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A great many of the calls Franziska received from Miss Pearl Fey were of the panicked, more frantic variety. Though their relationship had ironed itself out in time—due in no small part to Franziska’s continued dedication—Pearl still could not be described as someone who went out of her way to contact her cousin’s wife when she was away. The animosity had faded, and the two of them could certainly be considered close, but Pearl had a million other things she wanted to do that were not hanging out on the phone with Franziska. For the most part, Franziska considered this a victory—that Pearl thought them on speaking terms at all was a blessing, even this late into their relationship.
So, when Franziska received one such call from a teary-voiced Pearl, she knew after all these years to remain calm and strong, bat the nervous twinge in her heart away until later when it would be more productive. It was a day before she was set to fly back to LA, and Pearl had begged her through waterthin words to come to Kurain as soon as she was back on American soil.
The plan was to spend a day resting at her brother’s apartment before setting off to reunite with her beloved once more. They had agreed that taking it slow and giving themselves plenty of time was the move—after all, they’d have at least a month together in Kurain after that, and so there was no rush, no scramble to see as much of each other as they could before their jobs called them away once more.
Maya’s never been good at sticking to plans, though. The whole thing goes out the window as soon as that call comes in, and Franziska—for once—cannot find the strength to protest. Instead, she texts Miles that there’s been a change in circumstances, clambers off her plane exhausted the next day, and fights valiantly the urge to fall asleep in his car as he drives her to the train station that will carry her up the mountain.
As the thing rumbles around her, a second call from Pearl comes in, from Maya’s phone like always. Franziska can hear the faint trickle of a stream in the distance, and she knows instantly that the girl’s wandered into the little backyard garden area behind the largest bedroom of Fey manor. Even without seeing, she can picture Pearl crouched beneath the sheltering bonsai, watching aimlessly as the pondskaters dart around in short bursts.
“—and this just came on suddenly?” Franziska’s in the middle of saying. “Did she seem out of sorts beforehand?”
“No, it was all at once, she…”
There’s a beat, and Franziska can tell Pearl is biting her lip, contemplating what to say, if she should even say it. Meeting her at her own pace, Franziska stares sidelong out the window, as the blur of green as it races by.
“Um, Mystic Maya… she… she’s been channeling nonstop for the past two weeks.”
Franziska nearly chokes on the breath in her lungs, all attempts to not sputter lost entirely. “E-Excuse me?”
“Please don’t be mad at her, Ms. von Karma!” Pearl begs. “She just really wanted to spend all the time she could with you, so she…”
“So she packed months worth of appointments into a scant few weeks.” Franziska sighs, thumb and forefinger pinching at her forehead. “You said nonstop? Has she taken even a single rest day?”
“I tried to stop her,” Pearl says in lieu of a proper confirmation, “I really, truly did.”
Their call lasts until the chilling winds that whip around the village pick up, and Pearl must resign herself to heading back indoors, lest she meet the same fate as her cousin. Franziska spends her final hour on the train staring angrily at her sudoku puzzle, doing a whole lot more of chewing on her pen than actually writing numbers down. When she arrives at the village, it’s like a force unseen takes her over—the exhaustion that’d been pulling at her every muscle lifts like a dying fog, and then she’s traversing the uneven terrain with purpose, rolling suitcase in tow. By the time she’s tearing through the Winding Way, it’s a miracle the very ground beneath her doesn’t catch aflame.
Franziska, for once, hadn’t taken the time to mentally set any expectation for what she might see when she opened the door to Maya’s room. The most likely outcome, she supposes, is that Maya isn’t there at all—that she’s cleaning the guest rooms, or making herself food, or out running a mile in some foolhardy attempt to overcompensate.
Instead, what Franziska finds when she slides the door open is whatever is left of her wife. Maya’s covered in what must certainly be every blanket the village has, with a very concerned-looking Pearl right there at her side. Almost immediately the heat of the room slams into her like a wave, a notable contrast from the bite of the November gales roaring outside. Maya’s breathing is noisy and laboured, enough so that Franziska can hear it even from the door—the door that maybe she opened a bit too loudly, because mere moments after entering the room Maya begins to stir.
