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[atroquinails]

success is a song of the heart

(ace attorney trilogy spoilers, 782 words, tw : suicide)

|franziska von karma : fire and ice.|

they say that if you are born into a house on fire, you will not notice the burning.

in franziska's case, she is the one that set the house alight in the first place. maybe if she'd flown any closer to the sun, she would have gone up in flames herself, but franziska is not one for such a mistake, and fire did not suit her well.

despite her beginnings, franziska von karma is cold, not made of ice but maybe snow, or steel (she would say steel. snow is far too soft, she thinks).

yes, she is cold, and unforgiving, and perfect. she is everything a von karma should be, and yet she must still compete with someone who does not even carry her name. without even thinking, she finds herself chasing him - they will battle for validation that will never be given, and she will resent him purely because he was chosen over her to be crushed to nothing and remade by perfect, blood-stained hands, and because he will be broken over and over until he is less of a person and more of a thing, a machine.

franziska thinks it should be her instead, that she should be made mechanical so people would not doubt her ability, or compare her to miles as if she is not seven years younger - she thinks that is unfair.

maybe she is right, maybe it is unfair but that does not matter, franziska, for if you are perfect, he should not be an obstacle to you.

and so, she will act as if he is not in her way - she will hold her whip like it'll protect her, clutch the edge of the prosecutor's bench like it will absolve her of all imperfections, she will give everything she has, everything she is and then some, and when she looks up, miles will still be ahead of her.

she wanted to tear him down with her own hands, pry his reputation from his stiff fingers - leave him behind, in second place, like he'd done to her too many times. she wanted him out of her way.

what she did not want, however, no matter how much she tried to convince herself otherwise, was miles edgeworth dead. she wanted him to see the moment she overtook him but no longer can she bring herself to even want that - once again in her mind, miles is her little brother, who cried for a dead man every night, who was put through the same hell she was, and really, she can't blame him for walking so effortlessly ahead (in the von karma house, perfection ensures your survival).

there is some sick, twisted part of her that revels in the fact that she is the last of her kind (franziska von karma - the last demon prosecutor?), and yet she feels as though the guilt may consume her entirely as it weighs down on her shoulders; her father may have deserved his fate, but miles certainly did not - being a casualty of a war does not mean you wanted to fight in it.

she can scream until her voice gives out, and she will, but there will be no one there to hear her - the people in the portraits that line the mansion’s corridors have long since crumbled to dust, and nothing will change the fact that she is alone now (she would never allow herself the thought that maybe she had a hand in miles’ suicide, no, instead she will spit phoenix wright’s name like venom and convince herself that it was his fault and his fault alone that her brother is dead.)

for all the pain she felt when he wasn't there, it felt as though she could strike herself aflame once more at the sight of him again - at the thought of him ripping any semblance of perfection from under her, and all at once she remembers why she wanted him gone.

it is a selfish thought, but one franziska does not regret - surely it is her turn by now to have her name up in lights, surely miles has spent long enough on the front of newspapers for the glare of the spotlight to be finally turned on her (she disguises her hatred for the fact that miles' suicide act only gathered him more fame).

her heart burns and spits and rages, and she will let the flames lick at her ribcage this time (a star must burn, after all). she will drag her hands across her face, coil her whip tight in her hands; she will calm her screaming mind for one moment, and she will crush miles edgeworth to nothing beneath her heel.

[atroquinails]

to be perfect in every way

(ace attorney trilogy spoilers, 712 words, cw : blood)

| what it means to be a von karma, and why names are sometimes deceiving. |

to be perfect in every way.

that was the von karma creed, was it not? so why, after fifteen years of being raised by a man who appeared to be perfection incarnate, is miles edgeworth still so completely, irrevocably imperfect?

what made manfred von karma scream until his final breath that edgeworth was his curse (was he talking about the boy, or his father, i wonder?) and what, despite this, made him so clearly favour the man over his own daughter?

franziska, the rising star in blue and white, doing at thirteen what most couldn't as adults - maintaining complete perfection. she is a force to be reckoned with, deserving of her last name as manfred was, certainly more of a von karma than miles would ever be (he'd never associate himself with that name anyway) and yet she was never the favourite, always second place to miles.

god. fuck miles, franziska often thought. fuck miles and his foolish way of speaking and acting, a mirror of manfred, a reflection that franziska could never even hope to be.

if franziska is a star, then surely miles is a black hole - cold, terrifying, infinitely more threatening and eventually, after years of destruction, reducing those below him to nothing, collapsing under his own weight. dressed in red, reminiscent of danger, sacrifice and blood-slicked elevator floors, the demon prosecutor demands respect with his very presence. if he could bring himself to take the von karma name, he would certainly leave franziska behind - fortunately for her, even the thought of becoming miles von karma makes edgeworth sick to his stomach (he was called that, once, in a newspaper headline, and he had torn his room in the old house apart, only stopping when he shattered a mirror and cut his hands).

as they say, though, where there is anger, there is always pain accompanying. miles knows this as well as any, sleepless nights spent rotting in nemesism and anguish, knees drawn to his chest, waiting for sunlight to break over the hills.

he never left the elevator, not really, and even five, ten years on he still stands with the pistol in his hands, watching the blood drip into the empty shaft of the elevator, making a sickening noise as it hits the metal. the smell of iron clings to his clothes and his skin and his hair, the forward corner of the elevator turning copper as the blood seeps into the cracks. 

miles had resigned himself to decaying within those walls, but no sooner than he had come to terms with it the doors were pried open and a future that he neither knew what to do with nor thought he deserved was returned to him. it scared him, the possibility of living, and so he ran, didn't stop running until he was far away from everyone who knew him - he went into hiding, half-longing to be back in the elevator with the pistol in his hands because guilt was all he knew how to live with and he'd much rather die in solitude than ever face phoenix wright or his sister again. 

his sister. little franziska, who had tried her hardest to win the approval of the man who called himself her father, who had tried for so long to be first place, but always fell behind miles.

eventually, when they finally stand face to face, franziska says it - i've always hated you, miles edgeworth - and miles listens with a blank face and a heavy heart, guilt settling in its place around his ribs. franziska had finally been in the spotlight, with no one in her way, and just as she thought she'd be able to do something that neither manfred nor miles was able to do, her case was ripped from underneath her, the bullet in her shoulder only serving as another reminder that she would never live up to manfred or his reputation, and miles dared to question her perfection. franziska burns with rage, how dare he question me.

if she was anyone else, she'd have screamed horrible things about his father and how you could never understand perfection, miles edgeworth, you do not deserve a place with us.

she didn't, though, for emotions are just another thing that von karmas are above.