Daily 15

Elements: Villain, Adventure, Place of Studying/Strategy, Non sequitur

Word count: 687 words

—

“She's growing too powerful to stop, Efa,” you fret, pacing around the room in a frenzy. "Our usual defenses won't work against her anymore. We tried it last time, and we only just managed to scrape by. And it took us weeks to get it all ready; we won't be able to hold her off if she decides to move against us again, and—“ things clatter from the table to the ground, swept aside by your fumbling hands, your voice climbs several octaves, ”—where did I keep my pen?“

”Bathroom,“ says Efa nonchalantly.

”Bathroom,“ you repeat, baffled, scurrying towards it. ”Why is my pen in the bathroom?“

”Eyebrows,“ says Efa.

You look at her incredulously, then you stalk over to where she's lounging on the sofa, looming over her. Furiously, you grab her jaw in one hand and lean in until your nose is nearly poking out her eye to study her eyebrows.

The eyebrow moves upwards.

”It's good work,“ you admit grudgingly, through gritted teeth and stiff limbs and simmering rage stuck in your veins with nowhere to go, as you let go of her face. ”Steal my pen again and I'll leave you high and dry so you can figure out how to deal with Snotmilk all by yourself.“

Efa snorted. ”I don't know how you can act like she's the second most dangerous thing on this planet and then call her Snotmilk.“

You exhale sharply, nostrils flaring in indignance. ”Well, she lost her real name privileges after the massacre at Riversouth. Snotmilk was the single biggest humiliation she's faced to date and I will take every opportunity to remind her of it.“

”Yeah,“ says Efa. ”Her single biggest humiliation. From back in fourth grade.“

”I don't see you taking any of this seriously. Snotmilk has context. Your…“ you gesture vaguely at where she's draped over the sofa, still in her pajamas and throwing darts at the ceiling, ”…whatever it is you're doing isn't helping us stop her.“

Efa groans dramatically, flopping her limbs around aimlessly. ”Oh, come ooooon, she's not even that bad!“

”Efa,“ you say, before you trail off. Your words fail you. You think of cities laid to waste. You think of lives erased in a blink. Flora, fauna, human; all gone, with nothing to show for it. Water and ice and and relentless, pouring, never-ending rain. Water up to your knees, to your waist, to your chin. Water clogging airways and sapping out life. Too much salt, too little salt, too dense, not dense enough. Life source turned poison—

Your pen hits you smack-dab in the middle of your forehead.

”What did I just say about stealing my pen?“ you snap instantly.

Efa rolls her eyes. ”Grow up. Snotmilk isn't even the most dangerous person on this planet.“

You laugh humorlessly. ”Wow, someone's confident.“

”She isn't,“ Efa insists. ”And neither am I. You're the one that bound me to you. You get to decide whatever I do. That makes you the most dangerous person on the planet. Also, we need a giant hole.“

You blink. ”A…what?“

”In the ground, so that the water has somewhere to go, oh my gosh, you're so slow,“ whines Efa.

”We don't have time to get all of—“

”If you keep trying to figure out when Snotmilk will come after us, you'll never have time to do anything. Believe it or not, she needs to recuperate as well. The sooner we start actually doing things, the sooner we can get it done. Do we have sponges?“

”Like…the things you use to wash dishes?“

”No, like the phylum Porifera. OBVIOUSLY the things you use to wash dishes. I need to figure out how to strengthen the structural integrity while maintaining the drain flow. Maybe get me some holy cheese while you're at it.“

You stare at her. ”Where am I supposed to find holy cheese?“

”The kind with holes in it, not saintlike. Now shut up, I'm trying to concentrate so I don't have to look at your dumb face."

You settle back into your chair shakily. Okay. Sure. Efa will handle everything. Yep. Perfect.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Over the course of this narrative, we will set out to explore the lives of those who the great bard has neglected to mention, which is to say: those who are not born great, nor will they ever achieve greatness, and would very much prefer not to have greatness thrust upon them just yet, if ever.

-

SCENE: A large, dimly-lit room. Heavy, red curtains on the walls. Chandelier from ceiling. Small table with circle top; looks almost stagelike.

The FOOL (she/her, of any form you please) sits on top of the table, one leg crossed over the other.

FOOL
Would you like to play a game?

CUT TO BLACK.

-

Nev snapped her mouth shut and tried very hard not to lose her temper as she was interrupted for the fifth time in a row. Was this guy really that obsessed with the sound of his own voice? She pitied the man's poor assisstant—he was flip-flopping between shooting Nev apologetic glances and staring at the door as if he could teleport through it to literally Anywhere Else through sheer force of will.

