nick! It's perfectly all right! I don't have any training on the weekends. Mystic Maya insisted."

"What are your studies comprised of, Miss Fey?" Edgeworth said.

Phoenix found himself smiling again. Edgeworth would probably never be anything but awkward with most children, but there was something charming in his addressing an eleven year old girl as he would an adult witness.

"My studies? Um..." She suddenly seemed to find the dirt road fascinating; clearly she hadn't been expecting to find herself the topic of conversation. "I used to be taught everything by—" she cut herself off in a way that reminded Phoenix vaguely of Edgeworth himself. She continued with a slight non-sequitur: "Mystic Maya is in charge of my training regimen. A tutor comes every weekday for schoolwork, and then I have extra classes in flower arranging, tea ceremony, and calligraphy."

Ugh, sounds like a headache to me, Phoenix thought. All that and spirit medium training?

Edgeworth, on the other hand, nodded as though he didn't see anything remotely amiss in that heavy a workload dumped on an eleven year old kid. "It sounds like Maya is trying very hard to strike a good balance with your leisure time and your duties as heir," he said.

Heir? Phoenix shook his head. "Heirs" were something he associated with royalty or stuffy rich families. No matter how many times he heard it, the designation still seemed completely out of line with what he knew of both Maya and Pearl.

Pearl nodded furiously, though. A small smile blossomed on her face and a little bit of the tension in her shoulders dissipated. "Yes, she does! Mystic Maya always makes sure I have time to do things other than study, like visit Miss Iris."

"Does Maya visit Hazakura often?" Edgeworth asked.

Phoenix blinked. For all the frequency of Pearl's visits, it never occurred to him to ask if Maya spent much time at the Hazakura temple herself.

"No…" Pearl said, sadly. "I've asked, but her duties as Master keep her much too busy. Usually, she prefers to spend her free time with Mr. Nick."

Phoenix hadn't known that ten small words were capable of feeling almost exactly like a succession of darts to the chest. He swallowed thickly, something like an apology congealing in the back of his throat.

"Looks like we're here," he managed instead, motioning to the boulder just ahead.

If the Kurain Boulder seemed to loom large in the distance from the bus stop, it was truly impressive up close. The large slab jutted up a good fifteen feet to tower above them. The only thing interrupting the relatively sheer face was a braided rope, paper charms spread evenly throughout. All three of them stared for a few moments before Phoenix finally felt comfortable looking at Edgeworth to gauge his reaction.

Which, honestly, wasn't that different from Edgeworth's reaction that one time they went to the museum, or the aquarium, or any of their subsequent walks in the park. Maybe I haven't been giving him enough credit…

When it seemed they had basked long enough in the glory of the very large rock, Pearl cleared her throat and began to explain that the boulder was home to a spirit—or several spirits, Phoenix still wasn't one hundred percent clear on the ratio—and the rope was there to protect the villagers from it/them.

She went on to explain a festival Kurain held during the summer—Phoenix had attended one of those about a year and a half ago, but hadn't been aware the boulder was involved—and capped it with a piercing stare at both men as she mentioned Mystic Maya had looked especially lovely in her ceremonial outfit as she had presided over the ritual a few months prior.

Edgeworth glanced at him. Phoenix raised his eyebrows in a sort of wordless shrug.

"…I'm sorry to have missed it," Edgeworth said with an inquisitive lilt at the end, as though answering a question with an answer he was only tentatively sure was correct. It was, apparently, the right response, as a particular sort of pleasure suffused Pearl's face for a brief second, before she rounded on Phoenix urgently.

"Uh, yeah," Phoenix said quickly, under Pearl's rapidly sharpening gaze, "I'm sure Maya looked really great. She always does a good job with that, uh, boulder ceremony."

Pearl nodded to herself and Phoenix inwardly sighed in relief.

Come to think of it, he did remember Maya flushing an uncharacteristic bright red as she explained she was going to have to do a chant and dance during the event. Her robes had been different back then too, but he had never particularly associated it with her wearing another hat as the leader of the village.

Watching her that evening had honestly been slightly discomfiting. Her dance against the backdrop of flickering flames of the bonfire and the inky darkness of the night sky had made her feel alien to him, as though this quiet village had swallowed his assistant and left a doppelganger in her place, moving and speaking in a measured, foreign way for an audience that excluded him entirely.

