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madimpossibledreamerMain Points:
Ace Attorney AU (Turnabout Histories) Prequel
Summary: Edgeworth's life goes a little differently before he meets Phoenix again.
Word Count: 1891
Rating: T
SPOILERS for Turnabout Histories and general plot spoilers for the series, lightly mentions some of the darker themes in canon
Oh, the first six months had been…well, as well as could be expected. After all, his father is still dead, and sometimes he dreams that he was the one who fired the fatal shot. He probably would not have gone along with it in the first place if he hadn’t spoken to his father as Misty Fey channeled him, if he hadn’t indicated that he wanted Miles to be safe and happy and he thought some strange woman they’d never met before could do an adequate job.
He’d never felt…he supposes the word is neglected, having only a father and no mother, though some of the other children had cruel words to say. Part of it, he’d always assumed, was jealousy, because Gregory Edgeworth had been cooler than most of their mothers and fathers.
Now that he had a mother, he’d far more certain in that assumption, because the evidence suggests the truth. Because they would be right to be envious in this case, as well. Misty Fey is important, and busy. The Master of Kurain. She’s much in demand, just like his father, but she listens. She treats him, his worries, hopes, fears as if they’re an adult’s. She doesn’t treat him like a child. She even laughs one of the times he forgets himself, the fact that he now owes everything to her, and questions the mere existence of spirit channeling. She isn’t insulting, explains that for many it’s hard to believe without the existence of proof (of evidence, his mind translates immediately). But as he’s a Fey now, he’ll see everything she can show. In any case, it’s easier for people to live without the fear of ghosts or the supernatural.
She not only allows him to try to write to Phoenix, increasingly worried about his friend as each letter goes unanswered, she even allows him to go look at his old friend’s house in the company of one of the men in a branch family, only to find it completely empty. The man buys him a red bean mocha and is sympathetic, but it’s clear that he’s not sure how much he’s actually allowed to talk to Miles, and it doesn’t help that the situation is extremely complicated and the young child hasn’t read everything he can get his hands on yet, so he’s not sure either.
Aunt Morgan is livid. Misty is unmoved by the anger, but he overhears the argument and goes and hides by the koi pond, holding his knees and trembling. If he cries into the pond, he reasons, no one will be the wiser. He resolves that he’s not going to request anything like that again, not if it makes more people angry at Misty. She’d been good enough to take him in. The least he can do is not trouble her.
It’s Mia that finds him, lures him back inside with the promise of tea and cake. According to Aunt Morgan, he’s a bad influence, filling his older sister’s head with ideas about the world outside. They shouldn’t be talking, even as brother and sister, because there practically are no men in Kurain, and he’s just like the rest, trouble. Worse, he’s an outsider.
Mia is patient. She teaches him, and he still seeks knowledge. In return, he tells her what he knows about the courts. He doesn’t know it, not at first, but she seeks to become a defense attorney, and he couldn’t be more proud of his big sister.
Of course, he breaks his promise to not trouble anyone. Not intentionally, but then, intentions only matter for lessening a sentence. They don’t change the verdict; innocent or guilty, it’d all be the same. Even so, Misty doesn’t blame him when she’s disgraced. When the papers smear her name, call her a fraud. She is the heir to a centuries old tradition, and he’s seen a channeling.
It’s unfair, just like when Phoenix had been accused with no evidence.
She laughs, pleased, not mocking, when he hotly declares he’d defend her, but tells him it won’t help. Not now. Perhaps if the law, if courts changed, it’d be one thing, but people just could not accept them.
Years later, he wonders if she’d known all along. If she’d known he believed himself to be guilty of his father’s murder, if she’d known he’d been tempted to confess just so an innocent who had done nothing wrong other than trying to protect him would not have to suffer.
Maya and Mia aren’t unhappy he’s around. Cousin Pearl is…far more conflicted, but then, she’s Aunt Morgan’s daughter, and Aunt Morgan isn’t happy about any of this, and it’s all fair to say. He has brought trouble to the clan. He didn’t mean to, but he did. And he can’t say that she might not be correct about the corrupting influence of the outside world, either. After all, Misty Fey had broken the exile only to have doubt cast on the legitimacy of the entire school of training.
And then Misty Fey goes missing.
No one says it’s his fault, no one besides Aunt Morgan. They don’t have to say it. He hears and sees it anyway. She wouldn’t have had to go, if not for him.
