Chapter Text
The dawn crept through the window of Manfreds room, stabbing at his closed eyes with a vengeance, furiously attempting to rouse him from sleep. It was soon successful in this task, as the man shifted under his silk bedspread and blinked open his eyes, wearily taking in the morning light.
It was time for Manfred to get up. He had a trial later today, and he would hardly be anything less than perfectly punctual, but for some reason, as he fought his way free of his blankets, he found himself quite sluggish. His limbs didn’t seem to be responding to his orders correctly, and he soon had entangled himself thoroughly in his sheets.
He tried to yell in frustration, but the sound came out warped and mangled. In fact, it sounded much like-
“HONK!”
Like a honk, yes. Not the sort of honk you would expect from a particularly ill human either. The sound was certainly fowl in nature, and as Manfred realized that, he decided to look down at himself.
He almost regretted it. His eyes were met with thick white feathers and bright orange feet. He shouted again, and again, only succeeded in releasing a goose-ish honk.
Manfred scrambled his way free from his soft, blankety prison and dropped onto his floor.
It was a long drop down, and he flailed his (arms? Wings?) about wildly to try and stabilize himself. It was not to be, however, and he crashed onto the ground hard, tipping forward with a thud.
He stood up slowly, carefully regaining his balance on his now webbed feet.
Manfred von Karma was a goose. There was no arguing that fact, as now he was able to examine himself in his entirety in the full length mirror.
His visage would be comical if he wasn’t bound to it, as he was dressed up in a small set of his own daily wear, tailored perfectly to his goose form. However, Manfred didn’t find it amusing, as the questions whirled about in his mind, trying to make sense of what was a completely incomprehensible situation.
How had he turned into a goose? Did someone get a goose suit custom commissioned, or was that part of the original magic?
Was this real? Was magic real? Had Manfred just gone insane overnight and this entire thing was some nonsense dream?
Most importantly of all, how was he going to prosecute his trial now?
He began to waddle back and forth in front of the mirror, gradually allowing himself to adjust to this new way of moving about. He opened his beak, testing his tongue carefully. First, all he managed was a series of strange sounding honks, but gradually the sound evolved.
“What-“ Honk. “What is the-“ Honk, “meaning of this?!”
No one answered that. Probably for the best, as if disembodied voices started answering his questions it would lend more credibility to the idea that he had truly lost his mind.
Had something happened yesterday to cause this? Manfred closed his eyes to reflect, tearing through his memory of the events of the prior day's trial…
His case had been against a woman called Ariel Which, and as always Manfred’s case had been perfect. He’d gotten his full conviction in only three hours, and the day had ended quite uneventfully. As the bailiffs were taking Ms. Which away, though, she had cried out:
“You’ll pay for this! A curse on you, Karma! A curse on your whole wretched bloodline!”
Manfred hadn’t thought much about that. Defendants often wished plagues upon his house, and he had little reason to suspect this one would be less impotent than all the others.
It seemed that there was a little more force behind it than he’d thought, though, and now he was trapped in a most unfitting and most undignified form.
He waddled over to his door, which luckily stood ajar, and went out into the hallway. He couldn’t even navigate a closed door by himself like this, and it was becoming increasingly clear that he would need to acquire some assistance.
There was a phone on the desk of his office, and if he could get there, get all the way up onto the desk, and figure out how to dial a number, he could call someone here to figure something out.
The walk to his office was slow and aggravating on little goose legs, and he found himself cursing the witch with every step.
How dare someone do this to him? How dare they mock him with such a ridiculous body? He’d get his revenge, he’d get his revenge alright.
The door to his office was closed, and the goose prosecutor hissed in anger. Terrible, horrible, wretched closed door, he should have it burned in the fireplace for being an obstacle…
He was a bird, though, Manfred realized, and birds can fly.
If he could just get a little bit of height, he could grab the handle of the door and push it open.
He did not, of course, know how to fly, and when flapping his wings yielded little but disappointment, he found no other option then to get a running start, rushing at the door while flapping and flopping about. He had just started to rise upwards when his beak connected with the wood of the door, smacking face first into it. He squawked with pain, tiny white feathers that must have come dislodged fluttering around his head.
Woozy from the impact, Manfred stumbled back onto his feet, hoping the room would stop spinning once he turned himself back upright. As his surroundings slowly came back into focus, he realized that the weight of his body slamming against the door had been enough to dislodge it after all.
That was a relief, as he wasn’t very confident his skull could sustain another blow like that without lasting side effects. He waddled on, entering the office and looking around. He’d left in perfect order last night, of course, and it was doubtful he’d be given an easier method of getting on top of his desk.
He circled the perimeter of the thing, eyeing the phone on top of it carefully. If he pulled it off the desk by the cord, he wouldn’t have to climb up there.
If it broke, though, he’d be in hot water.
