Greetings again! I'm deeply sorry the second chapter is a week late of my intended schedule, and this is largely because I realized that after a thorough review, I disliked this chapter and subsequently did a ton of editing work. For those of you wondering, yes, Eduardo and Mimi are finally the focus of the story and will be the main protagonists up until the second half. Let's fly!
Somewhere around eleven o'clock in the morning, bright beams of light from the melting sun steadily seeped its way into the hollow entrance into a scattershot pattern, touching all of the ground, every corner, and every bed. There were six beds in the hollow that stood around three feet away from the entrance. All of which were made of hollowed-out rock and were stacked atop each other like bunk beds. They were each very spacious and wide, but quite uncomfortable on their own.
Crumpled-up leaves were often taken from the base of the tree by César, put into piles, and shoved at the end of each bed to act as pillows. Every month or so, the leaves would be replaced with new, fresh ones, as the old leaves would eventually turn brown and start to decay, becoming hard and stagnant rubbish.
While César and Eduarda had both awoken nearly an hour ago and had already left the tree entirely to go and collect the freshest wild berries from the south side of the tribe for breakfast, their two heirs were still very well asleep.
The light from the sun now crawled on the floor, slowly creeping up on the edge of the first bed in the hollow. This delightful set of sunbeams began to slowly wrap around Prince Eduardo in his bed like a smooth, shining blanket of rays. It crawled onto his feathered back, sloping down above his neck and touching the edges of his cheeks, and his broad, eagle-like beak that he had inherited from his father.
He had been nothing but restless the night before due to some worry about Spix's Macaw military operations in the deepest parts of Scarlet territory. The stress and hard thinking had caused literal pain in his head, and it had certainly caught up to him. This made him sleep two hours past his normal sleeping schedule of which he had set for himself.
Eduardo was seven years old, just barely now an adult, as his birthday had only been a few weeks ago. But even so, he was surprisingly almost the same height as his father, which was quite impressive for such a young adult. His body was a lighter shade of blue than most other members of the Tribe, similar to that of his father's. His body feathers were shiny and silky, also similar to his father's.
His tail feathers were long, thick, and sharply edged like broadswords, and his wings were an odd combination of turquoise on the underside and ocean-blue on the top. Several remnants of the childhood white on his beak were still somewhat visible, still sparsely scattered along its surface.
The name, "Eduardo," was simply a masculine version of his mother's name, and although it was a fairly common name throughout the majority of the Tribe, he was the first major member in the history of the Torres Family to ever bear that specific name.
Eduardo's head feathers were one of the few things that very much differed from César, being very spiked in shape, sticking out the back of his head in the form of a flat slope across his head. They were similar to the head feathers possessed by his grandfather, Almir the Great, who was often considered the best leader the Spix's Macaw Tribe had ever seen in its 457-year existence.
As a matter of fact, even the Scarlet Tribe still admired the incredible leadership and diplomacy Almir had practiced throughout his reign, despite the fact the Scarlets were now one of the most hostile tribes towards the Spix's, only surpassed by the Blue-throated Macaws from the very edge of Rondônia, a southward Brazilian State that ran along the border with one of its neighbors, Bolivia.
Eduardo began twisting and turning in his bed for a few moments, then curling up into a ball and afterward sprawling outward, and then twitching like an insect. Then, the light lying over his face like a cloud rested upon his blue eyelids, creating a signal in his mind that he needed to wake up immediately.
As he started blinking in surprise at the abrupt end to a dream that had been brewing for two hours, his first immediate instinct was to rise up and blink constantly to get rid of the rheum that circled around his eyelids like rings of feasting parasites.
He now fully opened his pale-green eyes, although his vision was still rather blurry. Eduardo carefully rose up from where he was lying in bed, making sure he didn't accidently bump his head on his older sister's bed that stood just inches above his. After all, his sister, Princess Mimi, would often be quite irritated when her brother woke her up by unexpectedly slamming his head against her bed.
Mimi was slightly older than Eduardo, at the peculiar age of eight, and although older, was far shorter than her brother by at least five inches. Even though it was very common for a sister to be slightly shorter than her brother by a few inches throughout the Tribe, it was somewhat rare for an older sibling to be so diminished in terms of height and stature. She was somewhat plump, her bright cerulean-feathered abdomen always extending a couple of inches outward past the base of her broad chin.
