#especially imagining themselves fucking a fictional man without having someone in their ear telling them that he thinks women are disgustin

[hijackalx]

the funniest piece of casual misogyny in the bg3 fandom ive ever seen was somebody saying that astarion is canonically nicer to male tavs than he is to female tavs. as in implying that larian redid the motion capture and rewrote the script SPECIFICALLY for when astarion is interacting with female tavs to make sure everyone would be aware of how much he hates women. how are u so misogynistic that u start hallucinating that ur fav character is misogynistic too

#this is so delusional that it sounds like a troll but i promise they were serious #anyway. this is a safe space for women youll never catch me doing that weirdo shit #i feel like theres been a huge wave of ppl being unafraid of just flat out saying how much they hate women in this fandom and its fr crazy. #i think as long as my girlies arent hurting anyone they should be allowed to do whatever they want forever #especially imagining themselves fucking a fictional man without having someone in their ear telling them that he thinks women are disgustin #bg3 #astarion #jackal speaks

[helpinghanikan]

Shared experience seen by one

Mathew Murdock x Reader

Sum:  Movies, books, TV and more have brainwashed the world into thinking your soulmate is one romantic comedy away. But life is never that easy, nor is that cheesy.

AN:  I've had this in the back of my mind for awhile. Full disclosure; I'm not good at emotions and I try my best not to make the reader out to be an overly emotional caricature. Spoiler alert, I have failed at both.

“A blowup bed is not that hard to set up, just stay with me instead of waiting for the right place.” Karen had said when you mentioned the impending move to the city. “In fact, you need a job? A very underpaid job?”

The red strand of fate came along during your move. It sometimes tangled while packing, it bended and dipped during the trip, and tightened when reaching Karen’s place. That was how Fate’s strand works; it bounces and moves as you and your soulmate does. It will sway and bounce with your gestures and hand. Although weightless it can be a physical thing to touch and grab, but it takes focus. With enough focus you and Fate can play a game of jump rope; swinging it around with your soulmate on the other side as the anchor. Jumping over the strand like a schoolgirl was Fate themselves. Having a great time watching their chosen couple use the bond to both find eachother and have fun.

Jump rope was played through most of your journey: toying with it on the bus and fiddling while filling out paperwork. It was twirling around your fingers as Karen gave advice for your first day at Nelson and Murdock. “Just bring something food related and they’re gonna love you. Something hearty though, we get enough pastries.” She said then heading out, reminding you to show up around seven.

Just like your nose it’s easy to forget that the strand is there. Just another color that makes up the world all around. It’s only when you reach the building that you notice your strand flat as a table, leading you right into the building.

It’s nothing new for the strand to lead straight ahead. Younger people and children will commonly ignore whatever they were doing before and follow their strand right into the unknown. “Maladaptive following” is the technical for these moments of distraction. Adults will even fall victim to it from time to time: Stopping a business lunch or jog to follow their red strand into the street or some building. Articles and urban legends float about the world stating that many have met their chosen this way. In reality it’s one of the leading causes of death by vehicle for minors.

Now it’s a question whether you were following your strand, or if it just happens to be going in the same direction you were originally headed. Fate was holding your strand so tight it was flat, bouncing as your hands stabilized the box but stayed tight as Fate pulled you forward.

Fate drags your strand into the highest, smallest gap of the elevator’s door. Lifting your head to watch it slide through was giving it too much hope but watching it with eyes was mature enough to acknowledge it without going crazy. Yet as the elevator reached it’s floor, and the strand led straight out, your heart couldn’t help but speed up.

In fiction the sight of your soulmate is portrayed so romantic. There was a few seconds of staring at the shared strand, then at eachother which leads into eye-contact and then a funny/cheesy/romantic line; “I’ve waited so long,” “more beautiful than I could have ever imagined,” or even just “hi,” followed by breathy laughing. They all ended in the two taking a few steps right into each other’s arms.

Your personal situation started off like this. Following the strand across the room and to the man who was your chosen. Following further until the strand was wrapped in a bow on his pinky, on the same hand which held a white cane.

Karen is talking somewhere in the background of your focus. She reaches out towards you in a gesture that is followed by the blonde man stepping up to you with a closed mouth smile. It’s only when he gets to his own name that your ears start to work again.

“-Everyone calls me Foggy, though. It’s good to have join up.”

With the world moving once more the sandwiches almost topple from your hands. Both from trying to get a handout for a proper shake and from realizing no words had come out when you entered.

“Yeah, it’s…hi. I brought lunch, or dinner, or…yeah, they’re just sandwiches.” Were the only comprehensible words that could come out. No matter how hard you tried keep looking at the man in front of you, your eyes kept glancing to the end of your strand.

As the box is taken by Mr. Foggy the second man second, the man at the end of your strand, steps up. Although his face is staring right at you it almost impossible to see his eyes through the glasses. What lines you do see through the glass are likely imaginary; your brain trying to come up with someway that you are special enough to see through his shields.

“Hi, Mathew Murdock,” He says, unfortunately professional.

You shake his hand as well, just as professional but with wondering eyes. Starting at the brown hair with tinges of red in the right light, to the glasses over his eyes which keep you from seeing their color. From his suit without a tie to his hand that held yours in a shake. Where two bows sit side by side, the closest they have ever been.

Fate came along with you at Nelson and Murdock. Instead of being a fellow employee trying their best they just hang around and grinned at you. Sitting on the edge of your desk, playing with the window until Karen had to slam it shut. Blaming it on the faulty building rather than the smirking being that was standing in the middle of the office. Using barely a finger to keep the red strand from touching the floor. Staring you in the eye as they rub your strand between it’s fingers, teasing you with the truth that may not be believed by your chosen.

The entire day is spent as someone else. You were a lightweight as their first party, drinking too much and trying to hide it. Karen was patient as she explained everything but there was still the pressure in the back of your throat. Word vomit threatening to come out at the sight of red, of Mr. Murdock, or of stupid fucking Fate. The latter of which still pulling on the string. Both to keep it from touching the ground and to encourage their chosen couple to do something.

Staring at the abyss between your spot in the corner and Mr. Murdock’s designated office was hypnotizing. Your strand was lightly swinging with Mr. Murdock’s movements. Watching through peripheral vision his fingers drag along paper, reading through touch as he moves the strand without meaning to.

Karen was patient as you struggled to pay attention to the instructions she was giving you. It was too late to say anything about the strand to Mr. Murdock, and this office was way too small for any kind of personal conversation.

“Are you okay?” Karen’s voice is softer than a whisper against your ear. Already leaning over your shoulder, you didn’t flinch at her suddenly speaking. Instead looking over to your new boss and leaning back into Karen. “Sorry. Mr. Murdock and I…And I’ll tell you later.” You whisper, refocusing on the earthly reason you were here.

By the end of your practice there was still no reaction on the side of Mr. Murdock. Although both rude and in bad form a goodbye couldn’t come out while leaving. Instead just a wave towards Mr. Foggy and Mr. Murdock and leaving the door open behind you, Karen following quickly behind. Her heels clip-clapping through the hallway in time with your name called out once, twice…

“Son of a bitch, Karen, I messed up. I don’t know, and now I messed up.” It’s coming out faster than you meant to. With both frustration and almost

Word vomit was finally free to spew. Before the elevator even arrived you were telling Karen everything; about the strand, about the nerves and how you messed up so greatly by not saying anything. When the elevator finally arrived, Karen was guiding you forward. Knowing better than to try and talk anymore while still within Matt’s earshot.

When anyone asks Matt if he eavesdropped, he’d argue; “Of course not, I don’t exactly have a choice with this.” Which was only a half truth, in reality he was a nosy bitch. But it was all for the greater good; clients and their family say the most important things behind closed doors, cops lie and only tell the truth when they think the world isn’t listening, and he just wanted to make sure Karen didn’t get him something he already had.

