Lumina Moondancer: Turnabout Attorney

by CrownofDissonance

The Classroom Trial (Intermission)

[Canterlot City]

[Rosemary Way Cafe]

[July 16th]

"So you and Minuette have known each other since grade school?"

"Yeah, we grew up in Crystal City, actually. Graduated high school there, too."

"That's right, I remember. Why move here to Canterlot, then?"

"Well, that's another story..."

Ms. Tia and I sat in booth seats up against the cafe's side window. I'd never been here before, but the place had a nice, quiet atmosphere, and the waitress seemed to recognize Ms. Tia as she took our orders. Strange, since the waitress seemed so much younger than her...

“You know her?”

"She was a student at Canterlot High," Ms. Tia explained as the waitress walked off back to the kitchen. "I was the principal there for a good while."

"Really?" I asked, my mind instantly trying to figure out the time frame of her being both a principal and an attorney. "I guess you came back to law just in time to meet me, huh?"

"I guess so, we met not even a year after I'd reopened my office."

Her office. C&I Law Firm, our current base of operations. Ms. Tia had apparently been quite the esteemed attorney once upon a time, but from what I could tell she'd closed up shop out of nowhere.

"About the office, ma'am—I've been meaning to ask you for a while now, why did you shut down in the first place?"

Ms. Tia's eyes shifted at the question, letting herself fall quiet for a few long moments. She didn't look uncomfortable, but the way she leaned forward over the table and straightened her lips in thought was something I couldn't help but take note of. It seemed like a deeper question than I realised, but before I could take it back she responded.

"I told you where I've been this past month, right?" Her eyes came up to meet mine, but they lacked any tension I was expecting. Ms. Tia had an impressive measure of control over herself and her expressions.

"Going to see an old friend, right?" I asked. "I wasn't really going to pry, it's your business after all."

I got the feeling that her friend, whoever they were, might have had something to do with why she shut her office down. Maybe I was getting a little too personal here.

"I-It's okay, don't worry about my question." I quickly backtracked. "I'm just glad you're here again. I hope you and your friend got to get whatever it was that you needed done."

"Yes. We did." Ms. Tia became very quiet again, but then smiled. "It's a lot like you and Minuette, I think. Seeing someone you haven't seen in a long time. Helping them out. Speaking of, she'll be okay, right? I know it can't be easy having lost a friend."

There was definitely more to this than she wanted to talk about. We could easily talk about something else.

"Minuette?" I replied, doing my best to roll with the sudden topic shift. "Yeah, I hope so. I'm going to call her again tonight if she doesn't get back to me before then. I hate to bring it up so soon, but we do need to talk about payment..."

"Oh, no need to worry about that." Ms. Tia said with a single, soft laugh. "I spoke with her father this morning when I saw that you had taken the case. We've met on business before. He was more than happy to cover the costs of the work."

I was surprised. My mentor knew my best friend's father?

"Huh. Small world. How long have you known him?"

Now, her eyes darted in the other direction as her tone became dismissive. "Oh, it was quite some time ago. I'd taken a case defending him over a murder accusation. Legal misfortune runs in their family, apparently."

"Well, at least we're here to help them out, right?"

"Right." As Ms. Tia nodded her agreement, a hesitation washed over her. Her fingers tapped against the table idly, I could tell something was on her mind.

"So- er, Moondancer, you mentioned Minuette was part of the reason you wanted to become an attorney?"

"Oh, yeah," I got the impression that, whatever it was on her mind, she was trying to suppress it. I supposed it wouldn't hurt to tell her the story as a distraction... "I wasn't very popular in school when I was a kid. There was this party I tried to throw once, I invited my whole class but only a few others showed up, Minnie was one of them actually but- I, well-" I stopped myself there. I didn't need to be stammering like this. That awkward party wasn't something I wanted to get into, nor was it really relevant to what I was trying to say.

Ms. Tia, patiently following along, just waited for me to continue.

"There was this one girl there that wore these fancy silver bracelets, she lost one at the party. The next day at school, I found myself the defendant in a little mock trial, because I was accused of stealing it." Retelling the story brought some of the shock and bewilderment I felt in the moment. I let out a breath to vent some of the emotion so I could continue. "Someone convinced my entire class it was me, even the teacher. I didn't, of course, but because everyone knew I threw that party, and everyone was just looking for an excuse to make the antisocial girl into the bad guy the one time she tries to make friends..."

A look of concern spread over Ms. Tia's face. "They wanted to believe it was you, but that didn't make it true, did it?"

I nodded. "Minuette was the first person to speak for my innocence that day. I thought I was going to have to apologize and make up for something I didn't do, but at the last minute, here comes Minnie telling the entire classroom off, and then..."

-----

Minuette pointed a finger at the rest of our classmates.

"Hey, I was at that party, Lumi didn't steal nothin'! This trial is a sham!"

The teacher looked mad at me, but in the way where she was trying to not look mad.

I was trying to not to cry on my end.

"I... I wouldn't steal from my friend... She's my friend, she came to my party!"

Then, another voice came from the doorway.

It was her.

"OBJECTION!"

"Oh, Ms. Sunny, you're here..." The teacher hadn't noticed her standing in the doorway. I hadn't either, I assumed she'd seen enough. "Do you have something to say about this?"

"Uh, yeah. You can't just accuse someone of stealing without evidence. You want a trial? Trials have rules, and rule number one is that evidence is everything."

She stood by my seat, and she was the one pointing to the rest of the class. She'd know all this stuff, her father was a lawyer too.

"You're... defending her?" The teacher seemed taken off guard. "But it was your bracelet that was stolen, and it was-"

"Of course I am." She scoffed at them. "What do you think you're doing? You're just gathering around one of your own classmates and picking on her? Seriously?"

