she spreads her wings and takes to the skies.

[yatagarasu]

Open Post: The Kay Faraday Edition
This is my permanent Kay Faraday open post. Spam me with prompts, picture prompts, AUs, and the like. Indicate canon point or universe when necessary. Please note that I don't do slash, smut, anything sexual or anything overly and excessively violent.
Canon	Future AU
Choose a canon point, any canon point! Even from AAI2, why not.	7-8 years later, AJ/DD era. Prosecutor who studied under Miles Edgeworth. Still hyper and makes thief jokes. Still the Yatagarasu.
Somarium	Mask or Menace
Lived with Edgeworth and Stitch. Recruited Ema, Trucy and Maya into the Yatagarasu. 19 years old. Had college plans.	Can command and talk to crows, replicate voices and sounds perfectly, and use Charter Magic. Juror for Teen Court.

Badger get!

code by cawaii

Comments

[yatagarasu]

I don't have to. It's as simple as finding animals that eat it, or inventing tools that do the job. One of the worst chores you can get saddled with is having to painstakingly scrape algae off something.

[Kay briefly makes a disgusted face.]

[truthsnomiracle]

I meant "you" in the collective sense of your society, since apparently I'm not part of it.

[Which feels particularly wrong to him right now — he should not merely be responsible for the enforcement of society's rules, but their creation — but intellectually he knows there's no rational reason why he should trust that feeling. It's just his song nagging at him...]

A pity that there's no escaping the pervasiveness of such a pest, even if undersea society has also presumably bred some useful varieties. After all, I've already conceived of one use for it — [the replenishment of oxygen in containers of air he proposed shortly before Kay mentioned the choker, that is] — and I doubt merpeople would differ from humans in preferring to domesticate lesser species.

[yatagarasu]

Yeah, it's actually useful even though it gets on everything. [Kay makes a gesture as if smoothing the surface of a table with both hands.]

What'd you think of? Since we've had to live with algae and all these little plants and stuff for years and years, of course we'd figure out ways to make 'em useful.

[truthsnomiracle]

As I mentioned before this stage of things began, its use along with light for replenishment of oxygen in containers of air.

[yatagarasu]

Ohhh, that. [Kay shrugs, folds her arms behind her head and lies on her back, floating lazily.] Yeah, we've looked into getting oxygen out of plants. Isn't that the logical thing to do once we discovered that plants give off oxygen?

[truthsnomiracle]

Indeed so. Has undersea society domesticated anything else in ways that don't directly parallel human achievements?

[Things like basic agriculture are obvious, after all.]

[yatagarasu]

Hmm... [Kay glances up at the surface, squinting in the light streaming down into her vision.]

Let's see...we have farms, we raise fish for food and all sorts of things...

We do keep squid farms not just for food but also for their ink.

[truthsnomiracle]

Given that the ink in its natural state will spread through water as a cloud, I presume that it has more use as a component in other products such as dyes, and perhaps even denser, water-insoluble inks. For that matter, do all breeds of domesticated squid produce black ink in particular? Some creatures domesticated by humans began to display remarkable variety that was directed in various useful ways, after all.

[yatagarasu]

And it's not just squid - even octopuses and cuttlefish, 'cause they all produce different shades of ink. Anyway, over years and years of keeping some of them around, their ink has gotten lighter because they didn't need to escape predators anymore.

[She rights herself and lets herself sink a little.]

But we can't produce all the colors of the rainbow. That's...uh, we're working on that. [And by that she means, "not yet possible."]

[truthsnomiracle]

Concerning food, I presume methods of fermenting meat are more common and diverse than they are above water since fire, while available, is less trivial to employ. (I wonder if any common undersea household items can be abused for criminal purposes that I wouldn't anticipate given my human memories...)

[yatagarasu]

Unless you can afford to stash your food above ground in a place like my hideout. [She gestures upward.] But...why are we talking about this?

[truthsnomiracle]

There are all manner of ordinary things I don't yet understand about our kind, to the point that it can prove difficult to stay entirely on topics that are best explored within the, er, time limit.

