Chapter Text
Since the beginning of her brother’s perpetual engagement, Franziska has not known peace.
She puts up with the sickeningly tasteful wedding announcement postcards. She shoulders the responsibility of selecting potential venues. She steps in as a voice of reason when the couple threatens to make color palette choices that were out of date ten years ago.
For her troubles, she only gets further entrenched into the preparation for the ceremony. Begrudgingly, Franziska has admitted to herself that she would rather make sure that a correct decision is made than be excluded entirely.
Her rational decision-making should not give her brother and his idiot fiancé carte blanche to barge into her office on a Friday afternoon, while she is supposed to be leaving for lunch.
And yet.
Three sharp knocks sound on the open door to her temporary office, and Franziska glances over with irritation to find the engaged couple themselves. They aren’t hand-in-hand, at least. Miles Edgeworth has just come from his office down the hall, but Phoenix Wright’s disaster of a hairstyle says he biked over and wore a helmet, too.
“Heya, Franziska,” Phoenix Wright says, waving.
“Franziska,” Miles echoes, with a stiff smile that tells her, do not leave this office or so help me. “Is this a good time?”
“What’s this in regard to?” Franziska asks. She doesn’t like this coy act that her brother has been attempting lately. Week by week, he’s transforming more and more into the bridezilla he was always fated to become.
“It’s…personal,” Phoenix Wright says, grinning like an absolute fool. “We just need a second.”
Franziska says with vague dread, “This is about your wedding.”
“Eh heh heh,” Phoenix Wright says, which is really not what Franziska wanted to hear.
“I have lunch plans,” Franziska lies desperately.
“We’ll make it quick,” Miles says. He gestures for his fiancé to step into Franziska’s office, somehow having gleaned from her vicious glare that she wants him to come in.
It is unlikely that this conversation will last less than fifteen minutes. Franziska has endured several nitpicky conversations with Phoenix Wright--one of which included a fifteen-minute diatribe wherein he eviscerated the portfolios of four potential ceremony photographers that Franziska presented him with--but Miles Edgeworth has proven to be a long-winded wretch on the subject of his wedding. If Franziska’s father hadn’t been able to whip him into the shape of a passable prosecutor, then he could have made waves in the event planning industry.
Not even Franziska can bring herself to care about the specifications of the guest gift bags--not even the bags’ contents, but the bags themselves. That particular conversation had escalated into shouting, somehow, which had a chilling effect on Miles asking Franziska’s input on ceremony matters for a few weeks.
She’d been silly enough to think he would leave her alone until it was time to bother with a florist.
Franziska saves the four different documents she has open and closes all of them before either man can get near her desk and decide they want to commentate on her work. She flips folders shut and stacks them, she goes to her email and refreshes once more before closing that tab.
(Kay Faraday owes her an email. She’s owed Franziska an email for two weeks now.)
With her workspace cleared in a matter of moments, Franziska turns back to her unwelcome visitors. They’ve seated themselves across her desk from her, looking far too relaxed. Phoenix Wright sets his bag down very gingerly on the ground next to his chair in a way that makes Franziska suspicious.
“Well?” Franziska says, when they just sit and look at her.
“Franziska,” Miles says. He still has that strange smile on his face. “It’s good to see you.”
“Don’t waste my time with your games,” Franziska tells him, a strange itch of apprehension in her throat. Her brother isn’t the type to prolong bad news, but he’s dangling something out in front of her.
Miles and Phoenix exchange a strange, loaded glance. Then Phoenix says, “We came here to ask a favor of you.”
Franziska looks between them. She slowly begins reaching for the whip in her top drawer.
“This is something we don’t want to trust anyone else with,” Miles says. “That is, it’s an important…role. That we don’t, er…What I mean to say is, we will not be getting married in a church.”
Franziska’s gaze darts between them again, more nervous this time. A terrible realization is dawning.
Phoenix unzips the messenger bag at his feet and draws out a long, narrow cloth bag. There’s a bottle of some kind in there, definitely alcoholic. Phoenix is holding it by the neck.
“What is this?” Franziska asks, though it’s a warning not to proceed with this unbearable display of sentiment.
“Ta-da,” Phoenix says, and holds the gift out. There’s a thick-papered piece of cardstock attached to the drawstring, with her name hand-calligraphed on it.
Her throat feels tight as she accepts it. It’s heavy.
Phoenix asks, “Will you officiate the ceremony?”
Franziska pulls on the drawstring, easing the bag open. There’s a bottle of Himbeergeist inside, and its simple white label says it came all the way from Staufen im Breisgau for her.
(It’s a spirit that was always in her Papa’s cabinet, meant mostly to add a breadth of options on special occasions but rarely ever drunk. When Franziska argued her first solo case, her father didn’t have the time to watch her argue in court, but Miles came. After Franziska won and they walked home, Miles nervously kept watch while Franziska poured them both helpings from the bottle in the cabinet that drew her attention first.
It was so strong that Miles ended up laying down on the living room rug with his entire face bright red while Franziska held on to the arm of the couch for dear life and talked at him too loudly about how she was progressing in dressage classes, until her papa came home and immediately smelled the raspberry stink all the way from the front door.)
“Th-” is all Franziska says before her a lump in her throat stops her voice up. This emotion is uncalled for. It’s just a bottle of spirits. One that her brother took extraordinary pains to ship for her, but still.
This is ridiculous, she thinks again, and is horrified that her eyes have started to burn.
Miles and his insufferable betrothed must be watching smugly as she struggles. Franziska will not give them the satisfaction.
She swallows hard, keeps staring at the Himbeergeist’s label, and speaks very stiffly so she doesn’t jostle any tears free from her eyes. “Of course I will officiate your…foolish ceremony.” With careful hands, she replaces the bag, draws it shut, and sets it gingerly on the side table by her desk. While her back is turned, she surreptitiously dries her eyes with her sleeve so she looks completely composed when she turns around again.
“I won’t let you down,” Franziska says with conviction, now that she can meet their gazes again.
Phoenix’s smile is back, less goofy than before. “I know you won’t, Franziska.”
Miles nods his agreement. His expression is so soft, it’s disgusting. “Thank you.”
“We’re not going to spring a planning session on you right now,” Phoenix assures her with a laugh. “We’ll set up a time when I’m not running late for an appointment. I’ve gotta run now, but thanks for agreeing.”
Franziska doesn’t know what to say anymore. Why hasn’t he already left? “If that’s all…”
“That’s all for me. Miles, I’ll see you later?” Phoenix says. He pops up from his chair and brings his bag with him as he speaks. He pats Miles on the shoulder, which is an indecent act that does not belong in the workplace.
“Why is he not leaving with you?” Franziska demands, feeling nervous when all this elicits is a laugh from the fleeing Phoenix Wright.
Miles Edgeworth’s smile is back on his face. “I’m glad that you agreed to help us.”
“Is that all?” Franziska reiterates.
“Not quite.” Miles seems to be enjoying this too much. “Now that we know who will be involved in the ceremony, Phoenix and I are planning a family vacation for a few weekends from now. We’ll be staying at the Fey estate in Kurain.”
“I fail to see how this involves me.”
“Don’t play dumb. It doesn’t suit you.”