So, it’s only natural that he listened along as you left.

It took years to try and isolate the noises around him. It was still a struggle to separate them when he first covered his face and climbed to the rooftop. It still hard sometimes, especially when he’s only half focusing, and especially when Karen’s heels can’t be turned off like a radio.

Buried under the heels was your voice. Coming out quickly with a heartbeat to match. “Our strands are connected, and I didn’t say anything and now I don’t know what to do and I can’t say anything now and…” Karen’s soft but sharp voice stops the storm of thoughts coming out. Keeping them at bay until the elevator joins the fray.

It takes longer than it should for Matt to connect the dots. Strands are connected, didn’t say anything…His hands have wondered off of the paperwork in the time it took. Running over the cracks and bits of worn wood from his desk. Dragging up the old crumbs and coffee cup papers that wedged into those gaps. Pulling the smells up and muddying the waters of his sense, hiding the conversation outside until it was impossible to find the women in the hallway.

Matt only had the strand for a short time before the accident. After that it was an overwhelming part of the world. A constant touch on his finger that distracted from something more important. Taking longer than normal people to get used to it, and only a short time after that to completely forget it’s there. It’s been a while since he’s even thought about it: only during selfish moments with a girlfriend. Trying to seek out the vibrations and slightest effect it would have on his chosen. After finding none he’d forget about the strand and move on.

Turning his wrist, he finds the strand once more. Closest he could compare the material to was silk, but it was too soft and slick for it to be that. Tugging on it brought tighter resistance than normal; his chosen’s weight keeping Matt from dragging you right back to him. The resistance getting weaker the more he toyed and the farther you got from him.

There was this urge that goes through everyone when they finally find their chosen. The urge to talk or know them. To hold them tight and find every and any reason that fate had chosen them for eachother. But this was another urge that Matt had to keep down, at least for now.

Yes, that’s what he’s best at, keeping things down. This would have to be different than his old relationships. No trauma bonding over kidnappings as the Devil or making the first move like the suave lawyer man he knew he was. This would be…natural, an organic relationship made by lying to eachother until one finally caves and tells all Just like a suave lawyer.

#Reader insert #matt murdock x reader #matt murdock imagine #matt murdock x you #soulmate au #red string of fate #red string au #oneshot #Marvel imagine #Daredevil #daredevil imaigne #not beta read

[illegiblewords]

5 Questions for Writers!

               5 Questions for Writers                                                        

I got tagged by @kunstpause, it looked like fun so figured I’d go for it! THANKS TO KUNST!

Tagging @wouldyouliketoseemymask, @nilim, @azwoodbomb, @peregrineroad, @frostmantle, @autumnslance, @strangefellows, @redbud-tree, @nozomikei​, and @rivenroad​. No obligation to anyone but full permission to steal granted to anyone else who might like to. I’ll literally be delighted if you pick this up spontaneously and blame me as an excuse lmao.

1. Do you have a favorite character to write? Who and why?

2. Do you have a favorite trope to write? Or one you want to write?

3. Share your favorite description you’ve written?

4. Share your favorite dialogue you’ve written?

5. Scene you haven’t written, but want to?

I made long answers so have a cut!

1. Do you have a favorite character to write? Who and why?

It depends heavily on what fandom and where I am mentally, but I’ve figured out I tend to love writing angsty lameass dudes with blonde hair who are prone to doing really silly things despite taking themselves entirely too seriously. Honestly, I have a pretty huge track record at this point. Harvey Dent, Vexen, Dmitri, Lahabrea, probably more besides. Every one of them fits the right balance of lameass to angst. I like seeing them grow and find fulfillment as people and they are very very cute while still having an edge of badassery and cleverness. Also they’re funny.

Lahabrea is my favorite at the moment, and him reaching that position is an accomplishment considering how stiff the competition is in FFXIV. Loser tricked his way to the top while I was busy laughing at him.

2. Do you have a favorite trope to write? Or one you want to write?

I really, really, really love redemption arcs and people recovering from fucked up experiences. Latter case especially I love seeing characters in those situations successfully connect to the people and world around them, especially if they get to grow together with a partner. I also LOVE “hero saves the villain and villain takes it to heart”.

(You may be sensing a theme here haha.)

There are a few reason these concepts resonate with me, the first being I think they’re really hopeful, inspiring, and something I always wanted to see growing up but rarely did.

People fuck up in life. People get hurt in horrible ways that bring out the worst in them. Sometimes when that happens they dig themselves deeper and deeper into ugliness. The more a person’s bad side comes out, the more hopeless it can feel. And for mental illness especially I’ve found this can be a major issue.

Everyone makes mistakes and everyone has flaws, but I think there’s something really significant in seeing someone who has hit rock bottom, who can no longer imagine a way out, get offered a hand for support and take it. While recovery and redemption (not synonymous of course) ultimately need to be carried by the individual struggling, I really can’t understate how important it is to know in those situations that you’re not alone and someone believes in you.

I think a big part of why this theme is important to me is because mental illness, both genetic and due to trauma, is something unbelievably difficult and painful not only for the sufferer but those around them. The most mentally ill characters in fiction tend to be villains, and are disproportionately more likely to be suffering severe trauma. It frustrated me since I was pretty young to see over and over again cases where a mess could have been avoided if there was any support system in place.

Seeing compassion and connection given that kind of power means a lot to me, as does recognizing that villains are people before they are villains. It’s also very reassuring in the sense of “If this person fucked up that badly but still tried to better themself, I can too. And odds are I’m also worthy of love and compassion, even when my issues make things harder for others. I just have to keep working to improve.”

3. Share your favorite description you’ve written?

Eff.

Straight up I think I’ve written too much to have just one favorite description. It’s been a lot of years and I have hundreds of fics and I’m lame. So I’m going to put a few of my favs.

Anytime there’s a gap in block quotes it’s a different section within the same fic.

22 - A Batman Fanfic

He trembles beneath the weight of their expectations but his smile never fades flashes before cameras microphones under his nose crowds screaming questions bleeding together he answers like clockwork the District Attorney who must bring justice to us all paying tribute to false idols with golden hair and silver tongues we the people bow down in worship to this guardian of the law with words and deeds I believe in Harvey Dent so he swears in hallowed halls to bring prosperity to smite the wicked to damn the criminal with authority invested in him by Gotham’s dutiful children and himself.

***

On the precipice of victory we stand united our voice raised like a torch like a spear like a golden arrow against the beast of Lerna we are gods and monsters we are so much more than good and evil we are order in the court cauterizing corruption our head held high and mighty manifest in Harvey of the doubletalk Harvey who writes himself into the fabric of Gotham’s history Harvey who will not bend before the Roman we command you the unworthy we condemn you the unrighteous we will not be merciful and you will fall before our eyes.

***

I am Dionysus divided at the altar of Tyche O Fortuna O Fortuna give me guidance in the light of the moon you dance sacred silver dollar I see and obey the wax and wane your whim Wheel of Fortune the card I am dealt your servant your slave venerated puppet of flesh blessed is your wisdom bestowed upon I am your disciple wine-mad twisted chanting your word becomes law holy splendor against gavels desecrating your name defiant in denial extend your will through me and we shall strike the innocent enlighten the ignorant or spare them all for now.

Doppelganger - A Spider-Man Fanfic

She asks him to tell the story of himself, and like Scheherazade he begins anew each day.

As with many other things, this comparison is imperfect. The Ravencroft Institute is hardly a palace and neither of them could pass for royalty. She sits in a chair across from him over a carpet the color of sawdust. Her walls are lined with insects pinned on display. Not many butterflies, quite a few beetles. On a bookshelf Dmitri sees The Metamorphosis nestled between non-fiction texts more relevant to her profession. He thinks maybe it's an inside joke she has with herself, but doesn't say so.

