Chapter Twenty-Six: My Cross to Bear

Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey
 September 5, 2020, 3:00 AM

Maya sometimes wondered if there was more than met the eye with regards to her relationship with Phoenix. Despite her efforts to try to sneak in a visit, he kept making excuses about why he couldn't see her – even when her conferences and travels had taken her to his neck of the woods, in Los Angeles, a few times in the past couple of months! As the Gumshoes were always willing and delighted babysitters for Trucy, she'd have thought her boyfriend would have leaped at the chance to see her for a few stolen hours or even the night!

But no, Phoenix always had some excuse, muttering things about ruining her reputation if the Elders found out she'd seen him, to which she always retorted she didn't give a rat's ass about – he meant more to her than a village of narrow-minded spinsters and this cursed position she'd never wanted, but he was obstinate and wouldn't budge – she blamed the fact that he was a Capricorn. He truly was a stubborn old goat just like his astrology sign dictated!

That night, when she'd spoken to him on the phone, things had nearly come to a head. When she'd flat out demanded if he was telling the truth or simply making lame excuses not to see her this time around – Trucy was formally adopted now so why the holdup still? – he'd mumbled something about him putting her in danger if he were to be around her right now.

Maya sat there on the phone in stunned silence, unsure she'd heard him right.

"Nick, what did you just say?"

She heard her boyfriend make a funny noise, almost like a groan. She could picture him right now, small beads of sweat rolling down his forehead with that hilarious, chagrined chimpanzee expression on his face as he realized how much of a slip of the tongue he'd made. Even though she couldn't see his face, she was able to feel his emotions, his expressions. It made her grin, despite herself.

We can get through this, Maya assured herself. No – we will get through this! We just both need to be patient. Nothing good ever comes out of hurry and frustration, only misery. So, if you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said that life would be easy, they just promised it would be worth it.

Phoenix felt the smile and regained his composure. While the circumstances were no laughing matter, he was glad to have been able to brighten up that lovely face. He was convinced they were linked in some cosmic, otherworldly way.

When life gives you a hundred reasons to cry, show life that you have a thousand reasons to smile.

God, he loved his Burger Queen. She was his soul mate. They didn't have to be physical with one another to be together, or so he told himself, but perhaps it was nothing more than delusion … just like this apparent paranoia of his.

"Danger?" He cleared his throat and felt one hand unconsciously drop to his hip now, while the other free one slid behind his neck as he held the phone in his shoulder. "I didn't say danger. I said, um, don't be a stranger!"

"Nick, you're such a lousy liar! I know you too well! Now tell me, what the hell is going on here!" Maya hated it when he kept things from her. It was a painfully stinging rejection indeed when you coupled his secrecy with his refusal to see her.

"Remember I told you I was going to try and become Kristoph's friend? Well, mission accomplished, but this isn't a relationship that isn't without some risks and some complications, Maya. Things could get a little – capricious. I could be wrong, but I don't want to take that gamble. Which is why I don't want you with me…"

"Are you saying I can't visit you next time I'm down in the city?" She felt like crying now.

"Yes! No! Ngh! Maya, listen, it's late… I don't know exactly what I'm saying…"

"Phoenix Wright don't you dare try to pussyfoot around with me!" Maya was beyond hurt now and just flat-out peeved. "I'm not hard of hearing and I'm not going to listen to any more of your ridiculous bluffs to try to cover up what you just said! I heard you say danger!"

Her voice softened but remained at the same level of intensity.

"Nick, please. Talk to me."

"It's Gavin, OK?" He blurted out. "Kristoph Gavin… that creepy blond lawyer I mentioned to you last time I came up. He's got me all shook up. I'm worried about you. Kristoph can smile to your face and stab you in the back."

"I remember, Nick. So tell me that truth, right now." Her voice was as stern as a school teacher's. "You're not doing anything dangerous are you?"

"You told me not to lie to you, my love." A long sigh on the other end of the phone. "Do you honestly want me to answer that?"

That meant yes. Maya swallowed. She knew Phoenix was worried about her because he knew he was taking risks getting close to Kristoph, who, if he was as dangerous as her boyfriend was speculating, and realized he was on to him, forget her, Nick could be the one in real danger!

"How are you going about protecting Trucy, Nick? She's not only your daughter but she's also involved in all this…you don't think…"

Her voice trailed off. She was too afraid to even finish the awful thought in her mind, never mind say it out loud.

"I don't know how much I can do, but I can't worry about you, too. This is why I've emphasized that we can't see each other right now, Maya. If you're up in Kurain, at least I know you're safe."

"I think you're being ridiculous, Nick," the Master declared. "I'm a big girl who's been through quite enough to last several lifetimes. I can take care of myself! Besides, I think you're going about this wrong. Have you forgotten we're partners? You don't need to bear the weight of this alone! Let me help! I've established internet and a cell tower and a burger chef up here in the sticks, there must be something I can do!"

