Blu and Jewel sat in the back of the new Jeep—since Fernando traded the old one for a motorcycle—all the way to the hotel Linda was staying in. Blu looked out the window, taking in the beauty around him. Because the street was covered in confetti and trash, no doubt from Carnival, he could not experience the full beauty of Rio, however. Every once in a while, he would turn back to Jewel, who was trying to get some more sleep since she had been woken up earlier than usual.
Many thoughts raced through Blu's head. Does she feel the same way for me that I feel about her? If so, why? Because we're the last of our kind? He rubbed his beak, thinking of the kiss they shared before meeting their supposed doom. Maybe that was just in the heat of the moment. I mean, we were about to die. He sighed. What do we do when her wing is healed? Obviously, she'll go back to the jungle. As for me, do I go too or do I stay with Linda? If I go to the jungle, I can be with her, but how can a domesticated bird like me, who can barely fly, survive out there? ...For once, I think this is something a book can't teach me.
With that last thought, they arrived at a rather large hotel. Blu prodded Jewel awake with his wing. "Jewel, Jewel. We're here." She slowly opened her eyes to a pleasant sight: Blu. "Come on, Jewel. We're at Linda's." She stood up and stretched some more. Blu picked her up with his talons and dropped her off on the pavement outside. Túlio picked her up to have her stand on his arm while Blu stood on his shoulder.
They—Túlio— walked up four flights of stairs. The hotel was rather nice, considering it was in a newly-considered industrialized country. With it's clean carpet and spacious lobby, it wasn't too different from any hotel in America. When they eventually stopped at a door numbered 409, Túlio pulled out a piece of paper from his back pocket. "This should be it," he said to them before knocking on the door. It didn't take long for Linda to open the door. Her tired face turned to surprise at the sight of Túlio and the two Spix's Macaws. Blu squawked and leapt onto Linda's shoulder where he rubbed his head against hers affectionately. He jumped onto the nearby table. Linda and he then performed their trademark handshake.
She turned to Túlio and asked, "So, how's Jewel?"
Túlio carefully put Jewel down on the table next to Blu and answered. "She seems to be doing better, but she'll be stuck in the cast for about two weeks."
Jewel's face dropped as she faced Blu. He noticed and just gave a look that said "I don't know what to say." Finally, after a few seconds, he said, "It's okay, Jewel. I'll stick with you for the two weeks and then you can be free in the jungle." Was he implying that he wouldn't go?
"Wait, why is it just me?" Jewel asked, shocked.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. We can be free in the jungle," Blu answered, unsure of his words. Nonetheless, he patted her back to reassure her.
She smiled at him. "And then we can have some privacy," she mumbled to herself.
"What was that?" Blu asked, totally missing whatever she just said.
Realizing that she had thought aloud, she quickly answered. "Nothing, nothing."
All of a sudden, a random thought occurred to Blu. It had been a week since he had taken a bath. Was it weird for him to take a bath, though? He decided to consult Jewel. "Do birds normally take baths in the jungle?"
Jewel paused. "Uh, yeah they do. I guess about once a week is normal."
"Okay, cause I really need one right now. Come on." Blu helped her off of the table before leading her to the room in which he saw a tub.
The way the tub's faucet was set up was surprisingly similar to the faucet setup back in Minnesota. He turned the red-dotted knob and felt the water with his wing. He immediately jerked his wing back to get it away from the Hell-hot water. He turned the blue-dotted knob a little to balance out the temperature of the running water. It was now very warm, but very tolerable. It was the kind of water you'd like to lay in after being in the snow all day. After testing it, Blu jumped in and started soaking himself the best he could. Jewel blushed at the sight of Blu bathing. Now, he was picking the feathers underneath his left wing. She jumped in and walked over to him without him noticing. She stuck the point of her beak into his back feathers to preen his feathers, but Blu jumped away in shock.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I'm getting your back," she answered, still blushing.
Blu noticed her awkward demeanor and asked, "Why are you like that right now?"
"Like what?" she had to ask as she didn't fully understand what he meant.
"You know... Like me... Awkward."
"Oh. It's just that... this is something mates normally do," she said, staring at the floor of the bathtub, trying to hide her face.