Manfred shuddered at that metaphor, realizing how much he really didn’t want to consider food related phrases in relation to himself at the moment. Being cooked and eaten…what a dreadful fate.
He had to try pulling the phone down, he decided, and if it broke he’d wait for someone to come around to check on him.
Manfred approached the cord, briefly attempting to grab at it with his wings, but that was ineffective, so he switched to his beak, gripping onto it tightly and backing up.
A flutter of papers fell first, and had his mouth not been full of cord, Manfred would’ve cried out in distress. Those would be hell to reorganize, and he was already struggling to keep ahold of his rationality without the gnawing feeling of growing disorder. He kept on, though, trashed office be damned.
The phone slid off the desk then, landing with a nerve wracking clatter, and Manfred found himself pleading with destiny for the thing not to have broken on impact.
He crept up to it, nervously scrutinizing the phone for any signs of damage. Finding none, he stepped over to begin dialing. But who should he call? Someone who wouldn’t decide to cook and eat him preferably. That ruled out a vast majority of the police department, actually. Detective Gant, perhaps, but he’d likely be too busy laughing his head off at the situation to actually help him.
“Hmm.” He shook his head. He needed a person who was almost completely joyless with some kind of an attachment to Manfred himself.
Ah, yes. Miles Edgeworth, that was it.
Carefully, Manfred began to press the numbers in the dial pad with one webbed toe, and after a few moments, the phone began to ring.
The sound crackled, and he held his head as close to the receiver as possible, as he certainly could not pick the thing up.
“…Sir?” The audio was choppy, it seemed some damage was done to the phone after all, “…Something wrong...not here?”
Manfred couldn’t quite make out what he meant by that, he’d missed a few critical words, but that didn’t matter much. He spoke, his voice sounding odd to even himself through his clumsy, inarticulate beak.
“Listen, boy, I need you to get over here immediately.” The tail of his sentence turned into a rough honk, and he began to splutter and cough to get his voice back on track.”
“Are you alright?”
“No.” Another honking cough, “I’ve either been cursed by a witch or I’ve gone completely off my rocker, and I need you here to figure out which it is.”
A long silence from the other end, then finally Miles spoke, very hesitantly, “…I’ll come right over.”
Manfred heard the sound of him standing up from his desk.
“I’ll be on the floor of my office!” He quacked into the receiver, but whether he was heard he did not know. It was possible it was swallowed up in the bird noises he’d been making, or perhaps he’d already been hung up on.
Nothing for it but to wait. Hopefully his protégé would be there soon.
He settled down on the floor, trying to sit down comfortably on the carpet, but struggling to do so. How do geese sit down? That was not a question he thought he would ever have to ponder, but now here he was. He tried it one or two ways before finally giving up, flopping over limply on his side.
Time passed, and suddenly he heard the sound of footsteps in the hall. “Sir? Sir, are you in here?”
Manfred stood up just as Miles peered into the room, catching his eye just in time to see him yell, taking a stumbling step backwards.
Manfred shook out his feathers from where they’d been crumpled, honked once, then spoke. “I take it from your cowardly scream that I’m not out of my mind? I am, in fact, a goose?”
Miles opened and shut his mouth several times, looking rather foolish as he did so. “You..you’re a-” He stammered, clearly concerned and baffled.
“Goose.”
“How…how did this happen?” He walked into the room, giving Manfred a wide berth as if becoming a goose might be contagious.
“Keep up, boy, a witch's curse.” He waddled over, bridging the distance between them. “I prosecuted a case against a woman who claimed to be a witch yesterday, and as she was taken away, she laid a curse on me.”
Miles bent down to Manfred’s level to look him in the eye. “You think you’ve been cursed by a witch?”
“There’s not really a better explanation, is there?” Manfred tilted his head to stare at Miles, “Now. You know what I need from you, don’t you?”
“Help unraveling the magical elements at play to return you to your former self?”
Manfred clacked his beak together, producing a noise remarkably similar to a snap of the fingers. “Wrong. Well, not yet anyway. There will be time for that later. I need you to take me to the courthouse.” He tugged on a feather that had been caught in the fabric of his jabot, freeing it. “I have a trial today.”
Miles blinked at him. “You’re not serious. You can’t possibly work like this.”
“Like hell I can’t.” Manfred glared back, “I can speak, can’t I?”
“Yes, but you can’t really…have a commanding presence, when you’re stuck like that.” He gestured up and down at Manfred, “You’d he laughed out of the court.”
Manfred released a series of ear-splitting honking shrieks, puffing up his chest and flapping his wings. Miles jumped back, alarmed.
“Laugh me out of the court! Preposterous!” He looked Miles in the eye. “They shall do no such thing.”
Miles sighed. “Alright. Come on, then. I’ll drive you.”
“Obviously.” Manfred snorted, waddling after him.
He couldn’t ride in the car properly, of course, as his small stature made sitting in the seat quite impossible. Instead he found himself in the backseat of the car, careening from one side to the other as the car rounded turns and trying his hardest not to be sick. He didn’t know for sure if geese could vomit, but he didn’t really want to find out.