"My love, I will never forget you're my partner. I'll give you a job," the pianist promised. "I swear I will, but I'm not that far along yet. And besides, I'm going off nothing but hunches and the non-stop glowing of my magatama. I could still be wrong about the whole Gavin thing! But I give you my word, I'll let you know."

"I don't understand why you think it's dangerous. Have you been threatened?"

Not unless you count him knowing every step I take, every move I make, and me and Trucy's whereabouts even when I haven't told him of them, and then, as the icing on the cake, singing lyrics of the creepiest stalker pop song known to man as a direct threat.

Phoenix decided to keep these thoughts to himself. He knew these occurrences wouldn't be seen as enough evidence to validate his fears to the police if he were to approach them with the issue.

And if he told Maya his suspicions, she would either laugh them off or worse, make herself sick with worry, when there was nothing she would be able to do. He wisely kept his peace.

"No, everything seems fine," he told her. "But that's what doesn't make sense. Criminals like to tie up loose ends. They like to bump people off who know stuff and there are too many people in the city who know stuff, myself included. I worry someone's going to try to kill me or someone near me is going to end up dead and probably pretty soon."

She hesitated, but only for an instant. She'd never been one to mince words with Phoenix when they'd just been friends and she saw no reason to keep things bottled up from him when, despite the distance that separated them, he was her lover and partner.

"Nick, in all these evaluations you've had to make sure you were a fit parent for Trucy, did they ever evaluate you for paranoia?" There was an air of amused exasperation in her voice.

There was a brief silence on the other end of the line, and for a split second, she thought he'd hung up on her. Then Phoenix let out a loud, booming chuckle. It was so hearty and genuine that Maya knew he wasn't crazy. If he had been, he'd have gotten defensive.

"So, after all this time you've decided that I might be nuts. Is that it?"

"I'm not sure," she admitted honestly.

"Well, I hope I'm paranoid. If nobody gets killed or hurt I'd be happy. Better paranoid than dead, my love."

Maya Fey
Fey Manor
September 5, 2020, 5:30 AM

The conversation hadn't gone on much longer after that. And so the case was closed for now, leaving Maya with nothing to do but fight back her tears of disappointment, as she'd been doing this whole time, and look forward to yet another looming period and distance in the horizon, separating her from the man she loved.

If she wasn't able to be a proper girlfriend to Nick – he wouldn't let her, dammit! – then she could at least be the best Master she could be, while being a good daughter to her mother, by filling in her shoes as best as possible and becoming a village leader that Misty Fey would have been proud of.

So Maya flung herself into intense instruction practices immediately after the official Kurain Master Induction ritual had taken place. It wasn't as if she'd had a choice - what else was there for her to do? Mope about the fact she was in a village of elders who felt nothing but contemptuous loathing for her and who would leap at the opportunity to crow that they were right and that she did completely suck and was unworthy of her title? That she was unfit to fill her mother's shoes because all she could focus on was the loss of that no good ex-lawyer of hers?

The same one who claimed he loved her and had yet made zero effort to see her since the day of her ceremony?

Mildred, in particular, took advantage the most of this fact, almost daily rubbing salt into the wound that Maya's precious Nick that she'd so vehemently championed for hadn't even cared enough about her to fight back and make the efforts to see her since Chinese New Year, conveniently forgetting that it'd been Mildred herself who'd threatened to charge him with trespassing if he ever set foot into the village again!

It took every ounce of Maya's self-control to keep from knocking the woman into the middle of next week looking both ways for Sunday!

Pearl was despaired upon seeing the chronic state of misery the village elder put the master in, although as the little girl's guardian, Maya had had to repeatedly restrain the princess of sharp slaps not to make good on her constant loyal offers to take care of that "mean old witch" by "slapping her to sleep, then slapping her for sleeping!" Maya had been torn between laughter and bewilderment at the offer - what the hell were they teaching kids on that Children's Masterpiece Theatre program that Pearl was always watching nowadays?!

After all, aside from a moment of delicious instant gratification, what good would it do? It wouldn't bring Nick's badge back or return him to her side, and defending his honor to the council was just fruitless.

The diviner could plead her lover's case until she was blue in the face; implore that he was a good man who'd been wronged, framed for acts he'd never committed, but it would only have fallen on willfully deaf ears. The damage that had been done, and the years of mistrust of outsiders, and particularly, of the legal world, stemmed from roots that had been in place way before either of them had ever come along.

Most of the Kurain Elders and power brokers were not intrinsically unpleasant or malicious people, and much of their intense hostility toward Phoenix, Maya, and the legal world had its origins in fear and intimidation.

The opportunist Morgan had seized the opening to portray herself as their savior who could salvage a future of reordering.