Blu immediately broke down. "W-W-Well, th-then why are we b-both in here? Here, I'll just get out. You can go first."
"No, Blu, wait!" she yelled. "I... I don't really mind if we bathe together. Besides I need you to help me with my back."
Blu shifted his feet uneasily in the water, debating on whether he should stay or leave. He decided on the former. He turned around and continued plucking bad feathers under his wings and chest. Jewel, glad that he stayed, continued running her beak down his back, searching for bad feathers. All his moving made it difficult to steadily move down his back, though.
"Blu, you're moving too much," she said.
"Oh! Sorry." He stopped preening himself and just stood still. He felt himself shiver each time Jewel went down his back. He sighed mentally and lay in the water, pleased by the sensation.
After another minute, Jewel finished her job and turned around. "Okay, now it's my turn to relax," she said as she lay down. Blu walked to her side nervously and stared at her for a few seconds to admire her head feathers. All the other feathers around her body seemed very neat and well-kept. He prevented himself from looking at her long tail feathers. He bent down and carefully went through her feathers just as she had done for him. Jewel gave a hard shiver.
"Sorry."
"Oh, no, no. It's fine. That just felt good." Blu continued. Wow, he's so gentle, she thought.
Blu noticed that she didn't really have that many feathers that needed plucking. What he didn't notice, however, were the two humans watching them in the doorway.
One of them coughed. Startled, Blu accidentally plucked some of her under-feathers, resulting in an Ow! from Jewel. "Blu! What was that for?" She noticed Blu wasn't looking at her, but away. She turned to see Linda and Túlio both giggling at what they'd just witnessed.
"Sorry, were you two enjoying your bath?" Linda asked jokingly.
"Good job, Blu. Way to take initiative," Túlio complimented, giving Blu two thumbs up.
Blu spat out Jewel's feathers and turned around in embarrassment, the temperature rising in his face. Jewel simply looked left to the wall and covered her face with her wing.
Linda kneeled down to get something in the cabinet under the sink. "Come here, you two. I'll dry you off," she said as she pulled out a hair dryer. Blu hesitated to turn around. When he did, he shook himself dry of most of the water and flew Jewel up to the counter. Linda pointed the now-plugged-in hair dryer at them and turned it on. Jewel was at first startled by the strong wind and loud noise that emanated from it, but quickly calmed down when she saw how calm Blu was. She closed her eyes just as he did and let the warm wind dry her off.
Both of their eyes shot open when Linda suddenly asked them, "So how are those eggs coming along?"
Túlio quickly jumped in to explain. "Blu already told me. They haven't mated... yet."
Blu became a little irritated. What is with you? I know you want us to save the species, but come on. He turned to Jewel to find that he was looking at him.
Jewel found this a perfect time to mess with Blu. "You know, Blu, if you ever want to get to work on that, don't be afraid to ask." Blu backed away from her a little, almost falling off of the counter. "Relax, Blu. I'm only kidding." Kind of.
...
Now, they were back on the desk, looking out the window. Túlio had changed Jewel's cast, because it got wet. Jewel had been looking at the thin, black box-shaped thing next to them for a while. Blu noticed and asked, "What is it, Jewel?"
"What's that?" she asked him while pointing at it.
"That? That's a computer, a laptop more specifically."
"What does it do?"
"The question is more like 'What doesn't it do?' You can use it to go on the internet, chat with people, write documents, and more."
"You can talk to others? Like, all over Rio?"
"All over the world, assuming that they're online at the same time."
"Could you show me?"
"Sure." Blu walked up to the laptop and stuck his claw in between the two halves to start prying it open. Once he made a space about the thickness of his head, he used his body to pry the the rest open.
He gasped for air as he rested from the effort it took to open the laptop. After recovering, he dragged the mouse next to it over to the front. He pressed the power button above the keyboard to get it out of sleep mode. He typed in the password when prompted. As all of the desktop icons popped up, a picture of Blu as a chick came up as the background (which was set to random.).
"Aaah, you're adorable as a chick," Jewel commented.
