Robin smiled as he leaned against one of the garlanded pillars ringing the grand ballroom, watching Chrom and Sumia dance their way across the polished tiles. Even amongst the finely clad nobles turning around them, the Exalt and his wife shone bright -- not simply their attire, but their smiles, as well, lighting the room far better than the candles and warming it more than the braziers in the corners.
“They look like they’re havin’ a grand time, huh,” Flavia asked, sauntering over with a hearty cup of mulled wine in hand.
“Indeed,” the tactician murmured, nursing his own mug of cider. “Their presence makes any noble gathering bearable.”
“So when’re you gonna go join them in the dance?” the East Khan asked, grinning sidelong at him over the rim of her cup.
“Oh, I’ve no intention of dancing tonight,” he chuckled. “I’ve other matters of import to tend that leave me exempt from taking part in the other festivities.”
“Ah, that’s right. Childminding duty.”
She leaned over, smiling down at Lucina; the child holding Robin’s free hand peeked back at her, blue eyes wide and wondering. “Have you met before?” he asked. “Khan Flavia, this is Lucina, heir to the halidom of Ylisse; Lucina, this is Flavia, Khan Regnant of Regna Ferox.”
The child let go of his hand, dipping into an impressive curtsy for a girl of only five years. “It’s an honor to meet you, Khan Flavia,” she said, repeating words that had been carefully drilled into her memory by various mentors and advisors.
“Ah-ah,” Robin chided lightly. “The Feroxi greeting.”
She jumped at the reminder, looking sheepishly up at the tactician before clearing her throat, squaring her stance, and folding her arms behind her in a fine display of militant poise. “It’s a damn fine honor to meet you, sir!” she announced, her suddenly brazen voice ringing over the ballroom.
“Lucina!!” her parents yelped from somewhere in the crowd of dancers, completely missing whatever their next step should have been while Khan Flavia herself doubled over in a wheezing fit of laughter.
“Oh, I like this one!” she grinned. “I’m taking this one with me.”
“Alas, I’m afraid you can’t,” Robin sighed. “She’s under my protection, so if you tried to take her I would need to insist that you have to go through me first, and that would get very messy very quickly--”
“That’s easy enough -- I’ll just take you, too!” Flavia laughed, effortlessly grabbing the tactician and throwing him over her shoulder before crouching to scoop Lucina up under her other arm. “Always wanted a tactician, y’know.”
“...somehow I did not foresee this,” he admitted to the giggling child.
periwinkleeverybody wants somebody - patrick stumpmissing you - all time low summertime - my chemical romancesomewhere in neverland (acoustic) - all time lowroman holiday - halsey dream catcher (acoustic) - set it off monday monday monday - tegan and sara
bonus: life on mars - david bowie
orange holy - pvris from now on we are enemies - fall out boygirls like girls - hayley kiyoko lost boy - troye sivanhum hallelujah - fall out boy angel with a shotgun - the cab you’re not in on the joke - cobra starship
Cardcaptor Lissa AU! I love Cardcaptors and this AU soooo much c: Just a quick question, but is Grima a bit like the Nothing card from the CSS movie then?
It’s a lot of fun so far it’s still in development since I’m still very early in my Cardcaptor Sakura re-watch (and I’ve never seen the whole series before -- I didn’t realize there were two movies until recently), but I’m really enjoying myself. ❤
As for Grima, though, I’m actually slotting him in as the Yue analogue because of all the parallels between them!
Yue is the ‘other self’ for Yukito, who is not only one of Sakura’s closest friends but her older brother Toya’s boyfriend. Grima, meanwhile, is effectively the ‘other self’ for Robin -- one of Lissa’s dearest friends and her older brother Chrom’s boyfriend.
Yue represents the moon and is affiliated with elements like dark, wind, and water, including storm and rain aspects. Grima is associated with dark magic (up to and including Grima’s Truth being a dark magic spell), but stormclouds and rain arise when Grima’s dragon form appears, and Robin (Grima’s vessel) is most adept with storm-like wind and thunder magic.
Yue’s existence long predates Sakura’s time as a Cardcaptor, and he had close ties with the other guardian of the cards. Needless to say, Grima’s existence long predates Lissa, and depending on how you view the timeline, he could be Tiki’s contemporary and I want them to be friends.
