Work Text:
When the lights go down and the party ends, when there’s no more idle chatter over god-awful French food, there’s only silence and skin-deep realizations. Day collapses into night, and the moon draws out solitude. Such is the case for Maya, looking down at the street below from the Wright and Co. Law Offices sipping powdery hot chocolate. She’ll fight for her basic human right to perennially stock Swiss-Miss packets in the office, so sue her.
Anyways, she’s looking out the window down below at the Gatewater, the stupid rusted building sign with Fey and Co. squeezed in at the bottom, the 9 of 9701 22nd Avenue. The little things are what really get her sometimes.
“Ms. Fey.” A simmering but clear tone sounds to her left, melodic against the drumbeat of reminiscence. “You’re quite the resilient woman to be up at this hour.”
Maya hugs her acolyte robes closer to her. “You are too, aren’t you?”
“False equivalence. I am merely jetlagged.” Franziska comes up next to her, following her gaze to the neighboring hotel. She understands, just a little bit better now, why Franziska agreed to lodge in the offices for the night. “You, on the other hand, have no excuse.” Maya assumes her best smile, the one chipper enough to allay concern but restrained enough to seem realistic.
“I mean,” she starts, taking a sip from her hot chocolate, “I got plenty of rest in the hospital, right?”
“You also, as it seems, spent several days possessed by an incredibly vengeful spirit.” The words sound foreign from her rational, unfoolish companion. “Anyone else in your shoes would be as sound asleep as Phoenix Wright there,” she added, gesturing to the man resting at his desk, still in his blue polyester suit.
The words stew in silence as Maya continues gazing down at the lights and humdrum. If she imagined it so, the transient patterns of the cars morphed into something like Eagle River and inescapable currents. The liquid in her styrofoam cup trembles, dangerously sloshing against the rim. “Do you really believe that?” Franziska scoffs and averts her gaze. But no answer to that question came.
Instead, she unfastens her whip and offers it to Maya. “Hold this. You’ll spill that wretched concoction at this rate.” Franziska takes the cup from her hands, setting it on some surface or another. In its place is a fine leather whip, braided to a taper and woven into a sturdy handle.
“You realize I don’t let just anyone hold this whip, Ms. Fey?”
“Well yeah,” Maya nods, “this thing is practically attached to you.”
“Then you realize you are an exception, correct? And that this is an indication of my willingness to be emotionally vulnerable?”
“…Yes?”
The other woman turns something resembling bashful. “Good. We are on the same page then.” The conversation dies down again, though the pause is more for both of them to gather their thoughts more than anything. There was no need to rush here: for the first time in days, it seems there was an abundance of time rather than a shortage of it.
“It belonged to my mother,” Franziska murmurs. “I heard stories of how brilliant of a caretaker she was. How I could not stand to be apart from her for more than a moment.” The prosecutor looks down at her gloved hands, picking gently at the leather. “Yet I wonder how many of my memories of her were true or constructed.”
Maya clenches the whip like a lifeline, lowering her voice to a whisper. “I couldn’t even remember what my mom looked like until Hazakurain.” The leather seems to grip her hand in turn, palm settling into the divots of the material.
“Yet you long for something you never knew.”
This takes her aback. “That’s…actually not too far off.”
“Tch. Of course, my reasoning is always flawless.”
“But that’s the thing: I kinda had something like that, you know? With Mia. Sis hid a lot of things from me…always leaving everyone behind. But Mia was all I had.” Maya pauses to swipe a finger on the dust of the windowsill. “And one night, boom, gone. Thanks to that man.”
Franziska met her gaze, silvery-blue against brown. “Then I suppose we’re more alike than I imagined.” Her scrutiny is palpable, but it’s more revelatory than judgemental. Like the epiphany is on the precipice. “Ms. Fey, I do not apologize per se—“
“What, no!” Her cheeks light ablaze, composure slipping as Maya became more and more flustered. “I forgave you for that a long time ago!”
“I beg you, this needs to be said. I—“
The whip creates a soft thud when it hits the carpet and the hand of its last beholder finds itself gripping the edge of Franziska’s sleeve. The silence ties them together like a red string. “Franziska,” Maya manages. “Please. You wanted revenge, I get it.” She sees Mia vowing to become a lawyer and leaving everything in Kurain behind. “That was kind of a jerk move, yeah, but Nick would’ve never found the truth if you hadn’t pushed him. And then you saved my life and caught the bad guy. You’re literally the real-life Crystal Countess.” Franziska’s prim eyebrows furrow. “I’ll explain later. Point is, you’re kind of like my hero right now.”
The apples of Franziska’s cheeks turn, ever so slightly, the faintest shade of pink, like the inner bit of the cherry blossom against the pale white of the petal. “If you would kindly let go of my blouse, please.”
“Oh right,” Maya looks askance. “Didn’t mean to do that, aha...” adding lamely, along with halfhearted finger guns.
“For heaven’s sake!” The prosecutor intercepts the mild attempt at lightening the tone, covering Maya’s hands with the gloved ones of her own. “Will you stop that foolish gesture? You are ruining my perfect apology.”
The cool condescension running through Franziska’s gaze makes Maya painfully aware of their proximity. “And I told you there’s nothing left to apologize for.”
“What will you accept then, Ms. Fey? How can I enter your good graces and this humble circle of acquaintances you call family?” The last word exits from her lips in a whisper, and Maya has the vaguest impression that it was never meant to be heard.
Maya indulges in a long breath, channeling all her sixth sense juju or whatever keeps the Fey clan breathing into practiced calmness. “You could start with hello.”
Franziska scoffs like she knew this answer was coming and yet not at all, glancing at the neglected whip on the carpet until her visage sets with resolve. Something of a smile, an honest true to life smile, finds its way to her lips. “Greetings. I am Franziska von Karma, prosecutor at law.” A deep curtsy follows, awkward but endearing at the same time. “Pleasure to meet your acquaintance…Maya.”
She can’t help but giggle and return the gesture. “And I am Maya Fey, ace law firm associate. How lovely it is to stand in your presence, my Royal Countess.”
“Hmph. Your intonation was decent, but the accent has much room for improvement.”
“I’m a very fast learner, you know! How do you think I got this job?”
“That foolish Phoenix Wright takes on one too many pro bono cases for this to be your job, Maya.”
The grin that breaks out on Maya’s face is instant and uncontrollable. “Is that a joke, Franziska?”
In the greater sense, not very much changes. The riff-raff of transportation continues, as always. The Fey and Co. signage doesn’t get any younger and silence says what the two of them cannot. But, if Maya concentrated, she might have felt a chill flowing through the small space long after both are sleeping on the office couch, putting office supplies in the right drawers and pouring out the long-since cold hot chocolate. A wool blanket finds itself draped over Maya and Franziska, sleeping soundly against each other, and the black strands of Maya’s unkempt hair rustle as if by magic.
A soft laugh slices through the quietude, and the sun stretches over the horizon.