"Thanks for showing us here, Pearls," Phoenix said, preferring to focus on the impromptu tour. "Where to next?"

"Um..." Pearl looked back and forth between the two men. "Y-yes. Mystic Maya should be done teaching her class soon..." Pearl briefly chewed on a nail, then: "We should probably hurry…"

Phoenix was beginning to wonder about Pearl's actual aim; her careful skirting of any details about their destination made him second-guess any speculation he might have. "Lead the way, Pearls."

"Okay," Pearl agreed, folding her hands behind her back. A breeze briefly tugged at her hair-it was easy to forget how long it really was since it was done up so often. "It's just past the bridge."

"Bridge...?" He didn't remember crossing any bridges during his other visits to Kurain.

"Yes," Pearl said, "For a long time we used it to access the path to the waterfall-and then it was getting very old, so..."

"Old? But it is safe... right?" He felt a familiar pair of grey eyes pressing in on him from behind, but as far as Phoenix was concerned, one bridge collapsing under his feet was enough for one lifetime.

Pearl seemed pleased with the question. "You'll see, Mr. Nick!"

---

The bridge, as it turned out, was just past a fork in the winding dirt road half a mile past the Kurain bolder. Hidden, in part by a hilly outcropping of trees, the bright red color—nearly a match for the Steel Samurai's pants, Phoenix noticed—seemed to pop in the sunlight against the backdrop of greenery.

Upon seeing it, and glancing back at Phoenix's face, Pearl's demeanor noticeably lightened. The intense, troubled focus that she had worn throughout most of the day melted somewhat and an impish buoyance replaced it. "Don't worry, Mr. Nick, it's only about seven feet up off the ground!"

Thanks, but I think I can handle a ten foot long bridge over a ditch…

After a giggle at his facial expression, she began to walk faster—nearly skipping—to the point where she started leaving both Edgeworth and Phoenix trailing behind her. When she reached the center of the bridge, she turned and started waving towards them. "Mr. Nick, Mr. Edgeworth, you're almost here!"

Maybe it was her height at this distance, or her new training robes, or even the way she had needled him—however gently—over one of his flaws…

Before Phoenix could finish his thought, Edgeworth verbalized it instead.

"She looks like her cousin."

"Yeah," Phoenix said, "she does."

She really is growing up. It wouldn't be that long, come to think of it, until Pearl reached the age Maya had been when they first met. He might see Pearl date, attend school, and eventually drift away to live her own life, far away from him and Maya both, regardless of talk of "heirs" or "bloodlines".

The rush of bittersweet emotion made him nearly miss the steadying hand on his lower back as he took an involuntary, halting step forward and almost tripped over the gap where the bridge met earth.

"Breathe, Wright," Edgeworth said, low and warm. "Take it one step at a time."

Phoenix took a deep breath and walked forward. He fixed his sight on Pearl waiting ahead, partially to distract himself from a sudden, dizzying desire to take Edgeworth's hand in his.

All three of them met in the center and, almost as one, fell silent as they leaned against the footbridge's railing, peering over the edge at the rushing stream below.

"Something must have been done; this looks like entirely new construction," Edgeworth said, tapping the tip of one shoe against the edge of brightly painted wood appreciatively.

"Yeah," Phoenix said, "You could probably drive a truck over this thing without any problems." Not that I've ever seen a whole lot of trucks out here…

"Yes," Pearl said, seemingly pleased that this had been noticed. "It was hard raising the funds for this bridge," she glanced away at some personal memory, "b-but in the end, everyone was happy when the work was finally completed!"

Sounds like we only heard half the story there, Phoenix thought. He shared a meaningful look with Edgeworth across the top of Pearl's head as she rested the side of her face on the railing and ran her fingers along it.

"I like the color," Phoenix said. "I bet Maya picked it out, right?"

Pearl hid her face in her hands and glanced up at him. A hint of red peeked out from behind splayed fingers, nearly a match to the color of the bridge itself. "Yes, that's right, Mr. Nick," she sighed. "You really do know Mystic Maya so well…"

As the moment stretch on, Phoenix realized she was waiting for Edgeworth to respond. Why do I have a feeling there's a misunderstanding of epic proportion brewing in that head of hers?

