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Franziska’s caught halfway between her bed and her desk when her father finds his way back into her room. The knock on her door is for formality’s sake, and he does not wait for her to answer nor does he give her the time to compose herself. The word she mutters under her breath is not particularly ladylike, nor is it one that a girl of a mere eight years should know. Perhaps as a form of mercy Manfred pretends he doesn’t hear it, choosing instead to stand at the threshold with jaw set and eyes silversharp.
For a moment, there is silence—a shifting of perfectly identical gazes as the pair engage in one of their wordless staredowns. True to form, Franziska does not waver or shrink beneath her papa’s domineering glare, her own just as strong behind red-rimmed, fever-bleary eyes. Her balled fists and puffy cheeks only seem to shift when she notices what’s resting atop the ornate plate in his hand.
Her voice is scratchy and stuffy as she asks, “Did you bring me cookies?”
Manfred sets his cane against the bedside table, not a drop of tea spilling from the cup that also lives on the dish as he shifts.
“No,” he says with a side-eye, and Franziska visibly wilts. “These were intended for a young girl bright enough to rest when she is asked.”
“Papa,” she pouts, “I’ve been resting all morning!”
“And you’ve little to show for it.” The plate is set down on the table, and then he is leaning with an uncomfortably cold hand cupping his daughter’s face. “That fever of yours is certainly no better.”
“It’ll go away!” Franziska argues. “You know, I read that moving around is good when you’re sick!”
He pulls back, crosses his arms. “Oh, did you?”
She mirrors him with von Karma perfection, and they stand near symmetrical, if not for the fact that Franziska’s in her pyjamas and sporting bedhead that would put even ever-sleepy Miles to shame.
“Exercise jumpstarts the immune system, so it’s good to—” she pulls to the side to cough, eyes streaming as she sniffles and attempts to hold her ground, make her point with her usual eloquence, “—it helps to get out of bed!”
Manfred’s head tilts a shadow of an inch, a curve in his brow that Franziska knows well. She elects to ignore it, or rather has no choice to as the cough returns twice as fiercely and she has to paw toward her desk chair for purchase against its onslaught. Instead of the sturdy wood of the thing she gets her father’s big arms scooping her up, and then she’s hanging stiffly over his shoulder while he carries her back toward the bed.
“Papaaaa,” she fights, miserably, and for a moment he says absolutely nothing as he’s depositing her back on her four-poster.
“Enough,” he tells her with decisive finality, the kind she knows not to push despite being the only person on earth who feasibly could. The firmness of the single word is betrayed entirely by the gentle way he re-arranges her blankets, re-adjusts her downy pillows. Franziska settles into bed with another huff, but it snags her breath and then she’s coughing again, a dainty little thing that hides its undercurrent agony. Her father’s knuckles are on her forehead again, this time brushing away sweatslicked blue locks.
“That you’d be stubborn enough to refuse even the finest baked goods our kitchens can offer,” he says, studying the shape of her face, “tell me what has you so infuriatingly incorrigible today.”
“Hmph,” Franziska sinks below the threshold of her blanket. “Am I in trouble for my bulletproof will, papa? I think—”
“Your will folds often in the wake of sweets, dear girl,” he says. “There’s something more at play here, and you’re to clue me in on what.”
Try as he might to keep it in its usual tones, his interrogative voice lacks some punch when it’s angled at her. Franziska knows this, of course—even as young and naïve as she is, she’s managed to grow into quite the sharp-eyed thing herself. It’s perhaps indicative of how unwell she’s feeling that she doesn’t take advantage of this barely-there crack in his otherwise flawless veneer. Instead Franziska clears her throat, cringing lightly from the pain that results.
“Miles and I watch our show on Friday.” Her voice is incredibly small, raspy and light. Manfred shifts on his feet, and when he hears the sentimental lullaby of his daughter’s voice he elects to pull the desk chair to her bedside and sit. His hands find the still-steaming teacup and saucer on Franziska’s table, and he wordlessly motions the shape of it toward her, beckoning her to sit up. She complies, leaning against the headboard as she takes it and lets the steam billow up into her face. The pressure in her head soothes itself a touch, and she drinks slowly and wishes she could taste it as the sugary aftertaste tickles her throat.
