A/N: I want to say a little bit sorry for the late update, but I promise the next one will be much faster... which of course is a lie since I never been true to my promises XD, anyway, here enjoy the second chapter.

Chapter 2
Paradox Game

~Beatriz~

"There, beautiful as always." Frost stated when he finished his endeavor to preen my feathers – the former I enjoyed and the later I appreciated – and let out a satisfying sigh. His eyes scrutinized me from crest to tail before he nodded. "So beautiful…"

My default reaction was to blush, with the way he adored me always made me feel like I was an exquisite thing. I leaned and compensated a little peck on his cheek, showing my gratitude over his compliment and saw his face turned crimson red.

He later unfurled his left wing and warped it around my body, nuzzling my head as he cradled me within the gap of his wing. I could feel his beak occasionally touched my head along with his steady breaths condensated into my crest feathers before his beak muttered the three words that never failed to make my heart jump out of my chest. "I love you."

I lifted my head around forty-five degrees angle and met his face. His eyes were glistened with the familiar stare that never dither every time I got mesmerized with his blue eyes; it was the stare of devotion solely directed to me. Silence engulfed us when our eyes locked with each other, ignoring the ambience around us as we drifted into the realm of our love alone. I didn't know how my beak already touched his, but for the kiss so luscious, it didn't matter.

I really wish such moment will never find a conclusion, savoring his love for me in a form of actions instead of mere words were the utmost freedom, not to be bound with anything else. Our gustatory organs twirled each other in a Samba dance of their own, if it wasn't for the other macaws there that looked at us, we were probably going to kiss in an extended time.

I rested my head on his nape, looking at the gleaming sphere that slowly made its way into its rightful throne on the sky. His wing contained me close into his body as we immersed ourselves within the tranquil morning before Frost finally break the silence. "Do you remember our time back then in Rio?" I nodded my head. "Of course, why did you ask?"

"Oh well, maybe I'm just missing some part of it, you know, human and stuff… the city have an attraction of its own," He sighed and shook his head. "Can't believe it was seven years ago."

I have to admit that deep inside my soul, I had sense of yearning to return to that marvelous city. But with the condition that happened in the Amazon, leaving it behind wasn't an option. The tragedy with the harpy eagles still fresh in my mind… how I could forget the shrieks and screeches from Frost when he realized that his Mom was dying? It was a javelin being pierced into his heart.

He stared north, a place where the tribe "buried" his Mom when she finally let out her last breath. I knew that inside he was crying, the loss of his only family member left him stranded within the pit of grief. I never really knew what he was feeling that time… since the accident was around four years ago, but I know it left a gargantuan scar on his heart forever.

"Well, one day we will visit Rio again, with our family." I donned myself a grin, hoping that would pull him out from the somberness that possessed his soul. He smiled lovingly and replied. "Thank you," before he averted his gaze back at the rising sun.

"So, what did you do with my crest feathers this time?" I asked, trying to shatter the depressing atmosphere. He simply blushed. "Come with me," was all he said when he unfurled his wings and heading to the nearby stream. I followed his suit soon after, suspecting what kind of artwork he did to my crest feathers this time.

It was one of the things that not even him knew such artistic soul existed within him, the one that finally got me in the endeavor to understand the meaning of art itself. I have to admit that my definition of art was highly influenced with the standard dictionary, which later redirected me to understand one other thing that become the composition over an art, and that was something they called paradoxes.

For once I enjoyed reading a riddle about paradoxes, simply in definition is something contradictory that coexist in a single form (rather ironic if you ask me) and so such simple thing would never confuse me in a tier where I could barely understand the meaning of a certain paradoxes that able to violate the logic gate rules and basically created a void of explanatory over something that simply is a… well, paradox... and it gave me headaches when I tried to compose the puzzle into a big and full picture.

I once asked Frost what is the meaning of paradoxes, which he replied me. "Well, as easy as it sounds, paradox is simply something that contradictory," He then assembled me a riddle and asked me the meaning of it. Of course, it didn't manage to give me a vivid explanation until one day something else gave me the answer, in the form of something that I'm so familiar with, love.

I recall one superhero movie back then in Rio, the one that had no charm to me at first, until I saw the movie as a wholesome; the reason was the lack of activity I could do – the rain outside rendered my book inaccessible – and therefore what I could do was simply tagging along, the only salvation over the boredom that lingered within my soul.

