The events, so far
April 8, 2013: WOE 6, a nice college night out with Phoenix, Iris, and their stalker
April 11, 2013: State vs. Wright (first time)
January 31, 2019: WOE 5, a look into Iris's life after State vs. Wright
February 6-9, 2019: State vs. Iris
February 7, 2019: WOE 7, the events of Misty Fey's murder
March 14, 2019: WOE 3, Phoenix's first visit to Iris in prison
April 29, 2019: State vs. Enigmar; Phoenix is disbarred
February 14, 2021: WOE 8, a not-so-normal day for Iris in prison
July 5, 2023: WOE 9, Phoenix and Edgeworth have a little talk
August 16, 2023: WOE 10, TBA
November 31, 2023: WOE 2, when Trucy met Iris
April - October, 2026: Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice
December 31, 2026: WOE 4, a night out with Phoenix, Iris, and their TWO stalkers
June 11, 2027: WOE 1, Iris introspection, the dinner party
Walking On Eggshells
10. The True Meaning of Sacrifice
March 22nd 2013
& August 16th 2023
- : -
"I've been waiting for you, Maya."
"Oh?"
"Mr. Edgeworth... he talked to me."
"Oh."
"I'll try to help you, if I can."
"If you can?"
"Phoenix won't talk to me."
"Really. I thought it was just me. And Pearl. Just the people who have been worried about him."
"Maya..."
"Sorry, Iris. I'm just... upset. Nick can be so DUMB sometimes."
"He cares about you."
"I know, I know. It's just... do you know why?"
Silence.
"Iris, if you know, tell me."
Silence.
"Iris."
Silence.
"IRIS."
"It's not my secret to tell."
"So we're talking about secrets now?"
Maya hears a sigh of frustration. This is a sound she would never have expected from Iris of all people, but the person you see outside of prison isn't necessarily the person who appears on the inside.
"Maya," Iris says, and she's sad, "everyone has secrets. Even him... especially him, now."
Maya's sitting across from her, hands laid flat against the surface. She'd been leaning forwards, little by little, since the beginning of the conversation, fingers pressing in with her pent-up frustration.
Maya says, "I know that."
"Then... then let him have his secrets," Iris counters quietly. She's trembling, though, vibrating with the effort it takes to hold it in. It's like she's a balloon, swelling rapidly while helium is pumped in, visibly tensing. It makes Maya wonder how Iris kept her act up for so long, so successfully.
Maya tells herself that it's a good thing that she did. This doesn't stop her from feeling bitter, because Iris saved his life with one hand and broke his heart with the other.
Maya leans back, surveying the cousin-in-blood who has been gifted with all of the beauty of their family, but none of the skill; with all of the theoretical learning, but none of the power. She is not sure whether envy should be clogging her throat or not, and which lot in life she would prefer to have been slated to receive. Maya IS sure she should not be questioning this way - ride a mile on a man's bicycle before judging his life. Or something like that. Maya is not certain of the actual metaphor.
Pearl is visiting Morgan again. Maya would not have left her, but this is a meeting she has to have alone - no point worrying the baby cousin (though she's growing up too quickly) with an issue like this. The problem is, Pearl is as acutely aware of Phoenix's sudden lack of contact as Maya, and isn't really handling it well either.
Maya pulls out the big guns.
"Pearl misses him," she says, and wishes that Iris didn't look quite so stricken because of something Maya said.
Hadn't she promised Phoenix when she took her position, though he would never have asked, not to become like the other Masters?
"I... I know," is Iris's quiet reply, surprising Maya at her sudden regression.
Iris has not been quite this timid for years.
Not for a long time.
The lights shift. Maya wonders if Iris is surveying her the way Maya does.
Maya hates this new habit, but she hasn't been able to kick it - surveying people.
Maya never hated before this either, but she thinks she might understand the word better now.
Running a family is not a simple task, by any measure.
There is precisely one member of the main branch of the Fey Clan still alive.
One is such a lonely number.
Two's not much better, but that's the number of Fey Clan members who are actually close to the main family who are still free.
Maya and Pearl. Sisters in all but blood, and they're halfway there already, as cousins; the big one and the little, like a perfectly matched set of two halves. Except it's Iris who is Pearl's real sister, the woman that Pearl comes to see once every few months, and it keeps both sisters from becoming too lonely.
Sometimes, Pearl comes to the prison and visits Morgan instead.
Iris comforts her afterwards.
Maya doesn't envy this bond, at least. Pearl adores her. She is reminded of this every time Pearl comes to her crying, comes to her smiling, comes to her with new acolytes and old ones returning to a new-old way of life that's been revived at last. She is reminded that Pearl adores her every time the girl tries to set her up with Phoenix - although the attempts have been waning, recently.
Maya suppresses a pang in her chest when she thinks of her best friend.
Maya's family has fallen to pieces around her. There is such darkness there, but she clings to them all the same, and Phoenix is as close as family.
Maya can't manage him, like she's been forced to manage the (remains of) family of two-and-a-hundred, and the village that has grown up around them, but still.
