CHAPTER 5

3 years later

Franziska felt the sun beating down on her and the sweat rolling off of her forehead as she tended to the garden she had took over responsibility for after Ms. Maria lost her battle with cancer. As she succeeded Maria's role in the tending of the family vegetable garden, her papa demanded Alfred succeed her role as assistant, all though she doesn't remember being as useless and in the way as he was, and she knew for a fact she looked better in a sun bonnet than the wrinkly old man did.

She noticed Edgeworth seated on the back porch, writing in his journal over a cup of tea as he usually did after school, but the sun was out in a blue sky instead of the sunset she knew he preferred, as they did not have school that day. Her papa had granted them the luxury of a regular 5-day school week during the summertime. She brushed her gloves together to get some of the dirt that had been piling up on them as she watched him longingly, only to be brought out of her daze by a certain bumbling butler. "Oh, dear. Ms. Franziska, I-I seem to have crushed a small plant under my heel...if you would be kind enough to forgive..." SMACK! SMACK! "MEEEEEEE!"

Oh, how she was grateful for her trusty riding crop. After hitting the butler with it, she looked over it with a smile as she reminiscened over the times her and the crop had shared. She continued watering and weeding the plants in the row she was currently on, wondering what her younger brother was always writing about in those things. Ever since she could remember, he was always writing down something in one of his journals during his free time, and the curiousity that had been building up in her all these years was about to boil over. She began getting frustrated with her lack of knowledge of what was inside of Miles' journals, and decided to take out her frustrations on a nearby butler. SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! The butler began rubbing his forearm in pain, as that was as far up as the short young girl could reach towards the rather tall man.

Later that evening, Manfred called a now 18-year old Miles Edgeworth into his office to help prepare for a trial he was to assist the legendary prosecutor on. At first, Franziska was extremely jealous of the invitation that was not extended to her, but, after she had stormed up to her room in frustration, she realized the oppurtunity this granted her with, an oppurtunity to relieve her of the curiousity that had been building up inside of her for all these years.

She peeped out the door to notice that the maid had just finished cleaning Miles' room and was making her way down the hall. Anxiety got the best of her, and she began to tiptoe down towards her little brother's room as soon as the maid had walked past her own room. She began opening his clothing drawers, and came managed to come across the rather unpleasant stench of Edgeworth's sock drawer before she felt like the biggest fool in Germany. She snapped her fingers. Arghh! How could I forget! He keeps his books and his journals in the drawer of his end table! If it had been someone else to make such a foolish oversight, she would've hit them with her riding crop, but she failed to see the point in hitting herself with it, so she just let it go as she made her way over to the table by Miles' bed.

She quickly opened the door and began rummaging through it haphazardly; when she finally found one of his journals that intrigued her, she picked it up and began to read it. She felt enamoured with his true self, but at the same time felt as if he were a fool. Once she'd was satisfied with how much she had read about him, she shoved the journal back into the drawer of the table beside his bed and, in a rare moment of unclarity, she quickly slammed the drawer shut a bit too hard, causing the table to rattle. She looked back at the table to see the lamp that rest on top of it spinning around on its base before it lost it's balance and crashed into the ground, shattering into pieces.

Frantically, Franziska tried putting the pieces back together, but found it much harder to do this than the jigsaw puzzles she worked on at the dinner table when she was bored. Despite her best efforts, she failed to recreate the lamp she had accidentally broke. She grew more and more worried while she was thinking about what Miles would think of her, after finding out she was snooping around in his room while he wasn't in there, but, out of the blue, she made a startling realization that led to an idea. She quickly ran out of his room and back to hers to fetch the lamp that sit on her end table, which was identical to the one she had broke. She unplugged it and ran back to Miles' room, and put it in place of the lamp she had accidentally broke. As she sweeped up some tiny pieces of glass into her leather-glove clad hand to dispose of in her room, she noticed that their rooms were identical in everyway, except the color theme of the rooms, as hers was powder blue with a white trim while his was crimson red with a black trim.

After she had flushed the remaining evidence of her visit to Miles' room, she hurredly returned to her own room as she heard his footsteps drumming up the staircase. She jumped onto her bed and picked up a book of law, just in case he made a surprise stop by her room, but luckily he didn't. She let out a sigh of relief after she heard his door shut.

30 minutes later, she found herself in his room, ready to hear him read her a story about a boy from Southern America and his two hunting dogs. She didn't find this story as good as the first one he read to her 3 years ago, but she liked it none-the-less.

After he read her two chapters, she decided to inquire about his visit with her papa earlier. As he closed the book, he felt Franziska's riding crop. SMACK! "Miles Edgeworth! What did you discuss with my papa earlier?" She asked in a demanding tone. Edgeworth shrugged off the sting of her riding crop and politely answered her question; "I'm to be assisting him on a trial tomorrow. He's preparing me for my BAR exam, so he thought watching him in action would teach me some things about how to prosecute." SMACK! "Of course he will, and he will do it in a way only a von Karma can!" she pointed at him to get her point across better. "Perfectly." With that, Franziska felt that it was an appropriate time to make her exit, but as she walked to towards the door, he stopped her. "Oh, and Franziska?" She turned to face him once again. "Yes?"

He closed his eyes and smirked; "Thank you for the lamp."