He's received an invitation to call her Ashley instead of Dr. Kafka and doesn't know whether to accept. It might be to make him more comfortable. It might be something else. In her late fifties Kafka is built from delicate features, and he suspects the lines around her eyes mean they crinkle when she smiles. Short black hair, beige suit, only jewelry a pair of diamond stud earrings. Dmitri thinks she looks like a mother, but not his.

Her weight sinks into leather, darker than the floor. The couch he rests on matches. He finds himself leaning forward with one elbow propped on his thigh, the other locked in a cast suspended by his neck. There is something reassuringly empty in the gray fabric of his uniform, cheap and utilitarian and harmless. Dmitri’s wrists are thin, but then he's lost a lot of weight recently. He probably wouldn't be able to run as fast as he used to, but then circumstances would be the same anywhere he went so that really doesn't matter. His espionage days are over. His free arm is shedding in flakes but at least his skin is dry. Clean.

Dmitri no longer looks like anyone, unrecognizable to himself. A face without much in the way of edges, short nose. Weak chin. Mismatched eyes that shift between green and blue and brown and every other natural hue as moments pass into minutes pass into hours. Dark blotches interrupt his forehead and chin. They will peel in new patterns across a span of days. For the most part though, he is pale enough to trace veins where his body seems on the brink of spilling out.

It's been a while since he shaved his head and the hair that grows back is almost foreign. An unruly mess of black, blond, brunet, and red—strands as unlike in texture as anything else. The mask that made him Chameleon was white plastic embedded with hardware. Left deformed after trying to resemble others in flesh too many times, it allowed him to duplicate any face, any body he could remember. More than holograms, the most complete sensory illusions technology could perform.

Without it, Dmitri feels stripped.

When Kafka looks at him she’s receiving constant signals and missing none of them. The moments he needs to turn away, flat monosyllabic turns of phrase he chooses or resorts to or blankly accepts as his own. It doesn’t have to be this way. It isn’t comfortable and he doesn’t even trust it’s not calculated. But she’s going to notice no matter what he does at this point, and lying about it doesn’t do anyone much good. They both know why he’s here.

***

“We were poor. We worked hard to keep ourselves fed and clothed and less than an embarrassment. I probably could have worked harder. Mother,” he begins before stumbling over himself.

The story he’s telling isn’t hers. Whatever else she was, Sonya Smerdyakov wasn’t Mrs. Bates. He remembers her voice as the beginning of an echo, forever following someone else’s lead.

And so he followed her.

She was bright like a light going out. She was gentle without being kind. Her fingers were short and delicate and she touched him as little as possible. He found her attention in the way she avoided his name.

***

In the privacy of his room, Dmitri began talking to himself.

Celebrities. Teachers. Children. The flat, steady rhythm of his father’s voice. The words and intonations favored by mother. Sergei’s laugh. He lost himself in a fantasy of conversations, strode through space to mimic confidence he didn’t feel, flashed teeth in front of his mirror like other people.

Once, Dmitri raised his voice. And when his older brother came, eyebrows knitting in confusion, he found himself full of stammered explanations, hands fumbling at his elbows, stumbling over his tongue to make sense of it.

Just making stories for himself. A game with no ending. That was all.

***

He would have died in that town under the eyes of speechless parents. Dmitri remembers the confusion that took his peers when he found a job for people who spoke for themselves. They thought he might be growing up.

He could lie. And when he began he understood it would always be a game with no ending.

Dmitri lost himself in a fantasy of conversations with real people and a voice that didn’t belong to him.

They asked a stranger to sign their yearbooks without even realizing it.

And then he was eighteen, and he left to continue elsewhere.

He didn’t announce his departure.

From Umbra - A Final Fantasy XIV Fanfic

It was probably a dream.

Lukewarm water crept down his throat, nearly making him choke. A skin pressed to his lips, insistent. He coughed, and for the first time there was moisture enough for resistance.

The face that obscured his vision was shrouded in white cloth. Cenric found he couldn’t focus on it. Mismatched eyes, one light and the other dark. Impossible to say if blindness caused the inconsistency.

A string of shells dangled from the figure’s neck, rattling gently. The skin pulled back for a moment. Careful. Patient.

It returned only once he'd grown quiet. Cenric drank for as long as he could. Impossibly, a great deal remained by the time he relinquished his hold.

There wasn't enough of him present to say thank you. Cenric barely registered being dragged, being carried onto a cart. Awareness was altogether gone by the time they started to move.

***

…to the blessed traders who enrich our lives we’re bound to pay with our lives in turn aether born fire-walker your will sees us to rest we entrust ourselves to your sight forged of oschon for peace and prosperity and an ending you do not weep for father azeyma lives in the earth with you her fan brings no breeze the air is hot and thick and breathless your domain a silent place that does not stir have you forgotten the sound of your own voice have you known what it is to live and fail have you been alone do you know what it is to die how can a god pass judgment without being judged nald’thal lord of departures of flame and sand whose coin purse overflows who knows not what it means to starve what it means to spoil the legacy of one who loved you nald’thal who holds shells and souls and precious stones as if their worth were equal nald’thal who cannot know mercy without knowing pain who are you to weigh mortal affairs?

***

In darkness he unwinds the black bandana, steps first from his slops and then his kurta. Yuyudana has provided robes, which rest neatly on a small rock nearby. It crosses Cenric’s mind that the bones of his knees, his hips, his wrists, even his face have all started to protrude strangely. He looks less hyuran than before, maybe less than he ever has. Closer to something priests would exorcise than anyone deserving aid.

He wonders if this idea has occurred to them.

The water, when he advances, is cold. Goosebumps raise across his skin as slowly, gingerly, he wades in to his waist.

Cenric ducks under.

His hair is a long and tangled wreck. Being wet only disguises this slightly. It drifts past his neck, comes to float near the surface. Cenric holds himself in silence, eyes open, watching the silver scatter of light over stones and plants and fish. He remains for as long as he can bear.

His vision stings afterward. Gasping, he can’t tell if the cause is exposure or something else. For a time he simply waits, breathing hard through his nose, hunched so that his lips are partially submerged.

He thinks of nothing, pretends that this time instead of no future he has no past.

Only one moon remains. Maybe the sky aches for losing Dalamud, but better that than the blow which scarred Eorzea.

Stalemate - A Final Fantasy XIV Fanfic

He is presented with impressions of a horse, gaunt and fetid and decayed. Spreading ruin wheresoever it goes. Occasionally it sloughs off portions of its own flesh, which collect flies and blacken any land that surrounds. On its back rests a world, and alongside it does the herd struggle under their own burdens. But even beasts of such endurance have limits. Theirs are reached. When the rotten steed lags, its companions cannot afford to falter. Cannot turn. Without its ability to bear loads, this aberration has no place. Falling is inevitable.

Yet a heart still beats and lungs yet swell.

The Ascian shivers in his grasp, but does not attempt escape.

Here, something festers. Something bleeds. An old wound exacerbated over time.

Fevered, coated in a film of self-disgust, the core of Lahabrea convulses.

 Don’t…

 Don’t leave me like this…

***

Teeth and tongue. Lingering, wet, disembodied. Another finds his hip. Another his thigh, slipping beneath what clothes remain.

And another.

And another.

Warm, human, seeking. The Warrior tightens his hold, uses the moan crawling from his own chest as incentive. Barred by naught but fabric, driving close as he can manage. Lahabrea makes a strangled sound, his gasp crushed empty. A new mouth finds the dark knight’s ear in response.

These are parts of him no one dares touch, no one dares acknowledge. Slick now, attended with something like reverence. Supplication.

He resolves to fuck the Ascian senseless for this, presses his intent deep into Lahabrea’s aether. He is going to steal all his fancy words away. Make him squirm.

“I… I…” Tight, airless, like a plucked string. The Warrior feels Lahabrea’s voice reverberate against the roof of his mouth.