“Quite a small thing to be this distraught about,” Manfred notes, and Franziska knows what he’s really asking.
A von Karma does not ask, he’d told her once upon a time. State your purpose and acquire your information with a precise eye. There’s no need to muddle one’s presence with the softness of a question mark.
Franziska sniffles messily as the congestion living high in her sinuses wriggles itself free. Outside the window, the snow melts into glittering streaks on the windowpane, and even sat up in bed, all she can see is white. It blankets the sound of the world outside, leaving her with little but creaky mansion floors and the sound of her own wheezy lungs.
“Miles doesn’t like the winter time,” Franziska says, looking miserably into the shifting reflection of her tea. She doesn’t notice the way her papa tenses, one shoulder hiked just an inch higher than the other.
“Sometimes I see him smile,” she continues, still gazing downward, meditative. “But only sometimes. And never in the winter. Except… except when we watch Rainbow Samurai. He always smiles, then.”
She’s tearing up, she realizes, the tightness in her throat not having registered behind the soreness from her illness. She coughs into her elbow in an attempt to bury the tears as something symptomatic, something a little less pathetic. The truth comes out anyway, “I haven't seen him since I've been ill. I miss him.”
One of the most difficult things about fatherhood, Manfred reflects, is the constantly slipping passage of time and all it entails. Right now, it’s the struggle to locate his sympathy—the impulse to scoff at something so trivial, so insignificant. The kneejerk comes first, and then comes the more rational thought—that Franziska is very little, and there is nothing trivial about this matter at all, to her. Every year it gets harder to remember what being a child was like, harder to see the world from the perspective of one.
She is very grown up, in countless regards, a prodigy if he has ever known one. It only stands to reason that she’s also allowed to be immature every so often, a balancing of the scales. After a moment’s thought, he motions to take the empty teacup from her trembling hands, impossibly delicate as he speaks.
“The sooner you get some rest, the sooner you’ll be fit to leave your room.” He sets the cup and saucer back down on the plate, a soft clinking of precious ceramic ringing out as he does. “There will be a hundred more Fridays to spend in Miles’ company, Franziska.”
Quietly, she thinks on this, strong brow knit carefully as the gears in her head struggle to shift against the fever. It just doesn’t register, no matter how hard she wills it to. Both her sisters were grown, they’d long since left the estate, and they were only ever home for holidays, if that. For so long it’s just been her and papa and all their servants in this massive, empty house, but then there was Miles, and Miles was different, Miles was special.
In all his novelty, she can’t help but cling—scared that one day he too will just be gone.
Papa is wise, though—he is smart, and brutally honest, and does not say what he does not mean. So if he says that Miles will be in their lives for a very long time, well. Franziska supposes she would be foolish not to believe him.
Lost in thought, she almost doesn’t register the cookie being handed to her. Lebkuchen, of course, a necessity of the coming holiday season, even if it is a little early. To eat in bed was certainly boorish, she’d never do it on her own, but today papa is encouraging her, a little secret just between the two of them. His eyes demand that she eat, and—her previous bullheadedness notwithstanding—she really doesn’t have to be told again to shove something sugary directly into her face.
Franziska devours the spicy-sweet thing in a scant few bites, and it’s only when she tastes it that she realizes the tea’s both soothed her raw throat and kicked away the terrible stuffiness living in her head. She hadn’t even noticed how hungry she’d been.
She swallows, and takes a deep breath, sniffling some of the remnants away. There’s a tissue box at her bedside that she stubbornly refuses to go for—fed up with how much she’s gutted it already, ready for this bout to be over. While she’s breathing long and slow she feels her father ease her back down, and Franziska chooses not to fight this time, closing her eyes and sinking into the comforter. As the congestion melts away, the chills return with a fierce determination, and she can’t help but shiver and chase the warmth beneath her covers.
“You look terribly cold, my dear.”
A little noise falls from her mouth, like the thought of admitting it is painful on its own. “...just a bit.”
