PLEASE READ THIS WARNING: I do not own, Rio, Blu, Jewel, or any other related character. I own the plot and OCs in this story, but all other characters and related themes are owned by Blue Sky Films and 20th Century Fox.
Hey everybody. Nothing much this time; just some plot cement I have to fill. I tried to make it a bit more LENGTHY but I guess I failed… completely. Oh well.
CJFANG: Yay, thanks. :) And I will continue updating, don't fret. I know JB's decent, but it's just that he doesn't REALLY deserve all the attention he's getting… for a 17-year-old. :| And for the Jewel issue I think she's as sophisticated as she can get. As for the words, it's my style of writing, and I hope to write as… good-quality-like stuff as I can. That's how I roll. But thank you anyways. :P
Storylover Alpha 01: Loud and clear, captain. LOL. Thanks; I think so too, but TRUST ME I really don't like his music [99% of them]. Haha. :D
Elyahu: I promise I won't, cross my heart. Thank you very much, and you're welcome. ;)
Zacarais: I have stuff in mind for Lisa, trust me, more than you think. And… no Ronaldo ain't bipolar. -_- He's just really concerned for Jewel. Yeah. You know, the title isn't really inspired by the song. I heard of it, like, a few weeks ago and thought 'CHRIS BROWN STOLE MY TITLE!' Then I thought, 'Ah heck, I'll just steal his lyrics, then.' ROFL. xD
the nerd115: I don't think that was really my intention… X_X Sigh…
JACarter: Thanks! Here's the next chapter, then. xP
So lemme start penning, then…
When I woke up, I did not find Blu next to me.
The moment I opened my eyes and was not greeted by a body of warm, cerulean feathers I thought he was standing up, just waiting for me to awaken from my slumber. But that wasn't the case either- there was only one bird in this hollow; me.
Soon afterwards I had realised this action would be exaggerated, but the panic and anxiety that boiled in me had caused me to shout frenetically:
"BLUUUUU!"
No answer. The panic in me flared more violently, and I begun to hyperventilate. His absence was almost equivalent to taking my soul with him, even for that brief moment, and it made me anxious… and suddenly ridiculous notions of possibilities filled my head- where was he? What could've happened to him?
Did Ronaldo have anything to do with this?
My whole body begun to tremble, and the hot moisture begun to well up in my eyes as well, about to flow over… Where was my Blu? The one who would promise to be right next to me forever and never leave me? I turned away from the entrance into the hollow, continuing to contemplate the various possibilities… even though there was nothing I could do about it. I was only a cripple… I wouldn't be able to search for him…
"Jewel!"
The familiar call of my mate resonated through the artificial forest, and it felt like a jab of hope was injected into me. Shooting up, I peered over the hollow's entrance to affirm my mate's return from outside the forest- a tsunami of relief washed over me as I saw Blu drag over a plate of polka-dotted disks of dough into the forest with his beak, his feet shuffling backwards over to the tree that we resided in. I smiled.
"Blu! Oh thank the stars…" I muttered, heaving a sigh of relief.
He stopped at the base of the trunk, a grin stretched across his face as he cocked his head up to lock eyes with mine. From his expression he knew what my reaction was when I had discovered of his temporal absence. "Did you think I had abandoned you or something?"
I rolled my eyes. "What do you even mean? Of course I-" Suddenly I had realised to late that I had been clinging on the edge for too long, leaning my body weight forward in the process and was about to plunge from 10 metres in the air… "Whoa! Whoa!" I yelled as I tried to maintain my balance, flapping my wings in the process but to no avail- I could feel myself tipping forward and towards the ground below…
Blu instantaneously realised this as well, and he backed himself away slightly, abandoning the plate, and held his wings out wide, preparing himself to catch me. "Hold on Jewel! I gotcha!" He exclaimed.
"Ahhh!" I screamed, as my talons lost full grip on the edge and I felt the wind howl in my ears as I fell face-first into the ground from a fatal height…
Then, a body of soft feathers cushioned my impact of fall, which was so forceful that it caused my mate, his wings still wrapped around me, to somersault on the ground like a tumbling wheel, until both our bodies smashed into a tree.