When the silence stretched on and Pearl's stare lingered, he finally said, "Wright and Maya have worked together a long time."

Pearl frowned. "But, you got to know her around the same time, didn't you, Mr. Edgeworth?"

"Yes," Edgeworth said, still staring at the water as it swept past underneath the bridge. "I'm afraid our interactions initially weren't always as positive as her and Wright's—"

Meanwhile, I'm not sure I'd call getting hit over the head with a samurai spear "positive," Phoenix mentally interjected.

"—but I owe her a great deal," Edgeworth finished.

Pearl considered his answer with a depth that worsened Phoenix's unease; but whatever she was mulling, she seemed to stash it away for the time being. The bridge remained steady under their feet as they continued on their way to the other side of the embankment and onto a narrow trail.

The dirt path abruptly flared as they reached the base of the foothill, widening into a clearing. Here, snatches of color became visible through the trees.

"What's that?" Phoenix muttered.

The question resolved itself in a few more paces: waterproof tarps, dulled by grime, covering oddly-shaped lumps of building materials. A short distance past the clearing and through another small copse, the road through the mountains snaked its way past. They were closer to the edge of the village than Phoenix expected.

"What's all this, Pearls?" Phoenix asked when Pearl stopped and turned around near the center of the open area. The breadth of materials seemed large for a tiny village like Kurain—more than just another thatched-roof cottage would account for.

"Mystic Maya has been working on a project to help the village," Pearl said. "I know… Kurain doesn't have a warm reputation, but she's doing her best to change that!"

Thinking back to the less-than-welcome response he and Edgeworth had received on the way up, Phoenix refrained from verbal agreement. Instead he asked, "What sort of project?"

"Um…" Pearl worried the tip of her finger delicately against her front teeth. "Sort of…a place people interested in Kurain culture and channeling can learn about the village and stay overnight, if they want…"

Yeah, I can just see the residents jumping for joy over inviting outsiders to mess up their vibes, Phoenix thought. Morgan had made it clear exactly what she thought of non-practitioners in her village, and the reception Phoenix had gotten whenever he came back didn't exactly convince him that her peers disagreed.

"Do you remember the exhibition from a while back, Mr. Nick?" Pearl asked, her foot tracing tiny circles in the ground before her. "Um, where Miss Andrews helped us?"

"Exhibition... do you mean the incident with Mask DeMasque?" Both Pearl and Maya had been exuberant over getting to participate in the event, he remembered.

"Yes!" Pearl lowered her hands to clasp them together. "It went really, really well. Since then we've had more, um, visitors curious about our village and wanting to know more... so a few things have changed, and Mystic Maya thought... maybe, to help raise more funds and awareness of what we do..."

Opening the village up to tourism? Phoenix thought. It's not a bad idea, but... Looking around, this place wouldn't be ready to actually house any guests anytime soon. He tried to subtly grab Edgeworth's attention, but the prosecutor seemed to be engrossed with inspecting the tarps, as though if he glared hard enough he could see what was underneath.

"It hasn't been going well?" Edgeworth finally asked. "It doesn't look as there's been much work done here lately…"

Phoenix nodded slightly. If Phoenix had noticed the fine layer of grunge coating everything, it stood to reason Edgeworth wouldn't overlook it.

"There are a few—just a couple—villagers that aren't happy with the construction, but Mystic Maya has been trying really hard to find a solution for everyone." Pearl's head lowered. "The bridge before... it's so beautiful, but a few people, um—they gave Mystic Maya sort of a hard time even over that, even when everyone agreed we needed to fix it."

Edgeworth made a low sound in the back of his throat. It was a situation that Phoenix imagined he could relate to all too well in his own line of work.

"S-so, um... I know she's been staying up really late… so, maybe she's stressed and that might be why she could... possibly..."

Pearl trailed off helplessly, but pinned Phoenix with a stare no less piercing than it had been during their conversation at dusk, yesterday. This time, Phoenix found it much easier to understand. If last night had been a righteous explosion of anger for Maya's sake, this was an awkward apology on Maya's behalf, delivered by a girl without the vocabulary to express fault in her beloved cousin.

