Day 53: Sun Room

[gald_digger]

When the intercom came on to announce the shift change, the feeling of dread returned. Anise had calmed down considerably since the morning, and she felt more ready to discuss the previous night with Ilia... but not as ready as she wanted to be.

Since the Music Room was bound to be noisy and crowded, Anise opted for the Sun Room instead, hoping that Ilia would come to the same conclusion. She took a seat on one side of a couch in the middle of the room, and waited there. If Ilia didn't show up after a while, she'd go try the Music Room.

Even though this talk had been on her mind all day, Anise still didn't know what she would say. And if she explained the truth behind her shadow's words last night... what would Ilia think? On the one hand, Ilia had shown herself to be a compassionate person, and it was hard to picture her treating Anise differently. But on the other hand, Anise hadn't known Ilia that long... and Ilia was a soldier. She would understand the gravity of Anise's actions, and the sorts of consequences that usually waited for people like her.

With these worries weighing on her mind, Anise leaned against the arm of the couch as she waited.

[For Ilia.]

Comments

[tasteoftruth.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. I wasn't sure if it was you or some kind of trick, so I wanted to be careful." Badd stroked her unbound hair and held her tightly against his chest. Too damn long since he'd gotten to hug her without an armed guard looking on.

"They were driving me back from the trial and then suddenly I wake up here in time for breakfast." He looked down at her concernedly. "How'd you get here?" Who put you here, for that matter. Kay was as giddy as always to see him but she hadn't asked what a convicted criminal was doing wandering around an insane asylum. Not 'how' or 'why', just 'when'.

Well, it was Kay. Kay wasn't known for priorities. Badd tried to ignore it and focus on his hugging.

[stealthetruth.livejournal.com]

"Well, it's really me for real," she told him, with a happy grin. Man, it was sooooo good to see him, to have someone she knew and trusted and had pretty much the same contextual timeframe as her! (Also, he was wonderfully warm to cuddle up to. Hurrah for hugs, seriously.)

"Which trial?" she asked, with a bit of a grin. "There's been a lot of trials recently. Yours, or...?" She made a bit of a serious face at the thought of Yew, one that would hopefully get the person across without her having to say that woman's name. "And I dunno, I just woke up here a couple days ago. There's a bunch of people here that you know, though! Or I know. Miss von Karma's here, and Ema Skye, and Lana Skye, and you should probably know that Ema and Ms. Skye are from a couple years ago and Miss von Karma is from a couple months ago, from before she started working with Lang and Interpol. Oh, and Gummy is here!" She grinned, cheerfully, utterly unbothered by the fact that all of that probably sounded like nonsense to Uncle Badd.

[tasteoftruth.livejournal.com]

"Kay, Kay, slow down." Badd squeezed her shoulder, the worried expression coming back to his face. "A few days ago? Why didn't anyone report you missing?" He'd have heard about it at the trial, he'd seen Prosecutor Edgeworth and he know that the guy at least tolerated Kay.

And all those people here? An irrelevant little detective and an agent of Interpol and an ex-prosecutor's little sister? "Kay, none of those people are here. That would be impossible." And unreasonable. Did Kay not understand what was going on here? She was oblivious sometimes but nobody could be so cheerful and naive about their own kidnapping.

...what had they done to her?

[stealthetruth.livejournal.com]

"I don't know why not, I've been here, remember?" She slowed down a little, though, at his request, tamping down her excitement and need to tell him about all the things. They'd have plenty of time, right? "Anyway, this is just the third day I've been here, I haven't been gone that long." Also a lot of weird timey stuff, but she would get to that after the next bit...

"What do you mean, impossible? I just had lunch with Ema, and I'm going to have breakfast with Gummy tomorrow." She made a face at him, nudging her fist against his arm in a mock-punch. "Don't be silly, Uncle Badd. This place is weird as heck, but I'm pretty sure they're here!"

[tasteoftruth.livejournal.com]

"Because of the message board?" Badd looked up at the milling crowd and concluded they needed to be somewhere a little discreter. He took her by the wrist and pulled her over to one of the couches in the corner, tucking them out of the way as he would in some seedy smoky bar full of criminals and informants.

"Kay," he said, quieter. "That could be anyone writing there. Have you ever actually seen their faces? Someone's messing with us and they're going to pretty great lengths for it." She couldn't be that foolish.