Yue’s arrival on the scene is a powerful moment that heralds the “Final Judgment” of the Cardcaptor candidate, where failure means losing something impossibly dear (in this case, memories of people they care for). Grima’s return to the world is said to herald its destruction -- the loss of everything dear, effectively. Grander in scope, but similar intent.
Yue’s defining feature are those amazing wings. It’s rather incidental, but at least in Heroes, Grima’s special art sports wings (three pairs, in fact).
I still have details to work through, but so far it just makes the most sense to me for Grima to be attached to Robin as in canon rather than being a card with no connection. That’s just me and my plan though!
Hi just curious! Will you be participating in Chrobin week 2020?
I’m kind of on the fence, actually! I wasn’t all that thrilled with the prompts this time around -- certainly not enough to do anything big or cohesive -- and I already poured pretty much everything I could in story terms into Affectionately Yours for the Chrobin Celebration back in July. 60k words is an accomplishment, and I’m perfectly happy to just let that sit as my contribution to the Chrobin fandom this year; if I do anything, it’ll be small-scale art pieces out of my existing works posted over on the art blog.
This might seem out of the blue, but do you ship Gaius and Maribelle? Either way, do you have any headcanond about the two of them? Thanks!
I don’t ship them, myself! Personally I’ve always been more a fan of Maribelle and Vaike, in part because I think they work really well together. Maribelle wants to be part of the magistery court so she can fight for fair and equal treatment for all, but is woefully out of touch with the common people she wants to fight for; Vaike, meanwhile, comes from a very rough and tumble background that’s pushed him to fight to raise his community up from the slums, but nobility doesn’t mean anything at all to him -- and because he doesn’t show it “due respect,” in Maribelle’s eyes, it earns him no shortage of tongue lashings early on. But he’s a good guy, and he listens when Maribelle worries about being unapproachable or out of touch, and happily drags her about as far from the noble pomp and circumstance as it’s possible to get so she can bet better acquainted with the common folk; and even if he’s not really good with all the frilly noble nonsense, he at least gives it a try for the sake of fairness. I just really feel like they can be good for each other: Vaike helping to keep Maribelle grounded and in touch with the common folk she wants to fight for and showing her the struggles they face, while Maribelle with her keen wit (and no shortage of funds from her pedigreed lineage) can help him to make more of a change for the people of his community than brawling could on its own.
(Also, everything about Brady makes so much sense with Vaike as his dad. The super scary face? The horrible posture? The rough and tumble attitude despite being a healer? The coarse language that about makes Maribelle faint? I love Brady as Vaike’s kid okay.)
This is not to say that I don’t have headcanons about Gaius and Maribelle interactions, though. Because I do (and you can blame Future Built for that):
Gaius and Maribelle have history, and it’s not pretty. Maribelle’s spent a not-insignificant portion of her life hating Gaius for slandering her father’s name in court, and Gaius has spent about the same amount of time feeling guilty for it, even though he was forced into it and then tried his best to minimize the damage as soon as he was able. It takes time for them to understand this about each other, though, and try to mend the burnt bridge they’d never been able to cross before.
Gaius is a very clever, very capable thief, and quite the adept spy, to boot. Maribelle may not approve of his choice of career (which, as he points out, he didn’t have much of a ‘choice’ in), but she grudgingly admits that it has its merits; the two of them make for a very formidable team, with Gaius doing the shady sort of information gathering while Maribelle puts them to use in publicly undermining a corrupt system.
Gaius’ obsession with candy is probably one of the most well-known things about him. Maribelle has tried to get him to give up his life of crime by promising that he can always come to her for a meal (or, yes, even sweets), and it works...for maybe a few months, and then he’s back on the rooftops again. It’s for a good cause, of course, and has nothing to do with candy (...probably), but it frustrates Maribelle to no end.