"It's okay," Phoenix said, reeling from the idea that Pearl was willing to assign even part of the blame to Maya. "This time, it really was my fault."

"Your fault, Mr. Nick?" Pearl sounded bewildered. "But, this morning, Mystic Maya said…"

Phoenix looked around once again, surveying the mounds of materials. "This does help me understand. She's really been going through a lot, huh?"

Phoenix had been so relieved when an apologetic Pearl came to him earlier, he'd ignored the larger question of why she had swung back to being on Phoenix's side, even knowing her love of Maya approached hero worship.

I didn't exactly expect to talk about this in the village lumber yard, but… He took a deep breath. "Pearls, what did Maya tell you this morning?"

"She said…it was her fault. That she wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to talk to her ever again," Pearl said. "So…why did you say it was your fault, Mr. Nick?"

From Phoenix's peripheral vision, he could see Edgeworth stiffen slightly.

"…it's complicated," Phoenix finally said.

"But neither you or Mystic Maya will explain it to me." The bitterness in Pearl's voice made Phoenix blink, momentarily stunned. She sounded much older than eleven years old.

"Pearls, I know you want both of us to make up, and I appreciate you showing me all the stuff Maya has been working on, but," Phoenix said, "this is something we have to work out between the two of us."

"I know there's nothing I can do to help, but I wanted you to know. Mystic Maya works so hard and sometimes it feels like… I'm the only one that sees it," Pearl said. "She talks about you and Mr. Edgeworth a lot. She cares about both of you so much, so I just wanted to be sure…"

I knew it, Phoenix thought. Pearl had been slightly too solicitous of both his and Edgeworth's opinions regarding Maya all day. She hadn't been that obvious since she was eight years old—trying to play them both off one another, carefully evaluating their answers. Guess I have a pretty good idea of what that "epic misunderstanding" is now, too.

He resisted the urge to rub his temple in frustration. The last thing he wanted was to add another strand to Pearl's Gordian knot of Maya's interpersonal relationships. What am I going to do…?

Edgeworth remained turned towards Pearl, but his eyes were pinned on Phoenix. "Wright also cares about Maya," he said. "You've seen the lengths he's willing to go to defend her firsthand."

Pearl's lips pursed.

"…Mr. Edgeworth, you're a prosecutor, right?" Pearl said, after a long, contemplative silence.

Phoenix frowned. Pearl's face in profile didn't give him a very good read on where she was going with this question, but it still sent a cold prickle of unease up his back. She should have been well aware of Edgeworth's profession at this point.

"Yes," Edgeworth said, nonplussed, "I've been with the Prosecutor's Office for nearly nine years."

"And, you've never thought about becoming a defense attorney like Mr. Nick?" Pearl's tone took on a distinctly pleading inflection. "Not even once?"

Phoenix's stomach dropped to his knees. There must have been more awkward places for the topic of discussion to turn, but nothing immediately came to mind.

"Pearls, that's not really—" Phoenix began, but Edgeworth cut him off.

"When I was around your age, there was nothing I wanted more in the world." Edgeworth sighed heavily, but he didn't sound particularly defensive to Phoenix's ears. More exhausted than anything else. "But I don't regret the path I've chosen, and that includes becoming a prosecutor."

"Oh…" Pearl's shoulders drooped despondently, "Is winning that important? Even more than helping people in trouble?"

"It's not the winning or losing that's important," Edgeworth said, "as long as both sides are striving towards the truth."

"So, that means," Pearl said, staring at the ground, "to a prosecutor, the most important thing is being right, not protecting someone that needs help."

"There are people that would put it that way, yes," Edgeworth said, quietly.

Pearl said nothing, but as she interlocked her fingers, her nails began visibly digging into the skin on the back of her hands. Then: "I thought, after you helped save Mystic Maya, maybe Mr. Nick was wrong…about all prosecutors being heartless…"

"Ah, Pearls…" Phoenix trailed off. After all this time, he had nearly forgotten his tirade when he and Pearl had just met—having it brought up again without warning, and in front of Edgeworth, felt like being blindsided by a truck. "Back then, I wasn't really..."

