"Haha, no I would NOT!" I chuckled and crossed my arms defiantly. "No way."

"Yea you would," Pearl teased. "You need the money."

"Forget money! What about my dignity?"

It was a beautiful day in Kurain Village, and the brief chill had long passed. It had been exactly two weeks since Ms. Fey first called me and asked me to watch over Pearl while she trained, and a surprising lot had happened in that short amount of time. Or, it would be more accurate to say, a surprising little had happened, with a surprisingly high amount of impact. Under the sunshine, Pearl and I walked around casually, saying hi to the other villagers and window-shopping at some of the street vendors and craftsmen that had set up for the day. Two weeks ago, such a scene would've been a bizarre enough occurrence to attract suspicion of robots or clones or possibly aliens. But as it was, the event was entirely commonplace. In a very short span of time, the entire reality of the village had changed. I was no longer "the mysterious lawyer who's always either holed up in his study or dining with Maya and Pearl Fey." And Pearl was no longer just a powerful spirit medium in training, polite to all but close to none, but instead "Apollo's companion, you know, the small girl who's always laughing."

"Good morning, Ms. Fey, Mr. Justice!" called a little boy from down the street. Pearl and I looked up, paused, and waved simultaneously to the child whom we'd helped with his kite what seemed like so long ago.

"Hello, Evan," I called back. "How's the move coming along?"

"We're almost done!" he cried cheerfully. "Most of our stuff is in the house, at least. I've been helping my parents move boxes!"

"Good for you. But be careful, okay?" Pearl called as we started to walk again. "Don't hurt yourself on those ladders!" She winked at me and I smirked and ribbed her in response. Both of us knew we wouldn't really be able to prove anything about the supposed-couple until they got back from Texas, but we sure made a point to annoy each other anyway.

"Haha, oww… not so hard," she said, sticking her tongue out at me as we rounded a corner.

"Oh, sorry, shall I push you into the riverbed instead?" I joked. "Because current-ly, that's my only other option for putting you in your place."

Pearl raised her eyebrows and smirked. "That was TERRIBLE. Mr. Phoenix is rubbing off on you way too much."

"Hm… You're probably Wright. I Apollo-gize," I replied, barely stifling a laugh.

"BOOOOO," Pearl chuckled, and shoved me to the side with a surprising amount of strength. "Get off the stage!"

"Okay, okay, I'll stop," I said, smiling. "Oh, hey, look! She's not from around here, is she?" I pointed towards a vendor who was carrying around a cart of exotic-looking fruits. That's not actually the best product to carry in Kurain Village… we live near a lot of farms and eat a lot of fresh food already.

"No, I don't think she is," Pearl replied, and then, having caught the vendor's attention, waved politely. The woman, who had previously seemed a bit stuck-up to me, suddenly seemed nervous and confused by Pearl's attention. She leaned over and whispered something to one of the village locals, whom I hadn't really noticed because we saw him all the time. He whispered back; I assumed she'd asked him who we were. I couldn't make out a word of their conversation, but I had a pretty good guess as to what they were saying.

"Who are they? Are they from around here?"

"That's Apollo Justice and Pearl Fey. The boy only moved in a few months ago. He's here studying our channeling practices."

"I see. And the girl?"

"She's a spirit medium… used to be the shyest thing. So much so that even though she was a highly esteemed member of the Fey clan, we hardly knew her. Very polite, but wouldn't say more than a few words to anyone."

"She looks pretty outgoing to me."

"She's like that when she's with the Justice fellow. Nobody knows exactly how or when they met; some say her older sister introduced them. Either way, they're inseparable now. They go off to the waterfall every day—"

"The training waterfall?"

"Yes, that one. Fey trains and Justice watches her and takes notes. Or, that's what I've heard, anyway. But they often take walks before their sessions, and sometimes help around the village afterwards."

"Hm… so they're close, are they? Think I could get one to buy something for the other?"

"Probably not, neither one of them is very high on cash."

"Oh. That's a waste, then."

I was snapped back to actual reality (as opposed to my likely-accurate inner dialogue) by Pearl asking what the time was. I checked my watch and jumped at little, startled.

"Oh, it's almost 12:00! We have to get started!"

"Understood," Pearl said, nodding. In her hands she already held the basket full of candles, so both of us quickly made our way to the training spot. I helped Pearl place and light the candles (there were, by now, small dents in the ground where each one went, so it was easier to find their places), and then we each took our spots. I sat on a different flat rock than the one I'd watched from when we'd first started, as it had become a habit of the girl's to splash water on me whenever we debated after a training session… which was a common occurrence.

I closed my eyes as the session started, although technically I was supposed to be keeping watch. Last time I'd done so, Pearl had called me lazy, but I was actually trying to train my ears to be better, like Athena's. It still hurt a bit to think of the friends I didn't get to see often, but it was far better than being 2,000 miles away from them and working my tail off trying to get through case after case.