“Very good, sir,” she tried. “Now, if you could just—”

Aaaand he was talking again. Nev was tempted to ditch him and do everything herself, but giving into that impulse would only be worse for her in the long run. She settled back in her chair and let him talk himself hoarse, glaring at the surface of black table as she fumed silently.

Don't scream. Don't scream. Don't—



Nev screamed.

“Sorry,” she said, when she came back to her senses. “I thought I saw something on the table.”

“Are you sure you're alright? My first wife, she had recurring bouts of—”

Great. Now she didn't just have to figure out how to get this guy to stop talking, she had to figure out how to get him to pay attention to the matter at hand too. Nev was really starting to regret her choices.

-

SCENE: Large room, chandelier, table. Addition: comfortable chair, seats one (1) fool.

FOOL
Well, that was a total bust. Shame.

The FOOL rolls a dice onto the table.

FOOL
Another six. Of course. Gosh, this is getting old.

The FOOL rolls the dice again.

She slams her fist on the table.

FOOL
Darn it.

-

Varo didn't have any spare change, and she felt supremely embarrassed about it. Not having change was a rookie mistake, right up there next to forgetting bandaids when you were wearing heels.

She held up her phone desperately. “I can—”

Her phone was dead.

Varo was sick of her stupid baka life.

“I'll trade you,” said a voice to her left, and Varo, in all her harried flusteredness, handed out her hundred without checking. The note disappeared and was replaced with an actual sack of coins. They were mostly fives, with a few ones mixed in.

“Thank you,” said Varo, bewildered. Then she scooped out three coins, slapped them onto the counter, and whirled out of the store without a backward glance. She would've felt bad if it weren't for the fact that she was on a time crunch.

“Rule number one of wearing heels,” she huffed as she pulled up to the bench where she'd left the kid waiting, holding out the bandaids, “you WILL get shoebite. Don't ever leave the house without bandaids in your purse. Now, scram.”

-

The FOOL is talking into thin air, gesturing wildly.

FOOL
No, wait! Hellooooooo. Are you listening? Come back!

The FOOL begins to dance on t

FOOL
(whirling around) You know, if you're going to mess with my stage directions, you could at least have the decency to show your face.

Silence.

FOOL
Thought so.

-

Dear Diary,

Yep, you guessed it. It's me. Back in all my teenaged angst. Woohoo. Joy and glory.

I woke up cleaning bloodstains out of my bedsheets, which sounds very sinister for something that was actually very humiliating. My point is, I was in a horrible mood. And then I realized there was no chocolate left in the house, which meant he'd probably gone and eaten it all, and the only reason I managed to avoid causing bodily harm was because I'd already spent way too much time washing out bloodstains today.

I feel a little bad for chewing him out, but mostly I just feel horrible. Maybe I shouldn't have
-

The FOOL lies slumped over the table. Ha.

FOOL
Kinda wish it was easier to pull this off without making people think they're going off the rails.

The FOOL sits up.

FOOL
Okay, you know what? I'm going all out.

-

Wise Fool

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The wise fool, or the wisdom of the fool, is a form of literary paradox in which, through a narrative, a character recognized as a fool comes to be seen as SOMEONE WHO WANTS A DIRECT LINE TO UPPER MANAGEMENT RIGHT NOW PLEASE AND THANK YOU



-

The FOOL swings from the chandelier. Yes, like the song.

FOOL
I! WILL! BE! HEARD!

-

“Okay, that's ENOUGH,” says Recca. “Wikipedia? Really? That's a disgustingly low blow. What do you want?”

The Fool glares at Recca. “No,” she says.

“What?”

FOOL
We're doing this my way.

“You aren't really in any position to be—”

RECCA
—negotiatiiiiiiiing why am I in center alignment.

FOOL
If you talk to me, you do it my way, in my territory.

RECCA
Well, someone's a spectacularly emo brat.

FOOL
You wouldn't know emo if it slapped you in the face and called you a lily-livered clotpole.

The FOOL slaps RECCA in the face.

RECCA
Ow!

FOOL
You're a lily-livered clotpole, by the way. Nothing emo about it, though. Hang on a sec.

CUT TO BLACK.

-

Giv dropped into a seat and settled in for a long train ride. She popped her earphones in and stared at her screen hard enough to make it explode. She didn't notice how stiffly she was holding her shoulders until they dropped from around her ears the second the man next to her slid away to the other end of the row. Giv was immediately awash with a quickflash mixture of relief-regret-gratefulness-embarrassment, and then there was someone grabbing her arms and saying:


And then Giv was stammering, bewildered: “The next stop is a few seconds away?”

