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Chapter Text

Garavel Ir’Viraan pauses, standing just outside of his lovely wife’s office, taking a deep breath and trying to wipe the laugh from his face. He knocks gently on the door, in the way he knows she will recognise as him.

“Come in.” He is slightly relieved to hear the smile and calm in her voice. Good, this might make it easier.

He walks through the door, shooting his wife the most charming, innocent smile he can muster. With the way the corner of her lip quirks in the lovely way it does when she’s trying not to smile, he can tell that she’s already seeing through the innocence. He expected nothing different.

“Darling, I need you to turn me into a goose.”

He watches as she blinks at him, once, twice, three times. He can see the gears turning in her lovely mind, despite her carefully blank expression.

“What?”

“A goose! Have you never wondered what it would be like to experience the world through the eyes of a bird?” He takes a seat in one of the plush armchairs on the opposite side of the desk she’s occupying. “I, for one, would love to have that privilege.”

Alara’s fingers twitch where they are resting on the papers she was reading before he came in. “Da'vhenan, my dear husband, what is going on? You have asked for my help with magic before, but never to turn you into a whole animal.” She tilts her head at him, her eyes glinting in amusement. “Did the children do something? Last I was updated they were all outside.”

“No no no, don’t you worry, all our children are perfectly safe,” he replies, perhaps too fast to be believable.

She squints at him, an expression she would never make in the company of any other than himself. “Right. Safe.”

“Mmhm.” He gets up from his seat and steps over to her side, crouching down next to her chair and grasping her hand in his, pressing a soft kiss to her knuckles. “Just simple curiosity, is all. Research.”

Her cough barely conceals the laugh that almost escapes her throat, making his smile widen in a more genuine way. I always love to hear that sound.

“You’re laying it on thick, Garavel, aren’t you?” she says with a smile, shaking her head.

“I do not know what you mean, Ara sal’shiral,” he says back, feigning an offended tone. Her raised eyebrow breaks through his act, grin spreading over his face at her unamused look. “Is it working?”

The sigh that passes through her lips is one he has heard many times before.

She reaches her free hand over, cupping his face and tracing his cheekbone with her thumb. “One of these days, I swear, I will say no.” Her fond tone softens the threat into a promise she has yet to keep.

Garavel presses his face in her hand, leaving a gentle kiss on the soft skin of her palm as her magic bleeds into his body, warming him from the inside. He would never tire of feeling the surge of his wife’s power spread over his every cell, although this time it is overshadowed by the feeling of shrinking and shifting into a form entirely unfamiliar.

The grey and white goose lifts its head towards Alara, shaking out its feathers, and gives a great, clear honk.

It turns around, wobbling a little as the man-turned-goose finds his bearings in the new body, before dashing out with its black webbed feet pattering on the wood floor.

“Dareth shiral!” She calls out after the goose, hearing its little footsteps get quieter as it disappears down the hall. She swears, as the goose honks back in reply, that there is a second, higher pitched honk that joins in the cacophony that trails out of the house and into the grass of the back gardens.

Chapter Text

If one were to cast their eye upon the Heartwilds, one would simply see a warm, lovely spring day. However, this isn’t just any day.

Today, Aelys Ir’Viraan has turned her brother into a goose.

This lovely bird, small and pure white, was in the process of chasing said sister through the halls of their house, when it had found itself awkwardly flying and stumbling down a set of stairs, straight into the door of the office their father inhabited.

Somewhere in the depths of the trees, in a small lake formed by an offshoot of the great river, the changed forms of the two men of the Viraan family splash and paddle in the cool water.

Occasionally, one of them disappears under the surface, only for a few moments, before resurfacing, triumphantly holding a fish in its beak and honking at the other to present their catch. It is during one of these deep dives, that the small white goose that is Garavellir realises one minor flaw in its wonderful plan.

Fish don't taste very good, when they are suddenly in your very human mouth, several feet under the surface.