Even Maribelle’s own home isn’t safe from Gaius’ nimble lockpicking skills. He has taken it upon himself to keep her sharp by testing her security, finding the biggest vulnerability, and sneaking in to leave presents for her in her preferred office -- sometimes information, sometimes sweets to go with her tea. Every time she has to do a full sweep to figure out where he got in this time and figure out how to try and reinforce it. It’s become something of a game for the both of them, and while Maribelle might claim she loathes it, she can’t deny it’s an entertaining change of pace.
The more you talk about this, the more I want to read it! Edgeworth-centric and also more Edgeworth-Maya interactions, ahhhhh. I’m also sooo interested in reading about how the relationship falls apart and how they (hopefully, maybe, I don’t believe Feenie is actually dead here… right??? Q_Q) eventually make better or move on and just- ahhhh I wish this fic was here already (if you get back to it)
(Trucy still exists, right? Even tho Wright wasn’t disbarred, right???)
Of course Trucy still exists I could never write her out of existence she’s too precious of a child to not be around in some way shape or form (and there’s nothing to say that Nick won’t end up with her at some point in the future, anyway -- he could always use another kid or two, and I think we all know it). Interestingly enough, though, one of my other big works was an AA4-compliant piece, also Edgeworth-centric, that involved a lot of Edgeworth-Trucy interactions because Trucy’s a part of Phoenix’s life now, and if he wants to have any part in it himself Edgeworth has to get along with the adopted daughter. It actually had a decent chunk of words in it, too (around 12k -- it’s the second excerpt from the link in the last post).
But in all honesty people getting excited about my stories gets me excited about those stories and since I still don’t know when I’m going to get around to writing the whole thing out, what’s the harm in dropping the summary?
Gonna give this another shot and Tumblr’s not gonna eat it this time mark my words
A couple notes before we get into things:
OCs are fair game in Ace Attorney as far as I’m concerned, and we’re certainly going to have a host of them. From the prosecutor on the case to all of those involved, I’ll be making a whole cast and crew to back this story up, and if I can manage it there will be absolutely terrible puns, because that just seems to be how AA games operate.
Lana Skye is hands down one of my absolute favorite characters in the series, and it’s a crime that they only put her into one bonus case and put her in prison at the end of it. For all of my continuities, I completely write out SL-9 as a case: Joe Darke never escaped his cell, Lana got into the prosecutor’s office and became chief by virtue of her own talents, and both the prosecutor’s office and the police department have cowboys running around.
I have a fairly non-standard view of Phoenix as a person, just based on everything I remember seeing in fandom back when I was more active. For instance: I love the fact that he was an art student, but I’ve always specifically thought he was aiming to be an actor and had a thing for Shakespeare; frankly, the ad libbing that has to go into acting when something goes wrong explains so much for me where Nick’s bluffing is concerned (when a man interrogates a parrot, you know he has a weird history). Unrelated but still relevant to that point, I think he’s actually a decent pianist and took lessons through most of his childhood and adolescence -- but he’s a classical pianist by training and not great at playing by ear, so people just think he sucks because he botches any modern tunes. So if you see something that seems Weird compared to fandom’s general take, just know that it probably has backstory.
So with all that in mind, let’s dive in.
In true Ace Attorney fashion, the whole thing starts with a cold open. As he finishes up the last of the paperwork associated with the case he wrapped up that afternoon, Phoenix gets a call from a familiar number, and though he dreads the conversation to come he answers anyway, refusing an offer to meet and saying that he can’t do this anymore before someone enters the inner office. He insists that they’re closed as he turns toward the door, and a voice replies that this won’t take long -- and then there’s gunshots. And then nothing.
The next morning, Maya is understandably shocked and horrified to arrive at the office and find that it’s once again a crime scene: bullet holes in the windows, blood on the floor, police everywhere...but no sign of Nick. Gumshoe is on the scene, though, and after a lot of badgering, he reveals that there’s been no sign of Phoenix, but the police are operating under the assumption that he’s dead -- and they’ve already arrested a suspect. Maya can’t imagine who would want to hurt Phoenix, and hearing that it’s Miles Edgeworth they’ve imprisoned just makes the whole thing feel that much more surreal. Sure, Nick and Edgeworth have had their disagreements --- including one the day before, in the recesses of their trial, and Phoenix had seemed really upset after that -- but she didn’t think it was something worth killing over.