Your father is dead because of you, his mind tells him. It sounds like a prosecutor. He’d feel better if he could muster any defense. Your father is dead, but you couldn’t just ruin one family, could you? If not for you, Misty Fey wouldn’t be disgraced. Misty Fey wouldn’t have had to leave.
It takes a long while for him to believe Mia and Maya when they say they don’t believe his fears. They aren’t the types to lie, and everything that he sees and hears convinces him that they love him. It seems true. All the evidence says it’s true, but he can’t believe the verdict, because it simply doesn’t make sense.
Eventually even he’s convinced, although it never ceases to baffle him, so he simply must do what he can to be the perfect brother. There’s no other way he can repay them for their senseless loyalty. They should hate him, an interloper, an outsider that has done nothing but ruin their lives, but they simply love and care for him—tease him, listen as their mother once had, play and laugh and support one another, and while it may take a lifetime and even then he will never pay them back, he supposes that’s all right.
The house in the city is owned by one of the branch families. Mia commandeers it, and no one can do much more than Aunt Morgan’s arguing, again, because while there’s no Master at the moment Mia’s closest to it. Miles goes, of course. They’ll study for the bar together, and while she might seem confident, she could use a hand who at least has lived in this outside world for a bit, if only when he was a kid, and who still remembers more about law than, to his eternal disappointment, most of their fellow students. It’s actually a little confusing.
It’s an escape, really. Most aren’t as kind as his sisters. They don’t say anything directly to him, but he knows. They avoid him, don’t talk to him, and in return, he’s expected to virtually be a ghost. It’s a fair enough exchange.
The change in treatment after it’s discovered that he can read minds is unsettling, especially because he can tell they’re not as genuine as his sisters. Aunt Morgan thinks it’ll be useful, but he doesn’t get much of a picture as to why. He’d have to read further, and that would require more time and control than he has.
It gets even more disquieting when Aunt Morgan is the one defending him, after years of doing nothing but criticizing his very existence, against calls for him to be killed, since psychic powers are ‘unnatural’ in men.
He’s trained even more thoroughly, even more harshly, than his sisters. Having read the histories, he knows this has to do with some sort of power play, that Aunt Morgan is tired of being the head of a branch family and wishes, perhaps, to change that, although how she plans to do so, he still can’t see.
There are limits to what he can be told, what he can read, what he can say, how he can be trained. He’s a man, after all, and he is not to be afforded any real power, despite having been adopted into the main family. He understands, and he doesn’t wish to make anyone else upset after they’ve done so much for him, and he doesn’t desire to upend their traditions, so he says nothing out loud, even though at times he goes a week at a time without being spoken to (if Mia and Maya are kept busy) and sometimes he’ll break into tears from being lonely. At least the stray animals of Kurain are easily befriended.
He knows that he has similarities to a cat, proud yet insecure, skittish and hard to please, pretending at all times to be fine without attention and love while that’s a complete lie. He can’t read their minds, but he is capable of reading to a greater degree than most, of course, their emotions, when they wish to be left alone and when they wish company. Even so, his favorite are the dogs, loyal and happy despite all sense. He misses Phoenix.
It gives him a headache, honestly. All of it does. Pushing his powers too far is difficult, and the training put him in a coma once. He heard Mia and Aunt Morgan arguing about it, only to find, once he wakes, that he’d ‘read’ that too. She agreed, however, to push him less. He doesn’t tell Mia that she’d only done so because she was disappointed in his strength. True, as far as direct mind-reading or psychometry go, he’s one of the stronger people their Aunt has heard about, but his power ebbs and flows like the tide, and he’s rarely at the peak of his powers. He’s not as useful as she’d thought—still useful to her plans, probably, but she doesn’t need to put quite as much work into him as she’d thought.
Personally, he finds that vaguely insulting. He is a good hand at shogi, and still vaguely remembers how to play chess as well. He is no mere unthinking pawn.
At the same time, though, he doesn’t regret it, any more than he regrets any of the rest. He’s thankful, actually, as it turns out living in the city is very different than he remembers. When his powers have ebbed, it’s not that different, after all. It’s when they’re waxing that it’s a problem.
A small village, isolated, with known people and known patterns of thought had been predictable. A bustling city was decidedly less so, and he’s definitely grateful for the supply of tea to suppress his abilities to a manageable level and the training to instill spiritual discipline was greatly appreciated. Mia could help, at his absolute worst.
Together, they will try to give others the sort of defense and support Misty Fey should have had. Perhaps that will serve as atonement.