Franziska says, more desperately, “I am running late for an appointment, you know. I’ve been diagnosed with walking pneumonia, so I will be on bedrest for--”
“Franziska.”
She stops this foolish lie, but this is only so that she can begin making mental plans to book a flight out of the country.
“You know,” Miles says, his eyes trained at an artful middle-distance, “Phoenix doesn’t have much in terms of family.”
“He has a daughter,” Franziska says. “That’s more than you have.”
“I am fortunate enough to have at least grown up with a beautiful sister,” Miles says, ignoring her completely, “but this was not his experience. It is important to Phoenix that his sister and her family feel…embraced by us.”
“Then write them a card saying as much.”
“I am not the one who Phoenix is--”
“Then I will write a letter to Maya Fey,” Franziska says, exasperated, “saying that there is no bad blood between us.”
“It isn’t Maya Fey who Phoenix is concerned about,” Miles says, and gives Franziska a look.
Ah. Yes.
The fact that Franziska completely forgot about Pearl Fey will be evidence enough to back up Phoenix Wright’s concerns. Franziska glares at the wooden surface of her desk. Perhaps it isn’t so outrageous to suggest Franziska extend an olive branch to the Feys.
“Why does this need to be a vacation?” Franziska asks, when Miles doesn’t continue. “That seems excessive.”
“It’s an opportunity for a break, as most vacations are,” Miles says, as though Franziska is unfamiliar with the idea of rest and relaxation. “More than that, Maya and Pearl are unable to take much time away from their family estate as of late, so this is an opportunity to have them become acquainted with Kay.”
“Kay Faraday will be there?” Franziska asks, interest piqued.
“Of course she will be,” Miles says.
Perhaps seeing Franziska in person will motivate Kay to answer her email.
“I suppose I can make an appearance,” Franziska concedes, “as long as I am not occupied during the weekend you’ve chosen.”
“You aren’t,” Miles says, as close to outwardly cheerful as he gets. “I’ve spoken with your superiors.”
“What!”
“Goodbye, Franziska. You won’t regret this.”
Franziska clenches her fists, knowing that she will definitely, definitely come to regret this.
The trip up to Kurain is miserable, and that’s coming from someone who has spent about three accumulative weeks in LAX over the course of her life, and even more time in the grubby hell of the Frankfurt departures wing.
Franziska’s train stops for forty-five minutes due to the wind knocking a tree onto the line. The overzealous heating, combined with the torrential snow, turns the train car into a humid, unventilated nightmare that Franziska boils alive in for the next half-hour.
Bursting free into the fresh air at her train stop is a relief, for all of a minute.
Once at the platform, standing in the dark of the early winter sunset, she discovers that there is no welcome car waiting for her. Despite the weather forecast, her brother’s cheapskate fiancé thought it would be fine to have everyone walk the quarter-mile between the station and the Fey estate.
The train station announcement speakers blare to tell her that the remainder of the trains leaving Kurain tonight are canceled due to inclement weather. It’s either walk, or freeze to death on the platform.
Franziska clutches her suitcase’s handle in a cramping fist and sets off north, where Miles’s text told her to go.
All that keeps her going through the accumulating snowdrifts is the promise that she’ll at least get to see some familiar faces--ones that don’t belong to her brother. Maya Fey, of course, will be in attendance, though busy with hosting. Franziska was also promised that Kay Faraday would be making an appearance. Franziska didn’t even complain that much about being booked in two-star Kurainese lodging, as it’s been a year since she spoke with Kay properly.
(That, and an in-person confrontation will be enough to curtail Kay’s email-avoidant behavior.)
Around the time that snow begins to soak through her gloves, Franziska stumbles past the large wooden sign that tells her she’s reached the property. She slips and skids and curses and hisses all the way up the front path, treading over spots that were shoveled clear a few hours ago before things got bad.
When the yellow glow of lanterns lights up her feet, Franziska looks up from her perilous journey and sees the manor looming over her.
It’s a story taller than Franziska thought it would be, hewn out of wood with old metal fastenings. Having visited Khura’in twice now, Franziska can recognize an imitation of its traditional style blended with a more Japanifornian flair. The upper story is newer than the lower one, though several spots in the original buildings are visibly fresher than their surroundings. Miles mentioned something about necessary renovations, which makes sense given how outdated the buildings here are.
All that Franziska cares about now is that the manor looks warm. Warm light spills out all the windows. Pearl Fey texted the group an hour ago that she left the front door unlocked, so Franziska drags herself up the steps and shoves the door open, tumbling in and shutting the door behind her without fanfare.
This will be worth it, Franziska reminds herself for the umpteenth time. The refrain is sounding flimsier and flimsier. Trucy Wright tormenting Miles Edgeworth with magic will make this worth it. That email back from Kay Faraday will make this worth it. Maya Fey’s smile will make this worth it.
As Franziska looks around the cloth-draped interior of the Fey home, though, it’s evident that her little brother has lied to her yet again.
Two low tea tables are set with places for eight people, four per table, but none of the spots are occupied. Only one of them even has tea poured. While Franziska takes in the confusing sight of a fully empty vacation house--not daring to believe that good fortune has smiled on her in canceling the trip and leaving her in peace for a weekend--she hears the sound of a door opening and slamming shut, deeper into the house.
“Hello?” Franziska calls. “Is someone here?”
After some rustling, footsteps come down a hallway and a small figure peers around the edge of the doorframe. They’re in a huge winter coat, smothered with snow and dripping onto the wooden floor.
Pearl Fey is halfway through her senior year of high school now. The girl has pierced her ears, two studs per lobe, since Franziska last saw her, and has started wearing her hair half-up like her older family members. Twin braids keep her bangs out of her face, reminiscent of her older sisters’, and these lead into those bewildering loops on the back of her head.
Though she has grown a fair amount, she still looks impossibly young. Franziska would not have left her to tend a house on her own.
“Ms. von Karma,” Pearl says, not looking too enthused. “Welcome.”
Franziska feels nothing short of bedraggled, with snow caking her hat and coat and boots, tracking all over the rubber welcome mat. While she tries to ignore the way her skin still smarts at being reintroduced to heat, she gives a cursory nod to the girl. “Miss Fey. Hello.”
“Have you been waiting in here for a long time?”
“No.”
“Okay.” Pearl doesn’t fidget. Her eyes are all-knowing as she politely stares at Franziska. “Would you like me to take your bag?”
“No, that’s quite alright for now.” Franziska’s face is too wooden for her to do much smiling, even if she felt like doing so. The altitude isn’t doing any favors for Franziska’s mood, or for the precarious state of her empty stomach. There are gifts in her luggage--one for Trucy, and one for Pearl that will hopefully come as something of a peace offering--but there will be time for that later.
She says, “I didn’t think I would be the only guest.”
Pearl presses her lips together. “I didn’t think so either.”
Franziska pulls her arms free of her coat, feeling fifty pounds lighter and far too vulnerable without it. She crosses her arms, not quite warm in her sweater alone. “It’s a bit late for tea,” she says, and sniffles in the direction of the largely-vacant table.
“It’s barley, if you’d like some,” Pearl says. She doesn’t make any moves towards Franziska. Franziska turns and hangs her coat up on one of the wrought-iron hooks nailed rustically along the entryway. With decor like this, Franziska’s surprised the tea isn’t being served in mason jars.