White streak-like markings ran down the sides of her face, which was also a very common feature for females in the Tribe to possess. Her wings were short and stubby, although her wing feathers were thick and silky, (especially on the undersides) sporting a very vibrant shade of a combination of dark and light turquoise, the former making up the center of the wings and the latter making up the individual feathers that extended out from the center of her wings.
A mass of head feathers stuck out from the back of her head and arched downward, touching the back of her neck, resembling a dark-blue mountain slope.
Although Mimi wasn't particularly a good leader, she was often far more competent than her brother when it came to handling small domestic situations and petty disputes, and was generally polite, calm, and patient with others in the vast majority of whatever unpleasant situations were to occur.
Her brother on the other hand was often very impatient, put up quite an attitude, and singled out virtually anyone who challenged his beliefs on how the Tribe should be run after he would aspire to the position as Patriarch in the coming years; both César and Eduarda were aging quickly, and were estimated by their personal healers that they would probably continue leading the Tribe for only another five to twelve years before either retirement or their eventual deaths.
Mimi herself had sparked a major bit of controversy and uproar several years ago, as she had willfully refused the position of Matriarch, even though she was the oldest of the two siblings. She continued insisting to both her family and to the rest of the Tribe that she was not "courageous enough" for the title of Matriarch in the future.
In the tribe, some of the most valued aspects of a Patriarch or a Matriarch (although since the Tribe's creation, there had never been a Matriarch in position of ruling power) was great leadership, courage, and strength, advantages that Eduardo definitely held strongly over Mimi in nearly every regard.
She shifted in bed for a while, twisting and turning endlessly, sometimes clutching her wingtips over the set of fresh leaves that sat between the hard, stone bed and her feathered head.
Below her, Eduardo's eyes widened to get a clear sight of what was around him, before he was finally satisfied with himself. He propped himself up on his bed with the bases of his wingtips, lifting his leg over his side, touching the ground beneath him with his talons.
Eduardo slowly, but surely, pulled himself out of bed, slightly stumbling as he walked for a few seconds, before staring straight ahead at the outside beyond the hollow entrance. All he could see from this angle was the bright cerulean sky covered with white, soft clouds that took on many forms and shapes from the distance, some resembling islands, some resembling wedge-shaped daggers, and so on and so forth.
He stood still for a moment, and after registering in his mind that there were no voices or any other macaws around him, he then quickly realized his parents were gone. Eduardo's head briefly twirled around in search of his parents, before he put his wing to his face and sighed deeply. His wing released his face before he quickly turned around, looking up at his sister, who was still sleeping along her bed.
"Mimi! Wake up, now!" Eduardo hollered with slight frustration in his deep, sharp voice, tapping his talons on the floor. Several seconds passed, but no response came from his sister. He opened his beak to try again, but the sleeping Mimi now awoke, her eyelids pulling themselves open, her body shifting to her side. When she had turned all the way around, she grunted slightly, with her head to its side.
"Eduardo, why now?" Mimi complained to her sibling, whilst sporting a very irritated look.
"Both Mom and Dad are apparently gone, it seems, so if both of us want to find out where they went, I suggest you get up immediately and start moving," he replied, his head shifting away in silence.
"Sure thing, but tomorrow, I promise you, I'll sure as heck even out the score," she growled with a devious smile across her beak. She got out from her bed, gripping the edges of the stone bunk and almost pulling herself out forcefully with the tips of her wings, similar to how her brother arose out of bed. Her talons lightly rested on the top of Eduardo's bunk to prevent herself from accidentally falling.
Seconds later, she used her short wings to gently hover from off the edges of her brother's bunk and gently descended onto the ground, now landing beside Eduardo.
She stepped forward, now giving him an angrier look, her head feathers hanging down and her blue eyes slanted upward. "Satisfied?"
"Sure, I'm satisfied, now let's try and figure out where they left. Yet again, Mom and Dad probably flew off to gather some of our breakfast foods. They sometimes did that when we were chicks to surprise us."
"Well, if that's the case, the breakfast better be darn good, because I hate it when you do that!" she snapped, clapping one of her wings onto her face in hostility.