Ace Attorney AU (Turnabout Histories) Prequel
Summary: Edgeworth's life goes a little differently before he meets Phoenix again.
Word Count: 1891
Rating: T
SPOILERS for Turnabout Histories and general plot spoilers for the series, lightly mentions some of the darker themes in canon
It doesn’t take Miles long to realize he’s not wanted.
Oh, the first six months had been…well, as well as could be expected. After all, his father is still dead, and sometimes he dreams that he was the one who fired the fatal shot. He probably would not have gone along with it in the first place if he hadn’t spoken to his father as Misty Fey channeled him, if he hadn’t indicated that he wanted Miles to be safe and happy and he thought some strange woman they’d never met before could do an adequate job.
He’d never felt…he supposes the word is neglected, having only a father and no mother, though some of the other children had cruel words to say. Part of it, he’d always assumed, was jealousy, because Gregory Edgeworth had been cooler than most of their mothers and fathers.
Now that he had a mother, he’d far more certain in that assumption, because the evidence suggests the truth. Because they would be right to be envious in this case, as well. Misty Fey is important, and busy. The Master of Kurain. She’s much in demand, just like his father, but she listens. She treats him, his worries, hopes, fears as if they’re an adult’s. She doesn’t treat him like a child. She even laughs one of the times he forgets himself, the fact that he now owes everything to her, and questions the mere existence of spirit channeling. She isn’t insulting, explains that for many it’s hard to believe without the existence of proof (of evidence, his mind translates immediately). But as he’s a Fey now, he’ll see everything she can show. In any case, it’s easier for people to live without the fear of ghosts or the supernatural.
She not only allows him to try to write to Phoenix, increasingly worried about his friend as each letter goes unanswered, she even allows him to go look at his old friend’s house in the company of one of the men in a branch family, only to find it completely empty. The man buys him a red bean mocha and is sympathetic, but it’s clear that he’s not sure how much he’s actually allowed to talk to Miles, and it doesn’t help that the situation is extremely complicated and the young child hasn’t read everything he can get his hands on yet, so he’s not sure either.
Aunt Morgan is livid. Misty is unmoved by the anger, but he overhears the argument and goes and hides by the koi pond, holding his knees and trembling. If he cries into the pond, he reasons, no one will be the wiser. He resolves that he’s not going to request anything like that again, not if it makes more people angry at Misty. She’d been good enough to take him in. The least he can do is not trouble her.
It’s Mia that finds him, lures him back inside with the promise of tea and cake. According to Aunt Morgan, he’s a bad influence, filling his older sister’s head with ideas about the world outside. They shouldn’t be talking, even as brother and sister, because there practically are no men in Kurain, and he’s just like the rest, trouble. Worse, he’s an outsider.
Mia is patient. She teaches him, and he still seeks knowledge. In return, he tells her what he knows about the courts. He doesn’t know it, not at first, but she seeks to become a defense attorney, and he couldn’t be more proud of his big sister.
Of course, he breaks his promise to not trouble anyone. Not intentionally, but then, intentions only matter for lessening a sentence. They don’t change the verdict; innocent or guilty, it’d all be the same. Even so, Misty doesn’t blame him when she’s disgraced. When the papers smear her name, call her a fraud. She is the heir to a centuries old tradition, and he’s seen a channeling.
It’s unfair, just like when Phoenix had been accused with no evidence.
She laughs, pleased, not mocking, when he hotly declares he’d defend her, but tells him it won’t help. Not now. Perhaps if the law, if courts changed, it’d be one thing, but people just could not accept them.
Years later, he wonders if she’d known all along. If she’d known he believed himself to be guilty of his father’s murder, if she’d known he’d been tempted to confess just so an innocent who had done nothing wrong other than trying to protect him would not have to suffer.
Maya and Mia aren’t unhappy he’s around. Cousin Pearl is…far more conflicted, but then, she’s Aunt Morgan’s daughter, and Aunt Morgan isn’t happy about any of this, and it’s all fair to say. He has brought trouble to the clan. He didn’t mean to, but he did. And he can’t say that she might not be correct about the corrupting influence of the outside world, either. After all, Misty Fey had broken the exile only to have doubt cast on the legitimacy of the entire school of training.
And then Misty Fey goes missing.
No one says it’s his fault, no one besides Aunt Morgan. They don’t have to say it. He hears and sees it anyway. She wouldn’t have had to go, if not for him.