"Ouch…" Blu mumbled, sucking in air through grit beak in pain. I could empathise with him- my body felt pretty sore and I clamped my eyes shut… but eventually the pain wore away, and I could feel a very familiar warmth beneath me… though I couldn't put my talon it for that moment...
…until I opened my eyes, which locked with Blu's. It was then that I realised… my entire body lay on top of his, literally [again]. I froze, and didn't move an inch save to stare into Blu's soft, tan-brown eyes. He did the same thing as I, just staring, bewildered, in the eyes of the mate... our beaks only centimetres apart…
"So, um…" I muttered, immensely embarrassed of the position we were in, and I could feel the heat rush into my face as I got off of him "Thank you for saving me…"
"Oh." He muttered, an awkward silence between us lingering for a rather awkward duration of time… before he smiled lovingly and cupped my face with his wing. "It's ok… I'm your mate after all. I should saving you when you fall."
I reciprocated his smile. "Of course," I answered before he pressed his beak against mine softly and briefly.
Then, suddenly the aroma of the fresh dough and the familiar blueberry invaded my olfactory senses, and as I sniffed deeply, my smile stretched further across my face. "Mmmm…" I mumbled incoherently, absorbed by the delicious aroma of the pancakes…
And then, in a most untimely fashion, my stomach growled in desire. Hot shame flooded me- it was unsophisticated, almost Neanderthal-like, in fact, and I pulled away from Blu. "I'm sorry," I muttered, instinctively clutching my stomach.
Blu didn't look like he was affected to any extent at all. "Looks like you're hungry."
"Oh no, Blu, no. I'm so full that I could throw up, since I haven't eaten anything last night, so I guess I won't be eating those scrumptious pancakes you brought in for me to eat. Guess I'll be breaking your heart then," I shot back, my voice dripping with sarcasm at Blu's ability to state superbly obvious.
He chuckled lightly, appreciative at my sense of humour and this time able to decipher my sarcasm. He recycled it back at me: "No, no not at all, I didn't bring them to eat; I brought them to throw like Frisbees across the room for you to catch like some deranged canine."
We both simultaneously burst into hearty laughter at this statement for a while, as my mind begun to wrap around each individual word he spoke, until some part of my mind nudged me, prompting me to ask: "What's a Frisbee?" with a rather befuddled expression.
Blu was still attempting to break out of his laughing fit. "I'll tell you another day," he said, adding a chuckle at the end.
Before I could tuck into the delicacy situated a foot away from me, I picked up the flutter of two pairs of wings, getting gradually louder until the sounds' executers perched themselves right next to us.
"Ronaldo, Lisa, bom dia." I greeted. {Bom dia = Good morning}
"Bom dia, Jóia." Lisa greeted back at me, her smile weary having been awoken from her slumber I conjectured, but she turned to Blu and her expression brightened. "Bom dia, Blu."
"Um… bumbia, Lisa." Blu answered rather uneasily, not understanding Portuguese, obviously. I smiled gently before informing him of his mistake. "Oh," he muttered lamely.
I giggled. "I think one day I should teach you how to speak Portuguese. That way you'll be able to converse with many of the Brazilian natives here."
He exhaled sharply in approval. "Yeah."
Suddenly the lovely aroma of fresh [or not-so-fresh now it had been out for quite a while] was picked up by Ronado. His expression melted into pure ecstasy, and a wide grin unknowingly spread across his face. "What is that delectable smell that is entering my nostrils at this moment?…"
Lisa squinted. She then took a deep breath in, and to my utter horror she choked and coughed rather loudly and exaggeratedly, as if the aromatic smell was pungent to her. I took a glimpse at Blu- he was horrified, to say the least, at Lisa's reaction to the smell, even if it was foreign to her…
"What is that stench?" Lisa groaned as she stuck her wing into her face to obstruct the smell.
