Chapter Text
Opening Crawl
Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the radioactive sun crackled and spat and coughed out its final, resplendent breath in a roaring blaze of glory.
Not a single planet in the vastness of this swath of the swirling cosmos had a chance of escaping the light as it swallowed up the universe as they knew it. Long, so long had that very sun burned overhead, snuffing out any life that may have dared to live there. This radiant corner of nonexistence was quiet, so quiet, all rock and ore and barren land. With the oppressive heat above, what could ever dare to challenge that incandescent god?
As She went screaming and howling into supernovic demise, it only stood to reason her death betrayed its spectacle. What a show it would have been near the safety of the outskirts—to watch the barrier swallow itself, to watch the galaxy open up ever so slightly, to fly oneself in and explore what, until then, had gone wholly unexplored.
No outsiders needed make a home there, though—for when The Great Sundeath finally came, it brought alongside it the rearrangement of existence as the stars knew it. Beneath its impossible, searing kiss, the rock underfoot melted and changed, shifted and moved and latched and formed, and from the razing of everything crawled the Lusterians, the sheen of their metal skin twice as bright in the technicolour blur of starstuff their Sun left behind.
Like any society, they had their ups and downs. Their community and humanity, their power-hungry ne’er-do-wells. None was more wicked than the Evil Magistrate, who made conquest and control his life’s mission. Unsatisfied with his iron fist clenched around one measly corner of the cosmos, he and his army spread across the galaxy, looking for new life to subjugate and convert to his lofty plans of owning all there was to own. Only one man had the courage and wherewithal to stand against him: a civilian known only by the folk title the people would one day grant him: The Steel Samurai.
It was the Magistrate’s first mistake, destroying the Samurai’s home planet and everything he loved upon it. With nothing to lose, what was to stop the Samurai from chasing his foe down to the ends of the universe? That, of course, was how they wound up on planet Earth—wandering the vast, verdant expanse of Neo Olde Tokyo. Where the Magistrate saw folks who were soft, breakable, easy to dominate… the Samurai fell in love with their bleeding hearts, their courage to fight even when they were outnumbered and weak, and their reverence toward nature and the universe around them, how they lived in harmony with its own beating pulse.
It was then that the Samurai made his sole vow: until the Magistrate falls, until the people of this besieged planet know peace, it is here that he will stay. For as long as his immortal soul must, for as long as the universe allows him to fight, because that is what it means to be a hero. That is what it means to be a—
A—
Ah—!
“Ah-CHOO!”
Even with the ridiculously exaggerated build-up of it all, Maya’s wrenching sneeze nearly spooks Franziska out of her skin. There’s a quiet moment of resignation that follows—she’s not keeping count, of course, but despite her hearing that sound upwards of twenty times this morning, it’s only now she realizes she’s unlikely to get used to the sheer volume of the miserable things.
Season 1a
Across the uneven, dull burgundy couch cushions, the young spirit medium sniffles what can only be described as a truly waterlogged sniffle. Like the sneeze before it, it sounds like illness and inflammation and infection, all the subtleties that, in any other situation, would have Franziska donning biohazard gear before she ever considered entering the room. That shudder of revulsion still tingles at her spine, but—for reasons she’s still attempting to untangle—it’s snuffed out with a pang that tugs closer to her heart, itching at her hands and whispering move.
She eyes the long sleeve of her houseclothes, a wrinkling grey turtleneck that’s now dotted with darkspots from Ms. Maya Fey’s lovely habit of not covering her mouth. The revulsion wraps its strong hands around the rope of Franziska’s instincts and tugs hard.
“Bless you,” she says dryly, an attempt at kindness that’s thwarted by the scowl on her face. “Excuse my interruption, but I insist you cease storytime until we get more tea in you.”
“You’re killing me, Fran!” Maya wails as she’s gutting what’s left of the tissue box, red-nosed and holding the wad of them uselessly in the air. “I was just getting to the good part!”
“Franziska,” she corrects, “and I sincerely doubt any part is the good part when orated through a voice that sounds horribly akin to a dying car horn.”
“I sound worse than I feel!” Maya protests, then gives her nose a vigorous blow, just as obnoxiously loud. “I can—”
“You can quiet yourself for a scant few minutes,” Franziska stands, straightening out the folds in her clothes, “while I brew you another cup of tea.”
Maya pouts, and glares, in that charming way Franziska had only recently become acquainted with. Cheeks puffed out, fuzzy brow knit, chubby arms crossed. Despite it all, she doesn’t protest, and Franziska doesn’t linger on it as she goes—toward the guest room’s kitchenette, where the electric kettle is in need of a generous refill.
The miscellaneous noise of her puttering around the space joins in with the bombastic cacophony bursting through her brother’s tinny television speakers. Typical Miles, fleshing out for the proper sound system in his own dwellings and consigning his poor guests to a miserable life of echoey nonsense. Until now, Franziska had never had reason to mess around with the spare room’s TV, always in and out of the space in a flash, onto better things.
As if it’s been summoned by the thought, she feels a prickle of her own nettling somewhere high in her sinuses. Through watering eyes Franziska sniffs it back fiercely, entirely at her wits’ end with… all of this. The kettle is switched on, the teathings are rifled through, one of the several half-drank mugs that Maya’s left neglected on the coffee table is run beneath a faucet that takes just a little too long to warm up. With her hands occupied, Franziska’s nervous fidgeting itches down into her legs, and she finds herself unconsciously tapping one woolen sock against the hardwood floors. Outside, the uncharacteristically snowy landscape is marred by mud and tire tracks.
This trite little trip to the states was meant to be over far too long ago. A favour for Miles, yes, but a favour to herself as well—to crush Phoenix Wright once and for all. That certainly hadn’t played out, but she would gladly take crushing Miles as a more-than-worthy substitute. Lingering for a bit longer… well, that had been her idea, if the universe was to dare issue her another—loss, she’s still having trouble fathoming the word—another loss, then the least she could do to nurse her sullied reputation was stick around and make some use of herself.
That was all it was meant to be. One more day at investigation, an attempt to… make it make sense, to Franziska most of all. Of course she hadn’t won at trial that day—she’d never been allowed to see the crime scene herself! Running her whole investigation on information that foolish, Scruffy detective had given her, what did she think would happen? Had she not learned her lesson with him long ago?
She had to see it with her own eyes, wrap her hands around all the evidence that shoddy attempt at detective work had most certainly overlooked. When Phoenix Wright had stumbled in looking like death warmed over, something greater than herself had possessed her to… to take pity on the miserable fool, to keep an eye on him and make sure that he did not go throwing himself off any more bridges. As much as the sight would have been a theoretical feast for the eyes, Franziska didn’t want the reckless idiot to go and die before she had the chance to properly crush him.
With the return of the assigned prosecutor, she was freed of her responsibilities. Freed of her obligation to the case, freed of her need to stamp her name on the victory, freed of this horrid country and everything she hated about it. Somewhere out there in the vast expanse of the multiverse, there’s a version of Franziska who counted her blessings, packed her bags, and flew back home to the cold, overcast embrace of Munich’s dreary winter skies. That version, she suspects, never ran into Pearl Fey.
Pearl Fey, who reminded her of the… the misplaced cruelty she had inflicted on Mystic Maya. Who had stared far down into the vast reaches of Franziska’s soul and pulled from it a truth that she herself had done everything in her power to bury, and bury deep. Pearl Fey, who had shaken Franziska to her very core, bringing to the forefront of her mind things that she had been cowardly in trying to push away and forget.
Pearl Fey, who was now far away from here, in the care of Phoenix Wright, to spare her from suffering the same fate as—
That burning sensation returns with a vengeance, featherlike and ticklish as it pulls Franziska’s will over the edge. As if the universe dares to offer her a bit of mercy, the kettle begins to bubble moments before, its charming rumble blunting the sound of her sneezing once, twice, three times into her shirt collar. A pressing sense of fullness pounds its heartbeat against the cut of her cheekbones, radiating up into her eyes, her airways, her head. It’s nothing compared to the wet, raw, uncomfortable feeling that’s settled somewhere between her nose and throat, growing angrier by the second as the ailing noises scrape their way out.
“Gesundheit!” Maya chirps from the couch, tone of voice annoyingly amused. “Still cannot believe you sound like that. So demure…”
“I am capping you,” Franziska deflects, covertly staying turned away so that Maya can’t see her mopping at her running nose with a paper towel. “No more than five words within a three-minute period until you have had your tea.”
“Five?! How about—”
“It was not a suggestion.”
Maya makes a noise of general disagreement, but wisely chooses not to press her luck. Despite the thickness of the congestion that’s threatening to crack Franziska’s head open from within, her face is rather persistently streaming. How easy it was to forget her immune system’s consistency in always doing that, with how little time in her life she spent taking ill.
Franziska spoons the leaves into Miles’ charming little metal infuser, dunking it into the foggy waters of the blood-red mug. For a moment she’s lost in it, watching the drink darken to its proper colour, struggling to place the last time she was sick. It must have been long before her law career even started—germs, quite wisely, did not dare to trifle with the constitution of a von Karma.
Another aborted sneeze burns behind her eyes. Extenuating circumstances, she supposes.
Forty long hours spent sleepless. Fifteen on the flight, several in court, countless more on Hazakura. Chinks in the armor, primed for when that wretchedly infectious fool stumbled through the snow, coughing all over the evidence. As she always had, Franziska had simply hoped beyond all hope that her own steely immunity would hold out against the threat of catching whatever vile microbes hovered around him like a deadly miasma. No such luck had found her, and now she was… here.
Here, in Miles Edgeworth’s poorly-lit guest bedroom. With Pess forlornly scratching at the door, with nothing but crossword puzzles and post-trial paperwork to entertain her, with the most unseemly head cold she’d had in a long while, and with…
Maya Fey.
What an… intriguing turn of events.
With all the stress and cold weather the young medium had been subjected to, it was no wonder that she’d gotten herself sick as well. With every tragedy he could never hope to prevent, it was no wonder that Phoenix Wright offered to look after little Pearl while Maya focused on recovery. And with Miles Edgeworth’s recent, annoying acquisition of something resembling a human heart, it was no wonder that he allowed Maya a place to stay in the meantime, conveniently ignoring that Franziska was still occupying the space.
Well, she had told him that she intended to be out of there long before. But a few loose ends saw her rethinking that, and in no time at all the illness had begun to set in. Hardly a problem, an inconvenience she intended to work through like anything else, but…
Franziska rounds the corner of the sofa, and Maya takes the tea from her hands with a look of tired gratitude about her. Only now does Franziska realize how little she’s seen Maya Fey up close—the girl’s always across some divide, or flanking Wright like some sort of mangy shelter dog that’s only just learned love. This sudden proximity—the warmth of Maya’s digits, the spots and dimples on her face, the gap in her front teeth when she smiles—it turns the amorphous black fog in Franziska’s stomach into something even uglier.
Just a regular girl. Harmless, innocent, young.
A mere year ago, Franziska had called her a murderer.
Because anyone can choose evil, that voice in her head argues back. You’ve shed plenty of tears over that truth.
Indeed they have. Still, it unsettles her. Maya’s innocence, Papa’s guilt—two sides of the same coin that keep her up at night. What lesson she’s to learn from the contradiction of them, she isn’t entirely sure—Franziska only knows what she feels in this moment, what she felt at Hazakura, what she felt staring into Pearl’s big, precocious eyes.
Nerves alight, she shifts the weight of the mug into Maya’s awkward grasp. That done, then, Franziska resumes her position on the other end of the couch—work laptop cracked open, tissue box at the ready, making her damnedest attempt to do something useful with her ailing self. Over the edge of her laptop screen, the TV boasts a generous helping of dust-explosions. The foolish samurai man, of course, executes a perfect backflip across their mighty range.
“So, like I was saying—”
“Tea first,” Franziska cuts Maya off, jutting her jaw out in an attempt to reclaim what’s left of her intimidation factor.
“Geez louise.” Maya rolls her eyes, her weak attempt to cool the drink sending tiny ripples across its surface. “I hadn’t even gotten to the Pink Princess yet.”
“You may describe to me every shade of the blasted rainbow once you’ve taken care of that sore throat of yours.”
The pouting intensifies. Maya’s dark eyes are caught somewhere between playful and genuinely exasperated, peering at Franziska over the lip of her drink.
“Why am I the one being ordered around?” says Maya. “You’re sick too.”
“I am not the one attempting to give myself laryngitis via extensive oral documentation of the meticulous lore intricacies relating to children’s television programming.”
“The amount of syllables in that sentence alone should make us even!” Maya shifts her tea to one hand solely for the purpose of splaying out the other in a show of dramatics. “What do you care if I make myself a little croaky? It doesn’t even affect you.”
“I—” Franziska’s face heats up, traitorous. “I do have to listen to it—”
“Right, right, of course.” The flare of ambiguity begins to crystallize in Maya’s gaze, shifting itself into something mischievous, familiar behind the feverish blur. “Gotta say, Prosecutor, I never expected a gal like you to be the doting type.”
“And—” she chokes on the words, “—and why not, Ms. Maya Fey?!”
“Do you really need me to answer that?” She’s grinning like some sort of demon. “Aw, your ears are all red…”
“Enough!” Franziska barks, and her heart wavers when the volume of it causes Maya to flinch. “I concede! Ruin your vocal chords all you like, to whatever end you desire! I wish you only the sincerest of luck in finding a single shred of information that piques my interest regarding this foolish genre of entertainment.”
An attempt is made to bury her face within the depths of herself. Shoulders at those reddened ears, shielding them from sight. Head dipped down to focus on her work, sniffling far too softly for it to do anything to dam the flow of all the horrendous liquids attempting to vacate her body. Across the couch, Maya wiggles further into her blanket—Franziska’s blanket, actually, a downy bluegrey relic that Miles had properly stolen from the house back in Munich—and sips idly at her tea as she… watches. Not her show—the show that Franziska was kind enough to agree to tolerate with what little patience her sleep-deprived, work-starved, cold-addled brain had left—no, Maya watches Franziska. Observing. Thinking. Planning. Like some manner of beast, haunches raised in the tall grass.
Were all Fey women like this? Their gazes all-seeing as if powered by some sort of microscope, their silence uncanny and frightening like the eye of a storm passing over?
Maya clears her throat. A sound so ominous, Franziska doesn’t have the time to be thankful for how much better the tea has it sounding.
“Y’know, they based the Pink Princess off me.”
What?
“What?”
All at once, her guard drops back down. Franziska hangs her head to the side, silvery brow crooked as she stares sidelong at a smiling Maya. The girl looks almost proud, whether that’s of the factoid, or the art of catching Franziska off guard…
“You issued me a challenge!” says Maya. “I never back down from one of those! You are looking at the bonafide, in-the-flesh, original inspiration for the Pink Princess: Warrior of Little Olde Tokyo. And, if I may say, you seem pretty piqued to me.”
Franziska blinks dumbly, with an errant sniffle to punctuate. “I… yes, certainly I am… curious, about specific logistics there, I will admit…”
“I got you! Hah!” Maya’s smile grows so big, all she can do is shut her eyes to make it space on her cheeks. “Go on, ask me anything!”
What… what was she doing?
The absurdity of the situation begins to truly, finally settle in. For some reason, it’s only when Maya prompts this line of questioning. Though Franziska’s run over the events leading up to everything in her head countless times since they started, there’s still some thread of logic missing from it all, some puzzle piece she simply can’t connect no matter how hard she tries.
Overseas, in a country she hates. Believable enough, she’s done it before.
Having just prosecuted a case against her brother, who is also, last she checked, supposed to be a prosecuting attorney, but who decided to spend a spell practicing criminal defense for reasons she is still struggling to comprehend. Strange, but on par for the sort of wild situations Miles Edgeworth seems to get himself into.
Sticking around long after than was necessary, seemingly to babysit the proper defense attorney, a man who she hasn’t a shred of anything resembling affection for? Incredibly absurd, but she can’t have her white whale dying on her. A corpse hardly makes for a worthy opponent, and speedy victory was her papa’s style, not her own.
Pulling a second all nighter in the interest of personally wresting from death’s door a girl she barely knew? Well, trifling and strange, but… she’d made a rare mistake. When it comes to perfection, a mistake can never be undone, but it can be corrected, and it seemed the universe had presented her a golden, serendipitous opportunity. What else was she to do? Leave the saving of Maya Fey to those who had not wronged her?
Allowing Maya Fey to share the guest room with her? A natural extension of the previous sentiment, though one Franziska felt more than a bit uncomfortable with, years on her own turning her unused to… cohabitating.
Taking a sick day? Unthinkable.
Taking a sick day where Maya Fey can see her doing so? Unfathomable.
How did she get here? Why is she simply allowing all of this to play out around her? And what on earth is stopping her from just… leaving?
That, in truth, is what she wants to ask Maya. She’s certain Maya won’t have those answers, though, and so instead she clears the awful crackle from her failing voice and inquires, “Explain how, firstly.”
“So, like, Nick and I were representing the suit actor who plays the Steel Samurai,” says Maya, “and the director caught me wandering around the set and legit started writing a script on the spot.”
Franziska crosses her arms. Her laptop’s at an acute angle, so close to shuttered, she doesn’t know who she’s fooling by not simply snapping the thing closed.
“Just like that? For what purpose? Did you relay some sort of interesting personal anecdote that allowed the bud of a story to take root, or…?”
“Nah, dude’s just a total horndog and thought my clothes were sexy.”
“He—A—Your—” And she’s right back to running hot, each attempt at a sentence gumming up her throat. “Excuse me? A what?”
“C’mon, you’re a criminal prosecutor, don’t act like you don’t know what a sex freak is.” Maya’s mischievous look sharpens—eyebrows wiggling, teeth looking fanged. “I dunno, he was just mad horny for the chaste religious look, I guess. And somehow, freakin’ beats me, he turned that into art.”
“How… intriguing,” is all Franziska can say to that. “Were you consulted at all about this?”
“Uh, well, like, he told me he wanted to do it, but…”
“Did you receive royalties for your likeness?” continues Franziska. “How involved were you in the process?”
“I—” now it’s Maya’s turn to look a bit lost, “—nah, it’s not something I was involved in, it’s no big deal, really, like, I don’t—”
“Maya Fey! It is absolutely a big deal.” Franziska leans forward, intense, and the dynamic of the conversation shifts back toward her grasp. “Global Studios is a media powerhouse. Surely, you should be compensated for your hand in this intellectual property!”
“No, no, it’s not like that at all!” Maya throws her free hand up, palm splayed in a surrendering sort of gesture. “I wasn’t involved. She barely even looks like me. I was just, like, the spark of the character, it isn’t much deeper than that.”
Why Franziska’s so eager to sue someone in this girl’s honour, she isn’t entirely sure—much in the same way she isn’t sure why any of this is happening. The protective urge lies stubbornly there in her chest, twisting itself into another question, and another, “Truly? There’s no resemblance whatsoever?”
“I, uh…” Maya looks elsewhere, “not really, no. Do I look Pink to you?”
“Right now you look more red,” says Franziska, now over-aware of how much she does sound… like some sort of overbearing mother hen. Swiftly moving on, then, “What about other similarities, though? Her character, her personality?”
“Ehhh… I don’t really…” Maya’s tone of voice skips around any uniformity in pitch, as though it’s trying to find itself. “I-I mean, how would I know that?”
“How would you know that?” A flat stare, looking about as dry as Franziska’s throat feels. “Because I’d wager a guess that you know everything about this foolish genre of entertainment.”
“No, I mean—” she waves a hand noncommittally, “the other thing. How would I know what I’m like?”
“What sort of question is that?” says Franziska. “You know yourself best, do you not?”
“Yeah… nah… I don’t, um…”
Curiously, Maya hesitates, an odd aura of something heavy hanging like a lead sheet across every subtlety of her body language. It’s a near-immediate thing—she’d been more or less herself, and it had vanished with one simple question. Curiouser still, Franziska finds herself… fidgeting, again. Fingers tracing their way up her arm, fiddling with her sleeve as Maya stammers through the undeniably bittersweet look in her eye.
Then, like it was never there to begin with, Franziska watches it vanish.
“Hey, that’s something you oughta tell me!”
She brightens right back up, the grin she’s donning not quite reaching her eyes. For some reason, the swerve back into expected normalcy only unsettles Franziska more.
Nevertheless, “What do you mean?”
“I mean, the Steel Samurai can take a knee, we’re on that Pink Princess grind now!”
Slowly but surely, Maya begins to snap back into place. It’s more than a bit remarkable how she glows and giggles despite the illness, despite the events of the last few days, despite being stuck here with… Franziska of all people. Odd lapses notwithstanding, she almost seems more energetic than Franziska’s used to.
Spurred on by something powerful and unseen, Maya throws off her blanket, sets down her thirty-fourth half-drank mug of tea, and bolts toward the unseemly stack of DVD and Blu-Ray box sets that Miles Edgeworth, at the very least, has the good sense to hide away in his guest room. Their usual grandiosity in display is stripped, now—pulled off their shelves, folded back in, leaving the special-edition action figures and trinkets that came alongside them looking more than a bit naked in their glass cases lining the adjacent wall. Steelbooks clang and scrape together, nettling Franziska’s stuffy ears—she shudders to think what that noise sounds like when she isn’t congested clear up to her eyes.
That same noise is something Maya seems to revel in, looking like she’s bursting as she unearths the discs in question. Contrasting, they’re always contrasting—and again Franziska can’t help but think… how?
How is Maya doing this?
Her sister’s body was still warm when she found it. Her mother bled out in front of her eyes. The wailing wraith that had claws wrapped so firmly around Maya’s neck for multiple, horrible days had only just let go. Three times now, she’d been detained. Twice, starved and cold and alone. Even now, at the end of things, the universe won’t even offer her the quiet, simple kindness of good health.
“Ta-daa!” chirps the little canary, unbothered by her broken wing or how the coaldust chokes her. Maya’s holding up a shimmering, rose-gold steelbook as though it is a precious treasure. Though she’s stuffy-voiced and red-nosed, any pain beyond that is expertly hidden.
What strength it must take, to be who she is. Franziska peers into the spectacle of it, contemplative to a fault.
“Don’t look so excited, Fran,” Maya says with a raspy half-snort. “You can keep doing your very important lawyer work. I’m just gonna throw on my fave episodes in no real order, there won’t be a pop quiz.”
How?
Rumbling beneath the surface of her lies something Franziska hasn’t allowed herself to dwell on. Something… nonsequitur, something absurd, something she’s tried to shake from her head for well over a year now, to little avail.
Franziska von Karma… may be a bit obsessed with this girl.
How to define it better than “obsessed,” she truly isn’t sure. Fixated? Fascinated? No phrasing seems precise enough, no word quite right for the pervasiveness of unprompted thought. Frivolous metaphors come to mind in place of any proper adjectives—Franziska wants to study her like a scientist might a specimen, beneath a microscope where she’s nothing but cells and proteins and atoms. Take her apart like a puzzle, measure the thickness and jigsaw of each cut. Distill her into an essence that can be sampled and separated, untangled and undiluted and pristine.
She can’t recall ever feeling this way about a person before, but who else was there to feel about? Only her father—her best friend, her greatest adversary, her strongest joy, her deepest pain. She was not fixated on him, she merely loved him, plain and simple. Miles was closer, but not quite this—she barely remembers a life before Miles, but as long as she’s known him, she knows that love, too, is what occupies the space in her heart she’s carved out for him.
Franziska doesn’t love Maya. Franziska barely knows Maya. Somehow, though, she knows enough to want to know more. She knows enough to have spent more than a few precious hours laying on an ancient sofa in her empty, lowlit, dreary old manor, staring at pen scribbles on a deadly assassin’s calling card.
This simple object, for nearly an entire year, had taken on the brunt of Franziska’s fascination. Sharp, strong black lines cutting through the void of white and petal pink, disturbing a pristine image of an equally pristine killer. Defying its pathing and all it stood for, choosing their own way, jagged and imperfect and… silly.
Mere minutes on German soil was as long as she could last before her body finally gave. Prescribed narcotics flagging, her shoulder screaming in agony, countless jags of physical therapy cutting into her busy work schedule—Franziska found herself with a lot of time to rest. A lot of time to lay on her back, and memorize the enigma of that final piece of evidence, envision in her mind’s eye the moment of its birth.
A girl Franziska’s age. Young, soft, alone. Cold and starving and scared, her life in the hands of a merciless killer who sees her as little more than a bargaining chip. Hours, days spent like that—with no way into the outside world, with nothing but faith to guide her. So many things a person could do, in a situation like that. So many things that Franziska herself might think to do.
Maya… drew a picture.
Maya drew a picture of someone she loved.
The sentiment was a whisper back then, present all the same. It ricochets around her head now, demanding to be acknowledged.
How?
How, Franziska had thought, even back then.
Maya Fey, alone and afraid, deserves to scream, and yell, and cry, and thrash. Like any victim, Maya Fey deserves to be angry and walled off and hissing and spitting.
Why are you drawing pictures?
Why are you drawing pictures?
What sort of life does a person live that shapes them to think that way? In her line of work, Franziska had found herself repeating that thought about a great many whose paths she crossed. Defendants, mostly—attempting to get inside their brains, understand what motivates the guilty to do their wicked deeds. Never before Maya had the thought been sparked by pure innocence, and never before Maya had the thought refused to leave.
Franziska von Karma, at this juncture, is finally ready to admit that she is a little bit obsessed with Maya Fey. Attempting to pinpoint “obsession” to something a bit more exact in its phrasing has proved fruitless so far, but as she narrows down the viable options in her head, she thinks this one might be called… “friendship.”
(On a completely unrelated note, there is nothing more frightening to a serial perfectionist than realizing they might be expected to venture into something new.)
So, that’s that, then. Franziska… wants to be friends with Maya.
Defining it doesn’t make it any less confusing, but Franziska, at the very least, has a starting point. And, like everything in her life that involves Maya Fey, before her lies a path forward, so serendipitous it’s almost cliche. From observing the more social few around her, Franziska has learned that the easiest way to make a friend is to simply find a commonality and exist within it, together.
As is, the two of them… actually have quite a lot in common, now that Franziska’s thinking deeply about it. None of it is suited to small talk, though—it’d be uncouth to get together for coffee and bond over lost parents, murderous family, dead siblings, the breathless weight of life and legacy. Who’d want to talk about something so wholly depressing, dwelling on the past when the future is bright and beautiful? What purpose would such a depressing event even serve? No, it simply wouldn’t do.
