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If Franziska Von Karma was in the mood to be brutally honest (it’s been known to happen), she would admit that she doesn’t care that much about food. Certainly not enough to understand what makes cooking a meal either a craft or an art, regardless of what the Gault Millau or Michelin guide may try to tell her.
With that being said, there is also the principle of the matter to consider, and she has no intention of spending the evening of her 21st birthday eating room service.
Thus she finds herself on a small terrace that lesser minds may consider ‘elegant’. For the last seven months she’s been based in Kirchberg, which has been enjoyably challenging and suffocating in equal measures, and she’s still under its shadow now, even after coming down off the plateau to a little restaurant on the banks of the Alzette. A discerning customer may assume that would give you a riverside view, but the view she mostly has is of the midscale hotel across the road, and the very edge of the red bridge if she squints and cranes her neck in the far distance.
She’s also moderately annoyed. (Once again: It’s been known to happen). If she was a lesser woman, she would tut and say ‘what time would you call this?’ when the foolish fool that she’s unfortunate enough to call her brother drops heavily into his seat across the table. As is, she just raises an eyebrow. He’s a little out of breath, face flushed, a sure sign of stress.
“They’re very particular about reservations here, you know?” she says.
“Like you care.” he replies, with a snap. “I flew in for this.”
“Your plane wasn’t delayed. I checked. You could’ve walked from the airport and still been on time.” She sniffs. At the speed he walks, long legged and impatient, it’s probably even true.
“Franziska,” he sighs. “I needed to take a call.”
“I see. A personal call?”
“A professional call.”
“A professional call of a personal nature?”
“If you insist.” He runs a hand through his hair, settling it back into place. “Happy birthday, Franziska. It’s lovely to see you.”
He really is very annoying. As if she doesn’t already know far too much about his ridiculous trysts. “Have some wine,” she says, gesturing with her own glass towards the bottle on the table.
“I’d rather choose my own.”
“This will go with your meal,” she replies.
“I haven’t ordered.”
“I have. You’re having steak.”
“And what if I want something else?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Miles Edgeworth, everything else that’s decent here is seafood, and you have the palate of a seven year old. You will like the steak. I am having mussels, if you care.”
“I don’t particularly.” He pours the wine with a heavy hand, tilting his head in acknowledgement once he’s had the first sip. She knows this place has a good cellar, it's why she chose it. “Is Claudia not joining us?”
“She is busy babysitting her ridiculous husband, I believe. I saw her last month.”
“And your niece.”
“Our niece.”
Miles makes a face that demonstrates rather succinctly what he thinks of that statement. The significant age gap between Claudia and Franziska has always made their relationship strained at best. It made Claudia's relationship with Miles Edgeworth almost non-existent. “I bought you a gift,” he says, changing the subject again. Before she can reprimand him, he places a small box on the table.
“Jewellery is the gift of choice for men who don't know their female relatives well enough,” Franziska announces, picking it up.
“You believe birthday presents are sentimental, maudlin and borne out of obligation rather than any real feeling. Considering that, I elected not to make the effort.”
She opens the box. Cufflinks. She probably will wear them at some point.
“I also have this,” he says, holding out a yellowing folder. It's chunky, the loose leaf inside curling, and a curved circle of a coffee stain on top.
“A case file? You shouldn't have.” She takes it, flipping open the top page.
“It's redacted, I'm afraid, but other than that complete. An interesting closed case.”
“What distinguishes it?”
“Nothing extraordinary, just some particulars on inclusion and exclusion of evidence. There was insufficient material in the trial.”
And in Los Angeles. Of course.
“Is this part of that foolish scheme that you think I don't know anything about?”
He smiles, because Miles Edgeworth is under the impression that smirking at people makes him look wry, urbane and mysterious. In Franziska’s opinion, it makes him look like a prat. “Maybe tangentially. It's how I encountered the case. Mostly I thought you would just enjoy it as a puzzle.”
She settles in to peruse. Despite the many things that make Miles Edgeworth annoying, he has always excelled at stumbling across truly interesting legal conundrums. It's quite engrossing, and she doesn't feel the need to make further conversation until their food arrives.
He takes the opportunity to text in a way he probably thinks is surreptitious under the table. Ridiculous man.
Her meal is fine. She enjoys it, as little as she cares about food generally.
“And the steak? You like it, hmm?”
He rolls his eyes. “It's delicious.”
