foolishwren | 032. Video

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032. Video

_{[Beep beep! What's that, Lassie? An incoming message?! Oh, looks like it's coming from one Hal 'Otacon' Emmerich's PokeGear! How lovely. What does the nerd have to say toda-- .... HEY, THAT'S NOT OTACON!]

[The screen blips into life on a face that's bruised, scraped, and... freckled?]

[Once its owner is sure the thing is on, she withdraws-- making herself a little easier to identify. Sheepish smile and all.]

[Behind her appears to be a standard little camp set up in the woods-- nothing... really fancy. But she's not the only one there-- somewhere behind her, there's.... some shirtless guy wandering around and his indistinct bitching about something or other can be heard.]

[The mat-furred, sleepy Growlithe in her lap just looks content to be there, although it's obvious he's had it as rough as his owner.]}

So. Uh.

_{[Her voice is a painful-sounding croak-- hardly more than a shadow of what it is normally.]}

Apparently I'm a wanted criminal.

... Anyone know what I did? ... Was it awesome?

I love that mugshot. It's so majestic.

_{[Yeah, she's making light of it, but her heart's not... really into it. Though it's sort of hard to tell the difference between that and the plain old exhaustion that's obviously leaking into her every movement and word.]

[... Meanwhile, in the background, Liquid has noticed that the camera's on and has started flexing his manly man-muscles at it in true Photobomb fashion. Heather doesn't notice yet.]}

Uh... anyway... I'm not... sure how long I was gone, and my 'Gear is uh... pretty thoroughly broken-- Hal's off in town getting stuff to repair it with, so... if anyone... like, tried to contact me, m'sorry, I probably didn't get it...

I uh... really hope everyone's all right.

_{[She probably doesn't need to clarify that she's talking about that fog. Now that she knows what had happened wasn't real, and that others had experienced their OWN nightmares... well, let's just say she's really hoping she didn't knock anyone's skull in. ... And the question "DID I knock anyone's skull in?" is implied at the end of her statement.]}

......

_{[And around that time, her Heather Senses pick up on Liquid's trolling behind her, so she reaches out to turn the camera off while looking over her shoulder.]}

Liquid, get the fuck out.

_{[End feed.]}

[Locked to Kaito and Rise]

[Another video feed, a little later than the first one, but not by too long. Otacon apparently was able to fix the 'Gear enough that Heather could receive those two messages that had been waiting a good week and a half to be received by this point.]

[And... judging by her hardly-disguised guilty expression, she's more than feeling the weight of guilt for worrying her friends. Especially since she saw Rise just the previous day and hadn't... even known how ... candid a message she'd left days before.]

[After a couple seconds, she breaks into a sheepish, crooked grin.]

Uh... hey, guys...

... I got your messages...

[Locked to Harry, James, and Mary]

_{[This one's in text, because she knows good and well that James at the very least will be freaking out over how she looked in that video feed, and she's not sure she can take his quiet concerned expressions.]

[But she can't avoid sending this-- if she saw Silent Hill in that fog, then she's... pretty sure that they'd have seen something similar. ... Well, she's not sure about Mary, actually, but given the connection... better safe than sorry.]}

are you guys alright

(typing is hard, sorry for no caps)_

-heather

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

_{[She's not looking directly at the camera-- her brows are furrowed and she's sort of just... staring at the edge of the screen intently as the gears work away in her head.]

[She wasn't sure what she wanted to say. Phoenix was a good guy, but she still didn't know him too well yet. ... And she never, EVER had planned on telling a thing about what had happened in Silent Hill to any kind of lawyer. Not when she was on her own, her father dead and she was emerging from the wake of a turbulent school career and entanglement in a series of violent, unexplained happenings. Pshyeah right, telling a lawyer that stuff would have just been a one-way ticket to some kind of institution.]

[... But she did owe him an explanation. And he'd... tried to help her, when she was going crazy.]}

... A lot.

A lot's happened to me.