I listened intently to the different sounds around me, trying to hone in on each one separately. The first noise was the loudest: the rushing of the waterfall over Pearl and onto the river below, then the trickle of the river itself as it flowed past my resting place. After that came a very faint rustling of leaves— caused by an animal, no doubt, as the wind had been very still lately— and after that, a quiet peeping of a bird affirming my earlier suspicion. Some noises, like the occasional leaf falling into the water, were hard to pick out at first because they were so quiet, while others were so loud and obvious that they became white noise. Athena had told me once that she could "see" entire landscapes just by listening to her surroundings if she focused long enough, but I found that a bit of a stretch.

I practiced cycling through the sounds once again, trying very hard to concentrate on them instead of the internal reminder that I should be spending more time studying.

I'm all studied out for now. I've got practically enough notes to write a book of my own, as well as some starter suggestions for improving Khura'inese training. Right now I just want to listen to the water… and the leaves… and the bird that still won't land on me… and the voice…

Hm. That's odd. There shouldn't be a voice right now.

I opened my eyes to see Pearl standing under the waterfall as always, in the same pose she always was, but with one major difference: her mouth was moving ever so slightly, and I could make out an incomprehensible murmuring as she presumably spoke to a spirit. I hesitated, unsure of whether to say something or not. I decided it was probably best not to break her focus and leave her be until after training.

Due to my abnormal worry, the next hour passed more slowly than usual. I lay down on my rock as quietly as I could and rested as I stared at the sky and listened placidly to a new bird who entered the area and decided to sing a tune. I found my mind drift into wondering what the view of the area looked like from the sky. I tried to picture it: a river leading down into a small waterfall, with blurred brown and white colors underneath. Cloud-shaped spots of green covering the surrounding area of grass, and tiny yellow flames on spots of white along the riverbed. A few large stretches of gray, all seemingly unnaturally flat, one of which was topped with an out-of-place splotch of red that lay casually looking at the sky.

The imagery I'd created for myself was so relaxing that I actually almost fell asleep, but I maintained a state of wariness for the sake of the low chance something actually did go wrong. Finally, after about an hour, I heard,

"Okay, I'm done!"

Pearl started walking out of the riverbed, squeezing some of the water out of her hair and seeming unaware that anything unusual had transpired.

"Um… Pearl?" I asked, hoping what I was about to say wouldn't damper her mood too much.

"Yes?" she asked.

"You, uh… you know you were mumbling… right?" I asked. Pearl looked surprised, which answered my question, but there was a very long, awkward pause afterward. I shifted my feet. Pearl looked deep in thought.

"Oh… w-well… this is… ironic," she laughed nervously, starting to play with a lock of her hair.

"What is?" I asked. "Are you not feeling well?"

"No, no, it's just…" She put on an embarrassed smile and blushed slightly. "Uh, well, it appears that I've gotten to the point where I care about you enough to be nervous of what you think of me. Apparently I didn't want to mess up. Although, like I told you earlier, that just makes me mess up more."

"O-oh." I felt my face redden to match hers. "Th-that is rather unfortunate."

"Heh… yea."

There was another awkward pause, and I suddenly realized something.

"You know, Pearl, I don't mind you messing up… but even so, I've seen you perform this kind of training without mumbling, so I know you can do it again if you want to!"

Pearl traced a circle in the ground with her feet. "Y-yea, but now I'm nervous."

I shook my head. "I think you can do it even while you're nervous."

She looked up at me in surprise. "Y-you do?"

I smiled and nodded. "Yup. You're a capable spirit medium. Mr. Wright's told me about times when you were just a tyke, and you could already channel spirits. And he never mentioned anything about mumbling."

Pearl paused. "That was… different, actually… I could channel one spirit in particular. Not that it wasn't still hard," she added quickly, "but it was a much less dangerous procedure because that spirit would never overtake me."

"Why not?" I asked, somewhat surprised at the new information. I wondered why Mr. Wright had been so vague about her abilities.

"W-well… I don't think that's a good topic right now," she said, averting her gaze to the ground. "B-but I'm really honored you think I could do something like that. Um…" She brushed some wet hair that was clinging to her face. "We should probably be heading back."

"Yeah…" I sighed. "I've got to organize all my notes, they're scattered everywhere. And probably rewrite a lot of them, too."

"I believe it," Pearl laughed. "So… I'll see you tomorrow before training?"

I smiled. "Yea. I'll see you tomorrow."

With that, we gathered up the candles and walked side-by-side down the path back to our respective homes. But little did we know that the newly formed alternate universe we'd been living in for two whole weeks was only a day away from coming to a close.

—

(A/N: MWAHAHAHAHA... I love cliffhangers :D Although I love the fact that multiple people are reading the story now even more. XP)

(Response A/N: Oh my gosh, your words made me smile so much XD Umm I hadn't considered it, but yea, I MIGHT try writing about what Maya and Phoenix were doing! I've been wanting to write a mystery actually, although I'm not sure how good I'd be at it XP But I could certainly give it a shot! We'll see if I get around to it! ^^)