Chapter Text
“Miles!”
He shifted a bit, but did not awaken.
“Miles! Wake up! ”
A groan, a half-roll in bed, but no more.
“Miles, you buffoon! I said ‘wake up’!”
It is said that actions speak louder than words. Indeed, it would come to pass that being violently shaken by the shoulders would be the thing that woke Miles Edgeworth up, rather than the harsh whisper-shouting. Groggy and still half-asleep, he rubbed his eyes to get a look at who had disturbed him this early, though given the circumstances, he had a pretty good idea as to who it was.
And as it turned out, his suspicions were correct.
By his bedside stood 6 year old Franziska von Karma; glaring down upon him with impatience, groomed and dressed and as prim and proper as a spring rose, just as immaculately as she’d been raised to be, and just as she could be seen anywhere she went.
But it was 4:00 in the morning, if Miles’ alarm clock was to be believed.
“Franziska…” Miles groaned, wiping his eyes some more. “What are you doing at this hour?”
“Come,” she said hastily. “Get up and get dressed immediately.”
“Why?”
“I will explain at breakfast, just get up.”
“But… that’s not for several more hours.”
“I have already prepared it. Now get out of bed.” She crossed her arms, scowling as intensely as a 6 year old can.
For a moment, there was silence as the two siblings merely stared at each other. Eventually, after several seconds of the inaudible wrestling of wills, one of them gave in.
“Fine,” Miles caved, flipping the covers off of him. “Give me a few minutes.”
“5 minutes, no more,” Franziska commanded, turning around to stomp out of the room as she always did. “I have been waiting for this day for far too long.”
“Wait. What do you mean by that?” Miles raised an eyebrow as he paused in his sitting position at the edge of the bed.
She turned her head back to offer one of her trademark cocky smiles. “You’ll see.”
“So what’s all this about?” Miles asked, picking up some cereal with his spoon. It seemed that her preparatory work had not been as robust as he’d been expecting.
“Shhh!” Franziska threw her index finger to her mouth, glaring angrily. “You’ll wake up Papa!”
“He doesn’t know about this?” Miles was starting to get suspicious about what she was cooking up in that little brain of hers, and how exactly he would be complicit in it.
“He does not,” she proclaimed proudly, a smug grin on her face.
“Please just tell me why you had to wake me up at 4:00 AM on a school day for a reason that your father cannot know.” He put his spoon down and rested his head in his hands, not looking forward to her explanation.
“Very well,” she conceded, as if this hadn’t been what she was intending to do this entire time. She laid her hands wide on the old wooden table, like a field marshall; plotting her grand strategy over an enormous map of the battlefield. “You and I… are going to play hooky!”
“… What?”
“That’s right! And do you know what we’re going to do while we’re playing hooky?”
As Franziska leaned forward towards him mischievously, Miles leaned back worriedly. “…What are we going to do?”
Her grin grew wide and her eyes narrowed. “We’re going to go for a picnic in the woods! Just you and me!”
Miles couldn’t believe his ears. Not in the slightest.
“What?!” Miles exclaimed, utterly dumbfounded. “You, Franziska von Karma, not only want to skip school, but the reason you want to do so is to go on a picnic …” He paused, taking in the absurdity of it all before completing his sentence. “…With me?!”
“Yes!” She crossed her arms again. “And there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Miles opened his mouth to say something else, likely some sort of protest, but then he hesitated.
Considering the idea beyond the initial surprise and confusion, he had to silently admit; it wasn’t entirely unpleasant in and of itself. Those past 4 years he’d spent in Germany had all been dedicated to nothing but his studies. The landscape outside of the city (from what little he’d seen) was absolutely beautiful, and every year in the springtime, Franziska begged and pleaded with her father to take her out into the countryside, always in the span of one particular week in May, never to any avail.
And then she started begging to take her and Miles along into the countryside. That too, however, would prove futile.
Perhaps this was his chance to get away. Perhaps this was his opportunity to do something a little out of the ordinary.
Perhaps this was his chance to spend a little time with Franziska.