“Where is everyone else?” Franziska asks. When Pearl just starts biting at one of her nails, not answering, Franziska adds, “And you were gallivanting around outside, why?”
Pearl sighs, “Our phone line is down. I had to call from the public phone on the corner. Mr. Nick said they all missed their train, and Kay did too.”
Franziska begins peeling off her gloves. “So, they’re all going to arrive tomorrow?”
“I guess so.”
“What about Maya Fey?” Franziska asks. “Is she with them?”
Pearl’s expression tightens.
Franziska recognizes this tension. It’s one she’s encountered many times, being both culturally German and purposefully insensitive. It means she’s said the exact wrong thing, and a careful balance is about to be upset.
“Mystic Maya went around the hill this morning to train,” Pearl says. She wipes melting snow out of her eyes. “But she was supposed to be back by now.”
Franziska and Pearl have had maybe five conversations, total, over the past five years--and most of those were polite greetings or goodbyes. Franziska, now, is struck by the fact that Pearl Fey is here alone, and Maya Fey’s whereabouts are unknown. No matter if Pearl is now in high school, and technically old enough to handle this, Franziska is the adult here.
“Well, let’s go find her, then,” Franziska says sternly. Her boots are still on, so it’s only a matter of wrestling her coat back over her shoulders. “It’s only a little snow.”
Pearl’s eyes widen. She says, “Really?”
“Of course,” Franziska says, and frowns. “If it’s only us here, then who else will look?”
“It’s snowing really hard…”
“Won’t you feel better, at least knowing where she is?”
Pearl wavers for only a second longer before she nods, her face finding some determination. “This way, come on.”
Franziska follows her down the dark back hallway to a kitchen. There’s a door here, leading out onto a back porch. Franziska zips up her coat and puts her gloves back on while Pearl climbs up on a counter and pulls a large flashlight out of the cupboard over the fridge.
They don’t talk. Franziska takes a paper towel and writes a short note saying where they’re going, in case someone comes to the house while they’re gone. Pearl puts on some mittens, switches on the flashlight, and then leads Franziska out the back door.
The clouds are dark, but the snow is lit with an otherworldly glow. With the help of the flashlight, they can almost see where they’re going. There are some shrubs lining their path for a little while, but the field soon opens up wide into a meadow with a broken-down fence ten yards ahead. Franziska pulls the collar of her coat higher up, shielding her face as she says, “Which way are we going?”
Pearl stomps forward, lifting her knees high to get through the accumulating snow. The flashlight’s beam bounces along with her. “There’s an Upper Cavern and a Lower Cavern. Mystic Maya prefers the Upper Cavern, but we should check the Lower one first. It’s around this hill.”
“How far apart are the caverns?” Franziska asks.
“A mile and a half,” Pearl says. The look she gives Franziska is dark, piercing.
Franziska blinks snowflakes off of her eyelashes and turns her gaze forward again. They’d better hope that Maya Fey is in the Lower Cavern, then.
They walk in silence, focused on their footing and on keeping in a straight line. Franziska eventually asks, “Is the Lower Cavern just…a large cave?”
“Umm,” Pearl says. “Kind of. It’s kind of a secret, unless you’re a spirit medium, so…”
“How easy will it be to know if someone’s in there?” Franziska asks, more directly.
Pearl’s glance at her is even less fond, this time. “Not hard.”
Franziska looks back over her shoulder. By now, the lights of the house are only an orange smudge.
“Left,” Pearl says all of a sudden, and makes a sharp turn. Franziska falls in step behind her.
They wend their way around the side of the hill until the house is cut off from view. Pearl doesn’t talk. Franziska doesn’t mind. She doesn’t want to be babysitting, and she has the feeling that the high-schooler wants nothing to do with adult supervision anyway. This is all for Maya.
“It’s up there,” Pearl says, after a miserable ten minutes of walking. She swings the flashlight towards a dark shadow set into the side of a sheer cliff. It’s the yawning mouth of a cave, though it’s underneath a craggy cliff top that could dump snow or icicles onto their heads if they’re not careful.
“Am I permitted to go in?” Franziska asks. “Even if it’s reserved for spirit mediums?”
“It should be okay,” Pearl slowly says. In the glow of the flashlight, she looks ice-bitten and tired. “Just don’t…touch anything.”
Franziska hums, biting down on a sharp retort about how she has no interest in the occult, anyway.
The cave entrance yawns much taller than it looked from a distance. Franziska welcomes the reprieve from the freezing wind and falling flakes. She stomps her feet to get snow off of her boots while Pearl charges deeper into the stone hallway draped with talismans and charms.
It’s a good sign that there are a few braziers with flames still going. At least, Franziska hopes that’s a good sign. There’s no way they’re going to make another two miles of hiking to the other cavern tonight.
Franziska could, actually. But Pearl would almost certainly come after her and perish on the journey.
“Mystic Maya?” Pearl calls, when they reach an antechamber with branching paths.
Nothing responds to them besides Pearl’s voice echoing through the cave.
Pearl turns back, worrying her lip with her teeth. She looks briefly at Franziska, and then her gaze rests on the tunnels instead. “There’re three branches. I’ll go straight, and then left.” She looks back at Franziska. “You go right.”
Franziska nods, and sets off in the direction she’s pointed in without argument. She digs her phone out of its many layers of protection and flicks the flashlight on to illuminate the cave tunnel ahead of her.
It’s a small comfort to hear Pearl behind her, calling Maya’s name. Franziska deduces that Pearl has chosen her for this path because it’s narrow, dank, and takes her directly away from the cavern and down into the earth very quickly.
Perhaps, if Franziska is the one who finds Maya, that will begin to make repairs to the strained relations between Franziska and Pearl. With Franziska’s past few years of globe-trotting, and Maya’s intermittent stays in Khura’in, there have been few opportunities for Franziska to try and apologize to Maya’s baby cousin. In the interim between Hazakura and now, Pearl has grown into a young woman with a healthy distrust of Franziska.
Franziska has grown into…something, too, but Franziska doesn’t quite know if that something is eligible for the forgiveness of someone like Pearl.
The corridor constricts, then spits Franziska out in a large, high-ceilinged void. Franziska shines her phone flashlight around and finds walls draped with scrolls, tapestries, painted banners. The ground has a large bamboo mat rolled out, and the corner is packed with a stack of meditation cushions of a similar material. Next to the cushions are a couple of wooden crates, their contents impossible to see from this distance. On the ground next to all this, it looks as though a shoebox of some sort has been upturned and some broken glass is scattered around in a glittering pile.
There is nobody here. Franziska’s hopes of redeeming herself fall to pieces.
“Maya?” Franziska calls into the room anyway, listening to the eerie muted echo of her single word. The snow has packed this cave into a freezing tomb, to the extent that it feels disrespectful to even talk aloud. The occult symbols all over the walls aren’t helping. “If you’re here, please tell me.”
Maya doesn’t pop out of the shadows with her blinding overzealous grin. Nothing moves at all, actually. Franziska sighs and turns to leave, her boots squeaking and squishing with moisture.
A soft cry catches her ears.