He tucks a chunk of hair behind her ear, handling her like she’s a precious jewel, a decisive piece of evidence, a rare and beautiful treasure. “I’ll have the staff tend to the heating, then. Perhaps another blanket, as well.”
Franziska sniffles, suddenly feeling very tired as the fluttery-soft sensation of fingers in her hair washes over her like a sunnywarm tide. “Thank you, papa. Um… sorry.”
“And what have I told you about apologizing, Franziska?”
She closes her eyes. “To not.”
“That’s correct,” he pulls back, crossing his arms as he stands. “What must you do instead?”
“Be better.”
“And is that your intent?”
She yawns, and it’s usually a little thing, but with the sickness in her head she hasn’t the forethought to smother it, instead letting it assert its presence across her face. “Mhm. I’ll rest.”
Manfred pulls his cane from where it’s leaning against the table, making off toward the door. “There’s my girl.”
When and only when his back is turned does he hear it, a whisper of what he knows her voice to be. Its thunder has settled down to quiet sparks, now, crackling beneath the air like white noise as she drifts into a more vulnerable headspace. Slurred and sleepy, “I love you, papa.”
Manfred von Karma does not speak with his mouth, not the way Franziska does. That’s fine, though. She doesn’t find herself minding terribly, when he doesn’t always say it back—the words are there even in their absence, spoken instead in the language of sugar on her tongue and blankets at her chin.
The von Karmas are, in comparison to most, particularly steely. Manfred wonders if it’s in their very genes to be untouched by poor health, centuries of workaholic tendencies having coalesced into the blood of a family that refuses to stop or slow. Franziska had certainly been born with that fire—it was impossible to get her to bed at night even when she was a wailing infant.
It’s for this reason that Manfred is not surprised when, late into that same day, Franziska’s fever breaks and she seems to recover all at once. There’s a slight hoarseness still clinging to her tired voice, but beyond that she is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, a healthier shade of pink clinging to her cheeks. Manfred finds her upright in bed with her nose buried in a book, and elects to let her leave her room as soon as dawn breaks the next day.
They are a steely people, and it’s for this reason that he isn’t shocked when she bounces back quick. It’s also for this reason that he is a little ruffled when he realizes balefully that he’s been struck down.
There’s no requirement for him to work weekends, but he finds himself more than a bit restless unless he has something to do and usually ends up going to the offices regardless. Being ill doesn’t change this in the slightest, and so he fights the pounding in his head and the creak in his old bones and the chill that seems to freeze and burn him in some twisted harmony. The day is not lost, if he can just manage to get out the blasted door.
There’s a quiet voice in the back of his head that mindlessly claims that he could have had more foresight. If this dreadful bug was enough to claim Franziska of all people, naturally it would take him as well. Internally, he huffs and waves it away—that’s of no help now, when he’s already down for the count.
Frustratingly his morning routine is bogged down by these foolish aches and pains, an internal clock that is normally so flawlessly precise running slow—only by a few seconds, a few minutes, which is just enough to bother him. At 5:45:50 he should be leaving the table after breakfast, but it’s 5:47:37 and he’s still tying his cravat and pinning his brooch, and when he finally creaks open the massive oak door it is not the empty hallway that greets him but instead his eight year old daughter, patient zero herself, riding crop slapping pointedly down in one palm. She stares up at him where he towers with her cheeks bunched furiously up at her eyes, and he looks down at her plainly as he's straightening out his suit jacket, smoothing out its shape.
“Papa!” she says, trying to sound authoritative but mostly just looking very adorable. “It’s past breakfast time, what is taking you so long?”
His hand tightens around his cane, brow knit as he regards her. “The whole world does not wake simply because you do, Franziska.”
“Hmph.” She crosses her arms, tucking her riding crop beneath one much in the same way he often does with his cane. “You know what I meant.”
And then her eyes narrow, gears in her head visibly turning as she studies the shape of her father in front of her. Manfred isn’t sure if he wants to curse her studious eye or praise it—and even if he were to think on it with scorn, he’d be a damned hypocrite.
He pivots, instead, leaning down on one knee to study her himself and trying not to wince at the way his joints protest. “Never mind that. Tell me how you’re feeling.”