Option one is a certain pass. The next best thing after it, then, is to invent a commonality. Create something new for them to share.
Outside of the mindscape Franziska’s lost herself in, Maya finally figures out how a DVD player works. Emblazoned on the disc in her fingers is a bright pink “3,” and with it, the words tumble weakly out of Franziska’s mouth before she can overthink them.
“Wait.”
Maya does. Frozen there, arm outstretched, crouching down. She tips her head, curious.
“What?”
Franziska clears her throat this time, winces a bit at the pain that follows.
“I’d… like to start at the beginning.”
There’s something almost preemptive that breaks across Maya’s face. Like she’s not exactly sure if she’s being made fun of, if Franziska’s gearing up to play some sort of awful prank on her. It’s papercuts zigzagging her heart to admit it, but Maya levels Franziska this look… often.
“...if that’s alright, I should add.” An effort is made on Franziska’s part to keep a similarly unsure waver from her own voice. “You are obviously… the expert, here.”
“I—” Maya’s all wide eyes and rapid blinking, “—wait, are you being real with me right now?”
Franziska takes a deep breath, slides her hand across the back of her laptop, and claps the thing closed for effect. It’s placed on the lower tier of the coffee table, just barely out of comfortable reach, and plugged in to charge. Maya watches this declaration of undivided attention with galaxies bursting their way across her big, brown gaze—its weight not lost on her, though it would be on so many others.
“How am I to properly assess if you should file suit against this company without viewing the product chronologically and in full?”
“Oh—y-yeah, that makes more sense…” The beaten-hound look returns, good grief—
“That was my attempt at a… a friendly joke, Maya Fey,” Franziska says, immediately. “I am… interested in this thing you are so passionately fond of. Have I made that so difficult to believe?”
“You just…” There’s a pause while Maya picks her words carefully, something that, again, strikes Franziska as… irregular. “You kinda seem like you’re above all this.”
Inhale, exhale. Franziska steals a moment to contemplate if this is really information she wants to disclose. Hasn’t she been disgustingly vulnerable enough with Maya Fey today? Anyone who’s seen her blow her nose even once is someone Franziska would genuinely consider handing down serious jail time to. Without her ruffles and jewels, her whip coiled lamely and shoved to the side, Franziska feels as though her heart is open and bleeding, soft underbelly exposed and beckoning. Is that not enough? Is she really going to have to say it?
“That assumption about me is incorrect. I rather enjoyed Rainbow Samurai when I was much, much younger.” However she comes to regret it, it’s out there, now. “I am certain I could find something to appreciate here.”
“Wh—What?!” Maya’s tune changes the second she hears a title get dropped. “Shut up, you’re a sentai girlie?”
“Those words are meaningless to me,” says Franziska. “But yes, I have dabbled. Do recall that Miles Edgeworth and I grew up together.”
Therein, of course, lies the truth of the matter. Once upon a time, when she was small and new and less acquainted with her emotions, she did genuinely believe that she enjoyed the show itself. Sitting down every Saturday with Miles at her side, switching on the new episodes in their massive lounge—the ritual of it was an immense comfort, its structure like a bandage on any of the scrapes and cuts that life threw at them. The lights of the far-off city outside the window, the smell of herbs and spices that wafted up from the kitchens where the chefs were preparing dinner, that same blanket that Maya was now swimming in, thrown atop the living room couch to cover the scratchy florals that festooned it. No matter what was going on in their lives, Franziska knew that every week would end the same—with someone she loved, with the rest of the world tuned out, a half-hour of bliss where nothing could hurt them, and the only worry was how the titular Samurai Squadron would manage to best the baddie of the week.
Most importantly of all, this silly little television show made Miles smile. Miles, Franziska had learned very quickly, did not smile. The first time she’d seen it, illuminated by the icy glow of their CRT, Franziska swore she heard a choir of angels singing somewhere, far away.
As time passed, though, things began to crystallize into something clearer. Miles ran across the ocean, ever-eager to get as far away from her as possible, and any attempts thereafter to enjoy the show felt downright nauseating as their cold nostalgia pooled in her veins. It was cancelled shortly thereafter, after a frankly absurd amount of seasons, and Franziska remembered heaving a sigh of relief that she’d never have to think about the distraction of it again.
No, Franziska did not like tokusatsu. Franziska liked her brother.
“I guess I just…” says Maya, back in the present, “I didn’t think it would—ugh, whatever, why am I arguing?! Let’s freakin’ go!”
That is more like it. The wistful longing disperses, the fondness takes its place—regardless of if Franziska ever enjoyed a single minute of what she watched alongside Miles, she’s decided it’s wholly irrelevant. She is here with Maya now—Maya, who she’s ready to admit she would like to befriend. Befriend she will, then, and she will do it with aplomb befitting of a von Karma.
Not needing to be told a third time, Maya switches out the discs and pops the proper one in. Her scramble back to the couch is so laden with barely-contained excitement that she nearly trips on her half-unpacked bag, just barely avoiding slamming her knee into the coffee table. True to herself, she’s smiling all the way, even as she stumbles and dives back to her nest on the sofa, even as the exertion pushes a rather nasty bout of coughing out of her. Franziska can do little more besides poise her hands out awkwardly, instinctually wanting to offer some blend of help, but… unsure where to even start. Maya’s already collected herself, though, remote in her hand pointed with purpose.
“Okay, so like, just as a warning, um, episode one has a way different vibe than the rest of the series,” Maya says with a bit of an err in her voice. “I don’t want you to, like—y’know what, whatever, you’ll see.”
Before Franziska can ask her what any of that means, she presses play. After a ridiculous video transition where the titular Pink Princess slices the screen in half, the series starts with a generous few blocks of backstory text that seem… familiar. Squinting at them, just to make sure, Franziska snaps her eyes to Maya—who is looking, once again, uncharacteristically sheepish as she bites, half-smiling, at a chapping lip.
“You memorized the opening exposition,” says Franziska, incredulous, “word-for-word?”
“What can I say, I’m a girl of many talents.”
It’s a statement that carries an air of self-aggrandizing sarcasm, which is something Franziska… struggles to understand. A boast like that ought to be genuine. Meticulous eye for detail is a lofty talent, regardless of what misplaced areas Maya Fey might be choosing to funnel it into.
Franziska’s not able to verbalize any of that before the show’s soundtrack takes flight. Heavy, ominous, beautiful strings set the scene in the dead of night, moonless and pitch-black. On the darkened mountaintop, the snowglow does little to light the sleeping world—a heavy, thick fog stretches far as the eye can see, blurring the world and anything that might exist around it. It is, by all accounts, impossible terrain—and yet a domineering footprint crunches down upon its unblemished shape, intending to traverse it despite its treachery.
From where Maya had stopped her own exposition, the show picks right back up in swooping, beautiful brushstrokes that intercut the missing lore. For years, the people of Neo Olde Tokyo had believed that the Steel Samurai was the first of the mighty Lusterians to make contact with humans, and perhaps that was partially correct. Hidden away in the depths of Neo Mt. Fuji, though, there were indeed… others.
Since the dawn of Lusterian culture, the Iridescs had lived as both spiritual guides, and powerful warriors. Their seers were unmatched in way of prophecy, and when they foresaw the Magistrate’s attempt on their clan leader’s life through the fuzzy veil of foresight, the visions were clear about one thing and one thing only: this path was set in stone. There was no chance of fighting it.
All that was left, of course, was to flee. They became nomads of the galaxy and all beyond it—missionaries spread far and wide, nestling away in unassuming planets where they used what little magic they could to cloak themselves in shadow, unseen. Here, on planet earth, they had existed long before the Samurai—sheltered by the dizzying haze or fog that acted as a protective barrier around their home, turning any human that wandered too far in around and around until they stumbled out and away, hopefully for good.
What crept toward them now… was no human.
Knees folded in, Franziska watches the camera pan up from that sharpened bootprint—revealing a pattern of blood-red lines that somehow glow through the thick of the mist. Taking proper shape, the rest of him blurs in, and Franziska allows herself a small moment of pride in recognizing the markings of the Magistrate, just before it’s told to her. Though he’s unemotive as any Lusterian, the way he carries himself says everything that his face cannot—tonight, he will be taking no prisoners. Tonight, he is on a deadly mission.
A background chord holds. High, tense, uncannily drawn out as the Magistrate dips his head, offers the affectation of a sharp brow, bloodthirsty eyes. Its discomfort is broken by the crashing down of a sturdy, wooden wall—the sound of scattered bootsteps overlapping against each other, belted war cries that rouse the sleeping warriors and all who live amongst them. The archers hang back, nocking arrows that go aflame once flying, sending embers crawling up what little is left of the barricades. In the center of them towers the monolithic Magistrate, the jagged edge of his katana cutting a deadly silhouette into the moonless sky.
If only a sneak attack were all it took to get the jump on a people as steely as the Iridescs. The Magistrate’s own minions have them outnumbered a hundred to one, and yet still, he seems at a disastrous disadvantage. When the besieged in question finally pour out of the gates, the manor, their homes… their complexions shine like any other Lusterian, yes, but each and every one of them bears a completely unique, shimmering shade of brilliant saturation. No two soldiers are the same, but as they move in perfect formation—their stances strong, practiced, tandem, like they’ve been waiting all their lives for this synchronized moment—with their features reflecting one another in step, it’s like a technicolour lightshow up against the otherwise abysmal blackness.
Something about this, too, is dizzying—Franziska watches as the Magistrate’s army go starry eyed, squinting, making their best attempts to follow where one body ends and another begins. The errant rainbows totter around their heads, their rapiers like streaks of paint on a blackboard. One by one, they topple the minions, the latter’s clumsy footwork never hoping to match. A guttural growl crawls up the Magistrate’s throat as he watches, and with a flourish of his blade and a powerful incantation spat beneath his breath, the mass of colour around him lies blown back and airless.
Once more there is an art to the wordlessness of the storytelling. Quick, strategic contemplation breaks across the villain’s face—and where he does not say upon what paths his thoughts travel, Franziska finds herself almost eager to traverse. The Magistrate jerks his head toward the manor that towers on hilltop at the commune’s end—lit by a few solitary lanterns that waver like ghosts in the gales of battle, flanked on both sides by the mirrory surface of rippling rows of rice paddies. Therein, it’s clear, lies his true goal.
With the way before him cleared, he makes a lumbering bolt toward the gates. Armour clanking against itself like a funeral dirge in the night, he finds he does not need to look back. The Magistrate’s army remains loyal to this end, even if it spells their own—lit by the crackle of firelight as it razes everything underfoot, they stand between him and all that could ever hope to stop him.
There in the courtyard, with the world ablaze behind him, the Magistrate finally slows his pace. Calculating, metered, holding the gazes of the manor guards that stand firm at their post while the village burns. There’s another shot of his feet as the ash begins to fall, mixing with the mud and turning it grimey and lifeless. A pan back up to his face, and he tilts his head in such a specific way, the viewer is meant to know—somehow—that he’s smiling.
At the gates there are two warriors. One who shines a deep emerald, and another such a brightened blue, he almost looks silver. Their rapiers’ hilts are festooned in jewels that pale in comparison to the saturation and shine of their own complexions, as if such a thing will help them now. Far too peaceful for their own good, despite the awesome power that is their birthright—the Magistrate ought to sneer at that, how it will be their undoing.
They do not loosen their stance as the mighty war-lord sheaths his blade, splays his palms out at his sides, puffs his chest up big and wide. On the outskirts of the scene, as she watches, Franziska can’t help but squint at the picture, attempting to hone in on what he’s trying to do—roll over like a hound exposing its belly? Stand on two legs like a grizzly bear defending its own? He’s caught somewhere between both, an unsettlingly ambiguous gesture that tells of nothing but danger and deception.
Finally, the Magistrate allows the audience to hear his voice. It’s a booming, bassy, commanding thing—intimidating, yes, but laden with a sort of… strange charisma, a misleading sort of warmth. Whoever this voice actor is, Franziska thinks she’d rather like to listen to him read out court transcripts, statements, her bills—anything. Caught up in the story, listening to its villain, for a moment she almost understands all those foolhardy goons falling like dominoes at his back. All it takes to discard one’s moral code, sometimes, is the presence of the first benevolent force who finds you when you’re alone and pathless.
“I’ve not come for lives,” he says, voice like thunder rumbling across the divide. “Give me what I seek, and I shall go in peace.”
The manor guards are silent. All that can be heard, buried beneath the slicing of blades and the clattering of metal against itself, is the scrunch of their leather gloves tightening around their swords. Despite it all, they do not move.
“Come now, are you so ready to throw it all away?”
The sentence slices itself in half. Clear on the outset, then muffled through what looks to be a thick, wooden door. The perspective shifts to somewhere dark—darker than the moonless night, lit only by the orange firelight that bleeds in through a too-high window. Within the depths of this unlit room, a young—too young—Iridesc cries in the arms of an older boy. It’s impossible to tell what colour the two of them are in this lighting, but from the moment the camera pans down to them, two things are clear: for one, they are close enough that they can hear everything the Magistrate is saying. Secondly—the older one thumbs away a glistening tear from beneath the little one’s vacant eye—they love one another, irrevocably and deeply.
Only when she stifles a whimper does Franziska realize…
“The young one, there,” she says aloud, voice scratchy from illness and disuse, “she’s the only girl.”
“Yup,” Maya says right back, with something… tight in her voice. A mental note is made to get up for more tea at their earliest convenience.
“The tactless exposition dump breaking apart this otherwise well-crafted setup insisted these warriors were all men.”
“Uh-huh.” Something amused crawls into her expression. Franziska can’t say what, but Maya seems like she’s giddy with a secret, holding something back.
Indignant with the lack of immediate answers, Franziska exhales hotly through her mouth and goes back to watching. The scene switches back and forth between this… it’s a storage shed, it seems—between the shed where the two young ones hide, and the courtyard where the Magistrate makes his demands. The difference between them is like night and day—a quiet, dark respite up against a blazing, apocalyptic landscape of dying warriors gasping out their last words. Two worlds juxtaposed, rubbing elbows despite their undeniable contrast.
“I dream not for the end of your people,” continues the Magistrate, holding out a beckoning hand, an olive branch of poisonous wood. “Bring me your leader. That is all I desire. Bring me your leader, and I shall make my exit.”
At the manor door, the both of them take a synchronized step forward, blades outstretched and painted a sickening orange. It’s the blue one who speaks on their behalf, on his behalf, on the entire clan’s behalf—Franziska, an outsider, doesn’t know how she knows this. Somehow, though, the conviction alone speaks it loud and clear.
“If you slay every last one of us,” he says, never taking his eyes off what’s in front of him, “if you shatter the mask of every last Iridesc that lives upon this peaceful planet… our way will never die. You’d better be ready to hunt to galaxy’s end.”
For the first time since the episode started, the Magistrate’s expression is properly vacant—yellow eyes lacking angle, features hanging in vague transition. “Shall I, now? Even without your master? Even without his direction?”
Back in the darkness, enough light bleeds in through the cracks and knots in the wood to catch a flash of the young pair’s hue. The violet Iridesc pulls the rosy one forward in a messy, tight, lingering hug. The gesture speaks for itself—of finality, of heartache, and of bittersweet love—but still, the boy whispers in the quiet as they pull apart, his hands placed firmly on the little one’s shoulders.
“You can’t watch,” he shudders out, and then pulls one hand away to grip the kanzashi adorning his updo. It’s a set of hair sticks, specifically, the same colour as the rest of him, and with agony lining his every movement, he wiggles out one of the girl’s own and replaces it with his. Her much lighter-coloured stick finds a place atop his own head, until they are perfect halves of one another. The girl paws at his face, her own features all but crumbling. The tears that spill from her ethereal, otherworldly eyes shine just like the rest of her—liquid mercury falling in fat drops to the ground, staining her ruby cheeks.
“Don’t go.”
It’s all she can say.
“Please. Please don’t go.”
The boy leans forward, kisses her forehead, and goes regardless.
“Pinky,” he whispers, “this is my last wish for you…”
He stands. She reaches out, to no avail.
“Live.”
No more protests can hope to reach his ears after that. He knocks down the door, revealing himself, and the two worlds become one as all eyes in the courtyard fall to him. In the firelight, his colour fills itself in—a brilliant shade of only the most royal of purples, saturated and vibrant and glistening like a beacon homeward in the desolate night. The guards at the manor lose their form, panicked and fearful as the young boy—the young warrior, Franziska can see now his armour, his scabbard, his stance—steps forward, fists balled and shoulders squared, daring anything in his path to try and knock him down.
“Leave them!” belts the purple one, his hand hovering at his side, ready to draw. “It’s me you want? Then take me, and leave my people be!”
“Master!” the guards cry in unison, and with a wave of the young boy’s hand, they’re silent.
“I release you of your duties,” he says over his shoulder. “Go with your lives.”
They stand where they are, looking in terror at the Magistrate’s sneering form. “Master, we—”
“Now!” he barks, his hair a flurry of aubergine behind him. “Do not make me repeat myself!”
Blue looks to Emerald, and Emerald to blue. Only as she’s making an attempt to turn to her own companion does Franziska realize she’s entranced. That to break rhythm and do so is almost hard, that she doesn’t want to take her eyes off the story as it unravels.
Somehow, she manages. “That young thing? He’s their leader?”
Maya swallows, wincing. Her eyes are big and shining, her muscles locked and tense. “Y-Yeah, the proper Master of the Iridescs disappeared sometime after his son came of age.”
Ah. The waver in Maya’s voice as she says it betrays how matter-of-factly the information is given. Don’t state the obvious, every inch of her body language screams to Franziska, and so she does not. Back in Little Olde Tokyo, the purple warrior stands toe-to-toe with the Magistrate, the both of them staring one another down across the sprawl of the muddy courtyard. In a contest of sheer mass, this battle is already won—the young warrior looks smaller than he ever has when placed beside the looming, gargantuan build of the Magistrate. This far into things, though, having seen so many of these fighters in action, the viewer would be foolish not to know that looks can be deceiving.
Embers curl up into the night sky around them, their weak heatwaves blurring the landscape despite themselves. At the Magistrate’s back, the sound of fighting begins to die down, an alarming silence that spells out an irreplaceable absence. In its black is the ominous, horrible cracking of beams as they burn—the warrior sees them crumble and implode into the sea of flames that surround them, steeling his aching heart.
“So you, too, have abandoned your clan…” the Magistrate says with a slow, drawling step forward. “Just what I expected from one of your ilk.”
“You’d best think again.” The warrior unsheathes his blade, five steps in tandem for every two that the hulking villain takes. “Coward.”
There’s a laugh in the Magistrate’s voice. “Bury your sword, boy. I may spare your people yet… if you yield to me the Seeing Stone.”
Connected to a string of massive, heavy prayer beads that hang around the warriors neck, the stone in question suddenly sticks out like a sore thumb. It could not more obviously be a magatama, exactly like the one Maya herself is never seen without, but far more fantastical in its design—intricate, floral patterns spiderweb down the curve of it, and an ethereal sort of glow shines from the hole at its crown. On instinct, the warrior clutches at its shape with his free hand. The mere thought of this scourge’s own grasp around it is all its protector needs to tear forward.
A purple streak of lightning, he’s so fast on his feet it’s hard to properly comprehend. Even the Magistrate underestimated him, it seems—any slower to draw his own blade, the warrior could have skewered him without breaking a sweat. As the two of them clash—leaping off each other, bobbing and weaving around, backflipping, side-stepping, rushing back in—the camera zeroes in on them, on the venom they spit into one another’s faces, on the scrape and slide of their swords, on the terrified face of the little girl still hiding in the shed with hands clamped firmly over her ears.
“You lack the pigment to use it, heathen! Such a thing serves you no purpose!”
The warrior growls every word, thrusting his rapier forward with practiced, tempered, skillful follow-through. As though he was born to hold the weapon in his hand, as though its point is but a simple extension of his every moving part. In response, the Magistrate says nothing—his yellow eyes shine poison in the darkness, looking a hue even deadlier than the dying remnants of the fire all around them. This silence only stokes the warrior’s anger, and he moves in once more, sticking his blade into the villain’s shoulder and twisting.
“That’s why you need me, then? You intend to use me for my abilities?”
A sharp cut upward, and one of the Magistrate’s pauldrons goes flying off, landing against the shed door with a deafening thump. Inside, the young girl flinches into herself, forehead touching her knees as she tries, with all she is, to carry out the warrior’s final wish. For a moment, she stays like that, remarkably silent through the aftershocks of tears. All the chaos of the world outside this dark, dingy haven goes muffled, syllabic—listening to the illusion of blades clashing far-off, Franziska’s reminded of the sensation of dragging herself out of the pouring rain, beneath some serendipitous awning somewhere. The hammering of the deluge quiets to a sedative hum in an instant, as though it were never there at all.
Perhaps it’s that false serenity that pushes the young girl to move. To pull her legs from her chest, her hands from her ears, her courage from wherever in her heart it once hid. Perhaps the quiet after that uproar unsettles her, all the same. Regardless of the reason, she is standing, now—moved by something that’s left her unable to sit there and fill in all the terrible blanks.
Delicate as she’s able, the young one unlatches the shed door. A line of too-warm light spills across her face, cloaking her true colour. Drenched in the paint of this moment she’s living in, whatever hue lies beneath vanishes into a sea of sickly, burning red.
Out in the courtyard, the warrior fights. His own shade defies this same fate, its blues clinging to life against the burning world at his feet. The Magistrate’s metal skin cracks and chips around the ugly gash the rapier’s left, and before he can recover the warrior rushes in for another. Brandishing his katana defensively, the Magistrate holds—feet digging through the ashy mud, the two of them go skidding. Only when the villain’s back hits the wall does the warrior speak again, nearly nose-to-nose with his adversary.
“You intend to keep me as your prisoner?! To force me to fulfill all of your deplorable machinations?”
He’s given no answers. A second wind of strength burns at the Magistrate’s shoulders, and he pushes his whole body forward, freeing himself of his own prison. In the same wide, powerful movement, he thrusts his blade forward, and what happens immediately after seems to encapsulate the whole rhythm of the fight in one single, distinct gesture. Pure power clashes against deft, speedy footwork, and the warrior leaps back, then up, until he’s standing atop the Magistrate’s outstretched sword.
For what seems like a moment bereft of time, detached from all that exists around it, the two of them look one another in the eyes. Pupilless eyes, glazed eyes, eyes that should, by all definitions, be read as nothing more than empty and vacant. Again, there is an unspoken art in how they are anything but, the movement and angles and framing of it all filling those otherwise devoid stares with boundless emotion. And what is it really, Franziska can’t help but wonder? An intentional choice on the director’s part, with set emotions she’s to feel in mind? Or an acknowledgment of the intelligence of the audience to fill in what is missing themselves, assign to those blank faces whatever they, separate of authorial intent, think should be felt?
As if to punctuate, the soundtrack cuts. The din of the world cuts alongside it—crackling fires sleeping, wind quieting its howl, the clashing of blades muted and lost. Not the distant emanation from before, from inside the shed, something far more tense and foreboding. Something equally fearful falls over the warrior’s movements like a veil, something sneering and victorious asserts itself across the Magistrate. Back to the little girl in the shack, then, the shape of her gaze growing wide, terrified, broken. All at once, the sound crashes back in, as though it were water in a dam that’s just burst into smithereens, buried all that once surrounded it within a flash of time. The universe speeds back up, the movements snap back into proper pace, and the Magistrate pulls his sword back, twisting it to the side right before he does. Unprepared for this, the warrior loses his footing and scrambles in the air, long enough for the Magistrate to raise his mighty katana once more, and imbue it with what looks to be some sort of arcane heat.
“My prisoner…”
As the nauseating orange glow of it paints his pale visage the colour of certain death, the Magistrate is sure to offer one last parting sentiment to the warrior as he falls.
“You should only wish to be so lucky.”
Thick, pervasive heatwaves blur off the edges of his blade. A horrible sound joins in alongside them, a sort of ominous vibration, ringing its death song across the clearing. Were the Old Masters of the Iridescs here to witness this moment as it happened, they would surely remember that sound from the prophecy as it projected itself in hazy shapes across the altar—many a Lusterian had known its fatal hymn, and a measly few had lived to remember it.
The katana comes down hard on the warrior’s temple, and in death his mask is not offered the courtesy of cracking slowly. It is unceremonious, unfair, anticlimactic in the way it disintegrates, turning to violet dust in the darkness of the night. Barely shrapnel, like he was never there to begin with, no trace of him left behind as the projection of light that was his body snaps out of the world, leaving only the strange magatama and his sword behind.
Back in the shed, the little girl clamps a hand over her mouth, fighting all she can to bank the cacophony of full-body sobbing as it threatens to claw its quaking way from her throat. Fat, grief-stricken tears spill from her eyes and dot the soil below, and on instinct entirely she stumbles back from the door, desperate to get away from the site of what she’s just seen. She shakes her head, wishing to defy the truth of the matter, but in doing so loses her balance. Horror breaks across the young thing’s face as she falls forward, hands splayed to catch herself, inadvertently throwing the unlatched door open as she falls ungracefully from safety into the arms of mortal danger.
The Magistrate’s already taken hold of the glistening magatama when he hears her. Blade still white-hot against his gauntlet, he almost looks fearful when she tumbles through the silence. Startled by the presence of another, startled by the presence of… her. Naturally, then, she stares back with open, frightened eyes, mouth gaping in terror and heartbreak and the impossible weight of everything she knows lying in shards around her. Surely, this girl is Someone. Surely, the Magistrate will come for her next.
There’s another moment of deceptive quiet, nothing but the sounds of what’s left around them, a burble of noise in what should otherwise be a silent night. What once were houses, now reduced to mere kindling, snapping idly somewhere far-off. That same sound, so often a comfort around a warming campfire, now akin to bones splintering beneath the war-lord’s boot. Both of them painted like a sunset in the dwindling blaze, she regards the hefty silhouette that stands far above her like a merciless god. The Magistrate, in turn, regards her.
