"Well, here we are!" Blu told the owl as they entered a hollow in one of the many trees in the grove. "We've were hanging in someone else's hollow before, but I decided I didn't want to be rude crowding up his space, so we found ourselves another one."
The hollow was empty, save for two large nests on the back wall.
"So...where's everyone else?" Ginger questioned.
"They must be out foraging for acai berries," Blu surmised. "Jewel and the kids love a challenge."
"Aren't those, like, all over the place?"
"Well, there used to be so many of them around here, that the Tribe had to thin them out a bit. Unfortunately, they thinned the population so much, they've grown scarce. They're still plentiful on the other side of the river, but that's red Macaw territory, so foraging there is definitely not an option."
"Oh." Ginger tried her bets to conceal her fear of being found out.
"Oh, you know what?" Blu continued, sounding frustrated. "I never got your name, agh, I'm sorry, what was it?"
"My name?" Ginger's mind went a millions miles a minute thinking of a fake alias and hoping he would fall for it. "It's...Sonata."
"Sonata?" Blu repeated, intrigued by the name, which sounded as melodic as what it really was. "You mean, like Moonlight Sonata?"
Ginger cocked her head in confusion. She had heard the term "sonata" before, knowing it was a kind of music piece, but she had never actually heard one, let alone know the names of any.
"You know, for the piano."
"A what?" That time, Ginger simply had to ask, not knowing what that was either.
"Oh, right...jungle. You probably wouldn't know who Beethoven was..."
Blu looked outside the hollow to see four other macaws coming towards it.
"Oh! They're back!" he exclaimed. "Jewel! Kids! We got company!"
The mother Spix's Macaw and the three newly fledged children, two females and a male, not much younger than Ginger herself, entered the hollow.
"Ah, I see someone's finally getting accustomed to the Amazon," Jewel told her husband, proud that he had managed to find someone to mingle with.
So far, so good. Ginger said to herself. As long as none of them managed to see through my cover-up...
"Ah, Jewel, kids," Blu called his family over to the owl. "This is Sonata. She's a bit new to the tribe herself, it seems. Uh...Jewel, I hope you don't mind me having invited her over for a meal, do you?"
"Not at all, Blu."
The three chicks, intrigued by Ginger's appearance, looked up at her. They all seemed a bit put off by her, but that didn't stop them from speaking to her.
"It's nice to meet you, Sonata," the youngest female, Bia, told her, trying her best to hide being weirded out. Her father wasn't exactly a social butterfly, and she wondered what made him decide to invite her over all of a sudden.
"Same here." The eldest female, Carla, was equally unnerved.
Tiago, their son, was, however, not ashamed to say what he thought.
"What's wrong with her face?"
Oh, crap, he's on to me.
"Tiago Gunderson!" Blu snapped as he gave his son a cuff on the back of the head with his wing.
"Ow! What'd I do!?"
"Show a little more respect. She was born like that, and doesn't live with the other members of the tribe."
"Oh. Oh..." Tiago suddenly realized his mistake. "S-sorry, Sonata."
"Ah, I get that all the time," she responded.
Phew...That was a bit too close...
"So, Jewel," Blu turned to his mate. "I was wondering if you had any ideas for lunch today. It's still pretty early, so...well...um...Any ideas?"
"How about we take her and Blu over to the Mango Clearing, kids?"
"The what?"
"It's a place we found this morning," Carla told her father. "It's a clearer patch of the nut grove with a bunch of mango trees growing in it."
"Oh!" Blu was quite fond of that particular fruit. "That sounds nice! Sonata, is that alright with you?"
Ginger desperately wanted to decline the offer and leave, fearing that her true identity may be discovered at any given moment, but she decided that it doing so would make them even more suspicious, so she accepted the offer and followed them outside and all the way to the small area of mango trees she and Blu had been told about.
...
"Hey, Sonata!" Tia called out as the six of them flew about the small mango grove. "Heads up!"
Ginger turned around just in time to grab the fruit hurdling towards her. As her talons squeezed through the mango's flesh, it's thick juice squirted out of the puncture holes Ginger's black claws had put in it and was all over her before she even realized it.
"Ah...gross," the Barn Owl whispered as she looked at the mango juice all over herself, taking the partially squished fruit down to a small brook flowing from the border river. She stepped inside the water, hoping that it wouldn't wash off her disguise, which it didn't, and she ridded herself of all filth.
