Chapter Text
The corridors of the district court were ever busy. It was probably not the best place to sit and ponder, but Franziska von Karma found an odd comfort in being surrounded by the bustle of the legal system. She sat — cross-legged and pensive — on a bench in the corridor, impatiently awaiting the time her trial would begin.
It was a simple case, a guilty-pleading defendant charged with aggravated assault and battery. The outcome was a foregone conclusion. In cases like these, a trial was little more than a formality to judge the due punishment, and in times of inner turmoil for Franziska, there was comfort in busywork.
She was unwell.
Ever since returning to this country a little over two weeks ago for the trial of Sister Iris of Hazakura Temple, she’s been unwell. No, that isn’t entirely true. Ever since that damned case nearly two years ago, she’s been unwell.
Ever since she met that intolerable spirit medium.
Franziska’s face tightened as she sat, closing her eyes and scrunching her nose, squeezing the sleeves of her blouse. For so long, she had been able to easily fend off Maya Fey’s presence in her thoughts. Years upon years of building walls around herself, enforced by whip-leather and verbal abuse, tend to be effective in keeping the meddlesome types away, but within Franziska floated a stray thought, the burgeoning of a deeper feeling, and the flourishing of a warmth that, bit by bit, chipped away at the indomitable fortress the prosecutor princess built for herself. A feeling born from seeing her standing there beside Phoenix Wright. A feeling born from seeing her in the defendant’s chair. A feeling born from seeing her on the witness stand those two-odd weeks ago.
A feeling born from seeing someone stronger than herself.
She hated it.
Her father had always taught her that pity and guilt were beneath prosecutors. That they must simply strive towards perfect trails and perfect verdicts. After the trial of Matt Engarde, however, Franziska had begun to doubt, and the stern, confident and poised facade of the perfect von Karma had started to crumble. Then, Miles Edgeworth was the first to recognize that. He knew better than anyone what motivated her. Now, as he frowned down at his sister, he was the first to capitalise on the cracks in her armour.
“You look tense, Franziska.”
She scowled, refusing to open her eyes. “Leave me alone, Miles Edgeworth.” she snapped.
“Given the nature of the case you’re taking, I imagine this tension has another source.” he said, followed by the thump of him taking a seat beside her, “Not still bitter, are you?”
Franziska did not grace that jab with a response. So now you choose to be a brother, do you? Her thoughts were unruly; she wanted to talk to Miles, she really did, but she just wasn’t ready to trust him. So she cast her eyes down, loosening her grip on her sleeves.
Years of bitterness and resentment wanted her to chastise him for talking down to her, to lash him with her whip and tongue, to scream and shout and cry and uncork the wellspring of suppressed vitriol. Then, the words of one Pearl Fey rung in her ears. You are just a little girl.
Miles regarded her with a pitying look. Sure, he and Fran had rarely been on the best of terms under the tutelage of her father, but he was still a brother to her, and after reuniting with him, she saw for herself how wide the world was past the blinders Manfred von Karma forced upon her.
Even now, however… Franziska was not ready to talk. Not yet. Her walls still stood too tall. The princess stayed caged within her tower, but Miles - for a fleeting moment - saw a face of Franziska he rarely witnessed. That was all he needed to know, so he stood with a sigh. Fran opened her eyes and glanced up at him, scowling, but all he could do was wearily smile down at her.
“Look. I know I haven’t been there for you. Things have been difficult for us both, and I won’t pretend to know everything going on in your head, but there is one thing I can say for certain. You are not alone anymore, Franziska.” he furrowed his brows, glancing away, “At the very least, I want to be there for you now. You don’t have to trust me all at once, but… think about it, alright?”
Her scowl softened. She opened her mouth to say something back to him, but no words came out. How am I supposed to talk to you? What would I even say? What do I say, when even I don’t know what’s wrong with me? She must have lost control of her expression, because he quirked a brow down at her before he walked off, leaving her to stew in these complicated emotions on her own.
A cursory glance at her wristwatch told her it was nearly time, so, with a heavy heart and a gloom permeating her, she stood. She didn’t have time to be worrying about this… she just had to keep staring forward. Stay on the straight and narrow.
She wasn’t allowed to be weak.
As expected, the trial was nothing to write home about. Short proceedings, a justified and conclusive judgement… Perhaps some of the spark of this job was slipping from Franziska’s grasp. It was all she knew, after all.
Her head was somewhat hung as she meandered out of the courtroom, her eyes glued to the floor, her head awash with unshakeable uncertainty. She couldn’t help but let her mind wander, wondering what opportunities she could have had if she were born to any other family. She wondered what kind of life she might have had. Just a year ago, Manfred von Karma had still been alive, and she held on to the facsimile of a childhood she had, clutching it like it was the only thread keeping her tethered to her identity. Now, the thread had snapped, and she was left afloat and adrift on a sea of her own thoughts, with nothing to grasp onto, no foundation for her to build her stalwart identity, and it filled her with anxiety. What did she even want to do anymore? Who did she want to be? Where did she want to be…?
