I love the idea of Phoenix watching his kids growing up and—
well, Pearl and Trucy have never met Dahlia Hawthorne. They’ve both heard plenty, and Pearl will never forget those stressful few days in Hazakura when Maya was kidnapped. But neither of them have faced off with her in the same way much of their family has.
Pearl starts to experiment as she learns about the outside world. She grows her hair out long, like Mystic Maya, and braids it, like Sister Iris. She tries out hoodies and beanies and trench coats and overalls, and finds out that she quite enjoys formal wear, long, sunny dresses and silvery suits and ruffled skirts. They make her feel grown-up and responsible, like people will take her seriously when she speaks her mind, and the flowing fabric of the dresses especially feels familiar, just like the way her robes drape around her body.
She’s getting taller, too, outgrowing Sister Bikini, and then Trucy, then Maya, and slowly creeping up towards being able to look Phoenix straight in the eyes.
She goes to school, and struggles to catch up with her reading, but quickly starts to devour every book she can. She reads the romances where life is hard but the lovers fight for each other, and the fantasy books where the heroes find their real family in each other as they journey to save the world. She talks about being a writer someday, or maybe a poet.
Every time Pearl learns about the world, her eyes light up in naive wonder, eyes bright and innocent in a way that makes Phoenix want to beam with pride, but his throat closes up on him because he’s seen those eyes before.
He wonders if Maya recognizes it too. Iris certainly does.
And when Pearl arrives at the Agency one afternoon, umbrellas still out from the rain, wearing a long sundress and a French braid, smiling with a quiet sense of wonder, Phoenix looks into her eyes and sees the eyes of the woman who tried to kill him, her long-gone older sister.
And-and of course it’s not fair. It’s never fair. Phoenix has never been mistaken for a family member in that way, but he knows what it’s like for someone to force the pain of a ghost onto you because of circumstance and tragedy. He’d never want that for Pearl. But every time his hair stands on end when she laughs, he worries that he’s not hiding it as well as he should be.
Trucy’s lucky in that way, of course. With her short, bouncy curls and warm, brown, freckled skin, she doesn’t look a thing like Dahlia. She wears short black dresses and big white boots, and plops on her hat and cape with the careless ease of a showgirl.
well, Trucy’s different from Pearl. She didn’t grow up in a small, lonely village. She grew up on a world stage, knowing that thirst for the spotlight and the ever-present eyes of the audience. She’s been to more countries than she is years old. She lived with a lonely father and a jealous uncle who fell out of a great partnership, and learned that love is something you can get if you’re nice but not kind and you smile for the crowd. She lived with another lonely father who taught her to keep closest the people you mistrust.
when Pearl smiles, it’s out of wonder, or joy, or love, or to keep up Maya’s spirits or to convince Phoenix to keep fighting his case.
when Trucy smiles, it’s to soften down a bitter witness or get through a restricted hallway or pass off a dangerous piece of evidence or to convince one recently jobless Phoenix Wright to love her, to keep her around, because she needs him.
and in that way, Trucy understands Dahlia.
She knows why a girl might lie to make it through the world, to cover up under a guise of helplessness and let others take the helm and spill their secrets. She knows the world isn’t fair, knows that family won’t take care of you in the way they should, and knows that sometimes you have to get your hands dirty to stay safe.
She also knows that Dahlia hurt the person she cares about most in the world. He won’t talk about it much, but he refuses to take cold medicine and when he smiles, she can see a few scars along his lips. She can figure out the rest from the case files still tucked in the back of their closet.
But Dahlia Hawthorne isn’t the only sweetly smiling girl to use Phoenix Wright.
So while Trucy can never forgive Dahlia, learning about her still makes Trucy feel… understood. In a way she tucks quietly into the back of her mind, and never speaks of again.