Blu looked at Nico as if he were crazy. "What?"
"I know this place!" Nico repeated, excitement and ecstasy evidently taking over. "I was from here!" He sprang up, hobbled forward, and, momentarily forgetting that his flying ability was currently disabled, jumped into the air, only to fall face first into the sand again.
Blu, starting to feel more than slightly alarmed with the possibility that his friend's mind had been damaged along with his tail feathers, approached him slowly. "Nico, I'm almost certain that you're better off staying alive long enough for us to get back to Rio," he said cautiously.
Coming back to his senses, Nico got up, though he still had the hugest grin on his face. I can't believe we've landed here out of all places...
"Would you mind telling me why you suddenly started behaving like you were Pedro who had too much to drink?" Blu was asking, with a raised eyebrow.
Nico's smile finally fell and he frowned. "Hey! I'm more coherent than drunken Pedro ever will be!" He sighed. "Anyway, sorry. I just got a little too nostalgic there. It's just that I haven't been here since I was, like, two years old."
"Why were you here back then?"
This time, it was Nico's turn to raise an eyebrow. "'Cause I was born here. I'm from here."
"What?!" Blu shouted, visibly shocked. "So you're not native to Rio?! I thought you were, you blended right in!"
"And you blended right in with Minnesota," Nico shot back.
"Yeah, but I was taken there when I wasn't even at the age to know how to fly yet! You said you went to Rio when you were two, and now you're..." Blu faltered. "Um... How old are you now?"
"Seven. I'm not fifteen and a half, if that's what you were thinking. I'm not old like you."
"That remark was rather unnecessary," Blu deadpanned, "but okay. Anyway, my point is that you've been in your homeland for a longer time than I have. Plus, I genuinely thought I had been in Minnesota since my first breath." He decided to not tell Nico that he really didn't fit in all that much, not only because he was a domesticated animal, but also because he was too "colorful" (He personally opined that his bright blue feathers were a trait to be proud of, although Alice and Chloe surely thought otherwise). "And if you really do recognize this place, could you at least say out loud where we are?" he added as an afterthought.
Nico's joyous grin came back. "We're on one of the Canary Islands. Tenerife, to be exact."
"Nico? Hmm, no, not since yesterday when both of you arrived at the club with Blu. Why?" Kipo the spoonbill questioned.
Pedro groaned. He, Jewel, and Rafael split up so they could search different areas at once, and hopefully one of them could come up with some lead. Pedro had tackled the club and the market surrounding it, Jewel continued with the forest, and while the chubby cardinal wasn't too sure where Rafael went, it was likely he went to the city. "He and Blu are both missin'. Nobody can find them anywhere." He glanced around the club quickly, as if a miracle would happen and one of the missing birds would show up. He sighed as he turned back to Kipo.
"Missing, huh?" Kipo asked, concern laced in his voice. "That's not good. Have you checked with Aria? She might know something. She's over there by the bar if you need her." He raised a wing and motioned towards said bar.
Aria was a bluejay that often hung around the club, mostly so she could gossip with her peers, and hopefully also pick up on something juicy that she had been unaware of beforehand. Frankly, neither Nico nor Pedro liked her very much. All she ever seemed to talk about was what was the hottest trend of the day or who carried the most "swagger," which the canary and cardinal weren't too interested in learning. However, the biggest reason why they didn't enjoy her company was that she didn't know when to quiet down. A lot of the times when they were performing, they could hear Aria's loud, nasally voice in the background, which was very distracting, for both the performers and the audience. And Nico and Pedro needed both concentration and undivided attention.
But now, Pedro couldn't care less about having to put up with the bluejay's rambling. Muttering a quick thanks to Kipo, he prayed that she had some sort of information to give him, and he shot over to the bar as fast as he could. Sure enough, Aria was there, busy chatting with a couple other women. He flitted over to her and began poking her in the side. "Aria. Aria. Aria."
"And so basically, he dumped her for another bird!" Aria scoffed, rolling her eyes all the way up to the top of her head, and doing a very impressive job of completely ignoring Pedro and his jabs.
The cardinal began poking harder and raised his voice. "Aria, I need to talk to you!"