Franziska stops. She almost thinks she imagined it. Then another whine, this one higher, louder, and definitely not from a human source.
She turns back around and flashes her flashlight through the space. “Hello?”
The third time she hears it, Franziska realizes with a significant wave of confusion that she is definitely hearing meowing.
Franziska walks further into the room, treading as lightly as she can. As she reaches the stack of cushions, she finds a pile of old towels hidden out of sight by the wooden crates, and underneath them, something is wiggling.
Franziska crouches. She forgets all fears of rabies or other wild-animal diseases or curses. She peels two of the towels back and a furry head comes into view, blinking uncomfortably in the harsh light of her flashlight.
“Oh, liebling,” Franziska coos, and then reddens and curses herself for the lapse. The words have come from a primal place heretofore unknown to her.
It’s a cat. Adult, probably, but Franziska can still only see the head and the top of one cautious paw. The cat has black ears and a white nose and it blinks wide brown eyes at Franziska and meows again, much louder this time, plaintive and needy.
“Aren’t you cold?” Franziska asks, because she is alone and it’s safe to do ridiculous things like talk to animals when in such circumstances.
The cat extracts itself from its spot, creeping forward with caution. It shivers when its paws touch the stone floor, but it still brushes up against Franziska’s knee and meows again.
Franziska straightens up, and the cat’s noises get louder, more frantic. Quickly, Franziska crouches again to soothe it.
“Alright,” Franziska says, her mind already made up. It won’t do to leave the thing here alone, with the snow--not to mention the broken glass on the floor. She unzips her coat, and pulls the bottom hem of her sweater free from its tucked place. The coat alone isn’t keeping Franziska all that warm, so she should keep the cat closer to her skin. “Come on, then.”
The cat is completely compliant as Franziska picks her up around the middle and tucks her under her sweater. It wiggles just a little, one paw braced on the underwire of Franziska’s bra to leverage itself into a more comfortable spot with its chin tucked on Franziska’s collarbone. Franziska busies herself with securing it in place by zipping up her jacket and bracing underneath the cat’s back legs with one of her arms.
“Are you comfortable?” Franziska asks, feeling silly.
The cat makes a soft purring sound, right against her chest. Franziska cradles it closer and turns to walk back the way she came with better spirits than before.
When she gets back to the entrance of the cave, Pearl has taken up a perch on a stone stool by the light of one of the braziers. She shines the flashlight towards Franziska’s boots, thankfully not blinding her.
“I didn’t find Miss Fey,” Franziska says curtly. “Did you?”
Pearl gestures her hand back and forth in a kinda motion. “I found a note from her. The training cavern is locked from the inside, so she’s probably down there.”
“Probably?”
Pearl holds out the note. It’s on crinkled printer paper, splotched with melted snow. Franziska walks over and takes it.
“Pearly- Sorry if I ran over time. I’m trying a new technique and I’m thinking it shouldn’t take longer than a day. I might spend the night here, don’t worry! Tell Nick sorry. Love, Maya.”
Despite her relief that Maya’s allegedly safe, Franziska isn’t too pleased to return empty-handed, without visual confirmation that Maya’s alright. Franziska says, “I fail to see why she couldn’t have texted this information.”
“We don’t get service up here,” Pearl says, “but yeah.” She shrugs emotionlessly. She folds the note and puts it in her pocket. “Why’re you holding your tummy like that?”
“I found…something,” Franziska says. She feels an irrational urge to keep the cat a secret, so that it will be safe, but that isn’t an instinct she needs to maintain these days. Pearl Fey can be trusted around animals. “Do you want to see?”
“What is it?” Pearl asks dubiously.
Franziska unzips her coat. The cat pokes its head out through the neck of her sweater, blinking slowly.
Pearl’s eyes get wider, and the solemn distaste she has for Franziska disappears with a childlike gasp. “Kitty!”
The cat leaps forward, slithering out of the neck hole of Franziska’s sweater and tumbling towards the ground. It lands semi-gracefully, not embarrassed by its actions in the least, and meows loudly in Pearl’s direction as it trots over to rub against her calves.
“Is it yours?” Franziska asks.
Pearl has dropped to give the cat a kiss on the head, and to cradle its cheeks between her hands. Even as the cat bumps its head into her chin for more affection, Pearl shakes her head. “I’ve never seen her before.”
“She seems to like you,” Franziska says.
Pearl glows. She kisses the cat again, between the ears. “Sweet thing,” she coos. “Are you cold? How’d you get in here?”
The cat makes a protracted meowing noise, something like “WaaaaaUUUaUUUau.”
“I hear you,” Pearl sympathizes. “Do you want to come back with us?”
The cat rubs against Pearl’s knee again and meows before running back towards Franziska and propping her front feet up on Franziska’s bent leg. Franziska pats the cat’s head and marvels in the small wonder of an animal actually seeking affection from her.
Pearl asks, “Can we bring her back with us?”
Franziska blinks, surprised. “It’s your house.”
“It’s technically Mystic Maya’s house,” Pearl says dismissively. “I only asked you because my jacket isn’t big enough for her.”
“Ah.” Franziska carefully picks the cat up around the stomach. As she tucks it back under her sweater, she says, “It’s no problem. Let’s get her back so you both can warm up.”
“And you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Franziska says, for the sake of her own dignity. “This is nothing like the winter back home. I’m perfectly fine.”
The walk back feels shorter. Franziska has a new source of heat stuffed into her sweater, which makes it all the easier to keep her focus. The cat is well-mannered, thankfully, and doesn’t feel the need to claw or scratch or complain about the arrangement. Franziska feels its breath on her skin, along with an intermittent stream of purring.
Pearl doesn’t chatter. Franziska doesn’t either, and she appreciates the girl’s respect for the meditative practice of walking while trying not to slip and slide around. Their footsteps are still visible from their walk over, which means that the snow is slowing down.
As they round the bend and the glow of the house comes back into view, something seizes Franziska and tells her not to let this opportunity go to waste. She clears her throat and says, with her eyes fixed on the spot where the flashlight hits the falling snowflakes, “Miss Fey, if we are to be…in-laws, I feel there is a discussion to be had.”
Pearl doesn’t say anything, but she must be listening. The night is blanketed in silence, other than their feet crunching.
“Are you still cross with me?” Franziska asks. It feels safe to say it forward, to no one, knowing she won’t have to see the thoughts telegraphed on Pearl’s face.
“For what?” Pearl asks.
Franziska sniffs. Her nose stings with cold. “For…prosecuting the case against your cousin, all that time ago. I know that you were upset with me then, and I apologize.”
“Would you do it again?”
Franziska spares her a sideways glance, not sure what that question means.
Pearl elaborates, speaking down towards her boots with her face out of sight, “If you had all the same facts, would you try to pin it on her again?”
“I cannot let my emotions get in the way of a case,” Franziska says, “regardless of who is accused. I’ve had to pursue cases against my own brother. It’s not as though I was targeting her specifically.”
“Has anyone ever done that to you? Accused you of murder?”
Franziska says, not quite sneering, “Nobody has had the courage.” She doesn’t get herself into precarious situations, all on her own--she doesn’t frequent parking lots, or abandoned warehouses, or businesses after hours without a solid alibi or corroborating witness.