The feeling is difficult to describe. Cracked ice. A fraying rope. Such is Lahabrea's response, fumbling and disoriented as it is.

The Warrior lets go.

4. Share your favorite dialogue you’ve written?

Just imagine me weeping over here lmao. Same deal as before, I’VE DONE TOO MUCH SHIT.

Spare Change - A Batman Fanfic

"Stop," he gasps, "I wouldn’t—"

"You would Harvey. You did. It’s what makes you such a damn good instrument. You had to test yourself, prove that you’re not a real person.” He can feel fingers grinding against bone. His knees bend. Harvey kneels, shuddering, gazing up into the destruction of his own visage. Two-Face meets his eyes, blue on blue. “People are weak. People are ruled by what they want and don’t want. You’re capable of anything if the wind blows just right. You can’t even stop yourself.”

"I wouldn’t," he repeats, numbly.

"Did you," demands Two-Face, forcing him down further, "or did you not flip for their lives, Harvey Dent?"

"We…We aren’t the same people anymore."

"Of COURSE we’re the same people!" Another shove and he’s on the ground, Two-Face sitting on his chest, teeth bared, coin clenched tight between them. "Do you really think you can close your eyes and pretend you aren’t capable of these things? They’re alive," and there is something hideous in his expression, something certain, "because they were lucky. No other reason.”

"The coin is gone! Even if I wanted to listen to it—I can’t!”

"If you’re so sure," says Two-Face, "then how about you improvise?”

And with one motion the silver dollar is under his tongue, forced back so hard he feels himself gag and begin to choke before his eyes open.

The Inquisitor’s Letters - A Dragon Age: Inquisition Fanfic

To His Worship Inquisitor Mahanon Lavellan of Skyhold, My name is Isell from Amaranthine and I’m seven. My mum is helping but says I can send you all by myself. Thank you for fixing the hole in the sky and also the one by the dead man’s house. There were demons but they’re mostly gone now and people are going outside now. Da says Amaranthine has been through too much and can survive anything and he says you’re an elf like us and the Hero of Ferelden was an elf too. He says people used to think elves can’t be heroes but now they don’t. Have you met the Hero of Ferelden? Also I heard that even though you’re Dalish Andraste helped you in the Fade and that humans let you be in the Chantry because anyone Andraste likes must be a really good person. What’s Andraste like? The Chant says a lot but it’s different meeting someone I think. Also I think I saw you a little before but Mum wasn’t sure because you had a helmet on and we were far away and there were a lot of people but I bet it was you. Da wasn’t sure I should write because he says the Dalish don’t like city elves like we are but I think you must be nice and Mum agrees with me. I’ve been playing demon hunters with my brother Arrion (he’s just five still) and Da said templars are who fights demons usually and elves can’t be templars. People thought elves couldn’t be heroes and inquisitors though and we are so I bet I could too. Is it hard fighting demons? Da says they’re real scary but I’m not scared. Thank you for helping us and everyone and I hope you kill lots of demons. Sincerely, Isell U’venlan

From Umbra - A Final Fantasy XIV Fanfic

Cenric sits on the floor, draped in a white cotton tunic. It might have been snug on a Roegadyn but anyone else would find ample room. Behind him, Memesu stands on a cot holding shears. Gold earrings dangle on either side of her face.

“I fought at Carteneau, you know,” she mentions casually. There is a soft hsssssshhhh. Click.

Hair hits the floor. Coils.

He starts to shake his head, aborts the gesture partway through. Stills. “…you saw Bahamut?”

Memesu snorts. “I’m sure everyone this side of Hydaelyn saw Bahamut.” Click.

“That’s probably true,” he concedes. The dragon is what everyone knows, everyone remembers. He can't imagine the proximity. “What about the Warriors of Light?”

“Pff.” Gentle tugging at his scalp. Cenric does not open his eyes but leans into the motion. “I wasn’t of rank to see their like. Not that I’d remember. Stop moving.” Click.

Cenric hesitates.

“What do you remember, then?”

For a time, the only sound comes from blades and a thousand strands cut short. This lasts for several minutes. Cenric resigns himself to secrets.

Then, “I used to think I was special too. As a twin. My sister was Memeni. We studied together.”

 Was.

The exhale hits him slowly, quietly.

“She died?”

He can feel the shrug in her hip against his shoulder.

“It was Carteneau,” says Memesu. “Of course she died.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Click. “It had nothing too do with you. If you keep trying to claim responsibility for every misfortune you find, you’re going to get self-important.”

Cenric only grunts, quiet and non-committal.

 Click.

 Click.

 Click.

“Carteneu was so much worse than people remember. Only four years later and already we hurry to dispose of details.” There is a hard undercurrent to Memesu’s voice, but what contact she makes remains light. Careful. “I remember the arcanist from Limsa who didn’t dodge a magitek canon in time. Miqo’te. Spells come faster in that discipline, so there’s less stress on distance than thaumaturgy. Girl got careless.” Click. “The mess smelled like rotten eggs and charcoal. Her face was… melted.” Click. “I try not to look in those situations. They only make casting harder. But she was so close.”

Cenric doesn’t move. Doesn’t say a word.

Memesu continues. “One of our own gladiators, an Ala Mhigan, took to mutilating any pureblooded Garleans he could catch. The man had a string of eyes hanging around his neck. I’m pretty sure one enemy officer wet himself before he started to beg. Not that it particularly mattered.”

 Click.

“Memeni… didn’t anticipate what she was getting herself into. She saw magic as a way of being useful to craftsmen. My focus has always been theoretical. Right side.” Startled, Cenric lets her guide his jaw to get a better view of his profile. Click. Click. “Meni used to think I was a priss. She preferred to develop magitek kettles alongside alchemists. See if she could find a way to capture light like the Mhachi did. She still enjoyed fishing when she could, even though it smelled awful. Never outgrew the braids she wore growing up. ” Memesu sighs. “…just understand she died afraid, in pain, and with things left undone. My sister didn’t even resemble herself at the end.”

Cenric is very still. Thinks carefully.

“…I wish it could have gone differently,” he says at last.

Memesu’s mouth slides up in a small, crooked smile. She tousles the neat, ear-length hair before her. “So do I.”

Eclipse - A Final Fantasy XIV Fanfic

It ends at Elidibus’ untimely arrival.

“Lord Zodiark,” he says, so smoothly that were he not searching for it that the anger would be undetectable, “appreciates your attentions.”  His gaze does not waver from Lahabrea as he speaks. “But there is work to be done and I’m afraid there are words I would have with your Speaker.”

They disperse.

Nabriales, careful and curious, folds himself out of sight beyond the chamber then makes his way back to its edge.

Lahabrea, farthest from the exit, attempts to steal some small dignity. Turns to face Elidibus.

The Emissary makes him wait. Expressionless red masks matched by those who wear them.

Then, with more speed and force than typical for his demeanor, the Emissary closes distance to trap his colleague against the wall.

“It was my error,” hisses Elidibus, leaning in, “to have stayed silent upon rescuing you. A mistake I will remedy now, so we can be on no uncertain terms.”

Lahabrea lowers his eyes. Nabriales notes that despite the dread they all share of such reprimands, the man does not brace.

“You know as well as I that these words offer less succor to our Lord than action,” continues Elidibus, his fury quiet and no less sharp for that, “just as we both know your thoughtless action is the cause of repeated missteps these past centuries. Make no mistake—for all the strides you’ve made, your fixation and your impatience have cost the rest of us considerable time.”

Silence.

“Do you truly think this is your best service to Him?” asks Elidibus. “To us? Compromising your ability to fill the hours? Even Emet-Selch agrees these displays are disgraceful. You have ever borne them poorly, but being a 'paragon among paragons' naturally you continue ignoring your own better judgment with ours to continue this exercise in futility. Idiot.”

A twitch of the head. Almost a flinch.