She smiles, magnanimous in victory. “Of course.” She watches him carefully across the table. Miles Edgeworth, as usual, doesn't react. He's used to it. When he was younger, he used to stare back. “What percentage of your studies concern the Los Angeles Justice System?”
He breaks off from his determined attempt to drain the wine bottle. “Franziska,” he says, his voice a warning.
“What, is this confidential information now?”
“More than half,” he admits.
“Even though you work here?”
“I work wherever I am offered terms I am willing to take as a consultant. I'm by no means exclusive to Europe. And certainly not to Luxembourg-city, where I have never, in fact, worked.” He throws a glance out the window at the decidedly not river view.
“You know what I mean.”
“Tell me what you mean, Franziska. I like to think we're at the point where we can do that, now.”
“Very well.” She puts her fork down, food abandoned and chilling on the table. “Are you planning to return to Los Angeles?”
“Of course, at some point I will.” He narrows his eyes at her. “But that's not what you're asking. You want to know if I have plans to move back on a long term basis.”
“Do you?”
“I didn't want to have this discussion on your birthday.” He frowns. “What are your plans, at the moment?”
She ticks them off on her fingers “Two more months here, then a short series of guest lectures at Ruperto Carola, and by that point Lang expects to have reached a point in a long running investigation where my advice will be invaluable.” She frowns. “If he hasn't reached that point I will go anyway, and work out what has taken him so long, foolish man. All that is besides the point, stop changing the subject Miles Edgeworth.”
“I have no current plans,” he says. “But there may come a time when I need to be there. There's only so much that can be done from a distance.”
She curls her lip. “You would really abandon your career to play martyr for a legal system that is cannibalising itself to the point of destruction?”
“My career? My career began in Los Angeles. It's my home.”
Franziska takes a very large sip of wine in response to that statement. “Can't he just move here?”
It's not that she especially wants to see that obnoxious fool more. But it is the easiest solution. The disbarment would count for nothing, nobody here cares about what is being done in a notoriously corrupt court, thousands of miles away.
“He's too stubborn,” Edgeworth says, disassembling the few scraps left on his plate with determination. None of the remaining food seems to actually be finding its way into his mouth, it's just an excuse not to look at her. “And it's not about him. It's about reforming a system that is broken.”
“It is not your job to do that.”
“I think it might be.”
Fool. Romantic idealistic foolish fool of a man. “You will not get anywhere, and while you do this, you will accomplish nothing else.”
“Franziska, I don't need your permission.”
“If you did, I would not grant it. You are like one of those baby mammoths that walks into the tar pit. Scruffy showed me the museum once. That whole city is one big tar pit. If you took every sensible lawyer in that place you would still not have enough people to try a single case.”
“That was one of the things we were considering, actually.”
“Well, you would be a fool not to consider it.” She pours another glass of wine, and promptly drains it.
“You should slow down,” he reprimands her, which is rich considering his own rather generous pours.
“Don't be a fool, Miles Edgeworth, I am not some child who has never had a drink before.” When she had been in Los Angeles, they had refused her anything stronger than caffeine. One more piece of evidence that the whole city has its priorities out of order. “I am twenty-one.”
“Yes,” he says, “I am aware. Do you expect me to wish you happy birthday again? I can sing if you would like.”
“Do not try to be funny, Miles Edgeworth, it is annoying and you are not very good at it.” He snorts at that, small and piggish. It's a very childish expression, the sort he would've made as a teenager. “My point is that twenty-one is treated as a significant landmark in one's life. I, of course, have no need to follow traditional milestones, but there are some places where it still matters.”
“Such as…?” Edgeworth frowns. “I didn't realise it made any difference to you.”
In truth, Franziska hadn't thought about it much until about nine months prior, when a letter that had been chasing her through forwarded addresses for weeks had finally arrived in her hand.
“Not to me,” she clarifies. “The family solicitors.”
(‘Papa’s solicitors, she would've said once, but they're long past the point now where she'll refer to that man as her father.)
“Did you know my trust matured at twenty-one?” She says. “Fifty percent, anyway. I get the other half at twenty-five.”
“I see,” he says, though it doesn't sound like he does. Knowing her little brother as she does, he's no doubt just relieved at the topic change. “Well, congratulations. Is it a lot of money?”
“So-so,” she replies, in the manner of a very wealthy person who has never once concerned herself with the question of whether money can run out. “It is not massively significant from an investment standpoint, and I am already happy with my standard of living. But the Von Karma legacy, however diminished, is by no means insignificant.”