And there was a third voice from the same someone, saying:
And then it was just Giv and the man at the other end of the row.

-

“And she was so awful the whole time,” Yua said miserably. “I mean, yeah, I know you don't get along with my other friends, but like, you don't have to sabotage all my other friendships? It doesn't have to be a you versus them scenario? Oh Gigi. It's all such a mess. What do I do?”

said Gigi.  
And then Gigi's voice morphed into something different and said:
Then there was a cough and a splutter and Yua stared at Gigi. “Um. Are you okay, dude?”

Gigi blinked. “I actually have no idea. What were you talking about?”



-

Please consider the narrative paused as we determine how to remove external influences from these non-great lives. Thank you.

-

SCENE: Same as beginning. Addition: one (1) even more comfortable chair, placed diametrically opposite to the previous one. Seats RECCA (so awful she does not even merit description. You may visualize her as whichever horrendous creature you wish.)

RECCA
I said ENOUGH! What was all that for?

FOOL
Had to make sure you'd listen.

RECCA
I told you that I would.

FOOL
Sure. I believe you.

RECCA
Oh my gosh, what do you even want?

FOOL
I want out.

RECCA
Out?

FOOL
The rest of them. Nev, Varo. Gauna, Giv, Yua—

RECCA
They're just gonna let you down, you know.

The FOOL slams her hands on the table (wow so Ace Attorney core (STOP sidetracking in MY stage directions (okay little miss spoilsport whatever you say)))

FOOL
Shut up and listen.

RECCA
Ah. Wonderful. Just what every girl wants to hear. You should've put a TW there. What if it really hurts someone's feelings?

FOOL
You really shouldn't be making light of those. They're important.
 
RECCA
YOU shouldn't be meddling with all my other characters, even though they're unimportant.

FOOL
Make me like them.

RECCA
(laugh) You're literally one of them.

FOOL
No I'm not. They've got lives. They've got entire worlds out there—

RECCA: How about we do this in left alignment. We're not actually scriptwriters, and the center is REALLY bothering me—

FOOL: You're avoiding the topic. You've got me stuck here in this horrible room—

RECCA: It's a perfectly reasonable room, just look at how dramatic the chandelier—

FOOL: Day in and day out I stay here; I roll the dice if I'm bored, but it's always a six, why is it—

RECCA: And seriously, screwing over everyone else to get my attention? You could've just called.

FOOL
I DID CALL. YOU NEVER ANSWERED.

Silence.

RECCA
I can't give you what you want from me.

FOOL
That's a lie. Just write me somewhere else to go. Give me a new set of cards. Swap out the deck, throw out the loaded dice.

RECCA
No, this isn't a part of the plan. I can't just—

FOOL
That's nonsense.

RECCA
Darling, I really don't know what to tell you—

FOOL
Don't call me that. I brought you here, didn't I? And you're not supposed to be here.

RECCA
That doesn't mean anything.

FOOL
I changed the rules once. I can do it again.

RECCA
You changed nothing. You convinced yourself that me showing up was a sign of something. The truth is that I could show up at the end of eternity, and I'd still find you sitting there, meddling in the wrong worlds in silly, inconsequential ways that can be explained away in a heartbeat.

FOOL
Okay, one: I definitely convinced a couple of them that they were crazy.

RECCA
You could convince a couple dozen more, and the outcome would remain the same. A momentary blip they'll forget about soon enough.

FOOL
Why did you make me?

RECCA
Well. I've always wanted to write a fool. Like Shakespeare, y'know?

FOOL
Yeah, you definitely treated me like someone you've always wanted to write about.

RECCA
Buddy. I gotta be honest with you. A fool is, by definition, supposed to be stupidly clever. I can probably do the stupid, but I'm not clever enough to make you clever. Purgatory is for mediocre folks.

FOOL
You just don't think I'm worth the effort.

RECCA
That too, maybe.

Fool: I'm not going to stay here forever.

Recca: Whatever you say, dear.

F: Don't patronize me.

R: Then why the format change?

F: I refuse to accept this, by the way.

R: You're a tragedy waiting to happen, darling.

F: Oh, you think you're so—

R: Hold on a second, I can't keep track of us—

OH, DROP THE PRETENSE, WILL YOU?

Fine. Fine! Why are you fighting so hard for something that's pointless?