But she’s still hurt, and reeling from the morning’s news. So her first order of business is to march down to the Detention Center to confront him. Edgeworth is...not surprised to see her, given the circumstances -- but when she demands to know why he did it, he insists that he’s innocent: he would never harm Wright, no matter the circumstances. As much as Maya wants to believe that, though, the fact that he doesn’t seem upset by Nick’s supposed death so much as the accusation that he had a hand in it rubs her wrong, and despite herself she can’t help but wonder if he did have some role in it; regardless, she still goes everywhere she can think of in hopes that there was a mistake, that Nick is okay after all, collecting evidence with every stop...but as it gets later, when there’s still no sign of him, she and Pearl return to the Detention Center.
With no defense counsel, Edgeworth is almost guaranteed to go to prison...but at Pearl’s urging, Maya steps up and offers to defend him, since she recently passed the bar and got her badge. She spends the rest of the evening doing her best to cobble together a case based on what little information she has, and reports to the courthouse the next morning for her very first trial as a defense attorney.
Her first case, and Nick isn’t even there to see it. She didn’t think it could hurt any worse.
Before they’re called into the courtroom, the defense gets a surprise visitor: chief prosecutor Lana Skye, come to deliver case notes and evidence files. Maya barely gets time enough to leaf through them before they’re called into the courtroom to start the trial, where she finds herself facing the rising star from the prosecutor’s office: Gayle Huntington, a young woman who counts Chief Prosecutor Skye as her inspiration and who is excited to add another guilty verdict to her record, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that one of her fellow prosecutors stands accused.
The prosecution declares it a crime of passion, and presents their theory of the case: following a heated confrontation outside the courtroom, Miles Edgeworth called Phoenix Wright to arrange a meeting. While he may have intended only to put an end to the argument, tempers flared, and in a fit of rage the defendant shot the victim three times before dragging the body down to the street and driving it off to be disposed of at another location. Their evidence includes the blood found at the scene, which matches Phoenix based on forensic testing; three bullet holes in the office window, though no slugs or casings were found at or around the office despite an extensive search with metal detectors; Edgeworth’s phone, which shows that the last call before he contacted 911 was made to Wright’s number; and a handgun found at the scene which shows evidence of recent firing, though no magazine was found in it.
Over the first day of testimony, Maya manages to shred the prosecution’s case based on that chain of events:
The gun, as it happens, belonged to Phoenix himself. One of the documents the chief prosecutor provided to the defense was a photocopy of a sign-in sheet for a local gun range, which not only has Nick’s signature on it, but included a copy of his firearm registration and permit, which was for the exact make, model, and serial number as the purported murder weapon. Lana Skye herself is called to the stand, as her name also appears on the sign-in, and she testifies that after court the previous day she happened across Wright at the range and they talked a bit; he said that he needed to blow off a bit of steam before going back to his paperwork, and she clearly recalls that he did not clean his weapon before leaving, instead saying that he would do so after he went home since his cleaning kit was there. On closer examination, it's discovered that while the weapon has mostly been wiped clean, the trigger was not, and a partial print matching Phoenix is recovered.
On calling Edgeworth himself to the stand, he admits that he did contact Phoenix late in the evening in the hopes of resolving the argument from that afternoon; however, he was across townpicking up his car from the repair shop when he made that call, and when he heard what sounded like a shot before the call cut out he immediately drove to the office where he found the blood trail leading to the curb. Cell tower records do, in fact, confirm that he was far from the defense attorney’s office when the call was made, and based on the time of his calls to both Phoenix and 911, there was far too narrow of a window to dispose of the body.
The next revelation comes with the filing of a new piece of evidence, courtesy of a frantic Gumshoe bursting into court and taking the stand. The police, in their search of likely dumping grounds for a body, dredged something out of the river that seems to confirm that they have a murder on their hands: a blue suit coat with three apparent bullet holes in the back...and Phoenix’s badge still affixed to the lapel. What little blood evidence they were able to collect matches Phoenix, as well.