It is one of few moments Nabriales has seen the Emissary express his anger so openly. Even after the Thirteenth fell to Igeyorhm’s error, Elidibus allowed the Angel of Truth to lead and voiced his own reproach with a more typical icy demeanor. Scathing though it was.

“I can be of use,” says Lahabrea softly. “Only three of us remain, and I—“

“You,” Elidibus snaps, “cannot follow the most simple instructions for the good of us all. Not for Him, not for Amaurot, not even for yourself. Your pride has made you not simply an embarrassment but a liability.”

Neither man speaks for several moments after that.

And then, at length, Elidibus exhales.

Says the Speaker’s name.

Receives his attention.

“What would you have me do?” the Emissary asks. His tone now is almost weary. “Clearly it would be unreasonable to trust you’d simply listen. Must I mind you like a child?” This is what breaks Lahabrea’s composure.

Knowing the man’s temper, Nabriales had expected him to lash out. Even on the back foot their orator is perfectly capable of defending himself from insults.

Instead, he embraces Elidibus fiercely—face just within the bounds of his pauldrons. Jaw locked shut firmly enough to hurt. Expression downcast.

Elidibus remains perfectly still at first. In the absence of conversation it is possible to hear the rush of Lahabrea’s breathing. Only through the nose, withheld briefly between each inhale as if that offers some means to steady himself.

As if that would make it better.

Tentatively, Elidibus holds him back. Lahabrea's fingers contract, and though he remains upright when his knees begin to give it is the Emissary who helps him kneel.

“Easy,” he murmurs, and Lahabrea removes one hand to run it reflexively over his face—coming against the mask.

Nabriales finds himself staring, searching. A puzzle with missing pieces whose image he may yet divine

“It was not,” says Lahabrea roughly, “my intention to…”

Elidibus reaches beneath the other man’s cowl, finds the hair and skin beneath. Draws him in once more.

Naught that would be shared with or among the Sundered. Nothing so personal as that.

Nabriales has worn his own share of flesh. Bedded lovers, adopted companions and families of vessels to fulfill a purpose. Passable enough, perhaps, but never for him. Not in truth.

It’s as if he looks upon two strangers.

Parched - A Final Fantasy XIV Fanfic

The door closes behind them. Lahabrea, projecting his preferred likeness over the host, waits on a couch within.

It’s admittedly a surreal sight. Ishgardian finery with its gilded edges, its elaborate wallpapers and marble floors. A collection of creams and blues and greens, fine furniture with velvet seat cushions. All ostentatious in the extreme… and then Lahabrea. Masked and cowled. Pouring three glasses of La Noscean arrack.

Elidibus freezes, and though none of them can see his eyes the confusion is clear enough.

“What is this?”

“Your turn,” says Emet-Selch, lightly but less flippant than he might have been.

Lahabrea proffers a cup from where he sits.

Elidibus neither moves nor speaks.

Emet-Selch approaches. Takes the drink. Presses it carefully into the other man’s hand.

“Don’t think,” he says smoothly,” that I won’t let you drop it.”

Mercifully, Elidibus has a good grip.

“Sit,” says Lahabrea, gesturing with his own glass to the sofa across from him.

Elidibus sits.

Emet-Selch sits.

Takes his own glass, perhaps a bit pointedly.

Elidibus’ mouth is pressed tight. It opens briefly, as if to speak. Shuts again.

“Explain,” the Emissary manages eventually.

Lahabrea meets his co-conspirator’s eye. Downs his arrack in a single attempt.

It is a long attempt.

It lasts several moments.

The other Ascians watch.

“Elidibus,” says Emet-Selch as Lahabrea endeavors to catch his breath in the aftermath, “Lahabrea and I are concerned that you may be experiencing some difficulties in recent years.”

“I’m fine,” replies Elidibus coldly. Holding his drink. “Why did you think this necessary?”

“Because—“ wheezes Lahabrea.

“Because you’re practically a mammet,” says Emet-Selch, picking up Lahabrea’s glass. Moving it just out of reach. “Truly. It’s been what, two hundred years? Three? Neither of us can remember the last time you so much as spoke of matters unrelated to the Rejoining.”

Lahabrea reaches. Elidibus pours his arrack into the other man’s glass before nudging it back toward him.

Elidibus makes eye contact with Emet-Selch.

“I remain focused,” he says evenly. “Nothing more.”

Emet-Selch gestures to the bottle.

Elidibus sighs.

Refills his own glass.

“There are matters I must attend myself. As is the case with each of you.”

“Undoubtedly,” replies Lahabrea more evenly. “But with few exceptions, you haven’t done so.”

A hard stare from behind the mask.

“What would you have me do? I can’t very well take time off.”

Emet-Selch sips.

“A negligible amount of time,” he says, “taken sparingly, may be forgivable.”

5. Scene you haven’t written, but want to?

Lmao see this is a plus side/minus side deal. Minus side, it’s being asked just before I embark on a MASSIVE ASS FANFIC. And I basically am excited for all of it. Plus side, there are things I refuse to spoil.

So... putting it vaguely, in no particular order:

- Lahabrea and Hydaelyn meet a second time after Praetorium.

- Moonfire Faire

- Thancred

- Conversations over mulled wine

- Silvertear Lake

Some of these are sex scenes. Most aren’t. But I am very hyped.

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Chapter 8: flashback!

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

----

“Wait, how did you even go to Europe on your, erm, ‘piano player’ salary?”

“Edgeworth needed help with cases from time to time - he worked out all the details. I might’ve been technically billed as an Interpol consultant? It drove his sister up the wall. Anyway, so that’s when I met Athena. Pretty simple.”

“It was like it was destiny! And it’s thanks to Mr Wright that I became a lawyer at all!”

“Give yourself plenty of credit. Defense attorney at age eighteen, honestly.”

-

Phoenix does not know jack or shit about the German language, which makes him more than useless (or is it “less than useless”, or do those two turns of phrase come out to mean the same thing like “flammable” or “inflammable”; Iris was the one whose major involved language, not him, and he’s not about to summon her for a grammar lesson) whenever Edgeworth is dealing with officers and witnesses. 

Admittedly, most of them probably have decent English, but they’re trying to maintain the fiction of Phoenix belonging here. (Edgeworth says he belongs here, but while Phoenix trusts Edgeworth more than anyone, he can’t on this matter.) And Phoenix doesn’t like having extra attention drawn to himself, not anymore, not even here across the ocean where only a few people know him from anyone else, and those few trust him that he didn’t present forged evidence. (Or they trust Edgeworth, who trusts him.)

So while Edgeworth is actually getting useful information about the case, Phoenix is left uselessly pacing over the crime scene, and it’s then that he notices, standing on the far side of the Polizei tape, the girl. She might be Trucy’s age, not much more, with red hair half falling out of a ponytail and a broad face with blue eyes that are transfixed, staring unblinking, at the drying blood spilling off of the sidewalk onto the road.

He imagines Trucy, at her age, wandering onto a crime scene and seeing real blood, and that he doesn’t like at all. (Wait until she’s older. Like, fourteen. That’s a good age for starting to investigate murders, right? It’s a year older than Franziska was, but being a better father than Manfred von Karma is a bar so low that it’s in hell, coincidentally with Manfred von Karma.)

“Uh, Guten tag,” he says, sure he’s fucked up that pronunciation as much as something so simple could possibly be mangled. And he doesn’t know why he even tries that much, because it means she responds in German, and he doesn’t know anything else.

Which he admits, but she brightens and says, in unaccented English, “That’s okay! I’m American, actually, but I’m living here now. I think it’s good to learn the language of wherever you are, but it’s harder for adults to learn new languages than kids – there’s a kind of cutoff point where your brain stops absorbing it so easily – so I can’t blame you, really.”

It takes several moments for his brain to even absorb that. Then, finally, faintly, he says, “You shouldn’t be here. It’s a crime scene, you know. Authorized personnel only.”