His mind went back to the days before everything changed. Days when he, Larry, and Wright spent nearly all of their free time together. He was so much happier then. That was the time when he could just… be free. Free from troubles and towering responsibilities, from want or grief, from worry or strife. He could look at the faces of his friends and feel his stone expression crack into a smile as he could be free to have fun, and enjoy their company, doing (almost) whatever came to mind.
Of course, it was likely a highly romanticised recollection, but it wasn’t far from the truth.
He looked at Franziska’s face. That cocky grin, those raised eyebrows, the slight tilt of the head, it was so irritating to have to put up with all the time. She annoyed him constantly, always begging for his attention and accompaniment. When she wasn’t begging, she was harassing, and her sour sarcasm and much-too-accurate jabs and insults were unbelievably frustrating. Yet if he ever said so much as a word about it to Master von Karma, the latter would be furious with him, which was exactly what Franziska was banking on.
And yet, in spite of all that, if someone he trusted were to ask if he loved Franziska von Karma… he would reluctantly say yes. Both because of everything aforementioned, and the embarrassment.
She was such a wondrous child, she always had been. Anything and everything, even the most minute and trivial matters to the average child (or even adult), excited the most fantastical interest in her. At age 4, she’d attempted to lay what was effectively wooden railway track in the back garden (at precisely 1 435 mm gauge) using suitable twigs she whittled down (with tools stolen from the high school’s woodshop that was attached to her elementary school) and used a little red waggon with the tires taken off as rolling stock, but gave up upon discovering the logistical nightmare that is the process of designing and building an efficient marshalling yard, all after having listened to a railway driver complain to a colleague about the poor design of the city’s own right-of-way in a chance bit of eavesdropping at a station.
At age 5, she’d completely redesigned the system of garbage disposal in the city after watching the garbage truck coming to their home one day and then stopping the driver to ask how it all worked, only to have her proposal rejected by the Direktor Für Öffentlicher Bauarbeiten at the city council meeting (which she attended, of course) because it neglected to account for seasonal variations in waste amounts and types, construction and maintenance costs, and labour requirements. Also because she was 5 years old.
In the preceding winter (now barely aged 6 years), she’d invented an apparatus that would intake snow and spit it out of a chute to a great distance away, only to discover that such a thing already existed, that it was called a snowblower, and that it had been invented many, many years earlier in Canada, all after watching one of the servants struggle to clear the snow from the driveway by hand one morning before school. Her teachers were most displeased to discover that she was using valuable class time (and using class notebooks, drawing pads, and writing/drawing implements) to work on something entirely unrelated to what a 6 year old should have been doing in class. Despite her pleas, Manfred never bought a snowblower, and Franziska was left entirely unsatisfied because 6 year olds were perfectly capable of operating motorised machinery if they were responsible enough, in her mind.
But what Miles admired and loved the most was not the things she did, or even the curiosity itself (though both were certainly admirable and lovable in and of themselves), it was the motivation behind it. She’d tried to redesign an entire railway system because a driver thought it was too complicated. She redesigned an entire waste disposal system because a different driver found it convoluted and chaotic. She designed a machine for snow-moving because she witnessed a weak old servant hurt his back trying to shovel snow by hand.
Underneath her arrogant and sarcastic attitude beat a compassionate and empathetic heart.
Her curiosity, most often, was accompanied by the love of humanity, and the desire to make the world a better place to live; just what she believed her father did. In a world full of cruelty and injustice (some of which Miles had experienced already), the love of people, a caring heart, and an indefatigable attitude were truly beautiful, and rare, qualities.
That, more than anything, was why Miles loved Franziska.
He hoped beyond hope that she would never, ever lose those qualities.
…
Did… did she know?
Did she know he’d been so overwhelmed with schoolwork lately? That he’d been hit with a strong bout of homesickness, even after 4 years had passed?
Did she really want to spend time with him?
He couldn’t help a little smile come to his face.
Franziska’s grin got wider. “Good. You are on board.” She got up from her chair, having long since been done eating. “Finish up, quickly now. I packed our lunch before I woke you but I want to get out of the city in time for the sunrise”.
Miles obliged. “So do I,” he mumbled, just a little excited.