Recently, when I was looking through soulmate tropes, I found the beautiful gem that is the Soulmate Goose of Enforcement. Naturally, @secret-engima ‘s Goosedyn came to mind.
Thanks to @thepenaddict for giving me the idea!
Nox is not entirely sure what happened. One moment, he and Ardyn were resting up after another Niflheim base destroyed. The next, a monster he has never seen before (except in the Mystic’s memories and gods, that makes him feel just a bit old) suddenly appeared.
The monster was defeated promptly, of course, but his uncle was nowhere to be found. Rather, there is a puddle of clothes where his uncle is supposed to be, with the Hat laying on top of the many layers like a trophy. Although there does seem to be a somewhat large bump…
Honk!
Nox cautiously approaches the moving pile, one hand on his blade.
Honk! Honk!
…Axis was right. He should have taken a day off.
What follows is an increasing amount of reports of a lone goose terrorizing towns and villages around Lucis. Most reports center around how this goose would single-mindedly chase a certain person (there are no similarities to be found between them; however, it is interesting to note that most of them are no longer single after their Goose Incident).
The goose could appear anywhere, even places a goose should not be able to reach. The antics it indulged in would vary from location to location, from simply annoying the local farmers to charging into a Niflheim base or chasing daemons away from lone travelers at night.
(If a couple of Hunters are spotted in the vicinity during every single incident, well, Hunters tend to travel a lot. There is no reason for these two events to be related. It is not like anyone would pay attention to Hunters when a mad goose is running amok.)
Each report is more outlandish than the last, but most of the outrageous details were redacted in the final reports sent to the Citadel. The Crownsguard must keep some veneer of professionalism after all. Being unable to catch or outsmart a single goose is not exactly promotion material.
(Cor will be having Words with those responsible for the redacted content.)
It takes time for reports to be sent to the Citadel. It takes even longer for these reports to be taken seriously. By that point, rumors of a Trickster Messenger in the form of a goose start spreading across the countryside.
Of course, no one pays attention to the Goose Reports until the Citadel Goose Invasion.
No one knew how the goose went unnoticed for so long. In fact, the goose went unnoticed for so long that many of its pranks were only attributed to the invader in hindsight.
There was the Tailor Incident, the Throne Room Incident, the Founder’s Day Incident… and likely many more that never came to the Corwnsguard’s attention. If refugees are being treated better in Insomnia, well, that kind of thing is usually underneath their notice.
But most notable were the so-called Match-Making Incidents.
The goose would suddenly start chasing after someone in the Citadel, even all the way across the Crown City. More often than not, the goose would chase them into a locked room or building, where they would end up with at least one other person, only to be let out a few hours later.
There were a few successful attempts to catch the horrible goose, but said goose somehow always managed to escape minutes, or at most hours, after its capture.
(Nox and Titus would like Ardyn to Stop. Unfortunately for them, Ardyn has gained quite a bit of experience as an escape artist.)
Some time later, the goose just… vanishes. Everyone waited for its reappearance with bated breath, but it never reappeared. Thankfully, as the Citadel staff still had to clean up some of its larger pranks. As it was, they highly doubted that they would be able to clean off all the paint on the Citadel walls, never mind the crumbs of food left all over the place, even in spaces only sparrows could reach.
The goose would reappear years later, wearing a small black hat… but that was another story.
