After almost three years of moaning about how terrible the first version was and promising myself to rewrite it, I've finally decided to get Jewel's prequel underway. However, this version will be very different - I'll keep a few things the same, I'm going to be filling in a few plot holes and lame facts I left in both Jewel's and Felipe's prequels. I mean, Adelaide and Jewel barely knew each other when (I'm pretty sure you guys know what happened to the former but in case of a new reader, I won't say) that happened, and Adelaide is an important part of Jewel's life in the Estrella. What was I thinking? What a mare.

I've decided to bung Felipe's backstory into it too, rather than a whole story to himself with the complicated overlapping with over stories I did – his past will be different too. Maybe its more like an actual novel or maybe it's because I wanted to rewrite his story too but couldn't for the life of me be asked to depict Adelaide's friendship with Jewel in two stories - it's a little bit tricky to do. Essentially, I'm rewriting Jewel and Felipe's prequels all in one. Sound good? Yes? Perfect. Here goes nothing. The gorgeous cover is not my own artwork (as much as I wish it could be!), but borrowed from a piece of concept art from the second movie. Anyway, here we go!

Love, Sorrel

The sky over the rainforest was black with storm clouds amassing overhead. There was the occasional rumble of thunder overhead, and a few drops of rain were sometimes felt. In the gloom, two pairs of birds hurried through the rainforest, in a rush to get to where they needed to be. Their feathers were indistinguishable in the night, but then, lightning sparked and revealed the two flashes of ocean against the land.

One was a medium cerulean with eyes like green ice, made this unsettled by the recent events and by the grim meeting they had coming, and the other a much darker blue with turquoise eyes that leaned more towards the green side of the turquoise spectrum. She was very pretty with a small, yet strong and lithe build. Her mate was more compact, and had a militarized style to his head feathers. Fatigue and stress had given him eyebags despite being young in his twenties, while his female counterpart, while not possessing them yet, had grey under hers from the recent events. As relatively new parents there should have been a sparkle in their eyes, but it had been overshadowed by recent events.

"Little Tobias has caught it now." the female said, sadly, in a soft voice tinged with Brazilian accent.

"He's barely a few weeks old!" exclaimed the male, in horror. "Poor kid. He's not much older than Roberto... is it bad?"

"His mother spoke to me earlier. Luckily it seems as though he's got a milder version - no grey marks. He's just got a fever and lost a few feathers. Until his fever goes down, he's staying in the tunnels."

"I wish less of us had the severe strain. Tobias is the ninth one with the weaker case, if that's right. But the others..." they said no more about it.

They arrived in a walking palm grove, the traditional meeting between the four leading pairs - in times of crises, this was where the four tribes of this particular area would meet. Four flat-topped boulders stood in the clearing, and the two blue birds got onto their boulder, so they faced the opposite of the other three. The blue pair landed on their side, not daring to cross the line – partially for border reasons, but for another, which was why they were here. Side by side, they waited for something to happen – after a few moments, there was movement on the other side of the treeline. Another pair, looking tired and worried.

The male was tall and compactly built, the colour of blood - hence his name, 'Rojo', which meant 'red'. There was weariness in the dark yellow of his eyes, a hostility and mistrust, as he looked across the space between them. He was criss-crossed with scars, and had a nick out of his beak. On his right, his mate looked on, holding onto his shoulder – as if to stop him lunging forwards to attack. She was beautiful despite the tiredness and the uneasiness, a pink tint to her sleek crimson plumage, her eyes a calm blue despite the fear. She had tried to keep herself well-kept, unlike him. She'd made the effort to look clean and poised, while he, with his ruffled appearance, proved he hadn't bothered. Yellow and blue striped both their wings.

"Eduardo, Tiana." Perlina said, formally. She used to call me Tia, thought the blue female, miserably, remembering a happier time.

"Rojo, Perlina. Thank you for joining us." Said Eduardo, a little nervously.