Amidst the slowly calming and clearly called out class, one other kid raised her voice in resistance.

"Yeah. Because someone stole your bracelet, Sunny."

"I said I lost it."

"Look at her, do you really think she'd invite you to a party just to be your friend? Seems fishy to me."

When Sunny looked at me, I just tried to look away, I think I was convinced I'd stolen it at the time.

"Maybe if you went to her party, Sugarcoat, you'd know better."

"Hmph. If you're trying to be like your father, it's not working."

"Girls!" The teacher interjected. "Arguing is not getting us anywhere. Sunny, if you claim you just lost it, maybe we have been too hard on Lumina."

"I still think she stole it, and the rest of the class looks like they agree."

"Well then, I request permission to go and look for it at recess. The party was at the park across from the school's yard."

"You can do that, Sunny," The teacher said. "As long you're back by the second bell..."

-----

"There was another girl that felt bad about not showing to my party. She went with Sunny, the two of them found her bracelet, and everything turned out okay in the end, all because one person stood up for me. They were some of my first friends ever, and they're mostly the reason I'm an attorney now."

"That's quite the story." Ms. Tia seemed glad that the story had a happy ending. "How long ago was it, what grade were you in?"

"Oh, I think it was fifth or sixth, we were really young." I said.

"I can't believe they'd put you on a mock trial for something that simple."

"Eh, well," I thought about how contrived it all was. Really did seem silly looking back on it, but that didn’t make it any less meaningful in the end. "That mean girl had it out for me, the whole thing was her idea. Despite how blunt she was, she was really, really convincing."

"Seems like you've got a good friend in Minuette, at least. I see why you stayed up all night working on her case."

I smiled. "She gets into trouble sometimes, but she really is a good person."

"Indeed. Whatever happened to the other girl, Sunny? Your 'defense' for that class trial?"

"Well, first year of highschool she was pulled to another school, I think, and then she started her career as an attorney after that." I said, a hint of guilt on my tone. "I fell out of touch with her. I fell out of touch with all of them."

Ms. Tia seemed fixed on that, as if she recognized something in the details. "You said her father was a lawyer too? What was his name?"

"I uh, I'm not sure. I don't think I ever met him properly." I tried to lighten the mood with a bit of humor. "What, you don't think you know another of my friends' parents, do you?"

"Perhaps not, maybe it's just a coincidence," she said. "It's not important, anyway. After seeing you today, I think you've got a bright career ahead of you."

"Everyone keeps saying that, yeah." Not that I didn't appreciate the praise, but I still felt like I didn't know much about what I was doing just yet. My first trial was amazing, but it was still just my first.

"Confidence will come with time, I'm sure." Ms. Tia's supportive smile came back. There it was, she was back in her usual mentor mode again. Whatever she was worried about before wasn't on her mind now.

Just in time for the waitress to come back with our orders, too.

Author's Note:

Here’s a short intermission chapter inbetween cases. These will likely be plentiful as this story goes along, just little bits of backstory or interactions between characters while there’s no big case or court session going on. It’ll be similar to how the Different series was to Sun Never Sets, but more focused and relevant to the overarching plot of the story.

Anyway, I hope this has been a suitable taste of what this project will feature down the line! Thanks to all of you that have made it this far.

Comments

[shining paladin]

awesome chapter mate keep it up cant wait for the next chapter

[Echo Breeze]

This story is definitely going in my favorites. Can't wait for an update on this. Keep up the good work, bud.

[CrownofDissonance]

10789531
Thanks for giving it a read, glad you've enjoyed it so far! Updates may be a little slow, but I'll be uploading each case all at once so there'll be a lot to read when I do!

[Echo Breeze]

10789645
Awesome. I love binge reading. As I said, can't wait. I am a huge fanboy of the Pheonix Wright games, so this was a huge surprise for me...

*EDIT*
I am also a fan of most things law related. Even have a collection of John Grisham's books...

[SilverDiamond]

Is Sunny - Sunset? Or someone else?

Pity this story is abandoned. Was an interesting start.

[CrownofDissonance]

11640521
Sunny isn't Sunset. Further chapters would reveal more about who she is, though there's enough information here to make an educated guess if you know your EQG stuff.

This story isn't entirely abandoned, it's just been a challenge for me to write a tight, Ace Attorney-styled narrative in the format of these cases. And it's not the type of thing I'm gonna just drop updates for until I'm certain it's sound. Slow work, but not totally out of my mind. Probably still will be a wait on it though.

[SilverDiamond]

11641057
Ah, the human ponies. Kinda was puzzled, as I SAW the tags and nods to humans, but the thing is, humans, until Twilight comes there, don't HAVE magic. Not for "normal" humans anyway. All magic that IS there is from artifacts, such as Memory stone or magic shards, can't remember what they are called. So when magic was mention I defaulted into pony land. Do you have any explanations on humans having magic?

Hopefully you write more soon. Really want to read it.

[CrownofDissonance]

11641212
It's difficult to explain in context of the story, but this story does happen separately from the pony/human worlds we've seen in canon. Built out of bits and pieces of them so I can make the crossover elements and narrative work better. It's the purest form of "Alternate Universe", with it's own implied history. Here, magic has always existed in some capacity, but humans with magic are just fewer in number. Not so obscure as to be unheard of like in EQG, but their society isn't built on it like it is in Equestria. Just enough so that I can make the "magical murder cases" thing work.

The same goes for the history in this story, there hasn't been a Twilight or a Sunset from another world that's visited this one, so the characters that would've met either of them will be fundamentally different. My other major fanfiction on this site is a better example of this, simply because it's a finished work.

[SilverDiamond]

11641594
So, any more of this story?