After a moment, he seems to… relax. Turning on his heel, then, the scoundrel takes his leave, the tatter in his cape blowing in the backdrafts. As he slowly makes his exit—domineering step after long, domineering step—the final shot holds on the young girl. Lying on her stomach, little hands pressed against ash and soil, staring brokenly on her life as it burns, and the man who took it from her. In the metallic, spotless reflection of her big, youthful eyes, the camera zooms in on the backside of the Magistrate as he disappears once more into the churning sea of flames.
The screen does not dramatically fade to black. Rather, there’s a hard cut to that post-open void, and with a shimmery sound effect that mimics the sharp noise of a blade being quickly drawn, the Pink Princess logo cuts itself through the darkness.
Oh, right. Franziska blinks dumbly at the screen. That was only the beginning.
When the colour returns to the picture, its hue is fairly predictable. The titular character’s eyes fill the frame, a shining petal-pink that’s so light and pastelly, it practically looks white. As the camera zooms out and she’s shown traversing in her full regalia, the picture begins to fill itself in—the purple, mismatched stick in her hair, the rosiness of her cheeks, the rapier hanging at her side. Franziska feels a fool for not realizing sooner—
“It was her?!”
As the words break out of her, she jolts forward, quite literally on the edge of her seat. So entirely so, she’s momentarily forgotten that she’s properly ill, right now—and as the exclamation rakes at her throat, she can’t stave off the impulse to palm it right after, grimacing at the ache that runs through it. Long before she turns her head, she can feel Maya’s devilish grin burning a hole at her side. There the girl is when she does, though, snickering through her teeth and looking like today is the best day of her life.
“Every freakin’ time!” Maya cheers. “Man, I love watching people get through that first episode.”
Franziska can do little more besides stare. At Maya, at the television, at her hands, back at Maya. The tokusatsu of her childhood with Miles was… not at all like that. It was low-budget and a bit uninspired, clearly made for children to turn their brains off and look at mentally stimulating colours. Charming, yes, but basic as basic could get, with one-note characters who didn’t do a lot of growing at all. Mortal peril was never even close to a factor—when all else failed, the heroes would pile into some advanced, multi-jointed mech and smash the obstacle with relative ease and a concerning amount of property damage.
What she’d just finished watching… was compelling. It was heartfelt, emotional, expertly presented. Well-acted, nicely scored, a proper story. Long ago, far back into her childhood, Franziska rather liked a story—a tome of high fantasy heavy in her hands, where she’d dream herself a noble knight slaying beasts and defending maidens from evil. As she grew, those fictional worlds were switched out for law books twice their size, and Franziska was more than okay with that as well. Being a prosecutor, to her, had always just been the natural end to that dream she once had, blade in hand as she struck down the dastardly.
Somewhere in the transitory period between the two, though, there lived a Franziska who sandwiched herself right between fiction and nonfiction. At some point, stories became fun for the puzzle she now had eyes to see—structures and skeletons, each one derivative of the last, filled in with details and particulars that hid their more technical make-up. Franziska enjoyed memorizing that roadmap—exposition, rise, climax, fall, resolution—and more than anything, she enjoyed predicting. Hedging her bets on what might happen next, how it might happen, where it would go from there. Unraveling the story that lay beneath the story, the pride that would swell in her chest when she’d be right on every mark.
Papa always said that a von Karma could find competition in anything. Oftentimes it was almost comical how correct that assertion had been.
One thing a von Karma was not, of course, was an artist. Every last one of them was less right-brained than whoever came before, but Franziska did love to analyze a tall tale and pry it apart until it was naught but bones. This, too, would one day lend itself well to her work—what was interrogation, if not the spinning of such tales? What was literary analysis, if not her holding every last consonant and vowel under scrutiny until the whole thing splayed itself out crystal clear before her?
She’d nearly forgotten what it was like, to appreciate a story for the story itself. Gaps and cracks in what was once her diminutive heart, long since outgrown of itself, are inexplicably filled in with something akin to warm honey. The feeling of it blooms golden inside of her, a rush she hasn’t known in far too long. Back after countless years, she hears the voice of that inquisitive little girl reach out and ask—
What happens next?
What a wretch Franziska would be, to deny that girl the answer.
“Maya Fey,” she says, firm and commanding as she is in court, in prowling the crime scene, in anything else. “I must insist we keep watching.”
Maya’s grin wavers a bit, her eyebrows wiggling around as they try to figure out where they’d like to rest. “You, uh, you sure? ‘Cause, like I—”
“Enough of this uncharacteristically meek attitude.” Franziska throws a flat palm down on the couch cushions, cutting herself into the small divide between them. “Can you not see how I am enjoying myself? Has your illness intensified to the point of hallucination?”
“No, no! You’re right!” The way she immediately perks up, back straight, bleary eyes forward—Franziska may very well have cracked her whip at the girl’s feet. She brightens so instantly, the chilled, ailing prosecutor can almost feel the warmth washing over her. “What the hell!”
Maya scrambles for the remote, presumably to put the rest of the disc on autoplay. As the high of things comes down, though, Franziska’s able to really get a good look at her. Maya’s looking much sorer, red around the eyes, her nose chapping on the underside from all the bothering of it she’s done. Her shoulders sag, her hair falls tangled, her movements aren’t as snappy as is typical. The show had been so engaging that Franziska had momentarily vacated reality, so engrossed in the plight of the Iridescs she’d nearly forgotten the plight of them two, waging their own warrior’s battle against the common cold.
“Actually, hold on just one moment longer,” says Franziska, inching her backside off the couch, “you’re due for more tea. And another round of medicine, while we’re at it.”
Maya falls to the couchback with an exaggerated, raspy groan. “Seriously, how much snot do you have to leave all over Edgeworth’s guest room before you decide to remember that you’re just as narsty as me?”
“I don’t believe that’s how that word is meant to be pronounced,” she deflects as she’s making her way toward the kitchenette again, “but if it will appease you, I intend to make myself a cup as well.”
“Pffft. Guess I can agree to those terms,” Maya teases, laying it on thick as she drawls out the final word, “Counsel.”
For some reason, the comment makes Franziska’s stomach jittery. She swallows the feeling of it and keeps her eyes on the window, just like she had before. At some point, the snow had picked back up—fat, fluffy flakes are tumbling down from an endless, everwhite sky. If she gazes straight upward into that endless expanse, closes her eyes and focuses on nothing but the shape of it, she can almost feel the scents and sights of home cropping up like bursting flowers around her. Crisp air nipping her cheeks, the scent of woodsmoke pleasantly tickling her nose, the lingering sweetness of a far more superior blend of tea on her tongue.
For the first time since she landed, the homesickness feels… well, rather uncouth. The realization comes upon her slowly, strangely—she is enjoying this. Perhaps… she’s even enjoying this more than she’s missing home.
When tea’s made and more pills are choked back, Franziska resumes her position on the throne of pestilence and blankets that’s slowly edging from Maya’s side of the couch onto hers. Only when she’s sitting again does the burgeoning pain of an oncoming headache register, and she breathes slowly and intentionally through her irritated throat and prays the medicine does what it’s supposed to. It’s likely for the better that she’s committed to watching Maya’s program without distraction—even with her bluelight filter, the unpleasant assault of her laptop screen (while she ignores her very overdue need for an eye exam) isn’t going to do anything for that.
At the very least, Maya seems content as she plays the next episode. She is far more distracted, messing around with some overly colourful phone application, unobservant enough that Franziska can steal a cursory look at her, undetected. When Maya is certain that no one is watching her, certain parts of her shine brighter and others die down—right now, she is doing less to hide how sick she’s likely feeling, and also… silently mouthing the words to every piece of dialogue being said onscreen.
Again, Franziska has that thought, remarkable mind. And if Maya chooses to use that talent on this… well, Franziska can’t comprehend what good it does her, but she finds herself oddly curious to one day know.
There they both are, then, despite the absurdity. There Franziska is, watching TV with Maya Fey, while the two of them wait for their good health to return. Franziska expects, of course, that the episodes to come will not be quite so enthralling—after all, it’s the job of episode one to make a grand first impression and keep the viewer hooked for whatever it is that follows. Still, she remains stalwart in her mission to watch, focused and away from the work she’s itching to do. She will watch this program, learn its ins and outs, make her best attempt to appreciate it, and befriend Maya Fey.
In doing this, she learns a few things about that first episode and the events surrounding it. For one, the warrior who was slain was the titular Pink Princess’ older brother, a young patriarch who was known to his people as the Violet Valiant. Maya goes on an impassioned ramble about how robbed of his character the fanbase supposedly was—inveighing tales of promotional merchandise that made him out to be so much more involved, only to kill him off in episode one. Rather astutely, she asserts her suspicions that all of this was done to get young men to watch a show that—heaven forbid—centered a female character.
And… about that.
At the third and a half hour of this, Franziska swears she can feel her eye twitching. From strain or annoyance, it’s impossible to say.
All the genius craft of it, rich cinematography, nuanced storytelling, compelling characterization… every last bit of it leaves, like colour being sucked out of a painting. Only the proverbial outline remains, devoid of its saturation and confusing to look at.
The format of the show sets itself up quite nicely—with our hero finally coming of age, setting out on her journey to finally experience life outside her little village in the mountains. ‘Pink,’ as she is most often called, is a contradiction of character traits—by her own account, this pilgrimage of hers is to hone the skills she feels are lacking, the ones she believes she needs to protect and serve her people as the last living heir. Other characters look directly into the camera and tell the audience that she is clumsy, ditzy, too light on her feet, and yet every time she’s shown fighting, the way to victory seems to miraculously reveal itself. Every test she is presented, she soars across with aplomb, and of course she looks beautiful while she does it, too.
Beautiful might be too chaste a word, truly—the framing of these shots of her fighting are… well, Franziska’s beginning to understand what Maya meant when she talked about the director being a ‘sex freak.’
Miles had explained this television format to her a long, long time ago—Monster of the Week, an episodic and self-contained structure she was certain had potential in the hands of the right writers, but was mind-numbingly dull in the hands of most. Mere hours ago, Franziska was quite literally on the edge of her seat, eager to know where the heroine would go next. This far into things, with nary a mention of the Princess’ tragic backstory, or true desires, or agonies, or joys… she mostly just finds herself looping back into the hypothetical of suing on Maya’s behalf, this time for some egregious form of defamation.
A von Karma, of course, did not believe in regrets. There was no way to undo the past, and wallowing in self-pity over the rare—incredibly rare—mistake did nothing to correct it. A von Karma, if ever they were to misstep, was both bold enough and graceful enough to simply correct it where they could, change their behaviour, and soar higher in the future. That being said, Franziska comes very close to regretting how much enthusiasm she may have exhibited from the outset. It wouldn’t be right, to so sharply critique Maya Fey’s most favourite thing, not after the girl had struggled so hard to believe she was even interested—
“Gotta hand it to ya, Fran,” comes Maya’s waning voice, “you’re being way more charitable here than I ever could.”
Blinking out of her self-enforced trance—eyes straight forward and open, back ramrod straight, arms folded in concentration—Franziska regards Maya’s lackadaisical grin at her side. She’s held much more loosely than she has been thus far, mobile phone face-down on the blanket in her lap, looking genuinely amused at whatever she sees in Franziska at that moment.
The girl in question raises an eyebrow. “Franziska. And what exactly do you mean by that?”
“You’re, like, on a mission watching this,” says Maya, stating the obvious. “Don’t tell me you actually like this nonsense?”
Wh…
What?
“This…” Franziska blinks ten more times, for good measure, “this is your nonsense! Am I to understand that you are not enjoying it?”
Maya snorts—a stuffy, awkward sounding thing—and throws her hands up in a gesture that tells of some sort of surrender. “No, no, I love it! Mostly. But, y’know… I warned you, it’s kinda garbage. You really don’t think so?”
Oh…
Oh, thank god.
“I was enjoying whatever show I was watching before the first episode ended, yes,” Franziska says, words tumbling out of her without much more thought. “But what followed it… the tone is entirely different, what on earth happened?”
“God, hell if I know,” replies an exasperated Maya, right as Pink looks into the camera and announces aloud that she hates bandits, because stealing is bad. “Like, literally all Pink does for this whole season is stand around looking badass and pretty.”
“Yes, until some man wanders in and steals the spotlight, it seems.” Franziska nearly spits the words, like she’s a deadly reptile hissing out venom.
“Ugh, right?!” says Maya. “It’s like, hey, earth to Global, do you remember who the show’s named after? ‘Course not.”
While Maya’s ranting, Franziska takes the opportunity to grab another handful of tissues and tend to her bothersome airways. Despite her proactivity in medicating, the headache had set in regardless—whether that was because the meds were soon to expire (typical Miles) or because of the poor quality of the television she was watching, she certainly couldn’t say.
She has to blink a sheen of tears from her eyes coming out of it, their oversensitivities protesting to the exertion of something as simple as blowing her nose. It does the punch of her point well, though, how nasally and disgusted with things she sounds as she speaks. “Are all their female-led properties like this? Or was Ms. Pink simply given the short end of the stick?”
“You’re working under the assumption that they have female-led properties besides this one,” Maya says derisively. “But, nah, things got really bad after the head producer got locked up.”
Franziska’s metaphorical ears prick. “Locked up?”
“Yeah, one of Nick and Edgeworth’s, actually.” Maya plops another honey-coloured cough drop in her mouth, talking sideways. “I’m constantly giving your stupid brother shit for it every time he complains about the bad writing. Like, lie in the bed you made, dude! You got the only female writer thrown in jail!”
That cough drop is doing an awful lot of work, the way Maya all but screeches that sentence. Her voice gives on the penultimate word, and then she’s hacking with her mouth closed in a desperate attempt to not turn the mentholly thing into a sticky projectile. In the background, Pink wanders into some barren, daylit village, looking about as vacant as Franziska feels.
Maya coughs for just a bit too long. The sound makes Franziska’s fingers itch and burn, but it’s a hair off from the revulsion she’s used to feeling when some biohazardous co-worker or stranger on the train does the same. Fizzling up her arm, she finds herself touching at her own still-aching throat.
“We ought to get some food in you,” is what all that energy turns into.
“Oh, shit, yeah, I haven’t eaten since breakfast…” says Maya through a waterthin voice, sniffling back a few errant tears. “Y’think Prosecutor Ruffles has noods somewhere?”
Franziska blanches. “Excuse me?”
“Pfft, dude, your face!” says a giggling, hand-wavy Maya. “Noodles. I meant noodles. I need ramen in my tummy, like, yesterday.”
Shaking the heat from her cheeks, Franziska makes a pitiable attempt to clear her throat. “I sincerely doubt the cabinets are stocked beyond the meager essentials. It’s a miracle he kept the lease on this place, he’s been overseas for months.”
“Typical rich bitch.” Maya rolls her eyes and starts tapping purposefully at her phone. “Food delivery it is. Whatcha want?”
From a food establishment in Los Angeles? Absolutely nothing. “My tastes are a bit less fast food and a bit more… fastidious, for anything of that nature.”
“C’mon, there’s gotta be something,” says Maya. “I can do grocery delivery too, what do you like when you’re sick?”
“I don’t—” a struggling Franziska paws for the answer herself, “—I’m not a person who tends to take ill, Maya Fey.”
“So you’re legit telling me you’ve never been sick before this moment?”
“Not since I was very young,” Franziska says. “I come from a long line of dedicated workaholics with particularly steely genes.”
“Nick’s a real pro at throwing freakin’ hammers at every streak you have, huh?” Oddly, the comment doesn’t bristle Franziska like it should. She may be more ill than she initially thought. “Okay, so what did you like when you were little?”
“What does that matter?” Franziska crosses her arms. “I am grown now.”
“That kid’s still there, doofus,” says Maya. “She’s just chilling in your heart. If you can’t feed yourself, might as well feed her. What does she like?”
That’s… a strangely compelling argument, if not entirely absurd by definition. What does she like?
“Um…” Franziska goes a bit pink around the ears again, looking off-kilter at the mess on the floor, “Ice cream.”
“Awww…” Maya coos. “That’ll be easy, then. And cheap as hell, ain’t no one buying ice cream when it’s cold as tits out. My broke ass might actually be able to treat us both—”
“I will be paying.”
Franziska doesn’t actually realize she’s said the words until she says them. They fall out of her nigh involuntarily, an impulse she’s hopeless to contain. Just like everything else today, spurred on by the mystical aura that Maya Fey seemed to have hanging around her like a glowing pink mist.
“Yo, for real? I mean, you don’t have to…”
“Indeed I do not,” Franziska says, “but I am. If you insist upon commenting on the matter, a simple ‘thank you’ will suffice.”
“Shit, thanks Fran!” Maya beams. “You’re the best!”
“Franziska,” she corrects, once more. “And I’m aware. Get whatever you’d like.”
Indeed she does. Franziska almost has half a mind to question the girl on whether or not she can truly consume all the food that’s been added to the digital cart, but it’s snuffed out rather quickly by a sense of gratitude that she’s eating at all. This morning, it was far too hard to get her to nibble at breakfast, a sure sign that she’d likely spiked a fever overnight. Franziska, too, is feeling something akin to that coming on, her own health flagging right as Maya’s begins to return. Impulses to crank the heat back up buzz beneath her bones, right alongside the chill that was quickly settling there. Ice cream is, perhaps, a foolish idea, but it is also easy on the throat and inoffensive to a failing appetite.
Payment details input and settled, the short wait for food begins. Having finally freed herself of the obligation to watch what’s become of the Pink Princess, Franziska lets it fall into a rhythm of background noise as she finally, after hours, takes the opportunity to survey what’s become of her brother’s poor guest room.
The divide between hers and Maya’s respective spaces could not be more distinctly drawn. Looking at the contrast, it’s like someone really has taken a fat-tipped, felty permanent marker and painted a screeching black line right down the center. Again, Franziska’s is struck with that ephemeral, vague blur of a feeling—that on anyone else, this fact would annoy her, but for some reason, right now, she’s far less aflame. The urge to tidy is still there, though, a strangely pleasant hypothetical, even with her aching bones. No use ignoring it, then, the room could really use a bit of a clean-up…
She gets to work. Taking stock of all the abandoned cups, pre-emptively scowling at the nest of wadded tissues Maya’s made, making her best attempt to straighten the couch cushions with the girl in question still atop them. Only when she looks at the mountain of empty cough drop wrappers on the side table does Franziska remember to circle back around to what they were talking about before they’d allowed the topic to wander.
“Did the writing ever recover?” she asks, a bit suddenly. “From their producer being incarcerated, I mean.”
“Well, she wasn’t in for long, thankfully.” Maya visibly perks back up when the question is asked. “And I think it shows, ‘cause I’m pretty sure right after she got out, they started working on…”
A vast realization dawns across Maya’s face. It’s almost comical, the scope of it asserting itself—big, brown gaze wide and sparkling, mouth slowly shifting from a half-gasp into a massive grin, eyebrows attempting to throw themselves off her face. When she slams her hands down on the pillowy cushion in front of her, she looks an awful lot like that foolish defense attorney she insists upon keeping around.
“Holy shit!” The only thing stopping her from screeching it is her fraying vocal chords. “The fucking Cobalt Crusader!”
Franziska is suddenly struck with the feeling that she’s supposed to be reacting to this. Like there’s some crucial memo she was not looped in on, and Maya is now scrutinizing her for her lack of understanding. It must show on the furrow in her brow, because Maya runs a frantic hand through her wild black jungle of hair, carrying on as she floats through the moment.
“Dude, why didn’t I start with that?!” says Maya, incredulous. “Fran. I have to tell you about my favourite character in the entire franchise.”
Franziska stares, curious but unsure. “Franziska. May I continue to clean?”
“Yes! But I’m gonna be talking, okay? Pink’s getting paused.”
Like she’s a sci-fi captain firing off some manner of whimsical space torpedoes, Maya brandishes the remote and does just that. Similarly true to her own word, Franziska starts to pluck scattered pieces of clothing off the floor, making her way over to the hamper in the wash closet while Maya excitedly prattles on about—
“—this awesome warrior lady who debuted in the Iron Infant movie!” She’s rocking on the couch, too excited to sit still despite the fatigue of illness. “She was supposed to be, just, like, a one-off villain for the silver screen, but apparently everyone in the writer’s room just totally fell in love with her and wanted to do more, even though the fans didn’t really care for her.”
She sounds compelling right at the outset. Franziska tilts her head from where she’s standing a ways off, halting the sliding closet door halfway. “Why on earth was that?”
“Oh, it was the stupidest shit.” Maya rolls her whole head along with her eyes, dramatics cranked up to eleven. “Buncha weird sexists calling her a watered-down, lesser version of the Evil Magistrate. They’d go on and on about how she was just a hotgirl clone of him, even though the two of them have totally different styles! It makes me crazy, dude. She’s the best female character in the whole series and still to this day idiots insist that she’s flat.”
“The most foolish of the fools will always find his foolish point, when he’s too foolheartedly foolish to seek out much else,” Franziska rattles off, turning up her pinkened nose.
“Period,” Maya agrees. “They ate their foolish words though, ‘cause my girl Cobalt got a spinoff series!”
“Did she, now?” Thick ceramic clinks itself together as Franziska curls her fingers around the rotting mugs on the table, two in each hand. An incredibly small sound that’s like klaxons as it reverberates up her arm, she’s definitely about to spike a fever of her own.
“Yeah, and T-B-H I think that’s always where they wanted to go,” Maya carries on, oblivious. “Like, even in the movie it seems like there’s tons more about her they wanted to expand upon but just couldn’t fit into the runtime, y’know, greater nuances for those who have eyes.”
“...such as?”
“Don’t get me started!” Maya glows. “Okay, so, she has the Magistrate’s sword, right? It’s made of magical thermite, and when he heats it up, it instakills anything, slices right through the metal masks which contain the ‘essence’ of the Lusterians. The Magistrate always works short and quick, he’ll kill senselessly and without hesitation, but Cobalt never uses this power, because it seems like she just has a lot more fun winning fights with grit and skill, and…”
Maya carries on, for several more minutes, a seemingly itemized list already existing there in her head. Even through her quickly-fading voice, even with the way she seems to jump from loose thought to loose thought with little to connect them, even when she talks so fast that her words slur together and lose their proper form… Franziska finds Maya rather pleasant to listen to. The high tones in her voice, tones which Franziska had at first found abrasive and more than a bit obnoxious, seem to lose here what Franziska can only describe as a performative edge. As though all that energy had been mere theater before this moment, and now it is genuine, the enthusiasm true and ten times as uncontainable.
With the impromptu audiobook comes Franziska’s own second wind of energy, and within moments she’s surveying the state of the room with hands on her hips and a satisfied heart. The coffee table’s a bit more clear and organized, and that awful tower of sodden tissues is no longer acting as an eyesore in her peripheral. In the middle of this final once-over, Maya’s phone shrieks, rudely interrupting her dissertation on why the Cobalt Crusader burned down a whole village for a good reason. She’s about to leap off the couch when Franziska stops her—the latter’s already standing, it might as well be her who goes and gets the food.
There they are again, then, feeling—Franziska hopes, at least—a smidge more refreshed as they sit cross-legged on the couch, facing one another like teenage girls gossipping at a slumber party. There’s a similar sense of rebellion inherent, too—letting her feet touch the sofa like this, how utterly impolite—but Maya had done it first, and without thinking, Franziska… had simply followed her lead. Maya cracks her chopsticks in two, peels back the thin, plasticy lid of the first of her piping hot noodle cups, and immediately unleashes a flurry of roaring, hoarse sneezes when the near-deadly amounts of spice waft up into her oversensitive airways. With how full-body of an event the whole thing is, Franziska has half a mind to reach out and grab the precarious, sloshing container from her hands, terrified she might scald herself… but the thought of being in the line of fire again stops her, and thankfully Maya (through some blend of Spirit Magic, perhaps) manages not to spill a single drop.
The mountain of tissues Franziska had only just cleared rises anew. She swallows her muted annoyance with an overflowing spoonful of red velvet ice cream, reveling in the balm of it sliding down her swollen throat. Once she’s had a few bites, her words come much easier.
“Sounds as though things are on the upswing, then,” says Franziska, sugar on her tongue. “Regarding the writing of this franchise and all its iterations, I mean. What of our Pink Princess, then? Has she been given any justice as things progress?”
“Ehh… well, kinda.” Maya says it through a mouthful of noodles, slurping them down fiercely before she continues, gesturing with her chopsticks all the way. “Y’know, whenever she shows up in this current era, she does seem to be written a bit better, but you can tell the new writers are, like, beholden to what the old ones set in motion. So there’s all this nonsense canon they have to adhere to, not to mention her weird-ass lavender marriage with the Steel Samurai—”
Franziska coughs around her frozen treat, caught entirely off guard. There’s tears dotting her eyes when she’s able to compose herself after a moment, “Excuse me? Surely, that can’t actually be a concept they intended on exploring—”
“No, no, I’m being hyperbolic, just…”
She fishes out another tangle of scarlet-speckled noodles, unceremoniously sucks them down, throws her head back as she’s swallowing as if deep in thought. It takes her a moment to speak after that—Franziska’s struck again with the idea that Maya Fey, queen of lacking filter, might just be picking her words with careful intent.
Indeed, her voice comes a bit cautiously, “It’s just annoying that they tried to pair up Pink and Steel when their relationship is way better as friends. And, like, Steel has way more romantic chemistry with the Magistrate, anyways—”
“Pardon?” Franziska cuts in. “The same Magistrate who destroyed everything he loved and cherished?”
“I know, right?” Maya seems almost excited at her skepticism. “I dunno how to explain it, but there’s something about falling in love with your enemy. Like, seeing someone at their nastiest and most evil, you’ve seen every side of them, right? I guess it’s just the thought of knowing all that and loving a person regardless, it gets me.”
There’s a hint of bittersweet longing in her voice that Franziska finds no struggle in placing. While her own shade of it is not romantic in nature, Franziska certainly knows herself what it is like to love someone who’s done reprehensible things. Try as she might to push it from her mind, the image tugs at her heart, regardless—the gnarled shape of her father’s hands, stripped of their golden jewelry after a long (too long) day at trial. Deceptively soft, despite their age—carrying her from the cradle, carrying her to bed, carrying a tray of hot tea and iced pastries, and carrying a still-smoking pistol while an innocent man bleeds out beneath the returning buzz of elevator fluorescents.
