Little Bird's Book of Lies

The First Lie

1302 AI

"Naor pal zes nym. Pal zes nym ren zes mord"

The voice of her long dead brother continued to echo through her head. Ricocheting off her skull as it had been since the first time he spoke those words.

"Don't say your name. Say your name and you're dead"

He had always said the phrase in their language so he would know that she understood, though he always reprimanded her for replying in the same language. He would tell her that they couldn't speak it anymore or people would get suspicious.

"Never forget who you are. Never forget our words but you must stay silent here" He would tell her. Every day for a year he would drill this into her, every day until he died. He had been caught for stealing and executed at the scene. She found his death pathetic after everything they had escaped from. But it was a lesson she needed to learn. The lesson to survival. He had said his name and then he died.

"Don't say your name. Say your name and you're dead"

In the years since his death she had survived in the gutters of Cavisle, a foreigner in the midst of the other gutter rats and paupers that littered the city's overcrowded streets. She and so many others lived in never-ending poverty within eyeshot of the grand castle the heralded the city center. She had a longing to be up there with the wealthy and powerful, though the courts of Kings were overgrown with spies. They could find out her name, and she knew that could never happen. If they knew her name, if anyone knew her name, she would be dead.

She had her secrets, as many people do. She kept her cards close to her chest and her feelings locked away in her heart. This was how she had been for as long as she could remember. This was what life taught her to be. When living in the harshest, poorest parts of Cavisle, one must learn these things lest their belongings and life be taken.

She was rarely threatened, however, despite her young age and small frame. Though there were a group of teenage boys that terrorised her, as they did to everyone. These boys were half mad from starvation and heatstroke. They were more ravenous flee-bitten dogs than teenage boys. She was their favourite victim. They always came after her and tried to steal her bird. This was her most prized possession, her only possession, it was a small carved wooden bird that sat snuggly in the palm of her hand. Her father had given it to her. The boys wanted it solely to do damage to her, further damage to add to what being alive had already given her.

The boys approached now. She was curled up against a sandstone wall of an alley, crouched with her feet beneath her as to not get any gutter water on them. She tried to remain invisible, not wanting to engage with the boys who currently looted another gutter rat of his worldly possessions, not that he would have any. They were finished with the child and now moved to her.

"Oi, bird girl!" The current leader, Arion, yelled. She had disposed of the last leader a moon ago. "Hand over that trinket before we take it."

She could never hand over the bird. The bird was her heart, to lose that would be to lose everything. To lose the only connection to her past that she had. No, she would never hand over her heart. They would have to pry it from her cold dead fingers.

"Resisting again, eh?" Spoke the second-in-command, Gideon. She knew each of their names. Knowing a name was having an advantage. One could use another's name against them if they weren't careful. Because of this, she always made sure to know the names of those she came across. She collected names. She collected advantages.

"She probably hopes she'll get lucky again like she did with Rikon." Arion said to his fellows. They all laughed as they remembered how Rikon had dragged her away into an alcove and began to strip her of her clothes. She had faught back, which ended in his death. The other boys didn't know that. They didn't know what had become of their leader, only that he was now gone. She glared at the boys that were laughing at her. Arion grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet. "Do you remember that, bird girl?"

"Zos Nagier Ragnaor." She replied in her language. She could have said the words in the tongue of Cavisle. But she spoke in her own. Her brother would have scolded her for such a thing. But she knew that these starving boys would never have heard her language before, they wouldn't recognise it.

"What kind of freak language is that?" The leader looked taken aback at her foreign words. The words she spoke were words that had seldom been heard in centuries.

"Is that the language witches speak? Are you a witch, bird girl?" The boys had journeyed closer to her, ready to strike. She anticipated their moves and was already mapping out an escape route. "We don't take kindly to witches, bird girl." Like an arrow being shot from a bow they pounced at her. She fled, knowing she had no hope of fighting them, being so small and so outnumbered.

She ran down the winding streets, down steep flights of stairs, around bends and tight corners, the sound of the pounding of feet chasing her trying to grab her. She burst out of an alleyway and into a crowded street full of venders trying to sell their wares. She took a sharp turn, running into an alley that was parallel to the one she had just emerged from. She continued to run, though already knowing that her pursuers had lost her in the crowds behind her. She stopped and surveyed her surroundings, getting her bearings for this new location.

"You're a resourceful one, aren't you?"

She jumped.

The shadow of a man emerged from the side of the alley. "Don't be frightened, I'm a friend."

She had heard of friends, she knew they weren't to be trusted. Her father had a friend. That friend killed him. The man seemed to sense that he had used the wrong choice of words.

"I'm not going to harm you, child."

She looked him over skeptically.

"You won't be alone. I have other children, other friends for you. They all learn together at my school." The man held out his hand. "What's your name child?"

"Don't say your name."

She watched him, considering her answer.

"Say your name and you're dead."

"I promise that no harm will come to you."

"Don't."

"My name is Neran." He said, prompting a reply from her

"You're dead."

"I'm-"

"You're dead. You're dead. You're dead. Say your name and you're dead. Dead. Dead. Dead."

"You may call me Little Bird." She said. It was not her name. He would never know her name, for if he knew she would be dead. She gave him a pseudonym. She gave him a lie. She would always give a false name. That was the lie she had always been told to use. She mustn't let anyone know her name. Her name was power, and it was a power for her alone. So, she lied. Little Bird lied to Neran, the man who wished to take her name. He would never get her name.