"What do you want, you fat bird?!" Aria whirled on Pedro, getting quite fed up.
Has anyone mentioned that Aria wasn't too fond of Nico and Pedro either (She found their performances to be distractions from her gossiping)? And now that the latter was actually daring to interrupt her, it only made it about ten times worse.
Pedro's jaw dropped, and, temporarily forgetting his original goal, he cried, "Fat?! Who says I'm fat?! I don't sit around eatin' cheese all day! I exercise! I—" He breathed slowly, attempting to calm himself down. Once he regained himself, he inquired, "Have you seen Nico?"
Aria raised an eyebrow. "That canary you're always with? How should I know of his whereabouts? You're the one who always hangs around him."
"Let me rephrase that," Pedro replied in the most placid tone he could manage. "Do you know about anythin' that involves birds suddenly disappearin'?"
Aria thought for a moment, then said, "Well, I don't know if this is true or not, but there apparently was a smuggling incident last night in the forest, with approximately fifty birds taken."
Pedro's gut sank right to the bottom. "W-What?" he stuttered weakly.
"That's all I know about it, so sorry, but you're not getting any more deets on that event from me," Aria stated offhandedly, shrugging like she didn't care one bit. "Now will you please leave me be? I was in the middle of a rather enticing story."
Pedro didn't need to be asked twice. He flew out of there and headed in the direction of the sanctuary, where he and the other two searchers agreed to meet after thoroughly looking through their respective areas. Maybe the cardinal should have thanked Aria for the revelation—that obviously would have been the more polite thing to do. But honestly, Pedro found himself disliking her even more now. Nobody ever, ever, called Pedro the red-crested cardinal fat.
"I feel so lost in this jungle," Blu commented as he soared past a plethora of trees. Nico was sitting on his back, allowing himself a clear view of his surroundings.
"And that's why I'm here giving directions in case you really feel like you can't figure your way around," he answered Blu, gazing unwaveringly up ahead.
"Are you sure you know your way around?" Blu asked skeptically. "You haven't been here for years and I severely doubt you know this place better than Rio."
"Hey, I recognized Tenerife just by taking a glance at it, didn't I?" Nico argued.
"Recognizing a particular island you've lived on before and knowing every detail of it by heart are completely different and require different amounts of remembrance."
"Oh, be quiet. I'm more familiar with this place than you are, at least." The canary spotted a tree up ahead and said, "Hey, that seems like a decent hollow. Go up to it and see if it's empty."
Blu flew nearer to it and peered inside. A canary, resting on a pile of leaves arranged to make some sort of nest, stared back. Blu muttered an apology awkwardly and left. "Nope, that's taken."
"Clearly." Nico looked to his left and saw another hollow in the distance. "How about that one?" he suggested, pointing a flight feather at it.
Blu looked in the direction of the hollow and flew closer to it. He eyed inside half-heartedly, obviously expecting it to be occupied. He turned to leave after a fraction of a second, but then did a double take.
Nico also managed to steal a glance inside. "It's empty!" he began cheering.
"It seems empty," Blu corrected his friend. He flew inside and continued, "The owner might just not be home." He kicked some twigs lying beside him. "I'm almost sure someone brought all these leaves and twigs here."
"There's not even a proper nest built. Even if someone did bring in this mess, they're not settling down here for some reason. It's their loss," Nico said loftily, throwing himself off of Blu's back and into a nearby pile of leaves. "G'night!"
"Wait, already?" Blu began. "But it's barely sunset! We might want to find some food—" He stopped talking once he realized Nico wasn't listening and had already fallen asleep. He sighed. The smaller bird must have felt extremely tired. Oh well, Blu figured he could go hunt for food himself and then bring back some for Nico. He flew out of the hollow and headed towards the beach.
Young Nico looked enviously out of his cage, out the window at the birds he saw passing by. Those birds were free. They were allowed to travel through the skies, soar past the trees, and have the access to the fresh air they breathed. Meanwhile, little Nico was stuck in this stupid cage along with...
He paused and looked at the smaller, younger, weaker canary huddled in the other corner. As if on cue, the canary began to have a wild coughing fit, and Nico was immediately at his side, patting his back and mumbling soothing words. Once the coughs ceased, the sickly canary leaned back against the bars of the cage and closed his eyes, taking long, shuddery breaths. Nico kept his gaze on him, but eventually sighed and turned back to look out the window.
