Chapter One: How we got here
Duke l'Orange, the grey feathered, slender, and saber-wielding drake from the crime fighting, NHL hockey playing, universe-saving team that was known colloquially as the Mighty Ducks was slowly drifting off into an alcohol infused sleep. His last heist certainly took a toll on his nerves—to the point of needing to get away from his team and head to one of the local, underground night clubs. Thinking back on the last few hours, Duke let out a tremendous sigh and turned in his bunk only to remember that there was someone lying next to him: a human someone.
…..
Defeating the infamous jewel thief Falcone by making not only Falcone, but his own team, believe he had returned to a life of crime had yielded unexpected personal consequences. While the charade had been a calculated and successful ruse, Duke felt something changing deep within himself and within the team. Throughout those harrowing hours of thievery, his friends didn't trust him despite his sworn loyalty in the past. In front of Canard and the whole resistance, he placed his saber upon Drake DuCaine's golden mask and swore an oath of fealty to Canard, to the cause, to the resistance, and vowed to leave his jewel thieving escapades behind for good. What more could he have done? When Canard broke into Puckworld's high security prison searching for Duke to join the resistance, Duke had been locked in a cell for three days without food or water—the guards all having fled for fear of Lord Dragaunus's goons. He remembered the puck blast breaking down the cell door, falling backwards, then seeing Canard's stern, but friendly expression as he extended a hand outwards for Duke to take. Duke shielded his one good from the light of the outside world, the other eye having long been blinded by a heist gone sour. The guards had taken his mechanized eye-patch, saying prisoners like him didn't need to see their world in great detail anymore.
"Duke l'Orange, Puckworld's most notorious jewel thief and leader of the Brotherhood of the Blade. I came to break you out of here and ask you to join the resistance. Should you choose not to, I will be forced to leave you here to serve out your offenses against Puckworld or worse, for you to endure whatever Dragaunus has in store. Just say yes, friend," said Canard as he wrapped an arm around the weakened Duke to help him off the floor.
"Yeah, yeah, sure. Just get me out of here," Duke wheezed, his beak parched and his belly tight from not having eaten. Canard had to drag the dirty, grey drake from his cell and out into the open air of the prison's hallway.
But before Canard could get Duke all the way out, Duke stretched out a hand and held himself in place.
"Wait, I need something to cover my eye with," he whispered.
"We don't have time," replied Canard.
"I don't want them to see me like this, weak and wounded as I am. Being a blind thief makes it all the more worse," he said.
"Okay," replied Canard reluctantly, and he ripped off a piece of black cloth from his shirt and helped Duke tie it around his eye. "Is that better?"
"Yeah, thanks Canard," said Duke, and he collapsed in Canard's arms.
Thinking back on that fateful day, Duke slowly wrapped himself around the human next to him, careful not to wake her.
He nuzzled his beak into her hair and sighed one last time, asking into the night, "How did we get here, sweetheart?" before he dozed off into a dreamless sleep.