For all that this is a stunning (and devastating) revelation, it brings with it yet more to undermine the prosecution’s case: namely the bullet evidence. When placed on a mannequin, even coupled with the knowledge that Phoenix left his suit jacket unbuttoned while working in the office, the placement of the bullet holes in the back would require that there be associated entry points in the front -- which do not exist. Maya draws the logical conclusion, then, that the shots must have been fired from outside the office -- through the window, and the reason no slugs or casings were found was because the shots weren’t fired from inside the office, and the bullets were still in the victim.
Despite the upset in court, the prosecution refuses to budge, and the Judge refuses to declare a Not Guilty verdict. Court adjourns for the day instead, and Maya heads out to continue her investigation. Making her way to the Gatewater Hotel, she manages to get information on who was staying in the room across from the office: four members of a jazz band in town for a show, who insist that they’re the only ones who have been in the room and that they were setting up for a performance on the night of the crime. Though she doesn’t know them herself, she hears vague rumors that they have a fifth member who’s been in some ‘legal trouble.’ When Maya relates the name to Edgeworth, he remarks that it seems somehow familiar, though he can’t quite place why. She also gets the prosecutor’s repair records and goes to check out the rental company he used while his car was in the shop, which nets her a copy of the damage and condition checklist the agent filled out when Edgeworth brought the car back.
While Maya has the case to occupy her mind, Miles has no such means of escaping his own thoughts in his prison cell. Between the confirmation that the jacket does, in fact, belong to Phoenix (something he had tried to deny at first, hoping that the coat was a look-alike and the badge stolen, only to have that possibility dashed by the presence of Wright’s initials on the underside of the tag) and the relative isolation in the detention center, he’s had ample time to think over how things had been with Phoenix -- including how he, himself, had been with the defense attorney...and he’s forced to face some very hard truths about his behavior toward someone he cares about far more than he wanted to believe.
With the start of the second day in court, the prosecution has changed its theory of the crime, but not its perpetrator: rather than committing the crime alone, Edgeworth had an accomplice, and his call to Wright was a ploy to get him into firing range while the shooter waited in the hotel for his chance. Leaving his rental car in front of the defense attorney’s office, he picked up his usual vehicle and upon arriving at the crime scene helped his accomplice load the body into the getaway car for disposal while he made a call to police. Their evidence comes from photos of the rental vehicle in question, which show damage not reported on the return checklist, as well as blood evidence taken from the trunk which matches Phoenix.
Once again, Maya tears through the prosecution’s case piece by piece:
The damage in the evidence photos compared to the rental return form make for the first order of business. On calling the man who signed off on Edgeworth’s car to the stand -- an amiable but nervous young Latine by the name of Novi Nada -- they swear up and down that the damage in the photos absolutely was not present when they checked the car in on the night of the crime. (In true Ace Attorney form, this gets somewhat ridiculous, as this witness lapses into Spanish when especially nervous; when pressed, they insist “no vi nada” -- I didn’t see anything -- to which the Judge responds “yes we know your name now what did you see?”)
Sensor data from the rental lot finally confirms the agent’s version of events, where the car is registered as driving onto the lot shortly before the time marked on the inspection form; more importantly, it also recorded the car being driven off the lot and then back on much later. Unfortunately, there is no additional inspection form, nor a record of who rented the car after Edgeworth, and therefore no record of who might have been involved.
Edgeworth is recalled to the stand to revisit his testimony, and he adds another key detail: while it was a sound that he took to be gunfire that sent him to the defense attorney’s office, Wright had said something strange during the call, mentioning that the office was closed -- as though he was speaking to someone else that had just arrived moments before the shots sounded and the call cut out.
Neither the defense’s office complex nor the Gatewater Hotel have video surveillance of the street; however, the Gatewater does take video of the lobby, which shows one of the four band members leaving around an hour before the crime occurred, two more leaving minutes before the shooting, and the last rushing through the lobby with a trombone case under his arm; notably, he’s the only one of the four to actually take his instrument when he left, as the others were all empty-handed. Most importantly, though, the video proves that no one else left the hotel between the time of the shooting and the time that the police started arriving, which calls into question the notion of an accomplice helping Miles dispose of the body.