"Just as someone has to have faith," Edgeworth said, "another has to doubt. Without limits to trust, criminals have the freedom to hurt others with impunity."

"That's… really sad, Mr. Edgeworth," Pearl said, barely audible, "…thinking that trust has to have limits…"

Beside Phoenix, Edgeworth sighed, softly. His gaze meandered off Pearl's face to the towering pile of aggregate behind her, as though the answer to her accusation lay beneath the tons of sand and rock. Phoenix stepped forward.

"What Edgeworth means, Pearls," Phoenix said, "is that finding the culprit is just a prosecutor's job. It doesn't mean they're a bad person, or they can't have faith in others. Edgeworth and I work together to find the truth. We both trust one another."

"Even though you said…?"

"I shouldn't have said that about prosecutors." Even without looking at Edgeworth, Phoenix thought he could feel the other man's eyes silently boring into the side of his face. "I was… mad, at the time."

"Wright certainly had his reasons for being angry," Edgeworth added, his voice a note softer than Phoenix was used to hearing. But when he spoke next, it returned to its normal stoicism. "And for what it's worth, I do trust Wright. I would feel that way regardless of his opinion of me."

Even now, three years past the Engarde trial, even surrounded by a slew of tarps and clumps of masonry—as far away from any courthouse as could be imagined—the revelation behind those words still sent a trill resonating through Phoenix's entire body.

Pearl absorbed Edgeworth's words, but when expression on her face didn't change, Phoenix realized Edgeworth hadn't actually answered the question she really cared about.

"…Mr. Edgeworth, a long time ago, when Mystic Maya was on trial, she told Mr. Nick she wished you were the prosecutor," Pearl finally said, "because... she trusted you. She said you would have been fair. But... if she was in trouble, what would you do?"

Edgeworth frowned. "I would—"

Pearl pressed on. "Not as a 'prosecutor', but... as Mystic Maya's friend? As Mr. Edgeworth?"

"I—"

"You there!" An imperious voice rang out from the direction of the road, cleaving through the conversation like a hot knife through butter. "That location is off limit for tourists! Come away, now!"

Almost comically, Phoenix, Edgeworth, and Pearl turned towards the sound. Phoenix was sure the expression on his face mirrored the other two, wide-eyed like children caught with their hands in the cookie jar. In a gap between the trees he saw two women in robes, about three hundred feet away along the path they had taken to reach the clearing.

When no response was forthcoming, one of the woman let out a piercing whistle. Phoenix winced and resisted the impulse to cover his ears. What are we, dogs?

Phoenix made to move in the opposite direction, with a quick hand motion towards Pearl. He didn't know how clear a view the women had, but the trees must have provided at least some level of cover. A firm tug on his arm jerked him back.

"Don't be an idiot, Wright," Edgeworth spoke lowly. "Or were you planning to leave an eleven-year-old child to cover for you?"

I was planning on taking the eleven-year-old child with me, actually, Phoenix thought, rubbing his upper arm. You, on the other hand…

Though, now that he looked, Pearl hadn't followed after him. Instead she trudged in the direction of the women, with all the enthusiasm of a prisoner walking towards their own execution. Irritation forgotten, Phoenix shared a look with Edgeworth as both fell in line slightly behind her.

"Oh my, if it isn't Mystic Pearl," the first woman cooed as the two groups met. She reached out and took a lock of Pearl's hair in hand. Pearl stiffened. "I almost didn't recognize you with your hair in such disarray. You're usually such a tidy one. Surely, Mystic Maya can spare at least a few moments from her busy day to—"

"I-I wanted my hair down today," Pearl exclaimed.

The two women shared a meaningful glance, mouths hidden behind their fans. The one in yellow said, "Yes, of course you did. Such a sweet child, always trying not to impose."

"Unlike others I could name," the other tittered lightly, staring directly at Phoenix.

Oh please, Phoenix resisted the urge to roll his eyes. I can see why Maya's stressed out if these are the types she has to win over. Beside him, Edgeworth stepped forward, odd half smile on his face.

"Yes, Miss Fey has been invaluable in showing us around," Edgeworth said, bowing shortly. "I'm Miles Edgeworth. I don't believe I caught your names?"