_{[It's a statement he's UNDOUBTEDLY already worked out for himself, but it's laden with meaning.]}

[Phoenix is probably aware that his job might be preventing Heather from being completely honest with him -- lawyers were never the most popular people, after all -- but he really wished more people understood that he was a defense attorney. Defense attorneys don't put people away, they protect them. It's a situation he's had to explain to quite a few people before, but he figures now isn't exactly the time to tackle that can of worms.

...instead, he just bites his lower lip worridly. He words are so heavy. And she was only in her, what, late teens? It was a kind of heavy that he'd seen in his client's eyes when they'd turned to him for help, in Maya's eyes when she'd kneeled by the dead body of her sister, in Edgeworth's eyes when Phoenix had seen his photo in the paper, seeing his friend for the first time in eleven years.

...all of this rolled together gave her words far more impact than she could have expected.]

...but look at you, Heather. You've beat that, haven't you? You're strong. _{Stay strong. Trust me, I...I can't even imagine what you've gone though. But ...} But whatever it is, you've beat it. The nightmares, too.

['Course, he doesn't know that -- he's just wildly guessing, here. but he sincerely hopes that she has]

_{[Yeah, the poor guy's probably used to the whole YOU'RE A LAWYER? GET OUT mentality from a lot of people. Heather's no different, unfortunately. The law had never done her much good and she'd already had to deal with counselors prying and prodding for any sort of sign that her father's death had driven her over the edge.]

[But then... unlike them, Phoenix's concern is completely genuine. The guy is like an open book-- she can just tell. And though she doesn't know it, he's reading her pretty well, too. She covers it up from day to day with that spunky, rough facade-- but that heaviness he's hearing is always there, deep down.]}

... Yeah, I did beat it.

_{[Her tone shifts a little, becoming clearer, and she lifts her head, looking him in the eye now.]}

... I'm just still working on the 'getting better' part.

_{[She pauses a moment. He HAD asked her what happened... and she wished there was some concise way to explain it that wouldn't also be totally dishonest by default.]}

[Yeah, he's been called an ambulance chaser so many times by now that's it's pretty much lost all meaning -- almost. But, really...he's just a bleeding heart. And he cares too much.]

...it's hard. [a pause.] ...but at least you're not alone. _{I know how that feels.} [and boy, does he.]

_{[Aw, Phoenix. You're such a sweetie. And Heather knows this, too. Which is why she's currently struggling with just whether and what she wants to tell him or not. She hasn't known him for too long-- and hell, apart from the name, occupation, general temperament, and the little time paradox they had in common, neither of them knew a lot about each other.]

[But he cared-- genuinely cared. And she owed him an explanation.]}

I know it's hard.

... I know I'll be able to do it, but it has been hard.

_{[One thing that Heather believed unwaveringly was that she'd survive. Some people had doubts about whether they'd make it, and Heather didn't have that. She KNEW. But that didn't make the process itself easy.]}

.... I already told you I don't come from a very good place and I wasn't lying. It's a bad place.

[Phoenix has earned him trust a-plenty because of his raw honesty, and the crazy thing is that he never expects any of it. Naiive and endearing to the last, despite being a grown, 25-year-old man.]

And that just means that you can't give up, right? [He grins, a bit crookedly. Dispositions and occupations and genders aside, he figures he and Heather are actually quite alike in a few respects.

--and now that he senses the tone of their conversation treading on crazier ground, he opts to sit down, cross-legged, leaning on his elbows with the Pokegear resting on his hands.]

...a bad place. [A pause.] With monsters.

...I take it you're not from my United States, then. _{Unless there's mosters back at home, too...} [The thought is defintely usettling.]

_{[The question gets a crooked little smile that spoke plainly enough. Giving up was the LAST thing on her mind-- and always had been. It had crossed her mind, a couple of times as she'd been cutting her way through that town, that maybe it would be easier-- even better-- to give in and let that woman's plan carry through. ... And then she'd decided she had better shit to do! Heather Mason was not somebody who just 'gave up'. Harry hadn't raised her like that.]