Hands braced, Pearl jolts forward—as if to body Maya back to her bedroll, should she make any attempt to get up. The gesture fizzles mid-way, though, Maya rises slowly and then all at once. A couple croaky curses fall from her lips as she registers the overcast bright on her eyes, and then she’s scrambling for her phone at her bedside, her every movement frantic.
“Pearly, what—” Maya coughs a barking, wretched cough, “—what time is it, I—did I sleep through—I set, like, fifteen alarms, are you kidding me right—”
“I… turned them off.”
Instantly, Maya freezes, squinting at Pearl as if it’ll make the statement make sense. “You… huh?”
“I turned your alarms off, Mystic Maya!” Pearl balls her fists. “You need to rest right now, or you’ll be sorry!”
“Pearly, I can rest later, right now I have to get the house ready, Franzy’s gonna be here any—”
In an attempt to spare her, Franziska loudly clears her throat in the doorway. The pair of them remain as perfectly contrasted as ever, but it’s accentuated to its furthest end in this moment. Franziska, though her soul feels haggard, looks as prim and proper as ever—all well-tied frills and perfectly ironed cotton beneath her coat, stilettos planted firm upon the ancient wood of the floorboards. Maya, on the other hand, could not possibly look more of a mess—her wild black hair looks like a puffed-out stormcloud around her, her pyjamas are falling off her collar, there’s a nonzero amount of drool caked at the side of her mouth, and every notable feature on her face looks redder, abused. The overflowing bin of tissues in the corner and smattering of empty tea cups that frame it contextualize themselves.
Franziska blinks dumbly at Maya. Maya blinks right back. Then, the ailing medium forces a grin—in that distinctly Fey way she always did—and crosses her arms with a haughty affectation.
“Hey, mama,” Maya rasps, “you come here oft—”
She cuts herself off with a tremendous sneeze. Uncharacteristically, it rips through her with no build-up or warning. Even more uncharacteristically, she makes some attempt to cover her mouth, but just ends up hiding in her hands at the mess she’s no doubt made of herself. Exasperated, Franziska rolls her eyes and slides shut the door behind her, trudging over to Maya’s bedside with her suitcase in hand.
“You are as charming as the day I first met you, Schatzi.”
“The day we met you had me on trial for murder.”
“I did not stutter.”
A cursory glance down at the tissue box tells Franziska that it is long past empty. She digs around the breast pocket of her long jacket, handing her royal blue handkerchief over to Maya with little fanfare. The girl blows her nose obnoxiously, and the ritual of it is complete—with the way Maya picked up every cold she could as though it was her life’s mission, they’d likely be acting out this scenario until their end.
Usually, though, it’s much more lighthearted of a thing—usually Maya leans back with a relieved sigh afterwards, makes a disinterested comment, does what she does best and jokes. Today, though, she stays buried in the baby-soft cloth for a few moments longer than usual, eyes shut tight in resignation and discomfort. A laboured swallow follows—one that is so orchestrated Franziska can see it—and then another wince. At Maya’s flank, Pearl’s eyes are shiny and big.
“Miss Pearl Fey,” says Franziska, “could I trouble you to go fetch Mystic Maya a fresh cup of tea?”
She brightens ever-so-slightly, palms falling off her folded knees as she props herself up with purpose. “Oh, yes! Of course! You can count on me!”
Franziska smiles warmly at her as she clambers out the door. Then, she lives in audio, for a moment. The rickety slide of the paper door falling open, then shut. The sound of footsteps losing form as they disappear down the Winding Way—Pearl tried to keep her canter polite, for lack of a better word, but as soon as she subconsciously registers herself out of earshot, it picks up, makes itself more rapid and disjointed. Once the sound has ceased entirely, Franziska pulls her eyes back to her sick wife, who’s weakly rubbing tiny circles beneath her eyes.
“Do you care, at all,” Franziska says sharply, “to explain yourself?”
Maya pouts at her. It is, unfortunately, adorable. “You heard Pearly. My alarms were compromised.”