“And I’m on this side,” she says, indignantly pointing to her feet and then to the tape. Her eyes drift back down toward the blood. 

“Yeah,” he says, “but you’re a kid and really don’t need to be looking at this much blood.”

“I’m almost fourteen.” She raises her chin and stares at him like she knows that’s the arbitrary age he picked and is daring him even in his own head to recant on it, though “almost” isn’t actually fourteen. “And besides, I need to get tougher! Like how I’m running and going to the gym and spending time in crowds and talking to strangers.”

Phoenix frowns. She glares at him. “There’s nothing wrong with being squeamish,” Phoenix says. There isn’t a good way to position himself between the girl and the bloodstain but if he keeps talking maybe he’ll distract her. “And if you don’t like crowds and strangers and you’re out here in the city talking to me, maybe you’re already tough enough. You’re going to be running into those more than murder scenes, anyway.” 

“Oh,” she says. “I didn’t think that someone could lose that much blood and live. I guess they didn’t.” Her eyes start to drift away from Phoenix’s face but then she snaps them back, leveling a suspicious squint at him. “You meant that. About being tough. People say things like that but don’t always mean it, but I can hear you mean that. Even though you don’t know me.”

It isn’t a question, but Phoenix hears one anyway that he feels compelled to answer. “I have a daughter,” he says. “She’s eleven.” 

The red-haired girl nods, satisfied with that. For a moment, anyway. Then she’s back, looping around earlier in the conversation, like she knows how to hit Phoenix’s vulnerabilities after she confessed her own. “What are you doing there?” she asks. “You don’t look like authorized personnel either.”

And he’d even put on a tie and shaved today. Is it his hair? Is it too ridiculous for him to be believable as a professional? “I’m a lawyer,” he says, expecting the next question to be the why don’t you speak German?

She purses her lips and idly taps at the side of her necklace. It’s about the size of a golf ball, with a simple smiling face imposed on a glowing green. “Are you a prosecutor?” she asks. 

Blinking at her, he is too surprised to immediately answer. He wouldn’t have known the types of lawyer at her age if not for Edgeworth. Maybe she’s interested in a career in law, already, and that’s why she thinks she can’t be squeamish. “No,” he says. “I’m a defense attorney.”

Was. He was, past tense. He answers in the present like a reflex, because that’s how he can justify himself being here as a consultant, but he’s not been a defense attorney for almost as long as he was a defense attorney, now. He hung a corner of his identity on it, Phoenix Wright, attorney-at-law, and got hung out to dry. 

“Oh,” she says. “That explains it, why you sounded so sad when you said you’re a lawyer.”

Had he sounded sad? He didn’t think so. He’d answered without thinking, without time to get sad about the fact that he’s lying when he says “I am”. 

“Because it must be really sad to be a defense attorney,” she continues, probably taking his silence for confusion. “Some people think you’re evil and helping criminals, and then you don’t ever win even when the defendant is innocent, because the police trust the prosecutors more and want to get the cases wrapped up as quick as possible because that looks best, so a prosecutor has to be honest and especially honorable to make sure justice is properly served, but a lot of prosecutors are more concerned with win records than being honorable.”

She waits, expectantly, her hands on her hips, for him to say something. It takes much, much longer than it should. “Where did you hear all that?” he finally asks. Somehow, refuting her insistence that the defense always loses doesn’t seem to be the one most pressing matter.

The confidence written on her face and in her pose - not a happy confidence, because she doesn’t seem to like what she’s saying but believes it to be true anyway - vanishes. Her shoulders fall. “My mom’s student was a prosecutor,” she says. “We’d study together, even though it was different things, and he was a lot older than me, but even before he took the Bar he’d tell me all about the legal system - the one back home, back when I still lived in LA.”

“You’re from Los Angeles?” Phoenix asks abruptly. She nods. “I am, as well.”

“Nice!” She raises a hand for a high five and then without missing a beat continues, “He never talked down to me and even if the truth was really heavy he’d always answer any question I had honestly.” Her hand, falling back to her side, freezes in the air. Everything about her freezes for a second. “Almost any.”

If she’s from Los Angeles, with someone in the legal system there, then she might very well know the name Phoenix Wright, and how he was ruined. His stomach turns. He could easily name a few of his high-profile defendants - the ones who weren’t Matt Engarde - as proof that it’s possible to win a Not Guilty, for the price of drawing attention to himself. And he’s really only nitpicking - the concept that she’s saying, that their legal system is rotten to its core, is really true despite Phoenix’s victories. He’s only one man. He was only one. Now he’s nothing at all.

“Oh!” she says suddenly. “I didn’t give you my name! I’m Athena!”

He could’ve stood to introduce himself sooner, if he wasn’t afraid of her or anyone knowing the name Phoenix Wright, and if he hadn’t taken up the fae rule of never offering his name first, which he realized the other day when Edgeworth was introducing him to the rest of their team. Paranoia, always, toward everyone equally. “I’m Nick.” 

Athena raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t that super informal?” she asks. “It feels especially so I guess because I’ve been learning German and it’s all figuring out Sie and du and then you’re an American lawyer just like, yeah I’m Nick.”

“It could be ‘Mr Nick’ if you’re feeling formal,” Phoenix says. 

She laughs and stops, abruptly, tilting her head to the side. Then she takes a few steps forward until the police tape is being pulled forward with her, trying to lean in across the scene. When she ducks under it entirely, she watches where her feet go, at least but she’s still where she shouldn’t be, stretching forward like a cautious dog sniffing an unfamiliar object, turning her head side to side, positioning one ear and then the other toward where Edgeworth is talking to a witness. “Hey!” Phoenix says. “You’re supposed to be on that side--”

“Shh!” she hisses.

She doesn’t move any more, is just listening intently even though Phoenix can barely pick up Edgeworth’s voice, never mind the words themselves, over the other conversations and the background noise of Frankfurt at large. After another minute during which Phoenix braces himself to be yelled at for not removing this child from the crime scene, she straightens back up and turns, very seriously, to Phoenix. “Who’s that?” she asks. “The man talking to the man in the purple suit?”

Phoenix would be more inclined to describe Edgeworth as red, or maybe burgundy, but there’s no one else who could be even close to purple in the area. “He’s a witness,” Phoenix says. “And the prosecutor.”

She nods. “He looks like a prosecutor,” she says. “Fancy.” She shakes herself, like trying to focus herself again, and says, “The witness is hiding something.”

“What?” Phoenix asks.

“He’s hiding something,” she repeats. “He didn’t do it, but he’s glad it happened, and he’s starting to get a little worried about the prosecutor’s questioning.”

Phoenix can’t see “a little worried” in the man’s body language. Certainly there is nothing to suggest any of the rest? Glad? “Where are you getting that from?” Phoenix asks. “I can’t even hear what they’re saying.”

“I have really sensitive hearing,” she says. “Like my ears can pick up a lot of things. And sometimes people’s emotions come through in the subtlest tones of their voice.”

“Like when you said I was sad,” Phoenix says. She nods. “I’ll make sure we look into the witness’ and victim’s backgrounds to see if there’s any connecting threads.”

She blinks. “You - you will? You believe me?”

“Yeah,” Phoenix says. “I believe you.” He would know if she was lying. He would be able to see the locks. “I can’t take the chance of ignoring anything if it could help us get to the truth.” Even if anything is a tip from a strange girl from Los Angeles. (Strange girls from Los Angeles tend to be blessed or fae. Maya and Pearl who are fae. Ema whose sister knew Mia. Trucy whose grandfather was fae and left a blessing on her eyes. Athena who - what?)

“Oh,” she says. “You really do believe me. Even my aunts, sometimes, the ones I’m living with here, sometimes they don’t believe me totally, all the things I can hear, when I tell them. And I--” Abruptly she cuts herself off, scrambling back under the police tape but not fast enough for her to be out before Edgeworth is there, close enough that Phoenix can hear him now too.

