burger ☆ queen

So the girl had seen horses, but no headless ones, huh… That would mean that Shooter isn’t one of them, as she doubted he would go around as a horse with a head. This place just didn’t seem to work that conveniently… Nor did she think he would have the shape of a motorbike, if she had to assume, since her own powers didn’t work anymore, either.

Not looking like a headless horseman, huh..? She supposed she looked more like a headless biker nowadays, so… Fair enough, really

“I don’t look like one? But what if I said I was?”

“Just kidding. Regardless… Upon arriving here, I can’t find him anywhere… I can just feel it that he must be in this city too. I’m worried he might scare people with his appearance, or that he gets scared instead because he’s alone. He’s actually very friendly, so I worry…”

In all honesty, however… She had to admit that she felt a little lost without him as well. From what she could remember, Shooter had always been there, as a horse or a bike. So the thought of being without him was rather lonely.

“Well, even if you didn’t see him, do you have the time to take me there anyways? He might have shown up in the meantime, so I’d like to check…”

  Maya blinked in surprise when the stranger held out a message saying that they were in fact a headless horseman--she had only been joking! And besides, Maya could see her head right there, right? Even Stella City couldn’t be that weird!

  She breathed a not-so-subtle sigh of relief when she saw that they were joking. Oh, man, if she had to accept the existence of talking horses and headless people, she would probably just implode.

  “Of course I’ll help you find him!” Maya exclaimed once she’d read all the messages, abandoning all of her previous caution about this masked individual now that she knew they needed help. “I would hate it if I had a pet and he went missing... Especially because this place is so weird, you know? Who knows what those sheep could be up to?”

  Realistically, the sheep hadn’t actually done anything to indicate that anyone in this city was in danger (quite the opposite, in fact). But Maya didn’t trust one piece of wool on their smug little bodies, and she would take every opportunity she could to badmouth them. That was what they got for kidnapping her, after all.

Nice could feel his eye twitching.

“Hypotheticals are way too boring. No one’s even here,” he grumbled, but he grabbed all of the plates and balanced them into stacks in his hands. He was more than capable of carrying a bunch of dishes. If there were any situation here that had made him wish he could use his minimum, it was this one; imagine the look on her face if he dashed across the diner at the speed of sound and still didn’t drop anything.

“Maybe I’m just a lousy waitress because I had a lousy teacher. Where even is the kitchen, anyway?”

  “Hey, watch it, pal,” Maya huffed, crossing her arms and fixing him with her best I’m-in-charge-of-you glare. “I’m the best teacher ever. You’ll get the hang of this in no time, or my name isn’t Maya Fey.”

  She didn’t really know what swearing on her name, which consisted of a bunch of really serious spirit mediums, had to do with being a good waitress, but she’d always wanted to say that. Besides--she meant it! She might not have liked being a waitress very much, but if she could suck it up and put on a good attitude for the customers, then darn it, so could he!

  “Trust your instincts,” she said vaguely in response to his question, waving her hand in a so-so gesture. “Once you figure that out, we can move on to the important lessons--”

  She flopped down into a chair and leaned back, propping her crossed legs up on the table.

“Oh, is that so?” His smile grew even wider, taking on almost diabolical undertones. “You know, one thing that bothers me more than those who aggressively insult strangers are those who flake under pressure and don’t stand their ground.”

“But what bothers me doesn’t matter at all!” now he was entirely cheerful, any hint of malice practically evaporating away. “And I actually can’t see. My left eye suffered some damage I won’t go into detail over, but it’s practically completely blind. I can only see gray spots and it’s almost totally blind.” He tapped the side of his head to emphasize, pointing to a tiny scar usually hidden by his bangs.

“Why do you need a waterfall to meditate? I understand doing so to hone your ability to control your body’s reaction to chilling water and impose more self control, but there are less wet ways to do that.”

  Maya’s head was totally spinning now. She was pretty sure she’d been insulted, and also that she might have inadvertently insulted him by not realizing that he was partially blind... but you know, the more she thought about it, the less she felt like she had any reason to be afraid of him. Sure, he was being kind of creepy, but he didn’t actually look scary, besides the general atmosphere he gave off. Who was he to call her a coward, anyway?

