Chapter Text
The rain has just begun to stop falling when the cage door swings open.
Trapped inside all the while, Phoenix had watched the battle with bated breath, scarcely able to tear his eyes away as Miles and Gavin traded blows. He only made sure to keep his hand tangled in Trucy’s the entire time, unwilling to leave her for even a moment.
He’s not certain what had happened next, except that Gavin was gone, and the only trace of him going was the shriek as he fell. Klavier had stiffened as he heard it, and when it cut off with a sickening sharpness, they bowed their head, keeping their expression obscured as they acknowledged their brother’s last moments.
Not a second later, the gate pops open under Athena’s hand, and Trucy stirs under Phoenix’s. But he doesn’t have time to fuss over his daughter, not now- because Miles sinks to his knees on the edge of the cliff, bowing over, hands dripping red with blood.
He can’t tear his eyes away. Something cold and dark fills his chest, smarting in his veins like ice; it’s a feeling he wishes he wasn’t familiar with. No, he knows it all too well: the sensation of horror leaching into his body and grounding him to the rain-soaked dirt.
Miles is not moving, and Phoenix can think of nothing else.
He starts when he feels a hand laid on his shoulder, and turns to meet sympathetic eyes. Maya frowns at him, then jerks her chin towards the cliff edge. “We’ve got Trucy, Nick. Go help him.”
Phoenix can do nothing but nod as he stumbles to his feet and- still shaky, still unsteady, and frantic in his desperation- he tries to avoid slipping on the mud as he races to Miles’ side. Simon stands aside to let him pass, and the clouds are beginning to break apart overhead, letting in weak and watery beams of sunlight.
From the cage, Phoenix hadn’t been certain about what was happening- but as he draws closer, it becomes sickeningly obvious. Miles gasps for breath, rattling and fragile; there’s a faint line of red spilling from the corner of his toothy maw. The delicate light lances onto him, edging his white fur in silver and gleaming on the culprit of his condition: Paladin Gavin’s sword, piercing his breast so far that there’s a hint of steel on the other side.
Phoenix doesn’t even care about the mud as he flings himself to his knees and gets as close as he can, hands scrabbling at Miles’ wide shoulders and eyes prickling with tears.
“Miles?” he whispers, and his voice sounds far too much like the hollowness of his beloved’s breaths. “Miles, you did it. Gavin is gone, we’re free- Oh, Mother, can you hear me?”
With a seemingly titanic effort, Miles shifts under his hands- and for the first time, Phoenix feels something move, pulling against his hands for a brief moment before falling solidly to the earth. He blinks away the moisture in his eyes and looks down, confused, only to see a glittering iron chain, broken in two, below them. Each end is connected to a spiked muzzle cage.
On either side of him, Edgeworth’s caged heads- ringed with red around their mouths from years of chafing against too-tight bars- take a deep breath, pink tongues lolling in fanged mouths.
And then they speak.
The one on the left raises its snout to the sky, gulping down the air it’s been deprived of for so long. It stares at Phoenix with unwavering concentration, even as its twin on the right does the same; between them, Miles’ middle head rests too-delicately against Phoenix’s chest and tries its best to breathe.
“I put the muzzles on myself,” the left head rasps, in a voice that is Miles in its straightforwardness.
“I could not bear to hear what the other two said.” whispers the right head, in a voice that is Miles in its honesty.
“I have always known how to break the curse.”
“But doing so felt sacrilegious to me. Not when I was what I was, unworthy of love.”
“This is no longer true. I have changed. I am not the man I was before.”
Both heads tilt towards Phoenix, then, and speak in unison, voices twining together as one: “I love you, Phoenix Wright.”
And against his chest the middle head finally moves, pulling itself up to look Phoenix in the eyes, still dangerously pale. Miles’ eyelids flicker, but he’s so close that Phoenix can see his own reflection in them; twin mirrors of his own terrified face.
“I am tired of living like this,” he gasps, breath hot and desperate. “I don’t want to be a beast anymore. I don’t deserve it. I am a good man.”
“You are a good man,” Phoenix manages to whisper. “Please, Miles, we can help you, just please- please, stay awake...”