“I'm aware,” says Miles Edgeworth. They were Prussian nobility, back when that used to matter. There's a Wikipedia page with the family tree. His name appears under the ‘controversies’ section.
“I was thinking of splitting it,” she says.
“As you wish,” Miles Edgeworth replies. “It’s hardly my concern.”
“It may be if part of the split comes to you.”
He places down his cutlery and leans back in his seat, staring at her for a long second. “What are you playing at now?”
“Don't be dense. I am arranging for you to be apportioned your share of the trust.”
“I don't have a share.”
“A foolish oversight, I agree. I will correct it.”
Miles Edgeworth sighs, with the expression of a man who has spent most of his life trying to have reasonable conversations with Franziska Von Karma without much success. “Did you get visited by a seasonally-misplaced spirit of Christmas future while I wasn't looking? Franziska, I am not a Von Karma. What's more, I have my own money. Give it to charity if you truly have some sudden need for altruism.”
“Don't you dare accuse me of anything as sentimental as ‘goodwill to all mankind’. Even if I was so afflicted, it wouldn't be directed towards you. This is simply a family matter, as is my duty as the senior sibling.”
“Claudia is the senior sibling.”
“My sister can do what she will with her own trust. Let that ridiculous husband that she has saddled herself with buy his…” she waves her hand. “Whatever it is at the moment…”
“Digital economy investment trading, I believe,” replies Edgeworth, who pays very little attention to these things, but unlike Franziska has the capacity to retain knowledge that neither directly concerns nor interests him.
Franziska pauses. “Is that really it? She should put the man on a leash.”
“Probably,” Miles Edgeworth agrees. “He might even enjoy that.”
“Don't be disgusting, I do not want to consider such things,” she snaps back, shaking her head to clear away the image. “And stop trying to change the subject. Your opinion is not needed on this subject, merely your acquiescence.”
He gives her a look like he thinks she's a child, and Franziska grips her cutlery hard in her curled fists, leaving the engraved imprint of vines in red across the palms of her hands. “You are my little brother. In what world would I let you go without the inheritance you deserve? Do you truly believe I am that lax in my duties?”
His mouth purses into a sour little moue of discontent. It's too soft an expression to belong to her Miles Edgeworth, which makes her blood boil. He's meant to be sharper than this gentle, more thoughtful version of her brother, who no longer matches her the way he's meant to. He used to be a weapon of the courthouse.
The worst of it is that he's happier now. She spent her whole childhood trying to cheer him up without any lasting effect, and then he went and became some weak, sentimental, psychologically-stable failure behind her back.
…No. The worst of it is that secretly, deep down, even if she could somehow change him back into a real Von Karma paragon, she wouldn't. At least he talks to her now. At least he's here.
Franziska sleeps badly sometimes. It's one of her closest held secrets. Sometimes even now, she still dreams of an empty space in her life.
The real Miles Edgeworth, the one across from her in a restaurant with the heat turned up too high and the lights turned down too low, is getting frustrated. Good. They can match, which is what is supposed to happen.
“Is this another one of those things that you've gotten stuck in your head through some misapplication of logic?” he says.
“I think you will find that it is your logic that is misapplied,” she says sharply. “There is a Von Karma legacy, which must be distributed among those who have a right to it. I intend to see this through, as a scion, and as your sister.”
“You are my sister,” he says, “but I am not a Von Karma.”
“Don't get hung up on some inane semantics of names. You are a Von Karma in every way that matters.”
“I disagree.” he replies, but now he has that edge of sharpness back. How ironic that in protesting his nature, he sounds more like his old self than he has all evening.
“I disagree with your disagreement. You will take the money.”
“I most certainly will not,” he says, puffed up on his own defensiveness. “Repeating a thing… repeatedly… will not make me agree to it.”
“Why are you so resistant to this?” she snaps, finally falling properly into her courtroom voice. “Anyone would think I was asking you to jump through flaming hoops.”
“I am not a Von Karma,’ he says again, knife sharp now. “And not you, nor anyone else, can make me one.”
“Of course you are. We were raised together.”
“Why was that Franziska? What happened that resulted in us being raised together?”
“That doesn't change the facts.”
“It changes everything.” He swallows heavily and she grips her cutlery a little tighter. “I am not a Von Karma, because I already have a name. I had a father, who I loved. Manfred Von Karma was never, and will never be, my father.”
It's the first time she's heard him utter the name in years. Even she never speaks about papa anymore.