“Why is there a child on the crime scene?” he asks.

“I was trying to get her out,” Phoenix says. 

“Unsuccessfully, I see.”

“But I was watching her the whole time and she didn’t touch anything.”

Edgeworth snorts. “Small miracles,” he says. “There was probably some other way for you to occupy yourself, usefully.”

“Hey,” Phoenix says. “I was waiting for you to finish talking and catch me up on what everyone else has to say. Besides, I think I’ve got plenty useful for you.” He turns back to Athena. “You should probably go home now. Stop skulking around at crime scenes and giving your name to strange lawyers you just met.” 

“Okay,” she says. “Is this going to trial tomorrow? Is it going to be at the courthouse just up a couple blocks, if I want to see? Since I wonder how actual court cases are different than the stuff I learned back when.”

“Yeah,” Phoenix says. “But, really. This is my fatherly advice to you.”

Edgeworth rolls his eyes. “Wright. I know you’re missing Trucy, but we do have to go, and you can’t just invite every child you run into along.”

“I was not,” Phoenix says. Though it’s true that he misses Trucy; she had wanted to come, very badly, but this is a trial balloon more than anything, a few days, see if they can get away with it. (Which sounds underhanded even though Edgeworth of course went through all of the proper channels to get Phoenix attached as an Interpol/prosecutorial consultant.) Next time, if there is a next time, which doubtlessly there will be considering the number of times Edgeworth has invited him and Trucy along since Phoenix lost his badge, continuing even through Phoenix’s refusals until the home situation was stable - next time, Trucy will get a European vacation.

(For now, she gets an LA vacation, because she’s staying with Larry and that is a situation far removed from any everyday life. Phoenix anticipates washing paint out of all her clothes for days. And he’s been worried, constantly, even though Larry almost has his shit together more than Phoenix does, and even though he’s assured that Larry’s attention is responsibility focused on his books and on Trucy because he swore off women after his crush on Iris and mostly seems to have stuck to that. Which Phoenix empathizes with innately, because Phoenix also swore off women after Iris and has entirely stuck to that.)

“I invited myself!” Athena says brightly. “It’s not his fault! But okay. No more crime scenes! Got it!” 

“See?” Phoenix asks Edgeworth. “I can be a good influence.”

He pairs the eye roll with a sigh this time. 

-

Phoenix makes it an hour into the trial, from the gallery, before the emotional tumult is too much, sets him fraying from the edges in and burning up from the inside out, and he sneaks out during the cross-examination of the first witness (not the witness Athena pointed out, the one he and Edgeworth had investigated further). He intends to go straight out into the city, where the air still won’t be cold or fresh enough to settle his stomach, but the front steps might be far enough from the courtroom to make his hands stop shaking.

He doesn’t get there, because on the wide stairwell down to the entrance lobby, he finds Athena sitting there, her hands pressed over her mouth, her eyes closed, and her shoulders heaving with long, deliberately steady breaths. Standing on the stairs above her, he sees and Sees a girl not much older than Trucy and with all her stubbornness, a girl who gave him and Edgeworth a very useful hint, a with her red hair matted to her neck by sweat, who looks halfway into an anxiety attack. Who looks the way Phoenix’s poker face won’t allow him to anymore, who has a heart on her sleeve instead of locked behind stone. Strange girls from Los Angeles, nothing - they’re an ocean away and she’s a damn kid and he’s paranoid and half heartless and doesn’t know how to change any of those things and get back his humanity because he doesn’t even know how to be kind to humans anymore either. “Hey,” he says quietly. “Athena?” 

She twists her head around sharply, frantically wiping tears out of her eyes. “Oh, hi, Mr Nick,” she says. She sniffs loudly but forces a bright grin onto her face. That reminds him of Trucy, too, the lie inherent in the expression.

“Do you mind if I sit down?” he asks. She shakes her head. He folds himself down onto the stairs next to her. “Yeah. Overwhelming in there, isn’t it?”

She nods. “It’s loud,” she says. “I wanted to watch everything but everyone in there is so loud with everything they’re feeling. And I’d been saying that I’d gotten better at shutting out hearing anything extra but what I wanted to but I guess I was wrong because now I’m…” She rests her chin on her arms. 

“Yeah, I told myself I’d be fine and I was lying to myself too,” Phoenix says. “I’m - I was a lawyer. I’m not anymore. I was careless - someone gave me some suspicious evidence and I just presented it without further investigation, and it was forged and the prosecutor knew in advance, and I got my badge taken.” She stares at him with wide blue eyes. “This is the first time I’ve been back in a courtroom since.”

“And that’s why you were sad,” she says. “When you said to me that you’re a lawyer.” She keeps staring at him, as though she might figure anything out from seeing and not hearing. “Did you ever actually win a case?” she asks.

“I did, actually,” he says. 

She sits back up straighter. “Really?” she asks. “Even with everyone against you, and - and even if you know that they didn’t do it what if no one listens to you? That you go up there and scream and no one listens?”

“You never really know if your client is guilty or not,” Phoenix says. “You just have to believe, and fight for the truth.” Those are Mia’s words, not his own; he has trouble believing, sometimes. He has trouble putting his heart into anything. “But the thing about being a defense attorney, with your badge” - he starts to point to his badge and stops, because it isn’t there anymore - “is that when you’re up at the bench, they have to listen to you. That’s your job and their job. So you get that badge and get back there and you just scream, as loud as you can, in your client’s defense.”

Athena has steely eyes when she’s focused and intent, staring at him like she can find the whole truth of the world and the profession in the words of a man who’s been disbarred almost as long as he ever had the authority of a badge. “I think I believe you,” she says. “You sound sincere. Like you believe you.”

Does he? He doesn’t know. But Larry wasn’t convicted of murder, and Edgeworth wasn’t. Von Karma tries to steamroll the judge and the entire court and still Phoenix, with Maya’s help, screamed louder. Is she right? Is he right?

“Let’s go back in,” she says, standing up and firmly planting her hands on her hips. “We can handle it this time.”

-

The verdict doesn’t come that day, but the witness Athena had earmarked admits, under pressure of being on the stand, to have been involved in the planning of the crime but refuses to say who he was planning with. Athena’s eyes are alight; she leans forward so far that Phoenix is afraid she’s going to tumble out of the gallery and talks his ear off on their way out, tagging along with him like a shadow. He doubts she’s really aware of where he’s going, just that she has things to say to him and wants to say them. If he’s lying, he’s only a little worried about her and this way that she’s just attached herself to a stranger. Does she do this often, or is it just him? He can be grateful that her ears might help her sus out whether someone has good intentions. 

But still, she’s not that much older than Trucy. (And Trucy attached herself to him in the same way. And Ema. Is there some part of a blessing that makes him a magnet for preteen girls? Or is it a very weird curse that no one’s informed him of?)

“And the prosecutor,” Athena adds, not taking in that they are approaching the prosecutor lobby, and that very soon she will be talking about said prosecutor not behind his back but to his face. “Prosecutor Edgeworth - is he the Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, from Los Angeles?”

“Yes,” Phoenix says, cautiously, and Edgeworth, standing at one of the lobby benches putting the last of the papers into his briefcase, looks up in alarm. It would be nice if the only thing he had to be afraid of right now was Phoenix trying to adopt this child, too. “Why?”

“Because he’s famous!” Athena says, throwing her arms in the air. “He’s Miles Edgeworth! He’s one of the best prosecutors in the state and abroad! Even crazy international cases don’t scare him!” Phoenix has a memory of Ema gushing in a similar manner. “And he cares about the truth and is honorable and that’s tragically rare, but - ah.” Finally stepping out from behind Phoenix, she spots Edgeworth right there, and she shrinks down and retreats back into Phoenix’s shadow. “Oh. Hi.”