After Eduardo's impatient look turned to a smile, he started chuckling to himself, clapping towards his sister as well, almost in a manner of mockery. Mimi in response gave her brother a glare of deceit.
Suddenly, all in the hollow was silent when the abrupt sound of wings pounding on air could be heard. It sounded like fast wingbeats, of which their frequency gradually sped up every second. This simply could not be ignored.
Eduardo's chuckling phase came to a halt, as he got ahold of himself, now walking towards the entrance, and then stepping up to its tall wooden lip, placing one talon on top of the edge to raise himself higher for a better view of the area. Several seconds passed, and he found nothing.
He soon figured he would have a better chance of catching sight of anything if he were able to observe from a branch outside, although it did carry the strong possibility of leading to a dangerous situation, despite the fact it could very well be the two's parents who were approaching.
Quickly, Eduardo decided not to watch from the stable branch sitting directly below the entrance as he not only wanted a better view, but he wanted to see if there was anything else beyond the birds approaching at some sort of flight angle to the left or right side.
The young macaw cautiously lifted his wings at a certain angle before lunging forward and his talons releasing their grip on the hollow entrance's lip. He glided in the air for about three seconds, before coming in close proximity with one of the very thick and heavy branches sitting about five feet from the entrance, grasping it with his talons as he landed.
Seconds later after he had landed, his eyes widened as they had already started to train on something out in the distance. They were at first from this angle, nothing more than a pair of blue figures bearing wings, making their way towards the tree at a high speed. Eduardo at first reckoned it was César and Eduarda, but he still continued to observe them for a number of seconds.
Once the two unidentified macaws were now at a proper distance for close observation, there was no doubt they were Spix's Macaws, although almost immediately after spotting their faces, they were most definitely not César and Eduarda.
This at first was somewhat disheartening to both Eduardo and to Mimi, (the latter of whom was now onlooking from the hollow entrance) but suddenly, the pair recognized the two birds once they were at a distance of some thirty yards.
The two approaching macaws consisted of a very well-known and recognized Tribal messenger by the name of Alberto Jader Guava and one of his best friends and personal assistants, as well as a very notable member of Alberto's very own Fourth Squadron in the Spix's Macaw Warrior Pact, Verde Nova.
Both of whom were good friends with Eduardo and to some extent, had engaged in friendly interactions with Mimi every now and again, although this usually only happened during celebrations when nearly the whole Tribe was involved, most notably New Year's Day (which in the Macaw Calendar was the 27th of April, referring to the date of which the first macaw tribe was created in the human year 1498.)
Alberto and Verde had become friends when they were only four and three months old respectively, as they shared common ground on who they liked and disliked. This was further helped by the fact that both of them had experienced somewhat troubled childhoods to say the least; Alberto was born with only a mother to tend to him for almost his entire life, as his father, Acir died of illness early on.
Verde shared similar problems early in life, losing his father, Toninho to a tragic border patrol accident before he was even born. According to many rumors, he had been named by his mother for the color of his father's light-green eyes that shined like a pair of marbles, and coincidentally, Verde shared exactly the same eyes as his father, leading many to eventually give him the derogatory name "Green Bird."
The two macaws, now at a somewhat short distance of just over twenty yards, appeared to be both carrying several sets of long, thin twigs with rows of berries dangling from them, grasped firmly in their talons. They were pushing up and down on the air rapidly with their wings, flying at a remarkable speed.
When the two messengers were approaching at a distance of only two yards, they slowed down, until they finally landed on a thick, steady branch about a yard away from the hollow entrance. Strangely to Eduardo, the two weren't panting at all even after that great burst of speed. The two macaws simply took deep breaths occasionally, although Verde looked somewhat weary, but not quite enough to be alarmed.
After nearly a minute had passed, Eduardo flew back down to the branch standing below the entrance and walked back into the entrance itself. He started tapping his right foot constantly as he began to feel rather impatient with the two men. "You two, please explain your presence!"
"My Lord Eduardo - "Verde began in his Brazilian accent, coughing into his wing, before he resumed, his head shaking by a slight degree. "Around thirty minutes ago, the two of us were flying in the east of the Tribe for inspection purposes, mainly to make sure the new recruits weren't screwing up. However, we ended up arriving there quite late." Eduardo looked on in boredom, waiting as Verde made a brief pause in his speaking, before he continued.