[Edgeworth pauses to look aside awkwardly.]

To say nothing of the fact that the, um, change is so thorough that it can be difficult to keep in mind that said time limit exists.

[yatagarasu]

I dunno, can't you continue asking about this even when you're back to being human?

[Kay looks at the video running on her phone.]

[truthsnomiracle]

This in particular, yes. As I was trying to imply, it would be best to shift to topics best explored as I am. However, the only questions immediately coming to mind are those related to the energy straining inside me and the song incessantly nagging in my head.

[yatagarasu]

You better decide whether or not to ask them, 'cause time is ticking! Anyway, it's not like I'll keep answering your questions when you're back to being human.

[truthsnomiracle]

The most obvious question is from whence this song came. Not only have I never heard it before, but I'm hardly a composer in my own right. It... this is absurd, but... it feels as though it almost has a mind of its own, and is trying to... convince me of things.

[yatagarasu]

I told you, it's your emotions. Because you feel so strongly about something, it becomes a song inside you.

You just have to remember that it's not the only song you can sing, and you don't always have to sing it out.

[truthsnomiracle]

Is it normal for that song to be only loosely related to those passions? To believe strongly in a just and orderly world whose laws and workings are founded on the truth is one thing; to believe myself to be some sort of nobility with the right and responsibility to rule is quite another.

[yatagarasu]

That's because you haven't had any experience keeping your emotions related to the song in check. Plus, maybe you feel really, really strongly about it.

[truthsnomiracle]

OBJECTION!

[Thanks to the enhanced beauty of his voice and the potency of the emotion behind that shout, one could almost swear Edgeworth sang "objection" instead of shouting it as he points straight at Kay.]

To begin with, I've put a great deal of effort into learning emotional control in a general sense! After all, sentiment can easily get in the way of logic if one isn't careful. Indeed, if I lacked such skill I would have started singing again by now! Second, while I've long felt comfortable wielding authority, I've never lusted for more of it than I possess! Furthermore, the compulsion to use my song to rule others doesn't come paired with any compulsion to apply any specific values in doing so, when potentially applicable values are what I remember having felt strongly about and no drive to conquer others existed within me!

In addition, your own earlier testimony suggests that a change of species from human to merman should not have twisted my existing emotions into such an impulse to rule others! Specifically, you've stated that the various clans of merpeople have attitudes about humans which range from disdainful to neutral to friendly. If an impulse to rule others through song were normal among passionate merpeople, then why would those clans that think less of humans not simply enslave coastal populations?! After all, they would lack the respect for humans necessary to see any need to control such an impulse! For that matter, despite your later claims that it's normal for simple spikes in emotion to drive one to sing and that undersea society trains its youth to control such impulses, your own initial advice that I try singing simply because I felt like it suggests that at the absolute least, the degree to which my song gripped me took you by surprise!

[yatagarasu]

...

[Kay is speechless after that major outburst. Not to mention that his objection sounded like he sang it. But that's the least of her worries because at least it didn't carry any compelling power behind it.

She blinks, leaning away from him a bit, then letting out a slow breath.]

Actually...that was just a theory. I'm just as clueless as you are.

[Kay shrugs.]

Like I said, I don't know everything about merpeople. You'll have to add that to your list of things to ask merpeople when you visit the sea again.

[truthsnomiracle]

[Edgeworth sighs in frustration, rubbing his forehead. His maintenance of his position stops being the result of a steady wave of his tail and starts coming from periodic harsh flicks of it, causing him to bob in place slightly.]

Were this a courtroom, I would insist that you refrain from speculation in your testimony. Since it is not, however, I only ask that you make clear what is and is not a wild guess.

[yatagarasu]

Sorry, sorry...

[Kay holds up her hands.]

You might want to remember everything you said for when we talk to real song experts.

[truthsnomiracle]

What aspects of song do they study aside from pathology?

[...Yes, Edgeworth's conclusion here is that there's something wrong with him and his song.]

[yatagarasu]

The effects of emotions and other things on songs...how best to teach us how to control our songs at an early age...

I-I don't think it's a sickness...it could just be in the choker.