The one in yellow hummed mild disapproval, but the one in green deigned to give a nod.

"Vivian," she said, shortly.

"…Elaine," said the other, then she turned to busy herself with wiping invisible dirt off Pearl's cheek with the corner of her robe. "There, there, dear. My word, you're absolutely caked in grime. Don't squirm."

"I don't even want to think of what Morgan would say if she had seen you, running around like a wild thing in the fields," Vivian said. "What is Mystic Maya thinking…?"

"Mystic Maya didn't…" Pearl murmured, trailing off. As the two women hovered, obscuring Pearl from view, it was hard not to feel like she was being drawn into a mist before his and Edgeworth's eyes.

"She left you in the care of... these men, did she?" Vivian finished for her, eyes roving over the two outsiders. Her smile was like brittle ice over a stale pond. "Why on earth would they bring you all the way out here?"

"It's not like that," Phoenix said, "Pearls asked us to-"

"Mystic Pearl," Elaine interjected, and Phoenix felt as though he had fallen into some kind of time warp-transported three years ago, facing off against Pearl's mother in the suffocating channeling chamber.

"Don't try to assign the blame on Mystic Pearl," Vivian continued. "She's only a child, for heaven's sake!"

What is this, Phoenix boggled, some kind of comedy routine?

"Not particularly amusing, if that's the case," Edgeworth's voice was soft against his ear.

"Mystic Pearl, why don't you come to my cottage," Elaine whispered, hiding part of Pearl's face behind her fan as she leaned close to her. "We'll get you out of those filthy robes and into a hot bath. Vivian will braid your hair, just like she used to when Morgan used to visit. I'm sure Mystic Maya's little... guests can find their way back to the Manor; it's not like it's hard to miss."

"We've missed talking to you so very much," Vivian wheeled.

"I'm afraid not." Edgeworth's voice was flat, unamused, yet with enough of an edge to cut. Both women pivoted towards him, as though they were two puppets on a single string. "Pearl Fey is in our charge. We'd be derelict in responsibility to leave her with strangers and go back to Fey Manor alone."

"Strangers?" Vivian drew out the end of the word as though Edgeworth had said something obscene. "How ridiculous! Someone calling us strangers, when they're the ones ignorant enough to address Mystic Pearl with such familiarity!"

"What an ill-mannered, little plaything Mystic Maya has dragged into the village this time," Elaine muttered, just loud enough for both Phoenix and Edgeworth hear. "If only she had the grace to keep her uncouth dalliances in the city, where they belong."

"That's an interesting way to talk about the leader of your village," Edgeworth said, eyes narrowing.

"Oh, we give Mystic Maya all the respect that is her due," Vivian tittered once again. "However much, or little, that may be."

If Edgeworth had seemed tired during the length of their walk, Phoenix could see no trace of it now-something in his shoulders seemed to harden.

"Forgive me, but has there been some kind of problem with Maya's leadership?" Edgeworth asked, his voice a note closer to the aggressive tone he used in court. "Has living in the village become more difficult? From what I've seen, the roads seem to be in good repair, and we saw the bridge that was just completed..."

Elaine's lip came dangerously close to an open curl. "Not that it's your particular concern, but if you must know..."

No insistence on "Mystic" Maya like for Pearl, huh?

"...to begin with, her treatment of the Fey heir, Mystic Pearl, is utterly irresponsible. There are perfectly willing villagers here-"

"-such as ourselves, of course-"

"-who would be delighted to look after her, but instead she leaves her in the care of outsiders, or sends her alone off to that obscure temple where there is no one to be held accountable for her treatment-"

"Wait, are you talking about Hazakura?" Phoenix asked. It would never have occurred to him that Pearl's visits with Iris, of all things, could spark contention, but this entire conversation was feeling more and more surreal to him with every passing second.

"I suppose that's what it's called, yes."

"Her sister lives there," Edgeworth said. He crossed his arms. "There's nothing remiss in allowing her to visit family."

"That woman is a criminal," one of them exclaimed. "It wasn't so long ago that she was released from prison! And to leave her alone with Mystic Pearl unchecked!"

"M-Miss Iris isn't-" Pearl started, but Elaine hushed her with a quick jab of the hand. Something in Phoenix's heart tightened, as though in a vise.