  Still, she wasn’t exactly itching to pick a fight with someone who gave her the heebie-jeebies like this. Her intuition was usually spot on about these things! She was the one who had started this conversation, though, so it didn’t really matter if she was completely lost. She had to say something.

      “Well, duh, of course it’s neat! I made it!”

      At this point, Peacock’s used to the stares people give her. She knows she’s out of the ordinary, and frankly, she loves it! Yeah, sure, some days it gets on her nerves, but this girl’s lucky that she’s in a good mood today. 

      So good, in fact, that Peacock seems to think that her wish is going to come true. Hell, even the eyes on her arms are sparkling with hope or whatever!

      “Y’know, usually I’d turn ya down, but fer today, I’ll make an exception!” Actually, that’s just her way of admitting that she knows she won’t be able to reach her destination without someone taller. “Well? What’re you waitin’ for? Pick me up!”

  “O-Okay!” Maya exclaimed before she could think about it.

  She was so surprised that she didn’t even argue, jumping forward to pick the girl up by the waist and lift her up. Maya wasn’t very tall herself, but it seemed like it would just barely be enough to let her reach the top, if she stretched far enough.

  Unfortunately, all the metal parts--which appeared to actually be real somehow--made her a lot heavier than Maya had expected. Since she was about as strong as she was tall, this was not the best of plans. It was too late to back out, but she immediately felt her legs wobbling and her face going red from the effort of holding her up.

( Huck! Oh, Maya… if only you knew. )

With that thought in mind, Phoenix prepared himself and faced the younger girl, clenching his fists as he readied the words to say. He had to say it. Come on, Phoenix. If he wasn’t going to tell her now, then when was he going to? When it was already far too late?

“I lost a trial.“ He finally said, his gaze averting. “And it doesn’t look good right now.“

Sure, it wasn’t the first time Phoenix lost a trial. Not to mention that Defense Attorneys were destined to lose a few from time to time, although with the way Phoenix’ career went so far, he was just a rare exception. Maya knew that as well, right? Therefore, the reason he was so serious must have been because…

“And I think they are going to remove me from the law scene.“

  Maya didn’t really know why Phoenix was getting so worked up on a day like this, even after he mentioned that he’d lost a trial. That was always a bad thing when he was sure that the client was innocent, but it wasn’t the end of the world. If the evidence wasn’t airtight, there were ways they could appeal the conviction, things they could do to make it right...

  But still, she could read the atmosphere, and he was far too gloomy for that to be all that was wrong. But that last thing he said... That didn’t make any sense, did it?

  “What do you mean, ‘remove you from the law scene’?” she echoed incredulously. “You just lost a trial, right? That might make it a little harder to get clients here, but it’s not the end of the world... I’m sure I can find someone who needs a good defense around here!”

  His grim expression was really bumming her out, and even starting to make her worry a bit. She knew he took losses like this kind of hard, but if there was any day to set all that aside and have a good time, it was this one.

( Stay cool, Phoenix… Stay cool. )

After inhaling an extraordinary amount of air, Phoenix felt his senses numb a little and then threw himself off the bench he was previously resting on. With a bit of effort to regain his balance, he wobbled over to Maya and greeted her with the smile he had practiced earlier.

“Maya.“ He answered, while steeling his resolve. “Yeah… yeah. It is amazing.“ A pause, while he thought about what to say more. Phoenix scratched the back of his neck. “I have a wish ready, but also… uh…“

“There’s… something important I should tell you?“

Well, way to ruin the other’s excitement for this festival. Not only was Phoenix a trigger of misfortune for himself, but he also brought it upon others. Poor Maya. It felt truly pitiful that despite her arrival in this city, she still had to spend time with someone as unlucky as Phoenix Wright. He had just hoped his bad luck wouldn’t actually affect her negatively too.

“I’ll tell you while we hang our wishes. I guess? Let’s go.” And with a nervous laugh, he headed to the shrine to get the supplies needed for wish making.

  Maya shrugged as she turned to follow him up to the shrine, her good mood still totally unfazed. Phoenix was even paying for the materials they needed to write their wishes down! (He’d probably go for the cheaper paper ones instead of the wood, but at least then she would get a purple one.) Pretty much nothing could ruin this day, she was pretty sure.