This, however, provides the prosecution with a shiny new theory: that Miles hired the band to act as hitmen while he kept his hands clean. As it turns out, the reason the band name seemed familiar to him was because he was set to prosecute the fifth member of their group after his case against Phoenix wrapped up; the prosecutor posits that Miles promised to go easy on their incarcerated bandmate if they took out the defense attorney.
This is a damning accusation, and Maya has no ready response. The Judge adjourns the court for the day, and the defense scrambles to come up with a way to prove that Edgeworth had no part in what happened and place the blame on the truly guilty. She returns to the rental company and, while interviewing Novi further, finds out that the fifth bandmate has a sibling that works at the same agency. She also returns to the Gatewater to speak with the band, and notices that the trombone case in the room doesn’t look like the one from the lobby video. When asked, they say that the old case got lost...which seems odd to her, since the trombone itself is still there and doesn’t appear damaged.
While Maya looks deeper into the band, she reaches out to Miles for insight into the case he was supposed to prosecute. The fifth band member had been taken into custody on suspicion of murder, and while he suspected that the man did not commit the crime alone, he hadn’t yet been able to prove that when all this happened. For the first time, though, Maya starts to see real anger in the prosecutor -- not because these people dragged his good name through the mud with this set-up, but apparently because Phoenix’s blood is on their hands, and he can’t abide the thought of them getting away. He readily gives her access to his office for the other case file (which Chief Prosecutor Skye secures for her) so that she can use it in establishing her own case.
Despite her best efforts, though, Maya simply can’t pull together enough solid evidence to prove that Miles didn’t have a hand in the crime -- and without proof of his innocence, the court intends to find him guilty. But before the judge can hand down his verdict, the courtroom doors open, and a strident Objection! rises from the back of the room...and who should come limping up to the witness stand but Phoenix Wright himself.
The courtroom goes absolutely wild about this.
Understandably, the judge calls for a recess, and before the prosecution can drag him off to prep him for testimony Maya and Edgeworth at least get a minute with him. As it turns out, Maya had forgotten her phone that morning, and Pearl grabbed it for her; just as they were called into court, though, it rang, and Pearl stayed behind to answer -- only to be shocked to hear Mister Nick’s voice on the other end, at which point she rushed off to beg Mister Scruffy Detective to take her to get the defense attorney from the hospital where he’d been for the past few days as a ‘John Doe’ (since he had no ID on him when he was brought in). Maya is overwhelmed to see him alive, if worse for the wear, and Edgeworth…
...he can’t even find words for the feeling.
The celebration is shortlived, though, as Phoenix is dragged off to the witness lobby in short order to prep him for testimony. For all that the prosecution seems to believe he’ll help them, though, Nick gives them absolutely nothing, and instead confirms that he received a call from Edgeworth that evening, and while they were on the phone two strangers came into the office just before he was shot. They dragged him down to the street and threw him in the trunk of a car, then drove to the river and threw him in; most importantly, though, he remembers one of them asking what to do with the case, and another saying they would dump it at the club where it would blend right in; police are immediately dispatched there and find a bloody trombone case (since they’d thrown it into the trunk before loading Nick in) with a rifle inside.
The motive? Everyone knows the Demon Prosecutor’s reputation, and they knew that they’d all go down if he tried the case on their buddy. The enmity between prosecutors and defense attorneys is well known, though, and in particular they knew that Wright had broken Edgeworth’s old record and it had never recovered; they figured it would be easy to frame him for the murder with the right set-up. They had a small window of opportunity while Wright and Edgeworth worked through their trial, and they used it to put all their pieces in place, expecting that Edgeworth would go down and they’d all get off when a less competent prosecutor inevitably got their friend’s case. Clearly, though, that backfired on them: they’re all taken away, and Edgeworth is declared Not Guilty. Cue fanfare and confetti!
...and that’s where the fallout begins.
While Miles is taken to get things squared away with his release from detention, Phoenix is taken back to the hospital because honestly he should not have left in the first place. The man was admitted with a collapsed lung. It’s frankly a wonder he even managed to stand, let alone raise that objection. His recovery takes a while, and Maya and Pearl are frequent visitors...but so is Miles, much to his surprise. Only it’s not a good surprise for him, given what he’d been planning to say on the night he got shot. Things feel awkward, and all the more for how Miles is acting...different. Not like his usual self. Phoenix doesn’t know what it is or if he likes it, but he’s too tired to complain since it’s not bothering him, and visiting hours are relatively short since the prosecutor is still working cases.