"As a matter of fact, we arrived upon the closing minutes of the new recruit's shifts. Thankfully, nothing went wrong, and since we were at the border with the Red-bellied Macaw Tribe, there was no border hostility to be found, although I reckon that one of them some fifty meters ahead was armed with a spear of some sort. Several minutes after the session ended, rendering our entire trip there basically pointless, we stopped at one of the fruit trees to pick some fruit for eating, until we conveniently ran into both César and Eduarda who were flying by - Alberto, can you do the rest of the talking please?"
Alberto sighed in almost dismay, before opening his beak to continue where Verde left off. "As they were hovering around the trees, gathering berries, they suddenly noticed us, and I especially, was very uneasy about flying around such a daunting individual. Surprisingly, César directly apologized to me for once, saying he was '"deeply sorry for screaming like a spoiled chick."' In case you're wondering, it was about an incident this morning that I'd rather not speak about for the moment."
Eduardo still looked somewhat impatient with a stern look on his beak, now tapping his toes at a more frequent pace. This was a clear signal to Alberto that he had not explained enough. Alberto looked nervous again, before continuing his explanation.
"Moving on, once I fully realized that he had actually apologized to me, it almost made me smile in return. However, by the look that suddenly appeared on César's broad beak, I suspected that he regretted apologizing. Since I've already got enough of a "wondrous" record with him, I just continued on listening to him. All the sudden, he ordered both me and Verde to take the berries he had gathered minutes ago for delivery to you for breakfast."
"So in other words, you came here to be our breakfast delivery birds, anything else?" Eduardo said in a harsh, hostile tone, with a hint of sarcasm. Alberto sighed in return as he kept explaining.
"In turn, I quickly asked César why he couldn't just deliver the berries to you instead. After he gave me a hard slap to the face for questioning his orders, he went on and said that it had something to do with him and his wife attending an extremely important council meeting located in the Great Mouth."
"Hmm, the Great Mouth?" Eduardo questioned in a high-pitched voice with a brow raised and his wings folded across his chest.
"Yes, the Great Mouth. It's a very large open hole of dirt encircled by stones on the inside, where plenty of meetings are held and major arguments are constantly sorted out, especially between the different military units we've got. Back in the day when you were little, César would fly to our unit meeting trees and pull us by our tails both literally and figuratively to the Great Mouth after some sort of disagreement of squad size caused some uproar in organization and a whole bunch of other nonsensical, petty issues."
"Interesting, go on," Eduardo's tone of voice changed dramatically from irritable to positive.
"Anyway, in case you're curious, the Great Mouth is about thirty minutes away northwards of the Agua Waterfall by wing, which I suspect one of my friends, Neto, had passed by nearly three hours ago. The Agua is approximately a quarter of a mile away from the border with the old Scarlets."
"It's that close, huh? Do you have any other useful information?"
"As a matter of fact, I do. As you can probably imagine, I gave an inquiry to the Patriarch on exactly what the meeting was about, and whether or not the meeting itself had anything to with me screwing up. He replied that, yes, it was about the subject matter that my job was involved with, but the meeting would be focused more on figuring out how to conduct good diplomacy with the Scarlets rather than ridiculing me for all the laughs, which was a pleasant surprise, considering how ticked at me he was this morning."
"Anything else?" Eduardo asked sharply, his voice now at a much deeper level than previously.
"César's final remark on the meeting before we parted ways and flew off was that you in particular are to be completely restricted from entering the meeting by just about any means necessary. Before you start interrogating me on why your father doesn't want you there, I swear, I simply don't know, and the reason is simply because he refused to answer when I responded to him with the same questions you probably have circulating throughout your head if you were present there."
"Are you serious? ARE YOU SERIOUS?" Eduardo shrieked in anger, his head feathers spiked up and his already pale-green eyes now as white as a ghost.
Both Alberto and Verde for the next several seconds stared at each other, exchanging equally gobsmacked looks during Eduardo's short burst of outrage. Both of them also gulped worriedly as they broke eye contact, still observing and leaning back with now cautious expressions on their beaks.
