Conscience Divided

"Why do they never believe you when you say you're sorry?" Lyric Swiftwing asked herself. "I'll have to look into that." Later, you idiot! she thought. One should generally avoid asking oneself stupid questions while being chased down an alley by a big, ugly, very angry guy with deadly weapons.
"Hey, that could be my motto. It's quite appropriate."

A bullet narrowly missed her right shoulder, coming close enough that she could feel the heat from it. She snapped back to reality. Ok, who CARES about mottos?! Just get out of here NOW! The alley ended in an eight-foot-high wall, and Lyric practically ran right up it. She jumped down on the other side and stopped for a minute's rest. Mr. Ugly back there was far too out of shape to get over the wall, so she was safe for now. Until he finds a way around, that is. She could hear him yelling at her from the other side, and decided to leave before she attracted too much attention.

Thankfully, since it was 3:30 in the morning, there wasn't much attention to attract. Lyric checked her pocket to make sure that the cause of all this trouble was still there. "Phew." She examined the ancient necklace under the dim light of a streetlamp, feeling a pang of guilt but brushing it aside. After all, she had apologized. Or tried to. Of course, she thought, I shouldn't have had to apologize, because I shouldn't have been seen! She sighed, and began to make her way back to the headquarters of the Brotherhood of the Blade.

Lyric hoped that it had been too dark for Mr. Ugly to get a good look at her. She mentally slapped herself for having worn her bright yellow shirt. Yeah, great way to blend into the shadows there. Because she was still in training, it was assumed that she'd make the occasional mistake. Mistakes, in her opinion, were one of the best methods of learning. But her superiors would not be so inclined to agree with her reasoning if they saw her picture on the front page of the newspaper. Lyric glanced again at the necklace she held in her fist. Crafted by a mysterious ancient race of ducks, it was incredibly valuable. Possibly the most valuable thing she'd ever stolen. The fact that she had succeeded in obtaining it might just outweigh the fact that she'd been seen. Only sort of seen. I hope. It was really dark. But despite her attempts at reassuring herself, Lyric noticed that she was shaking. In ten years (over half her life) of being a thief, she'd never come so close to being caught.

Well, ok, there was that one time when she had been caught. But being caught by Duke l'Orange himself didn't really count. It was to be expected that the most notorious thief on Puckworld could catch a twelve-year-old pickpocket. Lyric had been (and still was) quite proud that she'd even managed to get a hand on his wallet. Proud, and yet not. After joining the Brotherhood, she'd spent the next four years continuously apologizing to him. Some thief I am, she thought, I can't even pick a pocket without feeling guilty. I guess Mom and Dad...

Lyric cut herself off abruptly in mid-thought. She didn't want to remember. She didn't want to think about how her parents and her older brother had always taught her to be an honest, law-abiding young duck. She didn't want to think about how every time she stole something they must be rolling over in their respective graves.

That word, 'graves', echoed through her mind. "Well, so much for not remembering."

Lyric had been only nine years old when her family had been killed in a collision. Her mother and father had died instantly, and her eighteen-year-old brother Aidin died a few hours later in the hospital. She hadn't even been allowed to see him. (Because Lyric had been in school at the time, she was obviously uninjured.) Her only other family was her grandmother who, though very kind, just couldn't handle raising a little duckling. Lyric had been placed in a foster home, which she considered to be the worst two months of her life. Not that her foster parents had been mean; they were in fact quite loving. Lyric felt a little guilty about leaving the way she did. Is there anything I don't feel guilty about? she wondered now. But being in a different house with people she didn't know had been horrible. The worst part was that she'd missed her brother terribly. Although twice as old as she was, he'd been her best friend. Lyric had always looked up to him.

A police siren wailed nearby, forcing Lyric back to the present. Not that she minded terribly. Holding the necklace tightly, she quickly ducked around the corner of a building and hid in the darkness until the noise ceased. It sounded like it had stopped at the museum she'd just robbed, which told Lyric that she'd better get out of the area.

Jogging through the night in the general direction of the BOTB headquarters, Lyric tried to keep her mind from wandering again. With her, that was a task not easily accomplished. But she managed by concentrating on the path that she was running. She was careful to stick to the back alleys, changing direction frequently. If the police were on her trail already, she certainly didn't want to lead them straight to the Brotherhood's secret headquarters. "All the apologies on Puckworld wouldn't compensate for a mistake of that magnitude," she told herself. Listen to me, I sound like a thesaurus.

Running in a zig-zag pattern through a series of identical-looking alleyways in almost total darkness would have disoriented most ducks, but Lyric knew these streets well. After running away from her foster family, she'd made this very area of the city her new home. A feeling of nostalgia swept over her as she recalled the countless times that she'd dashed through these exact passageways, just as she now did. And usually for the same reason. She had invariably known the area better than her pursuer or pursuers, and had never been caught. With this realization, Lyric almost smiled. I've got the home court advantage, she thought to herself. Then promptly tripped and fell on her face.