  “Whatever it is, it can’t be that important,” she said vaguely, a bit lost in thought already. Thinking of just one thing to wish for was harder than it looked! “It hasn’t even been that long since we saw each other. Unless it’s about getting out of here. You didn’t find a way to get out of here, did you?!”

  The more she thought about it, the less sense that made. Why would he waste his time taking her to the Tanabata festival if he knew how to leave this whole place behind? Besides, she was sort of getting the vibe that it was a bad thing he wanted to bring up, whatever it was--even though that didn’t make any sense either.

  “ I wonder how they did that… all my old numbers are still in here, but it just gives me a dial tone whenever I try and call, ” he chimes in. 

  Suddenly going missing without warning is definitely a cause for worry. Nations didn’t just vanish overnight during a time of peace unless they were on their last legs and, thankfully, he wasn’t at that point. He just hoped he could send a message home before the situation spiraled out of control.

  “ Ve… I live at the Gâteau Château! If you ever want to spend time there, I can help you around! ” he offered. “ I remember seeing something about Stella World! It’s an amusement park. Have you ever been to one before? ”

  “Whoa!” Maya exclaimed, gawking a bit. “Isn’t Gâteau Château that super fancy place with the water park and everything?”

  She didn’t mean to sound like she was begging to be invited there sometime, but she was probably putting on the sparkly puppy eyes routine without even realizing it. She really couldn’t help it--she loved fun stuff and good food, and the most expensive hotel in Stella City apparently had both of those in spades.

Umbreon seemed to be enjoying the attention. The boy smirked and let his Pokeball rotate on his center finger. “You can’t get one directly in this city, if you’re from my world, you might be a Channeler or something. Those guys specialize in Ghost Pokemon and are common in Lavender Town.”

The boy released an amused laugh. “Cat, dog, whatever you call him– he’s just like a mixed breed of both I think. Regular animals like sheep are different in my world. Back in the old days, he used to be an Eevee.”

  “Ghost Pokemon!” Maya repeated with literal stars in her eyes. “There are Pokemon that are ghosts? And you said dark type before, right? How many different kinds are there?”

Asuka turns, her single blue eye staring up at the waitress with a coldness she was unaware of, she pointed an index finger at her. “Don’t you tell me what to do, you hear me?” 

Though she knows the other is right, Asuka can’t just drop it. The pilot can’t stand an enormous amount of things, the list is huge, but being told what to do by others out of headquarters is absolutely out of question.

“Of course you’re not in charge of it, you’re a waitress! That doesn’t change the fact it’s fake advertisement though, so note this complaint down and take it to your manager or I’ll do it myself.” talk about being mean. “Trust me, you don’t want that. So while you’re at it with that stupid notepad get me a double cheese burger with bacon and a soda.” there’s a pause, and her face somewhat softens before speaking again. “…And 20 chicken nuggets.”

  Maya’s brain turned to static seconds into her customer’s rant. Nodding so hard her head was in danger of rolling off her shoulders, she rushed to agree to everything she heard. The customer is always right, indeed.

  “Yesma’amsorryrightawaybye!” she said in one huge breath before scurrying away as fast as she could. Not her finest moment. In fact, it was pretty embarrassing how afraid she was.

  Resolving to do better, she steeled herself for the next time she would visit that table. She told her manager about the menu (and really, you’d think a sheep would care more about vegan options) and made sure that everything was right with the order before she brought it over.

Link finished up his definitely more than burnt food and set the plate aside for the last time. Then he grabbed a baked apple for himself and bit into it. He really should make more than just baked apples but….they were simple and easy to share. He could make friends with baked apples.

To answer Maya’s question, Link nodded. Holding his apple in his mouth, he started to sign again.

I have. Someone I am very close to lives in the middle of a lake. There are plenty of waterfalls.

Mostly he actually kind of fell down waterfalls instead of just sitting at the bottom but….she didn’t need to know that.

  “Whoa!” Maya exclaimed, eyes bugging out in a mix of shock and awe. “I’ve never met anyone else who’s hung out around waterfalls before! Most people think I’m nuts or something.”

  Actually, a lot of things she did that related to spirit channeling made people think she was crazy, or at the very least kind of out there. She found it really refreshing to find someone who not only didn’t think she was a weirdo, but also had some common experiences to share with her. She never would’ve expected so much to come out of sharing an apple.