"Heh heh. Thanks," he said shyly. He kind of wished Jewel hadn't seen the picture. Blu double-clicked the Internet Explorer icon. The internet was much slower here than in Minnesota, so he found himself waiting longer than usual."
Jewel asked, "So how do you talk to others?"
Blu answered. " Well, there are many ways to do that, but I personally prefer Facebook."
"How do you get there?"
"Like this," he said as the website loaded and he began typing in the address bar. Jewel was amazed by the speed at which he could type with one foot.
When prompted, Blu typed in his email address and password into the corresponding bars. His home page came up. "Yeah, so uh, there's a chat bar right there in the lower right corner that you can use to chat as if they were actually there. Or you could send them a private message if you don't want anyone else to see. I actually have a message right now." He clicked on the messages tab at the top of the page to reveal a drop-down menu. The most recent message read, "Check out this video, lol."
"So, you're not the only one who can read?"
"No, of course not. A lot of humans teach their birds how to read, I guess."
Blu clicked the link in the message. Youtube opened up in a new window. Both Blu and Jewel's eyes widened in shock as a video of two cockatiels fiercely getting intimate played. Blu panicked for the mouse. Under the pressure of trying to close the window as quickly as possible, he found it incredibly difficult to get the cursor onto the 'Close' button in the top right corner of the screen. When he finally managed to close out of the internet, he faced Jewel with a purple face (his blush had mixed in with his feathers).
"Oh my gosh! I am so sorry you saw that!"
Jewel, who also blushed, asked, "Does that normally happen?"
"No, no, no. But, sometimes others can pull pranks like that."
There was an excited tap on the window. They both looked at the source and saw the samba-loving, bottle cap-wearing yellow canary, Nico, and the self-proclaimed "samba masta" red-crested cardinal, Pedro, now trying to tackle their way through the window. Blu squawked to call Linda. Linda walked over and noticed the two birds repeatedly hitting the glass.
"Friends of yours, Blu?" Blu nodded.
As soon as they had a big enough opening, Nico and Pedro each tackled either Blu or Jewel. Nico asked them, "Man, where have you two been?"
Pedro said, "I can't believe your actually still alive. Well, I can, cause Jewel here coulda just flown you two—" He noticed her cast. "Hold up, what happened to Jewel, and how did you two get off that plane without her?"
Blu then took off and made one lap around the room. Landing, he saw that Nico and Pedro were genuinely surprised. "Wow, Blu! You're fourteen years late to the party, but you've finally arrived."
Pedro added on to that. "Yeah, good job saving Jewel. What else has happened in the past day?"
"I think I know," Nico said, nudging Pedro. He had that certain look in his eye and tone in his voice.
"Don't be ridiculous. Why would they have to watch that video if they've already done it?" Pedro pointed out.
"You guys saw that?" asked a surprised Blu.
"Yep, all the five seconds that it was up," Nico said.
"Hey, that wasn't his fault. Somebody sent that to him on Facebook," Jewel explained.
"Yeah, and we have NOT done that yet." Whoops. Everybody's eyes widened at him. "Oh, no, no, no! I didn't mean yet! That'll never happen!"
"Riiiiiiight," Nico said sarcastically. "So what's Facebook?"
Blu spent the next few minutes going over all the features of Facebook and other functions of the laptop that Blu couldn't get to earlier on account of the video. Nico and Pedro both begged for Blu to show them the video his friend sent him, but he and Jewel refused.
The trio was amazed by all the things that the device could do, as they'd never seen anything like it before. They were even more impressed by Blu's ability to type and read the human language.
Suddenly, Nico said, "Hey, guys, I just thought of something. If we can understand humans and each other just fine, then why can't the humans understand us?"
Everybody froze. Finally Blu said something. "Huh, I've uh, never thought of something like that." They all brushed it off, knowing that there wasn't an answer.
Blu had finally shown them everything that he could think of on the laptop. Before Nico and Pedro left, Nico said, "Man, we gotta go tell Raphy and everyone at the club that ya'll are alright, right now. See ya!" They briskly jumped out the window and flew off.
Timed perfectly, Linda came up behind them and asked, "Are you two ready to go?" The both squawked. Linda and Blu did their handshake one more time. Linda also scratched him under his beak, his favorite spot to be scratched.