Yes, Franziska understands the ache of loving that which destroys you. Maya must sense that she’s lost in these thoughts, because that overly-upbeat lilt returns to what’s left of her voice, and she pivots quickly.
“Anyways! I’m more, like, petty about Pink’s end of things.” She pouts, face falling dramatically. “Like, she’s based on me. She should be allowed to lez out a bit.”
Franziska hears the words before they truly register. Once they do, she finds herself… lost at what to say. Unless she’s mistaken, that was a rather personal admission that Maya just threw out in the middle of casual conversation. She probably ought to treat it with the reverence it deserves, oh, Maya Fey trusts me enough to disclose that she’s gay, but for some reason no proper response crops up in Franziska’s mind. Her throat feels dry again, and she wets it to little avail.
In the end, what comes out of her mouth is, “I was unaware we had that in common.”
Maya’s nonchalant as ever, breezing right past any social faux pas. “Really? You can’t sense the sapphic vibes wafting off me?”
She wiggles her fingers, and then her eyebrows, sly-eyed and grinning lopsided. Franziska has no idea what to say to that, and Maya is eager to fill the silence herself.
“I mean, I like dudes too but my point still stands,” she says. “If Pink’s only into this one guy it’s just one less thing we have in common. At least give her a shitty ex-girlfriend to have drama with. Or a fling before she settled down and had a freakin’ baby. Or, y’know, maybe her and ol’ Steely amicably go their separate ways, and she…”
The sentence peters off. Maya closes her mouth, lips pressed together almost emphatically as a veil of something shy falls over her. Franziska’s still got the spoon in her mouth, listening intently, and when no more words come she can’t help the foolish urge to talk around it.
“She… what?”
“No, no, it’s stupid, I’m just… writing fanfiction, now…”
The way Maya looks down at the shimmery, sunset-coloured broth in her lap kicks up something protective in Franziska. It’s an uncomfortable contrast, to see Maya going from delighted rambling to what almost seems like shame, and Franziska had been interested in everything she was saying. Perhaps the topic had been a sore spot, so she tries to sidestep into curiosity, “What… is fanfiction?”
Wrong move, it seems. Maya’s eyes go wide, her somber stare down at her food turning to a haunted, thousand-yard one. Desperately, she starts stabbing at the soupy waters in an attempt to distract herself with more noodles, but it’s futile—all that meet her chopsticks are little, floating bits of their wreckage, impossible to grasp.
“Um…” Maya says, when she realizes she cannot run from this inquiry, “it’s like, stories, that regular people write… about their favourite characters.”
Why does she look so embarrassed about something so mundane? “What kind of stories?”
“A-Anything, really.” She finally picks her head back up. “Like, y’know, maybe you go and see a movie, and the ending kinda sucks… you might think, hey, I bet I could write myself a better ending.”
“That seems like simple human impulse,” says Franziska, fingers curled at her chin. “What necessitates inventing a term for it?”
“I have… no clue,” says Maya. “I guess fanfiction is just the word for putting it down on paper. ‘Cause yeah, everyone talks about fixing an ending, or what they want to see someone else’s characters do. But fanfiction is like, when you actually write and post it.”
“I see…” Franziska picks at her melting ice cream, appetite fading. “When you say post—”
“Like, online,” Maya clarifies. “There’s whole-ass websites dedicated to it.”
“And these… fanfolk… they write all these stories and simply… share them, for free?”
“Well, yeah,” the unsure upturn of Maya’s brow relaxes into something resembling joy. “You’re a lawyer. You know how messy copyright gets.”
“I am a criminal prosecutor,” Franziska stares at her flatly, “but yes. There is a reason I chose this particular practice and not… that foolishness.”
“Right. So, like, as long as these amateur writers don’t try to cop cash for their writing, it’s just kind of this inevitable part of a thing having fans,” Maya carries on. “Y’know. Unspoken agreement.”
Maya cracks open her second cup of noodles, wasting no time in devouring them, and the enthusiastic display of gluttony churns and sours in Franziska’s own stomach. She inhales deeply, with purpose, and closes her barely-eaten pint, taking a moment to gather the strength to pull herself back off the couch and to the guest room’s fridge. Maya’s thankfully much too engrossed in her noodles to see the sluggish way Franziska’s moving, all the fatigue she’s been pushing down and trying to ignore seemingly bursting from the bars of its cage. The cold treat had certainly helped her sore throat, but its chill lingers rather uncomfortably, refusing to abate as she pulls her collar close to her chin and sniffles pitiably.
Once she’s sitting again, Maya eyes her sidelong, and Franziska pretends not to notice. “You look a little worse for wear, there.”
“I’m ill,” she pivots, that watery sheen choosing this wretched moment to return to her bleary blues. “That’s to be expected.”
“Yeah, just…” Maya’s eyes flit to some far-off corner, “The whole look of you just got, like… I dunno. Sicker.”
“Once again, that tends to happen.”
“Methinks the convalescing prosecutor is deflecting…”
“You deflected first,” Franziska argues. “What were you going to say before you stopped yourself?”
“Huh?”
“Just a few minutes ago, you said you were… conjuring fanfiction of your own,” says Franziska. “What did you mean by that?”
“Oh, um…” that veil of timidness falls over her face again, “just, that, I think it would make way more sense if Pink and Steel split up and, uh…”
Franziska makes a point of leaning in. As if to say, would you stop acting like you’re guilty of some terrible crime? I am alert and listening. Maya’s wavering, dark eyes flash up quickly to meet the rustle of fabric that ensues, and she swirls her sticks around in her noodles, desperate to do something with her hands as she talks.
“...Pink and the Cobalt Crusader had a thing.”
…That’s it? That’s what she’s so bewilderingly embarrassed about?
Well, moment of truth, then. Franziska resumes her earlier position—arms half crossed, chin perched on one hand, silvery eyes narrowed in thought, the same way she so often looked at an investigation, poring over fingerprints and glass shards and blood stains as though they were precious tea leaves. Considering the information she knows, as always, and piecing the greater shape of it together in her mind’s eye.
“How curious…” she says after a moment’s pause. “Might I bother you to elaborate?”
The worried slump in Maya’s shoulders dissipates, ever so slightly. “Bother me?! I mean, any day, but like, again, it’s all just my own whack ideas about what I want to—”
“Did I not say earlier that I’ve had quite enough of this?” Franziska interrupts decisively, throwing out a hand for effect—if I’d the nerve to grab my whip, I’d use it to skewer that sentence clean in half! “All day you’ve responded to my inquiries on this matter with the look of a kicked puppy about you. Have I done something wrong? Do you not enjoy speaking on the topic of this show you love so dearly?”
“N-No! I’m having the time of my life, I just—”
As if to gather herself, Maya begins a sort of… ritual of micro-actions. First, she cuts off her own sentence with a long, deep, purposeful breath. Self-soothing, quite obviously, despite the whistle that lingers in her overworked lungs. Then, she looks at her hands again for a moment, lowering her gaze, like she so often does when she’s not feeling like herself. Finally, she sticks her chopsticks into her half-eaten noodle cup, placing it back on the coffee table, still-steaming. The gesture seems to say, I am here in this moment, now, an odd sort of twin to Franziska’s own folded laptop, gathering dust mere inches below.
When Maya looks at Franziska again, she looks at her directly.
“No one’s ever…” she pauses, “asked me about my interests, before.”
Franziska finds her face setting itself rigid, like she’s almost offended on Maya’s behalf. “That’s… rather unfortunate, but it does not explain your behaviour today. Would you not be delighted that I am asking?”
“I am. Yeah, yeah, I am, just…” another deep breath, “...it seems, like, too good to be true. And of all the people asking me to ramble about freakin’ PinkBalt, I never in a million years thought it’d be… you.”
Something about that word, you. Something about the way Maya Fey speaks it so softly, so prayerlike, so… reverent. There’s a sort of silent magic that Franziska feels hanging in the atmosphere, right now—the dipping sun on the snow outside, ten times as golden as it pours in through the windows. The lack of cars on the overpass far off, Californians too terrified to walk in the snow, let alone drive in it. Franziska had never noticed how loud all the noise of the city could be, until right now, as she’s admiring its absence. The TV stays paused, pixels oversharp on a static frame of Pink sleeping on a moonlight hill, beneath a massive oak tree.
Franziska has the foolish, arbitrary thought—this is a memory being made. Ten years from today, I will recall every meaningless detail.
What to say, to any of that? All she knows is that she thinks she understands.
“Fate works in unfathomably mysterious ways, Maya Fey,” is what she ends up saying. “This is not how I anticipated I would be spending the first week of February, either. However, I’m disinclined to drive myself mad prying apart the why of it all. We are here regardless. Is that not enough?”
“Yeah, I…” Maya closes her eyes, as if taking it all in, “Huh. I guess so.”
“Wonderful. Then, if my passionate beseeching of you to abandon this foolishly fainthearted attitude has found its way to your better sense,” says Franziska, “I would rather like to hear what on earth PinkBalt is.”
For the first time all day, Franziska feels herself despite the illness. Orating, inspiring, protective, proud—speaking good fortune to someone down on themselves, giving them the pep talk she hopes they might need. The same way she does courtside, throwing her hands and cracking her whip and crossing her legs into a perfect curtsy in front of judge and jury.
Maya was right. That little girl is still alive somewhere in Franziska’s heart, and though she certainly appreciates the ice cream and television, what she appreciates more is that long-envisioned knighthood, sword in hand as she rallies the downtrodden.
Maya’s smile, then, is like a sunbeam through stormclouds. Not the vast, wide, face-cracking thing Franziska is expecting it to be… but the quiet, subtle way it curls up the girl’s lip, half-there before it properly dimples, is far more rewarding. Doing her best to take all that to heart—and really, what more can Franziska ask for?—Maya sheds her worries and unloads.
Before Franziska can blink, ten minutes have passed. Twenty. Thirty. How Maya’s mastered the art of talking with her mouth full, Franziska cannot say, but she’s beginning to think it’s some sort of artform that ought to be properly studied. She’s not doing it prettily, and yet somehow her words are enunciated despite this, perfectly legible through a mouthful of noodles and just as compelling to listen to as ever.
“—and sometimes I feel crazy, because it’s like, does Global Studios only know how to write one kind of woman? Or are all these narrative parallels in place on purpose?” Maya’s saying. “They go and introduce these two women with wildly different personalities and weirdly similar backstories, and then tie them together through absolute tragedy, and it’s like… nothing happens!”
“Nothing at all?” Franziska asks. “Even with Ms. Cobalt Crusader lugging around the very sword that killed Pink’s brother?”
“She never even reacts to it! I’m going to go ballistic.” Maya pulls her noodle cup to her face, tips it, loudly gulps down every last drop of brothy goodness before carrying on. “There is one scene in Cobalt’s miniseries where they interact. It haunts me. There’s some sort of vision here, is all I’m saying. No, they’ve literally never spoken, but I can imagine, like, ten million hypothetical conversations between the two of them, and I… whatever, I’m deep into my weird daydreams, but I think they should kiss about it!”
“Maya Fey, I said enough of this strange habit of doubting yourself.” Franziska angles her a no-nonsense glare. “Do you understand that this exercise you are engaging in right now is actual literary analysis?”
She lets out a dismissive half-chuckle. “It’s toku, Fran.”
“That is the medium. This is a story,” says Franziska, too caught up to correct the nickname. “You are spitting proper meta-analysis at a caliber that scholars often study for years to master. And unless we are living in the incredibly unlikely timeline where I am mistaken, I don’t recall reading on your file that you’d received any formal schooling of that nature.”
“Uh, nah, dude, I’m just a latchkey kid who spent a lot of my free time imagining what the characters on TV did in between episodes.” She runs a hand sheepishly through her hair, but crucially, does not wilt.
“Well… I must say, I am rather interested in the idea of this… coupling.”
“Ship.”
“Pardon?”
“We call ‘em ships,” says a grinning Maya. “Y’know, like, relation-ship. If you want the girls to kiss, you ship ‘em.”
“Noted. If they are as rife for compelling chemistry as you seem to believe, I can imagine that to ship them would be second nature,” says Franziska, and Maya is… cracking up, all wheezy laughs held behind her hand, too amused for her own good about something entirely unseen.
“Again, there’s really nothing there, but the lack of it makes my brain run a lil wild,” she says when she’s done. “Crazy hopes and dreams, that’s all. Global’s come a long way, but they’re not gonna just hand me girls smooching on a silver platter.”
“Hmph. Something we can agree on, regardless. However far they have come in the past few years…”
Franziska offers her a smile. The same narrow-eyed, strong-jawed thing it always is, gloating from behind the prosecutor’s bench. It’s all she knows how to do, really, but she hopes Maya will see the soft touch in it, regardless.
“...I do think your ideas are far more inspired than the writers’ could ever hope to be.”
There, and then gone in a flash, but Franziska sees it—a subtle wobble in Maya’s lip, as though her gratitude’s spilling over. Nonsense thoughts, it seems, are the new normal on the eve of this night—because Franziska thinks she would very much like a photo of that look, framed on her desk at home to gaze at whenever she’s had a long day.
After all that conversation, it’s only natural that the Pink Princess is doomed to never be unpaused. With what little time they have left in the night, Maya makes it clear what must be done—they are watching The Iron Infant: Avenger of Neo Olde Tokyo, and then they are watching Cobalt’s spinoff series, presumably until the sun rises.
Normally, Franziska would be more than a bit irritated at this non-committal, distracted, flighty jumping of series to series without finishing anything properly. She finds she trusts Maya’s expertise, though, willing to compromise her strong preference for finishing what’s been started. Just this once, she relinquishes control of things—perhaps it’s the settling fever, perhaps it’s to appease Maya’s overwhelmingly uncharacteristic lack of confidence, perhaps it’s some muted form of personal growth. Whatever the cause, when the sun has properly set and the stars (presumably) blink on behind the smog and overcast, they are there on the couch, watching a movie, and…
Sharing the blanket. Even after putting a second layer on, Franziska finds herself stubbornly trembling from a cold that isn’t there. This time, Maya did not give her the space to brush that fact off—she’d simply tossed the blanket around the sick girl’s shoulders, moved in close, and surrendered the gap that had been there between them all day. The physical contact is… novel, but not entirely unwelcome. Maya certainly doesn’t seem to mind it, and so Franziska focuses her eyes on the TV and tells herself that she doesn’t need to, either.
Through Maya’s entertaining (if not scatterbrained) recapping of series events, Franziska finds herself relatively up to speed. In what was meant to simply be a thrilling two-part special, the Steel Samurai and the Evil Magistrate had clashed on a scale never previously seen before. The Magistrate, having grown tired of constant defeat at the hands of the Samurai, had made his new plan for Earth abundantly clear—if he could not have this planet, he would simply destroy it, fleeing to the outer reaches of the galaxy in the hopes that he’d find something grander, less trifling.
“For plot reasons,” as Maya had so eloquently stated, the Steel Samurai was able to acquire the means to counter this measure—through the power of an incredibly potent, magical sort of forcefield-throwing device, one which would effectively nestle the whole planet in a protective bubble. Maya would go on to explain that this shield only affected Lusterians—while humans and anything else were free to come and go, no one of metal makeup would ever be allowed to enter or leave Earth’s atmosphere again. The intent was clear—the Samurai would imprison himself and the Magistrate upon this planet forever, and what fool would dare give up his life simply in the name of destruction? No, the villain would be forced to spare the planet, trapped forever in a hell of his own making and doomed to brawl with his adversary from now into forever.
As the countdown began, the Samurai would use that same sci-fi magic to broadcast a message across the entirety of the known galaxy, warning the surviving Lusterians of what was to come—should they ever dare to set foot upon this little blue planet in the far corners of space, it would be exactly where they stayed, until the end of their days.
On the meta end of things, Maya explained, this was never meant to be a permanent plot point. Unfortunately, the suit actor who played the Magistrate was murdered by the producer in the middle of filming, a fact that Maya says with the same air she might use to offhandedly comment on a passing rain or pesky traffic jam. The whole thing had been a media circus, and the show was ultimately cancelled after this episode, leaving the plot thread intact and inextricable from the lore implications going forward. The Pink Princess would start its run shortly thereafter, with an understudy taking on the role as the Evil Magistrate, and the previous Steel Samurai suiting back up to play the Pink Princess, because Global could apparently not even handle the idea of hiring a woman to play their poor attempt at a female protagonist.
Many things happened in the story thereafter, but Maya, in all her expertise as the lorekeeper, assures Franziska that only two other plot points from the prior series matter—one, the Steel Samurai and the Pink Princess eventually meet, fall in the most boringly forced love to ever grace TV screens, and have a son together, the titular Iron Infant. And two, the Evil Magistrate, after years of running amok and terrorizing the people of Neo Olde Tokyo, is defeated once and for all at the hands of the trio’s combined strength.
It’s immediately clear why the protective barrier matters, as the opening shot of the movie shows who Franziska can only assume—by the way Maya is flapping her hands about and giggling like a schoolgirl—is the Cobalt Crusader, on her solo mission through the swirling starsea. When that same forcefield pushes back on her descent—arms at her sides, eyes searing blue, body language swimming with ruthless intent—she pierces its veil with her spirit alone, one with the azure heavens themselves.
The first thing the viewer is meant to learn about Cobalt is clear from this opening scene: she is here for a reason, one she is willing to risk everything to see through to the end.
Franziska watches as the camera pans up the Cobalt Crusader, slowly revealing her body as she steps from the rubble and smoke that her rough landing caused. Her deep blue metal grieves over soot gray trousers lead to the same shade of blue tunic that covers the chainmail beneath. Her mask, the most prevalent feature of the Lusterians, has a similar metallic sheen as the others of her race, but with a slight blue hue. This blue is offset by the mask’s yellow markings, which curl around themselves, looking vaguely smoke-like.
It almost feels like too long of a shot when the camera makes it to her eyes—or rather one eye, as the other is obscured by her long bluegrey bangs—pale blue, and giving nothing away. Then, Franziska is taken aback at the way that eye, previously almost dead looking, suddenly glows bright yellow, and a gas the same color erupts from the socket. Yellow smoke rises from the Cobalt Crusader’s face, mixing with the gray haze surrounding her and making a noxious, off-green colour that rises into the air.
The camera follows the smoke as it twists into the sky, each wisp moving independently until it forms the words: “Global Studios Presents:” And with one sharp strike of a harp chord, the film’s title shoots onto the screen, reminding Franziska and presumably everyone else who had come to see the film that this is a movie featuring the Iron Infant. Franziska’s brow furrows as she lets out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding, she almost feels disappointed to be reminded that this film is not, in fact, all about the Cobalt Crusader, and would be following the story of a mere infant. How strange.
A cut to black leads to seeing the titular Iron Infant in his home with his father, The Steel Samurai of legend, and his mother, The Pink Princess, the both of them sitting on the verdant grounds of their vast, yet modest estate with their child between them. The Iron Infant is adorably attempting to walk with the aid of the Steel Samurai, who holds his hands above his head, supporting the majority of his weight.
While the child plays, the adults discuss amongst themselves the states of their various domains. It is a peaceful moment, one that this franchise does not seem to offer terribly often based on what Franziska knows from her limited viewing. But this moment, while soft and serene with the gentle blue sky and the hushed flute music playing as the adults speak, manages to keep Franziska’s guard up. There is something brewing beyond what the audience is being shown, there has to be. Franziska has enough of a grasp of story structure to know that within five minutes, this happy moment will be cut short by nefarious forces.
But the scene continues on, soft music following as the Steel Samurai eventually lets go of his child’s hands to see if the Iron Infant can take a step on his own. It is odd to see a film that promises nonstop action to focus on such a mundane, albeit sweet, moment. The Iron Infant goes to take another step before stumbling backward and landing directly on his rump with a gentle thud.
In an instant the Pink Princess leans forward and gathers her child in her arms, holding him to her chest and cooing at him before he can even begin to wail. The Iron Infant hugs his mother tight and lets out one soft sob before pulling away, resolve in his eyes as he tries to wriggle out of her grasp, ready to try once more.
Franziska watches, eyes transfixed on the screen as this idyllic scene continues, phasing into a montage showing the happy family going about their day. The lighting is soft and cheerful, though the director made an interesting choice with the actual colour of the scenes, to give everything the look of a sort of moving watercolour painting. It’s an impressive feat, Franziska decides, though she doesn’t know enough about film making to guess how the cinematographer managed to achieve this. Still, she can appreciate the almost ephemeral look that the film has taken.
“I love this sequence,” Maya says, her voice soft as if she doesn’t want to interrupt the family time. “It’s just so pretty. Kinda reminds me of growing up in the mountains.”
As Maya says this, the Steel Samurai stands vigil on screen, eyes scanning the vast night around him for danger. Behind him, the Pink Princess lays their child to sleep, pressing a kiss to his forehead before she extinguishes the candle. Again, the camera follows the small trail of smoke as it escapes out the open window of the Iron Infant’s quarters. It rises, a light grey somehow standing out in the deep purple night.
Just as Franziska is about to worry that this might be a film about the Steel Samurai protecting his child from the Cobalt Crusader, the night sky is illuminated in a bright, violet light from below. The camera shifts to reveal that the family’s estate is surrounded by a glowing violet circle with a familiar sigil in the center, albeit obscured a bit by the buildings. Franziska’s brow furrows as she looks at the sigil. Was she supposed to know what that meant?
“That’s an Iridesc sigil,” Maya says absentmindedly, as she seems to read Franziska’s mind. “They released a whole Iridesc alphabet with the Pink Princess supplemental comics, and that sigil means like...” Maya pauses and thinks as the circle tightens around the estate and the light rises into the sky, “‘Strength beyond the self.’ There’s a whole Pink Princess episode about a festival with the sigil on display. It was actually pretty good.”
Franziska is about to ask for more information, only to be cut off when the circle constricts further, until it’s directly focused only on the Iron Infant’s quarters. A geyser of violet light shoots up into the sky, looking almost like daylight despite the late hour. Gripping the sofa, Franziska leans forward, waiting to see what would become of this infant.
The Steel Samurai and the Pink Princess both try in vain to reach their baby, only for their attempts to be rebuffed by what looks to be a mystic barrier of some type. Inside the light, there is a silhouette of a baby floating in the aether. The form begins to twist and change as the parents desperately try to save their child from whatever fate may lay in store for him.
“This is why I’m insane,” Maya says under her breath throughout the scene. “I’m insane, I’m insane, I’m insa—” she cuts herself off suddenly and slides onto the floor so she can put her hand on the television screen, “okay, shut up and watch!”
“If you recall, you were the one speaking,” Franziska says softly, only to earn a withering look from Maya. “It’s the truth!”
Maya looks back at the screen in time for the light to begin to dissipate. The shape inside solidifies into a shadow of a man, and that shadow lowers until its feet are on the floor. And in that moment, he steps forward, the glow parting like a curtain for him and revealing what that light and sigil had done.
It is clear that the man who stands before his parents was the Iron Infant mere moments ago. The shadow of the child he once was hangs on his now adult features. His face is softer than his father’s is, and with the same eye shape as his mother. Where his head was bald between his top knot and his bangs, there is now long, flowing black hair that reaches the middle of his back.
Long gone are the simple child clothes he wore. His chest, now bare, shows off the iron that his name portrays, and he wears ceremonial pants similar to his father’s. Though the color is a deep, burnt orange, and tucked beneath dark grey shin guards. His skin, too, has a pattern on it that resembles his father’s, with the same blue gem on his chest from his infancy.
His parents take a step away from him, unsheathing their weapons and preparing for a battle with this new stranger. And yet, they look reluctant, conflicted. It is as if they can see that this man is their child, and yet, how can they even begin to believe that? It defies all logic, but the mysticism of this universe has its laws, and while Franziska would not believe this at all were she in that position, she can see how the Steel Samurai and Pink Princess can comprehend this. Just last week, they had defeated a yōkai who ate the souls of unlucky bachelors.
“I-Iron...?” the Pink Princess speaks up first after the trio stand together in silence for a long moment. “I... Is that... Is this you?”
The Iron Infant, though the name sounds ridiculous now, looks at his mother silently before bowing deeply at the waist, then speaking. “Forgive me, mother, father. I know not what happened. But I can assure you, it is I, your son.”
“There is nothing to forgive, my son,” the Steel Samurai says in a tone so gentle, so kind, that it’s almost surprising to hear from this warrior. He takes a moment to step forward and kneels before his son, cupping his cheek so that they might make eye contact. “You grew up so well.”
And with that, the Iron Infantryman is born. He speaks with his family, all quietly mourning the life they were promised to have together, until adventure calls. Literally. The gem on his chest begins to glow, signalling that he must go now. The Steel Samurai gives him his signature weapon, the Samurai Spear, for the journey. Iron takes it from him with a polite bow, and while he does so, the Pink Princess removes the pink pin from her hair and puts it into the top knot on Iron’s head. A token from both parents, it’s enough to choke Franziska up.
Then the film follows as the Iron Infantryman begins his journey. He moves from village to village, honing his skills and always two steps behind the mysterious blue-hued enemy, dealing with the chaos left in her wake. Poisoned water, burning buildings, and lowly minor enemies make up the majority of the second act of the film. Strangely enough, the blue enemy—who Franziska knows is the Cobalt Crusader, despite her not being named as of yet—has left no deaths in her wake, only chaos. Even the Iron Infantryman is surprised that there is not a single casualty.
It’s when he makes it to a village with a strong militia that the Iron Infantryman begins to train with real masters. He learns his way around a variety of weapons, including the kusarigama, which he takes to almost instantly. The master even remarks how it seems that this weapon was made for him. And after a few day-night cycles, the Iron Infantryman, who spent those days and nights training and helping to rebuild the village, is approached by the village blacksmith with a gift.
Franziska cannot help but be impressed with the way the narrative works to show how different the Iron Infant is from his parents. He fights differently from his father—who often takes the offensive and prefers to parry—by using his speed to dodge and flank enemies. It is hard to tell what he is thinking, unlike his mother, who quite literally looks into the camera to give her innermost thoughts to the audience. And unlike the both of them, he now has a more ranged weapon in the custom kusarigama that he keeps on his hip.
And yet, he is like his parents in many ways. He is kind and respectful, heroic in the way he valiantly steps forward to protect the denizens of Neo Olde Tokyo. He ensures that the civilians are safe before putting his life on the line to protect those who need him most. Because that was always on the forefront of his mind. Life. He was a protector first and a soldier second. Which Franziska finds very admirable.