Ronaldo frowned, yet he had a hint of concern in his expression as he locked eyes with Lisa. "O que há de errado Lisa? O cheiro não é tão ruim ..." His deep voice was gentle. {O que há de errado Lisa? O cheiro não é tão ruim ... = What's wrong Lisa? The smell isn't so bad…}
Lisa scowled. "Então, obviamente, o seu sentido de cheiro é quebrado, Ronaldo," she retorted. {Então, obviamente, o seu sentido de cheiro é quebrado, Ronaldo. = Then obviously your sense of smelling is broken, Ronaldo.}
Ronaldo rolled his eyes, and a smile emerged. "Não seja tolo, Lisa. O cheiro é não é tão ruim." Then he whiffed a smell of the 'delectable' aroma of the blueberry pancakes, and sighed with contentment. {Não seja tolo, Lisa. O cheiro é não é tão ruim. = Don't be silly, Lisa. The smell isn't so bad.}
He turned to me, eager to know its origin, judging by his wide smile. "De onde você tirou isso, Jóia?" {De onde você tirou isso, Jóia = Where did you get this, Jewel?}
"M-m-m…" I stuttered. Immediately as he turned to me I could realise that the distance between us [and especially his beak] was closing in… I backed away slightly. "Meu erva-mate, Blu."
Though no one else noticed this, his smile drooped by a nanometre. "Oh," he muttered.
Blu smiled cheerfully, fully ignorant of the awkward fashion of which the Portuguese birds conversed in. "My owner, Linda, made them. Frankly the stuff she makes is mouth-wateringly delicious."
Ronaldo forced himself to look at Blu. "Sounds wonderful," he said, rather obligatorily.
Suddenly, again inopportunely, my stomach growled, causing everyone to fall into a rather awkward silence, as I felt three pairs of eyes dig into me… until, by some divine power that had been enacted upon the four of us, we all burst into laughter in unison, with Lisa having rolled onto her back as her legs given out to the humour of the situation…
"Oh, Jewel… -haha-…" Lisa attempted to speak. "Que era tal falhar um épico, você tem que admitir …" She could only managed as much before bursting into an aftershock of laughter. {Que era tal falhar um épico, você tem que admitir = That was such an epic fail, you have to admit}
Ronaldo grinned. "Não se ofenda, Jewel, mas você tem que admitir que isso era muito engraçado ..." {Não se ofenda, Jewel, mas você tem que admitir que isso era muito engraçado ... = No offense, Jewel, but you have to admit that was pretty funny ...}
I rolled my eyes at the both of them, having been picked on for what my digestive system chose to execute... for an 'épico da falha'.
Only Blu showed some decent concern for me: "Don't worry about it, Jewel," he reassured. "Just go on and eat."
I smiled sweetly. "Obrigado, Blu." I thanked, before pulling him into a short kiss.
The aroma of blueberry begun to overwhelm me, and I broke off into a run to feast upon the delicacy that my mate had brought in front of me, drool storing in my mouth and threatening to slither out.
As I gobbled the disks one by one [surprisingly though, I was a-third way through in ten seconds] I heard Ronaldo tell Blu: "Do you think your owner could make more of these?"
"Sure. I'll be right back, then." I heard my mate say, before the fluttering of wings and the shingle of metal.
I had finished two-thirds of the pancake, not halting for a break, when Ronaldo and Lisa, the latter staying as close as she could to the former, came up. "Estes parecem deliciosas…" Ronaldo commented, as his eyes lay on the pancakes, the lower part of his beak trembling at the abstinence of eating them. {Estes parecem deliciosas = These look delicious}
Lisa made a face. "Delicioso? Mais como uma estômago bomba do que qualquer coisa ... Americana alimentos fede." {Delicioso? Mais como uma estômago bomba do que qualquer coisa… Americana alimentos fede. = Delicious? More like a stomach bomb than anything… American food stinks}
Ronaldo rolled his eyes. "Não seja pessimista, Lisa. Você ainda nem provei ainda." Then he turned to the plate with a glint in his eyes, as I finished the last of the first pancake, about to lay his talons on the dough disk… until he carefully examined it. There was only one left… it was definitely for Blu. Having realised this via a warning glare from me, he let his talon drop, airborne. {Não seja pessimista, Lisa. Você ainda nem provei ainda. = Do not be pessimistic, Lisa. You have not even tried it yet.}
When Blu had returned with a second plate, Ronaldo eagerly savoured the best of Americana cuisine, and having found it rather splendid and been satisfied, he begun a chain of complimenting its uniqueness, and that he didn't know that baked dough would complement blueberries so well… while Lisa chose to abstain, despite constant urges of my half-brother, and judging from her incapability to succumb to hunger, I could guess how well the fragrant aroma had stung her olfactory senses…
"You know," Blu started after finishing the remaining pieces of dough on the plate. "I was thinking- we should see Rafael again."