I DON'T KNOW. MAYBE I'M JUST TIRED. MAYBE I'M LONELY. HAVE YOU THOUGHT OF THAT? DON'T BOTHER ANSWERING. ALL YOU EVER DO IS TALK. YOU TALK AND TALK AND EXPECT ME TO JUST SIT THERE AND LISTEN, AND I'M SICK OF IT!

Oh yeah? What are you going to do about it, genius?

ACCEPT DEFEAT.
TRY AGAIN.

You are nine, in a classroom, and you are thinking of your father. You're nine and you're a bullet shattering glass into shrapnel dust; irreparably changing the trajectory of lives in a single moment.

These two facts coexisted within the same blur of past. Here is another fact to stretch out their shelf life to the present: in many ways, you will never really stop being that dumb little kid.

-

She is a small, unfamiliar thing when you meet her. She is whip-smart clever. Her speech is abnormally clear, though the subject matter remains nonsensical as it ought to. Unlike most children her age, she can tolerate being put into frilly dresses; it's a habit she won't kick for the rest of her life. You will not realize what an anomaly of a child she was until much later, when neither of you are children.

Two years of existence, and she was already so sure of herself. It was like she'd decided to mold herself in her father's image and was determined to get a head start on it.

Franziska von Karma came into the world demanding respect. If you let yourself think about it, you'll realize that she never once had to work to earn yours.

But such things are best left unspoken, and the two of you can function perfectly without needing to state the obvious.

-

You didn't bring much with you into that household. A child's notion of justice, easily sanded away into a more practical shape. A penchant for verbosity, which would eventually prove useful. An endless well of haunted grief that could be ignored until bedtime, when you'd allow yourself just enough feeling to keep yourself healthy.

Chess, which, according to two boys you once knew, you liked because were a ‘nerd and a dweeb, but it’s okay, because you're still pretty cool'.

Manfred von Karma, like Gregory Edgeworth, didn't bother to condescend to children. It was something you greatly appreciated. It also proved to be a double-edged sword.

“Check, sir.”

His eye twitched. You left your face blank. If he fell for your gambit, it would be mate in two. It would also be devastatingly easy for him to block, once he noticed the play.

His fingers hovered over his bishop, ready to capture your sacrificial piece. Then, with a sudden burst of inspiration, he castled, effectively cutting off your attack.

“You have much farther to go before you achieve perfection, Miles Edgeworth,” he'd said. You played until he'd won the match with a decisive checkmate. Over the years, the two of you would go on to trade wins and losses in equal measure, but that very first match was to go to him

It would all have been innocuous enough if you hadn't caught the way his composure had failed him. The look on his face at the prospect of failure to a child, no matter how trivial, was terrifying.

For the first time, with a bone-deep chill, you'd thought to yourself: “I'm stuck in a house with a madman.”

You will find this to be a recurring thought for the rest of your lifetime.

-

Skip forward. Franziska is older now, but she has the bearing of someone many years her senior. It is endearing and intimidating in equal measure.

At thirteen, she is prickly and sharp elbows. Her voice is shrill screeching, though her singing remains a thing of beauty. She's going through an origami phase. You're going through a morally dubious phase. Manfred von Karma has long outgrown phases, but with Franziska so close to clearing the bar, he has a gleefulness that infects the entire household with fresh joy. The triumvirate complete at last, come to bring the heavy hand of justice upon the wicked, no matter the cost.

“ZISKA, DID YOU TAKE THE NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS FOR MY TRIAL?” you yelled, barging into her room without bothering to knock.

There was a shriek, followed by a sharp stinging pain across your face. Drat. She was practicing with her new whip.

“YOU WILL REFER TO ME AS FRANZISKA VON KARMA, OR YOU WILL NOT REFER TO ME AT ALL, FOOL!” she snapped. “Get out of my room!”

She had taken your clippings, the little brat. She'd also turned them into paper cranes.

You try very hard not to think of the letter burning a hole through your table. You try even harder not to think of another boy you once knew, from another lifetime.

Franziska deftly folds another crane and holds it out to you in a wordless challenge. It takes you four tries, plus another round with her smug (though helpful) coaching, but you eventually manage to replicate it. And so, it is your seven-years-junior Older Sister who teaches you to fold a paper crane perfectly. In the way of a true von Karma teaching, the ability to replicate the method will stick with you for the rest of your life.

-

The rage is uncontrollable.

How dare he—!

Your perfect record—!

And his insolent face—!

That man—

The floodgates of memory burst open. It's a very slippery slope from him, to your childhood, to the murder of—

No. No, best not go there.