With one last shuddering inhale, Miles leans forward, and the sword slides further in with a hideous sound. Phoenix feels rooted to the earth, silent and shocked, unable to do anything more than try desperately to support the man above him as he crumples, going limp and lifeless in his arms.
Miles lays his head on Phoenix’s shoulder, and chokes out a final plea.
“I want to live.”
The world bursts into golden light.
During his life, Phoenix has heard of many fanciful tales involving the breaking of curses. Many of them involve true love’s kiss; the recipients showered by diamonds or returning to a gorgeous scene, their homes restored and lives made magically and easily whole. He’d never seen it, and so discounted most; after all, he knew that magic was often more practical than all that.
But as Miles’ form glows under his palms and the skies triumphantly clear above his head, casting them both in warm sunlight, Phoenix feels as if he’s seeing something truly wondrous .
Still lodged in his breast, the sword that had pierced Miles slips out and falls to the ground, landing with a thump in the mud as Phoenix grasps on harder to the light that replaces the other man’s body. He can feel it, glowing-warm and yet not burning; the sensation of a body shrinking, of fur changing to smooth skin, of motes of light twinkling into the air and shrinking away in a cloud of sparks.
His vision adjusts as the glow fades, and suddenly, he is not holding the beast that had inhabited the Palace of the Wild Things any longer.
No, Phoenix is holding a man- a man with gray hair and pale skin and trembling hands, unmarred by sword-gashes. His head is tucked into Phoenix’s shoulder, but after a heartbeat he stirs, shaking like a newborn fawn, and pulls back.
He looks at his hands like he’s never seen them before, reaching up to trace the line of his jaw and nose as if they belong to a stranger, and his silver eyes light up with joy. Phoenix can feel the tears spilling from his eyes already, but he can’t seem to care, because when the other man looks at him he recognizes his face completely.
“Phoenix?” asks Miles Edgeworth, son of Gregory Edgeworth, and no more a beast than anyone else. “Phoenix, I- it’s-”
“It’s you,” Phoenix replies, and there’s a smile on his face that he’s certain won’t go away for a very long time. “Miles. Miles.”
“Phoenix-” he gasps, and then there’s a mouth on his and Phoenix is lost, lost, lost.
Because he is finally kissing Miles Edgeworth, and nothing else could possibly matter more than this.
“Daddy! ”
They part just in time for Phoenix to get bowled over from the back by someone he’s more than happy to see. He doesn’t twist around in time to catch her, but easily reaches around to bundle Trucy into his arms, letting her cling to him and sob into his chest. He’s crying too, and in front of them Miles gently grins, looking at Trucy with tenderness.
“Daddy, we’re- you’re- you’re okay ,” she gasps, after they’ve hugged it out enough to hold a conversation. “I’m so sorry-”
“Shh, it’s okay, baby,” Phoenix hushes, running his hand through her hair. “It all turned out okay, didn’t it?”
Trucy brightens, smiling even though her face is wet. “It did! None of them are birds anymore- you did it, Daddy and, uh, Mr. Edgeworth!”
“I feel as if we might be close enough that you don’t need to be concerned with formalities, Trucy,” Miles laughs. “Not birds? Are they-”
“We’re right here, dog-boy,” Maya says, stepping up behind. Phoenix lets himself be pulled to his feet by Simon’s proffered hand, and Miles follows, twining their fingers together for a brief moment before he goes to support his sister, who is distinctly lacking feathers. Surreptitiously, Phoenix reaches behind himself and finds nothing but air.
“We’re all here, Mr. Wright,” Apollo says, an arm around Klavier’s waist. His partner doesn’t seem much for talking, but flashes a weak smile.
“...It’s good to have you back, Lord Edgeworth,” Simon comments, everyone taking a moment to breathe. “I’m led to believe that the township needed you dearly.”
“No kidding,” Athena snorts. “We barely have any sort of leadership anymore. It doesn’t make for a happy community.”
“Well then,” Miles says, brushing at his ruined coat. A slice runs through the fabric on his chest, but the skin underneath it is smooth and unmarred. “I suppose it’s well past time I do my duty as Lord, isn’t it?”
“Better late than never,” Franziska mumbles, and the air fills with laughter- laughter, Phoenix thinks, that promises that the future will be as bright as this moment.