[So... she and Phoenix are pretty alike in that respect.]

[The smile fades into a more sober look when he makes that observation, though.]}

Don't be so sure. I said there were monsters. I never said there were supposed to be monsters.

_{[She'd grown up being told by the world that monsters weren't real, just like any other kid. The monsters of the Otherworld hadn't just been wandering down the street.
"Oh hey Roy, I'm just picking up the mail. How's the wife and kids?"
"BLARRGHARG"
"Really? That's ni-- NO WAIT DON'T SPEW HORRIBLE ACID ON ME AAAAAGGHGHGGHH"]

[Yeah. It hadn't been like that. The monsters had very much been aberrations to Heather's everyday life. In fact, they'd arguably never set foot in the real (or was it just normal? The Otherworld was as real, too.) world at all. She'd been dragged kicking and screaming into theirs.]}

...these monsters crossed into your world, then? Or...the other way around? [His tone is still as concerned and personal as it always was. It's one of the wonders about him, how he can be a professional without sounding like an unattatched douchebag. He would make a pretty nifty therapist, in retrospect. None of that "How does that make you feel" bullshit, because Phoenix knows how it makes people feel. It hurts.]

... I guess you could put it that way.

Or the other way around.

The lines got kinda blurry after awhile.

_{[Silent Hill was hard to tack a definition to. Perfectly normal (albeit seedy, corrupt and more than a little skeevy under the surface) tourist town on one had, but on the other...]

[And yeah, Phoenix is right on the money with that. After that horrible night where she'd saved the world and become a real orphan as a reward, she'd had to spend the rest of the school year listening to crap like that, and it had the most spectacular level of unhelpful she'd ever witnessed since the time Harry had tried to fix her computer and wound up setting off every smoke alarm in the apartment building. That was to say, it was pretty damn unhelpful.]}

... [Having only experienced the pseudo-paranormal on a very mild, spirit-channeling scale, Phoenix isn't quite sure how to respond to that. He doesn't have any doubts as to whether she's being thruthful or not, however.]

...why would they do that? [Because he's a lawyer, and he asks these kinds of questions. All. The Damn. Time.]

_{[Yeah, it's okay Phoenix... there aren't actually many ways to respond to that. Just... be glad she's not telling you what she told Kaito. Although who knows, you might wind up hearing the whole story like him one day, too. But ...Heather's not quite willing to tell that yet, even if she did beat the daylights out of him. SORRY PHOENIX BUT YOUR LAWYERNESS IS STILL A LITTLE TOO MUCH FOR HER PARANOIA.]

[She does, however, incline her head a little.]}

A few reasons.

_{[Oh lol Heather, so evasive.]}

... None that I could ever explain without sounding like I need to be locked up in a padded cell.

_{[And that's her way of ... sort of politely blowing him off... for the moment. The fact that he's so genuinely concerned means a lot more than he might realize, though.]}

... But basically it had to do with a... some people that sort of had it in for my dad. _{[... And who worshiped Heather. Not in a healthy, wholesome way, either.]}

... It's complicated.

[He's not expecting her to spill everything -- from what he's gathered so far, it's probably not a happy story, and considering how they barely know each other...yeah, he's pretty fine with whatever Heather feels she can give out. Mostly.]

Boy, have I heard that before.

...but if you'd rather not, that's fine. [A slight shrug.]

People who...had it in for your dad? [Ah, THIS is territory he's familiar with. Eeexcellent.]

... Heh. You must hear it all the time in your profession.

_{[It's... probably pretty obvious to him that Heather doesn't have a whole lot of faith in the law. Given the fact that she wasn't too upset about being a wanted criminal until she found out she'd hurt a FRIEND.]

[The camera shakes around a little as she sits up. She doesn't want to be lying down while she even begins to wander towards the territory of this subject. ... It makes her feel too vulnerable. Or like she's talking to a psychiatrist.]}

... Yeah.

Not very nice people.

If I had a penny... [Yeah, kind of. Bit of a cliche in his line of work, to be quite honest.