My eyes widened as I reminisced the day before yesterday. "OH NO YOU DON'T. Remember that horrible nightmare in the form of 18 hatchlings mauling us?"
We both shuddered at the thought, but Blu quickly recovered, placing this demeaning thought in the back of his mind. "Never mind that. I just want to see Rafael and the gang. They all would be so worried about us, especially when I was drunk…"
I stared at the ceiling, pondering over this and weighing the various reasons… it was true, that Rafael, Eva, Nico and Pedro were our companions and it's only obligatory that we visit them… but the way Rafael and Eva just dumped the load of their hatchlings on us, it seemed rather unfair to us. And their reward was to get Blu drunk. Sure it acted like a catalyst for him to act more… romantically towards me but I was on the brink of viewing them as a nuisance…
Then again, we should affirm our existence still [Blu having not tried to murder me in a drunken rage] and besides, we should be helping them do some minor favours in exchange for saving our asses over here in Rio… Also it wasn't Rafael's fault that Blu got drunk; he didn't know he wasn't alcoholically resistant. I had the inkling to visit Eva too, anyways- about something on my mind just brushing constantly on the edge of my mind…
"Sure," I said. "Let's take."
When Ronaldo offered to tag along with me and Blu to pay a visit to Rafael, Blu was rather sceptical, judging by his hesitation to answer to him and his eyes wandering around as if a visual repulsion field had been activated by Ronaldo. My opinion of it was rather more optimistic compared to my mate- it would be delightful, that would seem, if Ronaldo would be introduced to our queer new-found friends back in this strange Brazilian country. Blu decided to relent- it was, as he explained, in the interest of what I thought.
I could place myself in Rafael's feathers- to look outside the hollow of the tree and see FOUR Spix's Macaws coming at him, the male carrying a female, obviously his eyes would've popped out of their sockets, and the only thought that ran through his mind would've been: "Where did those other birds come from?"
So it wasn't surprising, to be honest, that he stood there, frozen with shock on seeing double [2 X 2] of us… and I could tell that rummaging through a list of vocabulary to say what he thought… I could see Lisa's ruby eyes exploring the small wooden house that the Toucan called his home- the finer details of the wood carvings to the various features of Eva, who was busy at the moment trying to settle down her unofficially-declared ADHD-inflicted children.
Ronaldo, on the other hand, greeted Rafael politely with no clue as to the awkwardness that prevailed. "Ah, você deve ser Rafael. Ronaldo do meu nome; prazer conhecê-lo." {Ah, você deve ser Rafael. Ronaldo do meu nome; prazer conhecê-lo = Ah, you must be Rafael. Ronaldo's my name; nice to meet you}
The corners of Lisa's mouth curved up slightly. "Meu nome é Lisa."
Rafael cleared his throat, his wing forming a cylinder around his mouth. His smile was crooked. "Olá, Ronaldo, Lisa. Um…. Jewel?" He gave me an expression that demanded an explanation, yet was confused as to, regarding the current situation. Blu not being the last male Spix's Macaw, another female Macaw with a broken wing… there was simply too much to explain.
I sighed, my head dropping. "These are my friends, Rafael."
"I know that, but I want to know how… how you met another of your kind!" The last bit was exclaimed in bewilderment. "It's astoundingly crazy!"
"Ronaldo and Lisa were brought in by Tulio, Rafael." Blu explained, interjecting the conversation. "Lisa had a fractured wing… so Tulio tried to treat her. Jew-… we went to meet him face-to-face. And by the way, did I ever mention that Ronaldo was Jewel's half-brother-cum-ex-lover?"
At Blu's last gallop of half-prevailing-disbelief-half-indignation, Rafael's beak dropped wide open, and his pupils shrank into his eyes whites. Eva even looked back, her expression as stupefied as her mate's. I exhaled sharply in exasperation again; this was going to take longer than usual.
"W-w-what d-did… what did you say?" Rafael said, his voice quieter than usual.