Kurain's customary traditional beliefs and values had always usurped traditional laws and concepts of justice. Many of Morgan's right-hands, Mildred especially, still genuinely believed that Morgan's attempts against Maya were justified and more honorable, rather than criminal. After all, she'd only been trying to ensure the village's future was protected, and if securing that by finding a more viable Master meant sacrificing Maya as the only way to do so, then so be it. Morgan, they believed, should have been commended rather than condemned. The elders truly resented and saw Maya as the disloyal, disgruntled leader who was the reason such a noblewoman was no longer among them! Even those who were more neutral and reasonable and agreed that Morgan's methods had been wrong were still distrustful, skeptical, and suspicious of official legal meddling.

The ever manipulative and overly ambitious Morgan had taken advantage of DL-6 with gusto. She'd gleefully cultivated and inflated the fear and resentment of the law by citing how it was responsible for the caused destruction of Kurain's reputation, inflaming the inferno of suspicion and acrimony against both the legal world and the disgraced Misty. Morgan had convinced them that her sister's intentions had been far from virtuous, and had spin doctored the whole incident by portraying Maya's mother as the woman who had betrayed them all by becoming entangled in its ominous stems and consequently causing both her own collapse and their near- devastation.

Such chaos and panic had been a perfect atmosphere for the ever calculating and crafty Lady Macbeth to seize and exert control. Mia had already been lost to the legal world's 'corruptive influence' but she had never been a viable candidate anyway – brought up by and too much likely to be like her mother. Law was seen as a blasphemy within the village walls; a sinister threat that had caused all their problems and would continue to do so if they allowed any sort of association with it, directly, or indirectly, to continue.

Due to this mistrust of legal matters, Phoenix had been viewed with misgiving even before his downfall. His associations with Maya were regarded as interfering in Kurain affairs and a perilous, contaminative influence. Now, of course, they all believed he had constructed forgeries for his other cases too, including the three trials involving Maya.

None of them believed their new village leader had ever committed the murders (there was no motivation to kill Mia, as she had already abdicated her right to the Master position) but Maya was conclusively viewed as a troublemaker nevertheless.

After Mia had left to become a lawyer, it had been Morgan who had raised Maya and taken the reins over all the preparations and training the future Master would require. Her underlying plan had been to simply ensure that while her niece would be adequately trained in spirit channeling, she would be ill-prepared for the future power plays, diplomacy, politics, or any of the other areas which might better allow Maya to wield autonomous power when she assumed the role. After all, why would the cunning woman do anything to thwart away from her ultimate goal, which was to wield the Master to her own whims as (inconspicuously) possible?

While she'd been staying with Phoenix in the city, Morgan had stirred the village in an uproar over the disappearance of her "insubordinate and uncontrollable" niece. She was going to defect to the seduction of the "dark side" just as her female relatives had – aka the one thing Morgan feared would surpass the authority of archaic tradition – the law.

Of course, many powerbrokers on the national Kurain Technique boards were perfectly nice, reasonable, people. Morgan, however, had installed various loud, hostile individuals in pivotal positions, and it would take a very long to demote or diffuse them all.

So this was what Maya had been forced to contend with since she'd taken over the leadership role. Mastering politics, which she loathed and had no interest in, and currently attempting to compose a list of initial essential restructurings to initiate as Master amidst the grumblings of reluctant dinosaurs who were resistant to change of any sort. Kurain residents were big on tradition, and Maya was sick of tradition!

Some of her implementations were obvious and straightforward, such as arranging regular delivery of fresh meat and other yummy foodstuffs for the new burger chef. Also, on top of getting cell signals and internet, albeit not the world's fastest connection up in the village, her next motions were to: install a satellite dish to receive maximum TV channels, get DVD and DVR recorders (how else could she watch The Pink Princess and Steel Samurai DVD movies?) Kill all antiquated VCRs with fire! A few of her other aspirations were more debatable: Installing security cameras in Channeling Chamber. Will it interfere with spirits?

So while she was Master, she was still essentially just a figurehead, caught in a sick power struggle over which she frequently never had the upper hand.

Much like the ghost of Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol, even though the so-called sins of Feys past shouldn't have been her burden to bear, Maya's fate doomed her to wear the chains of eternity.

Morgan sure ensured that was the case, she acknowledged grimly. Even though she's not here, the damage she'd done sure is. The die is cast. Misty Fey's fated turnabout has now become my cross to bear.

And there wasn't a damn thing in the world she could do about it.

Mood music from this chapter - full video and lyrics on thejordanphoenix dot com:

Mariah Carey & Whitney Houston – When You Believe

November 1, 2021: This story is now being uploaded to be more family-friendly as the previous version was removed for being too steamy and setting off the site smoke alarms, and for having song lyrics. No harm, no foul. Seriously, I'm not worried - who the heck only reads a story for song lyrics and like, TEN chapters of canoodling out of 195? That's grossly underestimating my amazing and loyal readers, wouldn't you agree?

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