He watches quietly as she gets up, waiting on her reply before he speaks up again.]

...I can imagine.

_{[Rubbing her unbandaged eye, she leaned one elbow on her knee, still holding onto the 'Gear.]}

Have you ever been in a court case involving a... cult, or... occult activity, Phoenix?

[

um.]

...in a manner of speaking. [Spirit-channeling assistant. An entire case revolving around the false words of a dead man who testified through the body of said spirit-channeling assistant's mother. Kind of involved with the occult, really!]

_{[Close, but no cigar.]}

... Well, if you've ever dealt with an honest-to-goodness cult... you'll know that a lot of bad shit is usually going on under the surface, and that they're damn good at keeping it that way.

_{[The Order'd had a way of making those who opposed them disappear, and getting away with it.]}

Not...a cult, no.

[the Mafia? Briefly. Crazy prosecutors? Definitely. Crazy conspiracies? ALL THE TIME. So, really, he gets what you're talking about.]

But I've dealt with people who... [a slight hesitation] ...who would do anything to keep their crimes hidden. Anything at all.

Then I guess you know a little what these people were like.

_{[Except that they were so underground she wasn't sure they'd EVER been taken to court at all. Even the man who had attacked her and her father back in '94 had never been officially linked to the cult. Probably because they dropped the case like a hot potato as soon as they'd decided that Harry had killed in self-defense and hadn't bothered investigating why he'd been attacked...]}

There were investigations sometimes, but one way or another they were never linked to anything.

Most people just thought of them as yet another funny backwoods church and probably didn't question it much further. _{[Unless they were in on it themselves.... willingly or unwillingly.]}

[...hearing this story is...really, it's hard for Phoenix.

Because he knew that if HE was there, these cases would not be settled until they were solved. It was his duty as a awyer, and it's always shocked him, how other members of law enforcement are so...so stupid.

You can see the anger clearly in his expression, and the Pokegear shakes ever so slightly as his hands clench.]

That's...

That's ridiculous.

If they're going around killing people, then--!

[Ooh, yes, Phoenix is pretty damn furious atm.]

_{[Oh, Phoenix... If this is how angry you get just hearing a whiff of the story, you have no idea what you're in for should you have the patience to stick through this tale to its finish, with all the twisted little cul-de-sacs of murder, magic, and corruption. But for the moment, thankfully, you probably won't be getting anywhere NEAR the full story. Heather doesn't play well when it comes to the whole 'let it all out' concept... this is a case that Phoenix may very well need to wind up with a lot of patience for if he wants to eventually be able to piece together the whole thing.]

[But it's safe to say that he won't like what he hears.]

[This is just the barest of bones, lawyer-man.]}

What can I say... they're good at what they do.

_{[There's an odd little mirthless smirk twitching up one corner of Heather's mouth, but her eyes say that she doesn't actually find it too amusing.]}

A lot of it happens within the cult itself, and everybody knows they're strange-ass folks, so nobody really questions it. There's never anything to find when the cops DO poke their noses in, so why bother?

... Anyway.

We go back a ways, me and them.

[Well, Phoenix gets worked up about the smallest of things. Especially when they involve crimes, and whether justice has been served or not. Because he's that one lawyer that actually BELIEVES in justice, that one that no one believes exists.

...well, until that new show they have on CBS, at least, but either way. He came first.

...ALRIGHT TO BE HONEST Perry Mason came first, but HE didn't have to solve conspiracy theories on quite the scale that Phoenix does, but I digress.]

But, I mean--if they're a group that's already known for having, er..."questionable" actions, then it should be the duty of the police to investigate it as thouroughly as possible. _{There's always a clue somewhere. Murderers are far from perfect, right?}

[...he slowly calms himself down, shifting a bit so he can bring his knees clser to his chest, picking up the Pokegear and holding it instead of having it rest on top of his hands as he had before.]

...way back?