Coming back up through the water, coughing and spitting the fish taste from his mouth, he looks around for his father, finding him gliding on the water a little further into the lake. He calls out to the goose, beckoning it closer. It simply dips and disappears.

“Shit,” he whispers to himself, quickly swimming over to where the goose was. He dips his head under the water, trying to make out the shape of it, finding nothing. When he looks back out over the lake, the goose is calmly gliding again, another few feet away.

“Come on, Dad, don’t make me chase you,” he says, beginning to approach. However, as soon as he gets close enough where he can reach out and grab onto the goose, it ducks into the water again and swims over in the opposite direction.

And that is how his sister finds him, chasing after a grey and white goose, soaked to the bone and out of breath.

“What are you doing?” he hears her voice calling from the shore. “I know I turned you into a goose, why are you terrorising the poor creatures around here?”

“Aelys!” he calls back, voice strained from the exertion. “Come help me, we need to bring it back to Mom!”

“What? Garavellir, what is going on? Come over here and explain and stop chasing the poor thing!”

Garavellir obliges, swimming over to the shore and dragging himself out of the water, collapsing on the grass next to his sister’s feet. “It’s-” he says, trying to calm down his heaving chest, “it’s Dad. He got Mom to turn him into a goose.”

“He what now? Why?”

“He wanted to go fishing,” he says simply, grinning up at her raised eyebrow.

She blinks at him in response.

Slowly getting to his feet, still aching but at least able to breathe properly, he looks back out to the water, where their Dad-goose is sitting and staring at the two of them. “Any ideas, oh genius Sister mine?”

She slaps his shoulder at the mocking tone. “I don’t know, Brother, I’m not the one who got themselves in this mess.”

Maravix had been enjoying a quiet, focused afternoon in the gardens, going through movements and positions she had trained to the point of doing them in her sleep, simply focusing on the feeling of the sun on her skin and the peaceful sounds of the trees around them.

Or at least, it had been peaceful, until a few moments ago, when she saw her sister and brother, yelling and speeding their way through the grounds, following, or being followed, by what looked like…a goose?

At least, that’s what the loud honking noises were telling her.

A loud, cacophonous commotion from outside her cracked open window alerts Alara to the fact that her husband, in all his goose glory, has made his way back from whatever mission he was set on completing.

Looking out to the gardens, she sees her two daughters, standing in the middle of their usual open space on the grass, while her son chases after her husband’s spelled form, laughter spilling out from his wide smile.

Seeing Garavel quickly approaching where their daughters are standing, she opens the window properly, reaching out through the open space and sending a wave of magic out towards him. She watches as the change of the spell ending catches him mid step, tumbling on the ground until he lands, face up on the grass, right in the spot where Maravix and Aelys had swiftly retreated from.

His gaze finds her immediately, the grin on his face turning into the blinding smile she was used to seeing every time he did something to impress her or make her laugh. She smiles back at him, fond and genuine, before turning and starting her way down to join them.

Garavel watched his wife’s form retreat from the window, the smile on her face having been engraved in his eyelids. With another laugh, he turns to face their gathered children. Maravix is shaking her head at her brother, who is sat on the grass with his elbows on his knees, giggling through heaving breaths. His hair is still damp from their trip. Aelys is standing a step away from them, biting her cheek to keep her face neutral.

“Well, this has been an uneventful day, hasn’t it?” he says, sitting up into a cross-legged position. He runs his fingers through his also damp hair, combing it back and away from his eyes.

He hears her before he sees Alara walking down the steps coming out from the back doors. “You all couldn’t think of a more effective way to catch your father?”

He hears his oldest barely cover a snort from behind him.

"Aelys, you could have at least tried to change your father back.” He is sure he can hear amusement in her tone.

Garavellir slowly turns to look at his sister, who is biting down on the corner of her lip to try and hold back her laughter.

"You could have changed him this whole time?”

Garavel Ir’Viraan lets gravity pull him back on the grass, as Garavellir starts chasing Aelys around, and laughter fills the gardens.