[stealthetruth.livejournal.com]

"Yes, because of the message board." God, Uncle Badd could be so thick. Kay frowned a little, folding her legs up on the couch and getting comfortable for arguing against Uncle Badd's undying suspicion of everything ever. (She loved him, but jeeze! He would suspect a puppy of villainy if it dared to blink in his general direction.) Animating her words with dramatic hand gestures and a particularly silly voice, she continued, "It's not like they were all, 'Kay Faraday! It is us, your BFFs who want to trick you into giving us sensitive information! Come to a secluded place at midnight without weapons! TRUST US,' or something. And it'd be a lot more convincing trickery-- if it was trickery, which it isn't!-- if it weren't for the weird time travel stuff." And if he was going to argue about that, there was Ema! Ema, who Kay knew, and who Kay trusted the word of, and who was actually physically two years younger than she had been when Kay had met her a week ago.

[tasteoftruth.livejournal.com]

Badd resisted the urge to say that it would probably work. For a thief Kay was surprisingly trusting of some of the worst people--she was instant buddies with Miles 'von Karma II' Edgeworth without even bothering to research the man's sordid past, to say nothing of blurting out her secret identity as a thief to every Interpol agent in hearing range. As if the Yatagarasu had ever been something to be proud of.

Weird time travel stuff, huh? Sounded a bit like what Gant was spewing this morning. Maybe he was in on it, but why, why, where the hell was all the purpose in this? Badd's head was spinning trying to find some connection between random events and random people, trying to find some method in all this madness and the lack of logic in it all would be enough to make Miles Edgeworth break down crying.

At least one thing sort of made sense. "They're not trying to get information out of us, they already know everything," he said urgently, trying to make her see through the lies. "They're trying to make us think we're completely out of our minds and deserve to be here." Or were they? It was impossible to tell.

[stealthetruth.livejournal.com]

"... Oh maaaaaan." Kay made a face at him, totally and completely annoyed. "I, uh, dunno who all you've been talking to today, but no one here's tried to convince me I'm crazy except the nurses. And no one's been trying to convince me I should be here-- you took the Yatagarasu symbol off my note, you should've seen that Gummy was offering me tips on how to find incriminating evidence, not telling me that there wasn't any to find."

She leaned on his shoulder with a sigh, and ticked off on her fingers, "Besides, everyone I've talked to has had confirmed that this place isn't what it's pretending to be. That includes people I don't know or have any particular reason to trust-- I haven't caught anyone out on any kind of lies yet, even. Usually people tell little lies every now and then, but everyone here is ridiculously truthful, and even the things I can't confirm are ridiculous enough that it's hard to believe anyone would expect anyone else to believe lies about it." She pauses to think up examples. "Like Admiral ZEX this morning, he says he's a space alien. If 'they' are trying to get me to think I'm mentally unstable, why would 'they' have a guy saying something that sounds so ridiculous?" Not that Kay didn't believe ZEX, but she was pretty accepting of space aliens. If time travel was (provably!) possible, why not that, too?

[tasteoftruth.livejournal.com]

"It didn't occur to you that we might actually be in an asylum?" Badd was starting to lose his patience here. The most frustrating part was how she took this place at face value and didn't even seem upset about it when her very life was in danger. "You found a space alien and I had a guy doubting the existence of his breakfast. They can believe what they're saying and still be crazy." The fact that they were ridiculously truthful was itself a red flag. Everyone told six lies before breakfast, even if they were 'no, that cravat makes you look quite dignified, sir'.

He tried to turn his tone gentle again. She was just a child, despite all she'd gone through. "But that doesn't mean Gumshoe and Miss von Karma are really the people you think they are. Sometimes our friends, the people we think we can trust above everyone, are the ones plotting against us. You should know that more than anyone."

It was a low blow, but she needed a wakeup call. This was not a game.

[stealthetruth.livejournal.com]

"Fine, I'll make sure to start mistrusting you right away."

She said it snappishly, without really thinking. She knew to be cautious, she did, but that didn't mean her friends were going to be like that woman just because Badd was afraid they would be--

After a moment, she realized it was kind of a cruel thing to say to the one person she trusted more than anything, the person she knew loved her more than anything, but-- but he was kinda being a jerk, too, and not listening to anything she was saying! Just because she was young and kind of impulsive didn't mean she was wrong, and she'd been here three times longer than he had...

"This isn't just an asylum. I know it. And you trying to convince me otherwise isn't going to work." She said it firmly, without any hint of giving way.

[tasteoftruth.livejournal.com]

"Not the worst idea," Badd mumbled in response to her first comment. He made it his business to mistrust everyone, even before Yew came on the scene. Even the most honest people could be blackmailed, or repeating false information they thought was true.

Like Kay, for example. Badd sighed and ran a hand over his weathered face, wishing Faraday had given his kid less idealism and more cynicism. "It's not just an asylum, I'll give you that. There's people here that shouldn't be here, like Gant." Oh, right. "By the way, if some white haired big guy who laughs too much gets near you, scream and get the hell out. He's not a nice guy."

Stranger danger and all that. They came stranger than Gant but not by much.