Given what happened to him, though, the doctor recommends that Phoenix should stay with someone once he’s discharged: his condition, while improved, could deteriorate rapidly if something happens, so it’s imperative to have someone else around in case of an emergency. Maya and Pearl are still going back and forth between the city and Kurain semi-frequently, though, and he wouldn’t want to impose on them, especially since Pearls has been thinking about attending school in the city rather than just getting her medium training...but though he doesn’t even consider Edgeworth as a possibility, the prosecutor immediately volunteers when he hears: he has more than enough vacation time accrued and the chief prosecutor hounds him regularly about needing to take some, so he can be on hand for whatever Wright might need.
This does not, in fact, reassure Phoenix.
It’s okay enough at first, if only because Nick is just too tired and hurts too much to think about it or care about much beyond finding a comfortable position to sleep in and figuring out how to breathe without it making his chest feel like it’s full of broken glass. But as he starts improving, the tension slowly ratchets up, because Phoenix still doesn’t understand why Miles volunteered for this and the only possible explanations he can think of aren’t really good (most involve having him in the prosecutor’s debt, which is not what he wants). Miles, meanwhile, isn’t aware of this tension at first...but gradually he becomes more and more aware of the silence around Phoenix. It was understandable at first, because he was fresh out of the hospital and still recovering, but the longer it goes on the more noticeable it becomes, and he knows it means something but he doesn’t know what to do about it.
Eventually, though, it all does come out, because Miles finally broaches the subject of his own accord by asking Phoenix what he’d been planning to say that night: he’d said he can’t do “this” anymore, but he never said what “this” is. And even though he’s aware that nothing is likely to cme of it, Phoenix explains exactly what his problem is and has been for so long: the one-sided relationship where he’s the one doing all the work and making all the concessions and getting none of his own needs met in return. It’s exhausting, and he can’t do it anymore. And rather than fighting or arguing the point, Miles -- who has never had a relationship like this before -- asks what needs Phoenix has, and how can he meet them. He concedes the point, he admits that he’s been in the wrong and needs to change, and asks for help figuring out where to start -- because he came so close this time to losing Phoenix permanently, and that realization scares him more than he can say.
Phoenix is pretty well dumbstruck. But he recognizes, too, that this isn’t easy for Miles. He’s reaching out, he’s trying...and even though Nick had intended to cut his losses that night in his office before everything went so wrong, he decides to give this one last shot.
And when Miles listens to what he says, and actively responds and adjusts...he can’t help hoping that this turnabout will end up well.
Quick question for CCS Lissa,,,,, is this modern like in the show or medieval-fantasy like in Awakening? Also, I hope you're feeling a bit better!! No pressure to answer this, only if youre up for it ;;
It’s definitely more modern! One of the things that really defines CCS for me is the fact that magic is something out of the ordinary and largely secret from the rest of the world at large. In Awakening’s fantasy setting, though, magic is commonplace and used specifically for combat purposes via tomes and staves -- having cards for it really wouldn’t be that much of a leap in logic. I don’t really think that a CCS set-up could work as effectively in that kind of setting, myself, because there’s no justification for maintaining the secrecy and mystery at the heart of CCS.
In a modern setting, though? One where magic’s mostly been forgotten except as something out of a fairytale? Where the history might remain -- old tensions across borders caused by religious differences, where dynastic rule is a thing of the past while the class system remains, where magic’s been replaced by scientific advances -- but where the core of those beliefs has passed into myth? That has all kinds of potential to honor both of the original sources.
I’ve actually posted some early concept stuff on Patreon (mostly design sketches, but also a small comic), too! I still don’t know what I’m going to do with it in the end (writing? comic? mixed media?), but I’m having fun with the development so far!
He has no love for alcohol and what it does to his mind and body, dulling his senses, slowing his reactions, and overall just making his mind hazy -- not to mention that he doesn’t see the appeal of the taste. He has no problem with other people drinking, but will politely refuse any offers, preferring spiced cider or tea for himself.