Franziska’s chin points down a touch, the angle sharpening the cut of her eyebrows. “I told you, I’m fine now—”
Traitorously, her breath skips, and she pulls to one side to cough into her elbow, eyes shut tight in irritation. This time, when Manfred rests a hand on her cheek to ensure her fever hasn’t crept back, she finds herself leaning into the warmth of the touch, and then opening her eyes with something of concern casting itself over their icy blue.
By the time he’s realized his mistake, it’s too late—she’s got her hands on his face now, reaching up on tiptoes even though he’s hunched over. For all they have in common, a notable key difference is the way little Franziska wears all her thoughts on her face while Manfred stays stony, expression unchanging. It’s quite the contrast, the way Franziska seems to be fuming right now.
“Papa, you’re sick.”
It is not a question, because a von Karma does not ask questions. They leave too much room for debate—in court, and in all else—and so Franziska has traitorously listened to her father’s every word and sewn this tenet into her heart like precious embroidery. Manfred pulls out of her cupped hands, standing up a little straighter than he needs to.
“Pay it no mind.”
He swivels to make his way further down the hall, intent to end that line of questioning where it is. The stretch of the west wing is lit in a way that looks a touch ethereal, the way the snowlight pours in through the crystal windows. On any other day Manfred might take the time to regard its beauty, feel it pass through him and sharpen the confidence in his stride. Today it drives a spike somewhere deep behind his eyes, the tap of his cane sluggish on the velvety floors. A strong cup of tea to chase away the budding ache in his throat and a day spent holed away in his office. The fools that infest that building like cockroaches won’t dare comment on his less-than-perfect state, but they will flap their jaws in private and give him that silent eye of judgment. It was the one single thing he hated about prosecuting in his home country—no appreciation for a ravenous work ethic at all.
Predictably there are tiny footsteps that follow behind him, furious and comparable to the snow flurries dancing outside. Franziska has the energy and the audacity to outpace him if she so desires, but it isn’t until he’s across the main living room and nearing the smaller hallway to the front door that she utilizes this speed. Roughly, she tugs at his sleeve, all but digging her feet into the floor below to stop him.
“Papa.”
He wrestles back the urge to sigh. “Franziska.”
“What do you think you’re doing?”
A von Karma does not ask questions. This one is rhetorical, however. An exception can be made, perhaps.
“Attempting to leave so that I may make it to the offices at a reasonable hour.”
She places a hand on her hip, riding crop sticking out of her curled fingers. “It’s Saturday.”
“You’ll recall I took yesterday off to look after you.”
“And now you’re sick because of me.”
He turns around fully, then, head swimming a little with the swiftness of the motion. Franziska looks like she’s been hit, all chubby cheeks and pinched eyes as she gazes somewhere far-off. It’s clear she feels immeasurably guilty for this inconsequential thing, the shape of it much too big to fit comfortably inside her tiny form.
“It seems as though you take issue with this,” Manfred says, and she looks back up at him with big blue eyes.
“You took the day off work and spent it taking care of me when I wasn’t feeling well,” Franziska says, “and now I can’t do the same for you, because you’re too stubborn to take your own advice!”
Her fire returns like it had never left—her stance hardens, her form bristles, she takes a step back for the sole purpose of gesturing authoritatively with her riding crop. Some day, Manfred can’t help but think, she will be a force to be reckoned with behind the prosecutor’s bench.
“You will tell me, papa,” she commands, “why you are the exception to these rules you enforce.”
“Our situations are not comparable. You were nearly dead on your feet.”
“And so too will you be if you spend the day working!” Franziska huffs. “Isn’t that what you told me?”
He clears his throat, swallowing back a wince. “It is.”
“Furthermore, it’s the weekend, as previously stated.” Franziska points her riding crop square at his nose, her other arm a perfectly precise right angle at her hip. “So you are under no obligation to work.”
“I enjoy my Saturdays at the office.”
“Papa,” her tone is warning, low, before she goes in for the kill. “There will be a hundred more Saturdays.”