He was a prisoner. This was his fate. He was destined to be stuck in this cell until the ends of time, and there was nothing he could possibly do about it—
Nico woke up with a jolt, feeling a sudden pain erupt from his side. He held back a yelp and sat up, rubbing his side while wincing.
"Great, you're awake now," a sardonic voice beside him spoke. "Now would you please get out of my hollow?"
Nico looked up to see a female canary glaring down at him. He then realized that the reason why his side was hurting him was because she had probably kicked him awake or something of the sorts. He got up with both hands raised in defense. "Okay, sheesh, there's no need to get so grumpy about it."
"It's not my fault you sleep in other birds' hollows," the girl snapped.
"It's not my fault I didn't know this hollow was taken," Nico retorted. He usually didn't like getting into arguments, especially not with girls, but he didn't exactly enjoy being kicked into consciousness either. "It doesn't look like anyone's living here to me."
The other canary rolled her eyes. "I was renovating it, stupid." As if she thought Nico didn't believe her, she gestured towards a pile of leaves that surely wasn't there when Nico first fell asleep. "I was bringing all this back so I could give my hollow a new look, but then I saw you napping like this was your home all your life."
Blu decided to show up at that moment with half a coconut in his talons, careful not to spill anything inside. "Hey, Nico, you should try this coconut juice, it's awesome—" He noticed and stared at the girl, who only crossed her arms and glared defiantly, then at Nico, whose face spoke it all. This was all Blu needed to put two and two together, and he promptly dropped his coconut. "Oh my god, I am so sorry, my friend and I will be leaving right away—" he began to babble.
The female canary turned back to Nico, smugness clear on her face. "See? Your friend gets it." She went behind Nico, and, before he could register what she was going to do, she literally kicked his butt, causing him to go flying out of the hollow. As if it were some kind of afterthought, the girl threw out Nico's bottle cap, which had slipped off his head while he was sleeping, after him. Nico was beginning to get extremely irritated with his flying disability, even though it had only been a few hours, as he hopelessly tried to stay up in the air as he got closer and closer to the ground.
Blu cringed when he saw Nico land in a pile of leaves down below. He fluttered over to him, concern unmasked as he asked, "Are you okay?"
The coconut he had dropped earlier had splattered all of its juicy contents over the pile of leaves Nico had landed in, so the smaller bird basically got a face full of the white liquid when he made contact with the ground. He groaned as he lifted himself. "I think I'm starting to remember why I prefer Rio over this place."
Blu tried hard not to laugh when he saw Nico's face utterly coated with the coconut juice. "Um... You got a little something... Hehe..."
Nico wiped his cheek, and tentatively licked some of the juice off his wing after staring at it for a moment. His eyes immediately lit up. "Hey, this does taste awesome!"
Blu shook his head in amusement. "Told you. Don't act so surprised. If you want, we could head back to the beach and get some more."
"Okay!" Nico grinned, scooping his bottle cap up off the ground beside him.
Rafael heaved a sigh as he soared towards the sanctuary. He had asked every bird he ran into in the city whether they had seen Blu or Nico anywhere since last night. He had even gone to Luiz's garage to ask the bulldog about the mysterious disappearances. Needless to say, no one had anything useful to tell the toucan. Rafael could only hope either Jewel or Pedro were luckier than him and had found something out.
When the sanctuary came into view, Rafael immediately noticed Pedro fluttering in all directions above the balcony, looking even more panicky than before. Rafael had a feeling that the cardinal must have heard something during his search that sent him further over the edge. Once he reached the building, he landed on the railing. "Pedro."
Pedro stopped zipping around and turned around frantically to see Rafael. "Rafael! Finally! Listen, I was at the club, and Aria—"
"Aria? That bluejay you don't like?"
"Yes! Anyway—"
"Guys!"
Both males looked in the direction of the new voice and saw Jewel, looking quite troubled, flying towards them.
Once she landed, Rafael asked, "Hey, where are your kids?"
"I dropped them off at your place, if that's alright with you."