Maya never thought she would grow tired, when she has such a core of bright energy, but sometimes, when dusk is falling, she has to rummage and poke deep inside her to make sure the fire is still burning. It is exhausting balancing the two halves of herself. She thinks wryly, sometimes, that she is finally understanding how Mia must have felt, oscillating constantly between vengeance for the past and hopes for the future, but this must be more than even Mia felt.
Maya has always liked being special, but this way is not it.
Light, not dark, she thinks.
Maya reminds herself that she should not become like the people who have crumbled - like her family of two corners, a misshapen polygon because most of the corners are dead, or locked away.
Maya hates this too.
"Maya," Mia said once, "don't be like me. Don't hate."
Mia had taken on the burden of hating. She is gone now, and it's up to Maya to both hate and not-hate.
Mia's real requests had always been difficult, in their core, to follow.
Maya is only twenty-three and she is... well, she has to make an effort to stop being tired.
Maya doesn't hate the village itself, though it's what makes her so tired. She loves it. Really. It's just hard. There are two close Fey Clan members living in Kurain. There are one hundred others, which remind her, and Pearl, that everyone else is gone.
Pearl can take refuge with Iris.
Maya can't. Not anywhere. Not since Phoenix stopped speaking to them.
Maya will not let him, even if Iris is surprisingly timid once again.
"He hasn't spoken to us with months," Maya says, resuming their conversation.
"I... I heard," murmurs Iris.
"Iris," Maya tells her quietly, "please. We have to see him. I have to see him, or talk to him."
Her cousin closes her eyes. "He... he's not talking to me, either."
This is why, then. Maya's (hated) skill at reading people reminds her of a secret.
Iris grew more confident with each of Phoenix's visits.
He is not visiting now, and Iris is hesitating, although she has not yet stuttered.
Maya leans back, frowning, hearing her chains of beads click with the slight movement. A single question escapes her lips. "Why?"
Iris is quiet. Maya is on the verge of repeating the question, when her cousin answers, "I think he knows Mr. Edgeworth talked to me."
Should Maya be dismayed that so many people seem to have more influence on Phoenix than she does, now?
"He thinks he would listen to you," surmises Maya. "Nick thinks that, if he visits, you would convince him to talk."
A sigh, on the other side of the glass. It is not so faint that Maya cannot hear it. "He's wrong."
"Iris," Maya says slowly, "I thought you said you would help us."
Iris shakes her head. "I would help. But I... I couldn't convince him of so much, years back. I have no idea why he thinks things would change now."
Maya frowns, sceptical. "He would sacrifice your company to keep you safe?"
"He would sacrifice yours," Iris answers, and bites her lip, though it's like locking the doors after thieves have already come and gone.
- : -
It seemed oddly fitting that spring had arrived early.
Iris didn't know much about it, of course, and Phoenix had laughed when she twirled with abandon beneath blooming Sakura blossoms.
It had been a mistake, because he had joined her there, a hand around hers. Ignoring the soft gasp of her surprise, he let her spin, petals falling in a thick crush onto the red of her hair.
One week later, and Iris could still feel her heart speed up at the memory.
Dahlia would call her a fool, Iris thought. For the first time, the thought did not pain her.
The petals were long gone, except for the special niche in her memories. He had become part of so many of her firsts that even if she did not love him, which she didn't, she would reflect fondly - perhaps sadly - on the past months for the rest of her life. They would be like treasured keepsakes, a warm wind and spark of green life among the ice and snow of her retreat.
Although Iris did not love him, she had still woken up early, and she had cooked a surprise.
"Th-this is for you."
His eyes were clear and blue. They refracted light like gems, but there was none of the frigidness Iris would have expected to see.
They had lit up with the rest of his face at her parting gift.
His eyes were coloured like ice. Iris wasn't cold.
She bathed in the brilliant warmth of his smile. Parasol held delicately over one shoulder with her free hand, and a sundress to celebrate spring slipped over the tense lines of her body, she could not help but return his beam with one of her own.
"What is it?"
"I... I saw your fridge," Iris murmured, pushing the box into his waiting hands. "It was shocking."
"The blue furry alien creatures from Mars or the potato that seems to have sprouted?"
"Feenie," she chided, "you shouldn't leave food for that long."
Phoenix shrugged, ever so casual. It had shocked Iris - the ease with which he faced life, calm among the world of rapidly shifting colours. Iris had been knocked over by the sheer volume of movement outside of Hazakura.
Phoenix had not.
Phoenix had stood right behind her, an arm around her shoulders, and murmuring for her to stay standing, and that he wouldn't let her fall over.
Iris had resolved to do Phoenix some favour in return. She was growing to care about him, as a friend, at the very least.
Weren't friends supposed to catch you if you fell?
She returned the first part of her favour as a present, an offering to ward against a second round of the food poisoning that had left him white for days.
"Omelettes," Iris explained, while he opened the box and peered inside.
"Mini-omelettes," corrected Phoenix, with a teasing grin.
"It's only enough for one lunch, but you said you were going out for dinner, and visiting a friend for the next two days."