It is only when a village to the east goes up in flames that Franziska is suddenly aware of how long the film has been going on. They are clearly in the third act of the film, and now it is time for the intense battle between good and evil. Now they are going to see the Cobalt Crusader in action. And Franziska can’t help but feel excited.
The Iron Infantryman arrives at a village that is almost only rubble at this point. There are no bodies, just smouldering ash with embers floating in the air as the Iron Infantryman steps into the destroyed village. The Iron Infantryman, as if on instinct, puts his hand on his kusarigama before seeming to think better of it and pulling the Samurai Spear from his back. It is a struggle that has been shown throughout the film, his desire to emulate his father, preserving the legacy of Steel, and his need to be himself. To forge his own path. So far, he is mostly falling back onto his father’s legacy.
“No talking during this part, okay?” Maya says as she scrambles back to the sofa. “This is it. This is it. It’s the ultimate scene, and it’ll kill us.”
The camera pans away from the Iron Infantryman, showing a shot of him standing in the center of this now desolate village. The light—almost white—grey of his skin standing out amongst the blackened charcoal of the buildings. There are remnants of what the culture once was in this village, half burnt banners, their bright colors muted by the charred sections and ash clinging to the fabric. Vendors’ stalls are toppled over, their wares spilling out and mingling in the soot on the ground, buried so that it is hard to tell what these items even were before this disaster.
It raises questions about what this village used to be. What their culture is. And most importantly, how much of it is destroyed thanks to the villainous blue blur. The lack of colour in the foreground, black, white, and orange, are contrasted by the deep blue and violet sky in the background. There is no light, aside from the full moon in the sky and the fire on the ground, cold illumination from above and burning hot sparks from below, mixing on the earthly plane between them and making the Iron Infantryman almost glow in the light.
He stands there in perfect stillness, Samurai Spear at the ready, looking so brave. So alone. His face betrays nothing, his posture rigid. Franziska is on the edge of her seat. The tension that is built by this film is palpable, she can feel the anticipation coming off of the Iron Infantryman in waves. He is ready, and so is Franziska.
A flash of blue light suddenly bursts into the frame behind the Iron Infantryman, moving so quickly that the wind from the movement makes his hair twist in the breeze. Following the blur is a plume of yellow smoke, the same miasma that had poisoned the farming villages’ well, and while the Iron Infantryman had been able to purge the poison, they still had not known about the source. Until now. Is this blue blur producing a yellow poison?
“Who goes there?” the Iron Infantryman shouts as the blue blur circles him, taking light shots at him that he is barely fast enough to deflect. As if it is testing his reflexes. Playing with him. “Reveal yourself, villain!”
It takes a moment for the Infantryman to learn his enemy’s pattern before sticking out his spear to try and stop them before they hit him. And it works! The blur stops, and is revealed to be the character from before. The one who had landed on earth with yellow hatred in her eyes—now carrying a long, dark sword on her hip.
The Cobalt Crusader stands before the Iron Infant, her near featureless face looking right at him. Her chin is tilted down toward him despite his larger frame, the light and shadows on her face showing something akin to disdain. She levels her sword at him, and for the first time in the film, Franziska hears her voice.
“You there,” the Cobalt Crusader’s voice is deeper than one would expect, a raspy near growl that sounds almost painful, “are you the guardian of this land? The Steel Samurai?”
The Iron Infantryman does not speak at first as he begins to circle her. His spear is ready for whatever she has in store. “I am a guardian, but I am no Samurai. I am—”
“If you are not the Steel Samurai, then I care not who you are,” Cobalt cuts him off, her eyes following his movements. “I want the Samurai.”
“You have me,” Iron replies, his tone becoming dangerous. “I am the Iron Infantryman.”
“Iron,” the Crusader sneers. “Untempered steel. Unsure. Immature.” She pauses and stabs toward the Iron Infantryman, making him jump back. “Weak.”
This sentiment is the opposite of what the Iron Infantryman’s masters had said earlier in the film, and while he stays stoic, it is clear that these words have him reeling. When he felt down on himself for being all those things, his masters had called him flexible and full of potential. They had told him that he is the perfect student because he was untempered. He could do anything. He could become anything.
“And how should I address you?” Iron asks.
“I am Cobalt,” she says haughtily, her chest puffing out with pride. It shows off her lustrous coat in the moonlight. “And I am here for the Steel Samurai. Do you stand in my way?”
“You are hurting innocents,” The Iron Infantryman replies, the dying flames make his face darken as he tilts his head down. He looks dangerous. “What could you possibly need from the Steel Samurai, that you would allow this much destruction?”
“Revenge.” Cobalt lashes out, making Iron jump back again. “And what could you possibly gain by protecting him? Do you have a death wish?”
“The Steel Samurai fights for everyone,” Iron replies, ignoring her verbal jabs as he dodges her physical ones. “He is a guardian. A protector. A fa—”
“He is a killer!” The Cobalt Crusader lunges forward and attacks Iron with gusto this time. She is not testing him, but trying to hurt him.
The Infantryman deflects the blow quickly and steps back, briefly caught off guard by the suddenness of her attack. To match her blow, he lunges forward with an attack of his own. While Cobalt is lightning quick, Iron is strong and steady. His attack is dodged with what looks to be ease, but Franziska can see that this was not an actual attack.
“He is no killer!” the Iron Infantryman shouts as he uses the momentum from his first attack to lead into a second one with the back of the spear.
Taking Cobalt by surprise, the blow almost makes contact. Almost. She uses her speed to duck below the attack and slip further away from him before straightening her posture. Franziska can’t help but be impressed by the choreography of this fight. It is fluid and fast, and yet it takes its time. It allows the characters to interact and speak to each other. Each word, each attack, each dodge, they mix together and build the foundations of these characters.
In just a few moments, Franziska now knows everything about the Cobalt Crusader that she needs to know. She is direct, she is strong, she is proud. And most importantly, she is angry. She called the Steel Samurai a killer as well, which likely meant that she is in mourning. The only question left is what the Cobalt Crusader could be mourning, or rather, whom she was mourning.
“Your refusal to see the truth will be your undoing,” Cobalt snaps back as she moves to one of the less smoldering buildings and jumps to the roof. She points her sword at the Iron Infantryman, its dark metal glinting in the moonlight.
It is then that it truly clicks with Franziska. That is no mere sword, just like this is no mere villain. That is the same blade that the Evil Magistrate used in the Pink Princess pilot. Its jagged cut is instantly recognizable to Franziska. What an interesting way to show that the Cobalt Crusader is connected to the Evil Magistrate before saying as much. Franziska cannot help but be impressed with the way this film does not hold the audience’s hand as it takes them through the story.
“The Steel Samurai killed my master,” Cobalt says angrily, tightening her grip on her sword. There is something in her voice, a desperate something. As if it is begging the Infantryman to tell her that she is wrong.
Iron eyes the blade with an almost familiar revulsion. “The Evil Magistrate.”
“Ask me why this makes me insane,” Maya orders, speaking up for the first time in a while. It’s enough to make Franziska almost jump. Almost.
“Why does this make you insane?” Franziska asks, not taking her eyes off of the screen.
“Ask me again after the fight,” Maya replies just as the Cobalt Crusader lets out a rueful laugh.
“Evil to you, perhaps,” says Cobalt, voice dripping with venom. Her eye glows yellow again and the smoke reappears. “But to me, he was...” she trails off for a moment, the wisps in her eyes dissipating as if to emulate a far off look, “he is a visionary.”
“Evil to us all,” the Iron Infantryman states, readying himself for an attack. “And besides, my father does not kill. If your master is truly dead, then it was his own undoing.”
“Father...” the Cobalt Crusader murmurs quietly, before readying herself to strike. “Perhaps my revenge can be exacted on his progeny, then.” A laugh escapes her, evil and angry, there is no joy in this. “Seeing his student’s remains will deal a blow to the Steel Samurai’s defense. And I will strike when he is most vulnerable.”
With that, she jumps down from the roof and makes a cutting motion with the sword, going in for what looks to be a killing blow. The Infantryman moves quickly, using the staff of his spear to parry the blow, only for the Cobalt Crusader’s blade to cut into it, leaving a deep gouge. In that instant, she kicks out her foot and lands a blow onto the Iron Infantryman’s chest.
She uses him to push off, leap back, and regain her stance, ready to strike again. Iron steadies himself with his spear, the kusarigama chain on his hip clanging with the movement. Franziska had almost forgotten about it altogether, and is now ready to see the way he uses it in conjunction with the Samurai Spear. It would be wise for the Iron Infantryman to wait for the Cobalt Crusader to dive forward and then use his strength for a counter attack.
But that is not what the Iron Infantryman does. Because the Cobalt Crusader does not attack him head on, and instead drops low and sweeps his legs. Iron jumps into the air, which seems to be what Cobalt is planning for him to do. She leaps up with him and swipes into the air again with her sword. The Evil Magistrate’s sword.
Iron may not be as fast as Cobalt is, but he is still faster than she gives him credit for. He uses his spear to deflect the blow, careful to place his hands in the right way to support the damaged shaft. It takes the blow and there is a cracking sound, as the sword’s jagged blade cuts into it. The shaft, cut and bent, is still held tight by the Infantryman as he attempts to pull the spear away from the sword, and maybe even twist it out of Cobalt’s hands.
They continue like this, trading blow after blow with increasing speed. The Iron Infantryman is fast, but the Cobalt Crusader seems to be faster. As she moves, more yellow smoke escapes her body, coating the battlefield in a haze of miasma. It makes it harder to see where she is, and therefore harder to see her movements. An effective tactic, Franziska thinks, but it is not the most honorable.
“Your tricks won’t work on me, villain,” Iron says as he blocks another attack, just in the nick of time. But he does stumble back, a bit off balance.
“This is no trick!” she cries as she kicks the Iron Infantryman in the chest, the force making him fly backwards into the last building that was still on fire. “This is my power!”
And then she is moving. The Cobalt Crusader leaps at the Iron Infantryman and lands with one foot on his chest and the other on the ground. She leans down and grabs the Iron Infantryman’s face, pushing it into the fires blazing around them. More yellow smoke pours out of the Cobalt Crusader, rising in a way that frames her face to make it look like she is wearing a wide grin.
“Untempered,” she says again, pressing his face deeper into the fire. “Unsure.” She kicks the spear away from him and it falls to the side with a thud. “Immature.” She pins down his other arm as he reaches for his spear, the metal of his face crackling as it continues to be heated. “Weak.”
The Cobalt Crusader practically spits out the last word as she roughly shoves the Iron Infantryman’s face into the flames. Franziska grips the sofa and watches as Cobalt brutalizes her opponent, their faces are not expressive, but still, somehow, Franziska can see how much pain the Iron Infantryman is in. And yet, while there is glee in the Cobalt Crusader’s voice, the smoke highlighting the grin on her face morphs into a look of something more agonized. A wounded animal lashing out.
Franziska knows that she is supposed to be rooting for the Iron Infantryman, and she is, to some extent. But...
Despite the taunting that Cobalt is doing, her voice sounds anguished, breaking as if she is ready to begin sobbing at any moment.
A heaving shout from the Iron Infantryman rings loudly as he uses all of his strength to reach for his kusarigama, and before the Cobalt Crusader can react, she is hit in the side of the head by the blade. The Infantryman knocks her away from him and rises to his feet, facing the camera as he does so.
His face, once unmarred and a pale iron, is discolored on the left side. Instead of being completely grey, it is now a very faint, almost iridescent violet color. Franziska lets out a gasp despite herself, she had no idea that the Lusterian race could be tarnished like this. The Infantryman steels himself before surging forward, now wielding his preferred weapon. He swings the bladed portion around his head, once, twice, before releasing it toward the Cobalt Crusader.
As for Cobalt, she is now on the defensive. She is now the one ducking and dodging, as a powerful monolith of a warrior steals the offensive. He lashes and she dodges, each attack meeting air or the ruined structures around them. The Cobalt Crusader releases her miasmic yellow smoke as she dodges, but the Iron Infantryman can see her silhouette in the smog and he aims for her again. This fight looks like it is going to be a test of endurance, something the Iron Infantryman is very much known for.
There is a moment, a split second in which Iron is able to get ahead of Cobalt as she tries to sneak in a shot at him. The Infantryman is fast though, he does not parry, nor does he dodge as he had been doing so earlier, instead, he uses the chain of his kusarigama to wrap around the blade of the Crusader’s sword. With one swift motion, he twists the chain and moves to pull the sword from his enemy’s grip.
The Cobalt Crusader fights this, though, pulling back… only for the Iron Infantryman to thrust the blade of his weapon forward. With the strain of the chain and the sudden impact of the kusarigama, the Cobalt Crusader’s sword, the weapon that had killed so many people in the entire Steel Samurai franchise, snaps in half with a sharp ting. Franziska’s jaw falls open as the blade of the kusarigama continues to go forward, directly into the Cobalt Crusader’s face.
Franziska wonders if the fabled Cobalt Crusader miniseries is, in fact, a prequel series, as this was how the Violet Valiant had been killed mere hours ago. She watches as Cobalt falls backward into the rubble, her half of the sword still firmly held in her hand. And as if the writers knew that their audience would be waiting for Cobalt to turn to nothing but dust, the camera holds on the deep crack in the right side of her face plate. But she does not fade.
Instead, yellow smoke escapes from the wound, and Cobalt begins to cough. As if she herself is being poisoned by the very vapor she produces. It’s sad to watch as she tries to stand up, tries to continue to fight, and Franziska’s left hand paws at her right shoulder, trying to alleviate a pain that no longer exists.
The Iron Infantryman is above her in an instant, his kusarigama in one hand and the broken sword blade in his other. He looks down at his opponent, but not with disdain, nor pity, his eyes unreadable again. There is a moment before the Cobalt Crusader sees him, and their eyes meet. They look at each other for a long while. The camera pans around them, first showing their unmarred faces, then to the opposite side, showing their scarred halves, staring at each other through their wounds.
“You mean to end this,” the Cobalt Crusader did not ask this as she moved to her knees. “You’ve bested me. It is your right.” She pauses and takes in a shuddery, coughing breath. “I am ready.”
“My father did not kill your master,” Iron says again as his grip tightens on the half blade, no doubt thinking of how easy it would be to cleave her face plate right open and be rid of her. “He is no killer.”
There is a heavy silence between the two of them. The camera pans away from them and focuses on their shadows, infinitely long and flickering in the meager light. The broken buildings almost make their silhouettes look like the Steel Samurai and the Evil Magistrate respectively. A cloud moves in front of the moon, and the flames die down, and the shadows fade, bleeding into the darkness. Leaving only the two of them.
“I am not my father,” the Iron Infantryman says after a moment.
“Very well,” replies Cobalt with a cough, lowering her head and preparing for the killing blow.
It is then that the Iron Infantryman lets the blade of the sword drop to the ashen ground. “But I am no killer,” he continues as the Cobalt Crusader’s head snaps up, “and neither are you.”
“But you bested me! By all rites, I must die!”
“Whose rites?” the Infantryman asks almost gently, in a way so kind, so soft, that Franziska can almost hear the child he once was. “My father’s? Your master’s? They are not here, are they?”
The Cobalt Crusader continues to stare at him, puzzled.
“You have committed crimes,” Iron says, his voice turning stern. “But I am not an executioner,” he kicks the blade, “and I have destroyed your weapon. You will do no more harm to the denizens of this world.”
“A criminal pays for their crimes,” Cobalt argues. “How else do I pay for what I have done other than with my life? I terrorized your people! I poisoned their water! All for my master! Do you mean to imprison me, then? No prison will hold me!”
The Iron Infantryman looks to the sky. “We are already in a prison,” he replies. “Neither of us will ever be able to leave this planet.” He pauses and regards her. An almost transparent overlay of the villages the Cobalt Crusader had plundered, the people the Iron Infant had met, and the general journey appears over the screen. “But I know what your punishment shall be.”
The Iron Infantryman falls suddenly to one knee before the Cobalt Crusader and takes her hands in his, meeting her eyes. The moon peers out from behind the cloud cover and showers them in ethereal light. The two metal figures glow in the dark night, and Franziska thinks she might want to send flowers to the cinematographer.
“Cobalt,” the Iron Infantryman says softly, and yet so strong, so firm, “in pursuing you, I have traveled throughout this great land. I have met many people, and I have grown. The only way to repent for what you’ve done, to pay for those you’ve hurt, is to do what I have done.”
He squeezes her hands and stands up, pulling her with him. “You must live, you must grow. You must heal the world you’ve harmed, and,” he looks at the crack in her mask, “and yourself as well.”
He puts a hand on her shoulder and turns her around so that she can see the vast, moonlit fields and the looming mountains further back. There are small villages before them, some homes lit up warmly as a flock of birds fly by overhead. It’s beautiful and full of life, unlike the ruin they are standing in.
“This world is vast, with much to explore,” says Iron as the camera pans away from them, transitioning to a sky-shot of the lovely night. “Much to learn. You are not your master. You are something more, and as you travel, you will learn that.”
Cobalt coughs again, though this is less of an injured cough, and more of a sobbing cough. Clearly she has never heard anything like this before. Has she ever experienced kindness in her life? Was this it? Was this the most love she’d ever been shown? Franziska’s eyes burn with tears as the Iron Infantryman turns to the Cobalt Crusader.
“I believe you can do it,” he says firmly. “And when our paths meet again, perhaps they can meet as friends.” He laughs dryly. “Or perhaps acquaintances, at the very least.”
Cobalt steps away from Iron and—earning a gasp from Franziska—bows before him, silvery tears flowing down her cheeks as she speaks. “I will get stronger! And when next we meet, I will defeat you!”
The Iron Infantryman chuckles and moves to walk away.
“I look forward to that.”
The camera focuses on him venturing away, leaving the Cobalt Crusader standing in the ruin she’d created. It shows him picking up the spear before bolting off in the direction of his family’s estate. To return home to the family he’d left behind. Perhaps he would be trying to find a way to become a child again?
Franziska watches as the movie winds down to end. The Iron Infantryman returns the spear to his father, bowing deeply in apology at not taking care of it, only for the Steel Samurai to pull his son into a hug and lead him to his old quarters where the Pink Princess waits. While Iron was away, his parents worked to reverse the sigil. To revert him back to who he was.
But Iron does not step into the sigil. Instead he steps away and shakes his head, apologizing to them. He tells them that he must go his own way, and that even though they lost so much time with him as a child, he could now love them in a different way. A more mature way. That he could fight by their sides to protect those they held dear. But most importantly, he can forge his own path.
The credits begin to roll, showing the sprawling fields that Iron had been walking throughout the film. Checking in on those he’d helped. The rebuilding of homes, of lives. The way people live and love. Children playing, parents loving, and animals frollicking. All as the Iron Infantryman walks through them, with his kusarigama on his hip.
And as the music winds down, the camera pans off to the forest’s edge. There, hidden in the shadows, stands the familiar, cloaked figure of the Cobalt Crusader. She lurks there, watching as the Infantryman walks by, eyes trained on him with the broken sword at her side. There is no smoke escaping her, and she isn’t hurting anyone. Simply… observing.
Then, there is a fade to black as the credits roll in earnest, playing the same flute from the beginning. The song is a mature remix of what played earlier, showing the change from his infant self. Franziska can’t help but to be impressed by the... everything of this film. Her eyes scan the screen, making note of who did what in these credits as she had immense respect for their work.
When the ending credits have been bled for all they’re worth—scrolling past nothing more than production logos and final thanks—Franziska finds the breath she lets out does not ease the sense of longing hanging heavy in her chest. This late into her night, with illness mucking up the gears of her ever-turning mind and unmatched eloquence, she’s not sure she can put words to exactly what she’s feeling… yet still, she finds she gets what Maya was saying about yearning for more.
Through burning, bleary eyes Franziska gazes into the oracle of the Blu-Ray menu, a foolish impulse tugging like a petulant child at her tongue. Her iron will wavers. She does not look at Maya as she speaks, aching blues still on the picture where Iron and Cobalt were poised like statues mere minutes ago.
“So…” she begins, “about that miniseries.”
Maya guffaws, choking on her own air, and it turns into a half-cough, half-laugh hybrid. She’s misty-eyed when her and Franziska finally meet each other’s gaze, whether that’s from the faulty attempt at breathing or the emotional ending to the movie, no one can properly say. There’s a softness that enters her expression when she finally has a moment, softer still in the glow of the idling TV screen. With the sun fully set and the curtains closed, Maya’s features outline themselves in fuzzy-blue, an ethereal sort of silhouette that ties her to the ghosts she speaks to.
“It’s pretty late, Fran,” says Maya, “And you look like hot garbage.”
“Franziska.” It’s impassioned, this time, imploring. “And I am perfectly fine. I’ve stayed up far later in circumstances much more harrowing than these.”
“Oh yeah?” There’s a… knowing of sorts that shifts Maya’s grin, playful and unspoken. “You’d risk your good health for a couple more hours of my favourite Blue Baddie?”
“I don’t believe that is her name,” says Franziska. “Insert the blasted disk.”
Clearly enjoying herself just as much, that is exactly what Maya does, the sluggish way about her betraying the fondness written across her every feature. Franziska makes herself comfortable, arranging her limbs on the quickly-deflating cushions of her brother’s deceptively comfortable couch—she hadn’t realized her legs were asleep until right this moment, still as stone while she watched the story unfold.
Where was Cobalt headed, eyes far-off and contemplative in that final scene? Franziska and all her steely resolve knew that she could wait to find out, if she really had to. Thankfully, this was a much more glorious timeline, where the anticipation didn’t need try her, where she had far too much time and all the resources necessary to witness that winding path unfold.
The miniseries picks up right where the movie leaves off—Cobalt’s end of things, at the very least. Here, she is alone, cloaked in shadow by a long, navy blue cape, one which obscures her face and features and allows her to move through the shadows undetected. Before anything else—before the plot kicks in, before the formula reveals itself, before any action dares to blare its cacophony across the screen… the first thing that Franziska notices about this show is that it is masterfully silent.
Perhaps she was stuffy and pretentious, but Franziska found much more artistic merit in quiet than she did in any form of noise. Crusade of Compunction has this in spades, at least from the outset—a good ten minutes pass with no dialogue spoken, save for the echoing, dreamy blur of Iron’s voice as it recites once more the speech from that final fight. It’s overlaid atop a blinding white screen, not a single speck daring to marr the pristine, incandescent void. When the picture zooms out, we can see it’s the sun burning high above a long stretch of cracked, barren earth.
It’s here where Cobalt finds herself, in a small desert settlement far away from proper society. Franziska’s reminded of some sort of old western-style film, all quiet streets and swinging doors, but Cobalt has not come here to quickdraw against some no-name foe that she will most certainly defeat. No, this opening scene is just her… watching. Sitting on porchstep outside some sort of eatery, observing the human civilians as they exist in a warble of distant footsteps and scattered, passing conversations. In the glint of Cobalt’s eye, the audience is shown what can be assumed to be a father and daughter hugging in the desert sun.
This first episode of the miniseries makes the very bold decision to have present-day Cobalt speak not a single line of dialogue. She moves from settlement to settlement over an extended period of time—the leaves yellow and fall around her, the snow blanches their warmth away—always just watching. Watching the people who live on this planet, her expression unmoving as she tries to… understand something. There is no hand-holdy voiceover, no shoehorned-in recap, no point where Cobalt turns to the camera or declares with her whole heart precisely what it is she wants, desires, dreams. The wrath of her simmers down to something more curious, analytical, observant.
Toward the episode’s conclusion lies a perfect little bookend, as the silent protagonist sits, one leg up, in the crook of a shady tree where branch meets trunk. So late into springtime it may as well be summer, Cobalt watches as an array of youngfolk scamper rambunctiously around an overgrown forest clearing, down the path from a massive, sparkling lake. Far off enough that they aren’t likely to find her, high up enough that she can see everything within a rather vast stretch, her eyes are trained on two boys in particular. One older, one younger—brothers? Cousins? Friends?—with makeshift, splintering practice swords in their hands. Mid-spar, they stop themselves, laughing. Clearly someone said something a bit too humorous in the throes of battle, clearly neither of them could focus on their footwork or stances or parrying while they were distracted by the giggles. One of them turns around, though—his back to the other, as if to check something in the distance—and his partner charges him with a sneak attack, a half-hearted, unserious battle cry bursting from his lungs.
Again, only the reflection of this final moment is shown. Painted in saturated, shimmering blue in the sprawl of Cobalt’s eyes. A single shot, then, of that same colour laid across a sword as it falls to the ground, and the viewer is meant to believe it’s that same wooden one tumbling from the boy’s hands, but… no, the backdrop is too different, and the blade as well. Its tarnished shape clangs against a barren wasteland, poisoned earth where nothing can grow. Slowly enough that Franziska doesn’t even register it, the shades of sapphire leach from the world, leaving only a dismal grey in their wake, until…
Until the blue returns in a flash. Not across the picture, though—condensed entirely into a single, tiny hand as it reaches out, gripping the sword.
It must be long in the past. That much is made clear when the camera cuts, then pans up from the unmistakable, glinting greaves of the Evil Magistrate, alive and well and looking just as sinister as ever. He seems to regard the lifeless sprawl around him with muted disinterest, and Franziska knows enough about this dastardly fiend to know that likely means… this destruction was not wrought by his own hand. No, the Magistrate was a reveling, revolting reprobate, the kind who’d look upon death and ruination with his blood pumping fire and his sword raised in triumph. Such an unaffected glance at a place like this… surely, he hoped for more from this planet, rotting in the darkness of space where nothing of value could grow.
Indifferent, then, he plods back through the gnarl of leafless, aubergine trees with a dull swish of his cape. A wide shot of him walking back to his vessel follows, drilling home the desolation of this forsaken chunk of land. Everything as far as the eye can see is blanketed in what appears to be a thick, yellow miasma—no doubt the toxic agent responsible for condemning any life that might have attempted to thrive here. The Magistrate, curiously, does not seem bothered by its thickness or blight, carrying on as he would in any other place, gait strong and eyes forward-facing.