She glows a little as she corners him, the confidence radiating off of her much in the same way the sunlight glows off the snowdrifts outside. The whole situation is ludicrous, really—his elementary-aged daughter bossing him around as though she has any right—but the annoyance that prickles with the fever at his skin is chased away in seconds by the swell of pride that follows. Truly, Manfred wants to revolt, but…
“Hmph,” he huffs out instead, setting his briefcase by the door. “I fear I’ve taught you far too well.”
He finds his answer in the way Franziska lights up. There’s little hesitation before she’s a tiny blue flurry, grabbing at her father’s hand and all but yanking him back toward the couch. Manfred goes without much protest, stumbling almost imperceptibly with the ferocity with which his daughter drags him. She orders him to sit on the segment of the couch closest to the stoked fire, awkwardly tugging him out of his suit jacket as she babbles about fetching him tea.
Within a few minutes she’s trying to walk his jacket over to the coatrack, but she’s a much too little thing and it’s threatening to trip her, the way it’s dragging on the ground in front of her feet. Concentrated, Franziska stares at the carpet as she walks, angling her steps with purpose as she attempts to lift the thing high above her head. With all the precocious grace she carries in all else, it’s quite special to see her tripping over her own feet.
“Franziska,” calls her father from the couch, “I’m perfectly capable of taking that back to my quarters myself—”
“Absolutely not,” she says, standing on tiptoes to hook it on the lowest rung. “I don’t trust you, papa, you’ll go straight to your desk and start reading case files.”
“You mean like what you were attempting to accomplish yesterday?”
“I mean like what you stopped me from doing.” With her hands now free again, she crosses her arms and faces him. “Karma is a blade, sharpened threefold. Face it head on and with dignity, papa.”
He has the foolish urge to roll his eyes at that, right, with what little dignity he has left in this moment. Felled by a measly illness and bullied by his youngest child into resting when he’s perfectly fine to work. He’d spent enough time watching over Franziska to know that the fever wouldn’t peak until midday, and while the headache and raw scrape in his throat was troublesome it was truly nothing to throw a day away over.
There’s some noises of general chaos down the hall. Franziska’s voice carries, it has ever since she was a babbling toddler—it’s a sharp thing, really, lilted high and living in octaves that are a touch abrasive to Manfred’s aching head. The sound of her chattering away at the staff turns a little fuzzy in the cloud of his mind, but he can picture it so effortlessly even as it’s unseen—little Franziska with her chin stuck up and her arms folded in, meticulously listing in precise detail the shape of every leaf and root to be brewed into her papa’s tea. And again, who is he to judge, knowing where she learned it?
He doesn’t remember closing his eyes, leaning back on the couch—not until he’s slowly pulled into some semblance of wakefulness by something soft being thrown unceremoniously across his shoulders. By the time he registers the throw blanket, Franziska is clambering up beside him on the couch and burrowing under its cover beside him. Looking pleased with herself, she sighs contentedly and points the remote at the TV to turn it on. Manfred stares at the sight of her flipping through menus for a good few seconds before he angles his head down to face her, eying the devious look on her face.
“What manner of convalescence have you sentenced me to, Prosecutor von Karma?”
Franziska schools her expression into something placid, but Manfred can tell from the light behind her eyes that the title alone has her feeling more than a little giddy.
“The prosecution holds that the defendant stay where he is and watch Rainbow Samurai with me.”
“Must I?”
“You must,” Franziska says with decisive finality. “I’ve never seen you partake in good fiction, papa. Therefore it falls upon me to be your guide.”
He eyes the screen with conspicuous derision as several flashing lights and rainbow explosions sear his eyes. An absolutely earsplitting chorus of chanting dares to call itself a theme song, and Franziska daintily kicks her legs against the couch’s base, clearly holding back.
“I can think of a thousand better works of fiction for one to be spending their precious time on,” he says, but does not move to defy her.
“Ah, but it’s all crucial, you see! Both superficial and philosophical.”
“Elaborate,” says Manfred, gesturing at the screen, where a young fellow wearing far too much red has just received what looks like an enchanted candy dispenser from a particularly chatty vending machine.
“You see, I thought so too, that this silly excuse for television had no bearing on much of anything,” she curls closer to her father’s side beneath the covers, knees folded and half-beneath her. “Miles has assured me it is of the utmost importance, though. What if one day one of us has to work a case involving a high-profile actor? We must familiarize ourselves before that happens.”