After Eduardo paced in circles, his feathered face as red as a tomato, he began striking the floor of the entrance beneath him with the might of his talons. Alberto folded his wings behind his back, whilst whistling to himself an old song in Tribal tradition in a desperate effort to kill time and wait for the young Prince in front of him to stop what very closely resembled a chick-like temper tantrum.
Verde purposefully stared off into space, attempting to appear oblivious, but this was easily hindered by the loss of both of the messenger bird's patience. The two looked at each other for a brief moment again, exchanging nods. Verde subsequently kept looking on as the macaw in front of him kept bellowing and giving constant shrill cries of animosity, causing Verde to look down below him, clapping his face, whilst also giving a heavy sigh.
Alberto now ignored Verde and decided to do something. He looked forward and slowly extended out his wing to Eduardo to shake the latter's wing. This did nothing, however. Alberto, like his companion, also let out a sigh, now arching his neck back in an uncomfortable manner, looking straight up at the sky.
Mimi, who was standing only a few feet behind her brother in the hollow was now growing extremely annoyed, deciding that the only way to end this once and for all was to take action. She stormed into the entryway to the hollow, sneaking behind Eduardo and unceremoniously slapping him on the back of the head with her wing, somewhat disorienting him. As he turned around to face his sister, he then carried a very displeased look upon his face.
"Get a grip, Eddie, scram!" Mimi squawked in sheer exasperation, forcefully shoving her brother to the side of the entrance wall, then wriggling past him, and using her stubby wings to take flight. As she left the hollow, she made a sharp turn southwards, muttering the word "idiot" under her breath quite loudly, however, the noticeable echo somewhat distorted the sound, preventing it from being understandable to the other three macaws' ears.
About a full minute had passed, and Mimi was completely out of sight, now past several rows of tall trees that made up the vast majority of the canopy of the rainforest above. Alberto and Verde's necks were craned in the direction she had flown, staring off into the jungle with somewhat disappointed looks in their eyes. Alberto let out another sigh, and Verde turned back to face Eduardo in silence.
Eduardo too, looked out into the trees his sister had passed by with an expression of utmost guilt on his beak, although he was calmer now that his sister had interrupted his outburst, and to a noticeable degree, he was quite suspired, but still, he was not at all happy in the slightest. For a brief moment, he turned away, shrugging his shoulders, before looking ahead and now placed his attention on the two messengers that stood before him.
After he made a sharp, angry grunt, he decided to break some of his frustration by standing stoutly and upbeat, which only served to render his presence inside the hollow less frightening. In many ways, Prince Eduardo was very reminiscent of his father, and unpredictable behavior and irritability towards anyone but his own family was certainly one of the many traits from César that had been passed on down to him.
For several seconds, Alberto and Verde stood awaiting any orders or any further questions before Eduardo leaned forward, his broad wings freely hanging to his sides, and his pale-green eyes squinted, then opening his beak and standing upright, pacing about the hollow entrance in a confident manner like a military general speaking in a briefing center.
"Now that I have assessed the location of this purported Great Mouth thanks to your information, I speak now to issue a number of orders for you two, as your future Patriarch. You will follow my orders exactly as I command them, and when I command them. Now, I hereby order both of you to immediately lead me to the Great Mouth," Eduardo said in a deep, serious manner, then halting his pacing at the last two words, looking onward at the two messengers.
"Do you honestly expect that we would submit to your outrageous requests and just permit you to fly off in the distance like your sister, and play a little childhood game of eavesdropping, which in turn would seriously jeopardize our very livelihoods, all in the name of you not displaying a massive temper tantrum before us?" Verde almost spat at Eduardo in anger, although at the same time, he gave a light chuckle at the thought of the Prince blackmailing him into disobeying César.
Eduardo was nothing but absolutely stunned at these words, and right now, the only emotion that came to mind throughout him was pure enmity striking him. His eyes widened, now resembling much more of a circular form. His eyes glowed in a feeling of resentment and arrogance, and for about a minute or so, he kept on giving a deep and sinister glare of hate, a large wildfire crackling in his irises.
Alberto was somewhat shaking, terrified at the almost identical similarities between César and Eduardo's extremely harsh temper, astonished that for even a minute, he and Eduardo had actually laughed merrily together by the waterfalls several years ago at the Açaí Berry Grove.