Lyric hadn't realized that she'd still been carrying the stolen necklace in her hand until she saw it fall through a sewer grate. She stood up and brushed herself off, looking around to make sure that she was alone. "Good. I'll have to be quick." She knelt down beside the grate. Squinting through the bars, she could just make out the form of the priceless artifact. I think that's it, anyway. I should've brought my glasses. "No, they likely would've been smashed when I fell." Stop arguing with yourself, Lyric, and get the necklace already! "Ok, ok." She looked down the sewer grate again, trying to judge how far down the necklace was. It didn't seem to be more than a few feet away. This calls for the good old-fashioned chewing-gum-on-a-stick method. Lyric soon located plenty of gum under a bench at a nearby bus stop. A long stick wasn't hard to find, either. In only a few minutes, the necklace was back in her hand. "A little gooey, but that'll come off," she mused, and immediately placed it in her pocket.

If she was being followed, it certainly couldn't be very closely. In the time it had taken Lyric to retrieve the necklace, she hadn't seen a soul. But even so, she thought as she came close to the Brotherhood's lair, better safe than sorry. She stopped a couple blocks away from the headquarters and climbed up a tree. It was probably best to wait for a little while, she figured, just to be absolutely certain that she hadn't been trailed this far.

Lyric hadn't climbed the tree to hide. If anyone did come looking for her, she prefered fight to flight. But she had a good vantage point from high up in the branches. The most compelling reason, however, was that she simply liked to sit in trees. There was something calming and comforting about them. As she pulled herself up onto a sturdy branch and leaned back against the trunk, she felt free. Free to let her mind drift from reality once more.

When Lyric was younger, about seven years old, she and her brother had spent a good deal of time up in trees. They'd built a small treehouse in one much like this one. She remembered that treehouse with perfect clarity. It had been quite small, just barely big enough for the two ducks, but that simply meant it was cozy. There was a rope ladder leading up to the entrance, and Lyric was surprized to realize that she recalled exactly how many "rungs" it'd had. Eleven. She and her then sixteen-year-old brother had spent hour after hour up in that tree, just sitting and talking. They'd talked about everything, from what they'd done at school to what their biggest fears were. Or sometimes they'd just sit there, not talking at all, and listen to the wind rustling the leaves. Lyric couldn't recall being so happy since...well, since the accident. By DuCaine, she missed him.

"But I'm over it," she told herself, "I'm tough. I won't let bad memories get to me." Yeah, right. And fluffy pink shepers compose operas. Lyric shook her head in a vain effort to get her brain to shut up.

From this height, she could see past some of the smaller buildings and could catch a glimpse of where the headquarters of the Brotherhood were located. She sighed. What would Aidin think of her if he could see her now? If he was sitting up in this tree with her, what would they talk about? What could she possibly say to him? "Well, Aidin, today I stole this necklace, ran from the cops, and fished around in a sewer, all before sunrise! And how was your morning?" Hardly.

Lyric didn't like stealing.

And yet here I am, training to be a professional thief. But despite the nagging her conscience gave her, and despite the near constant guilt, the last thing she was about to do was leave the Brotherhood. Well, it's not like I could, even if I wanted to.

Suddenly snapping out of her daydream, Lyric noticed just how light the sky had become in the east. The sun was rising. "Already?" And no one appeared to be on to her. Perfect. She climbed halfway down the tree, then jumped to the ground, landing softly. "Time to head back." A gust of wind blew through her short brown hair. It smelled good, like spring. Lyric did something very rare for her: she smiled. She was good at what she did, and she knew it. So why can't I just enjoy it?

Just outside of the secret headquarters of the Brotherhood of the Blade, Lyric paused. The sun shone into her eyes, and she raised her hand to block it. She looked at the building. No, she wouldn't leave, even if she could. She had no home, no family. Her formal education had stopped at grade four. There was no honest future to be had for a runaway street girl like herself. But she had chosen to run away from her foster family, she had chosen to become a pickpocket, and she had chosen to join the Brotherhood. She had chosen this future. And Lyric wasn't one to turn and run when the going got tough. Her own actions had brought her to where she was today, and she would accept the concequences of those actions.

Lyric glanced again at the building before her. These people, these thieves, had taken her in, raised her and taught her. This was her home, and inside was her family. No, she didn't want to leave. She had run away before, and wasn't about to take the easy way out again. This was the path that she'd chosen for her life, and she would see it through to its end. Lyric reached into her pocket and brought out the necklace. It stuck to her hand, and she almost laughed. Almost. She carefully undid the clasp. Then, reaching behind her, she fastened the priceless ancient artifact around her neck. It reflected sunlight into her eyes, blinding her for a second. But it was beautiful.

A sudden gust of wind rustled the leaves on the ground and swirled them around Lyric's legs.
"Sorry, Aidin."

END

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