In a precise, sudden cut, he vanishes from the picture. That sword is there, again, as is the little blue hand that grips it. Back to the Magistrate and the silence that surrounds him, sauntering and unaware… and then back to the little warrior, this time the rapid heartbeat of her tiny legs pounding their metallic clang against the earth. A forward-facing shot of the Magistrate tells the viewer that he hears this sound as it gains ground, closes in—and then he’s turning over his shoulder with narrowed eyes, allowing the audience to take in the sight alongside him.
She leaps high above his head, her sword glinting impossibly in the light of the unseen stars. A tiny girl—in earth years, she couldn’t be more than six—with a rousing, guttural, practiced battle-roar on her tongue, expression passionately furious as she charges the fiend. Overgrown, silvery hair matted with twigs and sticks, eyes somehow tired and aged beyond their years. And, of course, the shine of her metal skin—scratched and just barely tarnishing, chipped around the edges, oddly unrusted, and cobalt blue.
Same as she’s always been, Cobalt’s a brilliant azure streak as she darts through the world. What will someday become cold, calculating, meticulous combat skills are raucous and imprecise in this ephemeral long, long ago. Spirit and passion crackle off her, flames of a different colour that burn twice as hot, but that passion in itself is far too ruthless and untempered, hardly enough to win her any fights. She is all brute force and swinging arms, gnashing teeth and wild eyes, and it is no surprise to Franziska that the Magistrate catches her mid-slash. In a gesture that looks deceptively gentle, he grabs her flailing wrist in his massive, armoured fingers. She hangs there, suspended, thrashing like a feral cat that’s been scruffed.
A close-up of the Magistrate’s face shows a sort of… curiosity in his acrid eyes. When Cobalt’s sufficiently tired herself out, she juts out her little jaw and stares right back at him, unimpressed with his stature or strength. Another wide shot in profile—this time, of the two of them in near-black silhouette, facing one another, unmoving. It looks exactly like a shot of him Franziska’s seen before.
Gingerly, then, he lowers her to the ground. Simmering down, Cobalt plants her feet, holds her stance, but does not raise her sword again. Up close, she really does look worse for wear, all ratty garments and messy, unkempt hair, but despite the damage elsewhere, her sheen is oddly healthy. As if its glisten is declaring aloud its spotlessness and resilience, the world won’t dull my gleam so easily.
This poisoned world is quiet. Is there anyone here, besides this little girl? The Magistrate seems to wonder, too, sweeping his head around in a wide, contemplative gesture. After a moment’s pause, he looks back down at the young girl, something seeming to settle in his expression. Having decided, then, the Magistrate slowly and methodically crouches, pressing one goliath knee to the ground until he’s eye-to-eye with his david.
Cobalt flinches. Around them, the noxious pools of searing bile-yellow sizzle and pop, an oddly ambient song of toxin and decay. There is no other sound for miles—no far-off voices or animals to call, no whistle of healthy wind through the nonexistent foliage, no burble of society or crackling of campfire. Only the sound of the world as it rots, the shuffling of fabric as the Magistrate moves.
Slowly, then, he pulls a gloved hand from its rest at his side. Cobalt sets her face, still just flexing her jaw hard in an attempt to look tougher, bigger. Her whole body tensed, ready for an attack, ready to be slain, calculating in her head how best to thrust her rusty sword forward, fight against all odds to fell this monolith ten times her size—
The bite of his blade never comes. Heavy against her skin, the Magistrate’s hands do something that the story has never dared to show them doing before. With the bulk of his massive golden gauntlet pressed against her cheek, with his arm outstretched to bridge the gap in between them, with a lack of any intent to hurt in his subdued, benign stance…
The Magistrate soothes the lonely child. Laying his hand on her left shoulder, he presses the pad of one thumb into its indent and squeezes, as if to wordlessly say, it’s okay.
What’s okay? Franziska doesn’t know, and yet… she also, somehow, does, with utmost clarity. Something watery claws at her throat. She swallows hard, setting her lips into a firm line.
Who was Cobalt, before it all? Before this moment, even? Seemingly all alone on this deadly, venom-soaked wasteland, left to fend for herself. Masterfully, this show has made a point to always assume the utmost intelligence of its audience—the absolute antithesis of Pink’s poorly-crafted tale—and so it does not explain in meticulous detail what’s happening, here. That’s what makes it so wonderful, though—Franziska can decide for herself, that the Magistrate saw some mangy squirt fully ready to kill him and adored her on the spot. That he knew, from day one, that she was a warrior to one day be feared.
In two hours’ time, Maya is falling asleep upright. Every so often, really, it comes in little waves—her head dips, her body lists, she jolts awake right before falling off the couch to her relatively inconvenient doom. Casting tired, bleary eyes at the wall-clock, Franziska can see that it’s just past eleven PM, which is far past her own limit, even when she’s perfectly healthy. They’re so close to the ending, though—a small handful of episodes left—better judgment and foolishly childish desires tangle in Franziska’s heart like a pair of bloodthirsty serpents. Her head is pounding, her sinuses feel like they’re packed full of concrete, all the mouth-breathing she’s doing is ruining her throat. They can finish tonight if they try, though, a fact that mutes every symptom to dull background noise more effectively than anything Franziska’s ever known.
Maya snorts herself awake, again, but this time it turns into a dreadful, mucousy cough. It’s punctuated with a trailed-off moan of pain when she manages to regain control of her lungs, which tilts the scale of Franziska’s heart back to something a bit more sense-motivated.
She swallows twice in an attempt to wet the dry ache in her voice. “Maybe we ought to—”
“No! No, no, no, shut up!” says Maya, oddly emphatic. That’s not her usual brand of rudeness, and the confusion must show on Franziska’s face, because she carries on, “Sorry. I just mean, um, we can’t talk over this part. We can’t. Trust me. Just watch.”
Of any of the things it’d be wise to trust Maya Fey about, there’s probably few that come close to this. Curious, then, Franziska brings her gaze back to the screen, where there’s a wide, blurry shot of Cobalt at some sort of cemetery shrine. Buried in the woods, far away from society, dense with fog, the hazy blue shape of her crystallizes into itself as she passes beneath the massive scarlet torii, down the stone steps into a lowered plot of stone. The giant memorial lies within a shallow moat, and is flanked on every side by an abundance of sotoba, each shape and scrawl unique from the last. There in the shade of a massive, sacred, blossoming cherry tree, Cobalt finally kneels at the dais of the enormous headstone, flat palms splayed against its cold marble. She stares forward for a moment, allowing the atmosphere to exist quietly around her… and then presses her forehead down into the stone, prostrate before its majesty as cherry blossoms fall like little pink tears upon her back.
Two shots follow. The first is zoomed out, profile, which is starting to become a trademark of the better installment in this franchise. The camera falls back into treecover, showing the scene through a shady aperture of uneven leaves—in its center is Cobalt on hands and knees, silent as she pays respects. This scene lingers for a beat too long, driving home its quietude, which is not quite… unnerving, but certainly something Franziska feels is meant to be private. Face in the dirt, Cobalt does not make a single sound. All that fills the wordless space is the warble of nature around her and the deceased—far-off birdcalls, bugs in the thicket, the breeze that errantly shakes more petals from the tree, the trickling sound of running water as those same petals bob across the water’s pristine surface.
The next shot is of Cobalt raising her head while the view pans up her backside. Slowly, cinematically, her shoulderblades roll around, and then she is sliding her palms back to their rest on her folded legs. The shot crawls further above her, though—above her long, silvery ponytail and the rosy flowers that dot it, until it’s holding there on the headstone…
…where, carved in effigy forevermore, lies a stone sculpture of the Violet Valiant’s mask.
In profile, again, Cobalt looks it in its vacant eyes, still electing to say nothing. What is there to say, and who is she to say it? Instead, she swivels to undo her satchel, taking from it something amber-coloured, jewels that glisten in the early dawn. Pieces of the Seeing Stone, that much is clear from the looping engravings still visible on the golden shards. How and when the artifact was destroyed, Franziska doesn’t yet know… but Maya’s silence in this moment answers enough of that question, a lack of excitable lore-dumping that speaks for itself, that all can wait.
Cobalt lays the shards at the buried, pink pedestal, spreading out their shape with fingers splayed, black void atop a gilded sun. When there is nothing more she can do or say, she casts one lingering, enigmatic gaze at the memorial before her. Having done all she’s come here to do, then, the warrior rises to her feet to take her leave…
…and immediately tenses when she hears something shuffling in the foliage behind her.
It’s a near imperceptible sound, one she only has ears for after years of training. She has half a mind to snap her sword, but the thing’s only half-tempered and her better instincts kick in right after, reminding her that there’s nothing even close to resembling a threat, way out here on the mountain. Nothing but…
Well. Herself.
She’s got the right mind not to draw her blade. Still, her trembling hand rests atop its hilt, instinct more than anything. Cobalt trains her icy gaze on the path behind her—beyond the torii, up the steps, far out down the cobble path to where the trees first break. Standing in the void of them, hands harmless and limp at her sides, is the unmistakable silhouette of the Pink Princess.
Side-by-side, in that comparative profile Global Studios loves so much, Cobalt shuffles fluidly—her half-turned-around shifting into a full one. Her hand is shaking atop the metal of her sword. The reborn sword that she inherited from her dead master. The sword that he used to slay without mercy this innocent woman’s only family.
With Pink at the threshold of the shrine, with Cobalt down in the pit of it, for the first time in a very long time, there is someone standing above her. Another breeze swirls the mist, hanging high and turning Pink’s outline fuzzy around the edges, shaking more cherry blossoms from the tree above.
Cobalt peers up at Pink, at her and the distant blue sky that frames her, an endless backdrop of colour. Pink peers down at Cobalt, decorated head-to-toe in blushing pastel petals. Neither of them say anything, the forest noise crooning its song around their silence.
There’s nothing more to do. Cobalt puts one foot in front of the other, then—back up the steps, in no rush, not looking at Pink as she goes. Their shoulders nearly brush as they pass like silent ships aloft a churning sea. Nearly… but not quite.
Pink nearly trips on her feet, the way she swirls around to regard the eversharp cut of Cobalt’s shoulders as they disappear from view. Back into the forest, where she vanishes into the blackness of the treeshade. For a long, long moment, Pink watches unmoving as Cobalt goes—wind in her shock of silvery hair, stance uniform and strong as ever. The mourning warrior does not turn around, does not dare cast another look at what is behind her. The Cobalt Crusader, whoever she is now, looks only toward the path that lies ahead.
The episode ends.
Franziska is pulled out of her trance by Maya Fey screaming loud enough to shatter her brother’s windows.
“I’m fucking insane!” she declares, complete and total non sequitur that Franziska somehow understands.
“I thought you said they barely spoke?!” Franziska snaps her head to Maya, who is… rocking in her seat, once more, wiggling rhythmically against the sprawl of blankets and used tissues.
“That was it!” Maya shouts, so hoarse she sounds like someone else. “That was their single interaction!”
Franziska nearly chokes on her air. “That was it?!”
“Read my lips, Franziska von Karma,” Maya stares her down, unmoving suddenly, deadly serious, “that. Was. It.”
“I…” Franziska looks big-eyed at where she’d been white-knuckled, gripping Miles’ poor sofa with such a ferocity it’s a miracle the stuffing isn’t forced to burst free. There’s still a crescent-moon indent right below her fingertips, though, proof of endless focus and masterful storytelling.
“Yeah, man,” Maya says when it becomes clear Franziska is not going to find the words any time soon. “I told you. That’s what fanfiction’s for.”
A yawn splits her face—big, loud, quintessentially Maya. She sinks back into the cushions, pulls the blanket over her shoulder, and shimmies herself down into a nest of her own bedhead, looking delightfully snug.
“Anyways, that’s the only reason I was staying awake,” Maya says, shutting her eyes. “You can keep going. My ass is out.”
“Are you certain?” asks Franziska. “Won’t the noise—”
Apparently not, is the answer to that, because Maya starts snoring immediately. Her eyes haven’t even been shut for a minute before she’s out like a light, overworked immunity intent to make up for all the lost time. Again, Franziska’s struck at how different they are, despite the things they have in common—she herself could barely sleep through the morning birdcall, and Maya, it seemed, would dream through the apocalypse.
Looking at her snoozing, Franziska’s own eyes feel every bit of their sore, aching weight. All she’s yearned to do all day is sleep this dreadful thing off, and at the same time, there’s an itch of undeniable restlessness that still settles over her like a palpable rot. Tidying has helped it, and the story unfolding on TV has been a nice distraction, but she will hardly complain when she’s back to her work. Back to existence. Back to fair health.
She should sleep. If she sleeps, tomorrow will come faster, and she’ll be back to her regular life.
Franziska arranges herself to a more comfortable position, takes a deep breath, and carries on watching
Later, much later into the night, she is still awake despite herself. As previously boasted, Franziska would be the first to tell anyone she was a professional. Late nights, early mornings, days without rest, they were all more than doable. Not preferred, though—she was a genius, and thus she was smart enough to know that one of the core tenets of keeping the mind sharp was an ample amount of rest.
As such, she can’t remember the last time she got to properly breathe in the atmosphere of the dead of night like this. On Hazakura, her focus was elsewhere—certainly not on the admittedly gorgeous mountain sights. Franziska finds she likes the witching hour for the same reason she likes the early stretch of morning—the world is quiet here. There is no bustle, no cacophony, no trifling noise of people and their refusal to keep to themselves. Only empty roads, shuttered blinds, far-off lights, and the muffle of moonlit snow.
Snow, Franziska does know to adore. With its wonderful way of making the silence so much moreso, the wonderful paradox of it amplifying that absence of sound. Snow did wonderful things in sparing her the headache. Always, and especially in the furthest reaches of darkness.
Atmospheric, that’s the only word coming to mind. This moment is pure, pristine atmosphere. Out the window, the snow is piling up quite nicely, and not a single soul dares disturb the peace of it. What little noise exists is a perfect hum of idyllics—the purr of the cranked heater as its kiss fills the room, the low-volume clashing of blades and burble of voices on TV, the muted, wheezy, metered breathing of Maya Fey beside her as she sleeps off what Franziska hopes is the last of her illness. Of course, even with Maya’s insistence that the show’s commotion wouldn’t be a problem, Franziska couldn’t help but lower the volume regardless, just in case.
A small part of her regrets that decision. Perhaps it would be alright for Maya to stir a little, because she’s… well, she’s asleep on Franziska. Somehow—Franziska doesn’t know how—all her rearranging and wiggling around and half-awake shuffling has placed the snoozing girl directly on Franziska’s shoulder. Being this close to someone is… nerve-wracking, if not interesting in its novelty. She can feel the rise and fall of Maya’s chest as she breathes deep, hear the slight whistle in every inhale, feel her body heat simmer down as Franziska’s own immune system throws a scalding fit. Perhaps that’s why things wound up this way—seeking warmth in sleep, Maya instinctively and unconsciously reached for the feverish girl.
Maya’s tangled strands of hair tickle the oversensitive skin on Franziska’s neck, and her legs are falling asleep, and her headache is about ten minutes away from being unbearable, but thankfully there is only ten minutes of Cobalt left in existence. Here, at the last episode of the miniseries, is where Cobalt’s story ends, for now. If Maya’s expertise is not to suddenly fail her, word has not yet come of a season two. Wherever and however this ends, Franziska is about to find out. Then and only then will she finally shut her own eyes and resign herself to sleep.
For a season finale, though, this episode is oddly plain, a fact that fills Franziska with the sort of ominous trepidation one might experience when viewing an ugly black stormcloud amid the sunny horizon.
Deep into her solo journey, Cobalt has experienced more than a few run-ins with her old foe, The Iron Infantryman. Most of these encounters have leaned on the adversarial side, but it’s clear how one-sided those feelings truly are—while Cobalt still seems to resent Iron for forcing her to live on this prison of a planet and confront all she’s done and all she’s lost, it’s clear that Iron sees something otherwise unseen in her. Whatever that is, the audience is left to guess—but he is merciful now as he’s always been, imparting his wisdom and moving onto the next thing in his own personal journey. A curious paradox, the Infantryman is—toeing the line between child and adult, forced to live in some blurry line on the outskirts of both, somehow far more emotionally mature than any of his peers. A child who chose to grow up too fast, Cobalt’s own strange mirror-image. It’s that choice, of course, that makes all the difference.
Iron usually doesn’t stick around for long. For this episode, though, it seems he’s here to stay—him and Cobalt cross paths in a village plagued by a mysterious assailant, and as they track the ne’er-do-well down it becomes increasingly apparent that this shadow is blighting every single commune within the bounds of the countryside. Iron and Cobalt, rather charmingly, are reluctantly working together as they chase the perp’s trail, snuffing out any clues left behind that may reveal his location. For reasons that are fairly obvious, Franziska can’t help but feel a certain fondness as she watches this plotline in particular—especially when Cobalt gets fussy about marred crime scenes and overly meticulous with details. Wild thing that she is in battle, it’s easy to forget that Cobalt is also a calculating, clever strategist.
For all the ways they butt heads, they are a surprisingly effective duo, and Franziska is beginning to see the makings of a season two hidden there in their unlikely partnership. She’s musing internally on what that might look like in the long-term when the action onscreen ramps itself up, when they find them.
The scourge of the northern countryside is cloaked head to toe in long, flowing robes—a shadow to the ones Cobalt herself wore for most of her journey, but far deeper black. Shadow, it seems, is a rather apt name for them—always disappearing like a phantom before anyone can track them down, land upon them a single blow, demand they answer for looting and destroying, ransacking all these villages and bleeding them dry of their resources for unknown purposes. True to their reputation, they run when they see the pair of Lusterians charging them—away from society, into the woods, darting with masterful form off the beaten path through the trees.
Cobalt and Iron bark out a synchronized command to halt, but the shadow pays them no mind, fleeing with their spoils. There’s nothing the two of them need say to one another, then—they both give chase, sprinting off into the foliage behind their mark.
There’s a lingering shot on Cobalt’s determined face as she pursues the phantom. Truly, this whole episode has, on a meta level, been setting up another leg of her story—but even if that’s not in the cards, it’s clear she’s meant to find herself, soon. Alongside Iron, chasing this villain down from town to town, it’s becoming abundantly clear—it was never conquest or chaos that the Cobalt Crusader loved. It was fighting.
From that first moment the audience is brought into her world, Cobalt is fighting. Her sword like a lifeline, clutched in her palm. Silvery sweat beading on her temple, teeth grit hard as she grins in the throes of battle. Her feet planted firm on the soil, dug into the ground as she overpowers her every foe. That wicked, uproarious laugh that she always used to belt in her more devious days, full in the lungs and straight from the heart… it rang true not for any evil in her soul, but because that shining white soul burned brightest only when she was fighting for a cause she believed in.
So long spent wandering this planet since her defeat at Iron’s hands, so long without something in her life worth protecting. For so long, her unrelenting will had screamed its throat raw for vengeance—she’d come here to kill the samurai that took her charge away, to feel him go limp beneath the cut of her blade or die trying. Once she’d exacted her revenge, wandering the sprawl of the planet he’d been forced to call a tomb would be a funeral procession, a memorial walk of sorts, one she’d be happy to honour for the rest of her days. And in the unlikely event that she died, she’d die for a cause she believed in with everything she was.
All of it was laid out so neatly in front of her, each branching path accounted for and considered. For so long, Cobalt felt herself a fool for not considering this impossible, improbable, mysterious third—that she would not win, nor would she perish, that she would be left to wander in the grey space between. A curse if she’d ever known it—she’d sworn, those venomously noble words Iron had spoken to her were some sort of wicked incantation.
Here on earth, though… these fleshy, weak, horrendously over-emotional creatures that Cobalt had once viewed as nothing more than worms beneath her heel… well. They had shown her something that she’d only ever known in one other person—they had shown her love.
So many years spent starving and alone, fending for herself, Cobalt had learned that the greatest thing a person could be was strong. It was that strength that earned her the respect of the Magistrate, it was that strength that made anyone who crossed her bend beneath her reign, and it was that strength that so often poisoned her from the inside-out, untempered and sloppy and… imprecise with grief. She could no longer hone it, when the love vanished and the grief and righteous anger took its place.
No, the greatest thing a person could be was not strong. The greatest thing a person could be was kind.
Some semblance of understanding breaks across her face as she runs—there is plenty here worth fighting for, should she choose to see its worth.
A second wind comes over her alongside the thought of it. Cobalt bursts through the trees, her eyes never leaving the void of flapping robes before her. The camera shows Iron as he’s left in her dust, entirely unable to keep up with the sheer speed at which she’s going, yellowy plumes of smoke trailing after the blur of her. Never before has she used her powers this way, but there’s a sense of control in the way she holds herself that tells of artful finesse. Gilded streaks of the acrid miasma leak from the glow of her eyes, up toward a sunset of the same colour where they vanish into singularity against the landscape. Slowing down in what can only be described as amused resignation, Iron hangs his head playfully and lets her go. The story leaves him be, then—his eyes gazing forward at Cobalt as she chases the horizon, every inch of his silver skin turning golden in the rays of the newborn dusk.
After a rather dynamic sequence of Cobalt and the shadow hopping from tree to shuddering tree, the cover of the forest recedes around them. They erupt from the shade and into a twilit clearing, a grassy knoll crowned by a massive hill. It is not, of course, that there is nowhere to run—around the pair lies a sea of emerald, blades swaying in beautiful waves as far as the eye can see—simply, that the openness of the quiet world around them seems to whisper halt, now. The shadow, curiously, complies with this unspoken command. Their bootsteps slow, their robes settle, they peter out toward the top of the hill. Cobalt, much less gracefully and halfway through her sword-draw, skids to a sudden stop of her own. She slows there at the incline’s base, eyes flickering yellow-blue like a faulty breaker, smoke still rising from their shape.
The shadow is quiet, as they’ve always been. For a moment, they stay with their back to the warrior, unmoving and uninterested, eyes on the dipping sun as their jet-black silhouette cuts a void into its shape. Slowly, then, they turn on one heel, facing Cobalt at three-fourths. When the reverse-shot holds on her, she seems… uncharacteristically frozen to the spot. Wordless, motionless, not at all the guarded thing the audience knows her to be. Franziska, a bystander on the outskirts, has the thought that Cobalt has figured something out that she herself has not. Something uneasy spreads cold across her nerves, mirroring Cobalt’s own state of mind.
All is revealed mere moments later. Staring off at the vast, verdant swaths of swirling grass, the shadow finally moves. Raising their arms to the lip of their hood, gingerly curling their gloved hands around its shape. Every lagging millisecond of this gesture is leaden with suspense, and when the moment finally comes and the hood is pulled back, it is not the shadow’s face we see. No, it is Cobalt’s—her eyes growing wide, their wavering yellow solidifying once again, sparking and searing and acidic and furious. Just as soon as their azure fades do the tears come—as though she is, in every sense of the phrase, weeping the very colour from her seething, wrathwrought, grieving gaze.
There atop the hill like an aged king, outlined in resplendent phoenixfire by the setting sun, stands the Evil Magistrate, a dead man walking.
The final shot of the episode is Cobalt’s sword clattering to the ground. After the abrupt cut to pitch black, the audience is left only with the agonized, raw-voiced, guttural scream as it bursts unfettered from her lungs.
It’s only pure instinct that spares Franziska from unleashing the same noise. Her hand races to her mouth, clamped there uncomfortably like she’s about to be sick. Wheezing through the narrow spaces in her fingers, clenching every muscle in her face in an attempt to make less noise, bank the flow, cease this uncontrollable blubbering. Squeezing her eyes shut doesn’t stop the tears from falling, in fat, excessive, hot streaks down her face and onto her knuckles. She, at least, has the good sense to gut the tissue box before her nose starts running—with barely seconds to spare, it seems.
There’s never a quiet build-up with Franziska. Never the time to prepare for the deluge of tears and their overpowering chokehold. This late in life, she knows it’s her own fault for allowing the dam to fill and fill despite how it cracks and shudders in warning. It’s all she’s ever known, though, and she’s not sure she has the faintest idea of how to stop.
Every lurch pounds relentlessly at the ache in her head and the fever in her bones and the pressure behind her sore, sore eyes. Until she’s ready to calm herself, she’ll sob as quietly as she’s able—she can’t be waking Maya, after all.
The noise of the television finally concludes. Its silence joins the serenity of the falling snow, the dormant world, the vacant roads, the sleeping house.
Eventually, bittersweetly, so does Franziska.
The first thought of the morning is an odd one, novel as it takes shape in Franziska’s fuzzy head—she doesn’t remember the last time the sunshine woke her up.
After that come the more sensible thoughts. That her throat is parched and screaming, that her nerves ache down to her fingers, that it’s far too cold in Miles Edgeworth’s awful, disorganized, gaudily-decorated, horribly drafty house. That her eyes and nose are buzzing uncomfortably, that her lungs are protesting all the same, that she’s experiencing some sort of nonalcoholic hangover and needs to get her hands on whatever antidote may exist, stat.
The absurd thoughts return. There’s footsteps somewhere nearby. Someone, impossibly, is awake before her.
“Hey, lazybones,” comes Maya’s voice, hoarse around the edges but sounding much better, “you still among the Living?”
Franziska’s going to open her mouth and respond to that, before that aforementioned buzzing ignites in her sinuses and forces her to sneeze a good four times instead. Horribly afflicted sounding things, and the dreadful, watery way she sniffles thereafter isn’t much kinder on the ears. Maya makes a noise of appropriate disgust, her lilting soprano drawing a bit closer while Franziska curls in toward the wall of the couchback.
“I’ll take that as a no, I guess,” says Maya with a performative air of disappointment. “Alright, then, here’s the plan—I’m gonna pop a half-lotus and yoink your spirit from the aether. Once you’re wearing the Me Suit, you’re gonna drink this tea I made you, and it’s gonna be so baller that it yeets you straight outta my body and back into your own, good as new. You cool with that?”
Most of that was nonsense. Franziska’s throat begs her not to attempt an answer, which might be why her only response is, “Did you say you’ve made tea?”
Her voice is atrocious to her own ears when she hears it, accent thick and slurring from the leavings of a long, much-needed rest. Maya chirps out an affirmative at her bedside, and when Franziska finally cracks her weepy gaze open, the girl looks every bit as recovered as she sounds. The colour’s returned to her face, healthy and dark brown instead of the ashy pallor she had about her just yesterday. Those rosy tones are back at her chubby cheeks, too—far less sore and irritated, telling only of her undefeated vitality.