Carla and I were on the same boat for conjecturing that such movie would be a boring one (and she later escaped with her iPod, lucky Carla). My assumption was proven to be correct at first, because the plot was just… I mean, humans really have a very active imagination over something they could create into a story… even that including bending the rules of physics and logic… but for some reason, that kind of ideas managed to get the majority of humans excited. I guess, that explains the shocking digits of fan-fictions ever created.

I would probably fall asleep if the plot didn't introduce the main frame of its construction; the one that I never imagined existed inside the stereotyped superheroes movies (Boom, crash, bang, kapow! As Tiago never failed to express it) when they finally introduced romance as the main source of the plot.

Impatient was soon upon me when the movie started to introduce the origin of the superheroes (or angels or gods for that matter) on how they were created as pairs, that no matter how far one of them might go, the other will always find a her/him.

It was something that made me ponder soon enough over the meeting of me and the bird that I really love since I met him. Either our meeting was a very fortunate coincidence or maybe the movie was right, that we are made as pairs, and it is just a matter of time before we find our missing heart and mold it together once more.

Those diminutive explosions escalated rather quickly when their past together were revealed, for the movie told me how they spend three-thousands years together, taking care and saving each other for how their eternal – literally – love survive for such long time. My smile, however, soon vanished when they spoke one bitter truth about love… sacrifice.

I was rather surprised over the realization that hit me that love is indeed one of those paradox games. When you love someone, you want to stay with him/her, to take care of him/her and spend you limited time together. However, there is one condition when you will leave someone you love because you love him/her… a sacrifice in the name of love that you won't be with your love for the rest of your life… because you love him/her.

I remember turning my head to Frost and asking what was wrong with that movie; asking that shouldn't that movie end up for both of them being together. He looked at me with a nonchalant expression – a sign that he probably didn't fathom either – until he wrapped his wing around me and hugged me tightly. I didn't know what was the hug meant for, either he did that to comfort me from the setback of the movie, or perhaps, he was just trying to tell me that. "I will stay with you forever, I won't leave you," or some kind reassurance that our relationship won't end up like in that movie.

Nonetheless, the movie already rooted me another though about this instability of love, it was a paradox, volatile and metaphorical by default… and merely a relationship was based on a game about contradictory statements? I mean I know it was a movie, something that came from an imagination, but the concept of love that was put in there was seriously accurate.

I had this reason for the next stage of my relationship with him, even I already knew that he would be ready to trade himself with me in hell if I ever get there (rather hyperbolic, but that's the limitation using words to describe such abstract feelings). I also know that he would never did such atrocities like cheating on me or maybe left me alone with our eggs in the nest… yet that once small intervention already made a kernel process in my head, putting an unnecessary barricade that withhold the last stage of our relationship, our union.

And to be honest, I loathe reality sometimes to prove that our concerns can be correct – even it was merely a mirage created by the reality to be logical enough for the prefrontal cortex to accept – and made all the ninety-nine percentage of my readiness inched closer into the Grand Canyon of concern. I would never blame him fully for that new behavior he developed, it was from his default personality of being overcautious with everything that happened around him until his neurotic mind seek a way to relieve the overloaded impulses, in a form of plucking his feathers.

It brought me a laugh for the few times, seeing him with some of those featherless skin exposed. Until soon enough the joviality evolved into concern, and that concern evolved into doubt. Those smiles opt to desist every time I saw more and more bald patches on his body, not only it makes him ugly… well… let's just say that it also makes me think if he was questioning my role as his lovebird, that somehow he didn't trust me enough to share his troubling mind.

I would expect less from such closed personality, fairly I tried to make an exception to understand that he probably did that because he didn't want me to get messy with his problem. That gave me one thing to remember: every time his beak inched closer to his feathers, I need to talk and calm him down.

I might endanger my relationship with him by trying to decipher this paradox with something that located inside my cranium rather something in my rib – yes, I know both of them are actually inside the cranium, spare the scientific fact – but I rather took a tentative step over something as big as this, walking into the altar of marriage – well, in human terms – and to remember that the consequences would be irreversible; once I'm Frost's mate, I'm his mate for life.

Kind of ironic when our love that supposed to be the one that untied us together also became the thing that made me hesitate to comply the utmost way a lover can do, but no matter I did to negate the negative thought… it keeps bouncing back to me. I wouldn't dare to put my life with a pillar of paradoxes, but the love I received was merely a slow ripple over the rising tsunami that would consumed me… like it or not, I need to make my decision soon before I wrecked our relationship beyond repair.