“Wright,” Edgeworth says, pressing a hand to his face, which Phoenix swears is turning a little pink. And it’s funnier the more Phoenix thinks about it, because Athena said what she knew of the legal system was what a family friend told her, and that means that Athena isn’t the only Edgeworth fan. The person who told her about him likely was, too. Phoenix needs to mention that to him later. “Wright, Wright, I leave you for two hours and again you find—”

“Wait!” Athena gasps. She springs back from Phoenix, blue eyes huge in her face, turning between him and Edgeworth so fast that she hits herself with her hair. “Wait, wait, Wright? You aren’t - he’s Edgeworth, so you, Mr Nick, you aren’t Phoenix Wright, are you?” She struggles for words, her palms drumming on the air as she searches for what she means to say. “The badge, what you said about your badge, losing it - you’re Phoenix Wright!” 

“Yes,” Phoenix says, and even Edgeworth can hear how pained he sounds on admitting it. (Names matter, in magic and in general, and Phoenix cannot, will not, give up on his own. But sometimes he’s tempted; sometimes he just wants to be Nick, or no one at all.)

Athena’s eager smile slides off her face. “Oh,” she says. “Oh. I’m sorry. It’s just - you’re a legend too!” Implying Edgeworth is, and yes, his face is rather pink, adorably flustered by that bout of compliments earlier. “Will Powers and Max Galactica and Mask DeMasque! And you won all those cases! You won, you actually won!” Her smile returns, infectious enough that it loosens something that has been tight in Phoenix’s chest since he entered the courthouse in the morning. “I didn’t think defense attorneys could, but even though there was evidence and - and it seemed certain - they were innocent and you proved it!” Her mouth hardens in a line of intense concentration. “I want to be a defense attorney,” she says. “Like you. I want to be able to save people, like you, because it’s possible if you did it!”

The constriction around his heart returns with a vengeance. “It’s not as easy as that,” Phoenix says. “Saving people, I mean.”

He avoids Edgeworth’s eyes. They had that conversation during the Engarde trial, back when Phoenix was still trying to hang onto his last bit of optimism and faith in Mia’s words to believe in his client. Back when Phoenix thought he might ever have some sort of moral high ground. There was a crossroads he and Edgeworth met at, then, and Phoenix took the path that Edgeworth had just left behind. And Edgeworth became better than Phoenix ever was. 

Athena frowns. “But they weren’t guilty, and you saved them from the guilty verdict. Trials and investigations are complicated but that’s simple enough isn’t it?”

“Conceptually, anyway,” Phoenix says. 

“A career in law isn’t just something you pursue on a whim like this,” Edgeworth says, and again Phoenix avoids his eyes. This one is aimed straight at him. “It’s a lot of work that you have to dedicate yourself entirely to, and—”

“I know!” Athena says. “I know how much work it is! And how hard the Bar is! And what a mess the system at home in LA is! But I’ve wanted to for years. I just - I didn’t know how. And I didn’t think it could be anything but fighting losing battles.” Again she looks between them, her head tilted, assessing them with eyes and ears both. “But I could! I could, right?”

“You could,” Phoenix says. It isn’t his place to try and crush her. Studying for the Bar would do that if she wasn’t truly determined. “I’ve known some young prosecutors who got their badges abroad, so I don’t see why a budding defense lawyer couldn’t.” Sometimes he’s pretty sure that prosecutors get more leeway to even get the badge - he knows damn well they get more leeway when it comes to conduct while having the badge - but he glances at Edgeworth, who doesn’t make motion to say no, she couldn’t. 

“I’m not too young, am I?” she asks, slumping from what was a moment ago bright confidence. She wheels quickly through emotions, and Phoenix doesn’t remember much about being thirteen, but he does remember feeling everything too much, and like was the end of the world. Hell, he felt like that at twenty, too. 

“My sister got her badge at thirteen,” Edgeworth says. Phoenix can hear the twinge of bitterness. They’ve talked about that, the age of some prosecutors, how they’re so young, too young, set loose to be too easily manipulated by the older people around them. How Franziska should have been allowed to be a child instead just a name. 

But Athena beams, that Edgeworth had addressed her with something that is in one facet encouragement. “I’m thirteen now, so I don’t think I can manage that,” she says. “But I’m already a grade ahead in school so what’s a few more?”

“That’s the spirit,” Phoenix says. 

Again her smile disappears and she fidgets, bringing her arms tight across her chest. “You probably have investigating to do,” she says. “And I’m talking about how important that is and then I’m taking up all your time.”

“It’s all right,” Phoenix assures her. “Edgeworth’s used to finding more kids to advise, huh?” He nudges Edgeworth with his elbow. “And I don’t mind, either. I know how important it was for me to find someone to look up to when I was starting as a law student.”

Athena nods solemnly. “Can I give you my email address?” she asks. “For if I want honest answers about being a lawyer?”

“You don’t think there’s anyone else who can be honest?” Phoenix asks. 

Athena shrugs. “You haven’t really talked down to me, either,” she says. 

His heart, what’s left of it, what isn’t yet frozen, screams in protest. He isn’t a good person to be around - he can’t be a mentor - he’s afraid to love his best friends and his own daughter - he can’t just strike up another correspondence. He might’ve let his emails with Ema trickle out for a reason, and that reason is that he knows the road that Death takes him down, and god only knows what Misfortune will add.

But in the same way he’s afraid because she looks like Trucy, because she’s thirteen years old and bright of mind and bright of smile, he wants to help her. Help her because Mia helped him, like he just mentioned Mia, and he compared to Athena must have looked like far less promising a candidate to take under wing.

(Strange girls from Los Angeles, blessed or fae, another following in his wake. Trucy’s sharp eyes. Athena’s sharp ears. Good for poker, good for witness interrogations. He keeps seeing Trucy or even Ema, not Maya or Pearl.)

(Christ, he’s not adopting her, though.)

“Edgeworth,” Phoenix says. “Do you have a pen and a business card or something? So I can give her my contact info?”

Edgeworth sighs. “Honestly,” he says. “You should at least have a pen and some paper on you. You’re an investigator, you can’t just slack off - and you’re giving her my information too?”

“Yeah,” Phoenix says. “It’s important to know your enemy. See the other side.”

Edgeworth’s glare could split rock, but fortunately, Phoenix’s head is harder than that. “Of course!” Athena says. “That’s very important! And, oh, I never introduced myself to you, Prosecutor Edgeworth!” She extends a hand and he starts, taken aback by her boldness. “My name’s Athena, Athena Cykes!” 

Ah, a last name too, this time. Edgeworth blinks slowly and accepts her hand even more hesitantly. “Cykes?” he repeats slowly, quietly, like he’s not aware of her being there right in front of him to hear him.

She nods eagerly. “Yep! Athena Cykes.”

“Cykes,” he says again, dragging it out like a hiss. “Athena Cykes.” Edgeworth isn’t good with names, Phoenix notices and usually hasn’t pointed out to him when he gets them mixed up, but maybe he’s finally noticed it himself. He’s taking care not to end up calling her Artemis Psyche later, maybe. “Nice to meet you, Miss Cykes.” He releases her hand and then goes into his jacket pocket to pull out a business card. Athena’s grin widens, and Phoenix indulges in a small smile. So she’s won him over now, too. “Now, I suppose…” He hands the card, and a pen, to Phoenix, even though he just as quickly could write down Phoenix’s email and number and office address. It’s the principle of the thing, surely.

“Thank you!” Athena practically squeals when she takes the card from Phoenix. “Thank you both so much, Mr Wright, Prosecutor Edgeworth! Good luck on your case! I’ll let you go to it now! Au revoir!” 

“Even I know that’s not German!” Phoenix calls at her back, and her laugh lingers after she bolts around the corner.

-----

[chapter notes]

#roddy fanfics #fic: the witches of los angeles