Your father is dead because of you, his mind tells him. It sounds like a prosecutor. He’d feel better if he could muster any defense. Your father is dead, but you couldn’t just ruin one family, could you? If not for you, Misty Fey wouldn’t be disgraced. Misty Fey wouldn’t have had to leave.
It takes a long while for him to believe Mia and Maya when they say they don’t believe his fears. They aren’t the types to lie, and everything that he sees and hears convinces him that they love him. It seems true. All the evidence says it’s true, but he can’t believe the verdict, because it simply doesn’t make sense.
Eventually even he’s convinced, although it never ceases to baffle him, so he simply must do what he can to be the perfect brother. There’s no other way he can repay them for their senseless loyalty. They should hate him, an interloper, an outsider that has done nothing but ruin their lives, but they simply love and care for him—tease him, listen as their mother once had, play and laugh and support one another, and while it may take a lifetime and even then he will never pay them back, he supposes that’s all right.
The house in the city is owned by one of the branch families. Mia commandeers it, and no one can do much more than Aunt Morgan’s arguing, again, because while there’s no Master at the moment Mia’s closest to it. Miles goes, of course. They’ll study for the bar together, and while she might seem confident, she could use a hand who at least has lived in this outside world for a bit, if only when he was a kid, and who still remembers more about law than, to his eternal disappointment, most of their fellow students. It’s actually a little confusing.
It’s an escape, really. Most aren’t as kind as his sisters. They don’t say anything directly to him, but he knows. They avoid him, don’t talk to him, and in return, he’s expected to virtually be a ghost. It’s a fair enough exchange.
The change in treatment after it’s discovered that he can read minds is unsettling, especially because he can tell they’re not as genuine as his sisters. Aunt Morgan thinks it’ll be useful, but he doesn’t get much of a picture as to why. He’d have to read further, and that would require more time and control than he has.
It gets even more disquieting when Aunt Morgan is the one defending him, after years of doing nothing but criticizing his very existence, against calls for him to be killed, since psychic powers are ‘unnatural’ in men.
He’s trained even more thoroughly, even more harshly, than his sisters. Having read the histories, he knows this has to do with some sort of power play, that Aunt Morgan is tired of being the head of a branch family and wishes, perhaps, to change that, although how she plans to do so, he still can’t see.
There are limits to what he can be told, what he can read, what he can say, how he can be trained. He’s a man, after all, and he is not to be afforded any real power, despite having been adopted into the main family. He understands, and he doesn’t wish to make anyone else upset after they’ve done so much for him, and he doesn’t desire to upend their traditions, so he says nothing out loud, even though at times he goes a week at a time without being spoken to (if Mia and Maya are kept busy) and sometimes he’ll break into tears from being lonely. At least the stray animals of Kurain are easily befriended.
He knows that he has similarities to a cat, proud yet insecure, skittish and hard to please, pretending at all times to be fine without attention and love while that’s a complete lie. He can’t read their minds, but he is capable of reading to a greater degree than most, of course, their emotions, when they wish to be left alone and when they wish company. Even so, his favorite are the dogs, loyal and happy despite all sense. He misses Phoenix.
It gives him a headache, honestly. All of it does. Pushing his powers too far is difficult, and the training put him in a coma once. He heard Mia and Aunt Morgan arguing about it, only to find, once he wakes, that he’d ‘read’ that too. She agreed, however, to push him less. He doesn’t tell Mia that she’d only done so because she was disappointed in his strength. True, as far as direct mind-reading or psychometry go, he’s one of the stronger people their Aunt has heard about, but his power ebbs and flows like the tide, and he’s rarely at the peak of his powers. He’s not as useful as she’d thought—still useful to her plans, probably, but she doesn’t need to put quite as much work into him as she’d thought.
Personally, he finds that vaguely insulting. He is a good hand at shogi, and still vaguely remembers how to play chess as well. He is no mere unthinking pawn.
At the same time, though, he doesn’t regret it, any more than he regrets any of the rest. He’s thankful, actually, as it turns out living in the city is very different than he remembers. When his powers have ebbed, it’s not that different, after all. It’s when they’re waxing that it’s a problem.
A small village, isolated, with known people and known patterns of thought had been predictable. A bustling city was decidedly less so, and he’s definitely grateful for the supply of tea to suppress his abilities to a manageable level and the training to instill spiritual discipline was greatly appreciated. Mia could help, at his absolute worst.
Together, they will try to give others the sort of defense and support Misty Fey should have had. Perhaps that will serve as atonement.
