Love Hawk
Chapter Three: Captured
Blu and Jewel found themselves trapped in a cage, a burlap covering blocking their view. Jewel pulled at a hole in the cover with her beak, making it wider.
"I must say, this night really isn't going the way I hoped it would." Said Blu drolly.
"Shh!" Jewel put a feather to her beak. "Play dead!" She hissed, before dropping to the cage floor.
"Play... what?" Asked Blu, unsure.
"Just do it!" Jewel hissed once more.
Shrugging, Blu entered into overly dramatic death throes, collapsing to the floor and twitching violently.
"Stop twitching!" Jewel said.
"But it's the twitching that sells it!" Blu claimed.
Flat on the floor, eyes closed, they waited. Blu could hear the sound of someone knocking on a door, the door opening, then a conversation between several people, the subject of which he was unable to make out, the covering muffling the sound. Then came the sound of the covering being pulled off.
"What the...?" Came a gruff voice.
The cage door was opened, and a hand reached in and grabbed Jewel.
"I thought I told you I needed these birds alive." Said the hand's owner.
Blu opened one eye slightly. The hand and voice belonged to a bearded man in dreadlocks.
"Tell me, Fernando." He said to a young boy, waving Jewel's "dead" body at him. "Does this look alive to you? Huh?"
Springing into action, Jewel bit the man's thumb and flew into the air. Screaming in pain, the dreadlocked man ordered two others to stop Jewel, but she was too fast for them.
"Jewel!" Called Blu, both eyes open, as she flew towards a wall fan with a missing blade.
Just as she was about to pass through the gap, she was grabbed by the throat and pinned to a wooden beam by a sulfur-crested cockatoo, the same one that Blu had earlier seen in Tulio's treatment room.
"Nigel!" Called the dreadlocked man. "Alive."
Obediantly, Nigel brought Jewel over to his master, who returned her to the cage.
"That was your plan?" Blu asked petulantly. "To just take off and leave me? Gee, thanks."
"Well, why didn't you follow me?" Jewel protested.
"Uhh..." Mumbled Blu, unwilling to reveal his inability to fly to her.
"Nice work, Nigel." The dreadlocked man complimented his pet.
"Yeah, nice work, Nigel." Huffed the more corpulant of the man's colleagues, to which Nigel replied by shrieking and opening his head crest, scaring him.
"The last two blue macaws on Earth." Declared the dreadlocked man, affixing a chain to Blu and Jewel's ankles and chuckling. "These are worth a fortune. Hey, Fernando. Hang these up in the other room."
Obeying, Fernando picked up the cage and carried it into the next room, where many more caged birds resided.
"Hey birdy." Called a little blue bird, packed tightly in a cage filled with yellow birds. "Let me out. Let me out. LEMME OUTTA HERE!"
On the other side of the room, a military macaw paced rapidly around her cage.
"Who's a pretty bird?" She twittered to herself madly. "I'm a pretty bird, I'm a pretty bird. AHAHAHAHA! I'm a pretty bird, I'm a pretty bird...
Next to that cage was one containing a bat.
"I was framed!" The winged rodent protested. "They got the wrong guy!"
"Sorry, guys." Fernando told Blu and Jewel as attached the cage to a chain. "Nothing personal."
With that, he left the room, leaving it's occupants shrouded in darkness.
"Are you cold? Scared?" Blu asked Jewel, opening his wings. "Because if you are, I can offer comfort and/or emotional support."
"How can you be so flippant?" Jewel asked him. "We're trapped here!"
"No problem." Blu shrugged. "Linda'll find us, sooner or later."
"Oh, great." Nodded Jewel sarcastically. "Then she'll stick us behind another set of bars. right?"
"Yeah." Agreed Blu, before catching himself. "I mean, no!"
"Look, pet." Jewel took care to emphasise the second word. "Cages may work for you, but I don't want to belong to anyone."
Their conversation was interrupted by Nigel, who was rattling a chicken bone against a cage.
"Something seems to be lodged in my beak." He declared, turning to a group of small blue birds. "Would you mind?"
The blue birds scattered in terror, with one scared individual pushed to the front. Quivering, he reached for the piece of food trapped in Nigel's beak, only for him to snap it shut and laugh maniacally.
Nigel then leapt onto the blue macaws cage, knocking them for a loop.
"Oh, I know I'm not a pretty birdy." He sneered at them. "But I used to be quite handsome. Lights, camera, action."
I was striking suave, ambitious
Feet to beak, so birdylicious
Now I'm vile, I am villainous, and vicious, oh and malicious
I had it all, a tv show, women too
I was tall, over one-foot-two
Then the got a pretty parakeet to fill my shoes
That's why I am so evil why I do what I do
He was superstar
So young and vital
He's nasty
A South-American Idol
He's a suspicious bird
Who sad that about me
A very vicious bird
I'll have you rotisseried
I'm a feathery freak
With a beak
A bird murderer
You think you're better than me
I never heard of ya...
"Oh, make it stop!" Screeched Blu, wings on the sides of his head. "I've had more pleasure listening to William Hung sing then you, ya bum!"
"How dare you interrupt me, you parrot poltroon!" Roared Nigel, outraged. Staring Blu down, he declared "You would do well to watch your tongue, lest I rip it out of your beak."
"Bring it on, ugly." Smirked Blu, acting tough in order to impress Jewel. "We'll see whose tongue gets ripped out of whose beak."