“Hmm,” Pearl says. She’s quiet for three steps before she says, “Then I don’t think you’re really sorry.”
Franziska stops. Pearl takes two more steps before slowing down and turning, her pink face braced against the wind.
“What?” Pearl says. She juts her chin out. “You’re just going to apologize because you want me to like you. It’s not going to work.”
Franziska’s scowl deepens. Her arm bracing the cat’s hind legs tightens. She opens her mouth to retort, but Pearl has already turned back around and resumed her march through the snow, taking the light with her.
Frustrated, Franziska speedwalks to catch up. “Miss Fey. Maya has long forgiven me for--”
Pearl walks even faster, tossing words over her shoulder. “She’s nicer than me, I guess.”
“You still hold a grudge?”
“I don’t not hold a grudge,” Pearl grumbles, which doesn’t make any sense. They’ve reached the broken fence, putting them within the range of lantern-light by the house. The lit-up windows loom, like blank judging faces staring them down.
Pearl gets to the back steps and stops at the top, turning to tower over Franziska. Franziska stops short, slipping a little in her surprise.
“Why do you care, all of a sudden?” Pearl asks, peering down at her. The porch lights beam around her head like a halo, which could just be Franziska’s undiagnosed astigmatism.
Franziska stammers, “I--Well, we’re going to be--”
“I’m not going to be your sister,” Pearl says. She crosses her arms, the effect only a little lessened by the puffiness of her coat and her runny nose. “I’m not even Mystic Maya’s sister. You don’t have to pretend just so you can get good photos at the wedding.”
“Do I look like the type to pretend?” Franziska asks, insulted. Still, some part of her is smarting because Pearl called her out perfectly, and she’s half-lying when she claims, “I’m not just apologizing so you’ll be on my side. I don’t care if you like me or not.”
This is the wrong thing to say. Pearl’s face does something complicated, and then she snaps far too loudly, “Well, then I don’t care either!”
She stomps over and shoves the back door open. Her boots get wrestled off with surprising dexterity. She flings them down into a spot on the back porch next to the door while she rants, “This whole trip idea was stupid! I don’t want you here, or, or anybody. You all hate it here, and I hate you!” She whips her head back one more time to say, “Just--just-- leave me alone,” and then she disappears into the kitchen with a receding patter of footsteps.
Franziska is left with a cat in her coat and a sinking, clawing feeling in her stomach. She stoops over and lets the cat jump free. It springs after Pearl, into the house, without a look back at Franziska.
The snowy night has a lot less magical mystique now. Franziska is cold and tired, her hands numb and her toes aching. Slowly, she drags herself up the porch steps.
She stomps snow off of her boots, then unlaces them and pries them off. After a moment of consideration, she picks up Pearl’s boots and claps them together, shaking off the worst of the snow and bringing them inside with her so that they won’t freeze solid overnight.
Pearl has stormed away without any instructions as to what Franziska is or isn’t allowed to touch. Franziska proceeds with caution, peering inside kitchen cabinets and keeping an ear out in case Pearl comes back.
There’s a pantry in the far corner, the shelves fairly well-populated. In the group chat planning this trip, there had been talk of Miles and his insufferable fiancé bringing up more groceries, so Franziska doesn’t spare too much worry for how they’ll survive for the next few days. What is encouraging is that she finds many dusty cans of tuna, one of which she cracks open to dump it into a bowl for the cat to sniff at.
She gets a second shallow bowl and fills it with water, then takes both back to the main room. Pearl is nowhere to be seen, so Franziska sets the two bowls down in a corner out of the way. She pours barley tea into one of the untouched cups, and then takes the cup of tea with her to the kotatsu in the corner and sits, tucking her frozen legs underneath.
It’s been a while since Franziska sat at a kotatsu, but poking around to find the power button only occupies her for a few meager seconds. While she waits for it to warm up, all she has to stew on is the unsweetened cold tea in her cup.
Her conversation with Pearl echoes through her head on a sad loop. Franziska picks it over like a witness statement, searching for weak points and hidden clues, but the emotions are too fresh in Franziska’s head and they keep getting all tangled in the way.
She really fouled that one up. If Franziska wasn’t stuck on this mountain, she’d already be going home and telling Miles Edgeworth to shove his ideas of “family bonding” up his ass.
Around the time that the kotatsu gets warm, the snow slows down. Franziska watches through a window high in the great hall’s wall as the flakes peter out, and wills the clouds to clear so she can see the stars. Apparently, one of the few benefits to visiting Kurain is the lack of light pollution.
The clouds only get thicker, smothering the slight moonlight.
Franziska lives on her own, rarely staying in a place longer than a month at a time. The family home, just outside of Munich, is kept up by a skeleton staff; Franziska hasn’t been able to make herself visit in a few years now. In recent years, Miles Edgeworth has extended invitations to Franziska for major holidays (besides Christmas, which he doesn’t celebrate). She thinks he’s worried about her feeling lonely.
As though Franziska has ever been anything but.
This is one of her brother’s many, many ulterior motives in planning this trip, Franziska suspects. It’s a test run, like letting cats sniff each other under a door to get used to each other. Franziska has already failed the test, at her first chance to mend things with Pearl.
Perhaps from now on, Miles will save everyone the trouble and admit that Franziska isn’t going to fit in with his vision of a blended family.
Franziska sips her lukewarm tea. The heated table has improved the temperature, though not the taste.
There’s nothing to do. Franziska’s devices will not connect to the internet here. She has no cases to work on, and no book to reach for. She sips her tea, and listens to the creaking of someone else’s family home, and wishes for an odd, painful, crazed moment that her papa was here.
He told good stories, on quiet evenings. When those ran dry, he could recount cases with perfect accuracy, telling Franziska the facts and listening while she constructed her own argument. When she got it right, he would smile with his eyes and kiss her forehead and twirl some of her hair around his finger and call her his treasure, his blessing, his darling. Nobody else has ever called her anything like that, not even when she does everything right.
Franziska isn’t inclined to bring up these things with anyone, anymore, so she just hugs the fading memories to her chest and drinks bitter tea until her cup is empty.
A black-and-white spot of movement in her peripheral vision has her sitting straight up again, surprised and a little sensitive to being seen like this. It’s only that cat, creeping through the side door into the main hall and blinking its big eyes.
Franziska blinks. She wipes at her face, realizing a few tears have fallen. Late nights always get to her, in the winter. “Hello there,” she says softly. “Are you hungry? I put some food there for you.”
The cat totters over towards the kotatsu and slips underneath it, somehow knowing where the warmth will be. A moment later, the cat’s head pops out next to Franziska’s hip, and Franziska sits very still as the animal creeps onto her crossed legs and curls into a happy ball.
Franziska sniffs, chasing away the last of her irrational bout of tears. She should save these hysterics for her room, where nobody like Pearl Fey will see her, even by accident.
In her lap, the cat rolls, exposing her belly. Franziska scratches under the cat’s chin.
“Where did you come from?” Franziska asks.
The cat meows. Then she yawns, wide enough to show all of her sharp teeth, and closes her mouth and her wide brown eyes make Franziska forget about all her capacity for viciousness again.