"What do you want?" asked Rojo, the red male, in a gruff voice. Perlina's eyes flashed, and she elbowed him in the side, reminding him to be polite. Behind every patriarch was a great matriarch, was a tribe saying – and it was true in their case. Perlina kept Rojo – who was notorious for being a stubborn and hostile – in line. Rojo had been a nicer individual in their youth, and while he seemed to revert to this caring and level of kindness when around his tribe and Perlina, who he loved dearly - but to outsiders he was hostile and devious. She kept him negotiable enough and had persuaded him to attend the meeting urgently called by their 'friends'. Friends was very inaccurate - tensions had been higher than ever.

"We must wait." Tia urged. "Jorge and the Blue-and-Golds are yet to arrive." At the mention of 'Jorge', both Rojo and Perlina went rigid. Even Eduardo flinched when his mate said the name out loud.

"You invited Jorge?" Perlina hissed, forgetting her calm and collected state. "You must be loco. Since his mate died he's become nuttier than a –"

"Than a what, Perlina?" said a cool voice, making them all stiffen. An enormous, navy bird with yellow facial markings had appeared on his rock, as if out of nowhere. He towered over Eduardo and Rojo who were tall by their species standards - his eyes were an unfriendly, icy blue, and he had more scars than Rojo. His feathers had grey woven through them, patchy, with a few bald spots. He had somebody new with him – a sour-faced girl, a few years old, who neither pair had seen before. So, that must be his daughter, thought the others. Jorge would have normally have his mate to accompany him, but she had been killed by a tunnel collapse not long ago - the Hyacinths lived in a network of them.

"I didn't mean you." Perlina snapped, and Jorge didn't believe her lie.

"Sure you didn't." He said, bluntly. "My daughter doesn't agree, though. Do you, Kerja?" the angry looking female nodded, but didn't say a word. She shuffled her feet, self-conciously trying to hide her deformed foot, which was twisted like tree roots. The smaller pairs looked uncomfortable with the presence of the enormous Hyacinths - Kerja alone was larger than them, and she was less than a quarter to a fifth of their ages.

"We're not here to start arguments!" The Blue-and-Gold, Santiago, had appeared on the fourth rock - for some reason, without his mate and tribe matriarch, Hortense. He was the oldest, at least thirty years of age. The leader of the most peaceful tribe, he had a soft-spoken voice to match his group's reputation. "We're here to discuss why this is happening."

"Where is Hortense?" asked Tia, in concern, noticing his missing mate. "She's not..."

"No. I thought it would be safer if only one of us travelled through the forest." Santiago replied. "To limit the risk."

"I don't know why we're even invited." Kerja spoke up, for the first time. "You're risking passing it onto us!" Her voice was like gravel, rough and unpleasant.

"Too bad." Muttered Rojo, out of earshot of the two Hyacinths, and Perlina flashed him a look.

"Let's get down to business." Eduardo said, loudly, before any arguments could break out. "We're here to report any changes in the spread of the illness, because its vital if we're all to survive. Tensions and hostilities are irrelevant at this time - we must set these aside for the collective good." Jorge snickered under his breath. Rojo turned his head toward the Hyacinth.

"Problem?" he asked, bitterly, but Jorge nor Kerja made a comment.

"Well, if that's all you want to hear, we'll report our side." Jorge sounded angry and tired. "Our tribe is doing well. Only three of us have caught the illness so far." Maybe they're lying to hide weakness. Or they've escaped the illness because hardly anyone passes through their land, thought Eduardo. The Hyacinths were severely territorial, gaining a reputation for being brutally fierce. Jorge wore a necklace decorated with the feathers of tribes or groups they had defeated or driven out, but then, it was his father who had driven out most of them. Jorge wore it as a family heirloom, although he had a foul attitude to match his late father's. A worrying sign, considering how his father had met a gruesome demise in a tribe battle.

"Our tribe is beginning to recover." said Santiago, a glimmer of hope in his voice. "Our daughter Johanna, among several others, survived the illness - so it's not entirely fatal. Out of the sixteen of our birds who caught it, Johanna was one of the eight to survive. So, we'll have to assume that that's a fifty percent mortality rate." the Blue-and-Golds were medicine-orientated, so it was no surprise they had tackled the spread of the illness well. "We effectively stopped the spread by quarantining the effected tribe members, until their symptoms faded... or didn't." Tia's blue eyes filled with sympathy.