“Not that, you foolish girl!” Franziska leans forward on folded knees, brushing brownblack tangles from Maya’s cheek, replacing them with the palm of one hand. “What were you thinking, getting yourself this sick? You’re on fire.”
“I didn’t, like, pencil it into my calendar or n-nothin’—”
She ducks into the handkerchief with another wrenching sneeze, trails it off with an agonized, high-voiced moan. Franziska clicks her tongue, caught somewhere between frustration and concern—wasn’t that always the way?
“You may as well have.” Trailing one hand down and around, Franziska traces firm circles into Maya’s back while she blearily comes back into herself. “Maya, what on earth possessed you to—”
“—that is the funniest possible phrasing you could’ve—”
“Cease your deflecting.” Franziska fights the ever-present urge to find her beloved endearing in dire circumstance. “What… compelled you… to work with such reckless regard for your own health?”
“If this were some free cable PSA I could be all, like, ‘I learned it from youuuu!’”
She accentuates that last part with a wailing sort of voice, which catches in her throat and turns into another coughing fit. Franziska thinks about how easy it would be to shift her hand just barely up, grab Maya by the shoulders, and shake her until she stopped being difficult. The illness seems to be doing a fine job at rattling her like a loose windowpane, though, and so Franziska resists the temptation.
“You know how exhausting even one channeling session can be for your body, Schatzi,” she says instead. “Rest days are crucial, and if Miss Pearl Fey is to be believed you have not taken a single one.”
“I’m alive, aren’t I?”
“Ostensibly!” Franziska can’t help but raise her voice, though she finds it softening on its own when she sees the way Maya winces. “Darling. You are dodging the question.”
“And you are wearing your interrogation eyes.”
“Is this truly what our first fight as a married couple is going to be about?” Franziska pulls away, crosses her arms, grabs tight at her sleeve. “Your foolhardy inability to spare my anxious heart for even a moment?”
“Look, I just…” Maya takes a deep breath, running a hand shakily through her wild hair, “I didn’t want to be distracted during our time together.”
“That much is apparent, and it is very sweet of you, but…” Franziska joins her in carding her own fingers through Maya’s tangles, “now you will be distracted with how miserable you’re feeling. In what way is that any better?”
“I thought I’d just be really freakin’ tired!” Maya says, and her eyes shine big and brown with honesty. “I mean, I was channeling a pretty powerful spirit for like, three days straight back when—um…”
“I recall,” Franziska’s dry tone returns. “You were hospitalized.”
“Only for a hot second!” Maya protests, her voice sanding itself down with every word. “Couple hours and I was testifying in court and shoving undercooked lobster down my throat just fine!”
“And a couple hours after that you were sick as a dog.”
“So were you!” Maya points a finger at her. “We all agreed it was Nick’s fault!”
“My point still stands,” says Franziska. “You couldn’t have possibly thought that channeling in such excess would do your immunity any favours.”
“I dunno.” Maya offers a smile, accented with very tired eyes. “Don’t think I had any reference level. Doubt there’s ever been a medium who tried something like that before…”
“I’m inclined to agree. Only you would think to be so reckless.”
“Yup!” A weak attempt to puff her chest out. “I’m a real trend-setter.”
The boisterous air of her is hijacked by another sneeze, then another and another, ripping and tearing their way out of her overworked throat. On the fringes Franziska watches as a tear slips from her eye, as she’s forced to double forward and muffle more unrelenting coughing into her blankets. She sounds well and truly dreadful, the absolute picture of flu-addled misery, and Franziska can almost physically feel her heart switch over from lecture mode straight into tenderness.
Another aimless, ginger touch at Maya’s neck—it’s swollen so bad that Franziska can feel from the outside how sore her throat must be, and like the rest of her wife, it’s hot to the touch, uncomfortably damp with sweat. Pearl had made some attempt to take care of the fever, Franziska notes from an unspooled washcloth that had, at some point, fallen from Maya’s head and to the wooden floor. Clearly, though, it’s only accomplished so much—the girl has really outdone herself, this time.