Maya Fey…
Franziska grit her teeth, shaking her head and gripping the hem of her skirt, whip clutched and white-knuckled. That thought kept cropping up in her silent soliloquy, that name, that carefree fool and her carefree, foolish smile. She hated it. Was she envious of a woman living a carefree life, surrounded by carefree friends? Was it simply distaste for someone so agonisingly foolish? She didn’t know; she just wanted to be free of this nagging pit in her stomach!
But just as she was set to storm off…
“Fraaaaaanny!!” came a familiar, sing-song lilt, followed by the click-clacking of sandals on stone growing louder faster than she could properly react. Franziska spun around, eyes wide, only to find the very source of her incessant frustration beaming up at her. Fran’s heels kept Maya from being eye-level already, but the sight of her goaded the prosecutor to stand a little taller, hurriedly brushing a hand over her skirt to smooth the crease caused by her grip and fixing her hair behind her ear.
“Maya Fey…” she sighed, holding her hands behind her back, braced with a firm grasp of the loop of her wound whip. A glance past Maya’s bouncing visage revealed Phoenix Wright, idling with his nose stuffed in a file. Maya spun around to follow her gaze, then finished the 360 back to Fran.
“Nick’s got a case tomorrow, so we came to fetch some stuff from the reading room. But what’cha doin’, Franzy? Cleaning up some no-gooders with your mighty whip? Hwa-cha!” Maya mimed whipping someone, grinning like an idiot.
It was as if Franziska’s turbulent thoughts came to a standstill in front of this girl. The storm had passed, and there she stood, in the calmness of the eye. Right in the centre of the storm called Maya. This choking feeling in her throat, this heat in her cheeks, the pounding of her heart… This was an illness. It had to be. That was the only explanation. Why else would the sight of this particular woman drive Franziska von Karma, the prodigy, to choke on her words and stumble? She was stalwart! She had to be! She had to be.
She had to be…
“You okay, Franzy?”
Franziska blinked hard, back to reality, and to the uncomfortably close, concerned pout of a worried medium. She gasped, taking a hurried step back, wobbling on her heels for a moment until she caught herself. “I am fine! Must you invade my personal space like that!? Foolish, idiotic fool…”
The vitriol Franziska spat didn’t seem to faze Maya at all, nor did it ease her palpable concern, though it did keep Maya at arms’ length. “You had a look on your face, like… like you were dizzy and light-headed. I didn’t want you to fall over…” she put a hand to her mouth. It was a nervous tick Franziska noticed. Whenever Maya was lost for words, she started chewing her lower lip, using her hand to obscure it.
“Well I am fine! You needn’t worry. As if I would fall over from anything less than Scruffy bowling me over in a panic… what foolishly foolish drivel.” She upturned her gaze in a huff.
“You sure? Well, alright then, I’ll believe you!” Maya chimed, a grin plastered on her face again, “Say, wanna come to dinner later? Nick wants pasta, but I want a burger, right? So if you came with us, we could outnumber him, two to one!”
The ease with which Maya said embarrassing things always struck Franziska. It was never anything major, just particular phrasings or little words peppered in here and there that made her heart flutter.
‘We.’
The offer tempted her. Honestly, just the thought of not eating alone tempted her, but in the tumultuous head of Franziska von Karma, a battle raged between avoidance and acceptance, until… “No. I am much too busy with my work to entertain such nonsense. Ask my brother.”
“Awwww. I really wanted you to come… oh well!” Maya chirped, clapping her hands together, drawing Franziska’s eyes to the way her sleeves swayed with her hair, to those little hands clasped, and just how warm they seemed, when everything Franziska felt was cold. “Next time, then! You better come, ‘kay?”
“... Maybe. I make no promises I cannot keep.”
“Right! I’ll just jot that down as ‘totally, definitely coming’! Thanks, Franzy! See you later, I gotta go babysit my employee!” Maya took a few steps back, waving emphatically, locking eyes with the prosecutor for a brief moment, before spinning around to grab Phoenix by the arm and drag him towards the reading rooms. Franziska simply stood there, watching, thinking…
The air felt cold all of a sudden, and she crossed her arms under her chest, cradling her whip. She just couldn’t wrap her head around it. Why did this girl make her feel so… bizarre? Why did every interaction they shared, few as they were, seem to bruise and batter that carefully constructed fortress of ire and isolation? She didn’t get it. She hated it because she didn’t get it.
Franziska started to walk. Her steps were shaky, her body heavy with trepidation, awash with unease and indecision. Why?
Why? Why?
She wanted to cry, she wanted to scream, she wanted to thrash and throw herself against her walls. She wanted to uncork this geyser of anguish, aimless and bestial, and free herself from this sinking pit forming in her gut. She wanted to rake and claw at her meticulous brickwork. She wanted to be free. She wanted to stop being herself. She wanted to get lost in a wilderness she didn’t know or understand. She wanted to soar and see the world she had shunned under the overbearing will of a patriarch. She wanted to give up her restraint, and get swept up in the current of life.
Franziska von Karma wanted to be swept off her feet by the storm.