"I'm sorry." she murmured, and Perlina and Eduardo too looked sympathetic. Rojo did less so, while the two Hyacinths didn't show any care. In fact, they were leaving, to their surprise and discontent.

"Wait a moment!" Perlina shouted, in anger. "We're not finished! We have to discuss this!"

"There's no point in us being here," Jorge said, glancing over his shoulder. "We're not interested in what you all have to say. I have important matters to attend to. Stay out of our land, and we'll stay out of yours. Come along, Kerja." His daughter followed obediently, looking back with hate in the grey eyes. Santiago's face grew impatient and annoyed, as did Tia's, although Eduardo and Rojo looked glad that the two Hyacinths were gone.

"Good riddance." Rojo commented.

"Hush." Perlina looked at Rojo, before deciding to report their news. "We're still struggling. Twenty-one of us are affected, but like the Blue-and-Golds, we're keeping the sick birds separate from the rest of the tribe. But only five of them seem to be recovering." Santiago's eyes fell, as his calculation of fifty percent survival rate fell flat.

"Perhaps it affects some species more than others." The Blue-and-Gold suggested, gravely. There was a moment of respectful silence - then eyes turned to the last tribe leaders, to hear their news.

Eduardo and Tia's beaks didn't move. Tia shook slightly. "Unfortunately... we've seen many losses." Santiago and even Perlina looked concerned, but, for some strange reason, Rojo's eyes glimmered with interest. Perlina narrowed her eyes at her mate.

"We won't disclose the exact number." said Eduardo rather abruptly - he didn't want to show weakness, especially not in front of opportunistic Rojo. "We have been unable to keep many of those affected separate because family members have been refusing to stay away. Our healers cannot help."

"You must keep them away!" Perlina urged, distracted from Rojo. "By any means necessary, for the sake of the future. Even if that means barricading the infected inside their homes, to keep them apart from the healthy. These are desperate times!"

"We're keeping them out of our ravine." Tia protested, defensively. "They're... kept in the -" Eduardo coughed, reminding Tia not to reveal the tribe secret. The hidden cave behind their waterfall was a hideaway in case of attack, and nobody except their own knew about it - not even Santiago's peaceful group knew.

"We will try harder." Eduardo muttered. "We have a daughter now, so... we're going to go the distance to protect her and the tribe."

"Congratulations. We have a son, ourselves -" Perlina sounded bright for a moment, but then her voice faltered. For a moment it had felt like old times, but then she was reminded that those times had long gone. There had been a time once when she and Tia had been friends, even when Rojo and Eduardo had exchanged a conversation. Not now. A drought a few years ago had caused a shortage of edible food, and there had been a fight for rights to some fruit and nut groves. Relations had never been the same since, and this had caused the enforcement of borders. There was a long, sorrowful silence as these painful memories came back. Eduardo, Tia and Perlina's eyes filled with shame at the past.

"Alright, then. Leave a sign at the Border Tree if there's change." Santiago said, grimly, stirring them out their memories. "Until then, watch out for symptoms - high fever, feather loss around the neck, grey marks on the skin, breathing trouble. Good luck, and be careful." The Blue-and-Gold macaw turned, and disappeared into the dark. Rojo glared at Eduardo, before turning away and disappearing into the trees. Eduardo began to fly away, so Tia and Perlina were the only ones left. They gazed across the gap between them.

"It's a shame, isn't it?" Perlina murmured. Tia was unsure whether the Scarlet macaw was talking about the illness or their ruined friendship, but she could guess.

"I know." Tia said, sadly, knowing which one Perlina really meant. Perlina started to turn away. "What did you name your son?" Tia blurted out, before she left. Perlina looked back, with a small smile.

"Felipe." Perlina replied.

"After your dad?"

"You remember him, after all this time?" There was a pause.

"I do."

"Well... what did you call your daughter?"

"Jewel." Tia offered Perlina a smile. Her former friend returned it, before turning away, and fading into the trees. Tia sighed, eyes glazed with pain. "Things could've been so different." she whispered to herself.

"Tia!" Eduardo called, through the trees. Tia looked around one last time, before turning, and following Eduardo into the night.

For the record, I'm keeping the original two drafts until I'm absolutely certain this is a sure thing. When I'm confident enough it'll go through, I'll delete the original drafts.