Both Struck By Lightning

  I open the door to my bedroom and step inside. My parents aren't home for some reason, but I couldn't care less. I collapse onto my bed, wanting to take a nice nap and clear up my head. I can't stop thinking about the border pass—it's on my mind like white on the glue that stuck it to my brain. I need to figure out how to keep my little secret hidden from the law. I know I don't have much to worry about if I keep the pass in my room, but there's always the possibility of getting caught.

Is there really? I ask myself uncertainly, laying down on my bed and staring up at the ceiling. I mean, sure, the Griffinian Guards might notice that Wing Feather lost his pass, but then again, it's a teeny piece of plastic. Maybe they'll think he just lost it, and that'll be the end of it. I hope that's the case. I don't want to spend years in some run-down jail cell where everyone tries to murder each other and I always have to make sure I "don't drop the soap". I shudder at the thought.

Well, for now, just don't worry about it, my brain admonishes me, and take a nap. I agree and roll onto my side, pulling a blanket over myself. I just need to sleep a bit, and then I can start thinking about this whole pass thing.

   It's not long before by eyes are as heavy as a sack of potatoes, and I close them with a sigh. A minute later, darkness takes over.

   I wake up to the sound of the front door creaking open. My parents are home. Already? With a groan, I force the blanket off and heave myself out of bed. I blink and rub my eyes as I hear my mom call out.

   "Duez, we're home!"

   I normally love the sound of my mom's voice—it's soft and delicate, soothing as silk and lovely to hear—but right now it just irritates me. My parents won't let me take midday naps for some dumb reason and I can't let myself fall asleep around them. I force myself awake and yell back.

   "I'm in my room," I reply. "I'm just... Messing around."

   "Do you have any homework?" my father asks. Typical. My dad's the kind of griffin who wants to get every single thing done before anyone can have a break. Fortunately, I don't. I call out a "No!" in response and that's the end of it. My dad heads outside to do whatever. I can hear something sizzling, a sign that my mom is making dinner. My spirits lift a bit. I am hungry, after all.

Well, now that I can't sleep, I might as well play the cello, I think, and go for my bow.

   "Duez, come eat!"

Yes! I drop my bow, hastily, but carefully, lay my cello against the wall, and practically sprint for the dining room. I'm greeted with a sight of my parents at the table with a chair between them. My seat.

   I sit down, and in front of me is a plate of steaming pork. Off to the side is a pile of griffinscones. I love the things. They taste awful, but stuffing my face full of the dry bastards is always an excuse to wash it down with a load of milk, the best drink in the entire universe. I lick my beak, my mouth watering, and once the entire family is settled, we tuck in to our food.

   I tear away at the pork as fast as I can without losing my manners, and then shove my serving of scones into my mouth, grabbing the conveniently-placed glass of milk and downing it all. It's absolutely delicious, and I thank whatever god or deity or higher being is out there for this amazing food.

   It wasn't very often our family could have such high-quality food—we're not exactly impoverished, but in the Republic of Griffinia money's a little tight. I think the most expensive thing that we've ever paid for is my recent... hospitalization. So when something like fresh pork chops are dropped on my plate, hell yeah I'm going to gobble it down!

    "Son, could you pass me the salt?" my dad asks. I nod and pass it. He grabs it and shakes some grains onto—

Pass. Pass. Overseas Pass.

Oh, fuck.

   A serpent coils its way around my insides. Of course, that stupid passport just had to show up. I swallow a load of bile as all the qualms and problems with the Overseas Pass come back to the surface and impact me so hard I nearly fall out of my chair. In fact, I would have if my dad hadn't caught me. With his help, I pull myself back up onto the chair to the concerned face of my mother and the did-that-whole-scene-just-unfold-before-me face of my dad.

   They both blurt out a question at the same time. My dad says, "Duez, what just happened?"

   While my mom says, "Duez, are you okay?" Deciding to answer my mom's question, I reply, "I'm... I'm fine," in the dire hope that she just takes it and leaves it. Obviously, she doesn't.