"Sister Iris isn't the only nun living there, is she?" Edgeworth pressed. "She's not even in a position of authority. There's also Sister Bikini, at the very least. Are you also accusing Sister Bikini of having ill will towards Pearl, or being some sort of criminal?"

"That's hardly the point-"

"Attempting to paint Maya as the head of some sort of conspiracy to damage her cousin is patently absurd," Edgeworth said, and there was a flicker of true heat beneath his voice. "I see no evidence Kurain has fallen into any notable disarray since Maya assumed leadership, and it seems she's even taking steps to increase village funding." If there had been a desk in front of him, Phoenix was certain he would have slammed it to emphasize his point.

Although the women were still clutching at her, Pearl was staring past them at Edgeworth, her eyes as wide as saucers.

"Our village does not have the same base needs as the city," Elaine said, her voice coming out as though in a low hiss. Her grip on Pearl had tightened enough that Pearl was now visibly fidgeting in discomfort. "You can't simply reduce it to a matter of the condition of the roads, or funding! We are a spiritual haven. There are more important matters, matters of purity and tradition at hand here."

"Oh?" Edgeworth replied. "What would you propose, then, in the name of tradition? Changing nothing about the village since its founding? Cutting off entirely from the outside world?"

"That would certainly be better than-"

"Impossible," came Edgeworth's reply, instantly, "and Maya is wise enough to recognize that rather than remain in denial for some idealized past." He shook his head, the familiar contempt for a lying witness or idiotic defense attorney radiating from him. "You may not agree with everything she's done, but at minimum her efforts need to be shown respect."

The two women glared daggers at him, but seemed at a loss for an immediate response. Finally, Elaine seemed to find her voice.

"How amusing it is," she said, bristling, "to hear someone so presumptuous and lacking in deference speak of respect. At least Morgan had a measure of dignity."

"Perhaps I'm lacking in imagination," Edgeworth replied, "but with all you harp on about criminals, if Morgan Fey is the standard we're holding aloft, I fail to see the dignity in her own conviction for Maya's attempted mur—"

Even mostly obscured behind the women's robes, Phoenix could see Pearl abruptly flinch.

Edgeworth's mouth shut so quickly, Phoenix couldn't help but think it was a miracle he hadn't bitten the tip of his tongue clean off. His eyes seemed to lose focus and his hand began to raise involuntarily before he forced it down to his side.

"You see, Mystic Pearl?" Elaine murmured. "This is why outsiders have no place in this village."

Phoenix felt a strange, dangerous sort of nausea rising within him, when a new voice broke into their fold.

"Nick! Pearly!"

All of their heads turned as one. Maya was still clad in her heavy robes, but it didn't stop her from approaching them at nearly a full sprint-the ends of her outfit flapping behind her, threatening to trip her with every hurried step. She slowed down as she reached them, but stopped to double over, panting.

"Mystic Maya!" Pearl's voice nearly broke from the relief. In one motion she finally managed to escape from Elaine's grasp and ran towards her cousin instead.

"Pearly... I was wondering where you ran off to!" Maya kept taking gulps of air between every few words. As she straightened, turning towards Vivian and Elaine, she tucked several strands of hair behind her ear-a self-conscious signal that, coming from his assistant, seemed completely unnatural to Phoenix's eyes.

"Good afternoon, Vivian, Elaine. I'm surprised to see you out this way. I... hope you're both doing well."

The two women glanced at each other, as though evaluating whose turn it was to speak up.

Maya took her chance to continue in the interim. "Um, you probably don't know him, but this is Prosecutor-"

"Oh, he introduced himself," Vivian said, the words falling like stones. She shot a glance to Edgeworth, as though daring him to speak up again.

"O-oh," Maya said, thrown, "Well, that's good! Er..." She looked back and forth between the two pairs. "Did something...?"

"Mystic Maya," Elaine cut in, "Don't you think it's rather irresponsible to leave Mystic Pearl in the care of two strangers like this? You don't know what could have happened! Vivian and I were worried sick when we saw her with them, all alone!"

Give me a break, Phoenix thought. I definitely know Pearls better than you do. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Pearl rubbing her arm, one cheek pressed against Maya's side.