"Yes, we will." Nigel sniggered darkly, before flying away. "Sweet nightmares!"
"Jerk." Snarled Blu. Noticing Jewel seething, he asked her "Hey, are you okay?"
"No." Jewel answered quietly. "I am definitely not okay!"
Jewel started ramming herself against the cage, causing it to tilt.
"Wait, what are you doing?" Blu asked.
"Getting out of here!" Jewel declared, ramming the cage again. "Are you going to help me, or what?"
"Why don't you just open the door?" Asked Blu, reaching through the bars and opening the latch with his beak.
"Are you kidding me?" Jewel whispered, surprised.
"What?" Shrugged Blu. "It's just a standard flip/slide bolt."
Jewel attempted to fly out of the window, but Blu grabbed onto the cage with his beak.
"What are you doing?" Asked Jewel, tugging on the chain.
"I can't." Mumbled Blu.
"What?" Jewel demanded. "You can't what?"
As Nigel and two of the poachers entered the room, Blu opening his beak in surprise, letting go of the cage, and thus, started to fall.
"I can't flyyyyyy!" He screamed, dragging Jewel down with him.
As they fell, the chain caught on a washing line, and the two slid down it.
"You couldn't have mentioned this before now?" Jewel asked.
"It didn't matter before now!" Blu protested.
The two then slid straight into a wall.
"I hate you." Groaned Jewel.
As the washing line came loose, the two dropped again. Fortunately, their fall was broken by boxes filled with foam packing peanuts.
"Soft landing." Mused Blu.
"No thanks to you, flightless." Jewel snarled.
"Hey, easy!" Said Blu. "We're still alive, aren't we?"
Nigel and the fat and thin poachers rounded the corner.
"There they are!" Pointed the thin one.
"We gotta get outta here!" Said Jewel.
The two blue macaws ran, greatly impeded by the chain, culminating in them tripping over each other.
"Listen, flying may not be my thing, but walking is." Blu declared. "Just follow my lead: Inside leg, outside leg..."
"Inside leg, outside leg..." Jewel chorused, keeping in step. "Oh, this is great. I'm chained to the only bird in the world who can't fly!"
"Not the only bird." Blu protested. "There's emus, and kiwis, and..."
"Duck!" Jewel said suddenly.
"No, ducks can fly." Said Blu.
"No, duck!" Said Jewel, pointing out some humans lowering a heavy box directly in their path. The chained birds only just managed to squeeze underneath it.
Dodging an airborne lunge from Nigel, the two failed to spot the end of the pathway. Falling onto a canvas shade, they bounced into a bucket, and rolled along, until they crashed into a metal barrier, dislodging a piece and riding it across the Rio rooftops. As Nigel closed in on them, Blu instructed Jewel to hold on, turning their ride to the left just before Nigel could catch them, leaving the cockatoo to crash into an electrical transformer, knocking out the city and himself.
A short while afterward, Blu and Jewel found themselves in the jungle, to Blu's chagrin.
"Ugh." He grimaced. "Look at all this filth! Moss on the trees, dirt on the ground, bugs everywhere..."
"Look, I hate to break it to you, but this is where our kind naturally lives." Jewel said condescendingly.
"Hey, hey, Don't talk to me about nature." Blu huffed. "I watch Animal Planet. Do you realise the sheer amount of disease-carrying insects and parasites there are in the soil around here?"
"That is why we stay in the trees, and not in the ground." Jewel explained, poiinting to a tree up ahead. "After you."
"Oh no, I don't think so." Blu shook his head. "Nuh-uh. I would feel much more comfortable in something... man-made." Looking around, he spotted a wooden hut. "Hey, how about there?"
As they neared their intended roost, Jewel shook her head in disbelief.
"I can't believe I have to drag your smarmy butt up there." She groaned.
"Drag me?" Snorted Blu. "Watch and learn."
Without further ado, Blu climbed up the hut, using his beak and talons to full effect, dragging the besumed Jewel behind him.
"Blu... Just... Wait..." Protested Jewel, as Blu's maneouvres left her sprawled across a support beam. "Whoa! Blu!"
"Who's dragging whose butt now, huh?" Smirked Blu, leaning in from above.
"Ha-ha, very funny." Said Jewel sarcastically, before Blu started dragging her up again. "Whoo!" She gasped as she was hoisted up, hanging upside-down. She found herself laughing in spite of herself.
With one final tug, Blu lifted her onto the gap between the huts' wall and roof.
"See, who needs flying?" Blu said proudly.
"Birds." Jewel said simply. "Birds need flying. Flying is... is freedom, and not having to rely on anyone." Smiling widely at the very thought of it, she turned to Blu. "Isn't that what you want?"
"I dunno." Shrugged Blu. "Sounds a little lonely."
Jewel's face fell slightly.
"Let's get some sleep." She suggested.
"Sleep, sure." Nodded Blu. "Don't suppose I could have a goodnight kiss?" He asked, grinning widely.
"I don't think so." Jewel shook her head.
"Well, how about a goodnight hug?" Blu offered, wings opening hopefully.
"Don't make me hurt you." Said Jewel, a wry half-smile on her beak. Nestling her head into her wing, she uttered "Good night."
"Yeah, good night." Sighed Blu, looking out over Rio, As he looked at the glowing metropolis, his thoughts turned to his owner. "Goodnight, Linda." He whispered.
To Be Continued...
(Rio and all associated characters are the property of 20th Century Fox and Blue Sky Studios.)