Another visitor appears. Franziska warily lifts her eyes to find Pearl in the doorway, now changed into pajamas complete with mouse-eared slippers.
At the sight of Pearl, the cat leaves Franziska’s lap, and then seems to catch a whiff of the tuna in the bowl and scampers over there instead.
Under Pearl’s gaze, Franziska sits very still and holds her empty teacup and in general pretends like she isn’t alive.
Pearl shuffles into the room, not saying anything. She goes over to one of the low tea tables and picks up her used cup and the teapot, then, to Franziska’s surprise, she comes over to the other side of the kotatsu and crouches and sets her spoils down on the table between them.
Franziska watches out of the corner of her eye as Pearl settles, crossing her legs and pulling the blanket over them. Pearl pours herself some tea and then holds the teapot in Franziska’s direction and Franziska wordlessly pushes her cup over for Pearl to pour her some.
“Thank you,” Franziska says quietly.
Pearl doesn’t say anything in response for a long while. When she speaks, it’s to say, “I tried to make dinner, but I messed it up. Are you hungry?”
“I ate before I left home.”
“Okay.” Pearl drinks some of her tea. Her nails are a wreck, all chewed to the quick. “You fed the cat.”
“Yes. I found tuna for her.”
Pearl takes a deep breath, lets it out. “I should’ve done that. Or shown you where it was. Or…anyway. Um, I’m not good at being a host.”
“That isn’t true,” Franziska tells her, and finally lifts her eyes.
The girl’s eyes are red-rimmed, the surrounding areas puffy. Nonetheless, she gives Franziska half of a self-deprecating smile, and her eyes briefly flick up to acknowledge the reassurance. She sniffles. “Mystic Maya is a lot better at it.”
“Maya is very talented,” Franziska agrees, “but it isn’t your fault I’ve been so…disagreeable.”
“You have, kind of,” Pearl concedes. She lets go of her cup to rub at her eyes with her fists.
Franziska examines the girl’s face--her chin tucked, her eyes still teary. Pearl Fey has grown up, but in many ways she’s still the round-faced child who single-handedly kept Phoenix Wright’s mental health stable for weeks at a time (before Trucy took up that mantle). A Fey cousin, glued to Maya’s side even as the rest of their family, one after the other, proved to be dead, or untrustworthy, or both.
Franziska wonders if Pearl felt discarded when Maya left to study in Khura’in, in the same way Franziska hated her brother for leaving Germany.
The cat finishes her tuna. She comes back over and climbs into her previous spot on Franziska’s lap, like she belongs there.
“Do you want to pick a name for her?” Franziska asks, hiding the way that this development makes her feel as though she could ascend to the heavens.
Pearl sits up on her knees to see over the edge of the kotatsu, and she says thoughtfully, “She has cute bangs, like Mystic Maya, right? Look at the black parts.”
Franziska scratches the cat’s forehead. She has to agree that the black markings take on a very specific shape, right over the cat’s eyebrows. “You’re right. They could be twins.”
“Hmm,” Pearl says. She makes a little kissy sound and says, “Mayoi, hiiii.”
The cat sleepily opens an eye and looks up at Franziska. Her purrs are audible.
“She likes that name,” Franziska says. Pearl’s shy smile grows.
They sit together for upwards of another hour, not talking much. It seems that Pearl doesn’t want to waste tea, and the taste starts to grow on Franziska, even if it’s still not exactly warm. When the teapot is mostly empty, Franziska reluctantly disturbs the cat sleeping on her lap and begins to stand.
Pearl reaches under the table to turn it off before following suit. She stretches and yawns and says, “We’re using the new rooms upstairs while the sleeping quarters get renovated. I can show you where you’ll sleep.”
Franziska gently inclines her head, feeling like the mood is fragile, precious glass. “Please do.”
Pearl picks up Franziska’s bag and lugs it along with her, ignoring Franziska’s insistence that she can carry her own things. The two of them go up some rickety old stairs and down a narrow hallway, until Pearl stops in front of a door at the end and slides it open.
It’s a sparsely furnished room, with a bare wooden desk, a chair, and a futon on the ground in the opposite corner. There are a few spare blankets piled on the desk. The extra warmth will be welcome, given that Franziska can feel how drafty the room is, even from the hallway.
Franziska remembers how Pearl snapped about how everyone hates visiting Kurain. She holds her tongue and doesn’t make any remarks about how depressing these lodgings are.
“Here.” Pearl swings the bag into the room ahead of her, to fit through the doorway, and then sets it down on a wooden chair in the corner. “The bathroom is at the other end of the hallway on the right, it has a panel in the door so you’ll notice it.”
“Thank you.”
“Uh-huh. Bye. Goodnight, I mean,” Pearl mumbles, and then she darts away without letting Franziska respond properly.
Franziska goes through her bedtime routine in a bit of a robotic state, not thinking too hard. Somehow, she brushes her teeth, washes her face, brushes her hair, and changes into pajamas with two layers of socks to stop her toes from falling off. She lays the extra blankets out on top of the futon in a neatly stacked pile.
The motion makes her aware of a deep ache in her shoulder, below the bone. Franziska pauses and frowns and kneads her fingers into her scar, knowing that doing so will only make it worse. Perhaps this is why she thought of her papa, earlier--for the most part, she doesn’t consciously notice the twinges brought on by cold weather.
While Franziska takes a moment to stretch her shoulder, her arm pulled sideways across her chest, the newly named Mayoi winds around the edge of the open bedroom door and meows a hello.
“Hello, Kätzchen,” Franziska says. She reaches over to scratch under Mayoi’s chin, hoping that this cat doesn’t belong to some stranger who will take it away from Pearl Fey in a few days. “Are you here to sleep? I’m very honored.”
Mayoi meows at her again, blinking slow contented eyes. Franziska gives in to the urge to kiss her on the head between the ears, and then she stands and turns off the overhead light and shuts the door. There’s enough light from the lanterns coming through the window shutters to show her the way to her futon.
Franziska slides under all the covers, shivering all the while. Mayoi steps over, perfectly confident, and noses her way under the covers at Franziska’s side. After the cat and Franziska shuffle around for a bit, they settle down with Franziska on her side and Mayoi curled into a tight ball at the small of Franziska’s back.
Franziska listens to the cat’s quiet whistling breathing for fifteen counts of ten before the chill leaves her bones. Then, she thinks of Pearl Fey sleeping in this house all alone with a woman she wants nothing to do with, and doesn’t feel at ease anymore.
She sits up. Mayoi makes a soft complaining sound.
Franziska tells the cat, “I believe you should sleep with Pearl.” Mayoi makes a soft disgruntled noise. Franziska gathers the cat into her arms and stands, stumbling through the house and down the hall until she comes near one with a door cracked open a little. Franziska hears some covers rustling in there.
She lets Mayoi down. “G’sund bleiben,” she says, telling the cat more or less to have a good night. Mayoi chirps, then slips through the crack in the door.
When Franziska returns to her room, she leaves her own door open a bit in case Mayoi decides to leave Pearl behind later. Her futon is still a little warm. Franziska falls asleep quickly and has dreams of the ornate rug that lies in front of her papa’s fireplace.
Franziska wakes to paws kneading her shoulder and an insistent meowing in her ear.