   "You're not fine; you just keeled over," my mom insists. "is there something wrong? Do we need to get you back to the hospital?"

   "No!" I shout, a little too defensively. I try calm my nerves, roughly rubbing my talons against my temples, and then my mind races faster than my heartbeat to come up with a lie. If they find out about the Pass, there's no knowing what trouble I might get in. "I just... I got lost in thought and forgot to breathe for a second, alright?! I'm fine."

   Mom doesn't buy it. "You always say 'I'm fine' when something's bothering you, Duez," she pries. "What's going on?"

   I can't stand getting cornered like this, forced to tell the truth when the truth will get me scores of flak. I start getting frustrated, like the pressure being forced on me is going to make me burst, and I lash out a bit.

   "I said I'm fine! I ran out of breath and blacked out a bit! Is that too much to process?!"

   My dad glares at me. "Don't you talk to your mother like that," he warns.

   My mom gives him a look, and he leans back, hmphing a little. Mom turns back to me.

   "If everything's okay, then why are you shouting?" she asks, and I feel myself tense a little. "If something's wrong—which we all know there is by now—then just tell us. Get it off your chest. Tell me: What's wrong?"

   I can feel myself cracking, but it's not her words that get me. It's the look she has me pinned under. It's not a harsh, angry glare of tell the truth or else. No, it's a relaxed, almost therapeutic gaze. The kind of look that tells me it's okay to tell the truth, to let it all pour out, even if I know it's a bad idea. I don't want to, to let out a severe secret and risk getting put under fire, but at the same time I want to, to confide in someone and not be alone. I've been struggling with this Pass all day by myself, afraid to tell anyone at all about it. In the minute time I've spent with this burden, it's put a huge weight on my shoulders.

   Now, though, with my mom in front of me, letting me know that I'll be alright, I feel completely torn. I'm scared of her and Dad not understanding what I'm saying and putting me entirely at fault for this, and I've always had a gnawing in the back of my head to never let my parents down. Even the slightest sign of them being unhappy with me would be worse than any jail sentence from the Griffian military. I'm not angry anymore, just completely torn and ready to rip out my own stomach just to relieve the queasiness in it.

   My vision starts to get blurry, and I realize I'm tearing up. My mother sees it too, and she tilts her head. "Duez? Why are you crying?" she asks, frowning.

   It seems like such a normal question, but the concern I hear in her voice, the concern she has for me, despite everything I've been fucking up in our lives lately, from nearly getting myself killed to losing my wings to this, is what finally breaks me. I let out a sob and then the floodgates are opened...

   "I've been under so much pressure all day because I was given a card that I shouldn't have but I didn't want to sell out the person who gave it to me because—"

   ...and immediately closed again. My beak snaps shut.

   My mother stops me, and I try my best to focus on her, my breath shaking and my vision blurring into one mass of colors.

  "Duez," my mom murmurs softly, soothingly. "Calm down and take it from the top. When did this all start?"

   "Today," I sputter in response. I take deep breaths, trying to get myself under control, and when I can finally talk normally, I tell the story as best I can. "I had that field trip to the military station today, and I ran into the griffin from the incident with the Diamond Dog."

   The two pairs of eyes staring at me widen a little.

   I keep going. "He pulled me away from the group and told me his name was Wing Feather and that he was part of the youth training session. He said he wanted to thank me for saving his life and gave me a card."

   My dad cocks his head. "A card?"

   I nod. "Yeah. As it turns out, though, it was illegal for me to have that and I could get ten—oh jeez..." I pause to steady myself out again when thinking of all the problems I have with this Pass stirs up my emotions again. I shake myself out of it and turn my eyes back to Mom. "Ten years in prison. And I... I decided to smuggle it out because if I got caught, I'd have to tell the officers about Wing Feather, and I didn't think he deserved to be put in jail." I stop there, anticipating my parents' reactions.

   They both just stare at me blankly, and I feel so stupid for letting them in on my new secret. They probably think I'm the stupidest griffin alive right now. Truth be told, I probably am. Why else would I think it a good idea to keep something illegal? Fucking idiot!