He was at lost for words, refusing to believe such joyful laughter from that moment that firmly stood in Alberto's mind was attributed to the same individual who possessed the same exact personality traits of his petulant father who had the great possibility of threatening him, his family, his marriage, his career, and his reputation.
"Well, I see you two are somewhat distressed at the very thought of simply adhering to my commands!" Eduardo snapped. "I'd like to question your loyalty to my father based on this question, which I mind you, is pretty straightforward: if you are so loyal to my father, why is it that you, Alberto, seem to twitch and jitter in fear every time you hear the name "César?" At this, I myself am bewildered that you pretend that you are utmost loyal to him no matter what circumstance, since you display such uneasiness at even the mention of his very name. To put it quite simply, you are lying to yourself, Alberto."
Alberto's beak dropped as these words were spoken, in both bewilderment and despair. At the last sentence spoken by Eduardo, he gulped slightly, leaning backward, and he panted heavily for the next several seconds. His head twisted and turned in confusion, searching for some type of answer to counter this, but he couldn't. Finally, Verde turned, facing his friend as he opened his beak and spoke to him.
"Well, Alberto, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but he's kinda right," Verde admitted in shame, shrugging his shoulders whilst his head was tilted at a leftward angle. Alberto looked dismayed at the abrupt realization that in truth, he hated working for César.
He hated almost every aspect of César's personality, from his extremely irritable nature and attitude, to his cruel and heartless treatment of the vast majority of his servants except for Alberto and several others, and by far his worst aspect was his unpredictable and dangerous outbursts. As Alberto leaned forward, trying to comprehend his actual emotion towards his Patriarch, clutching the sides of his head, Verde continued speaking, now in a much more relaxed tone.
"I've noticed recently that whenever César calls you up for even the most simplistic of tasks, like fetching him a refreshment while the sun is baking the Tribe in the month of November, you are always hasty, and you are seemingly always agog whenever César dismisses you from this hollow. Once you put aside the Tribal patriotism and all, you come across as nothing but a total hypocrite who lectures everyone to hail our Patriarch and all that nonsense, and then proceed to hate his actions so dearly!"
Eduardo's facial expression now changed from an ominous glare of hate to a grin of pleasant surprise. He coughed quickly into his wing, turning around, and then seconds later turning back to face Alberto and Verde.
The former was still leaned forward, although he had now transitioned from clutching the sides of his face with his wings to cupping his face into his wings, sobbing in anguish. Clearly audible sobs could be heard by Eduardo, who stood there with a somewhat sympathetic expression on his beak.
Verde stood there patiently, and after another moment had passed, he lifted his wing and gently wrapped it around Alberto's shoulders to comfort him, but this hardly changed anything. Eduardo stood there, his wings folded behind his back and his head turned in the other direction.
He couldn't help but feel compassionate for Alberto, but at the same time, he wanted to concentrate primarily on getting to the Great Mouth, and in his mind, there was no time to tend to his friend's emotional breakdown. To get rid of the guilt that surrounded him, he began tapping his talons on the lip of the entrance, simultaneously whistling.
Eduardo turned forward and could not only hear the depressing, muffled sobs of Alberto, but he could also clearly see his tears seeping through his wing feathers and trickling down them, leaving tiny teardrops on the branch of which he stood upon.
After a long moment passed by, spanning over some two-and-a-half minutes, Alberto gradually lifted his tear-soaked face from the centers of his wings, his eyes a faint shade of pink, and tears still trickling down the sides of his face. His feathers on both his face and his wings were now stained with tears, and the upset macaw trembled heavily, and then abruptly bowed his head to Eduardo, leaving Eduardo himself quite surprised, but in a very positive way.
"Eduardo, from...this minute forth... I, Alberto Guava offer my services and loyalty to you as my future Patriarch, for I...no longer - will no longer adhere to César the Third," Alberto spoke in a muffled, imperfect voice, sounding extremely satisfied at the last several words. "What do you command?"
"I want you to lead me to the Great Mouth so that I can figure out what my father is concealing from me," Eduardo replied with a calm and soothing tone to his voice. "Nothing more, nothing less."
"Very well then," Alberto replied, the tears leaking from his eyes finally starting to disappear. Verde stood there in silence and uneasiness, but he as well, bowed his head to Eduardo.