A strange look crossed Phoenix's face. "I'll have to finish these treasures first, or Larry might steal them from me."
Iris shook her head, fondly. "You can't compliment them yet. You haven't even tasted them."
Phoenix wasn't looking at her.
"Thank you," he said quietly, "for caring."
Such comments had made her feel warm just a week ago, like standing beneath a stream of sunlight on a clear morning.
Her teeth sank into the flesh of her bottom lip. She was glad he wasn't looking.
"You... you sound like no one's ever... done you a..." she trailed off.
"Iris?"
"Like no one's done you a favour before," admitted Iris, twirling the parasol nervously, caught between warm blue, and a net of safety.
There was that strange look, again.
"Someone has," Phoenix said, seriously. "I want to repay him."
Iris stared at the pavement. She could talk, she told herself. She was Dahlia, and Dahlia was brave.
"I'm sure you'll succeed," Iris told the ink of his shadow.
He didn't reply.
When she finally lifted her head, curiosity so strong it nearly rang in her teeth, he had leaned over. His face was so near she could smell his aftershave.
She was too surprised by his closeness to jump.
She was too surprised by how comfortable she was with this to jump.
He looked like he was searching for something in her face, with the wary eyes of someone who, despite his protests, hadn't received many favours at all. Someone who would remember favours - and repay them accordingly.
"But... won't studying law be hard when you have this?"
Phoenix stared a little longer. Apparently, he found what he had sought, because his arms closed around her - gently, like she was a wisp and would be blown away if he was too close - and he leaned forwards. His lips brushed the shell of her ear, but not because he wanted to kiss her.
"There's someone I want to save," murmured Phoenix, low and steady.
When he drew back, Iris saw his face.
Hope. Determination. Strength. Characteristics that Iris had always admired, always envied her sister for, but had never really seen wrapped by the strange tenderness.
The whistle for the train struck, beginning a flurry of movement across the station. Iris thought of the weight of her ticket, and she did not move from his embrace.
"Thank you for believing in me," Phoenix murmured, and Iris knew then what he had been looking for.
She understood the strange tenderness that had been growing ever more strongly on his face at every meeting - the sort that wrapped the fiery emotions in gentleness.
She remembered the excitement on his face when they met, and how she was slowly beginning to feel the same.
She remembered the long walks around campus, and around the city, as he introduced her to life outside - the laughter, the jokes.
She remembered dancing just one week back, Sakura blossoms tumbling off red braids to litter the ground, and laughing after the gasp when he joined in.
She thought of the omelette still in his hands.
The realisation had hit. She recognised that tender look now, because it took one to know one.
Despite the compromises she had reached with her mother, the bargains with her sister, the schemes she had taken part in, she hadn't known until now what the word sacrifice really meant, as it ground into her soul, a soft strain of music just out of reach.
Iris had never been warmer, and she had never wished more that she could freeze over.
Because she was falling in love with him.
And as she boarded the train for a weekend to Hazakura, watching his figure fade away, Iris knew the true meaning of sacrifice.
- : -
Maya sighs. "He can be so stupid sometimes." Her eyes turn jarringly mournful. "You're both like that. You know the true meaning of sacrifice, but not at the right time. If I could talk to him, I would..." She trails off because she cannot think of a frightening enough threat. Perhaps spend a month with Trucy, and teach the little girl all her tricks? "Nick can be SUCH a fool."
Iris lifts her eyes.
Their gazes lock.
Iris murmurs a soft, "Oh," and Maya knows she has realised.
Maya, too, knows the true meaning of sacrifice.
Iris says the next words like she's been struck by lightning.
"You... you're in love with him."
Maya doesn't deny it.
Maya thinks of being two among one hundred, of being a village in the middle of nowhere.
She is watching. Always watching. It's becoming difficult not to hate, so she's not going to let go of the anchor of Phoenix Wright. Not this easily.
The problem is with Phoenix.
Phoenix is in love with Iris. Not Maya.
And Maya will not dwell on it, because she can't afford to. She will search for his friendship, but she has Pearl to consider. She will try and manage the part of him that belongs to her, but she has a village on her back. She will think about this, but Maya will not let herself hate.
"Are you ever going to tell him?" Iris asks quietly.
Maya smiles at the uncanny ability to get to the centre of the issue.
"Will you get him to talk to me?"
Iris hesitates. It's slight, but it's there. But she says, "Yes," because Iris is not a cruel person. "I'll try."
But her eyes are still questioning.
Maya closes her eyes and answers the question. "No. Not unless you hurt him again."
Maya, too, understands the true meaning of sacrifice.
- : -
TBC
R & R, please
A/N: Two-thirds of the story is over, folks! This is the chapter I have most been looking forward to writing. Actually, it's a combination of the TWO chapters I've really wanted to write (the flashback, and the Iris & Maya interaction), so maybe the scene in chapter one between Phoenix and Maya, and chapter two between Phoenix and Iris, make more sense now. And yes, this revelation is the main reason I included the chapter about State vs. Wright in Maya's POV. I'm not really satisfied I did Maya justice, or the depth of her relationship with Phoenix. Comments?