"Of course."
"Yeah, yeah, that's cool," Pedro interrupted, landing on the railing along with the macaw. "Jewel, did you get anything?"
"Oh. Yeah, I did." Jewel's uncomfortable expression came right back. "I asked around, and a few birds told me that there was a smuggling last night. A couple even said they saw it happen from a distance."
Processing what Jewel was saying about her findings, Pedro grew pale and began breathing hard, bordering on hyperventilation.
"Pedro... Pedro! What's wrong?" Rafael asked the cardinal worriedly.
Pedro tried to ease himself as much as he can (which was not an easy feat) before managing to choke out, "At the club... Aria told me...the same thing...but she said she didn't know whether it was true..."
Jewel and Rafael shared a glance. This wasn't shaping up to look so good. Sadly, it was probably a safe bet to say that both Nico and Blu were victims of the smuggling when they were in the middle of heading home last night. But still, it wouldn't hurt to check if they were really involved...
"We still don't know for sure if this is what happened to them," Rafael voiced out loud, refusing to give in. "We shouldn't stop searching. Let's look around some more."
Jewel nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly. "You're right. Pedro?"
Pedro didn't respond right away. His breathing had returned to normal, but he still looked like he was about to pass out any second. After a couple moments of silence from him, he finally sighed deeply and whispered, "Okay."
With that said, all three birds took off in the sky. Rafael found himself hesitantly looking back at Pedro, who was lagging behind, and wondered what was going through the younger bird's mind.
After all the events that took place that day, Blu was starting to wonder if Nico had a case of bipolar disorder. He was slowly becoming increasingly sure of that the more he reflected on everything that went down. The canary had gone from distressed over escaping a fire, to excited after figuring out where they were, and then back to his normal mood once he calmed down. Then he was overjoyed again after finding a vacant (not) hollow, then started brooding about how he got unceremoniously kicked out of said hollow, claiming that he disliked Tenerife (which really put into question why he was so happy about being there earlier), but then immediately cheered up once he merely got a taste of coconut juice.
Both of them had finished with the juice, and Nico was currently humming Fly Love as he sat next to Blu on a palm tree branch. The entire area of the beach was surrounded by yellow caution tape, with several police officers and firefighters investigating the plane crash and fire from earlier. Needless to say, Nico's mood was unexpectedly cheerful considering he was currently gazing upon the scene that could've ended in his death.
Blu decided Nico wasn't bipolar—he was insane. What kind of bird hummed a love song while observing the damage done by the same inferno that burned off all his tail feathers?
"Um, Nico...?"
"Hmm?"
"Don't forget that we're still homeless."
Nico's smile instantaneously fell. He opened his beak, but couldn't find the right words. He eventually settled with a lame, "Oh."
"...Did you seriously forget that?"
"...Maybe." Seeing the expression Blu was sending him, he hurriedly defended, "The juice is distracting!"
"Right. Well, to be fair, I did try to warn you that that hollow might have been taken."
"Shut up. Anyone could've made that mistake. Besides, that girl had no reason to be so mean about it! It's not like I trespassed on purpose!"
"It was actually kind of funny to watch, since you're usually so charming with the ladies. I never thought I'd live to see you get kicked by one."
"You little..." Nico paused, then shrugged. "Okay, I'll admit that it was kinda amusing."
"Uh huh. So what are we going to do about—"
"Oh, I thought I heard voices."
Nico and Blu's attention turned to a green-eyed yellow canary fluttering in front of them. He tilted his head curiously. "I don't think I've seen you two around before."
"Uh, yeah... We just got here this afternoon, actually..." Blu informed slowly, not having expected anyone to overhear his and Nico's conversation.
"Makes sense." The newcomer landed on the branch next to Nico. He gestured with a wing at the sight before him and asked, "Were you two part of that?"
"Heh. Yeah. It's the whole reason why I can't fly right now." Nico looked back at his singed feathers. "Some damage got done to my tail."
The other canary blinked in confusion. "Wait... Birds can't fly without their tail feathers?"
Blu and Nico stared disbelievingly at him. The former questioned, "Are... Are you joking?"
Realizing the stupidity of his inquiry, the canary slapped a wing over his beak. "I'm-I'm sorry! Don't hit me!"