_{[Yeah, Heather hasn't had the luxury of meeting anybody like that in her world. To her, justice was something that either didn't exist, or had existed once but had been driven into extinction long before she'd been around.]}

There's clues. They weren't perfect at all. They're pretty damn sloppy, actually... they're just... good. They have people who cover up for them. Lots of people.

_{[The doctors had probably ditched them by this point, but at least back when she'd been Alessa, the local hospital had been a powerful ally to the Order. And Heather had no doubt that they weren't the only ones who were in it up to their necks.]}

I know there were a few police who tried to expose them. Find the drug rings and break them up.

But they weren't safe either.

_{[She'd never met Cybil... but Harry had told her the stories about his brave friend, and now Heather was old enough to have worked out that the policewoman had almost certainly died in the fray of what had happened on that horrific summer night eighteen years ago.]}

......

... My ... mother was one of their leaders. A... priestess.

_{[She made a sort of... nasty face as she said both the words 'mother' and 'priestess', like they tasted bad.]}

Even if they were sloppy. Someone--someone should have been able to put them together. Regardless of the danger, it's--_{it's only right.}

[...if you haven't noticed, Phoenix has no qualms about putting his life on the line for others. Especially clients, and ESPECIALLY friends. It's not that he misunderstands the degree of danger involved with this Order, but...hell, when you can stand (relatively) tall in the face of the mafia, you're either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. In Phoenix's case, it's probably a mix of both.]

If these officers weren't..."safe", then shouldn't somebody have noticed? _{Like, I don't know--if this Order was as dangerous as you say, couldn't you get the FBI involved? Or something?}

[...and at the mention of her mother, well. It's...actually, it's a bit unexpected, being the most personal reveal Heather's given him this whole conversation. Remembering his own mother, bless her heart, Phoenix's expression softens.]

_{...I'm sorry.}

[Because it doesn't take a genius to figure out that being a priestess in this crazy shit was probably NOT a good thing.]

_{[Heather gives him a sort of hard look. She knows he means well, but... he is naive. SO naive.]}

A lot of things happen that aren't 'right' every single day.

It ran deeper than the police, all right? There was nothing normal about any of this. _{[Hell, it ran deeper than the people. It was the town itself. If the very land that place was built on wanted its twisted little following to stay untouched, it'd damn well make it so. But Heather doesn't know how to say that without sounding crazy. Sometimes it sounds crazy even to her-- if she hadn't experienced it all personally, she probably wouldn't have believed it herself.]

[She hadn't even gotten to explaining the monsters yet.]

[At Phoenix's apology, she looked aside and raised a dismissive hand.]}

No need to apologize... the bitch has been dead for a good long while now.

_{[Eighteen years, in fact. God rest her soul. NOT.]}

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[video; private; dammit stop trying to make me ship these two]

[video; private; MUAHAHAHHAHAAA]

[video; private; DAAAMN YOOOOOU]

[video; private; HEY I'M JUST PLAYING, MAN. THIS IS ALL YOU.]

[video; private; why can't I quit yoooou]

[video; private; PHEROMONES. :I]

[video; private; I swear to god it's all these teenage girls. DAMMIT, PHOENIX.]

[video; private; D-DAMMIT PHOENIX well at least he's probably more innocent than Heather is? <8D;]

[video; private; --you know, probably. AHAAHAH.]

[video; private; IT WOULD NOT SURPRISE ME IN THE SLIGHTEST.]

[video; private; Me neither, tbh! And then it turns out Phoenix was a wild kid in college--]

[video; private; FFFFF OH PHOENIX. Heather's just JADED AND HAS A PERVY SENSE OF HUMOR SOMETIMES]

[video; private; IF ONLY I'D APPED AS HOBO!PHOENIX. YOU TIHNK HEATHER'S JADED? PFFFFT]

[video; private; FFFF awww hoboPhoenix. ;-; Does he really lose his BRIGHT-EYED NAIIVETE?]

[video; private; S-SADLY, THIS IS TRUE. ;__; He becomes like a whole nother person it's so SAD]

[video; private; DB oh man poor bb]

[video; private; I knoooow ;___; /pets him]

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