“Yup! Drink up,” says Maya, holding out a steaming mug. “My final parting gift to you, before you run off again to do all your big important lawyer junk.”
“I… yes,” Franziska crackles out as she rises, wincing all the way. Exceedingly careful, she takes the little container of warmth from Maya’s hands. “Thank you.”
Silent for a moment, she closes her eyes as if to pray to the billowy steam that rises off it. Held there at her lips, its kiss curls up into her face, shakes loose the congestion throbbing in her skull. It’s still rather hot, but that isn’t to be helped—Papa always told her that tea was best enjoyed one meager notch below scalding, that a pinch of pain was often necessary if one was to enjoy a great many of life’s pleasures.
Papa had been wrong about countless things. Never about tea, though. Certainly not about tea.
She’s mastered the art of not wincing when the heat singes her. This time, though, she nearly breaks—not from the shock of the temperature, no, but because the flavour throws her off her game. Thinking on it now, Franziska isn’t sure what she was expecting the alternative to be, but…
“…this… is my favourite blend.”
“Uh, yeah?” says Maya, grinning that uneven grin. “What, you want me to brew you one of Edgeworth’s shitty earl greys?”
“I…” Franziska looks into the dark waters, taking another slow sip before speaking, “I don’t recall disclosing to you my preferences.”
“I know my way around a crime scene.” Maya gestures vaguely at the kitchenette. “And how to draw a conclusion or two from what I find there. We ain’t so different, you and I.”
It’s Franziska’s turn to feel flustered, and so she clears her throat, begs the heat on her cheeks to fade, and silently works at her beverage. An image conjures itself there in her mind’s eye—of Maya, inexplicably awake before she herself is, rifling around the tea cabinet to locate the open boxes, calculating which one is Franziska’s based on sheer emptiness factor, and then giggling in private amusement when she realizes it’s the one that reads cinnamon caramel apple pie.
Franziska holds a sigh behind her teeth. Oh, she’s ruined.
Or not, because Maya doesn’t comment further on Franziska’s excessively immature tastes. She throws herself on the couch beside Franziska, holding precariously onto a plastic container of yesterday’s soggy pancakes with a fork stuck directly in its yielding center. Same as always, Maya talks through every mouthful of the syrupy-sweet things, swirling her fork around like a conductor’s baton for effect.
“So…” says Maya with an inquisitive, mischievous knit in her brow, “how far did you get after I fell asleep?”
Ah. Right.
Franziska’s run out of tea. Pity, how’s she to avoid eye contact now? Her cup meets the table with a mournful clink, and all she can do without its aid is straighten her legs out, place her palms on her thighs, and face forward, toward the blank greyish glare of the dormant television screen.
“To the very end.”
Maya swallows loudly. Her choice to do so before speaking contains volumes within it. “Oh, man.”
“Yes.”
“So you…”
“Yes.” Franziska keeps her eyes on her brother’s hanging art-piece. Rather nice by his standards, really—a beautiful, warmlit painting of snowfall over some little German town she can’t quite place. “That was quite the ending.”
“Yeah, it, um…” Maya seems… preoccupied. “They really get you with the gut-punch at the end there. And right after so clearly setting up for another season, it’s like—”
“I had the same thought!” Franziska snaps to face her, maybe a bit too eager to move away from the subject matter of the final scene. “There must be something in the works, no? All that chemistry between Ms. Cobalt and The Iron Infantryman, how well they work as a duo when they are both at their best? Why write it, if not to set things in motion?”
“Man, I wish it were that simple.” Maya sighs wearily, goes back to her tepid breakfast. “Most of the time TV shows just do that to bait the network into biting, and it only kinda works. That’s why the cliffhanger’s there, too. If the fans are ravenous enough about it, they’ll pile on the pressure and do the studio’s work for them. It really all just comes down to freakin’ money.”
“I’ve plenty of money,” says Franziska, only half-joking “and half a mind to tell those fools that I’ll fund it, should the quality of writing continue down this path.”
“Ha! That I’d like to see.” Maya snorts. “You really did enjoy it, then?”
“I must insist you stop wasting my time with foolish questions, Maya Fey.” Franziska sets her face, sharp as always. “Why would I have forgone a proper night’s sleep for a frivolous program that I did not enjoy?”
“I dunno,” says Maya, “work?”
“I—” Franziska sputters. Flashbacks to countless episodes of The Nickel Samurai played on 4x speed run through her head. It will all be worth it to crush Phoenix Wright into little, spiky blue pieces, she had told herself over and over again, the desperate mantra of a woman teetering on the verge of total and complete madness above a sea of spitting flames. Many hours later, system flooded with morphine, all she could think about was Matt Engarde’s dopey face, shed of his costuming on the case file. Over and over as she drifted in and out of sleep, the word Backpfeifengesicht echoed through her dizzy head.
“Tell me, do I look properly dressed for work to you?” she says, instead of any of that.
“Kinda get the impression that any attire is work attire if you’re the one wearing it.”
“Oh, what an inspired and observant comedian you are.” Franziska rolls her eyes. “I am fond of our Cobalt Crusader, Maya Fey. For what short time we’re allowed beside her, she makes a rather strong impression.”
“You’re tellin’ me.” Maya’s grin goes a bit off-kilter, dreamy, smitten. “What a gal.”
Today, in comparison to the giggly energy of the day before, exists in a disquieting sort of timescape. Franziska learns shortly after waking that she had slept in until noon, something that has never happened as far back as she can remember. Perhaps it’s for this reason that the hours seem to pass with annoying inconsistency—sometimes too quickly, sometimes too slow, the perfect tick of her internal clock failing her for the first time in her life. It agitates the simmering fever still itching beneath her skin, makes her feel ten times as restless as before. With nothing left to draw her attention, she’s back to writhing in her bones, understimulated and underworked.
Maya’s in the mood for more Pink Princess, charmed evermore despite the show’s faults. To some extent, Franziska certainly understands what she means when she says, I didn’t say it was good—I said I liked it. For all its shortcomings, the dialogue can be pleasantly clever, the self-contained stories do occasionally manage to surprise her with their creativity. Whether it’s truly enchanting or she’s simply desperate to keep existing in this universe… Franziska will neglect to unpack that question, as it serves no important function.
Regardless of any of that, Pink has once again taken up the mantle of low-stress background noise. It still feels like sacrilege to make any attempts to work, but Franziska’s more than a bit stir crazy despite all the… the fun she’s had in this room. Once more, the answer here is tidying, so that is exactly what she does—puttering around the room and clearing all the accumulated clutter in preparation for getting back to the proper routine of life.
Tomorrow, Maya’s to leave. Honestly, she seems well enough to head out now, and yet something keeps her from making any such attempts. What that is, Franziska can’t fathom—the air in here is dry and stale from the heater, stinking of mentholated medicinals and whatever god-awful, cottony scent Miles has in one of his foolish little aircare plug-ins. It calls for lüften—Franziska throws open the kitchenette window, doing just that—but even the most thorough of lüften won’t clear out the other odd miasma hanging in the air.
Something feels off.
Something feels… strange, silent, lamenting, sad. An invisible specter of some sort of wet-blanket sheet-ghost, throwing its sopping limbs all over the furniture and anyone who might be attempting to exist upon it. Franziska feels its wordless weight pressing at her chest, not bitter heartache, but something much more uncomfortably trivial. Trying to place a proper equivalent, she remembers being a little girl with a tiny, jagged rock rattling around inside her mary janes. Even the snow outside seems to know the feeling’s there, fading back to its unseemly, suburban muddy-grey.
Aggravatingly, she runs out of things to clean rather fast. Maya must notice that this fact is trying her, because from her throne atop the couch she can’t help but snicker, “You want me to start knocking shit over for ya?”
Franziska tries to clear her throat, but it comes out like more of a growl. “You needn’t trouble yourself on my behalf. This restless energy is simply looking to make a slave of me, and were I not so off my proverbial game I am certain it would only hope to be so—”
“Fran, it’s a joke,” says Maya, “we’re joking.”
“Franziska,” is the predictable response, “and I assure you, I am serious.”
“Maybe you’d stop being off your proverbial game if you actually rested.”
“I rested long past sunrise.”
“Cool. Rest summore.” Maya pats at the empty seat beside her. “Didn’t you tell me you don’t have anywhere to be until tomorrow?”
“I always have somewhere to be,” says Franziska, and she does mean it. “But you are correct, I didn’t exactly have a caseload prepared when I landed. My prospects all start in succession tomorrow.”
“Right,” says Maya, “so let’s just watch TV for a bit.”
“Haven’t we done quite enough of that?”
“I dunno. You tell me.” She looks at Franziska… knowingly. “Do you really wanna stop?”
…does she?
The show is… lackluster. The room, however big it was a day ago, is cramped and stifling. The feeling of sitting still, almost always, makes Franziska want to claw at the drywall like a rabid cat in heat. Every instinct she has screams work, work, work, move, move, move!
There is nothing stopping her from doing just that. All she has to do is pack her things, exit to her brother’s study, straighten out her haggard posture, and get on with her life. At some point in the early morning, Maya will quietly exit in the background, and the two of them will go back to being relative strangers, paths crossing whenever—if ever—they do.
“...no.”
One word is all she can manage, after a long moment of pause. Mercifully, Maya does not ask her to elaborate.
They watch TV.
Right now, in this room, beneath the veil of a strange sort of greyish melancholy… it’s all there is to do. Just as well, that’s all they elect to do, until it is finally time to settle into bed, until it is finally time to get Maya’s things packed, until it is finally time for them to part.
When morning arrives, this time, Franziska arrives before it, a harbinger that life is finally ready to pick routine back up. Feeling marginally less ill, she wanders around the dawnlit guest room with her tea in hand, and her mediocre American supermarket croissant wasting away on a plate situated countertop.
Early mornings, quite rightly, are Franziska’s favourite part of the day. Dead silent as the world rises, full of promise of the hours to come, and—most importantly of all—drenched sky to earth in a very distinct shade of blue. For all the harping on that folks rightly did about golden hour, Franziska found she much preferred the underloved, oft unmentioned blue hour.
An uninterrupted thirty minutes of reflection, quiet, and breakfast was crucial to keeping the mind sharp. It didn’t do her well to simply rise, dress herself, and get straight to work—as much as she’d like to, she’d learned that this half-hour of solitude was necessary to perfection, as deceptively unproductive as it felt. Planning for the day’s events is what most often filled this hour, but today the thoughts run listlessly and without much structure, leftover mess from the lingering fog of fighting against that wretched sickness she’d caught off Wright.
If only the agony of imperfection lessened its bite when no one was there to hear it. Through metaphorically grit teeth Franziska reminds herself that messy thoughts are, despite all her better instincts telling her otherwise, more appropriate than zero thoughts.
Today, then. Finish her breakfast and morning cup of tea. See Maya off, while patently avoiding Wright (lest she lose her self-control and kill him), as well as Ms. Pearl Fey (lest Pearl lose her self-control and kill Franziska), as well as Miles (lest she dare sniffle once around him and he turn into an overbearing fool, and she lose her self-control and… well, become her father)
After that… the initial plan was to go back to Europe, but with the loss of Prosecutor Armando there’s a rather heavy caseload the offices are scrambling to fill, and nothing Franziska adores more than a scramble. She’s thankful to have gotten ill over the weekend, at least—come tomorrow there’ll be a wellspring of work to distract her from that heavy feeling that still hasn’t quite dissipated, and maybe by the time she’s through it all, she’ll suddenly realize that feeling’s taken its leave.
For today… she can review what information’s present in the files, at least. Proper investigations and interrogation tomorrow, a handful of trials the following days, yes—there is plenty to do. Plenty to keep her mind off things. Taking another long, slow sip of her drink, Franziska stares adoringly at the sun as it rises—the sharp outline of the clouds as they shift from gold to pink, twice as vibrant against the everblue expanse they hang in. Their technicolour brightens what snow is leftover, turning the landscape… not beautiful, never in American urban sprawl like this, but nearly close enough.
Maya wakes not long after Franziska, rolling off the mattress and directly onto the floor. After a long shower, she looks entirely ‘back’ to herself—colour returned, voice full and high as it always is, still-damp hair lying flat against her neck, turning the pastel lavender hoodie she’s wearing to something more closely resembling violet. It is quiet before she wakes, and it is quiet before she leaves.
Despite her better judgment—and every opportunity to prepare for what follows—Franziska still manages to find the atmosphere uncanny, when it is quiet, too, after Maya’s gone.
This quiet is… lonelier. Every quiet is an absence, that much is true, but an absence that often masquerades as anything else. Silly as the thought is, Franziska can’t help pondering that only now does she truly feel the lack of what was here mere hours ago. Just like that, she’s back to her life—back to poring over documents, living in evidence binders, laying on her papa’s wretched velveteen couch while she fiddles with that calling card, thinking about the strange Fey girl from the California mountains and all the odd magic that surrounds her.
There at the desk in her brother’s study, she types blindly on her laptop, eyes fixated on her overturned cell phone. Some part of her had wanted to say something more, beyond just thank you for the entertaining weekend, but what other words there were to say, Franziska didn’t have the map to wherever they lay buried. How to go about articulating any of the novel thoughts and feelings that Maya sparked to life in her?
Hello. I rather enjoyed watching television with you for 48 hours straight, because I have some sort of strangely pathological fixation on you that I am hoping is a mere desire to be friends, and not some version of the kind of thing I send people to jail about.
It simply wouldn’t do.
So, she’d said nothing, instead. Nothing beyond a polite, stilted thanks for the company and well-wishes. There seemed to be an unidentifiable, contemplative sort of look in Maya’s own eyes when the two of them had unremarkably said their goodbyes at the threshold of Miles’ little apartment, but it may have been wishful thinking on Franziska’s part. What she was even hoping for, she hadn’t the clear head to articulate.
As always, though, Maya still had ten daftly-strung words where Franziska had but one efficient one. Much more interesting than any of the letters, though, were the numbers that followed directly thereafter.
Her hands are busy, again. And again, the nervous fidget drops down to her foot, which taps itself fervently against the cropped carpet. A phone number. Franziska had acquired a phone number. At present, one of two in her phone that did not belong to the categories of work or family.
A phone number. Maya Fey’s phone number.
What was she to do with that? A foolish question, really—she was to call, but how was she to know when the time to call was right? She’s kicking herself now for not asking for an email alongside it, a proper venue to schedule friendly correspondence, a calendar invite so Maya would not have her own important work so rudely interrupted. There’d been mention of the service in Kurain being unreliable as well, why hadn’t Franziska thought to ask? Another aside glance is cast at her phone, and her foot taps harder. There in her contacts list, Maya’s number sits uselessly, biblically tempting all the same.
How soon is too soon to call? Is the onus on Franziska to start that line of contact, or did Maya intend on doing so herself? No, that made no sense, as Franziska hadn’t given her own number, so Maya must be expecting the call to come from her. And yet, she had not said when! The whole situation is beginning to stoke Franziska’s frustration, her sock’s about to spark a fire on the carpet with how rapidly it’s pounding. She exhales hotly through her nose, winces a bit at how sensitive the overworked thing still is. All of these thoughts can wait until much later—she has days worth of emails to catch up on, cases to prepare for, and an afternoon cup of tea to enjoy.
The matter of Maya Fey is one that can wait. Justice, on the other hand, requires a swift hand and a stationary mind.
Scowling at her phone and all its audacity, she pulls her bag from where it’s hanging on the coat rack, cranks the cell volume, and plops the thing inside. If anyone truly needs her, she will hear them before she sees them.
Out of sight and (mostly) out of mind, Franziska works uninterrupted for the rest of the day.
Monday comes and goes in an underwhelming greyish slog.
Normally, it is, rather obviously, Franziska’s favourite day of the week. A goliath of a task list as sprawling as can be, a scramble of overworked fools around her panicking about their presumed inability to do it all, the unspoken promise of a new start as the calendar wipes itself clean. Nothing made Franziska feel more alive than the pressure piling on, than her peers and all their untempered anxiety about their own lack of speed or skill. Each little comment about short-staffing and mountainous paperwork and meticulous auditing—oh, it was like heaven on her ears, nothing moved a von Karma like the things others thought impossible.
A lazy Monday, then, may be the purest form of torture there is. Inclement weather closer to the mountains had downed a powerline over one of her crime scenes—by some wretched stroke of fate, it was the one she needed to spend the most time at, as well. That’s fine, then, she’s got a long list of interrogations she’d planned to sit in on, she’ll simply fill the time with more thorough questioning. Except that two of her witnesses go MIA, and Scruffy’s no help in his slag heap of a patrol car, a fact that is almost frustrating enough for her to want to assign him to one of the newer models, but—no. The fool might take it as a mark of good performance, and she simply can’t have him believing drivel like that.
A good chunk of her plans for the day slash themselves in half. Were she of any other bloodline, Franziska would naturally be inclined to breathe a sigh of relief. Re-structure it all, spend slow time on detailwork, perhaps even carve out a few hours in the night for something akin to relaxation, unwinding. There had been far too much of that over the weekend, though, and between her convalescence and all the mishaps of today, it almost seems as though the fates themselves are trying to keep her from getting any meaningful work done.
Franziska stays at the office well after sunset, foolishly hoping some grand task or sudden pile of problems will present itself for her to solve. When she spends what feels like a good hour re-organizing every miscellaneous item of importance in her office safe, only to glance toward to clock and see that not even fifteen minutes have passed, she takes it as her sign to finally bark at Scruffy the command to get over here now and drive her home. After lashing at the walls a few times, of course, admiring the auburn streaks her whip leaves as though they are some sort of performance art piece—The Restless Prodigy, Left to her Own Devices. Whatever. She’ll name it something more eloquent at a later date.
At home, she doesn’t fare much better. Miles has already retired to his room, having made his own opinions on work-life balance abundantly clear and explaining to her no less than four times that he was for real leaving the offices now, if she would like a ride, that he will not wait behind for her to decide it is finally time to go home, that if she wants to be terrified out of her skin while he pushes the limits of every traffic law in his terrible, gaudy, fuel-inefficient vehicle, she simply must speak up now. It’s like being caught between a venomous insect and a hungry lion, but Franziska would honestly pick Scruffy’s stuttery, failing transmission over Miles’ rejected amusement park ride any day.
Saccharine fool that her brother is, though, he’s left a handwritten note on the counter—legal stationery and all—that informs her of the leftovers in the fridge she is more than welcome to take. This, too, is all meaningless performance—none of the rich, savoury, bourgeois dinners that Miles cooks are of any appeal to Franziska, and he knows this because he knows her, and yet still he does this every time the two of them occupy a space. She plucks the note from the dinner table with a scoff and plods back to the guest room, where a hot mug of tea and a simple breadthing will more than suffice for her least favourite meal of the day.
Unpinning her brooch, wiggling out of her gloves, undoing her frills and shucking her tights, routine is a balm to the uneventful drivel of the day. If nothing refused to comply with its place—if her morning went wrong in every possible way—there was, at least, always this. There was always a promise of control and mundanity at the beginning and end of everything.
When she’s done with her scone, Franziska ferries her tea into bed with her, placing it on the side table and stubbornly remaining awake with her computer resting blanket-top. Soothed as she is by the familiarity of home and all its predictability, the lack of productivity feels like a fretful beast scratching its talons into her back. This discomfort takes the shape of her attempting, for a good half hour, to re-arrange every last file on her work computer, a task that most certainly needs to be done eventually, why not now?
The itch remains. Burning and unsatisfied, rioting for her attention. She has no way to communicate to it that for the first time since she was a careless child, there is simply no work to be done. The blessing and curse of prioritizing efficiency, and several parts rotten luck, aligning impossibly and driving her crazy. Franziska knows if she doesn’t find a solution to this bullheaded, discontent urge that’s plaguing her, she’s going to wind up in her brother’s kitchen with a pair of tweezers and shattered glass at her feet, sorting the grains of sand in his antique hourglass by colour and shape.
Resisting the impulse to snarl to the popcorn ceiling, Franziska closes her eyes and lets her skull hit the headboard, off in some realm of deeper concentration. Even if she were to lower herself to a position of asking another human being for advice, she doubts there’s anyone in the known universe who can relate to the whims of her body and brain, a problem so distinctly von Karma. Miles would tell her to settle in with a distraction, as if work was not the distraction, rather than the thing to be distracted from. Papa would tell her to fine-tune her plans for tomorrow, but she’s already revised her schedule to the most meticulous detail, she’s not sure there’s anywhere else to go.
And then, of course, comes the absurdity of thought, back with a vengeance…
What would Maya Fey do?
Franziska draws her gaze back open, blotting out shapes in the uneven world above as though she is cloudgazing, searching for the whimsical shape that will offer her the answers. What does it matter what Maya Fey would do? Maya Fey, hard worker though she is, does not have these problems. Maya Fey has no qualms with spending days at a time laying near-comatose on the couch, her vitality and spirit in perfect harmony with her love of goofing off. Maya Fey and her strange aura have found some secret to embodying both boundless self-determination and childish fun. Somehow, impossibly, she had mastered the art of both working and shirking.
Then again… perhaps that balancing act was why the young medium did not find herself plagued by such woes. Franziska rolls the idea around in her head, lost in the vibrations of it bouncing from wall to wall.
Certainly, if Maya were still here, she would elect to take a break of sorts. Franziska now knows that break would likely entail watching one of her shows. The disc is right over there in its protective shell, it would be perfectly easy for Franziska to crawl out of bed, steal away to the couch, and continue their little Pink Princess endeavour where they left off. Strangely tempting, despite the dip in quality of the show, but…
No, it doesn’t feel right. Watching Maya’s shows without Maya present, there’s something sacrilegious about the idea. It simply wouldn’t be the same without the other girl in Franziska’s ear, harping on and on about behind-the-scenes trivia and metafictional analyses. Like a perfect circle, she’s reminded of the truth that had started all of this—she didn’t like Pink Princess. She simply liked Maya.
A half-truth, of course. Franziska most certainly liked The Cobalt Crusader. But, of course, she had devoured every last crumb of story that had to do with the horribly underrated warrior, leaving only what predated her entry into the series, the promise of a second season somewhere in the future, and…
And.
That is… certainly an idea.
But how to… where does she even…?
Glaring its sunsetty bluelight-filter up at her, Franziska’s laptop screen almost seems like it’s beckoning her into its arms. Everything she knows about technology, she knows entirely for the sake of her job. Papa had been a stubborn mule about typing reports and email correspondence, insisting his subordinates print everything and bring it to him, and it was one of the very few things he and Franziska disagreed on. She had elected to hone her computer literacy as early as she was able to ensure peak efficiency and minimize time spent on communications, but that was where her knowledge of things ended. She… there simply wasn’t… why should she know how to locate fanfiction on the wider scope of the world wide web?! No part of her existence as a prodigy in law has ever held that as a prerequisite!
Nevertheless, Franziska is vaguely aware of the concept of a search engine. The empty bar of the default, pre-installed one is staring its searing white gaze at her, cursor blinking its rhythmic mockery at her furrowed brow. For some reason, Franziska feels the need to look both ways before she begins her journey into its depths—what sort of tangible hazard she’s keen to stay wary of, she’s not entirely sure.
Hot with some sort of… ineffable sense of embarrassment, Franziska types slowly. The letters crawl across her screen like tree sap dripping toward the forest floor, and she feels as though all the muscles in her hands are… cramping up, or full of water that’s freezing all at once, perhaps the illness isn’t done with her yet.
A search for Cobalt Crusader is all she can manage, at first—predictably, it brings up official websites, movie promotions, articles on the Iron Infant movie’s success. Here and there are a few scattered results of what appear to be fan-occupied message boards, which Maya had very patently expressed her disgust toward. There is an impulse to crash in like a wild wind and trounce every last fool within these micro-communities with her impeccable skills in logic and debate, but that sort of distracted thinking isn’t suiting her, right now or ever—Franziska did not begin this search with the intent to exercise her clear argumentative aplomb. No, she is here for…
Finally, breathing deep—again, why?—she types that curious word behind her initial search. Fanfiction.
The results that follow are much less promotional, which of course, makes perfect sense. Almost all of them seem to be from one central website, which Franziska can only assume must be the most popular platform for writing of this nature. Even with the golden goose and all its shining eggs staring her down, her hand simply rests there on the trackpad, refusing to click any one of them. What’s got her so apprehensive, Franziska cannot even begin to guess, but one thing that she is sure of is that it’s pissing her off.
How dare something trifle with her pristine composure, much less something so unremarkably inoffensive. Does this foolish kneejerk reaction she’s having to self-indulgence know who she is? She is a legal legend, bulletproof and terrifying, with an iron will unmatched and a resolve that does not falter. Huffing hotly through her nose, she clicks the blasted thing—the first result at the top of the page, they all seem to lead to the same place. With that, then, it is done—Franziska von Karma has somehow found herself browsing a fanfiction website, full of buttons and links and words and over-involved UI. Strangely, its layout seems a lot more navigable than some of the government websites she spends her time on.
A large title at the top of the page informs her that she’s viewing a repository of every single piece of fan-writing that involves the Cobalt Crusader. Squinting at the listing, she notices that the organizational properties of this hobby website are, in truth, rather admirable in their meticulousness of classification—each individual work comes with a disclosure of the characters and pairings involved, followed by a series of descriptive designations that quite literally explain precisely what narrative elements the story contains. There are other, less obvious identification notations—‘ratings’ that differ from the ones published media uses, ‘warnings’ of subject material that only sort-of make sense upon first glance—but for the most part, Franziska can’t help but marvel in reverence at the attention to detail. Perhaps she is to take notes for her own organizational processes…
A cursory glance at many of these stories has her filling in the rest of the blanks fairly quickly. For one, she learns that the ones tagged with the name of every character are a complete and total bust—if Cobalt herself is sandwiched in between the names of twenty other characters, it means she appears in one scene within a—Franziska checks again, three-hundred-thousand-word novel?!—and has two lines. There are upwards of ten pages of results, and most of them are rather frustratingly of this nature. Of course, it’s rather impressive that there are folks out there writing so excessively and publishing it all for free, but she simply does not have the time to sift through each and every monolithic epic for a glimpse of the character she’s interested in.