"Hit you?" Blu gaped, utterly baffled. "Why would I hit you?"
The canary tentatively relaxed once he realized that nobody was about to deliver any blows. "Um... Sorry... My friend hits me a lot for saying dumb stuff, so now I have to watch my mouth a lot."
"Why does this sound so familiar?" Nico muttered.
"That doesn't sound like a very good friend to me," Blu remarked.
"I kinda like it, actually," Green Eyes (Nico figured he needed a nickname until his real name was known) admitted.
Blu resumed staring. "...Then why did you seem so upset at the idea of me hitting you?"
"You're not gonna do it now, are you?"
"No..."
"Good. I just don't like it when someone who's not a canary hurts me. It feels different." Green Eyes shuddered as if he was recalling an unfortunate time. "When other canaries do it, it hurts in a...good way. You know that feeling?"
If Blu looked confused before, he was completely bewildered now. "What—"
"Why are we talking about masochism?" Nico butted in. "Anyway, change of subject. Do you visit this beach often?"
Blu didn't realize how uncomfortable he had been during the previous topic of conversation until he involuntarily sighed in relief.
Green Eyes shrugged. "Only sometimes. This area is more deserted than the rest of the beach, so naturally it's not popular among tourists. Thank god for that, with the plane crash and all," he added momentarily, before continuing, "Every now and then I like to fly along here, just as some sort of relaxation or whatever. Occasionally I take naps on one of the branches."
"Well then, mind if me and this guy borrow one of these branches?" Nico asked with a smirk. "We kinda need a temporary place to stay."
Green Eyes looked at him for a second, then grinned. "I like you. What's your name?"
"It's Nico," Nico smiled back. "This here is Blu."
"Nice to meet you," Blu added, bowing slightly out of politeness, which was rather amusing since he was so much bigger.
"Blu, like the color? Cool! I'm Rafael," Green Eyes introduced himself.
"Really?" Blu, sharing a knowing look with Nico, replied, "Nico and I have another friend named Rafael back home. He's a toucan though."
Rafael chuckled. "I know Rafael isn't a very uncommon name. By the way," he began, turning to Nico, "Nico's a nice name. I used to know a guy named Nico."
Nico raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really? Tell me about him."
"He was this bird in a cage me and my friends visited a lot when we were kids." Rafael shrugged. "We all became pretty good friends, but he suddenly disappeared one day." He sighed. "He never came back either, which stinks. I really thought he was a great guy and..."
As Nico listened intently, he began to grow more and more suspicious. He had already thought Rafael looked familiar (mainly because not a lot of canaries had green eyes like him), but he couldn't pinpoint where exactly he had seen him before. But now, he also began to sound familiar as well. The way Rafael rambled in that childish, innocent way and how his eyes lit up when he talked about his friends reminded Nico of someone from his past...but who?
"...and even though I was closer to his brother instead of him—"
Close to his brother. Nico's epiphany came down like lightning. He put up a wing and stated, "Stop."
Rafael ceased his speaking and looked at Nico in confusion.
Nico lowered his wing and, somewhat unsurely, said, "Pajano...?"
Rafael stared at Nico for a few seconds, and then backhanded him.
Just so we're all clear, this is not a cliffhanger. Rafael backhanding Nico is more for comedic purposes than anything else.
Anyway, sup? I wish I could offer a good excuse on why this took five months, but frankly, I have nothing to say. Just pure laziness, the lack of motivation to write anything, and the start of school. So I gave you guys an extra long chapter.
Also, I get the feeling that I'm becoming extremely hard on myself because I find the entire wording of this chapter to be a little awkward. I apologize, holy canarias.
So anyway. The rest of my OCs are coming in next chapter, and yes, you'll learn more about Nico's brother. Plus, just so you all know, the girl who kicked Nico out of her hollow is pretty important too. This part of the story is kind of boring and not as dark and angsty as I would like it to be, but it can't be helped. I can't wait to get to the interesting stuff, with all the unexpected twists. /evil laugh/
Long author's note, sorry about that. I promise this time that I'll get the chapter up faster. My motivation is coming back, so adios until next time! Review also!