“It's not about him,” she snaps back, furious now. There's a hot red itch at the back of her throat.
“How could it not be?” He raises his voice to match.
“Because I'm not him! He would never have thought of you as his equal! But I do!” she screams at him, bringing down her fist heavily to slam on the table, knife still clutched in her grasp. There's a sharp crack and they both look down to see her plate shattered on the table, white wine and garlic sauce blossoming across the tablecloth.
She feels her eyes swim, and blinks away the tears. She hates it when this happens.
“Franziska-” he says, as she gets to her feet, chair scraping against the ground. Everyone in the room is looking, and a waiter is hovering, an appalled look on his face. Well, let the fools stare. They know nothing.
She strides out of the room, her head held high.
***
It doesn't take long for him to chase her down. She expected him to, like she always does. He hasn't disappointed her yet. Not in this.
Franziska sits on a decrepit bench, watching the river slide by below. There's a small dark shadow that might be a bird. She doesn't know enough about birds to tell what kind.
There's a thump as a broad, warm body perches stiffly beside her. “We didn't even get to the second course,” he says.
“It wasn't that good anyway. The terrace didn't even have a river view.”
He doesn't reply for a long moment, so she turns to check he's still there, and not just a figment of her imagination. “Say something,” she snaps. “I'm not interested in contemplative silence.”
He shrugs. “I don't hate seafood anymore.”
Franziska blinks. “You've always hated seafood. It makes you feel sick.”
“When I was twelve. I still don't like prawns, or anything rubbery. But I like crab, and most fish now.”
“Since when?”
“A few years, maybe? My tastebuds changed. It happens to a lot of people.”
“I know that.” She says.
“I just thought I should tell you.”
“But you still like the same wines.”
“Yes,” he says. “I'm very grateful I finished the bottle before I was so gracelessly removed.”
She snorts at that. “You finished the bottle?”
“Sometimes I find it very difficult to have a conversation with you while sober.” He straightens his cuffs, even though they're already in place. “I really can't take your money, Franziska. Not as compensation, or bribery, or whatever makes this so important to you.”
“Don't you listen to anything I say? It's yours. It's your right.”
“I don't want it. I don't need it.” He smiles, because he still thinks that half smile makes him look clever. “If you really want something that I'll appreciate, use it for something decent. Establish a scholarship fund, law school isn't getting any cheaper, and we certainly need more competent lawyers around.”
“The Gregory Edgeworth fellowship for hopeless causes?”
“Careful,” Miles Edgeworth warns, “Though he might've liked that. But no, I was thinking of the Franziska Von Karma achievement scholarship.”
“It's very gauche to name something after a person while they're still alive,” Franziska says, archly.
“You'll figure something out,” he says. He looks at her like he's studying her. He's so soft now. She still hates it. “You know. When I go back to LA, you could come with me.” He pauses. “I would like it if you came with me.”
“No you wouldn't, “ she says, matter of factly.
“No I wouldn't,” he agrees, “But I would come to terms with it, and even be grateful in time.”
“I don't want to get involved in a legal quagmire,” Franziska replies. “I like finishing cases. I like actually doing my job. This whole… thing you're embarking on. Don't think I don't know what you're trying to do. This is politics.” She spits it out like the dirty word it is. “I've never had a taste for it.”
“I understand. But I really would like it if you visited. Professionally and personally.”
“I will consider it. If you simply cannot do without me.”
“Thank you.”
Franziska watches the blob on the water. She thinks it might be a duck. She would ask Miles Edgeworth, but there's no way he would know, and even worse, he would make something up and pretend he was certain about it.
Her stomach gurgles loudly.
“Are you still hungry?” He asks.
“Does it matter? They're hardly going to let us back in.”
“True,” he agrees. “But there must be a twenty-four hour supermarket somewhere in this city.”
“You are spoiled by America,” she sniffs. “Twenty-four hours. Honestly.”
“Room service then? Someone in this town will give us a cake if I wave enough money at them.”
“A cake?”
“It is your birthday, after all.”
“I'm not eight.”
“I know. But you like cake.”
“I do like cake. Chocolate.”
“Of course.”
“And another bottle of wine. Bottle and a half even.”
“I'm sure we can manage that.” He leans over, pats her awkwardly on the elbow. “I… am proud of you, Franziska.”
“Hmm. If I was a lesser woman I would say the same for you,” she says.
And for a fleeting second, she even smiles.