Which is, serendipitously, when she notices the filtering menu on the side of the page. And oh, this is something she knows well—not every scholarly website she uses in her day-to-day contains a filtering menu, but the ones that do are like family to her, their ease so much greater than any of the alternatives. She figures it’s likely easiest to filter out the less relevant characters and relationships—right off the bat, she knocks out what Maya told her is called “Magisteel,” as it seems to dominate every last story. Surprisingly, just that filters down the numbers immediately, leaving only a page and a half of results. Wow.
Maya was not at all exaggerating when she spoke of the disinterested fan response to the best character in the whole franchise. Scrolling through what’s left, Franziska sees that a great many of the works left are labelled “Cobalt x Reader,” which she quickly learns is some sort of write-yourself-in story, presumably where one is meant to live out their fantasy of engaging in a romantic entanglement with a woman made of metal. Even if Franziska were interested in such a thing, she can’t imagine giving some writer who does not know her free reign over her hypothetical actions and words.
Right beneath a few of those, though…
Toward the end of the page, just as Maya had said, there is a story pairing up Cobalt and Pink. It is a short thing—hardly the sprawling novels some of the other hobbyists are writing—but Franziska finds that suits her sensibilities much more. Franziska’s going to click on it, before her eye catches the user ID of the author in question—PinkBalt. How straightforward.
Skimming the rest of the results, it appears they may deserve that hallowed name more than anyone else—several more works about the pair in question crop up toward the query’s end, every last one of them written solely by this user. They are, quite literally, rivalling Maya as the sole arbiter of PinkBalt, boasting their monopoly proudly across their profile. Out of curiosity, she clicks through to view the breadth of their archive, and… oh, it is nearly all PinkBalt.
There’s a comparatively meager amount of writing about any other character, and a rather eclectic array of choice when it comes to the titular two. Joyous stories, sad stories, one story that… Franziska feels her face go hot. She has… questions about how that works, biologically speaking, but they are not curiosities that burn brightly enough for her to feel the need to take up a hobby reading amateur erotica.
Most of these pieces are G-rated, anyways, and so that is where Franziska starts. They vary in length, almost all of them boasting a couple thousand words, every last one sounding… not intellectually stimulating, per se, but simply delightful. Like a frosted pastry on a sunny afternoon, like luxuriating in a long shower, like waking before the sun and watching it rise. Pleasurable, and serving no other purpose than to be just that.
Finding no clear answer in where to start, Franziska does what is most logical, then—she begins at the top, with the first story listed. In time, if she enjoys this one, perhaps she will make her way down the list to relative completion. For now, though, she dips her toes—Maya had not entirely sold her on the idea of these two as a romantic coupling, but Franziska could almost feel that some part of her soul was eager to make the jump.
Convalescent, Iridescent
PinkBalt
Pink watched Cobalt ever since they first met, that was all she’d ever done. From the moment she and Steel had gone to meet up with Iron after he’d left to Little Olde Ginza to protect a group of merchants from a yōkai attack. They’d originally planned to assist him if need be, but upon their arrival, it was clear that he had the situation handled. With the help of her.
To Franziska's surprise, this story does not appear from the get-go to be a simple attempt at an unlikely romance. It does not jump right in to the self-indulgent fantasy of throwing the two starcrossed warriors together—no, it has the self restraint to hold back. Long, introspective paragraphs are spent with Pink as she considers her lot in life, insights into her character Franziska would never expect from the mediocre writing of the show. More than this first chapter is about any prospective romantic entanglement, it is first and foremost about... Pink. Breathing life into her character that the writers were far too cowardly to even attempt to convey.
Pink muses on her place as a clan leader, as a warrior, as a Plan B, as a mother. She muses on her child's lost innocence, and how much more of himself he seems to have together than she herself ever did. In following him and his journey to break the barrier that sheltered within it the small blue planet they walked, it is no wonder that Pink would cross paths with Cobalt. And while they almost never took note of or spoke to one another in the text this story bases itself on... this author attests something more that bubbles beneath the surface of all those silent, stolen looks across the room. They attest something that Franziska finds... familiar.
Even though there was a sense of worry, of fear upon seeing Iron with Cobalt. Especially when she wore that sword, the very sword that the Evil Magistrate had used to kill so many of Pink’s people, strapped to her back. There was a kind of... pull that Pink felt toward Cobalt. It was odd, terrifying even. Especially with Pink’s instinctual aversion to the blade itself. That thing killed, it was all that thing ever did, and even with its blade broken, Pink could not help but feel a fear.
And yet, where was that fear when Cobalt watched Iron step away from the bluenette and toward Pink and Steel? When Cobalt’s gaze briefly swept over first Steel before moving to Pink. Her pale blue orbs made contact with Pink’s white ones. It was jarring, and Pink nearly stumbled backward at the sheer feeling of electricity between them.
It was only when Iron threw his arms around Pink, wrapping her into a tight hug. His strong arms literally pulling her out of the trance that Cobalt had put her in. And as if by magic, after Pink held her large, strong son and pulled away, looking again toward where the warrior stood, did she see that Cobalt had disappeared. The only evidence that she had ever even been there being the soft yellow fog left behind.
Hanging in the air, twisting in the breeze before it too faded away and left Pink feeling... so alone even with her family surrounding her. What could that feeling be? What could that all mean? And what was so special about the Cobalt Crusader that could make Pink feel so. Intensely drawn to her?
Taking a deep breath, all Franziska can do is shut her eyes, loose the tension in her shoulders, and allow her head to loll back for a moment in quiet contemplation. Outside, the snowfall melts into rain, pattering lightly across the blacktop and leaving watery bullet holes in the everwhite expanse as it threatens to wash it away. For a moment, all Franziska does is listen to that sound, amused and more than a bit annoyed at how no experience of hers ever seemed to be as unique as she'd originally thought.
Back on her monitor, the scene shifts to one she knows—the Violet Valiant's final resting place, where the author presents their take on Cobalt and Pink's single, silent encounter. They do something very interesting in their retelling, however—positioning the scene from Pink's perspective as she comes upon the warrior. As is to be expected, Pink's thoughts are rife with confusion as to why someone like Cobalt would ever come to pay respects, all the while, wielding the very sword that took her brother's life. Very quickly, those thoughts dip into a much darker place, a nearly metacognizant spiral where Pink laments how forgettable and easily-discarded she herself feels. Peering into the story as it lingers on these ideas, Franziska can't help but wonder why the author felt them necessary, what it is they might be leading toward as things progress.
And, of course, the two of them finally have their moment.
She watched as Cobalt approached, almost trembling at how close the blue haired warrior was getting to her. Pink stood tall and tried to look stronger than she felt, braver than she could ever hope to be. She didn’t want Cobalt thinking that she was weak. Partly because Cobalt was a fellow woman warrior and Pink didn’t want to look in her eyes. And the second, a smaller part, was a mystery that Pink couldn’t begin to untangle. At least not when she was face to face with the Cobalt Crusader.
Without a word, Cobalt continued forward, stepping a bit to the side to give Pink room. Though she did not step far enough as her shoulder brushed up against Pink’s shoulder. A jolt shot through Pink’s body, shocking her so deeply to her core that it almost made Pink gasp out loud. But instead she just went rigid despite the heat that flooded her body, starting from her shoulder.
How... precious.
Despite her certainty that she herself has never felt... feelings of this nature, Franziska cannot help the heat that daubs at her cheeks. Something about the prose, meticulous and meditative, makes her feel as though she's right there beside them, despite its simplicity and wholly amateur composition. The words do not need to be flashy or technically impressive, the sentences do not have to flow with precision and tact—all that seems to matter, in the realm of fanfiction, is the emotion inherent. The love for the characters, and their bonds with one another, and what the author chooses to keep and what to change. It's fascinating, how experiencing this scene a second time does not bore her or come across as trite and predictable. In fact, she finds that she rather enjoys it more when told from Pink's perspective.
From there, Pink continues on with her life, until she crosses paths with Cobalt once more. This time, it is right before Iron and the Crusader begin their pursuit of the Shadow. Pink is on the fringes as they give chase, there to collect Iron when Cobalt speeds forward and leaves him behind. As is to be expected, though, that magnetism from before pulls her back to Cobalt's side—or, rather, she puts her stealth skills to the test and quietly follows Cobalt's trail, curious as to where the warrior's run off to in such a determined hurry. When Pink finds Cobalt again...
A loud scuffling sound broke out nearly fifty feet away, startling Pink a bit. She gripped her rapier and ran in the direction of the fighting. There was a familiar sound of clanking metal, grunting of effort, and then an animalistic shriek of pain. Pink sprinted as fast as she could and arrived at the edge of a clearing in the forest right at the mouth of a large cave.
And there, laying in the grass, was the Cobalt Crusader beside the largest boar Pink had ever seen. Boars in this area were feared for their aggressive tendencies and hide so thick that it could be used for any armor. And one this size was just... still, though, Pink was surprised that such an unassuming boar could have done this kind of damage to Cobalt, a seasoned fighter. Could it have caught Cobalt by surprise or something?
The boar laid dead, unmoving and Pink stood just as still, watching Cobalt. Waiting for her to stand up. For her to move. For her to do anything.
It was only when Cobalt let out a shuddery cough that let the yellow fog she was so famous for producing escape from her mouth as she tried to prop herself up. Pink resheathed her rapier and watched as Cobalt tried to move. It was lucky that her mask hadn’t been cracked, but she’d been gored in the abdomen very severely. Part of the tusk was still embedded in her gut while more yellow fog seeped out of the wound along with the bluish metal of her blood.
Without a second thought, Pink stepped out of the thicket and approached Cobalt. She fell to her knees and with a gentle hand gripped Cobalt’s shoulder, flipping her around to assess the damage. Cobalt, dazed and confused, raised her fist as if to fight back, her eyes terrified and angry as poison escaped into the air. Pink held her sleeve to her mouth and continued her work.
“Hold still, okay?” Pink spoke for the first time in so long that her voice hurt from disuse. “You’re hurt. And wiggling around like crazy will just make it worse.”
“Who-?” Cobalt was cut off by a coughing fit that jostled the tusk fragment within her. She winced in pain and Pink felt a pang of sympathy.
“It doesn’t matter right now,” Pink said, gripping Cobalt under her arms and pulling her toward the cave. “I have you,” She set Cobalt down inside the cave. “You’re safe.”
...and that, it seems, is where the story ends.
That heat on Franziska's cheeks seems to have spread down to her chest, her ears, enveloping her like some sort of warm, tropical wave. A sister feeling to the flush of strange embarrassment earlier, but it feels... far more fluttery, candy-coated, honey-sweet. More than anything, she feels her heart racing at the prospect of a warrior like Cobalt being bested in battle, forced to place her care in the hands of someone else. Surely, if it were Franziska in Cobalt's place, she'd feel just as hot with shame and helplessness while her pride and strength laid in tatters around her. How trifling it is, for a creature that only ever relies on itself to be forced to place its survival in the hands of anyone else.
And yet... that thought has Franziska's heart racing. Trying to will away the heat from her face, she feels the phantom of a blanket being thrown over her shoulders, her brother's warm hands through the pop of a gunshot still ringing in her ears.
Beneath the story's end, the author has written another little message to their readers, to mirror the one at the beginning. It tells of some episode references that they snuck into this first...
This first chapter.
Franziska feels it like a weight off her shoulders. There is more to come! And in fact...
There is already a chapter two. Franziska eyes the clock in the bottom right corner—purely performative, she knows to the second exactly what time it is—and calculates in her head how much more sleep she's liable to lose before it begins to interfere with her work. Pressing onto the second chapter jumps her back to the top of the page, where her eye catches a few details she had not paid much mind to before. The story thus far is seven-thousand words or so, which offers her little information, as it's a strange unit of measurement she's got exactly zero ideas of how to translate to time in her head. The chapter count, however, is displayed as "2/?" which she presumes must mean that this second chapter is as far as the author has gotten. Flicking her gaze over to the date signatures, she notes that this story was last updated...
A few months prior.
Well... looking at things optimistically, that means they are long past due for posting the next.
Chapter two takes the schoolgirl-with-a-foolish-crush aura that's rooted itself deep in Franziska's stomach and cranks it up to its highest possible setting, an assault of horrendously infantile sensations prickling beneath her skin. There at Cobalt's bedside, The Pink Princess watches over the last person one would ever expect her to—the right hand of the scourge who took everything from her, the devil who scalded her son's face, the keeper of the sword that ended the life of her only family. While Cobalt feverishly tosses and turns, Pink stays with deft hands and careful eyes... and nurses the fearsome warrior back to health.
And Cobalt simply allows her to. Strong, independant, unflappable Cobalt... she relinquishes control. She allows herself to be held, healed, seen for the young, grieving thing that she is.
Why on earth do I feel so rattled? Is all Franziska can repeat to herself as she devours chapter two like a starving beast. In the thick of things, despite it all, despite every reason they should have not to...
“Why are you here?” Cobalt asked once she was lucid enough to speak.
“It’d be kind of hard to take care of you from my house,” Pink replied quickly as she crushed the ingredients into a fine powder.
Cobalt was quiet for a moment and Pink could feel the glare that Cobalt was sending her way. “And why would you be taking care of me?”
It was the kind of question that Pink really should have been ready to answer, but really, she hadn’t thought much about it after her initial decision to save Cobalt. Was it enough to say it was because Pink believed that healing was her calling? Or would Cobalt see through that? Would Cobalt see the lie behind Pink’s eyes and understand that on some kind of level, Pink didn’t know why? Maybe those eyes, pale blue and so very sharp when they needed to be, would see through everything and figure out the reason why before Pink even could hope to.
Pink poured the water into the cup with her powdered mixture before speaking. “I guess I... I couldn’t leave you laying there like that,” She said as she moved to bring the tea to Cobalt.
“But that doesn’t answer my question,” Cobalt moved to sit up and winced a bit at the pain. “I asked you why you were here, not why you helped me at first. I understand getting someone out of danger, but now you’re caring for me. Why?”
Pink set the cup down and helped Cobalt sit up properly, making sure she was comfortable before speaking again. “Why were you at my brother’s grave earlier?”
It was easier to counter Cobalt’s question with another question. And maybe with Cobalt so vulnerable, so weak, Pink would get the answer to the question that plagued her earlier. And if it made it so Pink didn’t have to answer a hard question, then so be it.
“I...” Cobalt looked over to the sword that laid near her. “Someone had to atone for what was done to him.”
...they talk.
They just... talk.
With all this time alone in the cave where they shelter, with nothing else to do while Cobalt's forced to rest, and with all these unspoken sentiments hanging in-between them... Pink and Cobalt lay down their swords and talk.
Pink handed Cobalt the tea and looked at Cobalt for a moment before stepping back and eyeing the sword that glinted in the gentle light of the fire Pink had set. “Is that why you don’t use the blade like he did?”
Cobalt was sipping her tea when Pink asked the question, and it was lucky that she managed to swallow the tea in her mouth rather than spit it out. Still, she had to choke down her mouthful, almost desperately so before she began to speak. It was the kind of thing that would have Pink laughing were it not for the gravity of the question.
“I...” Cobalt took a deep breath and set her cup to the side. “I suppose it...” She paused and thought for a moment, and Pink couldn’t help but eye the scar on her mask. “When I fight, I want to win a battle. I want a perfect victory. And to use the blade’s ultimate ability is not winning a perfect victory. I wouldn’t even call that winning, it’s-”
“Cheating,” The word left Pinks’ mouth before she could stop herself. As Cobalt spoke, she was brought back to that night, watching Violet go toe to toe with the Evil Magistrate. Until he used his Thermite Sword to kill him. To destroy him. It really did feel like that. Like cheating.
Inhale, exhale.
Whoever this author is, the reverence and understanding they hold toward Cobalt's character is tenfold anything Franziska could ever hope for from the program itself, even at its best.
They talk.
“Did that boar surprise you? Or was it mystical in some way? Because it was just so small, and you’re... you’re just so... you’re a-”
“I was distracted,” Cobalt’s reply was harsher than Pink was expecting. Like she was lashing out due to a type of pain. “I was... It was...”
“What was it?” Pink prompted. Had it been what Cobalt saw in the woods when she was separated from Iron?
“I was hunting a villain, someone who was hurting the people of the village nearby,” Cobalt replied eventually. “And when I got to the clearing... I saw him. He was there,” Cobalt’s voice broke and Pink put her hand on Cobalt’s arm, gripping it gently.
It didn’t take a genius to put the pieces together that the blue-haired girl was talking about the Evil Magistrate. And really, it didn’t surprise Pink that he was still around, lurking somewhere. But without his sword and his army, he had nothing left. No allies, no weapons, just him and his poisonous self to wander alone. No doubt trying to rebuild what he had. But at least he couldn’t escape. Not as long as Steel still lived.
“Part of me knew he wasn’t gone, that he wasn’t dead,” Cobalt continued, her gravelly voice breaking with each word she spoke. “He was just waiting. Watching. He knew that I was here, that I was looking for him, and he never found me. And I-” Cobalt cut herself off and steeled herself, roughly wiping at her eyes as silver tears began to fall. “I don’t know what I would have done had he been here when I arrived, but...”
“Maybe it’s better that he was gone,” Pink said softly, gently rubbing Cobalt’s arm. “Look at how you are now. Isn’t it better than how you were? Aren’t you happier now?”
Cobalt was silent for a long time, the only sound in the cave being the crackling fire. Pink watched as the light danced across Cobalt’s face, the shadows making the scar across her face look like it was moving. The light sheen of blue on her mask glowed in this light and her eyes, pale blue, no longer had the yellow haze in them. She looked alert now, aware, and more than anything else... sad.
“I...” Cobalt took a shaking breath. “He was more than what you saw, he took me in, he trained me when no one else would. He was my world. My everything, and I have spent my entire life doing everything for him. And seeing him there... Hiding under a cloak, operating in the shadows like a rat. That wasn’t... That wasn’t the Mags I know. And now it’s like... What do I have to live for now?”
Pink understood exactly what Cobalt was saying. When Violet died, she had no idea what she was going to do. Who she was going to be. All she knew was that life as she new it would be completely different. And she supposed that she was the only one in the world who could possibly understand what Cobalt was going through. And now, Cobalt sat there, looking at Pink, not expectantly, but curiously. As if she really wanted to know what Pink thought.
“You live for yourself,” Pink said, remembering what Steel told her when she asked him that very question so long ago. “For the people that you help. And for the people who care about you. Like Iron.”
“And you, I presume?” Cobalt asked softly, her raspy voice breaking.
“And me,” Pink smiled and squeezed Cobalt’s arm. “I know what you’re going through. When my brother was killed, I was left all alone. I didn’t know what to do. And it took a long time, but I worked hard and I met Steel and he. He’s my best friend, and he showed me how I can live for myself and the people I love,” Pink’s smile brightened a bit and she let out a laugh. “I guess you’re lucky then, you’re getting double what I started with.”
“I suppose so,” Cobalt looked at Pink for a long while, her eyes unreadable. “I think I need to rest now, but... thank you, for this.”
“Of course, it’s a pleasure,” Pink meant that completely and totally. “Get some rest.”
She would sit at Cobalt’s side for days if she needed to. And she hoped that Cobalt knew that. That someday soon, Cobalt would understand this if she didn’t already and consider Pink a friend.
It's much too late. Much too late to be awake, much to late to be swallowing back tears, much too late to be working herself up into another blubbering, snotty, disgusting tizzy because someone dared to write a story that may have shown her a mirror she wasn't ready yet to look in. Just like the last time, though, Franziska can see the last few lines nearing as they blur through unshed tears—on the right of her screen, her scrollbar inches ever-closer to its destination. Just as well, Cobalt does not cry, either. Right there on the precipice alongside Franziska, the two of them hold steady, refusing, even now, to break.
As it is, Pink stays beside her until she recovers. Of course she does, every step of the way. And when it is time for them to part ways—when Cobalt's strength has returned, and her mission of redemption calls again, and Pink is due herself to run back off to her life...
“It seems as though I have accrued yet another large debt to your family,” Cobalt said, raising her sword to Pink. “If I may, your highness, I would like to swear my sword to you. Where you go, I go. Your enemies shall be mine. Until my debt is repayed.”
“Are you...” Pink paused and looked down at Cobalt, her brow furrowed and a laugh bubbling up in her chest. “Are you swearing fealty to me?”
“If you would allow it,” Cobalt replied, her head still bowed.
“Dude, no,” Pink laughed, making Cobalt’s head snap up. The befuddled look on Cobalt’s face made Pink laugh harder. “If you’d like to travel with me, just ask! And stand up, you don’t have to bow to me.”
Cobalt scrambled to her feet and put her sword back on her hip, clearing her throat before speaking. “I would love to travel with you... If you’d have me?”
Pink wanted to answer right away. To tell Cobalt that this was exactly what she wanted. That this was exactly what she had hoped for. But to do so would make her look too eager, and Cobalt already thought Pink was so cool and capable. She had to answer casually, with ease.
“I doubt I’d be able to shake you if I tried,” She said with an easy smile, watching as Cobalt’s rigid posture relaxed. “What do you say we go find a food stall and get some udon? I know my cooking is great, but I’m in the mood for some real food.”
Cobalt moved to bow before seeming to think better of it. “That would be... that sounds pleasant.”
And so they cleaned up their camp and set forth toward the nearby village. Pink led the way and Cobalt followed mere steps behind, as Pink told Cobalt all about the kinds of food that the village was known for and how she was going to give Cobalt a literal taste of what this planet had to offer. It was exciting to have a traveling companion again, and with Cobalt nearby, Pink felt so ready. So strong. Like nothing could stop her as her, no not just hers, their journey together officially began.
No season two will ever come close to the utterly inspired direction that this amateur work of writing has shifted toward. For all the chemistry that Cobalt and Iron have as warriors, the contrast of Cobalt and Pink's personalities—not Pink's actual personality, Franziska has to remind herself, but a far more interesting take on her that the author has chosen to write over the dull source material—paints them in palpable harmonization. It's a mere spark, but already Franziska can see it—something about them simply completes one another. This version of Pink is... bubbly, complex, a bit nervous, fun-loving. Beside Cobalt's cold, tempered, chivalrous attitude and rigid dedication to what she holds dear... the two of them are lovely, no—
The two of them are perfect together, and Franziska wants nothing more than to see every last minute detail of what it is they will inevitably get up to as they traverse Cobalt's new home.
Beneath the chapter's ending is one final parting gift from the author...
Notes:
And there we have it... the setup for the story! What sort of yuriful shenanigans are to come? Stay tuned and find out...
Except I Dunno when my next update will be cuz the holiday season is INSANE where I work but also I don't think anyone besides that one funny bitch on SamSlash Archive cares about this ship so I'm sure I'm not breaking any hearts about it lol
see you when I'm not dead! probably next year! ttyl!!!
Franziska doesn't know what all of those words mean, but one thing is certain—this poor author is working under the false assumption that their work is not being read. Whatever could convince someone with such compelling ideas and such interesting ways of communicating them of something so dismal and demotivating, Franziska isn't sure, but if that is the case it is no wonder that the story has been left unwritten since—she checks again—late November! What a horribly long time to go without working on a project. Scrolling down, there appears to be some sort of correspondence box at the very bottom of the page. Beneath that, where Franziska's time skimming less thought-provoking works has taught her there should be a wellspring of these comments, Franziska finds... nothing.
Not one single shred of meaningful feedback.
Her tea on the side-table has long since gone cold. Not to worry, though, because the searing heat of the rage that bubbles up beneath the surface of her would likely be more than enough to heat the miserable liquid back to a proper scald. The nerve of the masses, to ignore such an interesting tale—to have before them a veritable bounty of creative fiction, shared for free and made purely for the sake of pleasure and community, and the foolishly selfish fools that so foolishly gloss over and take for granted that privilege haven't even the nerve to tell the author of their thoughts?! No wonder this poor writer is off somewhere lamenting in loneliness and questioning the merit of their ideas and skill... who wouldn't, when their hard work and creativity is met with nothing but silence?
Franziska has the foolish urge to roll up the sleeve of her satin sleepshirt before she begins. Now, and always, love feels more like violence.
The first yawn sneaks up on her only a split second before she hits the big, gray comment button. It's a vicious thing, the way it pulls at her features, sucking the last of her restless energy away and tossing it to the aether. Bravely, Franziska shuts her laptop, places it plugged-in atop her desk, and makes the walk of shame to the kitchenette to pour out her neglected cup of cold tea. As much as Maya had gotten into her head in all other regards, she wasn't quite careless enough to follow the girl's lead and allow her drink to marinate overnight.
That settled, then, Franziska presses her face into her brother's silky pillowcase and shuts her eyes. Any lack of productivity or insistence on doing more long since forgotten, and nothing but foolish painted landscapes of pink and blue swirling like a cotton-candy ocean in her head. She inhales deep, reveling in the newfound feeling of fresh air through recently-cleared sinuses. A sharp wave of temple incense, menthol-honey, and coconut shampoo fills her senses like a dizzying fog.
...laundry may have fallen to the wayside.
She'll take care of it tomorrow.
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1 guest left kudos on this work! |
Guest (Guest) on Chapter 2 Mon 13 Feb 2019 09:47PM PST
Salutations and greetings. I hope this correspondence finds you well.
This was a truly compelling and introspective look at the psyche of the Pink Princess and all that the show refuses to examine with a closer, more meticulous eye. I must admit that I found this story while I was looking for nothing more than simple romance, and to see that you seemingly intend to build that romance on a foundation of connection and communication first and foremost caught me by surprise in the best possible way. It is true that Pink and Cobalt have far more in common than they are ever allowed to know about one another, and I am eager to watch their bond deepen as they travel beside one another. It must have taken Cobalt a great deal of courage to lower herself to being looked after like that, however grateful she was. It is no wonder, then, that her and Pink opened up to one another the way they did. After someone's seen you in such a vulnerable state, what more have you to hide? That question is rhetorical. You need not answer it.
Additionally, I am quite fond of some of your prose, especially your charming word-play. “Bluenette” is a rather clever portmanteau, I could not help the urge to chuckle every time I came upon it.
It is incredibly disappointing to see that I am the only reader to have thought to leave feedback on this tale which you have so generously chosen to share with the world. While I cannot exact punishment onto the lowlifes before me who chose not to engage with your art, I can, at the very least, promise that so long as you continue to write this story, I shall continue to share my own thoughts.
Regards,
An Anonymous Admirer
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