Disclaimer: I do not own Phoenix Wright. It is the property of Capcom; I merely borrow the characters for my own amusement.

--

Timing Infinity

Nothing ever stops. The roads continue for miles, into the distance, farther than the eye can see. The trees sway, as though shaken by wind, but the leaves – broad, green, dying – make no rustle, and the breeze never whispers.

He walks, on these endless pathways, and there is nothing but dusty, winding roads (the road itself is only packed dirt, cracked with the heat of a sun he cannot see, cannot feel) and the occasional proud, withering tree.

There are no birds, though the sky is vast, and oh, so very blue, like the tragedy of drowning souls. He thinks, sometimes, that he is taking his same steps thrice over, but there are houses in the distance at times, maybe even a small town, and that is how he knows he is not going in circles, on a revolving wheel with no breaks, no end (but it is still a possibility).

There are no people.

He will walk and walk and walk, and he doesn’t think that he will ever meet people in this strange-crazy, godforsaken land.

This changes one day, the one day that started like any other.

--

He enters a town today, a small one, and through the window of a homey little cottage, he sees her. She isn’t looking at him, nor is she facing him, but that flaring red hair catches his attention and stills his steps like nothing has done in—in a long, long time.

He watches her for a while, and when she doesn’t move, doesn’t do anything but sit there, looking away from him, he turns and continues on his way. She isn’t real, not to him.

--

He next sees her again a while later, many trees, many towns, many thousands of miles of nothing but dirt and road later. It was something he did not expect. It seemed merely another town out of many, so many he had seen, all empty.

(He will admit that at every building he peered into the windows, straining for a glimpse of that fiery red.)

She stands underneath a tall, thinning tree, still looking away from him, off into a distance that he knows that he will walk into—but never reach. As he approaches, he notices that over her shoulder there rests a parasol, frilly, white, elegantly and utterly sophisticated. He is intrigued, that of all the people he should meet, he should meet one with such delightful taste.

His first greeting falls upon unresponsive ears, but as he finishes the next one, she – the girl – turns to face him and delivers to him a soft, demure hello, and a practiced, charming smile that elicits a polite one from him in return.

But when he gives her his name, Kristoph Gavin, accompanied with a slight bow, she merely tilts her head in recognition and turns to walk—no, glide away, and he lets her go, even starts his way in the opposite direction.

He knows that he will probably see her again – most likely – in another time, another place. He saw her twice, in this land with no others. He will no doubt meet her again.

Her clothes flutter in the wind, in a breeze that he cannot hear—cannot feel.

Kristoph faces the distance, and begins to walk, again.

--

He proves himself right not long after – or it could have been a while, maybe not – and this time, before he sees her, he knows. Something carried to him on the invisible breeze notifies him. When he looks up from thoughts, she is standing not far from him, waiting for him. His steps are leisurely, but sure, and they carry him to her (an arrival at last).

I am Dahlia Hawthorne, she replies to his curious inquiry, and her name is as delicate, as refined as the person herself, both in manners, in deportment, in everything a woman should be. Kristoph has no complaints (though in others, he has always found some flaw, either big or small, either forgivable or decidedly not).

Dahlia Hawthorne, a woman as perfect as her name, in every which way the eye can see.

--

“Why are we here?” she asks suddenly, during a lull in their conversation – so full of decorous platitudes – and the look on her face is so wistful, so pensive that he almost expects a story behind her statement, a novel between the words.

“Why are we here?”

“I believe it’s because we have done something. Something similar, that we are the only two people here.”

She is silent for a moment, then those clear, gentle eyes meet his and he pauses to look at them, through them.

She does the same, and time – all that has ever existed for them, here or now – stops, stills into nothingness.

--

Even though they begin to walk together – along the same parched, cracked road – sometimes, they still lose sight of the other. Kristoph is not worried, and from all appearances, neither is she. Sometimes, in the isolation of this strange half-world, the monotony of this side of life will separate them, but they continue along their way—although they never reach an end, they reach the other, eventually.
Once, she held up that delightful little parasol, to shield her from the sun, she claimed. To shield her from that good she could not partake of, he thought. Now, her skin remains translucent, though the lacy parasol lies in the dirt far in the distance behind them.

(Sometimes, he thinks that he can see the form of something far, far off that looks somewhat like an umbrella of sorts, but in those instances, a soft hand guides his jaw back to her, and he quickly forgets about it altogether.)

I don’t need it anymore, she explains to him, to herself, to the sky – endless, so very blue – as they continue along in each other’s company. And she doesn’t. He is nothing to hide from—he is no threat, not to her.

Kristoph Gavin and Dahlia Hawthorne, the consummate gentleman and lady, together at last.

And all of the goodness in eternity cannot separate them.

--

They are only two people, after all, in a world created on the aftermath of their existences—brief, temporal, with no inerasable mark on anyone’s lives but their own. There is no need to hide any longer.

It is only them.