He raises a single, crooked eyebrow, clearly not bending. “This show was made overseas.”
“And we are an international family! Do follow along, papa.”
“Mind yourself, Franziska,” he huffs. “The chances of these circumstances aligning just so are slim.”
“Regardless, it benefits us to develop a taste for something like this,” Franziska says, waggling her finger with a smile on her face. “If I’m prosecuting some suit actor someday and I have to watch a whole series in one night, I plan to at least learn to enjoy myself a little.”
There are several questions Manfred has for that. One, why would the acting projects of a criminal on trial have anything to do with the crime at hand? Two, what on earth is a suit actor? A von Karma does not ask questions, though, and so he instead ruminates on the words themselves and elects to find meaning on his own. There is some credence to be had for the first point, at least—he’d heard more than a few times of real-world crimes mirroring those of stories told. Binge-watching a whole series in the days leading up to a trial, though? That was something only someone as ravenous as Franziska would even think to attempt.
Be better, he had told her, in all her starry-eyed hope. Don’t just be as good as me. Be better.
Like all things, she had certainly taken it to heart.
“This red lad is quite the clumsy one,” Manfred says in lieu of a question, and watches as Franziska’s expression lights back up, her fingertips drumming excitedly on her leg.
“It’s so subversive!” she cheers, and then her mouth is moving a mile a minute. “So much previously-established colour coding tells us that reds are meant to be brave and composed leaders, but they went and made this one a sweating, shaking mess. Infinitely more interesting than anything seen prior—of course, I only know what Miles has told me, but—”
As she carries on, her father can’t help but admire that passion she carries everywhere, even if he’s having just the slightest bit of trouble following more than a few words at a time. It’s not about what Franziska is saying, no, but the conduit with which she shares her love—words, always words, lightning-laced and eloquent, even as she’s talking too fast for anyone's brain to register. The two of them know that it doesn’t entirely matter what she’s saying, just that she has chosen to share the act of it, to begin with.
On that thought Manfred realizes that he can’t remember the last time they truly had a moment like this—just the two of them, unbidden by work or study, enjoying one another’s company. Something tugs at his chest and he swats it away like its a particularly troublesome gnat. Franziska orates until she’s yawning, and then she orates some more. She is on the mend, but the toll the previous day’s taken on her immune system is beginning to catch up with her, and even in her fiery pontification she looks like she could use an early-morning nap.
And of course, Manfred will not say so out loud, but—feeling worse himself by the very minute—he very much finds himself thinking the same.
When Franziska stirs to sunlight on her lids hours later, it takes her a few minutes to gather her surroundings. Naturally, her eyes are drawn first to the blinding light of the massive window as the curtains flutter and shift—outside the snow is melting ever so slightly, sweating with itself and glinting in the moving sun. The recording on the television has long since ended, and is now sitting on a menu of previous recordings, a small box in the corner broadcasting a weather report instead. More snow to come, naturally.
She’s curled up beside her papa, the two of them safe and warm beneath the cover of the softest blanket the estate has within its walls. His tea is half-drank and cold on the coffee table, and the hearth is crackling in a perfectly unsteady rhythm, and papa is breathing a little noisily as he sleeps deeply. All the white noise of it coalesces, amplified by the silence of the snowcapped world that rests all around them—Franziska has the fleeting thought that home is a place, and it’s people, and it’s sound, and it’s quiet. Something she can’t quite articulate spills over the lip of her heart as it slowly beats.
There’s an arm around her waist, holding her close. Fuzzy memories decorate her head—she’s in her papa’s arm, far back enough in time that it feels more like a dream—and he is singing her to sleep as he carries her, sauntering down the main hall. His voice is rich, bassy and full, cradling her tenfold the way his digits do. It draws a yawn from deep within her, and she knows she is safe.
Overflowing in the present, she leans closer into him, drawing the blanket tighter around them as she all but burrows beneath her father’s arm. He does not stir from his place beside her, clearly in need of the rest.
Quiet as she’s able, she begins to hum a familiar tune.