“Ach,” Franziska complains, and opens one eye just a crack. Early-morning light has permeated the room with gray tones. “Calm yourself.”
Big brown eyes stare back at her, impatient. Mayoi makes another noise, this one louder.
Slowly, Franziska sits up. The five blankets piled on top of her fall away into a heavy pile on her lap. A flash of her phone screen says it’s only five-thirty in the morning.
“You have to be kidding me,” Franziska says. Now that she’s been awakened by this wretched beast, she won’t be able to sleep again, even though it’s sinfully early.
Said wretched beast is still meowing, only getting louder. Mayoi paces over to the closed door and paws at it, then looks at Franziska with what can only be described as a disgruntled pout.
“Terrible,” Franziska says. She peels back the layers of warmth and extracts herself from the futon to stumble over to the door. She opens it, intending to free Mayoi and then crash back into bed and stew in sleeplessness, but Mayoi only takes a couple of steps before halting in the doorway and meowing at her again.
“What?” Franziska asks, scowling. “You’re hungry?”
Mayoi meows and blinks baleful eyes.
Franziska sighs. She goes over to her suitcase to find her dressing gown, so she’s decent when she goes back into the hall and navigates the stairs.
Somehow, she survives the trip to the kitchen to find more tuna. While Mayoi devours her fish, Franziska considers her many personal character failings and resolves to make breakfast for Pearl Fey to find when she wakes.
She finds butter and milk in the fridge. That, combined with the healthy stock of rice in the pantry, gives her the courage to attempt one of the very few warm recipes she can make without checking scrawled handwritten recipes she left in her apartment.
Even once the rice is set to simmer for the next half-hour, the sun hasn’t risen yet. Everything is foggy. If Franziska’s experience with snowy weather is to be trusted, this fog will eventually freeze everything into a deadly crust, so someone should shovel the front path before that can happen.
Franziska rubs her eyes and yawns and then reluctantly goes and finds her coat.
She finds a shovel propped up on the front porch and uses it to clear the front path, from porch to gate. She even takes care of the short span of sidewalk outside the front gate, and then she returns to the front door feeling vaguely satisfied with her hard work. Mostly, though, she’s glad that she took care of this before anyone would be awake to witness her in her current getup: winter coat, dressing robe, silk pajamas, snow boots.
Nobody besides Mayoi, anyway. The cat is perched on the inside of the front porch window when Franziska pounds up the steps again. She meows and something about it almost seems mocking, like she thinks Franziska’s travails are funny.
“I could put you back outside,” Franziska tells the cat.
Mayoi jumps off the windowsill and disappears deeper into the house.
Franziska dumps the shovel and goes back inside. Inspired by her previous progress in making up for her shortcomings, Franziska takes the used cups and teapot from the front room back to the kitchen to clean them and heat up new water. There’s a cupboard full of tea blends; Franziska isn’t sure what Pearl likes, so she doesn’t try to guess. She settles for a tub of instant coffee instead and makes herself a bitter cup that tastes like burnt celery but at least makes her head stop pounding.
Creaking comes through the ceiling. Franziska recognizes the rocking of footsteps; there’s only one other person in the house, so it’s obvious that Pearl’s moving around. Franziska pretends not to hear Pearl approaching until the girl is in the doorway, yawning and peeling tangled hair out of the collar of her acolyte robes.
“Good morning,” Franziska says.
“Morning,” Pearl mumbles, bleary-eyed. “Are you cooking?”
“Ah, yes,” Franziska says, feeling terribly foolish about it now. “It’s…rice pudding. It’s ready now.”
“Rice pudding for breakfast?” Pearl asks.
“Is it a crime?” Franziska retorts. She doesn’t say who taught her the recipe; it’s a bit of a mood-killer. “If you don’t like it, you can throw it out the back door.”
Pearl doesn’t laugh or respond at all. She just hovers by the edge of the kitchen counter. Mayoi leaps up next to her and demands attention, which keeps Franziska out of scrutiny for a brief reprieve while she continues her work.
There are raisins in the cupboard, thankfully, along with the cinnamon, brown sugar, and vanilla extract that evaded her earlier. Franziska puts a portion of her concoction into a bowl and offers it in Pearl’s direction with something like abject shame, and is unable to look as Pearl pulls two spoons out of a drawer.
Pearl sits at the kitchen table with her food. Franziska sits across from her and eats her own, unsure why she’s feeling something akin to stage fright.
Mayoi jumps up on the kitchen table and patters over to stick her face in Franziska’s bowl. Franziska fends her off with the back of her hand, gently pushing her away. “No,” she says. “Not for cats.”
Mayoi meows at her in a way that Franziska is sure means “bitch.” She goes over to Pearl instead, but is rebuffed there, too. She sits between the two of them with a displeased frown, twitching her tail back and forth.
“You’ve never seen her before?” Franziska asks Pearl, when the silence stretches too long.
Pearl shakes her head, chewing thoughtfully. She isn’t spitting the milchreis out, so that’s a good sign. A neutral sign, at least.
“She has a lot of personality,” Pearl says, when she’s finished her spoonful. “I wish Mystic Maya was here to meet her.”
Mayoi makes a loud noise, less of a meow and more of a yell.
“Do you know what time Maya will return?” Franziska asks.
“No.” Pearl pokes idly at Mayoi’s tail, watching it smack up and down on the tabletop. “I hope she’s back before everyone else gets here. Mr. Nick will freak out if she’s missing.”
The cat meows again, even louder. She bats at Pearl’s hand, agitated but not enough for her claws to come out.
“What?” Pearl asks Mayoi. “Are you mad?”
Mayoi meows. She yawns, showing all her sharp teeth, and then jumps off the table, landing with a graceful but loud thud on the wooden floor. Instead of stalking out of the room, though, Mayoi props her feet up on the side of Pearl’s chair and sticks her face into the nearest pocket of Pearl’s robes.
“Do you carry sardines in your pockets?” Franziska asks.
“Not anymore,” Pearl says, taking the question far too seriously. Without elaborating, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a crinkled piece of white paper. It’s Maya’s note, from the cavern. “What, kitty? Is it this?”
Mayoi meows. She stretches upwards and bites the corner of the paper before releasing it.
“Is Mayoi able to read?” Franziska asks, no longer knowing if she’s joking with these absurd questions.
Pearl’s face has creased in concentration. She unfolds the note and frowns at it. As she does so, Franziska catches sight of the back of the paper, and a few characters printed in smearing ink on the page there. “What’s that?”
Pearl turns the paper over, and her dismay grows. “It’s kanji. I can’t read them very well.”
Franziska can’t read them at all. She won’t admit this aloud. “Does anyone in the village read them?”
“No, not right now.” Pearl bites down on one of her poor, abused fingernails. “Mystic Maya can, but...”
Mayoi makes another one of her yelling noises.
Pearl’s eyes trace the characters. She looks from them, to the cat on the floor, and something on her face seems to shift. Franziska has been around enough detectives in her life to know that Pearl is figuring something out--or at the very least, has a theory.
“Talk to me,” Franziska says.
Pearl jumps. Maybe Franziska sounded a little intense, there. The girl drops her hand away from her mouth to say, “I need to go check on Mystic Maya.”