   My father opens his mouth, and I flinch, bracing myself for the harsh words to slap me in the face. I already know he's going to go on about how big a mistake I made and every bad thing that can happen, so I just try to prepare myself.

   But all he says is, "Bring me the card."

   Inwardly, I gasp. "What?"

   "Bring me the card," my father repeats. I turn to look at him, expecting to see a face of either disappointment or anger, but instead I see... amusement?

What? One eyebrow cocked, a snarky look, and a smirk. He's definitely humored by this.

   "...Bring you the card?" I question. My dad nods. "Al-Alright." I scoot myself back from the table and go to my room. I hid the card in the pages of a notebook under my bed, sticking out like a bookmark. I drop down to my belly and pull the notebook out, slipping the card out from between the pages. Pulling myself back to my feet, I clench the card in my beak and head back to the dinner table.

   I take my seat and tentatively hand the Pass to my dad, who still looks strangely amused. He takes the card without a word, inspects it for about five seconds, and then chuckles. "Yep, just as I thought," he laughs.

   I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about. "What do you mean?" I ask. Looking over at my mother's face, I can see she has the same question. What is he talking about? Why is this laughable? Is the card defective? What?

   Without even looking at me, my dad says, "This Pass is for civilians. It probably belonged to your buddy before he gave it to you."

   I reel back, almost knocking my chair over. "What?!"

   "And from the looks of it, he just got it, too, seeing as how it's completely blank."

   I'm stunned. Completely stunned. I've been worried sick about this all day, unable to properly focus on anything else, dying to fix the problem, and it turns out there was no problem to begin with? There's nothing to worry about?

   I want to faceclaw and breathe a sigh of relief at the same time. I can't believe that this entire time, I was worried over nothing. Absolutely nothing. I've been in the clear this entire time, and was never risking getting sent to jail for illegal possession. No, I really can't believe it. The massive weight that was sitting on my chest I had put on by myself. There was nothing to worry about. Nothing.

   I have to test the waters first. "Are you... Are you sure?" I breathe.

   My dad nods again. "Absolutely," he replies. "No armies are going to get their feathers in a bunch because of a missing Pass. That kid's dad might, though," he adds.

   At first, I feel so weak with relief that I have to hold my head in my claws. I'm free to lug that thing around however I like. But then, now that this Pass was techincally my property, that brought up a question.

   "What do we do with it?" I query.

   My dad answers immediately. "I say we keep it. Turning down a gift is just stupid, and who knows? Maybe we can take a trip to another land someday." Dad looks over at my mother, who has been strangely quiet ever since my dad first asked me to give him the Pass. "What do you think, Madridia?"

   My mom shrugs. "There is the hope that something as wonderful as that could happen. Keeping it won't bring us any harm, and disposing of it would just be pointless."

   My dad nods. "It's settled then." He flicks the card at me, and I catch it. "We'll get that thing filled out next week and keep it until an opportunity arises. It's a painless process, and nogriffin'll question it. Now that that's over with, we should finish our dinner." I agree with my dad, as does Mom, and we go back to eating.

   That night, I sit in my bed, still a bit shaky over what transpired at the dinner table. I still have a bit of trouble believing that the Pass isn't military, but I slowly come to grips with it after a while. Rather than try to sleep, though, I move on to another question: What country should I go to? There are so many countries I can travel to. Some of them I've been told are dangerous but fascinating, like Draconia and Friezland. I've heard rumors about others are quirky but awesome, like Equestria and the Japonies Islands. Where could I travel to?

Then again, will I ever be able to go anywhere at all? I think. My family isn't able to spend very much money on even the most trinkety of things, let alone three tickets to another country.

   I sigh. It's late and I need sleep. It isn't like not being able to decide what country to travel to—if I even get the chance—will result in the end of reality or something. I'm just glad I'm not in a tight spot anymore. Sighing again, I roll to my side, pull my sheet over myself, and close my eyes.

Hopefully it'll stay that way.