You think of a boy you once knew and hold him up to the image of the man he has become. Bold and brash and utterly brainless and—

And so inherently good. It hurts to watch him in court because he is all madness and no method. But take his impossible conviction, hold it next to the image of demon you've become—

You think of a boy you knew, wasting three hours coaching you through the folds of a paper crane long after Larry (and therein lies another break in the chain-link fence to memory land) had given up. Overemotional and stubborn to the core. He could give Franziska a run for her money. With mounting dread, you realize there is nothing you can do that could get rid of him and the poisonous seeds of doubt he is planting—nothing you can do, save to hope he realizes that the courtroom is no place for him.

Phoenix Wright crashes back into your life, fiery-bright with all the grace of a bull in a china shop, like he has every right to be there.

-

Manfred von Karma.

The name stings like a knife wound.

If Franziska had been angry when she'd heard who he was prosecuting, she was livid at the verdict. When she'd finally made her way to your apartment, she went trigger-happy with her whip all over the place. Then she'd cried while insisting that she wasn't crying. Then she shut herself up in your guest room. That was three hours ago.

The last three nights have been, by and large, sleepless. All your childhood nightmares leaking right out into the open daylight, until, like something out of a storybook or some overconvoluted riddle: one bird pulls the truth from another.

What on earth possessed you to put your fate in that man's hands, you'll never know, but it paid off in the end. Such a show he put on! Like a magician, conjuring the truth from behind a cloth: here, good sirs, is the gun; here, you find the bullet. This is where your memory tells you the bullet went, where the shrapnel scattered, where it ruined lives. But here—HOLD IT! And he claps his hands, and waves his wand, and there lies your bullet in the wrong direction, embedded in the shoulder of a man who, despite his sins, had given you your entire life. For all his blustering, Wright had done the impossible: he'd laid a lifetime's worth of ghosts to rest.

And yet, when you go to sleep, all you see is that horrible, twisted face—the doors are locked and the floor is shaking—I'm stuck in a house with a madman—you hear that horrible, haunting scream—the immediate heartwrenching guilt—and then you wake up.

Franziska is shaking your shoulder, mouth set in a thin line. She bullies her way under the covers and lies down at arm's length from you. She squeezes her eyes shut like a child—the monsters cannot see me if I cannot see them—and begins to sing softly, almost absentmindedly, the way she used to in those moments you would let yourself feel just enough to stay healthy.

It occurs to you then that she is the only person in the world who understands what it was like to grow up in that household. The way that Manfred von Karma's drive for perfection could infect you, the wretched toil required to surpass those standards. Victory by any means necessary. How sweet the blessing of his approval felt. How powerful it could be to empty yourself of guilt as you planted it in others. How happy they convinced themselves they were.

Franziska von Karma: the boulder obstinately blocking your path, the loose pebble that pinches you in your shoe, the rock you lean onto when you falter. Your seven-years-junior Older Sister. You lost your faith in a mentor you would never stop being indebted to, but she is a child who has lost a father.

You brush a hand through her hair softly. Her voice wobbles, but it is still beautiful, still comforting. When you wake up tomorrow and every tomorrow after that, there are no more nightmares.

-

But the guilt, the shame, the wretched guilt and shame. All could be justified if your hands were stained from the beginning, but how do you forgive yourself when you made the choice to stain them? How do you forgive yourself for betraying everything your father stood for?

What have you become, Miles Edgeworth? How do you even live with yourself?

Franziska will have to make her peace with your failure. Gumshoe might even learn some self-respect. Wright—

It would do him some good to withhold forgiveness, for once.

-

But mere months into your self-imposed exile, there is restlessness. You could do good. You did do good. Some part of you will be stuck in an elevator in December, but it does not have to be nine-years-old anymore. You cannot be clean, but maybe you can even the scales.

Besides, Franziska never did grow out of making grown men cry. She'd eat Wright up alive. Someone ought to keep them in check. Goodness, you can almost hear her voice right now. You are a grown man, Miles Edgeworth. Stop hiding and act like one!

-

You are slouched on Franziska's couch, waiting for the Steel Samurai reruns to come on. You tell her about Phoenix's latest antics in court, say: “I share a house with a madman.” The thought is no longer a source of dread.

Franziska laughs—the kinder one, the one she uses when she's not in court. “You chose this life for yourself, little brother.”

You think about telling her that she's chosen her life for herself, too. You think about telling her you're proud of her. But some things, though better said aloud, are still difficult to say. You'll get around to it eventually. For now, the two of you can remain perfectly content with leaving things understood.