Based on this PWKM prompt: Larry is a really talented guy. He can paint and draw REALLY well, he can act if AAI is any indication, he apparently made a handmade clock statue, and on top of that he managed to become a somewhat famous picture book author. And yet people in AA never seem to give him due credit, so I'd like for that to change.

After the whole Hazakura situation, Larry started officially hanging out with Maya. She had always seemed like a cute, fun chick but after all the messed up stuff that happened, it was nice to talk to someone who felt some of the same ways Larry did.

"Oh yeah," Maya told Larry one day, draped over the biggest of the comfy pillows in the Fey Manor sitting room, "I saw your picture. The one of the burning bridge."
He looked up from his work-in-progress sketch of Elise. It was that time at a book signing that a little girl had gotten separated from her mom and started crying, and Elise had a weird look on her face that Larry hadn't gotten at the time. It was a Sad Mom look, he figured now, and he was compelled to try to capture the way it felt weird to think about. Thinking about that burning bridge piece was also pretty weird now.
"Oh, yeah? Larry scratched his head contemplatively. "I thought that was locked up as evidence, how'd you see it?"
"Since I was wrapped up in that case and I barely remember anything that happened, I asked Detective Gumshoe if I could see the records."
"He seems cool."
Maya hummed a yep. "He pulled out all the pieces of evidence for me to look at, too. He said that after everything I went through, I deserved to know what happened. If I wanted to know, anyway. He is cool."
The Elise drawing wasn't coming out right. Larry turned his sketchbook sideways and tilted his head in the opposite direction but just couldn't figure out what was off. He put the pad down and remembered drawing that soaring, fire-lit figure he was super wrong about. "I don't think I want to see that picture again... I was in a different headspace when I drew that, you know?"
She hummed again, folding her arms on the pillow and burying her chin in them. It was definitely a Maya-thinking-stuff day. Boy, Larry thought, Elise-slash-Misty's daughters really got her smarts.

"I looked at the rest of your sketchbook, too," Maya added.
"Huh?"
"It had the burning bridge drawing on the second-last page, so I guess they just took the whole sketchbook as evidence? It was almost full of pictures! You drew the temple and the Sisters and some of the old statues."
"Oh, right," Larry said. Now he remembered the sketchbook Maya meant. It had been his companion in those last fun times with Elise before things got screwed up, but then a cop took it and Larry forgot about it. "I remember that sketchbook now! I was really proud of the perspective I did on some of those still lifes. Maybe I should ask cool guy Gumshoe for a favour, too!"
"Yeah, go look at your own awesome art again, Larry!" Then Maya peered mysteriously at him. "You even drew Mia in it, remember?"
He folded his arms, thinking. "Huh... A couple of times, right?"
"Right!"
Larry was getting fidgety so he picked his book and paper back up to draw some little stick figures doing whatever."You know, the first time I saw the big magatama in the Hazakura main hall, what popped into my head was 'whoa, it's a ginormous version of that cool necklace Ms. Fey the lawyer babe wore'."
Maya smiled to herself. "Sis did make it look good..." She chewed her lip. "Larry, how do you make books? I know the author has to write the story, but how do you…" Maya hinged her hands together, mimicking turning pages. "You know, get the story onto the paper?"
Larry scratched his head thoughtfully. "Well, you either get some rich guy publishers to pay you for it and they take care of it, or you pay some printing company. Either way, you send someone a story and they send you a box of your books."
"Oh, that sounds exciting! And then you put your books in a store?"
Larry shrugged. "I dunno, I guess. I didn't do much of that part. Elise had it all under control in her big mega-organized book of bookkeeping. I was usually working on the art, the layout…" He gave Maya a thumbs-up. "You know, arteest stuff!"
"Oh, okay." Slouching lower into her arms and into the coarse knit of the pillow, Maya kicked her sandalled feet in the air. She thought some more. "It's been nice hearing what she was like from your stories, Larry. But I still don't know Mom myself... And I guess I never will."
Larry thought for a bit about parents and other big stuff in life. "Dude, Maya. That sucks." That was the best he had: speaking words out loud was hard and Larry wasn't very smart.
"Yeah..." She sat up off the big cushion, crossing her legs. "But she's not the only important person in my family... Your art of Mia got me thinking about how I want to teach when I'm the Master."
"Oh, yeah. You're going to be, like ... a role model and a teacher and stuff when you're the Master, aren't you?"
She brightened the way she did when Larry said something right. "Yep, I will! And ... I want everyone in Kurain Village to know what Mia did for all of us back home. Some of the older teachings say she shouldn't be mentioned anymore because she left the village, but that's bull!" Maya scrambled into sitting up straight on her knees, and she clenched her fists and declared, "I wouldn't be who I am without Sis. I want to be able to share that part of the Maya Fey story with Pearly. She was little, she doesn't remember Mia. A-And I want to tell new acolytes, too! And experienced acolytes who think they might want to stop being acolytes and be lawyers instead!" With a shake of her head, Maya said, "Who am I kidding? I'll show it to everyone I talk to! So, Larry, could you help me write a book about Mia?!"
"Yeah," Larry nearly yelled because it was easy to get hyped up when Maya did, "sure!"
She blinked, startled. And then Maya lit up with a big grin, man, she had a good smile.
"Hell yes, this is going to be great!"
"It sure will! Uh." He scratched under his beret. "But just so you know, Maya, I'm not as good a writer as Elise was. Her work always had a certain je not know what."
"Yeah, but you learned from her! If you capture half of how great Sis was... then I'm sure Mom would love it."
The more Larry thought about that, the better it felt.