"You alright, Sonata?" Blu questioned as he flew down beside her. "You're not leaving, are you?"
"No, no, just washing off my plumage."
"Ah, I see. Well, feel free to eat as much as you like before we head back, 'kay?"
"Yeah...sounds fine."
As the macaw left her and tended to his family, the owl looked at the fruit skeptically. She was never the biggest fan of fruit. Sure, she loved the taste of fresh milkberries that grew off of the Ga'Hoole trees in the forest of Tyto that were brought in by foraging Pure Ones, but those weren't quite as...exotic as mangoes. Nor were they anywhere near as big. Figuring she had nothing to lose, as if she disliked the flavor, she could rince it out with water from the small stream, she tore open the thick skin from one of the puncture holes, revealing the fruit's soft innards, and bit into it. Thankfully, she found herself satisfied with the flavor, as it tasted surprisingly similar to a milkberry, only stronger, and slathered in nectar. The only thing she found wrong with the fruit was its overabundance of fluid, which became sticky soon after contact with the air. She didn't mind washing off in the river, though, as it was unable to wash off the blue dye on her feathers. She sat by the water and continued to slowly nibble away at the mango as Blu's family flew about overhead. It wasn't long before she heard someone hissing in the bushes. on the other side of the brook. Looking at the low shrubs, she saw a familiar white head poke out of them.
"Psssst, Ging, over here," the cockatoo whispered, to which Ginger quickly responded by approaching him.
"You waiting on something?" Nigel asked her once she was close enough to hear his rasps. "He's still alive and well, I assume your aware."
"Yes, well...I've devised a new plan."
"New plan? I thought I was the one in charge."
"Um, well...I didn't know anyone was supposed to be 'in charge,' but hear me out. You said you wanted that macaw dead because of him crippling your ability to fly?"
"Exactly. These wings will never again lift me off the ground."
"What if I told you that they could?"
"What?" A ray of hope glimmered in the cockatoo's eyes.
"All you need is patience. I saw that as you left in search of him this morning, you were shedding feathers."
"And what does that have to do with me flying?"
"You're molting! Haven't you ever shed your feathers in the place of new ones before?"
"I did once, when I was a young'un, as far as I can remember. But that was a long time ago."
"Well, it happens only a few times within a birds life; once as a fledgling, once as a newly fledged, and once as an aged fully fledged adult. You're in your last cycle of molting, it seems, after which you will sprout replacement feathers, including those on your wings, enabling flight once they've fully grown in."
"Ah..." Nigel's eyes had grown wide with wonder. "I am healable..."
"Yeah...So...we can't really kill him, Nige'."
"Meh...Could we at least prank him at some point?"
"Sounds reasonable, but only after everything's all said and done."
"That's fair...But what are you going to be doing in the mean time?"
"Well, I'm still focusing on getting the two tribes to come to a peaceful state, and I believe I may be on to something. Although I'll have to consult with Blu's father-in-law."
"He has a dad?"
"Well...He doesn't. His mate does, though."
"Oh, right. I never seem to acknowledge the term 'in-law' when it's used. My bad."
"So, while I figure out how I'm going to pull this off, I guess you can...Well...do whatever."
"You sure you got nothing for me? I'm usually not the one to lie around with nothing to do."
"Well, if you really want to do something, you could head over to the Red Tribe's side of the river and see if the other Trainee owls need anything. They shouldn't be hard to spot, considering their...brown plumage. Just tell 'em I'm the one who sent you over, and you're set."
"Well, it sounds fine to me. I shall head off at once."
"Wait!" Ginger stopped the cockatoo before he could even take one step. "I...Oh my Glaux, I forgot...You can't cross the river."
"Why not? I'm no threat to the Red Tribe."
"No, I mean you can't cross the river as in...Well...You...can't...fly."
"What? Balderdash. Charlie can just carry me across. You should see his tongue in action. Works as well as a 40 horsepower motor on a boat."
"Really!?" Ginger was impressed.
"Well...not that powerful, but still. I'll have no problem crossing, and I might as well give the other owls a progress report while I'm at it, eh?"
"Sounds fine to me. Over and out, Nigel."
The owl watched him as he disappeared into the foliage.
Now, she said to herself as she looked above at Blu and his family. Back to business.