Thanks for the tip, Linda, Jewel thought as Blu thoroughly enjoyed it.
Túlio came over and picked them up. "Bye, Linda. Maybe if I'm not busy, we can come over tomorrow."
"Sure, Túlio. See ya. Don't be a stranger, Blu. Come visit whenever you want." To this, Blu squawked.
...
Blu and Jewel were back in the breeding room, a place that gave him shivers every time it was mentioned or he was in it. He was sitting next to Jewel on a branch. They were looking out the window.
"Thanks for preening my feathers, today," Jewel said.
Blu blushed, remembering that she told him that mates normally do that. "Don't mention it. I need to thank you for preening mine. Um... do only mates do that or do birds of the same gender bathe together?"
"Same genders also do it. It's just that opposite genders don't typically bathe together unless they have a special relationship."
"Did you bathe with your parents?"
Jewel flinched at the mention of her parents. "Y-yeah. I did all the time."
Blu realized what he said and apologized. "Oh! Jewel, I'm sorry I said that! I shouldn't have asked!"
She looked up at him with teary eyes. "Don't be. I need to tell you, so I can get it off my chest... You know how I told you I'd lost everything because of humans."
"Yeah," he answered sadly. He couldn't stand seeing Jewel like this.
"I was only three... My parents had gone out to get some breakfast for all of us. I woke up to see that they weren't there. I'd never gone out on my own before. My curiosity got the better of me... I went outside and walked around the ground for a bit, and I came across a dish of fruit and nuts. Being a naive chick, I walked up to it to eat, but a cage fell on me. I was trapped. My parents came shortly afterward and got me out, but they got trapped by a net... They yelled at me to fly away, because we could all hear footsteps coming. I finally flew away and watched from a tree as my parents were taken away. The last thing I ever heard from them was, "We love you." I had an old friend, but when I went to his hollow, he wasn't there. I checked every day, but eventually gave up on him. I've spent my time alone all these years when I heard that I was the last Spix's macaw in Rio."
Blu listened carefully to every detail of her story. He had had no idea that Jewel had such a tragic past. Jewel dried her eyes on his chest, sniffling every few seconds.
Blu put a wing around her and brought her closer to comfort her. He also used one of his wing feathers to rub her head. He didn't feel nervous for a change. Jewel was having a hard time right now, so he did the only thing he could think of. But, he felt discomfort himself. Jewel obviously knew her parents well, but he... he didn't know a thing about his parents; he was too young when he was captured.
Jewel was enjoying the feeling of being this close to Blu. He would give her great comfort whenever she needed it.
She stood up. "Come on. Let's get some sleep."
Blu got up and followed her into the hollow. They lay down next to each other close enough for their wings to make contact.
"Good night, Jewel."
"Good night, my Blu bird," Jewel said back to him. Blu blushed at the nickname.
I originally had Jewel confess to Blu after she told him her life story, but thought it best to leave that out. That'll come soon though, but when I think it's the right time.
I'm thinking about a Happy Feet fanfic after this. Does anyone have any song suggestions? Of course, the songs have to seemingly go together. The Happy Feet fanfic is just a thought right now (10/10/11). I have not given the plot any thought at all. Without songs, the fanfic will never happen though, so I'll wait for those. If you're going to suggest a song, though, PLEASE PM IT TO ME. KEEP IT OUT OF THE REVIEWS! I'm actually surprised by the deficit of MumbleXGloria fanfiction.
Actually, if things play out the way I currently plan, there will be a sequel about one of Blu and Jewel's chicks. It should be more original than this story.
To answer The son of The Scarlet Macaw's question, the actual story starts off from when Túlio picks up Jewel at the end and goes from there, ignoring the ending song.
To TheWittySmartArse: So it reminds you of Jungle Instincts, huh? Scheiße! I'm trying to keep the similarities between my story and Corrations' few and limited. I guess it can't really be avoided, though as it's about Jewel trying to get Blu to mate with her. I think the main difference is that mine doesn't have an actual villain. The conflict derives more from between Blu and Jewel & Blu himself. Please update "Spring is in the Air" soon. I can't wait to read more of that.