So, they had a couple of hangout days where Larry brought takeout and Maya just told him lots of stuff about her sister, and Nick, and the stuff her sister did for Nick. His notes ended up kind of patchy in parts where Larry got really caught up in the stories, but he had more than enough inside his head to work with. Maya was seriously great at expressively acting out high-stakes court drama, and Mia's never-give-up attitude at the center of those stories was opening up a real fountain of inspiration. Made sense. There had always been something about that lawyer-slash-big-sister babe that made Larry's poetic soul cry out give her some art.

He got on his old clunker computer and started a rough draft. And another one. Way too many of them, actually. Larry started to wish that he was writing on paper, because then he'd be able to crumple up each attempt and make a cool dramatic pile in a wastepaper basket.

But after about a week of existential ennui - where he considered changing his name back to Laurice just to see if it helped - Larry stayed up late one night and had a couple of energy drinks and before he knew it, he was writing The End on something he was kind of into. It was a cool, feel-good hero story even though Mia died like that. Seemed like the kind of thing to make a kid's face light up when they imagined being a brave defense lawyer saving people. Thinking about little Edgey reading his new book made Larry snicker to himself a bit.

Drawing Mia came way easier than writing about her. She was easily one of the top 25 most beautiful women Larry had ever seen, and he had seen a lot of beautiful women. Especially now that he was out of his I'm done with women phase, which was a pretty dumb idea, Larry had ended up accepting with his really deep and manly heart.

So, drawing Mia Fey with a passionate flash in her eyes was really easy to get into. Plus, the way she pointed across the courtroom table thingie when she yelled objection! made for awesome, dramatic interior art. Larry worked late a few more nights just because he was on a roll, lines and gestures pouring freely from his pencil. Mia was almost as great a muse as Franziska von Karma, and that was not something he thought lightly.

The story did get rough for a bit. Always bummed Larry out to think about some jerk killing Ms. Fey. And about how super bummed Nick had been afterward. And, also importantly, how Larry's best sculpture project turned into just a couple of big dumb clubs in evidence bags. So, the page of the book that gently let the reader know the heroine was gone now... That page sucked to do.
But really, Larry figured, he just didn't want to draw The Thinker. Classical art wasn't his focus anymore. So he just drew it partly covered by other stuff on the court evidence table like an Easter egg or something. Sweating a bit because his brain was starting to hurt, Larry paced in a dramatic genius sort of way and talked to himself for a few hours. And then he grabbed some leftover pizza and kept sketching.

Nick rose up as the secondary hero in the story. He was less fun to draw, being a total guy and everything, but Larry's good buddy still got the full hero treatment. After all, he kind of avenged Mia and was Maya's knight in shining armor lots of times. And Nick did the cool pointing, too. Larry made sure to absolutely nail the perspective.

Then, once Larry did some fancy lettering on The End and gathered the pages together, the book was done. It was based on a true story and it was definitely one of the better things he had ever made.

And sure, he told Maya that a professional company did the actual paper-page-making side of things. They could mock up a print copy like the ones Elise used to wait eagerly for in the mail - but damnit, Larry made this specifically for Maya. This was a book from the incredibly sensitive heart. So Larry read a library book about how to bind book spines and, over the next few nights of practicing with a hole punch in hand and his tongue between his lips, he considered cutting back on energy drinks. The bulk supply membership had seemed like a good idea at the time but man, a pallet of energy drinks was just too much.

He could figure that out later. At any rate, next time Larry crashed the Manor, he got to have the best feeling in the world: showing someone something good that you made for them. Good ol' Maya was a million percent excited when she first got her hands on that ultra-rare proof copy, and then it only took until Page 2 for her to sit down on a big pillow and go quiet and think-y.

Larry couldn't really blame her. He had written a triumph of the human spirit, some critic might say. He mostly kept quiet. Got fidgety toward the end, though, while Maya stared at the last page. Mia Fey may be gone, but she lives on in many hearts was the last line Larry went with.

"Thank you, Larry," Maya eventually murmured. She looked up at him, eyes wet. "This is perfect."