“If I get pulled over for having a goose in my backseat, how do you want to explain it?” Miles asked, rounding another turn and sending Manfred flying with a despairing honk.
“Drive defensively, my God!” He squawked, “Are you trying to break my neck?”
“Sorry sir.”
“You’ll have to get a kennel or…or a cage or something to secure to this seat, I think I’m getting brain damage.”
“I hope whatever this is doesn’t last long enough for that to be necessary.”
“That’s dreadfully optimistic of you.” Another turn and another slam into the side of the car. Manfred spluttered as he picked himself up. “Seriously, boy, my skull is about the size of a tennis ball, I don’t have very much leeway for head trauma.”
“We’re almost there, hold on.”
Manfred felt the movement of the car shift, lulling into a more gentle rhythm as they arrived at the courthouse and Miles pulled into a parking space.
He stepped out of the car, walked around to the door Manfred’s head had smacked against most recently and opened it, revealing Manfred, who was now laying limp as a ragdoll against the seat.
“Sir? Are you alright?” He reached over and picked him up, holding him in two hands at arms length.
Manfred flapped his wings once in a sort of shrug, “I’ve been better.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
Manfred glared at him. “You think me a coward? A wishy-washy fool?” He wriggled about in Miles’ grasp, forcing him to gain a more secure hold, tucking Manfred under one arm. “Besides, if I were to back out now, that would make that car ride all for nothing.”
“Understood.” Miles started walking inside, “I’ll have to hurry, then. You’re almost late.”
“You’d better.” Manfred grumbled, shifting about with discomfort. He wanted to get down, but he knew his waddling gait wouldn’t get very far very fast.
As it was, though Miles was able to bring him to the court lobby very quickly, drawing quite a few stares on the way. Once they arrived, Miles was about to set him down, but Manfred honked a protest.
“Fool! How do you expect me to get to the prosecutor's bench from here?!”
“Right.”
He kept walking then, pushing into the courtroom. When the gallery caught a glimpse of them, though, they erupted into laughter and chatter. It was the judge who brought them back to order by slamming down his gavel and shouting.
“Order! Order! I will have order!” The crowd quieted some, and he continued, “Why has the prosecution brought a bird to trial?”
Miles set Manfred on the bench, then retreated towards the gallery. Manfred took a few steps forward, puffing up his chest. “The bird is the prosecution, judge.”
The court went dead silent. The remaining chatter disappearing as the people became aware of what they were seeing. A talking goose prosecuting a trial? Had Manfred not been the goose in question, he would’ve had the trial thrown out for making a mockery of justice.
“P-prosecutor von Karma?” The judge stammered.
“Yes?”
“Why are you a goose?”
Manfred made the sharp, clicking sound with his beak again, “None of your business.”
“I…uh….right, of course. Erm, I..I suppose court is now in session for the trial of Mr. Knot Important.”
Manfred stayed silent, fixing the judge with a look. The defense attorney across the court had begun to sweat visibly, and they leaned over to speak to their client.
“Is this a bad time to mention I have a deep-seated fear of large fowl?”
Once the verdict had been read, guilty of course, Manfred jumped down off the prosecutors bench and waddled over to where Miles had been watching. He stood up, and fell into a slow step beside Manfred. They left the court, beginning to talk as they went.
“Now, what do we do about this goose situation?”
“That’s a way of putting it.” Manfred quacked, “We’ll need to consult some kind of expert in the field of bloodline curses.”
Miles stopped, suddenly looking down at him with an expression of alarm. “Did you say bloodline curses?”
Manfred bobbed his head, “Yes, that’s what the witch yesterday said, a curse on my ‘entire wretched bloodline’.” He thought for a moment, a nagging feeling that he was forgetting something tugging at his mind. “Franziska!” He shouted, letting out a loud honk of distress, “Franziska must have been cursed too!” His entire family, actually, but at least his other daughter and his granddaughter had his son in law to look out for them. Franziska would be all alone, probably scared out of her mind with no idea what was going on.
“Yes,” Miles ground his teeth, “We should…probably check on her.”
“You think?” Manfred grumbled, “We’ll need to go as soon as possible.” He dug his feet into the floor.
Miles nodded, “Yes, that’s probably for the best.” He hastened his pace, and Manfred broke into a trot after him, struggling a bit to keep up as even in goose form, physical activity wasn’t exactly his area of expertise.
He found himself gasping as they reached the car. The car. He didn’t want to ride in the car again, his head was already spinning at the prospect.
“We are going to a pet store for a crate before I get my skull caved in from this death trap.”
“Right.” Miles opened the door, and Manfred scrambled up inside.
“Drive slowly.”
“Yes, sir.” He walked around the car to the driver's side door. “But, wait. How are we ever going to get you onto a plane?”