The reflective surface soon brought the image of my condition come to life, exposing the kind of 'alteration' Frost had done with my crest feathers. The once straight and boring crest feathers were now curly in several places, almost I mistaken myself as Mom in her early age if it wasn't for my eyes' color. I donned myself with a smile and rotated my neck thirty degrees. "You did a good job, I love it." I could see his face turned crimson from my compliment. "You are beautiful any way you are, Beatriz. Você é um anjo, meu amor." [You are an angel, my love]

I chuckled. "Seems the Portuguese lessons is all paid off, huh?" My chuckled proved to me infectious when he heard the same snicker escaped his beak. "Well, I have a good teacher." He put on a proud smile on his face and he walked closer to me to hug me from behind. "Also a very good mate."

I had mixed feelings from the conversation. One part of my soul was happy that from the whole population of Spix macaws that existed in the Amazon; he chose me to be his mate. While the other one that I was seriously agitated from the emphasis in the "mate" word whenever we (mostly him) address each other – well, not in a level where I want to rip his tail feathers off, more like annoyed. But I couldn't blame him for doing so, it was a meristematic problem that rooting back solely to me if one wanted to trace it. The reasons were it gave me a sense of pranks or joke over this relationship – or I should quote, serious relationship – also some kind of mock over my confusion with my decision.

It took me around five seconds to converge the change of tide within his demeanor, the familiar worried expression that out of nowhere present suddenly etched on his face. I furrowed my eyebrows to my confusion, but before I could speak, Frost already asked. "Are you okay, Bia?" Honestly, I had no idea on what was going on with me until he explained, "You seem to have something in your mind."

My face was the reason he detected a distress, the thought earlier somehow managed to not only run inside my brain, but also exist within my facial expression. Thousands of reasons soon conjured inside my head to explain the not-so-subtle change on my face. I waved my primaries and laughed dryly. "Nah, it was nothing." He didn't seem to convinced and keep shooting me the monotonous looks that made me groan… There's no way I could escape from this situation without being honest. "Okay… I'm just thinking we need to stop the joke." I said in a monosyllabic tone.

I cursed myself internally for being so readable, even I know that he possessed a patience of a sloth, I might just put our relationship in jeopardy, or at the mildest, giving him a hint that I was being unreasonable from my decision; that I wanted to stop putting the emphasis on the title, yet at the same time, I didn't dare to make it became a reality.

I sighed when he didn't give me an answer soon. "I don't like it when we play around with the title, Frost. It is something serious; we can't just make it into a pranks or something like that, it's not right." He then nodded. "I know, Bia. I'm sorry."

Sorry? I was the whole reason you put that joke…

"Frost… I didn't mea-" He silenced me, "I'm understand, Beatriz. I really do." He fixed his eyes with me. "I just wanted to tell you that you are my mate, maybe I did it wrong by using it as a joke." He sighed. "I know we are not officially mate, but hear this." He lifted my head with his primaries, "It isn't about the act of mating that will bring the title as mates, but the fact that we loved each other already enough, you are my wife, Bia. I need you in my life." He smiled. "You might be bored with this, but remember our song in Rio?"

I nodded, there was a throbbing inside my chest that tempted to burst. "And if I reached for your wing, for the rest of my life." He sang, I noticed that he changed the lyrics a bit before I could feel his wing touched mine. "Will you reach for my wing?" Ironically, my eyes indeed get wide when he reached for my wing, just like the lyrics in the song. I lifted my wing and tighten our grip together. "I will, and I do for the rest of my life."

My heart fluttered into the seventh heaven, our marriage might not be as complicated as human, but there was a meaning, the vow we say together. "Till death do us part."

"Till death do us part." He echoed, leaning closer and kissed me like a groom kiss his bride when they finished proclaimed their vow.

Paradoxes or not, I realized that I need to work myself with love. It was the innocuous emotion; it wasn't a thing that you can find a surrogate for it. My choices are simple, to delay and worked on that one percent that I never really knew how long it will take its time. Or, to believe that that ninety-nine percent already adequate (seems a little absurd isn't it?) for me to proceed into our union, and to be his mate forever in an irreversible act that wouldn't crash me down, in shame and guilt.

But to work on that, I need a catalyst…

A/N: Please review! I really appreciated reviews, especially a constructive one! But no flame please, use ice instead.

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