“Lay back down, dearheart,” Franziska says, soft as she’s able, careful to keep the frustration from her voice lest Maya mistake it for anything other than pure, untreated love. “We can meditate on lessons learned later. For now, I’d simply like for you to feel better.”
“Ugh.” Maya falls back into bed with a soft thud. “I don’t suppose you brought any magical healing potions back from Peru?”
“Well, not quite,” Franziska swivels to the side and begins rifling through her things, “although… now that you mention it…”
On that note, she pulls a beautiful garment out of her bag. A wood-clasp sweater, one that’s bright pink and purple and blue, with polygonal designs running along the collar, and—best of all—pockets. For a moment, the bumps of its texture make Maya a little nervous, though… the thing looks a bit abrasive, and her face must be twisting with the thought, because prompted by nothing, Franziska simply tells her, “Do trust me.”
Of course she does. But she can’t help but take the thing with trepidation still, promptly melting the second her fingers brush across it. Its rough shape completely betrays the true feel of it—it’s soft. Not only is it soft, it might actually be the softest thing Maya has ever touched in her life. It’s softer than Franziska’s hair after conditioning day, it’s softer than Edgeworth’s dog and her massive overcoat, it’s softer than Mia’s purple throw blanket that refused to lose its luster after what must’ve been a million rounds through the wash.
Maybe Maya’s going crazy—maybe her brain is slowly melting into nothing with that fever—but she thinks that this may be the softest piece of clothing in the history of humanity.
Acting on impulse entirely, she forgoes the logical conclusion of wiggling into the sweater and elects instead to drape it across herself like a blanket, letting out a little sigh of pleasure as she does so. Franziska rolls her eyes, but if Maya were to open her own and really analyze the gesture, she’d see the exasperated love within.
“I do not believe that is how the garment is intended to be worn.”
“Forget that,” Maya says, dulled consonants muffled twofold beneath the veil of it, “what’s this made of?”
“Alpaca wool, obviously,” says Franziska, “I wasn’t going to just leave you here in California and not bring home the proper cultural relics as souvenirs.”
“Can we try polygamy?” Maya says with zero preamble. “I think I want to marry this sweater.”
She cuts herself off coughing once more, turning away from the thing to spare it the brunt of whatever’s trying to escape her lungs. Franziska watches with heart wavering as Maya curls onto her side, nearly fetal, tears dotting the corners of her eyes. She did always tend to pick up these nasty bugs—the kind that took up residence in her chest and sapped every ounce of energy she had—but something about this one feels oddly grim, the way she just lays there for a moment and makes no attempt to bounce back.
“Poor dear…” Franziska leans forward once more to run gloved hands through her hair, breaking up more tangles in soft, short bursts. Maya melts into the odd way the sound of them splitting apart tingles at her scalp, as she's sniffling thickly and inelegantly.
“I think I’m dying,” she whimpers, and it’s missing its humorous edge. “Did you bring me any of that tea they’ve got there? The kind with straightup blow in it?”
“Are you asking me if I brought you narcotics from Peru?”
“S’legal.”
“In Peru,” Franziska sputters indignantly, unearthing a large plastic bag of something colourful. “Forgive me for not smuggling illicit substances across the border. Hopefully these will satiate your unrelenting lust for uppers.”
Maya cracks an eye open, stares up at the bag. She’s too stuffy to tell for sure, but the scent of them must be strong, even unopened—something in there’s tickling her nose, pungent and crisp despite her blocked airways.
The candy inside almost looks waxy, like a babybel cheese, like something she’d find in some wicker-jar on some old lady’s kotatsu. Maya makes her best attempt to read the letters on the front, wavering offwhite in their strong serif font.
“Thought you said—”
“The candy is perfectly legal!” Red faced, Franziska resists the urge to drop it on her poor, sick wife.
Maya props herself up on one arm, staring again at the bag, then at Franziska. “So I have to put my own cocaine in this?”
As she’s speaking, Maya manages to sit herself up proper, wincing the whole way. Franziska’s sharp tongue betrays the way her hands move—gathering the sweater as it falls away from Maya, shifting it around her shoulders where it’s truly meant to be.
“You are a devil in a woman’s clothes.”