"It's all a long story!" I attempted to rectify myself. "He was but… at one point he got captured and I thought… that he was dead. And I… I…" I struggled to finish my sentence, and suddenly the urge to let the moisture threatening to burst forth flow and the urge to whimper softly, like a little hatchling, overwhelmed me… I had been in a fix, and here I was getting questioned by my friends for it…
Blu placed a wing around me. "It's okay, Jewel, there's no need to cry…"
"How can you accept this, Blu?" Eva interrupted, her duty as a mother having been temporally completed. "How can you just go with this and carry on like it was nothing? Surely this truth must have broken your heart?"
"It did, at first." Blu explained. He gazed at me, those beautiful, soft chocolate-brown that always calmed my nerves and disintegrated my sorrows. "But I realized nothing else mattered. It was just her love, that was all."
Seeing us exchange loving smiles, Rafael surrendered, though there was a clear tone of reluctance. "Alright, I won't pursue it. But could you tell us the whole story?"
And then I begun to reminisce the details of the day before, with references to… my past… that spanned from the box that Fernando had introduced to the stay in the artificial forest. It was tedious, to say the least, but I could see some sort of enlightenment forming in Rafael's face… though I couldn't stay the same with Eva.
"But the fact is, Ronaldo," she said, turning her attention to the concerned individual. "You're not stealing her back… I ask of you, how is that even possible? Don't you have any form of longing just to… roubar seu de volta?" As she said this a furious glint flashed in her eyes, signifying that the latter thought should not even cross his mind. {Roubar seu de volta = steal her back}
Ronaldo shrugged, his face twisted in half-confusion-half-fear. "I'm not that evil… Eva." –Eva rolled her eyes- "I mean I have to admit that I would've tried… but they were mates. O que eu poderia ter feito?" {O que eu poderia ter feito? = What could I have done?}
And then, in perfect timing, both Toucans' eyes widened and their beaks became agape once again… Rafael was speechless for quite the duration of time, before he stuttered: "Y….You're mates? Erva-mates?"
Blu's face turned crimson, whether out of shame or rage was not up to my discretion. "W-… Well your brilliant idea of giving me scotch just caused me to… you know. Not that it's your fault but… you know, it's like a sexual catalyst or something."
Then, to my utter surprise, Rafael grinned cheerfully. In fact, he burst into laughter, every 'ha' uttered at high decibels, for a short while as the four of us looked on, befuddled. "Ah, Blu, meu amigo!" Rafael exclaimed heartily, as Eva shifted to his side. "Now that's my boy! You're an erva-mate! The erve-mate of the mo-… of one of the most beautiful birds in the whole of Rio! Bem feito, my boy! Bem feito!" {Bem feito = Well done}
Eva smiled at me as well, the upward curve gentle. "Parabéns, Jewel, for sealing your life with the one you love the most… Parabéns, Blu, a partir de do fundo do meu coração…" {Parabéns, Blu, a partir de do fundo do meu coração = Congratulations, Blu, from the bottom of my heart}
I stared at them, bewildered. "What's there to congratulate about? I mean... I love Blu. It's not something that happened by luck or anything..."
"Well, Jóia," Ronaldo explained, the same reassuring smile on his face, the one that when I was young would calm me down after a bout of grumbling about peers' bullying… "I think I know what they're trying to mean. They congratulate you because… because it's so significant to you. It's like marriage" –me and Blu's faces both simultaneously flushed crimson- "where it's a bond and seal of love… I congratulate you too, sister, and by becoming mates with Blu… he'll take care of you, for the rest of your life."
I reciprocated his smile; I knew this, but it had only slipped my mind for that point of time… Blu was my mate. My erva-mate, the one that would be entitled to protect and guide me through the rest of my life… it was the greatest blessing I could ever receive. Of course people would offer me congratulations…
Blu, my one and only mate, gave me a smile, one that captured my heart and scrapped all of the concerns and doubts from it. As he leaned forward to press his beak softly on mine, I could feel my heart fly… to take to the sky with my love. The way he held me and the way he treated me… it assured me that I would be loved, taken care of, that I would be treated like a diamond… that was love. This was something to celebrate, obviously. And with all the support from all my friends… it was almost perfect, almost complete.
Almost.
Nope, it's not another cliffhanger. Just something to think though- what would complete Jewel's life? Think about it. That's something that Blu probably would get later... and provide.
School sucks, guys, but I'll try to feed you guys with more stuff. Sorry about that, but trust me, I'm always alive...
...but, um, you might want to review it, though. Always helps. ;D
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