“This instant?”
Pearl stands up, shoving her chair back. She carries her half-empty bowl to the sink and then runs from the room without another word.
Franziska stays seated for a moment. There must have been some clue, or something that clicked for Pearl. All she sees is Mayoi on the ground in the same spot, stretching herself into a long, graceful bow and flexing all ten of her front claws in the process.
She stands and follows where Pearl went, only to find the girl wrestling her boots on. Franziska goes to put on her own coat and boots, but Pearl says, “You don’t have to come, Ms. von Karma. I’ll just run over and back.”
“You made it sound so urgent,” Franziska argues. “There’s more safety in numbers, particularly if I am the ‘numbers.’”
“It’s a spirit medium thing. You don’t have any spiritual powers.” Pearl yanks her jacket on and then half-runs back towards the kitchen.
Franziska, feeling a little scrambled, runs after her, boots untied.
Pearl scoops Mayoi off of the kitchen tile and hugs her to her chest as she goes out the back door.
Franziska catches up as a cold blast of morning air hits her; she shivers. “You feel as though taking a cat and not me will--”
“Butt out!” Pearl snaps over her shoulder, with a sharpness that seems to surprise even herself. Then she kicks the kitchen door shut behind her and hurries over the back porch, her pink coat a bright contrast to the blinding sun-reflecting snow.
There’s no way Franziska is listening to such a rude order--one, it was rude, and two, it was an order from a child. She forgot her scarf and gloves by the front door, but she can at least lace up her boots and button her coat. She bides her time for Pearl to take the turn on the path that will take her around the hill and interrupt her sightline to the house. As soon as Pearl’s pink coat is out of sight, Franziska springs into action after her.
Things are melting as the sun rises. Franziska slips and slides in her hurry, taking just as many steps side-to-side as she takes forward. This vacation is far from satisfactory, and Franziska feels like she has even more acrimonious feelings towards her future in-laws than she did before, but she’s not the quitting type. She tails Pearl towards the Lower Cavern, and she does it right, without the child noticing.
Last night, Pearl indicated one of the tunnels led to Maya’s training spot, so Franziska follows her recollection. Pearl has re-lit one of the braziers, and lantern light bounces around in eerie patterns straight ahead. Franziska follows, keeping to the shadows, and checks around each corner of the winding tunnel before turning them.
She stops when she finally reaches Pearl. The girl has stopped in front of a rickety wooden wall, which has an old door set into it. Pearl tries the handle, but it’s locked, as she said it was yesterday.
At her feet, Mayoi makes a noise. She rubs against Pearl’s shin, and then squeezes herself through a gap in the old wooden boards of the barrier and vanishes.
“I don’t know how to get through,” Pearl worries. She rattles the handle again. “Mystic Maya, is it a padlock?”
Mayoi meows in return, long and sour.
“No?” Another meow. Pearl seems to accept this as an answer. “Okay. Maybe I can pick it.”
Franziska watches in rapt confusion, unable to move past the idea that Pearl thinks a cat’s response is equivalent to Maya Fey’s voice. Despite this fundamental misunderstanding of human speech, Pearl drops to her knees and sticks a bent bobby pin into the keyhole and wiggles it for several minutes before the lock makes a clicking noise.
“I didn't think it would actually work,” Pearl says. Mayoi meows again from the other side of the door. Pearl presses the handle down and shoves the door open to show the training chamber behind.
It’s a similar setup to the room that Franziska found the cat in last night, with tapestries and rugs and storage crates. The main difference, most importantly, is the complete absence of Maya’s body.
Franziska’s stomach swoops. She covers her mouth to muffle any surprised noises that she makes. As she begins to mentally outline her next steps--how she’ll track the woman down, how she’ll tell her brother’s fiancé this happened, how she’ll get her will updated and re-notarized before Phoenix Wright stabs her to death--she notices that Pearl doesn’t seem in the least bit daunted.
In fact, Pearl seems more at ease, now. She sets her lantern down and kneels with her back to Franziska, in the center of a large bamboo mat. Mayoi sprawls on the rug in front of Pearl, so all that Franziska can see of her is her tail flicking.
Pearl talks a little, at a volume that Franziska can’t make out. Franziska’s curiosity wins out over her emergency-response instincts. Eavesdropping can only lead to the worsening of the nonexistent trust between Franziska and Pearl, but Franziska wants at least some kind of clue as to why Pearl talks to Mayoi like Mayoi understands anything about spiritual powers.
“...I set up the shield thing like we talked about. Can you feel it there?” Pearl’s saying. “I don’t know if I did it right.”
Mayoi chirps. Her tail flicks around.
“Okay. I’m ready, if you are.” Pearl shakes her hands out, and then puts them together, or folds them or something in front of her--Franziska can’t see. She does see when Pearl bows her head, though.
Mayoi moves, her tail disappearing. Her small form is obstructed from Franziska’s view entirely.
Then, something starts to glow. Harsh white light begins to emanate from somewhere in front of Pearl, a light source separate from the lantern at her side. The light grows, and Franziska remains frozen still, watching as Mayoi’s form seems to expand until it’s big enough that Pearl’s body can’t block it.
The cat isn’t looking like a cat, anymore. She has human arms, and long hair, and then she peeks open one eye to check on Pearl and her gaze snags on Franziska’s.
Many thoughts occur to Franziska, upon observing this display. The most urgent is that over the course of the past day, Franziska has kissed that cat on the head several times.
This is not only bizarre, it’s… entirely inappropriate.
Not only has Franziska grabbed her future sister-in-law and shoved her into her sweater, skin-on-skin, but she did that--twice! Maya Fey curled up directly on Franziska’s breast and purred there. They shared the same bed.
Franziska’s face is uncomfortably hot. Her entire body has stiffened. She hears herself make a choking noise.
“Oh, shit,” Maya Fey says.
The sudden words startle Pearl out of her concentration. The light around Maya startles along with her, scattering to disparate corners of the training chamber. The shards of light ricochet, strobing and bouncing off of walls and off of Maya and off of Pearl.
They do not bounce off of Franziska.
She cries out in surprise when the first one hits her, sharp as a bee sting. After the first one sinks into her skin, the rest hone in on her and rocket over, and Franziska covers her head with her arms out of instinct as the light and pain gets to be unbearable. She can hear Maya’s voice, raised and echoing around the cave, but the individual words get lost.
The bee stings stop. Franziska stops cowering. When she looks up at the cave again, though, she’s seeing it from a much lower vantage point than before. She blinks slowly, convinced she must have passed out.
Maya looms over her, ten feet tall but alive and safe. “Oh my god. No way.”
Franziska hates being on the floor like this, vulnerable. She tries to stand up and it doesn’t work. Rearing back on her legs is an unnatural feeling now, and she only gets halfway up before she falls back onto all fours, her arms catching her.
Not her arms, actually. They’re a different shape than they were two seconds ago.
Franziska looks down, and sees that instead of hands, what has hit the floor is a pair of blue-gray paws.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Pearl says. She’s on her feet now and she’s too tall, too, from this angle. She reaches down for Franziska, hands too big and too fast. “I really didn’t mean to!”
Franziska, seeing no other option, makes a run for it.