Edgeworth, meanwhile, was still lost in himself.

"Thank you for looking after Pearly," Maya said, with a short bow to both of the women. "I understand your concern, but these are both people that I trust."

"Yes," Vivian said. "You do seem to have so many of those sorts of men, Mystic Maya."

Phoenix hadn't realized his own hands had clenched into fists until he felt the nails threatening to pinch too tightly into the skin of his palms. The sick feeling inside him was rapidly growing worse. He exhaled forcibly. Losing his temper here would only make Maya's situation more difficult.

One of the women gave a loud sniff.

"Well, I'll see you two back in the village. Elaine, your daughter did wonderfully in class today." Maya's smile seemed too stretched to Phoenix, as though reflected in an uneven mirror. "I'll bring Pearly back myself, so there's no need to worry."

The two women remained mute.

"Thank you, once again, for your concern." Maya's voice was friendly-but there was a firmness behind it that Phoenix wasn't used to hearing from her.

Another tense second ticked by-and Elaine finally let out a long and heavy sigh, turning away.

"Farewell, Mystic Maya," Vivian said, with a short bow, before following her partner.

Maya waited until they had trotted some distance off-both women kept pausing to cast glances back and chatter behind their fans, angling themselves to ensure the gossip was fully visible to Phoenix and the others-before letting out her own sigh, wiping her brow, and turning back to her friends.

"I'm really sorry you had to see that," were the first words that came out of her mouth. "People have been, uh, a little tense here lately..." The laugh she punctuated the sentence with rang hollow to Phoenix's ears.

"Don't worry about it," Phoenix said. You're the one I'm worried about, here...

Maya's right hand wandered the space to her side a bit before it found the top of Pearl's head. The younger Fey looked up, eyes bright.

"Pearly," Maya said, gently, "what were you all doing way out here?"

"Mystic Maya..." Pearl began, but her voice petered out quickly. "I..."

"We were showing Edgeworth around," Phoenix said. There were a lot of other things he wanted to add-but looking at the state Pearl was in, it was probably best that waited for now.

"Oh... that's, um, that's great." Maya's voice wavered, like she was still caught in a lingering trap-but she shook her head as though to cast it off. "It's probably not much up your alley, Mr. Edgeworth, I'm sorry. We don't have a lot of modern amenities here..."

"No," Edgeworth murmured. "It's all right."

Maya seemed initially unsure what to make of his response, but after a moment's hesitation, she gave the prosecutor a fond, if fleeting, sort of smile. She turned back to Phoenix.

"Um, say, Nick, I was wondering... are you still staying for dinner tonight? I mean... you're both definitely still welcome." She tapped each of her fingers together a few times. "I'm pretty sure we have enough food for Mr. Edgeworth, too."

"Yeah," Phoenix said. "Of course we are."

Maya nodded, and for a moment, Pearl's eyes weren't the only ones that shone a little too bright. "Great! It's not too often I get to be the one who treats you to a meal, Nick!" She reached out and gripped Pearl's hand; this time, Phoenix could see Pearl returning the gesture.

"Pearly, let's go home and start prepping, okay? Nick and Mr. Edgeworth probably need to get some rest." She clucked her tongue. "And no peeking, Nick-stay put in your room! You don't get to see until we're all done, got it? Keep watch on him for me, Mr. Edgeworth!"

"I know better than to try," Phoenix replied. Edgeworth made a vague noise of assent.

After one more too-brief smile, he saw Maya rub her eyes once as she turned away with Pearl in tow. As they retreated back towards the direction of the bridge, Phoenix and Edgeworth were left by themselves, surrounded by the remnants of scattered lumber, stone, half-started buildings, and the good intentions of foreigner outreach.

He heard Edgeworth breathe in, deeply. Phoenix was quiet-he'd learned to better recognize when it was best to give the other man a few minutes to stew on his own. As the time passed, he could see the sun beginning to arc downwards towards the western end of the horizon.

Edgeworth's hand was still exposed to the rapidly cooling air-hanging loosely at his side, as though stranded.

Phoenix took it.

"Let's head back, Edgeworth."

---

Note: Struggling Against Gravity is now also available on AO3, for those who prefer that site!